Success over Sugar: How to Develop Healthy Eating Habits with Dr. Ricki Heller

Christine Li: 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome back to the show. This is Episode 10. Are you in some sort of uneasy relationship with sugar? Would you like to make some important shifts to make your food intake a little bit healthier? You're going to learn so much about these topics and more in today's episode. My guest Dr. Ricky Heller is a healthy eating coach, educator, writer, and Whole Foods recipe developer. She helps people with dietary restrictions to love food again, without feeling deprived, so they can focus on healing and getting back to living their lives. She's the author of four books, including sweet freedom, which was recommended by Ellen DeGeneres and the best selling guide and cookbook, living Candida free. She is my personal Instagram story go to for her cute dogs Zoe, and her cooking demos that make me want to reach through the screen and eat with her at her table. Let's go listen to the episode. There's so much in it. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast if you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the make time for success podcast. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. I have a very special woman and amazing teacher. As my guest today. Her name is Ricky Heller. And she is knowledgeable on all sorts of different topics. And they're all I think, interesting to listeners of this show. I'm just going to guess that that's the case. So Ricky, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you here.

Ricki Heller: 2:19

Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Christine Li: 2:22

Ricky, can you do me a favor and give us an introduction to you and your areas of interest?

Ricki Heller: 2:29

For sure. So we were just discussing before the show, I started out as an English professor, but then, like so many people, I encountered some health issues. And that kind of led me to study in a different direction of holistic nutrition. I had what's called candida overgrowth. So that's an overgrowth of yeast in the body. And it requires a really, really restricted diet to help clear it. So I went and I studied holistic nutrition, because I really wanted to find out, like, why was my naturopath telling me to eat certain foods and not other foods and so on. And that actually, from there, I ended up doing some catering for a while and cooking classes. And I started a blog and began to chronicle what I was doing to clear my Candida. And that really led to this barrage of people contacting me because at the time, it was a very new and seldom discussed condition. And I had a food blog. And so there were really no recipes available at the time. So I ended up getting quite a sizable audience. And from there, I began to teach programs online for people with Candida I began to coach people one. And I ended up having a couple of books published as a result, once publishers discovered what I was doing, they asked me to publish a book on Candida, which is called Living Candida free. And that just led to more and more around this area of food. And what I found was dealing with with people for so many years, I've been working with Candida since about 2014. You know, the diet is really paramount. It's a very strict diet, you have to cut out all sugars, all moldy foods, a whole bunch of other stuff. And that's really, really essential if you want to heal. But it's an essential factor, but not as we say, a sufficient factor. So the diet is great, but unless you address other issues I discovered, then I found at least in my experience that people never completely healed if they didn't address what was going on in their own minds. And that's what led me to really focus a lot more on the mindset related to the dietary changes how we feel about the dietary changes how we feel about ourselves. And all of that combined, I think leads people to success to be able to change their diets for life and regain their health.

Christine Li: 4:47

That is an amazing story. I'm so glad I asked you to introduce yourself because I didn't know a lot of the first parts that you did so much exploration. I think of what was going on. When the naturopathic doctors were suggesting that you eat a certain way, and I can't wait to hear more of the details of what you've discovered in your journey, can you tell our audience? Let's start from the beginning? Can you just describe what candy that is? Just because people listening I would imagine might have some food and bodily issues, but they might not know what kind of candy it is.

