Episode 282: How to eat to change how you drink, with Dr. Brooke Scheller
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And here’s another thing that nobody tells you when you’re trying to reduce your drinking. Your alcohol cravings at happy hour are not just about needing a break after a hard day. And they’re definitely not about how much you just love wine. In reality, you haven’t eaten since noon and your blood sugar is in the basement. This is about what you ate for lunch or more accurately, what you didn’t eat. What I’ve learned doing this work and what my guest today is going to blow your mind with
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is that you can’t white knuckle your way through a nutritional deficiency. You can’t mindset your way around a physiological problem. And yet most of us try to do exactly that and then beat ourselves up when it doesn’t work. Today I’m sitting down with Brooke Scheller, a doctor of clinical nutrition and author of How to Eat to Change How You Drink. And she’s going to explain why your evening drinking habits are not a sign that you lack willpower.
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You lack protein, vitamins, and minerals. This conversation will give you easy, simple ideas for how to bridge the gap today between where you’re at and where you want to be. And spoiler alert, you don’t need to try harder. You need to eat breakfast.
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My name is Colleen and I’m a mindful drinking coach helping high achieving professional women permanently reduce their alcohol consumption by 80%. Join me each week for evidence-based holistic strategies to regulate your nervous system, balance your dopamine, and activate the growth mindset that makes you so powerful in other areas of your life so you can stop worrying about losing control and trust yourself again.
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Get happy, not sober. It’s not about the alcohol.
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Dr. Brooke Scheller, I am so excited to have you on the show. I’ve been hoping to land you as a guest, so I appreciate you taking the time to be here. Would you do the honors and introduce yourself to my audience? Tell us who you are, what you do, and maybe a little bit about why you do it. Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me, Colleen. I’m so happy that we got connected, and I’m excited for our conversation today. So I’m excited to also be here with your audience and share more.
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insights about using nutrition, food and supplements to support your alcohol reduction goals, whatever that looks like for you. And I’m a doctor of nutrition by trade. I have several degrees in nutrition and didn’t get sober until 2021. Got all my degrees before I got sober. And I was the nutritionist that, you know, wanted to prove that you could have alcohol and still be healthy.
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And I was really, you know, I talk about this a lot in my book. I talk about my story and how I really felt like I was living a double life for a long time. And I know a lot of folks who are interested in health and nutrition, also drinkers, they kind of get caught in that push pull of feeling like, oh, I know maybe I’m kind of overdoing it. Maybe I can take supplements and.
03:20
out, you know, kind of outdo the damage that I’m doing. And in my case, it really became clear for me, I got sober, not specifically out of health reasons, but because my drinking had escalated during COVID and I had gotten to the point where I was like, this is not, it’s not good. I was kind of tired of how I was feeling. And a few months into my sobriety, I had this realization that we really needed to be as a whole talking more about
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how alcohol affects the body, things like our gut microbiome, our hormones, our nutrient levels, and really how we can use nutrition to support this practice of changing how we drink. So it’s a really important topic. I think it’s really overlooked and I’m excited we’re gonna share it with your audience today. Well, it’s interesting because, you know, I did a period of time where I stayed sober and I know whether you’re getting sober or whether you’re just trying to reduce your drinking,
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I think we don’t understand the importance of brain food and the neurotransmitters. I know when I got completely sober, I had what in some circles is called post-acute withdrawal syndrome and the dopamine deficit. And this can last 18 months to two years. And I was just like, eh every morning I have no motivation. And there’s so much that goes into motivation, including the story you’re telling yourself about what you want.
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And as a high performer who wants to check all the boxes, it makes sense that I was coming up with no motivation when the reason for getting through the day had changed. So there’s a lot of psychology there, but you really can’t even address the psychology if you’re running on a deficit with nutrition. And I think that that is the most overlooked, you know, basic practices. I was a vegan, intermittent, faster.
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and I completely quit alcohol and completely quit vaping and got off Adderall at the same time and then wondered why the hell I couldn’t get out of bed. then now I’ve learned so much with nutrition. So why don’t you talk to me just a little bit about some of the building blocks or the nutritional deficiencies that hide in plain sight, especially for heavy drinkers or just normal eaters. Yeah, well Colleen, you hit the nail on the head right there too, because anytime we experience any type of
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withdrawal symptom, even if we quit or cut back and we feel like, gosh, I feel like I should be feeling better because I’m not drinking, but we’re feeling fatigued, maybe our mood is still off or experiencing anxiety. Those things to me are indicators of nutritional issues. So our body uses nutrients to run all of its processes. And this is what a lot of us overlook.
