The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 066 - Gut Health and Addiction - Lindsey Beveridge & Dr Louise Newson

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

Dr Louise Newson chats to Lindsey Beveridge, nutritional therapist and founder of Recovery Nutrition, in this episode of the Newson Health podcast series. Lindsey talks openly about her recovery from alcohol addiction in her late 40s and how that drove her to study nutritional therapy and then change careers. Alcohol and sugar are both substances which affect our guts, brain health, as well as every other body system, but it’s hard to remove them as they are both so addictive. Quite often these self-destructive habits escalate in our 40s – a time when we are possibly experiencing bereavement, financial pressures or relationship challenges, as well as experiencing hormonal fluctuations, so we reach for substances that temporarily make us feel better.  It’s important to recognise patterns of destructive behaviour so we can make changes.   Breaking habits and making changes require commitment and hard work, but also a degree of self-compassion and Lindsey and Dr Newson share some tools to help with this. Lindsey beveridge's Three Take Home Tips: Be honest with yourself! If you think you are drinking too much or having too much sugar then think about if it's still bringing you joy. If it's not then open your mind to change. Educate yourself as much as possible. Recognise that you don't need to do it by yourself - everyone struggles in some way and you can ask for help. Find Lindsey on Instagram: @recoverynutrition www.recovery-nutrition.co.uk

Welcome to the Newsome Health Menopause podcast. I'm Dr Louise Newsom, a GP and menopause specialist, and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-upon-Avon. Hello, today with me I have Lindsay Beveridge, who is a nutritional therapist, who is actually introduced to me by Zoe Hudson, who's a doctor, some of you might know, who works in our Northwest Clinic, in the northwest of England. So welcome, Lindsay. Thanks very much. Thanks very much for having me. Oh, thank you. No, it's great to have you here. So what I wanted to do before we start talking about your

work that you do now is if you could just tell us a bit about you and your training and how you've got to where you are now, if that's okay. Yep, that's fine. I've changed career and midlife. Before that, I had my own conference and training business for several years. And before that, I was in publishing, whatever. So it's been a big change of career for me. And the reason why I got into studying nutritional therapy was because I got very, very ill at one point. And that was mainly due to alcohol, alcohol abuse, really, and found myself in a terrible mess. My gut health was terrible. My mental health was terrible. My hormones were all over the place. I'd lost a lot of muscle function, just generally, really physically and mentally in a time.

terrible place. And I realized that I had to stop drinking. Otherwise, it was going to kill me. At that point, I was physically and psychologically addicted. And I also decided that if I was going to stop drinking, I'd wanted to make sure that the rest, you know, the time that I had left, I was going to be as healthy as possible. So I started reading up about how to sort up my gut health and my mental health and all of that. And then I thought what I'm reading up so much, I may as well study it. And then I just started getting it. And then I just started getting so excited about it and thinking this is a whole world that I really didn't, I thought I knew about nutrition, but I didn't actually, not to the degree that I wanted to know.

I didn't know much about the kind of science behind a lot of it. That's what has really fascinated me is things like the gut brain connection and how that all works and our neurotransmitters and how alcohol and other addictive substances damage our brains. I just find it all completely fascinating and how nutrition and lifestyle changes can turn that gosh, you must have learned so much. And I think to be so open, thank you for sharing. But it's a lot of people get into a rut, don't they? And I think you can see how easy it is to use alcohol as a crutch. And, you know, it's a very social thing to drink, isn't it? I personally don't drink alcohol.

