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The Order of Healing: A Smarter Approach to Chronic Conditions

Discover why nervous system regulation may need to come before more intensive therapies when chronic stress, trauma, or sensory overload has reduced the body’s capacity to tolerate additional demands.
Understand how gut function, regular elimination, and adequate nutrition can create a stronger foundation for addressing mold exposure, hormonal concerns, fatigue, and other chronic health challenges.
Learn how consistent movement, sufficient protein, whole foods, and targeted mitochondrial support may help promote energy, strength, and resilience without overwhelming an already stressed system.

About the Expert

Jamie Dorley

Jamie Dorley

Founder, Owner & CEO of Nutritional Frontiers

With over 35 years of experience in the Health and Wellness industry, Jamie Dorley has been committed to helping people thrive—not just survive—through innovative wellness solutions. His journey began in his college years, where he developed workout and nutrition protocols for fitness competitions. Today, as the Founder, Owner, and CEO of Nutritional Frontiers, Jamie continues to lead the charge in constructing a “new frontier in nutrition.”

Jamie’s diverse background spans multiple facets of the Healthcare and Wellness industries.

His experience includes roles in Health Club Membership Sales, Certification as an American College of Sports Medicine Personal Trainer, and National and International Sales Management for a sports nutrition company. He also served as a Sales Representative, District Sales Manager, and later Regional Sales Manager for Metagenics Inc., and previously owned Nutrifarmacy. Since 2008, Jamie has led Nutritional Frontiers, where he remains dedicated to delivering cutting-edge, research-backed nutritional solutions to healthcare professionals and their patients.

More from Jamie Dorley on DrTalks

Guest

Julia Ward, MD

Dr. Julia Ward

Dr. Julia Ward is a compassionate and forward-thinking physician with over a decade of experience in functional medicine, known for her systems-based approach to healing chronic illness. She is the founder of Balanced Body Functional Medicine, where she helps patients uncover the deeper drivers of disease and restore health by addressing the body as an interconnected whole.
After earning her medical degree from the University of Southern California, Dr. Ward served in the U.S. Navy, practicing general, urgent, and emergency medicine both domestically and abroad. Her own personal struggle with unexplained fatigue led her to question the limitations of conventional medicine and ultimately guided her toward functional medicine.
While she initially focused on identifying root causes, Dr. Ward’s approach has continued to evolve. She now emphasizes the importance of how and when the body is treated—not just what is treated. Through her Balanced Body System Reset™ framework, she focuses on restoring nervous system balance, improving mitochondrial function, reducing inflammation, and addressing root causes in the right sequence to create lasting and meaningful healing.
Dr. Ward integrates advanced diagnostics, personalized care plans, and innovative therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen and ozone therapy, while also emphasizing foundational elements like nervous system regulation, lifestyle, and patient engagement. She believes that healing is not a one-size-fits-all process, but a guided journey that requires both strategy and active participation.
A lifelong learner, Dr. Ward continues to expand her expertise in areas such as precision genomics, brain health, and complex chronic illness. She is deeply committed to helping her patients not only feel better, but truly understand their bodies and take ownership of their health.
A devoted wife and mother of five, Dr. Ward brings both clinical expertise and personal insight to her work, with a mission to transform the way chronic illness is understood and treated.

More from Julia Ward, MD on DrTalks

Podcast Introduction and Mission

When I first started taking sort of a really deep dive into the mitochondria and what they are and how they function, it was something that I found, you know, that really helped explain, tie all these chronic disease states together.

So, everything from neurodegenerative disorders, even autism, the chronic fatigue, like all of these sorts of things, kind of comes down to the Welcome to the Holistic Truth Podcast.

I'm Jamie Dorley, CEO of Nutritional Frontiers. And I am Christine Genovese, creator of the Soul Intelligence Method. We're here to help you break through chronic disease and dysfunction physically, mentally, emotionally and energetically.

