The functional nutrition approach to sustainable weight loss focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of symptoms through diet and lifestyle changes. This whole body, root cause approach is individualized based on a comprehensive functional nutrition assessment, individual symptoms, health history, and labs aiming to restore balance to the body.

Weight loss is a journey that involves many factors.

While it may seem complex, having a complete picture of your specific nutritional needs: any potential gut health issues, hormone imbalances, or vitamin/mineral deficiencies all work together to help you lose and maintain a healthy weight that will help make the journey easier and ultimately more sustainable to help you keep off the weight for good.

A better way to look at this journey is to realize you are not only losing weight, you are improving your overall health, fixing any mitochondrial dysfunction resulting in better energy for your cells to improve other organ systems, balancing any low or elevated hormones, healing your gut health issues, and restoring your vitamins and minerals to optimal levels. It’s a domino effect, once you fix the root (which could be mitochondrial dysfunction, hormone imbalances, gut health issues, detoxification, etc) the body will naturally balance itself into optimal health.

The whole body, root cause approach to Achieving sustainable weight loss from a functional nutrition perspective:

Overall from a whole body, root cause approach, to help you achieve sustainable weight loss we would look at healing insulin resistance, blood sugar dysregulation, gut health issues, mitochondrial dysfunction, hormone imbalances, and systemic inflammation using diet therapy, targeted supplements, herbs, probiotic strains, and then if needed, work to rebalance the gut using the 5R Treatment Protocol. Any potential root causes are identified using the STAIN method specifically looking at stress, toxins (mold, plastics, heavy metals), adverse food reactions, infections, and nutritional imbalances. A root cause approach to achieving long-lasting weight loss is to learn how your unique gut health, hormone health, mitochondrial health, and detoxification all work together to help you achieve the weight you desire and as a result, finally release the yo-yo dieting mentality for good.

During the initial comprehensive functional nutrition assessment, we will look at:

• Past Medical History: initial comprehensive patient questionnaire, symptom questionnaire, root causes: STAIN (stress, toxins, adverse food reactions, infections, nutritional imbalances), history of N/V/D/C, family history of chronic health conditions, current medications/OTC’s and dietary supplements, lifestyle factors such as sleep, stress, exercise, etc.
• Anthropometrics: changes in body weight, weight loss, weight gain.
• Nutrition Focused Physical Exam: dark circles under eyes, abdominal distention/bloating, hair loss/hair thinning, red, swollen, or coated tongue, skin rashes.
• Dietary and Food Habits: nutrient density in meals, caloric intake, meal pattern and timing, macronutrient balance, fiber types and sources, processed food and refined sugar intake, alcohol intake, adverse food reactions (food allergies or intolerances), FODMAPs, lactose, fructose, or sucrose intolerance, gluten sensitivity, histamine intolerance, prebiotic sources, probiotic sources, fermented foods. gut microbiome diversity.
• Conventional Labs: Comprehensive metabolic profile (CMP), CBC with differential, fasting insulin & HbA1C (Hemoglobin A1C), complete iron profile including serum ferritin, serum 25-OH Vitamin D, serum B12.
• Functional Labs: GI-MAP by diagnostic solutions, DUTCH test for hormone imbalances, or OAT test by mosaic diagnostics.
• Wearables Data: apple watch for exercise/HRV (heart rate variability), whoop for exercise/HRV, oura ring for sleep tracking.

A personalized functional nutrition care plan will be created for you based on the data from the initial comprehensive functional nutrition assessment that includes personalized diet therapy, targeted supplements, as well as lifestyle changes in stress level, sleep quality, and exercise which are important for gut and hormone health.

By addressing these underlying causes — through personalized approaches like nutrition, simple lifestyle changes, and targeted supplements — functional nutrition aims to bring the body back into balance and resolve acne at its root.

calories in versus calories out or nutrients in versus nutrients out?

Instead of tracking calories in via eating and calories out via working out in order to lose weight. A better mindset to have is focus on an assortment of nutrients within each meal. These are the nutrients that will restore your gut health, balance any low or elevated hormones, and restore mitochondrial health. They are essential for growth, maintenance, longevity, and overall health.

Nutrients in via the rainbow assortment of produce containing healing energy and sustenance for the body, phytonutrients in plants needed by the body to protect against chronic diseases, minerals needed for nerve function and bone health, macronutrients required for sustained energy, micronutrients that support energy production and cell growth.

