Angelica Hodges 2024: Functional Nutrition

DeliveryRank meets Angelica Hodges, a certified FNTP, Nutritionist, and Holistic Health Coach with eight years of experience in the wellness space. Her journey into root cause wellness led her to reopen her practice, offering Nutrition consultations to help individuals achieve optimal health. 

Angelica, can you share more about your personal health journey and the pivotal moments  that led you to become a certified FNTP and Holistic Health Coach? 

One of the biggest driving factors for me was watching some of my close family, my grandparents, die from preventable disease. And then when I became a mother at an early age, I dedicated my life to changing the outcome of how my health would impact my children. When I found holistic health care and the realm of nutrition, I knew that I wanted it to be rooted in functional medicine. I wanted  to practice root cause wellness. 

That’s how I found the NTA and IIN - they both gave me something that I really needed and helped ground me in this type of practice. Over the years, I've just been very fortunate to have mentors and teachers and colleagues that have propelled me forward in all the work that I'm doing. My personal journey with nutritional therapy has been watching my health evolve, change, regress then propel forward as the years go on and through the separate phases of life. Whether that be trying to get pregnant after I was married, and I did not have a cycle for an  entire year, then having terrible cystic acne for another entire year and then watching my body  rebalance. I went on to have two more children and experienced healthy pregnancies. It has also  impacted how I am caring for my children; making sure that they are as healthy as possible through all the phases of their life. My children, of course, are still young, so I've got a ways to go. 

In your work as a Root Cause Practitioner, you emphasize the importance of going beyond  supplements and diet plans. How do you approach root cause wellness, and what sets your  methodology apart from traditional approaches to nutrition? 

I believe one of the biggest things that sets me apart as a practitioner is that I'm not just asking for a health history and then prescribing or suggesting a very blanket diet plan with supplements that we know work for certain ailments like gut dysbiosis or SIBO or overactive yeast. A lot of it I feel is in their story. 

Our first consultation together is anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours long where we're doing deep dives into their history. I want to know about when they last felt well, and I  want to know about when they first started to notice changes and shifts and then bridge those gaps to paint the picture of what happened. There is a very detailed questionnaire that we fill out and we go through together and it kind of helps to prioritize where we need to take our first steps and we create a road map based on all those different factors. Health histories, family histories, things like that. 

There is also a lot of constant communication, we have multiple visits really close together so  that we're really making sure that we understand the protocol that's laid out, that there are no  questions, that they understand fully if there are supplements involved. How to take them, if they  feel well on them and then making sure that we can shift as needed. 

So, let's just give an example that we put somebody on an entire program and we also did some targeted supplementation. I would check in about every two to three weeks and see how they're feeling. If I noticed that they were feeling chronically fatigued, very low energy and upset stomach, we would dive deeper into what their nutrition actually looks like? Are they eating enough protein? Are they having too little carbs? Is there enough good fat to pair with the protein and carbs? And if not, we need to adjust them accordingly. And if they don't feel well on supplementation, we're going to dive deeper into that and figure out if it is the dosage of the supplement that we have them on or is it something that's non compatible for this phase of healing and then making shifts and adjustments as needed.  

I also believe that root cause Wellness is a very big buzzword. For me it's not just saying that I'm a root cause practitioner, it is me asking a lot of questions and being very curious and if I don't  understand, I ask even more questions and that constant communication and contact with the  client. Root cause isn't a blanket statement of saying someone has gut dysbiosis for example. Root cause wellness from my prospective would be; they have gut dysbiosis because they had a  traumatic event and they had some kind of underlying infection where a doctor might have put  them on high dose antibiotics for a period, their diet kind of got erratic, and the stress bucket began to overflow. That would lead me to thinking we need to change the diet, something more anti-inflammatory, more nutrient dense and healing for the gut lining. While also rebalancing that gut microbiome and figuring out what the right formula is for that client. What is the right  supplementation for this person to balance things out? Not just change the diet, give them  probiotics and hope everything's OK. It is - Why did this happen? When did it happen? How long ago did it happen? And what do we need to do to push them forward in their healing? 

Being a wife and mother of three, how do you balance your personal life with your  professional commitment to helping others achieve optimal health? Are there specific  wellness practices that you prioritize in your own life? 

I think that balance is a lifelong struggle. I have made strong commitments to working when I am at work and when I am at home, I am only with my family. I do not allow myself to answer work emails or answer phone calls. I am very upfront with telling clients and patients that my hours are from  8:00 AM to 4:00 PM and if it is an emergency always dial 911 of course. If it is something that is just a quick question, they have functions where they can message me. But if it's more than just a yes or no, that does require for us to have a formal conversation or a follow up and that would require them scheduling that. 

Outside of that, things I prioritize in my life? Sleep for sure! My husband jokes about my beauty sleep but seriously, women do require more sleep than men. Making sure that I get in movement because when I am not moving my body in a way that feels good for me, which currently is Pilates and lots of walking, my body feels sluggish and off. If I'm not doing at least those two things, everything else feels out of balance, kind of like the domino effect. 