I've never had a problem with alcohol, but I just decided to stop drinking about 12 years ago because I was getting palpitations and worsening migraines, which probably were actually, in hindsight related to my perimenopause, but stopping alcohol has helped those, but people still find it really difficult and sometimes quite uncomfortable when they're around me, when they're at a party socialising and I'm not drinking. And it often makes me think about those people who are addicted to alcohol, how hard it is. But it's a slippery slope often, isn't it? And like you say, it's not just the alcohol, it's the lifestyle that can be associated as well with it and the poor nutrition, not always, but sometimes. And it can have a very depressive effect. And it can have a very depressive

effect. And a lot of women I see who are perimenopausal and menopausal tell me that they're drinking more alcohol because they're desperate to feel better. They sometimes think that if they drink more alcohol, they'll be able to sleep better, which obviously we know doesn't happen. So I can see how people do it. And there's a lot of so-called functioning alcoholics, aren't there? People who drink more than they should, but you wouldn't know it because they've got full-time jobs, careers, families, certainly in lockdown at the moment that we're in. I'm sure a lot of people are drinking more alcohol to try and get through it. But certainly when your hormones are out of kilta, you have feelings of low self-esteem, reduced motivation, poor sleep, fatigue. Alcohol can be a crutch,

can't it? And then it can carry on. Absolutely. And I know that's what happened to me. I mean, I'd always liked alcohol a bit too much right from the start from the first time I tasted a bit. In times of my life, when things have got particularly difficult, there was a period in my kind of late 20s where I used alcohol as a crutch. And then again, in my 40s as well, I went through a series of losses like so many of us do in our 40s. We start losing our parents or our careers become very challenging or our relationships break down. All kinds of things are going on. And then plus we've got all these massive hormonal shifts that are going on. And like you said, it just does feel completely unmanageable. And alcohol does seem like a friend

at that point. I mean, I wasn't using it for fun at the end. I was using it to make myself feel better or to stop myself from thinking. That's a big thing as well. I think a lot of us reach our 40s and there's a lot of stuff that we haven't dealt with and we push it down further and further. And alcohol is very helpful for that. It's a very useful tool, isn't it, for a lot of people to be able to switch off. And I know my husband, he doesn't drink too much, but he did dry January. And at the end of January. He said, oh, I can see how you're so productive. He said, it's so lovely to have a glass of wine and just switch off with some Netflix and whatever. And he said, it's great because my mind, he's very busy. He's a surgeon. But he said, it's lovely sometimes to just have a glass

of wine and just relax, whereas I never get that, but then I use it in different ways. Yeah. But I can see how people can. And when women tell me that they use alcohol to escape from how they're feeling, it really saddens me. Yes. And that's, a big thing about part of what I do with clients is when you stop drinking or any addictive substances, you have to find ways of calming yourself, of relaxing. And I think that takes a lot of trial and error until you find what it is that can help you switch off. For me, it's being yoga. But, you know, for a lot of people that doesn't suit them. It's usually the people who say, oh, no, I could never do your yoga. I could never lie there. And all these thoughts

are going through my head. And you think, well, actually, those are the people. I'm one of them who we need yoga more than anything. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I'm sure, you know, I do Shetanga yoga and it's very hard to be thinking about 50,000 things when you're trying to do a balancing posture or do a headstand or something like that. And it's with a power of breath. And your mind, it's very powerful emotionally and physically, isn't it? If you have the right yoga practice for you, it's really important. But it's not just alcohol, though, isn't it? A lot of women find that they have quite a lot of sugar cravings during the perimenopause and menopause. And we know that because a lot of women, even before their periods, find that they crave sugar. And that's

classically at the time when estrogen levels are lower in the body. And so during the perimenopause when women are experiencing menopausal symptoms, but then they are still having periods, but their hormones are gradually reducing, they often tell me they really urge sugar. And sugar is an addiction, isn't it? I think it might be even more addictive than alcohol. I don't know what you think. No, not quite, but it's up there, isn't it? I mean, it's stimulating. It's the reward centres in the brain and it's very easy for people to say, we'll just give up sugar. But actually, because it is a type of addiction, it's very hard, isn't it, to stop? It simulates, yeah, the reward centres like our dopamine and serotonin.

I'm not sure what it does with Gabba actually. Yeah, it is. And it does almost as much damage to us as alcohol does in terms of our gut lining and microbiome. So talk us through that a bit for those people. and we have done a podcast on the gut microbiome with our nutritionists, we work with Emeritus Flint. But just to remind us, when we talk about sugar, let's be sort of clear, what are we meaning about sugar? What are the bad types of sugar and how do they affect our gut? Well, all kinds of sugar are bad in excess.