Nutrients out via sweating/detoxification during working out which releases the minerals that need to be replenished. Nutrients out via sweating/detoxification during working out that needs to be replenished in the form of macronutrients and micronutrients.

Some examples of healing nutrients include macronutrients, micronutrients, antioxidants (glutathione, ubiquinol/coenzyme Q10), phytosterols found in plants, phytonutrients ( flavonoids, anthocyanins, carotenoids, lycopene, lutein zeaxanthin, beta-carotene, polyphenols, resveratrol), vitamins, and minerals such as selenium or zinc.

Having the right mindset towards weight loss

How does your relationship with food look like? How does your relationship with losing weight look like? Do you have a cycle of binge eating that often stems from emotional dysregulation? Do you base your happiness on a fluctuating number on the scale? Do you have a pattern of yo-yo dieting that often leads to feelings of failure and shame?

Ultimately, try to look at your weight loss journey as just that, a journey that will eventually end. It helps to work with a dietitian that will help you shift your mindset to learn to enjoy the journey as much as possible. It will take some time and that is completely fine. What is a couple of months in the grand scheme of your life compared to the rest of your life? Remember, it didn’t take a month to gain the weight and it won’t take a month to lose the weight. When you learn to enjoy the process, the time will pass by quicker and you will enjoy your weight loss journey instead of postponing your happiness until you reach your “ideal body weight.”

Note: You may set your ideal body weight at 120 pounds but you may be happier and look at your best with a body weight of 140 pounds. You simply will never know until you get there. That is why it’s important not to have a weight goal set it stone. Learn to enjoy the journey and try and focus more on how you feel and look in your body instead of basing your happiness on a number on the scale. Instead of going on a 1,400 calorie diet, learn to mindfully make your meals with nourishing nutrients that will help aid your weight loss by supporting your gut health, hormone health, and mitochondrial health. (which will fluctuate anyways based on where you are at in your menstrual cycle and other factors.)

How can I use functional lab testing to help support my weight loss journey?

A GI-MAP stool test may be used to further assess gut health. An OAT test may be used for assessing potential nutrient deficiencies which may be helpful for overall health and weight loss. The DUTCH test may be useful for assessing hormone imbalances that directly impact weight loss.

My storefront is linked here to order functional labs for gut health issues, hormonal imbalances, or vitamin/mineral deficiencies. If you need help creating a personalized functional nutrition care plan based on the interpretation of the labs, you can work with us here.

Functional lab testing would be a good idea if you really wanted to hone in on the specifics of gut microbiome imbalances, hormonal imbalances, vitamin/mineral deficiencies.

Are there any therapeutic diets used for weight loss from a root cause approach?

There are many useful nutrient-dense therapeutic diets that may be used to achieve your weight loss goals. It depends on various factors such as overall gut health, hormone health, food allergies, food intolerances, and any potential nutrient deficiencies which may be impacting weight loss. These are short-term therapeutic diets that are not meant for you to stay on the rest of your life. If you need extra support in healing your gut, we can first heal and repair the gut, slowly re-introduce new foods, identify any trigger foods, and then work to rebalance the gut using the 5R Treatment Protocol linked here.

Tip: Keep a food journal so that pre and post meals you can become more in tune with your body and see how certain meals make you feel. Continuously check in with yourself to see how you are feeling, this is the type of subjective information that only you can know for yourself and make sure to share this information with the dietitian that you are working with!

Ask yourself: Do I feel bloated after eating this specific meal? It’s helpful to have a dietitian that is able to look at your food journals so that they can decipher what specific ingredient or a combination of ingredients that may be causing these symptoms. Having a food journal is also helpful to look for any potential food reactions that may be related to your overall symptoms.

Are there any supplements, probiotic strains, botanicals, or herbs that are helpful during my weight loss journey?

There are many supplements, probiotic strains, botanical, and herbs that may be used to help support your weight loss journey. Remember supplements are there to “supplement” or to help the main treatment which is using a food as medicine approach to healing. Some general helpful supplements for weight loss are:

• Vitamin D3 + K2
• Magnesium Glycinate

Akkermansia muciniphila (A. muciniphila), a gut bacterium that parasitizes the mucus layer of the gastrointestinal tract, has recently been considered a next-generation probiotic strain for the treatment of obesity-related diseases.¹

Make sure to order from a high quality and third party tested brand instead of purchasing from Amazon where practically anyone can sell anything without any rigorous testing. To make it easier for you, you may order from my supplement dispensary below through Fullscript’s catalog where each brand and product meets strict top quality standards. You can learn more about third party testing here.