Ricki Heller: 5:25

Sure. So Candida is a type of fungus. Actually, Candida albicans is the most common one. But there are many, many species of Candida. And it actually, it lives naturally in our digestive tract, along with bacteria, and germs, and parasites and worms, and all the things we don't like to think about that are actually in there, and are considered totally fine in a healthy gut, because in a healthy gut, all of the good bacteria, the probiotics, and the healthy lining of your gut actually keeps that in check. So it's kind of like this ecosystem where everybody's happy, and everybody's living harmoniously. But what happens is, if the gut balance is tipped out of control, out of balance, and that can be from really any external factors, like overuse of antibiotics, it can be from too much stress. It can be from eating too many processed foods, or sugars from certain illnesses over the counter drugs, so many things can create an imbalance. And when that happens, the Candida, which is what we call an opportunistic organism, it can just grow out of control. So I liken it to dancing lions, they're often called the dandy line of the digestive tract, because they're the thing that flourishes when everything else is dying, right. So if you think about like a beautiful lawn, it's lush, it's green, it's healthy, you have very few dandelions that can can survive there. But if there's like a horrible drought, and all the grass begins to turn yellow, then suddenly you see this entire lawn of dandelions, right. So that's kind of what happens with the Candida and when it is imbalanced, that way, it will take over the position on the digestive tract. So like the walls of your intestines are coated with all these healthy bacteria and little bits of these germs and microorganisms. But the Candida will take over and will take those positions up on the walls of the intestines, and they can create micro leaks and all kinds of issues because they give off toxins. So in fact, when we talk about candida overgrowth, and all of these symptoms that are concomitant to it, like, you know, they call it foggy brain foggy thinking, they have unbelievable sugar cravings, fatigue, muscle aches, all these symptoms that we think of sinus issues, rashes, any type of fungal issue that you're familiar with, like, you know, we think about athlete's foot, or toenail fungus, or all these fungal conditions, all of those are considered symptoms of Candida overgrowth, but in fact, they really are an effect of Candida overgrowth in the gut. So it's really that a gut imbalance allows Candida to overgrow, which then allows all these symptoms to occur. So if you address the imbalance and you rebalance the Candida by killing off the excess, and then reintroducing the proper microorganisms, people can regain a healthy gut. And once their gut is healthy again, then they regain their health as well.

Christine Li: 8:20

Okay, so thank you for explaining that. I love the dandelion analogy that makes a lot of sense. I'm wondering how did you decide to go to a naturopathic doctor to help you find the root of the issue?

Ricki Heller: 8:37

Because in general, this is not an accepted condition by conventional medicine. So if you go to a doctor, like an allopathic doctor, and you say I have candida overgrowth? Well, it's so interesting, as I've discovered over the years, and because one of my best friends is a doctor, and she explained this to me initially. So the first thing you'll discover is they pronounce it differently. They call it Candida. So this organism, Candida albicans, is in everyone all the time. But in conventional medicine, the only condition that has been recognized is basically Candida poisoning in the bloodstream. And that is a literal emergency critical condition. Someone could die within hours unless they're given antifungals, usually intravenously. So if you go into the doctor's office, and you say I have candida overgrowth, often they will laugh, because to their mind, you obviously don't have this deadly condition. Whereas in the alternative field, we began to talk about candida overgrowth in the gut many, many years ago, and it's only in recent years that I've recognized that the branch of functional medicine which is a fairly new branch of medicine, they recognize candida overgrowth in the gut as something that needs to be addressed. So if you were talking to an allopathic doctor, you might describe it differently. It would be what they consider a digestive imbalance or an imbalance in the digestive system. Something to That effect, because it's really always beginning in the gut. So that's why a conventional doctor might not diagnose you with Candida. And so I went to a naturopath because they immediately recognized what I was talking about. And they were the only ones who I felt took it seriously. So my external symptom initially was a horrific rash on my chest, it went all the way down to my belly button. It was it was horrible. And I went to my doctor, she sent me to a dermatologist gave me a cream, didn't do anything, went to a different dermatologist gave me a different cream. By the end of about a year and a half I'd seen close to, I think it was 14 dermatology, or 14 different doctors, maybe a dermatologist. And literally, no one could touch this, nothing was getting better. And so it was almost like a last ditch effort that I went to this natural path. And within a few months, I was already beginning to recover. Wow, I

Christine Li: 10:59

did not know you had to go to 14 doctors to start the healing process. I would imagine that stressful in itself that's adding to the stress.

Ricki Heller: 11:08

Yeah, and I think for so many people with Candida, and there are many conditions that are similar. I remember way back in the 90s, when I was teaching at the college, and my office mate, didn't know what was wrong with her. She went from doctor to doctor to doctor and was basically told she was exhausted all the time. And they said it's psychological. You need to see a therapist. Well, about 10 years later, the diagnosis of chronic fatigue was finally accepted among conventional doctors. And finally she had a diagnosis and she could start to do something about it. Right. So there are lots of conditions, I think that maybe just haven't been defined yet. You know, people walk around with conditions that no one can tell them what it is. And so rather than saying we don't know what to do about it, they're told something's wrong with you. Right. So I think that's what happens very often.