So the most natural forms are better for us, obviously. But it's when we get to the refined sugars and refined carbohydrates. That's damaging for our guts because it doesn't feed our gut bugs at all. In fact, what it ends up doing is starving them. So you find that you start to develop an imbalance, which can have all kinds of repercussions for mental health, for actually every system of our body. But then the damage that happens from eating sugar and refined carbs

is not only directly to our gut, it's also to our blood sugar levels, which then also has a knock-on effect on our gut health as well, just through the actions of insulin. So it is just incredibly disruptive. and it's a horrible vicious cycle because the more sugar you want to eat, the more you start craving it. And if you get an imbalance and your gut sometimes that drives sugar cravings and affects your neurotransmitters, which further drive cravings.

And it's a horrible position to go in. And I would suggest that it's the same with alcohol. If you want to quit that sugar addiction, then you need to remove all forms of sugar from your diet for a while. And then, you know, at a later stage, maybe reintroduce the healthier. forms like energy balls and things like that. But in the interim, if you're wanting to, you know, stop relying on it, that's the way to do it. Yes. And it's very hard, isn't it?

Because sugar is hidden in so many foods. So there's a lot of savoury processed foods that have sugar in them that the other people don't realize, don't they? Yeah. Sources and condiments and tinned food, baked beans, that kind of thing, yeah. Yeah. So you have to be really careful about what sugars people have. But like you say, a lot of people will reach for. some chocolate or something very sweet because they'll feel better for a very short period of time.

And then they'll have this great big plunge again. And like you say, for insulin, it's not good because people get these insulin spikes. So the pancreas is constantly churning out insulin. And this is one of the reasons why people are more prone to develop type 2 diabetes with time if they have a lot of sugar. And the effect on our gut health is really interesting because certainly when I was at medical school, I didn't even know there were gut microbes. I knew that we could obviously have gastroenteritis and infections,

but I didn't know there were these good bugs in our bowel that have such a huge effect in our body. Like you say, not just our mental health, but our physical health. And having the right gut microbes can reduce inflammation in the body. So it can really make a difference when you're looking at heart disease and even our memory, dementia, all sorts that can be reduced by having good gut health, can they. Yeah, and they play such a critical role in hormone balance as well, because clearing hormones and helping with the metabolism of estrogen, very, very important to have everything balanced there. My gut was in a complete state, I'm sure, because I had breast cancer in my early 30s,

and I think it was one of the drivers behind. It was estrogen receptor positive, and I'd had terrible gut issues for a very long time and suffered with estrogen-related problems. which I think was connected to that. So how long did it take you to turn yourself around? I have seen a before and after photo of how you look and it doesn't look like you're the same person. It's quite incredible.

I think the hair dive made a big difference. Well, that was five years ago. So that was taken five years ago. I've made big changes in my life. I can't even tell you how much better things are, not just removing alcohol. It's all the changes that went along with it. It was having a long, hard look at what was driving me to drink like that,

what I was trying to escape from, what wasn't bringing me joy, what was making my life difficult, how I could change things. And working on my physical health was a major part of all of that. Because I think if you're feeling stronger physically, then it's much easier to cope with all the psychological issues that are going on. Absolutely. But it's so hard because people just end up sometimes being in a vicious cycle. It's a bit like being on a hamster wheel.

isn't it? They don't know how to get off and they don't know where to get off and where to start. And I know myself when I had some perimenopausal symptoms, it was around the time I was writing my website, so I was working incredibly hard. And I found that my yoga practice was very stilted. It didn't flow very well. My joints were stiff. And I often couldn't be bothered. I just didn't want to. I didn't want to eat properly. I didn't want to. I just wasn't motivated in the same way. And I'm the person that cooks at home. And I couldn't be bothered to cook for myself. So if you don't cook for yourself, it's very hard to eat healthily. And I could see this downward spiral. And it was after a few months when my daughter pointed out, perhaps my hormones needed sorting, I realized what was going on.