My supplement dispensary is linked here (with a 30% off discount!) and you do not need to be a client to place an order.

What are some diet and lifestyle tips that can help me during my weight loss journey?

Look at sleep, diet, exercise, and stress management.

Here are some helpful tips for you during your weight loss journey:

• 1 teaspoon of raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar per 8 ounces of water for better blood sugar balance leading to balanced hormones and ultimately sustainable weight loss.
• Chew your food mindfully and thoroughly
• Limit intake of ultra-processed foods and foods with refined sugars
• Having a routine that includes any form of daily movement: walking for 30 minutes daily has been shown to lower inflammation.
• Yoga helps to reduce anxiety and stress.
• Pre-meal deep breathing to encourage MMC (migrating motor complex) function.
• Having proper mealtimes where you are sitting down (not standing up!) and making sure to properly and mindfully chew your food. By carving out a special time to eat, you are telling your body to relax into the parasympathetic state (rest and digest state) which is essential for optimal digestion. Allow your body to slow down, make sure that you are in a seated position, rest, remove any distractions, and simply enjoy your meals for better digestion.
• Try eating with your hands in order to eat less portion sizes, to get more in touch with the texture of your food, and to eat more mindfully and slower. The skin microbiome on your fingers will positively affect your gut microbiome. (make sure that you have clean hands and use your right hand preferably)
• Using a bidet

Tip: Knowing your reasons or motivations for “why” you maintain certain healthy habits even after healing your condition and turning them into daily lifestyle habits is crucial to maintaining long term health and preventing any chronic health conditions and symptoms from reoccurring. I created a guide for this very reason that you can read here.

Gentle reminder: It’s important to be patient during your weight loss journey which may take some time but will ultimately be worth it in the long run. You got this.

Note: Don’t stress yourself with an all or nothing mentality where you feel like you have to implement everything on this list all at once. Sometimes in order to reach the end goal, you need to take baby steps at first and build these habits bit by bit.

How can I Sustainably lose weight with the help of a functional nutrition dietitian?

Ultimately, try to look at your weight loss journey as just that, a journey that will eventually end. It helps to work with a functional practitioner that will help shift your mindset to learn to enjoy the journey as much as possible. It will take some time and that is completely fine. What is a couple of months compared to the rest of your life? Remember, it didn’t take a month to gain the weight and it won’t take a month to lose the weight. When you learn to enjoy the process, the time will pass by quicker and you will learn to enjoy the weight loss journey instead of postponing your happiness until you reach your “ideal body weight”.

Each person is unique and this is recognized in a personalized functional nutrition assessment and intervention plan that engages and empowers the patient in this process to restore optimal function, manage symptoms and promote overall health and well-being.

Functional nutrition addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. We look at it from a root-cause perspective and create a focus on prevention through nutrition, therapeutic diets, targeted supplementation, exercise, interpretation of conventional and/or functional lab testing, botanicals, detoxification protocols, and stress management tools.

Overall from a whole body, root cause approach, to help you achieve sustainable weight loss we would look at healing insulin resistance, blood sugar dysregulation, gut health issues, mitochondrial dysfunction, hormone imbalances, and systemic inflammation using a therapeutical diet, targeted supplements, herbs, probiotic strains, and then work to rebalance the gut using the 5R Treatment Protocol linked here.

By addressing the underlying causes of — through personalized approaches like evidence-based nutrition, simple lifestyle changes, and targeted supplements — functional nutrition aims to bring the body back into balance and achieve long term sustainable weight loss.

1. Keshavarz Azizi Raftar S, Ashrafian F, Yadegar A, Lari A, Moradi HR, Shahriary A, Azimirad M, Alavifard H, Mohsenifar Z, Davari M, Vaziri F, Moshiri A, Siadat SD, Zali MR. The Protective Effects of Live and Pasteurized Akkermansia muciniphila and Its Extracellular Vesicles against HFD/CCl4-Induced Liver Injury. Microbiol Spectr. 2021 Oct 31;9(2):e0048421. doi: 10.1128/Spectrum.00484-21. Epub 2021 Sep 22. PMID: 34549998; PMCID: PMC8557882. ↩︎