Things I like to  prioritize for our for our family are nutrient dense meals as much as possible. That isn't always easy because I'm at work and the kids are in school. I do my best to make sure when we are home together that I provide the most nutrient dense meal I can. Even if it’s just spaghetti; I take the time to chop extra veggies for my tomato sauce, use grass fed beef and organic noodles. Prepping things in advance to send them the best lunch options I can. I also really like to prioritize my skin and hair care. Sometimes they think that vanity is overlooked. And by that I mean, that we can care about our appearance and that doesn't make us vain. What it does do for our mental health is very important. So, I like to do my daytime and nighttime skin care routine because I want the outside to reflect the inside. Meaning I'm putting in a lot of work to make sure that my nutrition, my movement, my sleep, all of that is in balance so that my gut microbiome is healthy. But I also want my outside skin to reflect that, so I will do the nice face masks and I will do some exfoliation and I will do a weekly hair oil treatment to my scalp because I want my hair to be vibrant and to grow long and all of those things. It's a silly guilty pleasure. But that is also something that I do like to prioritize  because it's pouring into me at the end of each day. 

One last thing! I also very much appreciate journaling. It seems like one of those untapped treasures because it costs us nothing but our time  and there is no right or wrong way to do it. But for me, at the very beginning of my day, it's kind of what keeps me grounded, where I will meditate, I'll also do my prayer time and whatever dreams I might have had or thoughts or even a priority list, things that need to get done within a day; it goes in my journal. Then if I have the time, I will do a brain dump right before bed so that I'm not having constant racing thoughts keeping me awake. Oftentimes, if I'm feeling confused or overwhelmed with emotion, I simply write because that is the one thing that's going to help me sort out my feelings, sort out my thoughts, and understand what's going on inside my body. So, journaling is a win =).

Your mission is to empower individuals with the knowledge of functional nutrition. For  someone new to this concept, what are the fundamental principles they should  understand, and how can they begin incorporating functional nutrition into their daily lives? 

I like this question because functional nutrition doesn't always get the recognition it deserves. A lot of times it is seen as only just a diet plan or putting somebody on some supplements. But principles or foundations of wellness are really what I aim to teach people. Think of it as habit stacking. What I'm trying to achieve with a client/patient is autonomy and independence. I want to teach someone to no longer need me each week or month. So, if somebody is new to this and they have no idea what  to expect, some of the things that I want people to walk away with would be: 

We cannot outrun a poor diet.  

Not one diet is going to work for every single person.  

I also don't believe there is one perfect diet.  

Moving more and eating less is not always a solution, it’s rarely a solution. 

Sleep is VERY important. 

Your hormones are NOT the problem.  

Stress is one of the biggest factors to consider for achieving health.  

I love to teach people about bio individuality. In learning to understand their unique body so that  they can become more in tune and listen to what they need in any given moment. 

For instance, when a woman goes through pregnancy, her needs for nutrition are going to change and her needs for rest are going to change. The way she moves her body is going to change. So being able to tap into that intuition and honor those needs at that current moment is what I want somebody to learn.

These are skills, skills that need to be taught. So, we start by proactively going through an  elimination style protocol to get all of the major offenders that are going to create inflammation out of the diet. 

I think another principle that I really want people to learn is that at the end of the day, food is  information. It is fuel for our body to function properly. So there is no right or wrong way to do  things. There are only foods that work for our body, and foods that work against our body. 

How do we incorporate this into our daily lives? I think we start small. We start with foundations. Meaning I don't want somebody to completely throw out everything in their house and have them think they must start from scratch, unless that were feasible. 

What I want someone to do is to take the next opportunity they have to create a nourishing meal, or if they're out to eat, order the most nourishing meal within that menu and pay attention to how their body responds after, and then continue to make choices that are going to build on health. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by all the things that we could or should be doing but building upon things over time. 

How do you see your role in the future of nutrition? 

I'm not quite sure what to make of this question. The role of nutrition? Or how I see myself in this  role? 

I’m a life long learner. I'm always going to continue researching. I'm always going to continue to ask questions. I'm not going to be afraid to ask for help or for redirection or seek mentorship. Because that's going to sharpen my skills as a practitioner. It's going to help me think outside the box when I come across a difficult case or I feel like we've gotten stagnant in whatever we're doing in terms of gaining greater health. 

The role as a nutritionist: Necessary and sometimes vitally underused, where we want to dive  headfirst into all the hard problems. Let's just give an example of hormones. Someone seeks out an integrative or functional office to discuss hormonal imbalances. If we want to balance hormones we need to consider the gut microbiome, we need to address diet and lifestyle. We need to discuss that hormones are only messengers and they're never actually the issue of what is happening because that is NOT root cause wellness. Maybe on that trend I see my role as vital when it comes to holistic health, when it comes to working within an integrative office or working with integrative practitioners doctors. Because it is in this role where I get to teach people about those day-to-day actions and how to evaluate things for themselves.

If you would like to find out more about Angelica Hodges, please visit https://angelicahodges.com/