With real proven strategies, protocols and tools you can use in your practice today. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Holist Truth. your favorite podcast for natural healing, wellness, and functional medicine.

I'm your host, as always, Jamie Dorley, CEO of Nutritional Frontiers, And we are on a mission. And welcome back to the co-host, the one and only Christine Genovese, our Chief Growth Officer.

How are we doing today, Christine? Oh, Jimmy, I am great. Me too, you know, we love having the most innovative leaders and pioneers in functional medicine.

Today we have a great one all the way from Houston, Texas. And no, Houston we don't have problem today. We may have the mold problem we're going to get into at some point.

But, someone asked me recently, what do you do for a living? And I said, I don' work. They said you retired? I says, no I'm on a mission. What's our mission, Christine?

It's a mission to make the world healthy, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, energetically, in every which way. Yeah, and we do that one person at a time.

And in this whole new world of functional medicine, it's exciting to have some incredible medical doctors that have transitioned over the years and evolved over years.

I remember 35 years ago when I got into this, functional medicines wasn't even a word yet. They were just defining wellness. It was more than the absence of disease and symptoms.

it was really an optimal way of living. And, you know, to be able to meet so many incredible people over the years that have taken these leap of faith, I call it walking across the rickety bridge, from what we call allopathic medicine they were trained in, maybe a general practitioner doing more functional medicine.

We have a great one we'd like to introduce, Dr. Julia Ward. Welcome to The Holistic Truth. How are we doing today? Good. Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate you having put me on. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. We love having pioneers in the field.

Dr. Julia Ward's Path to Functional Medicine

I know so much about you going to the IFM and A4M, you know, some of the places that I call home for me and some my friends and mentors like Dr. Jeff Bland and Pam Smith.

Can you give us a little more background about what you do and how'd you even get into functional medicine? Yeah, I was trained in traditional allopathic medicine.

I went to medical school at USC. And so at that point, after internship, when you got your license, you were kind of put out in the field. So I was stationed with the Marines for a year and then ended up coming back.

I did anesthesia for little while, but then stopped doing anesthesia and just went to primary care. And I, was doing that for, a good number of years, probably, I don't know, at least 20 plus years when It was really my own struggle during the perimenopausal range.

I think I was about 45 when I started having symptoms of just overwhelming fatigue. You know, I never really had the hot flashes of night sweats, but it was the fatigue that was getting me.

And it to the point where I fell asleep driving to work in the morning, not in So even though I had a full sleep the night before, I was still really tired.

And it was researching and looking into what are bioidentical hormones. Is this something that would benefit me that really got me into functional medicine?

Yeah, it's interesting, you know, I hear a lot of functional medicine practitioners or even people like me. You have some kind of personal experience, right?

You know for me, when I was in college, And then it comes down to autoimmune conditions, psoriasis, and we told, well, there's no cure in this genetic.

And after doing a lot of investigation, I found, while there is no curer, but there may be underlying causes. That's really what we do at Nutritional Frontiers and Holistic Truth, that's what you guys do is, you know, not running for the cure, really running from the cause.

Then Christine brings in the whole, what are the energetic components to it? you know, very interesting that, you take this leap of faith, but it was more a matter, it sounds like personal experience, right?

Yeah, yeah. When I went to, my doctor's like my GYN and asked about bioidentical hormones and she really just didn't know anything about them. Not that I was blaming anyone, because we're not taught about, bio identical hormones in medical school internship residency, like it's just not part of the, the curriculum.

And so you kind of have to go outside of the box to get that training. It was in investigating, like, where do I get trained on bioidentical hormones that I found the whole functional medicine community.

When I've found that, it was like oh, well, this makes so much more sense. This is so more logical. Why aren't we doing this from the beginning, looking for the root cause of things, rather than just treating these symptoms one after another with some drug that stops this or some drugs that stop that?