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And I think we get hooked on the new trends, the new diets, the plant-based, the intermittent fasting, all the things you mentioned. And we forget about the basics. We forget about those core pieces, like just simply getting nutrients into your diet. And one of the big challenges with alcohol in particular is alcohol is very, very deleterious to our nutrients.
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It will lower levels of essentially all of our nutrients across the board. So everything from our B vitamins to vitamin D to vitamin C to magnesium, zinc, iron. I mean, you name it and alcohol can have an impact on it. And that is because the metabolism of alcohol is very energy intense. It requires a lot of nutrients to kind of break that down and repair the damage that is done.
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So when we’re drinking even a few times a week, we’re going to be setting ourselves back a little bit from a nutrient standpoint. And what I have found, and I do a lot of testing in my clients, I actually have some online programs that allow you to get testing and we provide you with custom reports and things for that. But what I find often in my clients who are quitting drinking is we’re seeing some level of nutrient deficiency.
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And that by rectifying that either with food or a supplement, we can really start to shift and change the way that they feel and kind of make it easier, right? We often think, Colleen, like you’re talking about, like, we just have to, like, white knuckle it and hold on and say, like, well, I know this is not going to feel great, but let me just try to get through it. And that often leads people back to a drink or back to those bad habits. And the reality is that our body is sending us a signal. So.
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really looking at the physiology, not just the psychology. Yes, the psychology is important, but I really believe that the physiology is the other 50 % of the puzzle. Yeah, I believe that too. Like you said, we have to learn how to interpret the signals from our body differently. And this whole idea, the phrase, I want a drink. Your body doesn’t ever 0 % of the time crave alcohol. She craves water, sunlight, nutrients.
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uh rest, relief, she craves connection, and we tend to not think of our bodies as this independent thing. And then because we don’t understand what we’re missing, then we get into those loopholes of, well, just have, I’m weakness or I just love alcohol. One of the things I say on social media is if you stay up too late drinking wine, it is not because you just love the taste of wine, but we’re not able, we’ve never been taught the language
09:00
to understand and interpret what our brains think we want. You want more energy, you want less stimulation, you need more blood sugar, your hormones are off. Like there’s so many things that your brain’s just trying to solve the problem, shortest distance, grab me a drink, and then this feeling will go away, and then problem solved. Except of course it’s not.
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Right. And a lot of times it’s just temporary numbing of whatever that feeling actually is, right? So a big part of this process, I’m sure you speak about this often, is getting better at identifying that thing. When that idea of, I need a drink comes up, like pausing and saying, well, what is it that I really need? Is it, gosh, something I talk about a ton in my book is blood sugar regulation. Because what I see in both the literature, but also
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in the clients that I’ve worked with is low blood sugar as a major trigger for alcohol cravings. And when is it that we crave alcohol the most? It’s usually that five or six PM timeframe, end of a long stressful day. Well, you know, with a lot of my clients, I say to them, when was the last time you had something to eat? And they said, oh, lunchtime five or six hours ago, right?
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that signal that you’re getting that intense craving for alcohol in the afternoon is very likely to be a hunger signal or a thirst signal. But because of the way we’ve linked those two pieces together, we’ve linked alcohol with that time, it’s, I think I need the drink and I can’t, I can’t say no to that. And really by bringing in an afternoon snack, something with more protein, filling yourself up a little bit, that
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is very likely to, and I have clients who say that cures the happy hour cravings because they didn’t realize that it’s their body just saying, hey, I’m hungry. Yeah, yeah. Anytime you’re craving, you know, not just alcohol, but like too much alcohol, or you’re craving it because you’re trying to sue the problem. It’s not a social connection and you’re enjoying the wine with your dinner, but too much is a sign of too little somewhere.
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Like you’re running on a deficit and your brain’s just trying to solve the problem and you’re not thinking very hard about it. So why don’t you talk to me, if we could layer this in just a little bit, most of the women in my audience are midlife and hormones are a factor. What’s the connection between alcohol cravings, hormones, or even hormones with alcohol when you are not drinking? Like what’s going on there?