Christine Li: 11:57

Yes. So now I wanted to ask you, I think my small amount of reading on these topics reminds me that when the body produces symptoms, it's basically the body declaring there's an emergency. Am I right about that? Or did I describe that the right way?

Ricki Heller: 12:18

Well, I would say not necessarily an emergency. It depends how bad the symptoms are. But I think any symptom is a signal that something's not working correctly. For sure.

Christine Li: 12:28

Okay. Okay, good. So let's talk about the barrage of people who came to you, when you're writing your blog on this, what were people looking for? And what did you learn from having a pool of people to learn from?

Ricki Heller: 12:47

I think for a lot of them, it was just someone who was validating what they were going through. So they read my story, because, you know, I described sort of what was happening as it was going on, and I described my symptoms. And don't forget, my blog was basically a food blog at the time. And so I was also posting recipes. And when I had to go on this Candida diet, suddenly all my recipes were sugar free, egg free, dairy free, mold freely, they were Candida compliant. And so it was twofold. I think people felt validated because they read about my symptoms, and they had so many of them. And I started getting all kinds of questions about what did you do about the ringing in your ears? What did you do about the coating on your tongue? What did you do about your rash, you know, and so on. But at the same time, like I said, this diet is so restrictive, that it's really easy to fall off the diet and get back to the way you were eating before, which then just exacerbates your symptoms. And so people were, I think, really happy to have some recipes that actually tasted good, even though they were compliant on the diet. Because before that, when I had been searching, honestly, like there was just nothing. The average person on this date we eat like steamed chicken and broccoli, and you know, just the most plain basic food because the things that you think of as yummy food just weren't part of the diet. But I guess because of my background, as I had owned a bakery, I had done catering, I was obsessed with desserts my whole life. So because of that background, I was able to play with the ingredients I had, and come up with things that actually tasted good in my opinion. And luckily, the people who read my blog thought so too. So I think that's part of what increased my traffic to my blog was people came for the recipes as well.

Christine Li: 14:29

Ricky, I think now is a good time to mention your fantastic Instagram press. That's where I think we have in your Instagram Stories this live well, it seemingly live. Like we're in your kitchen with you as you whip up these magical treats and meals. Oh, so can you tell us first of all your Instagram handle and also kind of your experience of doing this in the current day of making food for people to Sure. So yeah, it's

Ricki Heller: 14:57

just Ricky Howard. Just my name on Instagram.

Christine Li: 15:00

I guess we should spell your name.

Ricki Heller: 15:02

Right. So it's ri ck I Heller, H e Ll er. And that's all one word on Instagram just at Ricky Heller. And yeah, I guess because like I said, I mean, I've been involved in baking and cooking in some way or another since I was a kid. And then when I turned this into a business, when my first book came out, which is called naturally sweetened, gluten free part of the promotion was being on television and doing some of these demos on TV where I would cook up the cake or cookies or whatever, on air with the host. And I realized that that time how much I loved that I had never done that before. And it was so much fun. I just loved being able to do that on camera and having to plan it so that you could fit it into four minutes or whatever. And just the banter with the host, I really, really enjoyed it. So what I ended up doing when I joined Instagram, I didn't do this initially. But over time, I just, you know, people would send me questions again about the food, can I have this food? Or what about this food? Do you have a recipe for a bread that's Candida friendly, or whatever. And so I realized people were very interested in how to cook this way. So naturally to me that when I'm making my breakfast, for instance, in the morning, I might just show people how I put it together. And often I will recreate the recipes that are already on my blog so people can see what they look like or how, you know, I don't know if this has happened to you. But often if I'm reading a cookbook, and it'll say, stir until you have a thin batter or whatever. And you think Well, what does that mean? What does a thin batter is? And how does it opposed to a thick batter. So this way they can see it, they can see the texture, they can see what it looks like as it's being created. And then what it looks like when it's finished. And it's fun for me and people seem to appreciate it too. So yes, I

Christine Li: 16:45

thank you for introducing me to chia seeds. So she has these are a great breakfast. And thank you Ricky for showing me

Ricki Heller: 16:54

love chia pudding.