But if I had been like that for a few years, I know that I would have put on a lot of weight. And I know that my mental and physical health would have suffered. Because I know personally, if I don't do yoga at least twice a week, it really affects my mind and my sleep and all sorts. So it's really hard to stay motivated, isn't it? And to even break that cycle right from the start. I think right in the start, it is very difficult. I think it takes a lot of, well, this is what I did and this is what I advise clients to do and they seem to feel that it helps. A lot of reflection, a lot of journaling, a lot of spending time on your own and just thinking about things and making yourself confront things that you would normally.

That's why stopping drinking is so important because you have to stop suppressing all of those thoughts yet. They've got to come out and then you've got to understand what it is that needs to be changed. And if you don't understand, then it's very difficult to make those changes. You need to have a reason for making those changes.

Absolutely. And I think it is really important because we have to make the decisions ourselves and it has to come from within, doesn't it? And I think it's very easy now. with social media to pretend that you could be someone else or that you're influenced by someone else and you can sort of escape a bit, if you see what I mean. Whereas actually, we are in control of ourselves and I always say to my children and some of my friends, actually, it's we are responsible for ourselves, number one. And although we think that people care for us and want us to

be living in a certain way, actually day to day, it's about the choices that we make. And they have to be right for us, don't they? And they have to be realistic as well. I think there's no point you trying to tell me that I need to train to run a marathon next week because I wouldn't be able to, I can't run. And like you say, some people won't want to do yoga or haven't experienced yoga that suits them. And that's fine. But it's working out what they can realistically do is really important, isn't it? I think it is very important. And I think that's also part of the whole self-compassion thing as well. If you've been drinking

problematically or overeating or whatever, often as a form of self-abuse. So you have to rethink about how you treat yourself. What you think of yourself, what makes you, it's very hard work actually, what makes you proud of yourself. Try and work

through those feelings of disgust or whatever it is that you've been trying to dampen down with addictive substances. And you're the only person, as you say, who can work through those. I would advise getting the help of a professional at some point to help because a lot of that stuff can become very overwhelming depending on what your background is. But it's all work that has to be done by yourself initially. And it is pretty lonely.

And I think it probably helped that I was single at the time because you have to be very self-involved. I think it's quite an intense healing process that needs to be gone through. But worth it? Absolutely. And it doesn't go on for that long either. I mean, I'm not saying it drags on and on. I think one of the good things about going through that process is that then you leave it behind. You can move on and it's pretty much done and dusted. And I think that's so important. Someone said to me a while ago, you should glance back and look forwards. And I've really, those words have really resonated with me because it's very easy to reflect and worry about things that you might have said in the past or done at the past or often not done in the past. And it can be really, really difficult. And some of you might know, my father died when I was nine and I still miss him dearly. But I could dwell on it every day and it's not going to change the past. So I need to keep focused and make him proud. of me in some way. And it's being able to be realistic, I think, is really important. And also knowing that you can congratulate yourself, because I think certainly as women, I find it very

hard to be proud of myself because it's not my nature. So I think that even just little things, even if it's just because you've gone through a day without snacking something that you shouldn't or without having a drink or just because you're happy. And I think we often can feel unhappy and happiness doesn't come naturally, whereas I often say to my children, actually, girls, if you're happy, you're so much more pleasant to be with and people will want to be with you.

And it's true, just going into a, well, when we used to go into shops before lockdown and just smiling at people, you just feel better. And that's something to be congratulated for, isn't it? It doesn't have to be huge achievements that we succeed in life. They can be very small, but still make a difference.