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Yeah, hormones are a huge topic as it relates to alcohol. And, you know, it’s one of those things that I think feel very far apart for people. For example, we know that alcohol affects the liver. We know that, oh, gosh, if I drink too much, my energy is influenced the next day. We don’t always necessarily think like, oh, if I’m having hormone symptoms, that’s because of the alcohol. When the reality is it’s very likely to be so. oh
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The hormones are a very complicated system, not just because as women we have natural fluctuations when we’re younger throughout the month, as we are getting into our 40s and 50s we’re getting closer to menopause and those more drastic changes. We’ve got a lot going on in the interim and people think that hormones equals sex hormones and yes, sex hormones are a part of that. But hormones in general,
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are things like our blood sugar, our blood sugars regulated by hormones, our stress, our stress is influenced by hormones. And all of these things are kind of, I often like to think of it as like an orchestra or a symphony and how you’ve got the strings playing this song or this part over here and you’ve got the woodwinds over here. And these are all of your hormone systems like the sex hormones, the thyroid, the stress hormones.
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the blood sugar regulating hormones. And so it’s complex, it’s complex. And for every person, it’s individualized. And so the really important thing to understand is that alcohol by nature of the way that it stresses our cortisol, most of us think alcohol helps relieve stress. I always tell people that’s the biggest myth in the world because we now know that alcohol increases cortisol levels.
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drives cortisol levels up, that stress has a downward spiraling effect on hormones. And that includes the sex hormones like estrogen and progesterone and testosterone. And what we know in the research is that alcohol can influence essentially every component of those hormones. So we see uh worsening in menopause symptoms or kind of the symptoms that might lead us to think we’re in
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menopause. uh We see in women who are of menstrual age that PMS can be worsened, that we have maybe more of those mood swings or fluctuations. We see changes to fertility with those who are drinking, especially higher amounts. And we’re seeing a worsening of those menopause symptoms as well. The other thing that I think is really critical to understand is while we know alcohol influences the liver,
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most women aren’t aware that the liver is also a major center of hormone metabolism. And when we are constantly or frequently putting alcohol into our system, we’re basically putting a pause on all of these other normal systems and processes that are happening in the liver. We see buildup of excess estrogen byproducts.
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And this is something that is actually linked to why alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer specifically. So it’s complex for sure, but I can tell you that if you are experiencing hormone imbalances and you’re drinking at least once or twice a week, those two things are very likely to have some relationship with one another. All right, well, let’s talk about solutions and bridging the gap. uh
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okay, I hear you doctor, I’m not ever gonna drink again. What are some ways with either foods or supplements that someone, know, we can support our bodies to improve liver metabolism of excess estrogen and processing of our cortisol. Like how can we bridge the gap? Yes, well, that’s the good news is that there is a way out. There is an escape hatch from it all and
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Colleen, I know your audience varies in terms of people who are sober, sober curious, more in the mindful drinking category. And for me, from health perspective, I really like to look at it as tying it back to our health. And if you do have health issues or health concerns or health goals, looking at how that alcohol is influencing health too, because a lot of times we’re looking for, what is that?
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that’s gonna make it stick for us. And what I find in a lot of the people that I have worked with personally is the health is the thing that helps it stick. So whether that is sticking to, you know, cutting back in your mindful approach, or maybe that looks more like longer stints of sobriety for other people. But back to your question at hand is really that, yes, the good news is we can repair and there are a lot of ways that we can do that.
16:51
Yes, we want to address supporting the liver. So I talk a ton in my book about certain foods that help to support liver health, like beets. Beets are one of my go-to food recommendations. They scare most people. People either love them or hate them. And I actually have a ton of recipes in the book for beets because
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For me, the first way I incorporated them in was doing a borscht, basically like a chicken soup with beets in it. And I kind of give a variety of things, including like a beet hummus. I do a beet smoothie a lot of times because beets also, in addition to supporting the liver and cleaning out the liver, they’re really good for helping to get more oxygen and blood flow to the brain, which is a...
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specifically helpful in the mornings. So I like a beet smoothie because it can really kind of help vascularize the brain and get you thinking more clearly and staying more focused. So can I ask a question about beets? Yes. First of all, I think they should come with a warning label. Red beets make your poop very almost black. And so that can be alarming. Also for me, I can eat beets. I know they’re good for me, but I really like golden beets.
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Is there a difference nutritionally? You know, I always assume the brighter the color, the more antioxidants, the more rich the nutrient profile. But is there any difference from your perspective? Well, they’re going to have different antioxidant properties based on the color. And so I do like the focus on the red beats. They can tend to turn stool kind of that pinkish, bloodish, urgent.
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you know, uh-oh color. Yeah, so good disclaimer, Colleen. Also in some, they can turn the urine slightly pink too. So yes, keep that in mind if you’re eating them. I prefer the red nutrient profile versus the golden, but both are okay. The red has a lot more of these, what we call anthocyanins. It’s an antioxidant that is specifically good for the liver and the gut and the brain as well. So.