Why not? just get to the root of the problem. So, yeah, it really sort of reignited my passion for medicine and helping people in general. Yeah, and I think you really look back to JAMA back in 2004 said this best.

They were like, If you look, they did research on like, why are we struggling with health? You know, it's not lack of money. We spend more money than any country in the world.

It's our lack a prescription medication. You now, we're only about 5% of the World, but we consume over 50% at prescription medications. But we still ranking 37th in healthcare systems and 72nd in health.

it doesn't make sense. And when they dove deep on it, what they found is the system is set up for acute care and trauma. We get in a car accident, someone has a heart attack, a stroke, or you're broken bone.

We are miracle workers, right? Your colleagues in medicine, it's like we're all smiling because you know you are safe. But what about for chronic care?

And they found over 81% of all visits are for chronic care. So they're using an acute therapy for a chronic Karen and it will never work. And then you talked about underlying causes where Christine comes in with her method.

You know, she deals with a lot of these, um, well, you can talk about the trapped emotions and you know all these underlying cause it's more than just genetics.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That, that was really the. The main thing was that traditional medicine was great at the acute care, the emergency room stuff, but it fell so far short of the chronic care.

And especially in psychiatry, it seemed like the more we, quote, progressed in psychiatric, and the drugs people got on the worse we were off mental health-wise.

We just kept going down and down. So I think that's especially true of that. Yeah. Emotional wellness is Christine's background. I remember years ago that I looked over at the research, like in Europe, you know, they would use SAMe 30 to one over Prozac.

They just want to use it because SAME will get you the results. But I'll let Christine share some of her experiences with the emotional wellness because, I would say back when I started in this doc, You know, I could take a person with my personal training program, have them eat well, work out.

Chronic Disease, Root Causes, and Emotional Health

And usually within three months, their body was transforming. But now it's not enough between all the hormones, the toxins, and the emotional dysfunction, what they're selling as food.

The technology is becoming overwhelming to people. It's become so much more and more complex. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned mental, mental wellness, right?

Mental and emotional wellness. And it makes me think, you know, one of the things I do is to help some of our healthcare providers add a neuro-energetic methodology, bio-energetic methodology to their practices to try and help people.

Cause I'm sure, when somebody shows up, your asking, You're doing a really deep personal history, and you're asking them, so what's going on at work? What's goin' on home?

in all aspects of life. What's contributing to this, right? Right. So a lot of the area that I focus on are what are those underlying emotions, like the energy that's no longer in motion.

That's when it pulls in the body and it causes that dis-ease or dysfunction. And then they got to come see you because they don't know what's going on, And so my method really gets to those underlying, you know, whether it's negative energies, emotions, and thoughts, or whether its self-limiting beliefs, all of those things that are contributing.

And you were talking about mental health that made me think, You know, I often tag team with our practitioners with patients. So they're working on the physical and I'm working the mental and emotional with the method.

And it made me think of this one gentleman, since you mentioned mental health, who when he showed up to Zoom, he had like a nasal cannula and he really difficult time breathing.

By the end of the session, i was able to figure out what was causing the He said he had, you know, phantom pain according to traditional medicine. And I'm like, You could see this guy was physically in pain.

He was actually holding on to a trauma in his gut that had been there for about 70 years. military background. So it also like triggered this for me. And so I worked on getting the energy up and out of the body and healing that trauma.

Cause I had said, wow, you're holding the for yourself and like 80 other people. I said and this is old, this has been here for like 70 years and it's just been cumulative.

He's like, yeah, that was the size of my company in Vietnam. you know, when we're clearing it out. And then I referred him to one of our functional medicine practitioners who worked with him, to continue to give his physical body than the support it needed.

But once we got the energy out, the body was so much more receptive to it. We found that the medication he was being given for mental illness was too much serotonin, which is kind of funny, right?

Cause that's the happy hormone. I'm like, well, this guy's not laughing, he's in pain. And so it was basically, they kept titrating him up. So he had too of that in his system.

