Certified Food & Spirit Practitioner Program

Food & Spirit Founder: Deanna Minich, PhD, FACN, CNS

Copyright © 2014 by Deanna Minich/Food & Spirit

Check-In #3

Copyright © 2014 by Deanna Minich/Food & Spirit

What are your

thoughts, feelings,

and impressio

ns on a personal level?

What are your thoughts,

feelings, and impressions on a professional level?

Case Study

Copyright © 2014 by Deanna Minich/Food & Spirit

Major Health Complaints

1. “Up and down” moods2. Estrogen Dominance3. Increased anxiety over past 6 months

Patient Story

Summary of major complaints: • 26 year old female, “Jill”• Her first major complaints are that she frequently experiences

“up and down” moods. She attributes mood changes to her period, but instead of a normal PMS, it could be for 3 weeks. “I only have a week of feeling balanced or normal a month.”

• Jill is a nutrition professional so she started to investigate if there was an underlying biochemical reason for her mood changes.

• She completed a 28 day female salivary hormone profile and found that she has sky high estrogen through the whole month with low testosterone.

• Jill is looking for a natural way to help balance her female health and moods.

• Her GYN diagnosed her with PMDD and has taken birth control in the past but wants to avoid this.

Patient Story

• The last of her major complaints is increased anxiety. • Jill is currently juggling a full time job, at least taking 2

graduate school classes per semester, and was even working a part time consultant job. She dropped the consultant job because she realized that she cannot do everything and needs to learn how to balance her activities.

• Jill is a self reported “perfectionist” and can be controlling over family and obsessive when she is not conscious of her behavior.

• Jill often feels anxious and she thinks this is due to her work and school stress, but also might be caused by her imbalanced hormones.

• She is “always doing something” and feels that most of her energy is focused around her work and school and does not have fun on a daily basis.

Patient Story

Diet/ Nutrition: • Jill eats generally healthy since she does work in nutrition. • She does admit increased caffeine consumption during the past year

which contributes to anxiety. She has been cutting back on caffeine. • She tries to eat a high omega-3/monounsaturated fat and high

vegetable diet with proteins at every meal and often at snacks. She avoids processed foods completely. She admits to not getting enough starchy foods on some days when she is very busy.

• She tends to eat out on the weekends for social reasons and at that point she might have an unhealthy meal. She was also drinking about 4 alcoholic beverages on 1-2 nights on a weekend.

• She has recently acknowledged this effects her moods the following day and especially around her menstrual cycle.

• Since then she has cut her alcohol consumption to 2 drinks per sitting. Jill had a salivary cortisol testing which was normal.

Patient Story

Social/ Tribes: • Jill admits not having a tribe for the past 2 years due to

moving to a new town without knowing anyone. • She is very close with her family but notes that her parents

may influence her choices too much. • She feels like she lacks support at work and feels

overworked and not acknowledged by her supervisor. • Her close friends are scattered in different states, so does

not regularly hang out with people for fun in person and feels lonely at times.

• A year ago she started dating someone and is in a happy relationship. This has made a huge difference for social health.

Copyright © 2014 by Deanna Minich/Food & Spirit