Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#700 Made Good! Overcoming the Lies that Keep Women at War with Their Bodies
Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”
Jack and Florencia Moynihan—Catholic nutritionist, FEMM instructor, and author of Made Good—discuss the challenges faced by young women in today's culture, particularly regarding relationships, health, and understanding the feminine heart.
They explore the impact of modern societal norms on women's health, the importance of nutrition, and the need for education about love and relationships. Florencia shares her personal journey of healing and emphasizes the significance of taking control of one's health through knowledge and holistic approaches. The conversation highlights the importance of understanding women's cycles and the detrimental effects of birth control, advocating for a more informed and empowered approach to women's health.
Visit Florencia and learn more: https://thecatholicnutritionist.com/
Link to Made Good! Overcoming the Lies that Keep Women at War with Their Bodies
If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help others find the show.
Welcome to the Become Who You Are podcast, the production of the John Paul Two Renewal Center. I'm excited to be with you. Thanks for joining us. Special shout out to the men of Claymore, the Gen Z men, and a little bit older than that. We're catching some of the millennials here too, up into their 30s. It's really something. It's exciting to work with you guys. We got a big leadership group bringing this across parishes all over the country. And despite growing up in a very twisted, distorted, and toxic culture, lied about the very basics, marriage, the family, what authentic love is, the meaning of sex and sexuality, all those things. And you guys are waking up though and saying, hey, there's got to be something more. Unfortunately, as we know, the the the women are not coming along. And this is a bell curve, of course. You know, we're we're meeting some wonderful women, but they're not coming along as quickly. So I read this great book called uh it would the name of it is Made Good Overcoming the Lies to Keep Women at War with Their Bodies. And I thought, you know what? I'm gonna get Florencia Moynihan on, who wrote that book, and to help us wade through this a little bit. So, Florencia, welcome.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for having me, Jack. I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you hit a lot of things in here as you bring a holistic view to this, which is very, very important today. You you call yourself the Catholic nutritionist, you're a nutritional therapy practitioner, a FEMA instructor that's F-E-M-M, and women's health advocate. You're the host of the Made Good podcast. You run a thriving practice dedicated to helping women heal through faith, bioindividual care, and the integration of body and soul. This is just so important. It's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for having me. I think it's interesting. Can I ask you? You said it feels like the women are a little bit behind compared to what you're seeing with the Gen Z men. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you're seeing?
SPEAKER_03:It's just harder to break through. I think in general, right? For men, we're made a little different. Uh, and you know, despite the culture saying that, you know, we're all exactly the same. Men tend to look at this again, this is a bell curve. There's plenty of overlap. And so I don't want to generalize too much here because we're meeting some incredible, incredible uh young women that are getting this for sure. Um, but in general, men are more analytical. You know, you see the engineers, etc. So, so they're there, they they see a problem and they're stepping back. They don't know what it is. Florencia, it's a great question, but they're stepping back and saying, there's gotta be something more. You know, this toxic culture is not enough for us. With the women, they get uh involved more emotionally with this, and and it's about their feelings. They're you you mentioned the the feminine genius from John Paul II's work, uh, Mulieris uh dignitatis, the dignity of women. And he talks about the feminine genius. They're radically relational, and so they want to be more compassionate, you know, without seeking the truth of things sometimes. They want to be consensus builders, they want to bring it all together kind of kumbayash, you know. I mean, my wife is a wonderful connection between my kids and the grandkids and friends, et cetera, et cetera, uh, where I'll just step back. And and then the last thing I'll say to you is, you know, if she talks to me about a problem, right away I want to solve it. Like, okay, what's the truth of things? You know, how should I solve it? How best can I hit this? And a lot of times she just doesn't want it to be solved, you know, and it takes longer to get them to come out of this. And I think that they they've been inundated with this toxic culture. It's not their fault, it's not these men's fault. I mean, they've been lied to, Florencia, uh, told that they can just go on a pill to fix everything. I remember my youngest daughter had some bleeding issues and stuff when she was, you know, a teen. And right away they want to just put her on the pill. And and we know that you're just masking the symptoms, you know. Um, and so they've been indoctrinated. It's very hard. I have I have uh two girls and a boy, and those girls are much harder to honey. Just can you look at this realistically? Dad, forget about, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I hope that helped the answer a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:One thing that I think I've always noticed too is that you you just said men are very strategic, and that is very true. You guys are very good at kind of zooming out and using the thing. Well, one thing I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_03:I'm wait, hold that. I'm gonna take this. I have a Trump hat up there, and I have it for these young guys. We were talking about Trump. And I'm gonna take it down because I don't want I don't want people to look at you and saying, okay, she's a she's a she's a MAGA person and blah blah blah. So so this was not Florencia. This was young guys that was talking about Trump and some of the issues he was doing. So I threw that hat up there. So I am sorry. I usually take it down before the podcast. So I'm sorry I interrupted you.