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Great question. And incorporating both, I think, can be helpful in similar ways. OK, so beets, what else? Another category family I like is broccoli. I’m wearing my veggie sweater today for our interview. Very good. So I’ve got broccoli over here. So good. Broccoli and broccoli’s cousins, like cauliflower and kale and cabbage, all of these are in a family called cruciferous vegetables.
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and they help us to produce a uh compound called glutathione. And glutathione is our body’s master antioxidant. I run a lot of testing on people, oftentimes see that glutathione is low, especially in someone with a drinking history, because glutathione is going to be utilized to kind of calm down some of the damage from alcohol metabolism. So getting more of these broccoli
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cauliflower, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, anything in that family. Those are really, really good as well. All right. So I have some questions there. Broccoli versus broccoli sprouts, micro greens. It’s a lot easier to consume a lot more. And I think sprouts are known to have much more higher levels of certain things. But obviously broccoli itself is higher fiber. So you get more of the probiotics.
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But compare broccoli, broccoli sprouts, and then supplementing with glutathione, or is there a derivative that you would actually take? Yeah, so great questions. You’re very knowledgeable on this. I love it. So yes, the microgreens, the sprouts are going to have really what they say is that all of the nutrients in the larger plant are kind of condensed into that smaller version. So you get a lot more in a smaller package.
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I like to suggest incorporating both of those because you’re going to get a lot of the nutrient compounds in the sprouts. But yes, if you’re only eating the sprouts, you’re missing out on the fiber, which is another key component. And we didn’t talk too much about the gut and how alcohol influences the microbiome. But in many folks, we see changes to probiotic levels.
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we need to support via more foods that support the gut like the fiber. So it’s a great question. And I would say it’s kind of about bringing in both. There are ways to supplement glutathione. Kind of controversial on if it survives stomach acid or not. So there are different forms that you can take. But you can also take NAC, N-Acetylcysteine.
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which is the compound that helps to produce glutathione. So you’re taking its precursor essentially to kind of bypass that breakdown. And NAC2 I use often with cravings. It can help with cravings for alcohol. And it’s something that is really, I think, one of the foundational tools to be used in our alcohol recovery, know, repair toolkit.
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NAC specifically. NAC specifically, yes. There’s so many different things, like there’s the NAC, there’s also NAD, and then we’re talking about glutathione, which I think I’ve tried to supplement before, but it’s very, I’d rather just eat my broccoli and be sane. And then there’s also like glutamate, and there’s so many different things that sound similar.
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But you’re saying NAC is a precursor of glutathione and that if you’re going to add a supplement to support alcohol detox, things like that, that NAC would be a good choice there. NAC is a great choice there. um You bring up a great point, which is that it is very complicated. There’s a lot of different things in supplements and we see and hear a lot of stuff on Instagram. m
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everywhere we get our news or media, we hear about another supplement. And I really believe it’s helpful to work with a practitioner or someone to kind of help guide you and support you on that journey so that you can figure out how to get the most bang for your buck, if you will. Because supplements are great, but foods are great too. So I love that Colleen that getting the sprouts is easier for you than taking the supplement.
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others might find the reverse is true for them. So it’s really getting that individualized support and experience. bring up glutamate, glutamine is an amino acid, another supplement that I use often for overcoming alcohol cravings. And it’s something that I used personally early on in my journey and I use a lot with clients. It’s like I said, an amino acid, pretty quick and simple supplement to take, but again, it does get
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complex and complicated for sure. Yeah, we use or suggest like a small profile for neurotransmitters L-glutamine, the, did I say that right? It’s the L and then is it glutamine, glutamate? I get confused, but it’s that one plus tyrosine, also GABA. I think those are the three that, and then of course there’s derivatives and L-theanine and there’s so many different things. And like you said,
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it gets real expensive, you know, and I spend more time in my bathroom swallowing stuff than I do in my kitchen making stuff. And then, you know, it just can, then you get pill fatigue and then you’re like, I just want to give up. So let’s go back to the food aisle. Like I’m envisioning myself walking through the grocery store, getting the foods I’m going to make, the wine I want to drink with dinner. What else should I pick up? Broccoli, beets, what else?
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Yeah. So, you know, one of the categories that I want to make sure we cover is just talking about protein. just like you said, Colleen, early on you were vegan and not that vegan or plant-based vegetarian diets are bad per se, but they oftentimes lack protein. It is a lot more challenging to get high protein amounts or
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amounts that keep our blood sugar really regulated when we’re only eating plant-based because those plant-based sources of protein also come along with carbohydrates or fats. Whereas when we’re eating animal protein, we’re getting kind of much more of that pure protein type of food. And so I am a huge proponent of increasing protein, increasing protein, getting it up as high as you can and not for the sake of muscle building like we think.