The doctor prescribed something called COMDAE, Which is one of our natural, we'll call it Mother's Little Helper, our national form of Xanax that has GABA in it that counteracted the seratonin production.

And so he showed up on my schedule a few months later and he's happy and beaming and no longer in this chair. He doesn't have oxygen on and his wife flings in and she goes, guess what he just did?

I go, what did he do? He just blew snow out of our entire driveway. And she's like, he was restricted to a recliner and now he has his quality of life back and got her handyman around the house back.

So that earned me a lot of points in that household. But I think about that. So what are some of the chronic conditions that you treat? You know, I know sometimes we'll fix one thing and another thing goes wrong if we don't get to that underlying trauma or emotional root cause or whatever it's holding in there.

But what do you see and what you do treat on a regular basis? You know, it really just depends. I see quite a wide variety of cases of people. Certainly I do see a lot of women with menopause or perimenopausal symptoms, but usually that's just something that also happening.

Sometimes it's the main driver of their symptoms but sometimes there's other things going on. For some people, they've been exposed to mold or tick-borne illnesses and that can cause a lots of issues.

For some people, it's, you know, just a variety of different things causing one thing. But what I'm starting to recognize is that a lot of people have, the emotional state really plays a big role into this and the whole mindset.

And so if your nervous system is dysregulated, if you find that you're under a lot of stress all the time and you are not taking really intentional ways of decreasing your stress, either meditation or walks in nature or doing yoga or something intentional to decrease that stress level, If you constantly in that fight or flight mode, you will have health issues.

And you really have to address that. You can't just ignore the mental health side of things and just depend on the physical body. So that is, the other interesting thing is people who've had a lot of trauma in their background, for whatever reason, that really makes a difference on how their body reacts later in life.

So if somebody had like a lots of childhood trauma or a a of issues when they were growing up, it sort of predisposes them for extra inflammation, if you will, or more of a hyperactive nervous system, which then affects every other system in their body, their immune system their gut, they're hormones, you know, just their sleep, everything.

So you really have to address both the physical, not just the biochemistry of the person, but the mental state as well. I'm so glad you brought this up.

You must have read my mind because I've written down nervous system overload. I read your bio and everything and all your info was like, I really want to expand on this because you know what?

We have a Dr. Bob Rakowski right in Houston, Texas. He owns Natural Medicine Center. he's a chiropractor nutritionist. And he spoke with Dr Bland for years and now he speaks with us at Nutritional Frontiers.

and he says, look, he used to do a stress reset. And he goes, now I gotta do it even deeper. I was like, why? He's like look people are so hot coming in, I don't care about their hormones, their gut, the sleep.

He goes if I didn't cool them down, yeah, can't get them healthy. Yeah. It's not like it was 30 years ago or 20 or even 10, it's getting worse and worse.

So he glossed over a little bit, what are some things people can do And I'm the big, I, um, all about consistency, right? People want to work out for a month and, and you know, be back in a size two, whatever.

I like, look, you need, And look my nervous system was overheated last year and in this year with many things going on and we had to rebuild the business and I think people sometimes have no hope.

So I want give them hope today. And I want you to maybe expand a little bit on some of those things that we take for granted. You know, yesterday we're at the beach and my older daughter came walking down and her friends couldn't find me.

I was laying at edge of the water and on my back looking up at this sun and do some sun gazing. And she goes, you weren't sleeping, I think you were meditating.

And I think we forget sometimes, so I'm grounding, I am in the salt water, on the sand, the minerals, sun, breathing. I was sharing with Christine and I go, it was incredible.

It's incredible! So what are some of the things you find? Because sometimes I find people are like, well, you can do that because you have time. We all have the same amount of time!

Nervous System Regulation and Daily Reset Habits

I see you got to make it a priority because if you're not healthy, it doesn't matter how much money you have or how important that deadline is at work or a junior's baseball game or the wife.