Christine Li: 16:55

Could you tell us about your own, maybe back and forth journey with sticking to the diet just because I think it might help our listeners to know that even the experts have had back and forth moments.

Ricki Heller: 17:12

For sure. So because I consider myself a sugar addict from way back, my mother was type two diabetic, there were always sweets in our house. That is ultimately what killed my mother, she couldn't stay away from sugar. So for me growing up in that house where there were always homemade baked goods and my sister have two sisters, we all love to eat sweets. And so it was an issue for me my whole life I struggled with my weight I struggled with binge eating. And then I was initially diagnosed with Candida in 1999, way back in 1999. And I went on the diet, I was you know sort of Scared Straight kind of idea went on the diet very very strictly no sugar for I think it was over two years, no sweeteners at all. And then that was about the time I joined the nutrition school was feeling great change my diet completely eating a Whole Foods high vegetable diet, delicious, loved it, and felt fabulous. And so I did this for about 10 years, and I had introduced some natural sweeteners like maple syrup, and molasses and things like that. And I was doing fine. And then it was Christmas of 2008. I thought well, I feel great. You know, clearly, my candy has gone. I'm going to try having a little bit of these Christmas treats that are all around me everywhere, like the truffles and the short bread and whatnot. And I'll tell you, Christine, within three months, I not only was 100% back to eating all the garbage I'd eaten before and I was someone who I mean, honestly, I would eat, you know, half a pan of brownies for breakfast. Or I would have my favorite used to be a can of Betty Crocker frosting as a snack, like horrible binge eating, I was back to that. And that was when this rash sort of blossomed on my chest out of nowhere. And by that time, I was already a holistic nutritionist. So it's not as if I didn't know what to eat. I remember thinking when I looked at that rash and thinking can lead us back, but it was this tiny little dogs. So I just kept putting it off and putting it off. And by the time I went to my doctor, it was probably the size of a quarter. And by then it was already starting to grow. It was too late. So it was like an alcoholic who starts drinking again. Right, I was completely back to the old way of eating. And in 2009 when I was diagnosed for the second time, and that's when I went to all those dermatologists. I just realized that if I want to basically survive the rest of my life without major health problems, I can never eat sugar again. And it was that decision. I think that really helped me to stick with it. And I know from working with people now that it is such a recurrent problem for people but the thing with Candida anyway is and I think this is true for many chronic diseases is every time You slip up and you get a recurrence of it, it's a little bit stronger, and it's a little bit harder to get rid of it. And that definitely was the case with Candida. So what occurred to me as I was working with people and seeing these slip ups and, and remembering my own slip up, that you really need to stick with a healthful diet for the rest of your life, if you want to keep your Candida under control. And that's what kind of led me to thinking about. It's more than just the diet because we know what the diet is, I knew what I was supposed to eat. It was more an issue of how do you ensure that you stick with it? That's the thing that you need to solve?

Christine Li: 20:39

Yes. So we were just talking about your three part model about how we can make changes around our eating. Could you tell us about that, too?