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but really for the sake of the brain. so Colleen, like we’ve been talking about, L-glutamine, L-tyrosine, L-theanine, these are amino acids. Amino acids are what we call the building blocks of protein. And our body makes some amino acids, but there are nine amino acids that we need to actually get from foods. And so if we are not consuming enough protein,
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we are going to potentially have two major things go on that can influence this alcohol situation. One is that it’s not going to allow us to get maybe some of these amino acids that help support the production of serotonin and dopamine and GABA. So protein is really, really, really important for the brain. And it’s something that I think is really overlooked in the discussion about the importance of protein.
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I see a lot of people who are vegan, vegetarian, not getting enough protein, who experience things like anxiety, depression, mood disorders of some kind, and or alcohol challenges. Well, you know, it’s, always think we think reductionist, you know, what causes what, but I think there’s such a system. And when I look back at my own descent into daily drinking, hello COVID, let’s drink through this.
27:18
So much of that could also have been explained by the plant-based diet, which I still have been indoctrinated and I do have one gut health question in terms of protein, but just to share by not eating regular breakfast, just that, vegan or not, when I introduced breakfast back, I was like,
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my brain worked so much better, you know, and I think I also came off of eating disorders where, you I was calling it intermittent fasting. To me, it was just anorexia 2.0, like, let’s just be honest here. And then- Yeah, like approved anorexia. Right. Yeah. Now I’m back in the cool kid crowd, you know, it’s, I’m intermittent fasting. I’m on a 16 eight or, whatever. But what I have noticed now just as a menopausal woman,
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eating my breakfast, having it high in protein versus the oatmeal, you know, I’m doing eggs and avocado or whatever, I function, my mood, my energy levels, I feel so much better. And I’m not really even hungry. I just eat like it’s a prescription from a doctor. But I do have a question about red meat specifically. And this is just me now one person to another. We’re not even interviewing anymore because there’s stuff out there that red meat is inflammatory. I know when I
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came off the vegan diet, it was literally prescriptive from my naturopath because I was having so many problems and she said, you know, well, here’s more supplements since you won’t change your diet. And I was like, hold the bus. What do I need to change? Like I’m tired of swallowing all this stuff and dealing with all these problems. And she said, you know, one to two ounces of red meat, one to two ounces of chicken, one to two ounces of fish every week, just eat it medicinally. And that’s kind of how I came out of my hardcore vegan diet. But, you know, back when I was vegan,
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red meat was, know, there’s a, is it the TMOI? There’s some sort of thing in the gut that is very inflammatory. Can you speak to red meat specifically as a protein source? Yeah, I think that this is a great, great question. I want to comment quickly on what you mentioned about having breakfast because this is part of my nutrition protocol for changing the way you drink is not only protein at every single meal, but it’s
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having something to eat every three or four hours, starting within that first hour of waking up. And that is because of blood sugar regulation, as you mentioned. And if we set off our blood sugar with an imbalance first thing in the morning, it usually funks up the whole rest of the day. So if we skip, we’re usually like our blood sugar’s dropping, dropping, dropping. By the time we eat, we’re starving. We eat whatever, and now we’re going...
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up and down like this all day. And that’s going to lead to some of those cravings, potentially leading to some of the alcohol cravings. So super important breakfast, high protein, protein throughout the day for sure. Red meat is of course a controversial subject and I am not a huge proponent of red meat like say the carnivore diet is where they’re kind of suggesting to just eat red meat, eat red meat.
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um I think there’s two important things to keep in mind. One is quality. So a grass-fed ground beef or beef product is going to have a different fat profile than a conventionally uh grown beef. And the reason that that is is because whatever the cow feeds on influences their fat breakdown, just like uh us, right? And so if they’re consuming a diet of grass, which is providing them with
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beta-carotene and other nutrients, it’s very different than if they’re being fed soy, corn, processed grains, which is what a lot of the conventionally fed ones are. And so that influences the fatty acid profile. It influences several other characteristics of the meat itself. And so what I would say is quality is really important and not overdoing it. So I think red meat can be really good.
31:29
I think that there are a lot of nutrients like L-carnitine, some of these amino acids that are really beneficial in it, but also not overdoing it and not going full carnivore. Well, I really like that you mentioned the source of your food. And that’s one thing I’m later in life considering. What did what I eat eat? I know somebody was trying to sell me, I think it was a catfish or something like, yeah, they just eat all the shit off the bottom of the pond. And I’m like, I do not want to eat the thing that eats all the shit off the bottom of the pond. But thank you anyway.
