Nourishing Ways Center

Nourishing Ways Center I am a functional medicine dietitian with 20 years experience. Massage therapy is also available by appointment.

We help clients get to the root cause whether it is gut or metabolic or weight issues by using lifestyle, nutritional supplementation, and testing. Nourishing Ways Center offers a customized, one-on-one nutritional counseling program using a functional approach which addresses you as a whole person and identifies the cause of your illness, without just covering up your symptoms.

Does anyone like cottage cheese? My favorite brand is Good Culture....yummmm
05/01/2026

Does anyone like cottage cheese? My favorite brand is Good Culture....yummmm

Your blood sugar is not random. It runs on a rhythm. And once you understand that rhythm, a lot of things that felt like...
05/01/2026

Your blood sugar is not random. It runs on a rhythm. And once you understand that rhythm, a lot of things that felt like personality start to make a lot more sense.

⏰6 to 8am
Cortisol rises naturally to mobilize glucose from the liver and get you moving. This is called the cortisol awakening response. For some people, especially those with blood sugar dysregulation, this morning glucose surge is large enough to cause anxiety, shakiness, or a craving for something sweet before they have eaten a single thing.

⏰8 to 10am
If you eat breakfast, blood sugar rises. How fast and how high depends on what you ate, in what order, and how sensitive your cells are to insulin right now. A carbohydrate-only breakfast in a stressed, insulin-resistant body can spike and crash before 10am.

⏰11am to 12pm
The pre-lunch window. If breakfast caused a sharp rise and fall, this is often when focus disappears, irritability spikes, or you start thinking about food earlier than you expected.

⏰1 to 3pm
Post-lunch dip. Blood sugar rises from lunch, insulin responds, glucose drops. Combined with a natural circadian cortisol trough in the early afternoon, this is the window where most people hit a wall and reach for caffeine or sugar.

⏰4 to 6pm
A second cortisol rise helps stabilize blood sugar heading into the evening. If you are under chronic stress or cortisol is dysregulated, this rise can be blunted and the late-afternoon energy never comes.

⏰7 to 10pm
The hours where blood sugar dysregulation most reliably produces cravings. If glucose has been running unstable all day, the body seeks fast fuel in the evening. The craving for something sweet after dinner is often a blood sugar event, not a willpower event.

Understanding when your symptoms show up is the first step to understanding why.
Which time block is your hardest? Drop the hour.

We all need extra support for our liver. Be kind to your liver...
04/30/2026

We all need extra support for our liver. Be kind to your liver...

Let's give the liver what the liver wants.
04/27/2026

Let's give the liver what the liver wants.

obody tells you what the middle of gut healing actually looks like.➠So let me.📌Month one:You might feel worse before you...
04/25/2026

obody tells you what the middle of gut healing actually looks like.

➠So let me.

📌Month one:
You might feel worse before you feel better. If you are on an antimicrobial protocol, die-off reactions are real. Bacteria release toxins as they are cleared. Your liver has to process more.

Temporary fatigue, headaches, and worsened symptoms in the first two to four weeks do not mean the protocol is wrong.

📌Month two:
Symptoms start shifting rather than resolving cleanly. The bloating might improve but your energy gets louder about needing attention. Or the food reactivity calms down but sleep gets disrupted. The body does not fix itself in a straight line. It fixes in layers, and each layer has its own timeline.

📌Month three:
You start noticing your baseline has quietly moved. Not that you feel perfect. But your bad days are now where your average days used to be. You have a good week. Then a harder few days. Then the good weeks start outnumbering the other kind.

Lab markers often improve before you feel the difference. Cognitive clarity tends to come back before the physical symptoms fully resolve. Sleep usually shifts before digestion normalizes.
The middle is where most people quit. It is also the part right before things actually change.



If you want someone to help you interpret the middle, that is what the process is for. Discovery calls are open and schedule it today through this link https://l.bttr.to/PZFbO

Gut health content online has a nuance problem.🫢 (I said what I said.)These are six things you have probably heard that ...
04/25/2026

Gut health content online has a nuance problem.🫢 (I said what I said.)

These are six things you have probably heard that are not wrong exactly, but are missing the most important part.

Myth 1️⃣: Take a probiotic for gut health.
The truth: Probiotics are strain-specific. A generic Lactobacillus blend is doing something very different from Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG or Saccharomyces boulardii. And in the context of SIBO, certain Lactobacillus strains can significantly worsen symptoms. Testing first. Strain matching second.

Myth 2️⃣: Fermented foods are always gut-healthy.
The truth: For people with histamine intolerance or SIBO, fermented foods are a significant trigger. Kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut, kombucha. They can feed bacterial overgrowth and flood a histamine-burdened system. Context determines everything here.

Myth 3️⃣: If your digestion feels fine, your gut is fine.
The truth: Gut dysbiosis expresses itself as skin conditions, mood instability, chronic fatigue, hormone imbalance, and autoimmune activity. The absence of bloating does not mean a healthy microbiome.