So maybe you could expand a little bit on some of the techniques and rituals you found that will be so easy for people to incorporate on a daily basis.

Well, I know for me I can say the one thing that I think really saved me throughout the years, because I would have been considered like a chronic fatigue type of patient, except I just refused to pick up that label.

But I think the fact that I was exercising very, you know, consistently, my husband and I both been into bodybuilding and always enjoyed going to the gym.

So for me, that was sort of like Exercise I can't say enough good things about you know it keeps the blood moving it's healthy for your brain is just like it so positive on so many different levels but if you don't enjoy going to the gym I would say just get out and walk.

Especially early morning sunlight I think that's that sort of a double you no bonus you can get that exercise plus the early mornings sunlight. So, but doing things that you like.

Some people enjoy gardening, for other people it's dancing. It's just getting outside and doing what you love I think is really important. Yeah, and you're moving, right?

I was just talking to a stranger yesterday and his daughter, I don't know how it came up, but we were talking about kids. We were waiting in line at a store.

And he said his one daughter had gotten into some trouble the night before. So I said, he was in shape. He was a large equipment operator, got in an accident years ago.

And they told me he would be paralyzed. And the guy looks great. He says, the gym. I said, you know what? I always say, when in doubt, I don't care what your problem is, go work out, regardless.

So did you guys compete in bodybuilding? We did, yeah. NPC or something else? Well, we did NPC and I actually got my pro card in a smaller organization called GBO.

Congratulations. I'm a big fan. That's why I moved to Pittsburgh. And that's the company that at Pittsburgh, cause that is the home of the NPC. Christine had the pleasure of going out to dinner last week with Jim Manion and Debbie Manon.

He was the founder. They were the founders of NPC and they still run the IFBB and MPC. So a lot of synergies here today, Christine, I see you smiling.

Go ahead. Yeah, no, I was just going to say, you know, a big philosophy that I think people need to remember is muscles medicine, right? So, and the importance of muscle as we age in particular.

You mentioned a couple of times about fatigue and I know part of what you bring to people, is focusing on fatigue in the important of mitochondrial health.

Do you want to kind of expand upon that and how that is really one of the things you look at for most chronic diseases? Yeah, I think that the mitochondria really tie things together when, you know, when I first started taking sort of a really deep dive into the Mitochondria and what they are and how they function.

It was something that I found, that really helped explain tie all these chronic disease states together. So everything from neurodegenerative disorders, even autism, the chronic fatigue, like all these sorts of things, it kind of comes down to the mitochondria.

in very super interesting stuff I found. And this is one of the reasons why I love we have hyperbaric oxygen chambers in my office as well, because they are so beneficial at revving up those mitochondria, getting more ATP production from the mitochondrion, as Well as stimulating the growth of new mitochondrial.

So for anybody who's having an energy production problem, you know, the hyperbolic oxygen chamber is such a great way to go. Plus, it's all natural. Yeah, but also I do use things like red light therapy, methylene blue.

and then a variety of nutrients, as I'm sure you're even more familiar with, that help boost the energy production from the mitochondria. But again, if somebody is not at a place, like if somebodies nervous system is super dysregulated, If they're chronically in that fight or flight mode, I am not going to put them in the chamber.

I not gonna give them a supplement that's gonna speed up their energy protection because they just probably can't handle it at that point. They have to be in a little more a place where they can tolerate movements as far as what they handle stress-wise.

So what do you typically do for someone who comes to you that is just, you know, in adrenal fatigue, burnout, just fried? What's your first step with somebody like that?

I might be asking for a friend. So it sort of depends on the person and what I think, obviously we'll give them options for, here's things that you can do at home.

But for certain people, a lot of patients, I will be referring them to programs like Primal Trust. which gives, I don't know if you're familiar with primaltrust.org, but they have a whole program that sort of takes you through exercises that helps to calm the nervous system and expands your body's ability to deal with different emotions essentially.