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But even thinking, as I came out of my vegan diet, realizing like there’s a difference in eggs. You know, the factory farmed high, highly processed system that creates, you know, a million eggs a day. The profile is between the fatty acids. It’s much higher in the, and now I’m not recalling it, but there’s a profile and that it’s like 20 to one. An egg like that is bad for you.
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and yet an egg from a chicken that has have a happy life and sunshine and real food, it’s actually good for you. And we don’t ever think about that. You know, now it’s like, I won’t eat an egg in an airport, but I will, I love, you know, farm raised chickens and my friends that have them give them to me because they’re completely two different products. And I don’t think we always talk so much about that.
32:53
Yeah, well, you see that, you you may have seen in the grocery store that some eggs label that they have omega-3s in them. Omega-3s, omega-6s, these are different types of fat. The omega-6s are more inflammatory. The omega-3s are anti-inflammatory. Most of us are not getting enough of the omega-3s and we’re getting omega-6s from more of the vegetable oils, the unhealthy kind of fats.
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And this is, I believe, what’s more influential when it comes to meat.
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that profile, that breakdown, the way that that has been produced has a big influence on how it’s going to affect your body. So it’s not that all red meat is bad or an egg yolk is bad, but I’d rather you be having these egg yolks over here, the better quality ones than the ones at the airport, like you said. Yeah, that’s the ratio I was talking about, omega-3 to omega-6. And it’s dangerously off in a...
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concentrated animal organization product versus, you’re going to pay more, but you’re going to pay either way for your health. So you can pay on the front end or you can pay on the back end. and there’s whole debate right now about seed oils and why seed oils are bad and how seed oils are in everything. Part of that has to do with omega-6 and 3 profiling because seed oils, a lot of the vegetable oils are just
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higher in these omega-6s. The American diet is complicated for many reasons, but again, if you’re eating red meat and you’re having it alongside fresh veggies, some whole grains, that is very different than if you’re eating a cheeseburger with three pieces of cheese and the bread and the French fries, the fried oils.
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Those two things are drastically different. So it’s not so much about don’t eat red meat, red meat is bad. It’s how’s your diet overall and how is that red meat being incorporated? Yeah. All right. So can we just go back to the grocery store and just end up with a couple of more items that we need to put on our list? So high quality red meat in small amounts, high quality eggs, I’m going to stick that in there. We’ve got our broccoli. We’ve got our beets.
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What other foods, you know, that we could just easily introduce into our diet and boost our brain power and our detox properties in our bodies? Well, I would be remiss if we didn’t talk a little bit about fish. Okay. And the importance of omega-3s found in fish. Fish is really unique that if I work with a vegetarian or vegan, my first thing is
35:55
If we’re gonna talk about meat, can it at least be fish? Because fish is, has high protein, which is what these other chicken does as well. But in addition to the protein, fish like salmon is going to have a lot of omega-3s. It’s going to have vitamin D. It’s going to have B12, selenium, lots of vitamins and minerals in it as well. And there is amazing research around omega-3s specifically and the brain.
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Everything from reducing neuroinflammation to improving cognition to supporting mood, lowering anxiety. And there are even some studies I talk about in my book about how omega-3 can be used in acute alcohol withdrawal and how we see that that can potentially lower cravings for alcohol consumption or decrease the number of days that someone might drink. so fish.
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and or an omega-3 supplement. A lot of people don’t get enough fish each week, I would say three or four times a week if you could. Otherwise, supplementing is going to be your best way to make sure that you’re getting enough. Well, can we just look at the supplements? Are they all the same? You know, I know that sometimes there’s a shelf life involved, there’s different sourcing of the omega-3s, and you know, I don’t eat a lot of
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fish. I don’t buy it and cook it at home. So if I go out, I’m going to get fish, but I know I don’t eat much fish. And so I do supplement every single day. Although should you do that anyway? I mean, can you get too many omega-3? Not in today’s era because of the way the balance is so skewed as for mentioning. So you can definitely supplement and eat fish. would, I do the same myself. And I think that
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higher amounts of omega-3 better than that kind of borderline level. So yes, getting both is fair. You bring up a good point when it comes to sourcing. you want to look for, especially when it comes to supplements, brands omega-3s are notorious for being cut with cheap oils. And because of the lack of regulation in the supplement industry, I can’t promise you that if you get Kirkland brand omega-3s at Costco,
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that you’re not getting half vegetable oil, which is high in Omega-6. No shade against Costco. I doubt they’re doing that. But this is very commonly done in the supplement industry. So I am a big proponent of working with brands that are third party tested, that are usually professional grade. So you can, um I use an online storefront that allows you to shop the professional grade supplements, but even brands like Nordic Naturals.