Yeah. I've always poo-pooed things like, I started doing a lot of things that I poop-pued actually once I stopped drinking, but gratitude journals and that kind of thing. And honestly, I think it is so important to do that because it does get you into the habit of noticing things that do bring you joy. And at the end of the day, noting down three things that you think you did well, that's, as you say, the pat's on the back for little things that, you know,

you don't necessarily want to tell other people that you did well because they are maybe a bit embarrassing or bit trite. but you know that for you it was actually quite a good thing and just making a note of that stuff you don't have to carry on doing that forever either but I think once you get into the habit of just checking at the end

of the day mentally, okay this was pretty good you start to feel better about yourself and once you feel better about yourself as you say it's nicer to other people yes and it is getting into that mindset certainly we often as a family I have three daughters and we often when we're eating we'll go through and say

what three things made you happy today. And when we started doing it, one of my children said, oh, how ridiculous. I said, okay, let's do it. And then let's do it again saying what's made us cross today. And at the end of making cross, we're all really, really miserable and shouting with each other. And it's just very simple. And it's just nice, you know, and it often isn't much. It might just be that one of my daughters held the door open for the teacher and they said, thank you.

Or, you know, or they played with someone in the playground. It's just good to feel positive. Yeah, it's not stuff you're going to phone a friend, about until you did, but it's just those little things that all stack up. Yes, and I think suddenly during this lockdown process, which has been incredibly hard for so many of us, just even being happy because we can see the trees or we can hear a bird sing or something, it makes a difference. And I think if you have a bit of time for reflection, even if it's only two minutes a day, it's really important because I'm sure you are the same when you're working so hard and not

looking after yourself, not being mindful of all these things, you don't have any time, do you? You just go from one thing to the next to the next. Yeah. And about a week into lockdown, when I realised how things were affecting me, I did start the whole journaling practice again, which I've found very useful again, as you say, just noticing the trees and the birds and the lovely dawns that we've been having and sunset and all of that kind of stuff. That stuff is all really important when our worlds have shrunk. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes, and it is so important because, you know, our lifestyle often does change as we become older. And as you know, during the perimenopause and menopause, there are health risks, such as increased risk of heart disease and diabetes and obesity as well.

So for me, it's a really good time to take a big stock of our health and also our nutrition and look at ways of improving it. And just talk us through this whole gut health, happy hormones. how does that work? How does serotonin help? It's weird, isn't it? Because we think of the brain as one organ, the gut is another organ, yet we're saying if you eat certain foods, you'll feel happier. Whereas a lot of people, I'm sure, will be listening to say, yeah, I feel happy when I've had some chips or I've had a donut or something like that. But you're saying not to eat those and we'll feel happier. So just explain how that works. Yeah. Well, those things do make us happy. But as with everything in our body, what goes up must come down. So if you are having something like, a plate of chips or a chocolate bar, whatever, that increases that rush of neurotransmitters. So you get the high, but then you also have the crash. And then if you keep doing that, it's the same as our insulin receptors. If you keep doing that, then our neurotransmitter receptors become desensitized because our brain is always trying to balance itself out.

And then we find it harder and harder to get happier by normal means or feel that rush of pleasure or rush of motivation that we would normally get. and we keep going for the same substance because that's a pathway that our brain has now learned that that's what works for us and we keep going for the same substance to get those effects again and again and again and again and again and it just stops working for us but we keep doing it because that's how our brains work and then eventually the only way to stop that is to stop taking the substance and to kind of build everything up again naturally yeah a bit of a garbled explanation yeah no but it's absolutely true because I think it is really important to think

about these highs and lows because we focus on the highs, but we don't always think about, you know, coming down afterwards. And often people don't realize how different foods can affect us. And I certainly, looking back at my diet, it has changed so much over the years. And partly, I had pancreatitis a few years ago. And this was even when I wasn't drinking alcohol, so not related to alcohol. And I was desperate to feel better. So I played with my diet because of my pancreatitis happening. But actually, then I suddenly realized, how much healthier I felt and how much I didn't feel hungry because the glycemic index of the food I was eating was very different. And I think once you realise, because with food it's very different,

isn't it? With alcohol, you can live without alcohol, you can give it up and you'll still live, whereas food, clearly, we all need to eat. But if you can enjoy food and not feel hungry all the time and not need it as a reward, that's huge. But that's quite hard to get to, isn't it? It is hard to get to, and I think it's really important educating people about how, what the bad foods are doing to us and why they are bad foods, how they're actually damaging us and what we need the good foods for. So to view food, not only as a pleasure, which I think it's used too much as a reward, rather seeing it as a source of fuel as well as the pleasure aspects as well. But food is there to keep us alive and to keep us healthy and to keep us strong. That's its primary role. rarely. And then the enjoyment, of course, but the enjoyment is about eating with other people and nurturing ourselves and nourishing ourselves rather than abusing ourselves with bad food. The process is rubbish. Yes, but it's hard to make a change. So for any of you that are listening who are feeling dreadful about maybe your diet, actually you have to do it very slowly.