Myth 4️⃣: Bone broth heals leaky gut.
The truth: L-glutamine and collagen from bone broth can support gut lining repair. But if the driver of permeability is still active, whether that is dysbiosis, NSAID use, chronic stress, or a pathogen, the repair does not hold. You cannot out-supplement an ongoing insult.

Myth 5️⃣: Low FODMAP is a gut healing diet.
The truth: Low FODMAP is a diagnostic elimination tool. It was designed to reduce fermentation load temporarily, not as a long-term dietary strategy. Sustained low FODMAP restriction reduces Bifidobacterium populations and overall microbial diversity. It manages symptoms. It does not fix the underlying driver.

Myth 6️⃣: You just need more fiber.
The truth: Fiber type matters enormously depending on your gut environment. Adding high-inulin foods or fiber supplements on top of SIBO or significant dysbiosis feeds exactly the organisms driving your symptoms. More fiber is not universally helpful.



If any of these myths apply to what you have already tried, that is worth a conversation. Discovery calls are open and schedule your call today with this link https://l.bttr.to/PZFbO

04/23/2026

I am not saying coffee is the enemy. I am saying that needing it every afternoon just to function is data.

🤐Here is the gut connection most people have never been told.

Healthy gut bacteria, specifically Akkermansia muciniphila, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, and specific Bifidobacterium strains, produce short-chain fatty acids during digestion.
➠Butyrate
➠Propionate
➠Acetate

These molecules regulate blood sugar signaling and support GLP-1 secretion, which smooths the post-meal blood sugar curve.

When those bacteria are depleted or the microbiome is shifted toward dysbiosis, short-chain fatty acid production drops. Blood sugar rises more sharply after meals and crashes harder in the afternoon. The 3pm wall hits like a truck.

There is also a cortisol component. Cortisol naturally dips in the mid-afternoon. But if chronic gut inflammation has dysregulated the HPA axis, that dip becomes a cliff. You do not just feel tired. You feel like your brain left the building.

The 3pm crash is not a carbohydrate problem. It is not just a sleep debt problem. It is often a gut bacteria problem with a cortisol component layered on top.

What does your 3pm actually look like? Tell me in the comments.



If your energy crashes and fluctuates and no one has looked at the gut, that is worth investigating. Discovery calls are open and here is the link to schedule https://l.bttr.to/PZFbO

Your gut bacteria are involved in your hormone levels. ❌Not metaphorically. ✅Biochemically.There is a specific community...
04/21/2026

Your gut bacteria are involved in your hormone levels. ❌Not metaphorically. ✅Biochemically.

There is a specific community of gut microbes called the estrobolome that directly governs how much estrogen recirculates in your body. Most hormone workups, including gynecology panels and endocrinology assessments, never look at it.

If you have been managing estrogen-related symptoms without anyone addressing the gut, you may have been working with half the picture.



Call: If you have been managing hormone symptoms without anyone looking at your gut, that investigation is worth having. Discovery calls are open. Click link to schedule. https://l.bttr.to/PZFbO

✅Bloating is a symptom.❌Not a diagnosis.🔎And it has at least 10 different root causes that require completely different ...
04/19/2026

✅Bloating is a symptom.
❌Not a diagnosis.

🔎And it has at least 10 different root causes that require completely different approaches.

This is why the same protocol does not work for everyone.

1️⃣One: SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). Bacteria colonize the small intestine where they do not belong and ferment carbohydrates before your body can absorb them. Gas and distension start 30 to 90 minutes after eating.

2️⃣Two: Low stomach acid (hypochlorhydria). When the stomach does not produce enough acid, food is not properly acidified and sits. It ferments. Bloat tends to sit in the upper abdomen and often comes with belching.

3️⃣Three: Impaired migrating motor complex. Between meals, your gut runs a housekeeping wave called the MMC that sweeps bacteria and debris downward. When disrupted by chronic stress, frequent snacking, or certain medications, bacteria accumulate upstream.

4️⃣Four: Dysbiosis. An imbalanced microbial community means excess fermentation, altered motility, and gut wall inflammation without a clean structural cause.

5️⃣Intestinal permeability. Immune activation from food proteins crossing the gut barrier drives ongoing gut inflammation and chronic bloating.

6️⃣Bile acid insufficiency. When bile production or release is inadequate, fat digestion is impaired and fermentation backs up upstream.

7️⃣Histamine intolerance. DAO enzyme deficiency, most often from dysbiosis, allows histamine to accumulate and drive gut inflammation, bloating, and systemic symptoms.

8️⃣Estrogen dominance and slow motility. Estrogen receptors in the gut wall regulate transit time. High estrogen or impaired liver clearance slows motility and amplifies fermentation.

9️⃣Hypothyroidism. Thyroid hormone directly regulates gut motility. Subclinical or overt hypothyroidism can slow transit enough to create significant bloating and constipation patterns.