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um over-the-counter you can get most places. Those are quite good. And it’s really about looking for, um usually if it’s higher priced, it’s higher priced for a reason. So if you’re getting a cheap $20 Omega-3 supplement, it’s either low quality and or low um quantity. So it might only have 300 milligrams of Omega-3s.
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where I usually recommend 2000 milligrams plus per day. So that’s the other piece you wanna keep in mind. So yeah, it gets tricky to kind of navigate through all of it. Yeah, and it’s a rabbit hole. what I always, I try to pick my priorities of my top five things, know, the source of my omega-3s, am I taking my vitamin D, you know, and then everything else can kind of trend and come and go. I try to eat healthy. What I’d love to end with, Doctor, is,
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kind of a generic nutrition plan for somebody who has a long history of drinking. Let’s make the profile a 50-year-old woman. And what would you tell her in terms of what she could do today, grocery store, supplement store, to really boost her brain power, her mood, and decrease cravings and begin moving forward? I love this. This is such a great way to end.
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So the way that I walk through it a lot in my book and with clients in my online programs is starting with creating more structure for what you’re eating. And so a lot of us move through our days, our weeks. There’s not much planning. It’s kind of just like whatever’s there, we grab whatever we’re used to picking up at the store. And a little bit of planning can go a long way. And it’s actually easier to start than you might think. But I oftentimes.
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talk about starting with the idea of getting a meal schedule in place. So I usually challenge people to write down what is their daily schedule look like now and how could we then shift that to follow a couple of simple protocols. First is that getting something to eat first thing in the morning. So if you wake up at 6 a.m. and I want you to eat within an hour, max hour and a half, that means you’re going to eat by 7.
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Then we’re going to go through the day and say, what time do you normally have lunch? That’s noon. If that gap is more than three or four hours, they say put a little snack in there. What time do we have dinner? It’s at six. Great. Well, then we need to have a snack at three or four in the afternoon. So first creating some structure of like, okay, I’m going to eat generally at these times.
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I’m not gonna skip my breakfast. I’m not gonna skip my snacks. I’m not gonna skip my lunch because those things are going to have an influence on the cravings. Like you said, Colleen, how you feel, how much energy you have in the day? So just by kind of getting that your brain wrapped around when you’re gonna eat is a really good place to start. So like I said, every three or four hours. Now in looking at that, I want you to think about having a source of protein.
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at every single meal or snack. That could look like eggs, that could look like fish, chicken, red meat, that could look like some legumes or some nuts or seeds, could look like protein shake, it could look like some dairy if you tolerate that. And so I’m not so rigid, Colleen, so much around like following strict diets, following, you know, that everyone should be gluten free or dairy free or this, that. I think the diet that works best for people is the one that you can stick to.
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Yeah. And so if you have some dairy, by all means, I’d rather you do that than skip a snack because I think what ends up frustrating people more and causing them to skip is feeling like I’m not supposed to eat this, I’m not supposed to eat that, I’m not supposed to eat that. So putting a source of protein at each meal or snack and then layering in some of the foods we’ve talked about. So I usually give out a list of foods that has my brain foods, my liver foods.
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my gut foods and I say put at least one of those foods in at each meal. So if you’re going to have eggs for breakfast, maybe you’re having berries because berries are going to support your brain. At lunch, if you’re going to have some salmon, you’re going to add in your broccoli because that’s going to help support your liver and your gut. At dinner, you might have some chicken and you’re going to have beets as a side dish. And so
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This is kind of just an easy way to layer things in. My book has 50 recipes in it, and that was intended to give people more examples of what to eat and how to make it kind of easier and simpler to do so. And, you know, I think, again, without adding much more complication to it, the supplements are super tricky. And I know this, I’ve studied supplements for...
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13 plus years and I know how complicated it can get. Starting with a few simple ones like omega-3s, having your vitamin D tested. If that is low, that can absolutely influence your mood, your energy big time. And so getting that normalized if your levels are low. And even a simple B vitamin complex to help with energy and mood. Most of us don’t realize that we are not getting enough of those in our day to day.