Ricki Heller: 20:53

Sure. Yeah. And I mean, this really grew out of the Candida diet. So for most people on the Candida diet, it's sugar, that's an issue or refined foods like white flour, white sugar, but honestly, I mean, I think in I'm gonna say, in Western society, sugar is an issue for almost everybody. Because the truth is white sugar, nobody needs to eat white sugar ever, it is totally not necessary for your body's nutritional needs, right. But yet, we live in a world where sugar is around us all the time. And so what I do with clients now, and what I have found works for ultimately, for success there, there are three areas that you need to address if you want to clear sugar out of your diet, or even if you want to change your diet from one that's sort of the sad standard American diet to a whole foods healthier diet. And the first one is really the food itself. So that's where you get to understanding the foods you can eat, and the foods you can't eat. And for each person, it's a little bit different. But I'm just going to say, let's say we want to clear sugar, because that seems to be something that most people would like to at least reduce in their lives. So that's the first thing and sometimes, what compels us to eat sugar is simply an imbalance in our blood sugar. So you're probably familiar with the idea of the 3pm crash kind of thing, right. And that happens because people eat a refined flour, sugar breakfast often, and then they have these blood crashes in the afternoon. And your body physically requires more sugar just to feel like you're awake at that point, so that you like you have energy. And I always laugh when I think about this, because this used to happen to me every day when I was teaching. And I will never forget, there were days when I was teaching. These are the days where I might have had brownies for breakfast, right? I'd have this horrible sugar crash around 3pm. And I was so physically exhausted at that moment that I would have to shut the door to my office. Luckily, it did not have a window, and I would put my hand on my desk and I would take a little nap because I literally couldn't keep my eyes open. So that's like an ultimate sugar crash. So for many people, if that's really the only reason you're heading for sugar, because you're having this crash, once you rebalance your food and you stop eating all of those refined foods, then you're fine. And you don't have those cravings anymore. I will say, at least with the people that I've worked with, that's maybe one to 2% of the population that that works for alone. So then there are the two other levels that I think you also need to work on if you want to completely reverse your relationship with sugar. And the second is your habits. So, so many of us, we just eat out of habit, and it's automatic, and we don't even realize we're doing it. So an example would be you sit down at night to watch Netflix with your husband, and you grab a bowl of popcorn, or you grab a bowl of potato chips. It's just what you do every night when you're watching TV, right? We're eating mindlessly, and we're eating out of pure habit. So if we get the habits under control, we change the habits, that's a second level. And then the third level, which I think is actually the most challenging, but it's the most far reaching is emotional eating, where we eat because we're upset or we eat because we're bored. It's basically a way of addressing the emotions so that we don't have to face those emotions head on. You know, there's like the cliche of the woman who eats a pint of Ben and Jerry's when she breaks up with her boyfriend, right? Because the sadness is too difficult to face alone. So the food helps to mitigate that sadness. So, for me, the really important levels are two and three, the habits and the emotions. But the thing is, if we don't have the food first, then it's often very difficult to work on those. So like as an example, with emotional eating. A lot of the practitioners who work only on emotional eating, talk about being able to reach a level of moderation with sugary foods where because you have your emotions under control, then you're not reaching for the sweets all the time and that you're just not going to be drawn to them the same way. And while I think that's true That takes time, right? So I'm still working on my emotional eating, after five years of working on it, I'm still not 100%. If someone is just starting out, and they're learning how to do that, they're still going to have those cravings in the beginning, they're still going to have those urges in the beginning, and they're going to go reach for the sugar. So that's where the first level of the food balancing for me is critical. Because what happened with me was when I first started the Candida diet, yes, I still had sugar cravings. But at least I had these sugar free, delicious treats that I could turn to kind of I think of it almost as a bridge while you're working on the emotions and the habits. And I was able to feed the craving with something sweet, without actually harming my physical health at the same time.

Christine Li: 25:45

How do you feel having conquered this? What are the experiences emotional experiences and your your belief in yourself, What changed?

Ricki Heller: 25:57

It's an amazing change. And it's such a slow incremental change that honestly like day to day, you don't feel different at all. But there are days when pre COVID, I would have a dinner party or invite friends for dinner or something. And I would make what I think is an elaborate, delicious dessert, because I still love making desserts. But it is a sugar free, right. And I would serve this to everybody and everybody would really enjoy be delicious. And then we'd have these leftovers. And in the old days, I probably would have maybe in that night continued to eat, it probably finished it up the next morning. Whereas now you know, it strikes me sometimes the things been sitting there for five days, and I'm fine having one cookie, or one chocolate truffle, right. And the thing is whether they have sugar or not, if you're an emotional eater, you're still going to go for 10 of them, which is what I did at the beginning. But once you master the emotional eating, then that means you don't need those cookies to help you with your feelings anymore. So it just means that you're able to better deal with the negative emotions internally and psychologically than you were before. And like I said, I don't think I'm 100%. Like I still get upset, I still get cravings. But I'm so much better able to notice them and intercept them. And now I have other tools that I can use instead of the food, if I'm upset or sad or depressed or bored or whatever. And it makes a huge difference.

