Internal Instinct

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Internal Instinct

Lydia Irving is a holistic gut feeling Nutritionist. (BHSc Nut Med)

13/07/2025

Blaming sugar is missing the point.

Cutting out sugar doesn’t fix glucose tolerance.

In a healthy, well‑nourished body, sugar should move smoothly through glycolysis ➡️into the mitochondria ➡️and become ATP (energy!).

But if your metabolism is under‑resourced - low in key nutrients like B‑vitamins, minerals, amino acids - your ability to burn glucose gets compromised. Instead of being turned into energy, sugar can linger in the blood… which is what shows up as “poor glucose tolerance.”

It’s not that sugar itself is inherently bad. It’s that your body might not be equipped to handle it properly right now.

🫱🏽So before blaming sugar, look deeper:

Is your diet rich in nutrient‑dense foods?
Are you under chronic stress?
Are you skipping meals, undereating, or overtraining? Not moving enough? Constantly in conflict with yourself?
Avoiding sugar?
Imbalanced meals?

Glucose isn’t the villain. A sluggish, under‑nourished metabolism is.

08/07/2025

Think collagen is just a beauty buzzword?
Nah… it’s more like missing infrastructure for your skin, hormones and gut lining.

If you’re not eating slow-cooked meat,broth or chewy bits (hello cartilage), you’re probably low in the amino acid glycine. Glycine is what helps keep things smooth, stretchy and supported from the inside out.

It’s also super weird we mostly eat the just the muscle of an animal instead of nose to tail.

Collagen is not a magic pill, but it is a smart, low effort way to plug a real gap in a modern diet.

I trust for a reliable, clean collagen source. Use code WELLFED for a cheeky discount.

02/07/2025

Believe it or not, taking care of yourself is a whole lot easier when you’re not constantly criticising and berating yourself.

You can brain wash yourself to be okay with yourself ❤️

We do live in an interesting time where people talk about how you should “love yourself”. But then we are surrounded by media and close friends and family that are super judgmental and critical. Particularly of your appearance.

So here’s my gentle reminder, you don’t have to totally love yourself. But you totally deserve to learn to be okay with yourself.

14/02/2025

Happy Valentines Day to my Fiancé ❤️❤️❤️❤️

09/02/2025

I see beliefs about food being good or bad causing a barrier to health. Whether it’s fear of weight gain or fear of getting a migraine - even though it is your lived experience, is it actually true that it is the food that’s causing your problems?

I think food is important - it helps you have energy, it influences your metabolism, feeds different microorganisms, it’s the ingredients your cells use to build and replicate. AND there is much more to life and food.

I recently bumped into the partner of a client I just wrapped up a 3 month container with. They said to me “thank you so much for helping my partner, they are coming back to life. So much happier, more relaxed and energy is coming back”.

This person did have a lot of beliefs about food and eating that were creating more stress and causing under eating.

If this post pi**ed you off in some way, let’s talk about it ⬇️

30/01/2025

It’s important not to be so binary in your thinking when it comes to food. It’s never as simple as “good or bad”.

Thanks for inspiring this post

Is grain fed chicken bad for you?

The biggest issue with industrialised agriculture is that animals are raised indoors, fed low nutrient diets, don’t have access to bugs and grass and this has an impact on the health and nutrient availability of the animal products we then consume. (Don’t get me started on pharmaceuticals for animals!)

Grain fed chicken is not bad for you. Context is important. Prioritise: Pasture raised chickens from regenerative farms! 🐓

The potential harm caused by chickens eating corn and soy can be mitigated by them having access to bugs, sunshine, the earth and grass. These provide protective nutrients like Vit E to help prevent PUFA oxidation.

The best chicken to buy is:
🌞 lives mostly outdoors and rotated through different paddocks. Warm climate may be even better!
🌞 has access to grass, bugs and the soil (microbes and minerals!)
🌞 Is not only fed soy and corn
🌞 isn’t fed loads of pharmaceuticals

Would love to hear your comments below!

27/01/2025

In 2023 I enrolled in a course with Institute of Psychology of Eating. And this question is one of the journaling prompts I still use in clinic today. I think it’s super useful.

I think it is so important to understand the mind body connection. The digestive system is so powerfully linked to your thoughts and emotions. Sometimes we get stuck in a thought pattern that can cause a physical adaptation. This can be so subconscious or can be woven into our concept of “who we are”.

Many of the people I have worked with have expressed constant thoughts about how their body is not good enough. This isn’t just about appearance, often (especially in “health and wellness” spaces) it’s about how the function of the body isn’t good enough.

Thoughts and emotions are digestion can have an influence on how you digest.

Ever felt sick to your stomach at the thought of public speaking?
Ever thought about eating something sour to find yourself producing excess saliva?
Ever felt your guts drop when you see something horrific?
Ever had to poo several times and had diarrhoea right before a stressful event?

Well if you can relate to any of those. Imagine how constant low grade judgements of your body may be impacting its function.

20/01/2025

Happy Gut, HAPPY LIFE! Get to the Bottom 😉of IBS 🐛🐞

Good gut health is important. And I don’t think enough people are aware of the NECESSARY foundations.
28th Jan (next week!) 6.30pm (Sydney time) 🌏
Book in for this 1 hour online workshop. The workshop is recorded, so you can replay whenever!

Link via bio 😁

Address

48 Wharf Street, Level 1
Forster, NSW
2428

Website

https://lydia-s-site-5e23.thinkific.com/pages/internal-instinct

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