So that's really helpful. There's other programs like Annie Hopper, Gupta program, And then, so those are some online programs that people can participate in to really help calm the nervous system.

And sometimes people need to start with that. There are listening programs. I don't know if you've heard of the Safe and Sound program. It's a program where you listen with headphones and it will strengthen the muscles in the inner ear that then convey cues of safety to the brain.

There's another company called BrainHarmony.com and I love Brain Harmony because you will fill out a little 30 question like on online questionnaire and then you get to talk with the owner of the company and they design a program for you that is much more passive as far as calming the nervous system.

So they will incorporate things like that safe and sound program along with some other technologies that just kind of help bring some calm to the Nervous System so that you have more capacity then to deal with other things.

Now, I really love what you said about the moving in the morning. Right? I think, you know, when I'm not on top of my game, I feel in a rush. You know what I mean?

Like I am behind the eight ball all day long. I, feel like I gotta go, go go. But I got to be conscious of that and not do that. You know, so this morning we did Pilates early with a very challenging instructor.

So it's not like an easy class, but it got the blood moving and, you know got me feeling good. And it was a good confidence booster because I'm improving in the class.

You Wait, so I think trying new things but getting moving in the morning is really vital Yeah to a lot of people and even if they're fatigued to go for a walk Just get some fresh air get away from the TV the computer and the cell phone I Think that's where a lotta stimulus is coming out people so much in it and Their cup is full.

They can only take so much. Yeah.

Mitochondria, Energy, and Fatigue Recovery

And when people's, like, sort of cup full, if you imagine that you've got a bucket inside of your body that holds the toxins, and as the toxins fill up and it reaches the edge, you know, then it's just like any little thing.

You know, some people come to me and they're like, I am so sensitive to chemicals, to drugs, the smells, you know. Because their toxic bucket is so full, it's like they can't process any others.

And even that's when people start becoming really sensitive EMFs, which is the electromagnetic frequency from TVs and computers and phones and everything else, and people don't really think about that.

But it can make a huge difference for some people who are at their limit, you know, and now they're just reacting to everything. And then, their body starts just sort of misinterpreting signals that would normally be non-threatening, but all of a sudden they become threatening to you because your nervous system is so dysregulated, your toxins are so full, it just builds on itself.

That's a great point. Multiple chemical sensitivities. He's full and one drop of perfume across the room can set you off. Yeah. Christine, I know you've heard me say this quite a few times, like you got to drain the strain, right?

And I think sometimes when you're in that environment, you don't even realize it. I went to a relative's house recently. And there was a lot of news on the living room, the kitchen.

I was kind of going back and forth because I don't watch news. They're like, what's wrong? I'm going outside to go for a walk. It was, I didn't like that and I think when you're away from it for long time, then you realize how sensitive you are too.

Cristina, you see a lotta your work. Yeah. I, you know, when you were talking about the, I love your description of the bucket, the toxic load is too full so they can't.

Everything, they become hypersensitive everywhere. And I've never really thought about it being that toxic, load within the body is really what's causing the ultra sensitivity elsewhere.

But I know we go through fight or flight on average today about 16 times a day. And that could be a text message, that can be an email, just a phone call, the energy vampire that shows up on your phone.

So I want to answer that. Or just listening to the news, you know? It's terrible. If you listen to news and your brain can't tell the difference between what is real and what's happening a thousand miles away.

And it's still giving you that same reaction. So, yeah. And then, and yeah, dropping you down and then the immune system crashes and everything else because it is just too much.

Let's go to the converse. let's say you get somebody, their nervous system stable and they're in a better spot. What's sort of your next step in terms of diagnosing what are the underlying chronic conditions that you're going to be treating?

I always want to check and see where they are with their gut health because we want make sure that the gut is working fine, that they're having regular bowel movements, they digesting their food, not having issues with sensitivities and things like that.