SPEAKER_00:That was that was such a strategic thought to be looking around at your framing and everything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But I think with men, there can be a certain ease with zooming out and seeing the battlefield. And I think what I've noticed with women is that they can be so in. My husband was teaching me about the fog of war and that whole term that we use in in wartime. But I think for so many women, and why I wrote this book and why this topic is so important is because they actually don't seem to recognize often that it's an entire war and they think it's a just them problem, which then keeps them from speaking up or getting help or recognizing that, like, whoa, this is like way bigger than my food, or this is way bigger than what happens in my doctor's appointments. This is an all-out war against the feminine heart.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. I'm so glad you you opened that up like that. That's exactly what this is. You know, when we're talking to young people, and I have a talk coming up tonight, and uh we talk about that battlefield of the heart. And and it and you know, the twisting and distortion. You know, Sister Lucia famously, you know, visionary from Fatima, right, famously wrote to Cardinal Kafara and John Paul II said the great last great battle that's going to be between our Lord and Satan is going to be over marriage and the family. Well, the the focus of that is the crown of all creation, which is the feminine heart, like you just said. And and Satan just loves to get in there and twist and distort. And young men, unfortunately, haven't been taught, and sometimes they they they they don't have the confidence right now to step up and protect those women's hearts. Uh they grew up in a pornographic culture and and they're not always helping. One of the first things we do is say, guys, you just gotta be patient. Stop looking at at porn, first of all. Start looking at women not as not as body parts, as objects to s, you know, to to to use, but as as these persons to really love. And and just take your time and get to know her, get get to unpack her. And you're gonna find a lot of brokenness in there, uh, uh unfortunately, and that's what we're finding.
SPEAKER_01:To their credit, though, I was just at the Seek conference at the beginning of the year. I was in Columbus.
SPEAKER_03:Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Which my entire universe is just women. So that's that's who I am with every single minute of every single day until I go to Seek. And that's where I sometimes will have some conversation with young men. And the theme, my takeaway for this year was the Gen Z men coming and asking, okay, how do I help the woman that I love?
SPEAKER_03:Whoa. It happened. I just got goosebumps. I'm so glad you said that.
SPEAKER_01:Jack, I was shocked. I had men coming up at the book signing and buying it. Their girl wasn't even with them, buying the book for her, saying, Hey, I went to your talk. I really think that this is gonna help her. Um, or coming up with her and being like, she's nervous, but she wants to talk to you. And I want to ask you, like, how do I, how do I help her? How do I best support her in this? It blew my mind. I've never seen anything like that. And just seeing them over and over and over coming up. And first of all, the tenderness of that masculine heart of wanting to protect and wanting to serve. Um, and these were young men. I would say that these were like definitely still in college. And I was just so moved by that. But then also them seeing that they could have a role and they could have a role in helping her.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, and and to be and and to be cognizant of what you just said of these young guys. I I'm I'm surprised when we meet them. Because and we're meet a lot of them. And it doesn't take much for them to stand up and say, hey, this this young girl is looking for some protection. You just gotta have patience because at the end, they've been hurt by a lot of people. They grew up in so many dysfunctional families, you know, without fathers, say, all kinds of different things, right? Used and abused in this pornographic area, given over to radical feminist ideas that have come down to them that they think is normal. We've normalized the fall. And unfortunately, contraception has played a huge part in that. And but I I think it's really unjust again just to throw these poor young girls on the pill right away. Here's the last thing I I'll say, you know, coming back to our earlier opening. So many of the women we meet have have taken love, the idea of love, and then and then reduce it down to an emotion, a feeling. And then the culture's further taken it down to sex, right? Reduce it down to sex. And they really think, Florencia, that that uh, and again, bell curve, right? But they really think that uh if if it feels good, uh then I can sexualize this and I'll find love in that sexual act. I don't know how we got twisted and distorted this bad, but it's been coming down. Look at I grew up in the 60s, you know, and it and and it was already live and well then. I think it's just gotten worse.