Yeah. Someone said to me a while ago, you just give up one thing for two or three weeks and then see if you miss it. And if, for example, you're having a donut every day and you stop, initially you're really going to miss that. But then you'll be surprised how the body changes. And after a few weeks, you just won't want that donut. And someone said to me a while ago at a meeting, he wanted to know what my real comfort food would be. And he was saying, would it be a plate of chips? Would it be a pizza? Would it be a big cream cake? And he wouldn't believe me when I said, actually, I don't miss eating any of those things. I would love some obegene, because obogeen is my first. favorite. First of all, and he thought I was mad, but actually I know that if you gave me a

green donut, I would get a headache. I would just feel awful. And it wouldn't give me that pleasure that it would have done 20 years ago if I'd eaten a donut because the body adapts and it's part of the way the gut microbes change as well. Yeah. But it's doing it gradually, but it's not just stopping it, is it? It's replacing it with something else is really important because I feel, I speak to a lot of women who find that their weight changes during the perimenopause and menopause, and it often does, it often increases because of the metabolic changes that occur, and then they're eating less. And then every time they eat, they've got this guilty feeling.

And we shouldn't feel guilty for eating at all, should we? No, no, not at all. You're so right, we do need to replace those donuts or something with something that we enjoy. But it doesn't have to be a food. No. That's again where the self-reflection comes into, sitting down and thinking, well actually what else could I do besides giving myself a donut at four o'clock in the afternoon or having that biscuit, would it be going to sit outside and having my cup of tea instead of sitting at my desk and making a biscuit with my cup of tea?

I don't know. You have to be a bit creative with these things, but it's just reframing what it is that brings us joy. And is that biscuit really bringing me joy? Probably not. It's more the routine, more the thought that you're giving yourself a treat and a break or whatever mental associations you've got with that business. good. So interesting, really interesting. So I think we've certainly covered quite a lot in a very short space of time and we have did quite deep about some of these things, but I think it's important to talk about because otherwise if you skirt over the surface too much, you're not

really solving the underlying problem. So I hope for a lot of you that's given you literally some food for thought and hopefully some things to think about. So just before we go, Lindsay, do you mind giving the listeners three take-home tips of ways? they could maybe help themselves? The first thing that I would say is be absolutely honest with yourself. If you are drinking too much or if you are having too much sugar, whatever it is, have a think about it. Just have a think about whether it's bringing you joy still.

And if it's not bringing you joy, then open your mind to changing things for yourself. Leave it there for a little while, but just open your mind that things could be different. And then after that, I would say the second step is to educate yourself as much as possible to read as widely as possible around whatever it is that you're, if you're addicted to alcohol, then read, there's so much information out there. So many groups you can join. So many people on Instagram you can follow. There's a whole section called quitlet. There's so many books about it that you can read. And the same is sugar. There's a lot of inspiring stories. But I think with sugar, it's really good to know exactly what it is,

how you're affecting your body. So then you're fully prepared. You're educated. And then I think the third step is just recognise that you don't have to do it by yourself. You can get help, ask for help from, you know, psychotherapist or your GP or nutritional therapist or whoever it is, or your friends or whatever, just don't feel you have to do it on your own because everyone struggles in some way. And that's what I realised along the way is that I try to do too much of it on my own beforehand. Really, really good tips. I think it's so important to be honest and find the right help and if you don't receive the right help initially then find an alternative source and so thank you ever so much for sharing your knowledge and also your experience today so thanks lindsay thank you

for more information about the menopause please visit our website www.mennepause doctor.com.com.