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And that deficiencies, especially with a drinking history, are really, really common. Okay. Well, very helpful. And I just want to remind everybody listening, you already know 90 % of what the foods you should be eating. There’s whole foods. It’s not complicated. Shop the perimeter, stay out of the bags and the boxes, and increase those real raw nuts, all of the good things. It’s really not complicated to the 90 % level. Then you can get nuanced and
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you know, get deeper into specific things. But I so appreciate your time today and your expertise and your guidance. So thank you. Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that you like to share or want to say? Well, thank you so much for having me. And I’m always happy to share on this topic. It’s really near and dear to my heart. I think the the other thing that I would say to people is, you know, one of the best ways to
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kind of know more is to understand more about what’s going on in your own body. And I find that personally to be very helpful. find that with clients because it is kind of a mess out there trying to sift through all the information online, but then all of the different supplements and foods and ads that are being pushed at us. so really just consider if you struggle with mood, if you struggle with
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cravings if you struggle with GI issues, hormone imbalances, having someone look deeper into that, a provider who’s trained to maybe look at nutrients or your gut health, for example, because that can really, really help. Yeah. Stop blaming yourself. Stop blaming your life. And now let’s start looking for the real problem. Can you tell the audience where to find you and also a little bit about your book? Yeah.
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So you can find me at brookesheller.com is my website. I’m most active on social media on Instagram at Dr. Dr. Brooke Scheller. And my book is called How to Eat to Change How You Drink. You can get it at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, most places where books are sold. And I’d love for you to read it. I narrate the audio, so it is on Audible if you’re interested in listening as well. It’s a great tool.
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depending, no matter where you’re at in your journey, I think there’s something for everyone there. And I really hope that a few of you read it and get some good info out of it. Well, I so appreciate it. And I plan to listen to it. So I’ll get it on Audible. I appreciate you being here. Thank you, doctor. Thank you, Colleen. All right. That’s it for today’s episode. Thank you so much for listening. And if you’re sitting here thinking that, all right, I get it, nutrition is a piece of the puzzle.
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And you’ve listened to my other episodes and you also understand this is about your relationship with yourself and your inner narrative and the way you regulate your nervous system and the boundaries that you do or don’t set and the mindset that you use to judge yourself and compare yourself to other people. And it’s all coming together that this is like a thousand piece puzzle and you don’t know where to start on your own because it’s overwhelming to think about it. I have an exact roadmap that will guide you through
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all of the elements that combine to create the drinking habit that you have been trying to change. I want you to know that it’s not impossible to do it on your own, but there’s two components. It’s all the work that you have to do on your own to make all the changes. It’s not one habit that needs to change with your drinking. It’s the 1,000 habits that begin from the moment you open your eyes. You not only have to change
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who you are at the core level so that you can become the version of you who doesn’t run to the bar the minute you walk through the door or worry that you’re gonna finish the bottle of wine every single time you open it. You also have to know how to make all those changes. The good news is that you can only change one thing at a time. The bad news is there are a thousand things. And if you don’t have the bandwidth to design your own behavior change and mindset change and nervous system recovery,
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Plan for yourself. If you don’t have the bandwidth to do all of that, then you’re not going to have the bandwidth to follow through. The biggest obstacle that you face is not alcohol cravings or nutritional deficiencies or nervous system dysregulation. It’s the belief that you have to figure all this out on your own or that you’ve dug yourself into this hole. And now you’ve got to dig yourself out. Powerful people get support. Powerful people hire people who are smarter than themselves. Powerful people
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work with teams of support and purchase knowledge and guidance and coaching so that when they actually put their minds to something, they have full confidence that they’re gonna be able to achieve the goal. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. So if you’ve been struggling with your thousand piece puzzle and you just want a picture of what it’s supposed to look like so that you can decide if you need support.
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then get in the show notes and schedule a discovery call and take advantage of my offer for a free personalized private consultation about where you’re at and where you want to be so that you can stop worrying about the problem and step in to creating the solution. Whether or not you are a good fit for my program, you will walk away with a clear picture for you to follow so you can start putting all the pieces together for yourself.
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Otherwise, thank you so much for listening today. And if you found this episode valuable, please share it with a friend. You know somebody who’s skipping breakfast and lunch and then struggling with their drinking. Send them this episode or post it on your socials and tag your friends. Everybody needs to understand they need to eat better in today’s world. Okay. Tag me too. I’m on social media as the hangover whisperer, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, all of the places.
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Connect with me in the DMs if you have a question or you just wanna let me know how this episode landed. Otherwise, again, thank you so much for listening and for being a part of my community and sharing in my mission to change the world with common sense, practical approaches so that women know they have options. It’s not about the alcohol. And that’s it for today. I love you, I appreciate you, and I’ll see you on the next episode.