SPEAKER_01:100%. And it's just this. I actually was interviewing um a sex scientist a few months ago. Dr. Joe Malone has amazing work. He originally started by working with college women, just teaching them health, but then he realized they would come to him and tell him all about the hookup culture. And he was like, Well, I need to help teach them that that goes completely against their health, too. And in the why. But the the reality that men and women are hardwired so differently, even in the way of sex, of women think that sex is going to earn them love. But the earlier you have sex with someone, the less he's going to love you physiol physiologically, the less of a connection he will have to you. He says within a few minutes of uh like hookup sex, men will find the woman that they're with less attractive, less interesting, less intelligent, less beautiful. And women just don't, I think they struggle to recognize just how different we are. And it ends up bringing us into a world of pain. So when we can really understand and reverence the feminine body for what it is and the way that we're wired and our feminine heart, that's where this beauty and this fullness of life and the wholeness that we seek really can come in.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you you know about this from a personal journey. You want to can can we can we delve into your personal journey a little bit? Tell us how you got here and then all I mean because I mean all of this comes out in our experience of life, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I joke that any practitioner that you see is really passionate about health, is because it's been their own passion and their own cross too, which is my exact story. So I call it my Bermuda triangle of suffering that I was kind of spinning out in for so much of my life, which first was my disordered eating. I struggled really, really deeply with my relationship with my body and use food as a tool to control it. Um, then once I was in middle school, I started having really, really difficult and painful periods going to doctor's appointment after doctor's appointment. I really began to relate to the hemorrhaging woman by the time I was in college, but getting no better and getting worse and being written off and being told, hey, my only option was birth control, which praise God for my very protective and very smart mother who said absolutely not. Um, but there was no other solution given to me either. And then the third piece was stomach aches. I had daily stomach aches. I really, really, really struggled with my gut. And there was another place where it was like, okay, food again is this struggle, but I love food. But I'm either in a season where I'm controlling it to be as skinny as possible, or I don't know what to eat to not have stomach aches every day. So it was these three kind of battlegrounds that I was in of that were kind of psychological and physical. And eventually uh I started to distrust the modern medical system enough to say, you know what, I don't think that they're telling me the whole truth. And I don't believe that it's not possible. I don't believe that this is just what it is and that I just have to deal with it. And I don't believe that um it's my only option is to suffer or to do some bizarre diet or just write it off as IBS. And so I really started to pursue healing through a holistic approach and I wanted to use food to heal. And so that's where it really began. Um, and it wasn't until later on after I was a focus missionary, where in my season in focus, where I started to really fall back into my disordered eating, that then the Lord brought me back out into goodness and recognizing, hey, if we can just go back to the garden, what would that mean for you? What would that mean for your view of your body? And what would that mean for your health overall?
SPEAKER_03:Wow, that's powerful. How how long did it take you to kind of get to the point where you're you're you're at? Now, I mean, how many years is that? You know, that's a that's quite a journey, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:It feels like a lifetime. But the last the last 10 years have been 50 years, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:29.
SPEAKER_03:You look great for 52, Florencia.
SPEAKER_01:The the last 10 years were where things really, really took ahead and got more complex, and where I finally, I think, opened up to receiving what the Lord was giving me. Um, and that's one of those things where if it's not slow, it's not human. I so wish I could say that it was in high school that my my disordered eating completely was healed and I gave it to the Lord. But I would say that once I finally opened it up to him and allowed for the depth of healing that he wanted to offer me rather than what I thought was healing, which was just I'm not struggling right now, so I must be good. But that's just not what the truth is.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. How come, how come uh the culture has done this to to us with nutrition? Question number one. And then question number two is how come in our modern medicine, modern biological understanding of of uh of our anatomy, why are so many young women, why don't they know this? Why don't they know about their bodies? Because we have a program. I hate to call it a program, but we have a uh a uh program at the John Paul II Renewal Center. We call love ed love education. Instead of sex education, love education. And and it's we have dads bring their little boys, we have moms bring their little girls, and we unpack this stuff. And it the moms don't even know some of this stuff as we're unpacking it, right? We're doing it for their daughters. We want the moms there so they can have a dialogue at home. But they haven't talked about it, Florence. You know, these these why don't they know? We we we should know all this stuff. We should know that what looks healthy, what's not healthy. Uh how many young girls we meet that that they had their first period in school and nobody even told them it was ki it was gonna happen. Yeah. And you just go, how can this be? They they just take a beating these Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:There's two particular things that come to mind. The first I don't ever want to give the devil too much attention, but we have to acknowledge that he's a player in the game. Okay, and so our lifetimes are what, maybe 80 years old. But he's keeping track of everything from generation to generation, generation. And it's demons like responsibility to keep an eye on your bloodline and to see, okay, what are the patterns and what are the sins that this particular bloodline struggles with in this family and this generational that what is getting passed down? And so I think we need to start thinking about our health and our bodies in terms of generations more. Clear, like very simply speaking, the way that you take care of your health now will impact the next few generations after you without you even recognizing it. That's true. We know that the people who are grandchildren of people who lived through famines or through wars have different genetic expressions, right? That they might be actually more prone to being overweight or underweight because either the body learned, hey, we went through something really, really traumatic where there was not enough available. So their genes turned on to hold on to more fat, or it kind of in that famine learned to conserve energy. And then that body is tends to to be underweight. So we already know that um our health can be written into our genes and that can get passed down. Then we have to think about the spiritual aspect of there's so many women that I talk to that it's like, well, where did your issues with food come from? Well, my mother, I've watched my mother diet my entire life. And my mother, her, her mother always called her fat and was always concerned about her weight. And then her mother, right? And how far back does this go? But we don't even know because these aren't the stories that we tell. This isn't like the journal that you keep for your family tree of saying, well, great, great, great, great, great Nana was the first one that started being really obsessive about her body and then it's passed down ever since. We don't know that. We don't have these stories to tell. We can barely start to pick up on maybe two generations above us. But the evil one is keeping track of all of it. At the top of the show, you also mentioned something about the 60s and the sex and love movement and all that kind of thing. And so think about my grandmother's generation um was the one that was really pushed to use formula. And that breastfeeding was actually not as good for your baby as formula.