🔟Stress-driven gut dysmotility. Cortisol suppresses digestive enzyme production, shifts blood flow away from the gut, and alters motility in real time. Chronic stress is a chronic gut problem.

Call: If you have more than three of these happening at once, that picture needs an investigation, not a protocol. Discovery calls are open. https://l.bttr.to/PZFbO

Most people have no idea what a functional medicine gut workup actually looks like. So here is exactly what happens when...
04/16/2026

Most people have no idea what a functional medicine gut workup actually looks like. So here is exactly what happens when you work with me. Call: The first step is always a conversation. Discovery calls are open and free.https://l.bttr.to/PZFbO

Step 1️⃣: Discovery Call.
We talk. I want to understand your history, what you have tried, and where you are right now. I want to be honest about whether what I do is actually the right fit for your situation.

Step 2️⃣: Comprehensive Intake.
Before testing, I build a full picture. Birth history (c-section versus vaginal affects initial microbiome seeding), antibiotic history across your lifetime (this matters more than most people know), stress timeline, medications, and a detailed symptom chronology. The gut does not live in a vacuum.

Step 3️⃣: Testing.
This is not a standard panel. Depending on your presentation, we may run a GI-MAP or comprehensive stool analysis, a SIBO breath test, organic acids, cortisol rhythm testing, and targeted bloodwork including hs-CRP, ferritin, homocysteine, and micronutrient status. The testing tells us what we are actually working with.

Step 4️⃣: Results Review.
We go through everything together. Not just "your marker is elevated." What elevated means in the context of your specific symptom picture, your history, and your goals.

Step 5️⃣: Personalized Protocol.
Built from your data. Not from a generic gut healing template. Targeted interventions matched to what your results actually showed.

Step 6️⃣: Monitoring and Adjustment.
Your body responds, and your protocol adjusts with it. This is not a hand-off. It is a process.

🚨Acne🚨Anxiety🚨Achy joints🚨Afternoon crashes….all might all share the same root.That sounds like a stretch until you unde...
04/14/2026

🚨Acne
🚨Anxiety
🚨Achy joints
🚨Afternoon crashes

….all might all share the same root.

That sounds like a stretch until you understand what happens when the gut microbiome shifts.

The visible symptoms people expect from gut dysbiosis: bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea.

➠Most people know these.

The invisible ones almost no one connects:
🕸️Morning anxiety that fades by noon.
The gut bacteria that are imbalanced overnight produce metabolites that spike cortisol and dysregulate the HPA axis. By late morning, it settles. It feels like anxiety. It has a gut origin.

🕸️Skin that breaks out in hormonal patterns.
The estrobolome, the community of gut bacteria that metabolize estrogen, directly influences androgen levels. Disrupted gut means disrupted hormones, and disrupted hormones show up on the skin.

🕸️Joint stiffness, especially first thing in the morning.
LPS from gram-negative bacteria can cross a compromised gut lining and trigger systemic inflammation that lands in connective tissue. Inflammatory joint symptoms without a diagnosis often have a gut driver underneath.

🕸️Histamine reactions after wine, leftovers, aged cheese, or fermented foods.
Not an allergy. A sign that bacteria responsible for producing histamine are overgrown, and the DAO enzyme that should degrade it is depleted.

🕸️Flat mood and low motivation through the day.
Your gut produces 90 to 95% of the serotonin precursors in your body. When dysbiosis disrupts the bacteria that regulate tryptophan availability, mood chemistry shifts downstream.

🕸️Blood sugar crashes 2 to 3 hours after eating.
Short-chain fatty acids produced by healthy gut bacteria help regulate insulin sensitivity and blood sugar signaling. When those bacteria are depleted, the regulation goes with them.

None of these are mysterious. Every single one has a mechanism.

➠➠Where you feel it matters more than any food you have eliminated so far.Before I look at anyone's diet, I want to know...
04/12/2026

➠➠Where you feel it matters more than any food you have eliminated so far.

Before I look at anyone's diet, I want to know two things:
1️⃣where does the bloat hit
2️⃣when does it start

Those two answers tell me more than any food diary.

📌Upper abdomen right after eating usually points to the stomach or early small intestine. Low stomach acid, delayed gastric emptying, or the beginning of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. The food sits and ferments instead of moving.

📌Lower abdomen building through the afternoon is often the large intestine. Bacterial imbalance, excess fermentation in the colon, or the estrogen-gut connection. Estrogen receptors line the gut wall. When estrogen clearance is sluggish, motility slows with it.

📌Bloat that is already there when you wake up usually means fermentation happened overnight. Methane-producing organisms, slower transit, food sitting in the colon longer than it should.

Bloat that starts fine and builds by 3pm is often a sign of fermentation happening in the wrong part of the gut. SIBO lives here. So does dysbiosis.

Your bloat has a pattern. That pattern is data. And data can be worked with.

Address

4914 Chilson Road
Howell, MI
48843

Opening Hours

Monday 12pm - 5pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 6pm
Thursday 8:30am - 6pm
Friday 8:30am - 12pm

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