That's number one. And that makes a big difference on how they feel mental health-wise too because the majority of our neurotransmitters are actually made in the guts.

If your gut's not functioning properly, if you're having gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, you know, your gonna most likely have some mood disorders too.

Yeah, I would imagine. People are cranky if things aren't moving the way they're supposed to in their body. Yeah, that's a fascinating topic, right? The gut's the second brain.

Yes. And, you know, the neurotransmitter we found, dopamine, is over 50% in the gut. Serotonin could be sometimes upwards of 95% of the guts. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Because that is a concept, I mean, 10 years ago I was presenting on, but for the average person again, they think all these body parts are are disconnected, right?

Yeah, yeah. There's no rhyme or reason because you go to one doctor for your knee, you got another doctor, for you heart, another Dr. For your head, You're having a bad day.

They tell you to take a pill. You have in two bad days. We'll take two pills. It's gotten so, um, almost crazy the way that people look at their bodies, that there's No connection between all these.

And now the the latest research from Harvard Medical School and the AFRM and all these great organizations are showing, wow, all this communication, not only between the gut and brain, but inside the mitochondria.

So can you elaborate a little more on that gut-brain connection and what are some of the things people can do to restore that connection? Because sometimes the vagal nerve is just completely blown out.

Yeah. It's important to recognize how much our gut affects our overall health as well as our mood.

Gut Health, Nutrition, and Healing Order

And what we're eating on a day-to-day basis really makes a big difference on how we are feeling. I think this is especially important in this age of where we have these peptides, the GLP-1s, where everybody seems to be on these GLPs.

So now nobody has an appetite, and so now, nobody's eating. And so, you know, I had just fielded a call the other day from a patient who said, well, yeah, not feeling really great.

I'm like, how many times a day are you eating? Well, once. Okay, that's not enough food. You're asking your body to do all these things, but you're not giving it the fuel to it.

It really makes a big difference and people just forget how much that makes the difference as far as how you're feeling on a day-to-day basis. So yeah, it's really important to get enough protein in to maintain your muscle mass or build muscle if that's what you are looking to do.

A lot of people are trying to build muscles mass. But that's going to make a big difference on just how you're feeling. One of the reasons why I love being in training, like, okay, I'm going prep for a show, maybe not actually get on stage, but I want to go ahead and go through the motions, is that I am eating five times a day and I feel great because I have energy now.

I don't feel hungry at all. So, yeah, we just have to be sure that you are getting enough fuel to do what you ask the body to. Yeah, I love, we're on the same page, gotta say the thing, right?

Like you gotta eat to feed your body. I think what's happened is that our country has been almost misled to think that, you know, weight is the number one indicator of health.

And I know that directly correlated, but at the time now, there's a lot of people losing weight on GLP-1s or other ways that are still not happy, that is still doing well hormonally.

And I think you're right on it, you know, this whole, the old nature path saying is health and death begins in the colon. Like the gut is really our second brain and so important overall health and wellness.

And can you alleviate all the people listening of the concern of putting on too much muscle? Because you've been working out for years and taking protein with the goal of getting, you know, they would say more tone.

I would see more muscle because you can't shape a twig. Can you leave everyone of that concern or putting too on much muscles? Yeah. I used to hear that a lot from my female patients.

Well, I don't want to get bulky. You know, that was the major concern. And I'm like, well, you're not going to be bulky unless you start doing steroids.

So you, your, fine, yeah. It's I think it's just consistency is really a key thing. Consistency of working out, doing the weights and, and eating is. Last three years, more of the bodybuilding diet.

I always go with some simple sources like organic eggs I love and chicken and fish and grass-fed beef. I believe, especially with blood sugar issues, you should really stay away from the sugars and the heavier carbs.

With some of your, so I call it the modified anti-inflammatory diet or Mediterranean diet, there's so many different names out there, but I think it's very simple.