SPEAKER_03:Isn't it crazy? But you're right. I remember that.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And it was it was, oh, you must be kind of poor if you're breastfeeding, or that's kind of icky. Um, and it's not, it's not what's best for your baby. So then we also have the second part of the corporations that are making making massive amounts of money unbelievable off of women not knowing and women having an incredibly trusting nature and wanting to do it.
SPEAKER_03:And and I'll just say that that's still coming down today. Yeah. I'm still meeting young women that are using formula. And I go, Do you ever consider breastfeeding? She goes, Well, this is better for them anyways. And I go, No, it's it's not.
SPEAKER_01:And so it's it's uh it's all very strategic. I do think it's spiritual, and I think a lot of it has money involved too. If you think about the birth control industry, so much of the pharmaceutical industry, there's so much money involved. And how do you how do you warp women's perceptions of the world? Well, you attack what they're fearful of or what they're most protective of. So when you think about women, they're thinking about their babies, right? If it's like, oh, if you give this baby this shot or if you give them this, that's what's gonna save them. So women are so fearful of it that they do that. Or, oh my gosh, if you feed them this formula, it's gonna be way better for them than whatever your body makes. And so there's this constant warping of what your body does. Basically, ultimately, there's this root lie of, yeah, God kind of messed up. God didn't really know what he was doing when he made you. And thank God that we can save in, uh, step in as the heroes and really save you from yourself. And when instead, if we begin to learn the the profound and innate wisdom that the body has, built in by our good Lord, then so many lies can you can just pierce right through them and you can see this is not what is actually good for me. This is what's good for you.
SPEAKER_03:You know, if you said this, Florencia, what you just said 10 years ago, people would have thought, you know, we're we're some crazy religious people. But I'll tell you what, you know this from the seat conference you just went. They're waking up. You know, this message could have been said ten and it was said ten years ago, but nobody's listening. We're finally listening. You know, these young people, I call it Gen Z and a little bit higher than that, uh, they are ripe for something. You know, you know, young people are counter, you know, rev they want to be revolutionists anyways, you know, they want they want to do something. Well well, this time they can actually do uh, you know, come come out with a counter-revolution that's actually good for us. And I think that's what they're waking up, but they need they need this kind of information. How should we um you you saw Robert Kennedy come in? I am so grateful for this, right? And and you know, just to think that there's somebody at the helm that's coming at the right time, I think, at the right place, the right time, to say, hey guys, you know, they they've been poisoning us, you know, the soil, the air, or the water, and we all gotta wake up to this thing. So how do you approach approach nutrition? You know, if if some young woman's just uh tuning in today, or one of these young guys with his girlfriend is gonna say, I tell you, listen to this podcast because I told you you gotta start eating better. How would you frame that for them? You know, where are they gonna start and and say, you know, wake up, guys? It's it's true, it's really poison out there.
SPEAKER_01:I think the first Thing that is so critical is you do have to get back in the driver's seat of your own health. Uh, I remember during COVID, Mike wrote, you know, the dirty the guy from Dirty Jobs.
SPEAKER_03:Of course, I love Mike.