Christine Li: 27:23

Great, great. It sounds like a wonderful ending to this story, which is great. But we're not over yet. Well, I have at least one more question. We're not there yet. It sounds like you just described the details of habit change. Could you teach our listeners? What are the core components of a habit? So when you say the word, I intercept that now, what that all means together?

Ricki Heller: 27:47

Sure. So I was talking about emotional eating, which would be intercepting an emotion. So there's this level of mindfulness, we call it where you're just paying attention to what you're doing and why you're doing it. So that would be sort of a precursor to the habit changes the mindfulness, where you notice what's happening. And it's almost like stepping back as the observer of yourself and determining when does this happen? And asking yourself, why does it happen in terms of my emotions. So if I think of an example, this might be one example, and it's very basic, but when I used to visit my family in Montreal, the first thing I always did was go to the kitchen and open the fridge and see what was on the fridge, right? Because that was a habit, we all did that. So it's noticing that I do that. So it's the awareness of it is the first thing. And in that case, there's always a trigger or a prompt to the habit. So we can call that the cue as well. That's another term that's often used for it, what is the thing that's prompting the behavior. So in my case, it's going into my parents house, right. And then the behavior itself, which is the habit with what's also called the routine that's going to the kitchen and opening the fridge. And then once you know what that is, you can change the habit. So you can either change the prompt, or you can change the environment. So for example, if I wanted to stop that habit, I could become aware before I go in the house, and create a plan for myself that when I go into the house, I am going to go into the living room instead of the kitchen as my first step. So what that does is that intercepts the behavior. And now you're aware, and so you have a much better chance of doing something different because you've changed the environment where you are.

Christine Li: 29:38

Thank you so much for teaching us about habits teaching us about Candida, teaching us about your journey to which is totally a success story. Could you please Now tell us what you're doing with your followers and what you're doing online and what you'd like our listeners to know About You.

Ricki Heller: 30:01

Absolutely. So I am still working on one on one with clients to change their eating habits in terms of many people that I work with do have Candida, and they're working on a Candida diet. But I work with anyone who's on a restricted diet and has had difficulty sticking with it or found it challenging to stick with it. Maybe they fallen off the wagon. So we work through those three phases together so that they can end up at the end, having conquered all three of the food, the habits and the emotions. And that way you can attain freedom with your food. And it allows people to stay on that diet for the rest of their lives, a healthy diet that supports their good physical health. So I do that one on one. And I also am running workshops intermittently this year. So one that I guess will have probably already happened by the time we air is a sugar freedom workshop where I'm actually just teaching the basics of what are the alternative sweeteners to sugar, how do you use them? How do you implement them in your food and so on. So short workshops like that, where I look at specific topics related to healthful eating, and I am also working on a new cookbook. So that's going to be coming out at the end of this year, I think, with healthy breakfasts, so sugar free, gluten free, dairy free egg free breakfasts for people who are interested in that

Christine Li: 31:21

wonderful with chia pudding, I'm sure.

Ricki Heller: 31:25

Always to pudding.

Christine Li: 31:26

Always. Yeah. So what we will make sure to link all of those books and resources and programs in the shownotes. For you, Ricky, and I believe you have a free gift for our listeners as well. Could you talk about that?

Ricki Heller: 31:41

Sure. It's called three simple shifts to stay on track now. And it's for again, people who have found it challenging perhaps in times of COVID to stay on their healthful diet, and it's three shifts that you can make. It's at Ricki heller.com. So just my name wikihow.com forward slash, three simple shifts. So it's the number three and the words simple shifts, and they can find it there.

Christine Li: 32:05

Okay, wonderful. Thank you, Ricky, you are a joy and a genius and such a good friend. Thank you so much for coming on the show and teaching us today.

Ricki Heller: 32:18

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Christine Li: 32:19

We'll see you soon everyone. Tune in to the next episode. Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of The make time for success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website make time for success podcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. We'll talk to you soon