Eat the whole foods and manipulate your fats. or carbs, depending on which one you like for energy. I always say protein's important. Then you got to pick or choose a little more fat or a lot more carbs.

And I think most people would do a better or much better by reducing their starchy carbohydrate content and increasing the olive oil, the avocados, egg yolks, and the fish, those type of things.

But what's your philosophy on food and something that people can understand today that they could change? I think the main thing is just trying to eat whole, clean, unprocessed foods.

Try to avoid sugar as much as possible. Even the fake sugar. I used to be really hooked on fake-sugar because I'm like, well, it's fine and it is not going to add to my caloric count.

kind of a thing. Well I'll tell you what, I wore one of these continuous glucose monitors a year ago when I was still hooked on the fake sugar and you know I would drink diet sodas every once in a while and use Splenda and everything else and my blood sugar even when i was fasting was consistently high.

Like it wasn't diabetic high but it was it, was really at the upper limit of where it should have been. And over the last year, I've really given up all of that.

So now I'm no longer on any kind of sugar or even fake sugar. And it really made a huge difference. I did the continuous glucose monitor again and saw that my blood sugar just dropped.

It was so much better, it was much more in a healthy range. Even though these fake sugars are not maybe causing you to gain pounds, they're still spiking your bloodsugar.

not healthy for you. Well, that's great advice, Dr. Ward. I can't believe that we have come to near ending of our episode. What? I'm just warming up here with the doc.

Come on. So many questions to ask her. One last question. You talk about like in your practice that there's an order of healing. Can you kind of share with us like how that is and how you go about, you know, working with your patients with an order of healing?

Yeah. So again, I mean, everyone is so different. And so we really just want to start and see where people are in the beginning. lab panel. We do a couple of in-office body scans.

There's a really extensive health history questionnaire. I start with nervous system, make sure that they're mental health, that there in a good place.

And then we're also at the same time looking at gut health. And I do see a lot of mold issues here. We don't initially start off treating the mold. I mean, we want to make first certain that sort of their detox pathways are open so that their bile production is going, that they're having regular bowel movements, making sure that the gut is working well, basically.

And before we start in on if they need some binders, Down the road, we will also look at, of course, hormones and thyroid, the immune system. But I don't like to just start hitting everything at once because typically we get either an opposite reaction or just not an ideal reaction.

Awesome. Well, I'm sure that people are so excited to learn more about you and want to know if they can work with you. So first of all, where in the country can they find you?

And if people aren't interested in working with, how can we get in touch with? So, yes, in Houston, Texas region, just outside of Houston in Sugarland, and my website is drjuliaward.com.

Finding Dr. Ward and Closing Remarks

And so people can go on there and they can click a button and set up a discovery call if they're interested in talking to see if we might be a good fit to work together.

Awesome. Well, I know that definitely people have gotten something out of this episode, so we're going to encourage everyone to like, comment and share this with someone who needs to hear it.

And I'm also going to make sure that everybody knows that all of your contact information will be in our show notes as well. Jamie, I can't believe that we've come to the conclusion of the show.

Well, this is part one, of course. We got to have more of this incredible conversation with a pioneer in the field of functional medicine, a bodybuilder, nutritionist.

And wow, what a great warm breath of fresh air today to this show and I loved how you really brought some complex topics down to earth for people to understand.

So folks, if you're in search of getting yourself in the best shape of your life, I highly recommend you call Dr. Julie Ward's office, schedule an appointment, and you'll be on your way to becoming the better version of you.

So thanks, Dr. Ward. We really appreciate it. It was an honor and a privilege to have you on the show today. Thanks, of course, Christine Genovese, always there for me, and the Holistic Truth, your favorite podcast.

So, thanks everybody. Let's have a great day and God bless. Thank you so much. If this episode spoke to you, please follow the show and share it with someone ready to take charge of their wellbeing.

And if you can, leave us a review. It helps others find our podcast. For more tools and practitioner support, visit NutritionalFrontiers.com.