SPEAKER_01:His podcast. He put out an episode, and I have not stopped thinking about it for the past six years. He put an episode right when all the lockdowns were happening and no one knew what was going on. And he said, you know, we have one rule on the sets of dirty jobs, which is safety safety first, and that no one cares about your safety the way that you do. And that you have to take care of it. You can't be walking around expecting that everyone else is looking out for your safety. No, no, no, no. You need to be looking out for your own. And I think the same thing applies with our health. It is unfortunate, and you do have to find the right providers. And I'm not saying there's no one that you can trust. Obviously, this is what me and my team do. Like we are asking people to trust us, and we have uh hundreds of clients that do trust us, but you do have to be wise as serpents and you have to be looking around and thinking, I cannot give my trust to everyone blindly. Especially like we, especially within the last six years, I'll be honest. We have to be very, very cognizant of what is being spoken to you and that nobody cares about your health like you do. And so you do have to take agency again. You do have to understand at least the basics of how your body works and what it needs. When I think about women, I think about you have to know your cycle. This is one of the most basic things that you have, and it can be a source of great suffering and great confusion if you have no idea what's going on. So you cannot be constantly outsourcing every single thing about your health and just expecting someone else to show up and tell you everything. You have to learn it for yourself. This is why we teach our clients for themselves. Our goal is that you won't need us for the rest of your life, but that we can teach you everything. We can teach you how to fish now. So recognizing that you have to take agency again. And then when it comes to our food, the same thing. You cannot, I work with so many women that I work in are in colleges and they are required to eat from a meal plan. And that drives me crazy because then the college is requiring something and they're not even providing something that's optimal. Or oftentimes it's so mediocre what they're offering them in these dining halls, thousands and thousands of students.
SPEAKER_03:But eating eating eating well, you do need some direction, right? So we hope they can connect with you and have some direction. But it's not, it's not brain surgery either. Once you get it, once you start to understand good eating, good, but but you're right. You know, here's here's one thing COVID did for these young people. It woke them up. Uh, you already alluded to this, it woke them up to the reality. There's a lot of spiritual warfare. That's greed, money, power using you. When I tell these young guys, I said, man, they love manipulating you guys. They love bringing you on with these little screens, getting you to do whatever they want. And tell your tell the women in your life that they've got them even worse. They've got them really twisted. And they'll they'll get off the phone sometimes watching some minute video, mad, screaming, you know. And I said, you know, just calm down, you know, know that there's an enemy out there to your point. There really is an enemy that wants to destroy us. Isn't it beautiful that we can actually talk about this? Uh, I don't know if you saw um Fernando uh Mendoza. Did you see it? Mendoza, yeah, thank you. So that quarterback from Indiana, they just won the championship. And he's just talking about his faith like it's just burbling out of him, you know, and he and and and it is so beautiful to see that. You know, otherwise we live like cut flowers. And when I say cut flowers, we're disconnected from from reality, from the truth, and the culture wants to just leave you and and just use you and abuse you. So again, they're gonna they they gotta learn about food. You have to be, you know, you came into a story, Florencia, and you have to be the protagonist in the story. You have to say, no, I'm the I'm I'm the protagonist in my own story. I come from a bigger story, I want to understand that, and now I want to help myself and then help the people around me, right? So nutrition, are you happy with with uh with with the new administration at least coming in? I mean, do you feel more confidence at least that that they're trying to help us?
SPEAKER_01:Uh uh or you know, I just uh I wonder. I w I want to be. I do want to be, but I also feel like there's certain things that have already been compromised pretty darn quickly. Especially I learned about RFK in 2020, and he taught me a ton about vaccines and his um his um organization had been so helpful for me understanding the reality of all that.
SPEAKER_03:Is it health? Child protection network? Yeah, something like that. Child defense, I think. Yeah. Child defense, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then there are some things that have happened recently that I'm very disappointed because it feels like it goes against everything he used to say.
SPEAKER_03:Well, sometimes I think that there's pushback. Well, we want we better not get into that, but I think that you can only say so much sometimes. I think taking baby steps. Yeah. I just know that that he's trying to do something different. At least he'll talk about the evil that we're seeing. But anyways, as far as food nutrition goes, uh how difficult is it without getting into the weeds too much? How difficult is it? If I'm new, I'm just watching you for the first time. I mean, can I, is this a process that I can learn fairly quickly?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I always tell people, you are overcomplicating your nutrition. You are making it, and then your brain is thinking it's this really complex thing, and we can't possibly do it. And it will have all of these reasons. It's like, well, I'm a mom though, or I'm a student, or I work by myself, or I'm married, and that any any circumstance that you're living in, it will make it the reason that you can't be healthy and that you can't have proper nutrition when it really comes down to simplicity. I'm always so grateful. Of course, everyone comes from different starting points. And I do think that that's important to recognize that I grew up in a home where my mother made us every single meal. And she was very, very passionate about us eating simply and us eating whole foods, right? My mom is Argentinian. She's like, we grew up every single night eating soup, salad, steak. She's like, that's it. We really, really simply at home. But I recognize that I have plenty of women that I work with that say, hey, I have never grown up in a home that eats home-cooked meals. We only ever ate out, we only ever ate fast food. I don't even know, or the the thought of stepping into the kitchen is actually really overwhelming for them, which is one of my biggest goals for this year is to make cooking simple for you. We already make nutrition simple for you. We want to make cooking too, because there's so many roadblocks and so many mental barriers that can keep you from it. But I do want to tell you, as someone whose entire life is functional nutrition, it is way simpler than you recognize when you have proper understanding of how your body works and what it needs, and when you have proper strategy. Because the thing that's most frustrating is saying, Hey, Jack, I need you to drive to Mashauqua, Indiana, just get in your car and figure it out. Versus if I say, hey, here's the step-by-step roadmap, I'm gonna give you a GPS system. All you have to do is keep your eye on the road and eyes on the signs, and you're gonna get there. Your confidence level and making it to your destination is way further. And even just being a part of the journey, your confidence skyrockets when you have a strategy behind it. So I think that that's the missing piece. I also think that women in particular are spending way too much time online and trying to DIY everything, which is kind of this ricochet effect of the distrust of saying, hey, I did go to doctors and they didn't help me, and I was this person too. I spent hours and hours and hours and hours on Instagram just trying to piece together, well, what am I supposed to be doing? And so there does have to come a point where you actually invest in your health and in your mind and you form your mind to know what is true and good and beautiful.
SPEAKER_03:Well, what you do here in this in in the book, which is so beautiful, is that you bring in the spiritual. So while they're learning the nutritional, you know, the nutrition side of this, they're learning also the spiritual side, right? The silence, the prayer, you know, just to get away from all this anxiety, depression, and all this stuff. So this is gonna be good, right? They got some exercise going, you've got the nutrition going. Now, time's gonna go fast here, Florencia. I I want to talk about women's cycles because it's so important. And I don't know how much we can do here today, but it's it we need to touch on this because they haven't learned, again, they haven't learned the truth. Uh you know, they put them on the pill. And can you just explain uh to young women that haven't heard this before? When they put you on the pill, they're not fixing the problem. They're masking symptoms in too many cases.
SPEAKER_01:You know what's crazy, Jack? Most of the women that I talk to that are on it know that. They do, but they just don't have another option. I say Catholic women in particular do generally understand that the pill is not good for them. I can't tell you last year in particular, I had so many girls coming in crying to me um after my talk at Seek, saying, Flo, I am on the pill, and either one, I feel like I'm a bad Catholic, even though I'm totally chaste, I promise. Like, but this was the only option my dermatologist gave me.
SPEAKER_03:For like acne or something like that, or for other things. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:Which I'm like, we work with girls with acne all the time, and there's so many good things that you can do for them, but they don't even give you the options. So you have to recognize that by the time someone gets to that point, their quality of life has been so deeply disrupted by their symptoms that that's where the desperation comes in that they're willing to do something that they know isn't even going to help heal them.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Right. It's it's severe acne that makes it feel impossible going out and talking to people. Acne is incredibly personal and painful issues. Or debilitating periods, that they are bleeding out for weeks of the month, or their pain is so bad that they pass out, or that they like literally can't get off the couch, or that they're taking. I had a client earlier this year that was taking 12 ibuprofen a day during her period. And I said, Did nobody tell you that this is going to be a little bit more.
SPEAKER_03:How old is she, Florencia?
SPEAKER_01:Um, mid-twenties. Mid-20s. And it'd been years of that. Luckily, we got her back down. I think there were some days that she didn't need it, or she only started moving down to a couple. Um, but there's women have to go out and live. They go to school, they work, or they're so when that happens, that's a great point.
SPEAKER_03:When that happens, I'm gonna take the pill because it's fixing these, it at least makes me feel better, right? So how about this now? Because what what are they gonna do then? Are there options? You know, what what what are the options for these young girls that say, okay, I don't care if it masks my problems, I feel better, and I'm gonna I can live this way. But there has to be options then for them, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So this is what we do is we are functional nutritionists on our team, which means that we are trained to get to the root. There is a root cause of each of these concerns, whether it being excessive bleeding, excessively painful periods, acne. Um, those are some of the main ones that women get on birth control for. There is a deeper root. Your body is incredibly wise, it's very, very smart. And if it's kind of displaying these kinds of symptoms, we see it as it's simply trying to get your attention. So what is it trying to point to? Kind of like when your dog keeps barking and you're like, it's make it shut up. But then you're like, oh my gosh, it's because there's someone in the backyard. It's actually really good. Um so recognizing that there is a root to each of these things. The thing is, truly, truly, and they're amazing doctors out there, but generally speaking, this is not what they're trained for. They're not trained to get to the root.
SPEAKER_03:They don't, they don't even know nutrition. I I've I've talked to spoken with doctors, and they go, you know, that's really not my specialty. And I go Exactly. Dude, this is my body. What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. So I do, of course, I think there is a time and a place for it. We need to have good doctors, and you do need to have someone that you can go to for acute illnesses or when there's things that are really, really concerning. Um, but at the same time recognizing what they are and are not trained for, which nutrition is not what it's like.
SPEAKER_03:If I have shoulder surgery, I'm glad with the mechanical surgeon, right? That doesn't care about nutrition. That's that's true. Yeah. But but what you're saying, and what I what I want you to keep doing is that this holistic approach is going to bring the nutritional aspects in a woman can understand their bodies at the same time. You know, fertility and infertility issues, uh, you know, all of these things, and it comes from charting. Is is is femme uh a a uh is that a charting uh Yeah. Is that which it is?
SPEAKER_01:The reason that we teach femme in particular is speaking of the lies that Catholic women in particular are told.
SPEAKER_03:I've had like Dr. Hilders on and some different people, and and so they have so there's different systems, right? So FEM is a system of of charting. Is that what it is? F-E-M-M, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. What I love about that one and why we teach it and why we use it in our practice is because I think it's phenomenal for single women. Whereas some of the other ones, women can get a little bit discouraged because it feels like it's mostly pointed towards, okay, are you going to get pregnant or not get pregnant during this time of the month? When we really want them to understand the systems, the hormonal activity, and recognizing what the red flags are. If your body is telling you that something is off, your cycle is your fifth vital sign. There are so many ways that it communicates with you that your body needs help and attention through your bleeding, through your cycle length, through symptoms. There's so many different ways that it communicates with you. So I think that that one in particular has been, and also the lie that I believed was I needed to wait until I was engaged to learn how to track my cycle. In college, someone had said that to me once, and I totally believed it because they they thought that tracking your cycle was simply to use it for NFP. And cycle tracking and NFP is not the same thing. All cycle tracking can be used for NFP, but it does not need to be related to your own.
SPEAKER_03:How old should should young women be when they start? I mean, I've got eight grandchildren, Florence. Six of them are girls, some of them are are in high school. I mean, if I'm sitting down and talking to them, right, they go all the way from you know almost juniors and seniors in high school down to one or two. And how old should they be? And you and do you think they'll, you know, before you can get them interested, first of all, in saying, hey, you do this because of XYZ, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, one, I wouldn't run off of children's interest all the time. Sometimes they just need to know something. So you we can assume that most women will get their period around middle school is the general area.
SPEAKER_02:That's right.
SPEAKER_01:And so opening up that conversation maybe in fifth or sixth grade of, hey, this is what you can expect, and teaching them to chart starting with their first cycles so that they can actually recognize it. Because you know how many women, Jack, especially recently, I've had so many women that I work with that were put on birth control within their first couple of periods. So within their first year of having a cycle, which we know that it takes about a year for your cycle to regulate when you start, anyways. And they have never had a period since because they've been on birth control for 10, 15 years.
SPEAKER_03:How sad is that?
SPEAKER_01:Right. So we have to equip them from the beginning. And this is why I teach millennials mostly, millennials and Gen Z. And the hope is that they are going to be able to teach their children from the very, very beginning. And so there's there is a way that you can learn, and none of it has to relate to sex in the beginning.
SPEAKER_03:So here, here, here, uh you said all this already, but I'm just gonna make sure. So we have again this program called Love Ed, and we we we work with them in fifth grade, right, when they're entering into uh puberty, and then again when it's seventh grade before they go into high school, right? And they're different levels, right? A little different levels, but we show them their their cycles, how it all works. It's it's fascinating, actually. I mean, it's it's so many people learn from that. But we don't bring up charting there. If I was speaking to those fifth graders or seventh graders, should I be saying to mom, you know, think about charting or is that too early? It seems like you said that it wasn't too early, but I don't think there's such a thing.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think there's such a thing as it being too early because you the truth is I would say a large portion of these girls are already struggling from the very beginning. I for it wasn't that my period started normal and then they got bad. No, they weren't bad from the beginning. And the cool thing about charting and talking about getting back in the driver's seat of your health is that you are creating a free health log. You are logging your data over months and weeks and years that you can then use to kind of decode. And so I would say starting in the very beginning with your charting, because let's say you see your daughter go through a few cycles in a row, or maybe, man, it has been a year and she's still really, really struggling. Now you have all of this data that we can decode and say, hey, we have evidence of what is going on. We know what's happening with her body, and there's these patterns that are irregular, and we need to help her. And then we can start to dig into okay, which which particular area do we look into based off of those charts? But I don't think there's ever such thing as having too much data when it comes to your health, especially for women.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, that's something that I didn't even consider at the at that age and then going through high school, huh? So it's important to do. Uh, how hard is it? You know, if I if if I haven't done this before and I and I'm and I'm 18 or 19 or 20 right now, I mean, how much time is it going to take? Is it disruptive?
SPEAKER_01:Uh no, it's so easy. Once you actually learn what you're looking for, I say it takes girls between three to five cycles, depending on what their body is like, to really lock it down. Our girls leave within three months, they are mastering their cycles. They completely understand what it looks like, what it needs to look like, how to chart it, what's normal, what's not normal. Um, and then once you understand the principles and what it is that you're looking for, which is why we also partner with them to help decode it with them. Because it's one thing to learn how to chart on your own. It's one thing to have an instructor. That's the part that can get really flustering, is if you're like, I don't know what I'm seeing. But if you have someone that can decode it with you, you should feel confident within the first two cycles.
SPEAKER_03:And then you and you help them decode this, right? Yes. Okay, you see, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And so then So they're they they they've got the whole picture here. Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, they're gonna once you understand it, let's say you're past the three or four month mark, it will take you 90 seconds to two minutes a day.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:That's it. Every time you go to the bathroom, you're gonna check your signs and then you're gonna take 30 seconds to write it down at night. Done. I always imagine it to like a puzzle. So if you've ever done a puzzle in your living room, you put it on your kitchen table, if you pull out one piece at a time and then throw it back in the box, okay, you saw that piece, you understood what the data was, but now it's gone. So that's the same thing as like looking at it from day to day. But when it comes to tracking your cycle and actually charting, it's like when you pull out the puzzle piece, you go, okay, this is a corner. You set it down on the table. You pull out the next one, you go, oh, this one matches it. And you start building out the puzzle in front of you. And then it starts to make sense. Then you have the picture laid out. And that's where over a few cycles and a few weeks and months, you'll say, Okay, I'm very clear on the picture that's developing here, and you can use it as a tool.
SPEAKER_03:And I would suspect that the the nutritional aspect of this, they'll be able to see through their charting that they're getting healthier, right? I would think, right?
SPEAKER_01:That was that was my biggest frustration was I learned how to chart and they were like, Oh, yeah, your cycles are off. And I was like, Okay, what's wrong with them? And they were like, Yeah, I don't know, you're gonna have to talk to a doctor about it. And I was like, no, I want to know what's wrong with it. And I know that I can use food to heal it and I know that there's probably things that I'm doing that are wrong. I that was when I learned how to track my cycle, I was full-blown carnivore, intermittent fasting, one meal a day. And so me learning to track my cycle, it really changed and saved my life because it was giving me, it was reflecting back to me that, hey, Florida, the way that you're living is not working for you. This is not good for you. Um, and so do when you have that, when you can marry, okay, not just what is happening with your cycle, but what do we do about it? What nutrition, what lifestyle, what testing can we do to dive in deeper and get you healthy? It's life-changing. It's the full picture.
SPEAKER_03:I am gonna hold this book up. I'll you when I edit it, Florencia, I'll I'll actually throw it up and and on the screen, but for now I'm gonna hold it up. I've got it marked already. Some of my favorite pages I got to go back to, but made good, huh? It's so, it's really, really good. Overcoming the lies to keep women at war with their bodies. This is really important. You know, I know from my own girls uh who now have children of their own, um, that they really struggle with these issues. And uh and we just didn't know enough to to sit down with them. We trusted the doctors too much, like you said. And and there are some good doctors out there, but you have to take agency, don't you? You have to say, hey, I'm gonna I again I'm gonna be the protagonist of my story. You know, I have to take this. If I can go to people I trust, it doesn't take so much time, right? Learn how to cook a little bit. I I was a professional show. Chef for many years. And so it it's not as complicated as you think. You know, you can throw some pretty simple stuff together, start doing it. Uh you'll enjoy it a lot, you know. So give us where where do we go to get this book, uh, Florencia, and give us some web website information because I know people are going to want to dig in and and and uh and check you out.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, the book is available now on Sophia Institute.com and Amazon, and you can connect with me and my team at uh uh thecatholic nutritionist.com or on Instagram or TikTok, the Catholic Nutritionist.
SPEAKER_03:The Catholic Nut Nutritionist at on TikTok and Instagram. Instagram. Okay, well, God bless you. You're you're a gift. It was such a joy to meet you. These guys are asking questions, and it was just so good because you dug in and you covered this holistic. I love that approach, right? Don't just run off and learn how to eat carrots or just how to chart. You put it all together because that's what happens, right? That's how we live, you know. So God bless you. Thank you so much for being with us. Hey, thanks, everyone.