This month Erika sat down with us to go a little more in-depth about the final of the three phases in our nutrition program – the maintenance phase! She explains in detail why reaching this stage is so important and can have lasting positive influences on your health and your quality of life! Head on over to our YouTube channel to watch the full interview, or read the transcription here for any clarification!

I’m here today with Erika Schultz. She is a licensed acupuncturist and a clinical nutrition response practitioner. She’s going to speak a little bit about phase three of the nutrition program: the maintenance phase.

Erika Schultz: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s go.

Okay. What is the importance of maintenance?

Erika Schultz: Well, as many of you know – (current patients) – there are three different phases when it comes to a nutritional healing program. The first phase that we discuss in the report of findings visit is fine tuning. Fine tuning is when you’re coming in a little bit more frequently, most … usually most people are coming about once a week for four to six weeks, somewhere in there. It’s really the part of the program where there is a lot to deal with in terms of just being … just getting started with a body that hasn’t been used to having targeted nutrition. We keep a closer eye on you.

Then eventually you move into that second phase, which is called healing and observation, where now, we’re really getting into the meat of what had you have those chronic systems that you came to us for in the first place. That’s when we start moving most people to coming in about every other week, so coming in a couple times a month. Using the targeted nutrition, we’re able to move the patient through that time period where we’re really just getting clear on what the layers are … what the deeper layers are of the body, what some of the underlying reasons are that led to … a symptom picture that led you into the point where you’re seeking care for some kind of a chronic health condition.

The most important of phases of a nutritional healing program is really maintenance. Maintenance comes at a point where … well, I will say that maintenance isn’t like you just wake up one morning and all of a sudden you’re in a maintenance phase of the program. It takes some time to get there. It takes some sorting through those layers. When I mentioned the healing and observation phase, you’re kind of in that period where we’re getting the layers of the onion peeled back. Then there’s a point where, when we do that for long enough, then the body is not revealing as many layers as often.

We start moving people into more of that maintenance care where we have them coming now, instead of a couple times a month, maybe they’re just coming once a month. Then, over time, we’re gonna spread that out even further. Maintenance, another way to think of maintenance is like … you wouldn’t just take your car into the mechanic and get one oil change in the duration of owning your car. You’re gonna do that every few months, depending on what kind of vehicle you’re driving. You’re going to need to take care of that car.

It’s the same with your body. It’s not like you just take in your body once and you fix it up and now it doesn’t need any more care. A body that’s exposed to food and an environment where there’s some noxious substances at various points and times that we’re getting exposed to, that also requires maintenance, so a peek at it every once in a while to see is there anything that’s crept in, crept up, or any deeper layer that still maybe, over time, the body is gonna really show us and give us that information once we’ve been doing correctional nutritional therapy over time.

How long does it typically take to get into maintenance mode?

There’s no magic answer for that. Each person’s different. Since this is a highly customized approach to wellness, each person is going to be on their own journey with that. Certainly when we look at statistical averages, we can say that somewhere … the average person is gonna take somewhere between a year to two to get into that maintenance zone. Again, it just depends on the body and the person. Now, some of the things that we can do to kind of understand that a little bit better would be to look at the foundational health on the HRV system, which we have in our office and we do that periodically. What most patients don’t realize is that we’re not actually taking that HRV to see has your foundational health actually improved in a six visit period, we’re actually looking at that HRV to understand if there’s deeper levels of blocking and switching, or, in other words, if there’s deeper levels of some kind of a nervous system dysfunction going on.

That’s the reason we do it as often as we do. It’s really not that we think, “Oh, we’re gonna shift in six visits this foundational health so tremendously.” Because the foundational health is really built on … with a factor of time in there. Relatively speaking, when you’re taking a body that’s been on this earth for somewhere between 30 to 70 years, some process has already been in place. There’s been years that precede your even getting into this office. The element of time is also a factor of this with natural healing because we’re talking about changing and shifting the foundation. We’re not talking about looking at … for a quick fix or just symptom relief. What we really wanna do is restore that foundational level. If we restore foundational health, then we know we have a real, true insurance policy on ourselves. We have an insurance policy that is one of good health.

In other words, we’re investing in our body now so that we’re not having to pay the piper 20 years down the road with some major medical diagnosis. That’s really the biggest shift in thinking when you’re talking about natural health and preventative wellness is that you’re really making your investment now so that you get the side bonus of having great health and vitality while you’re still young and you’re vital and you wanna live and be out in the world creating, doing whatever you’re up to. Most Americans, unfortunately, are thinking about health from a standpoint of, “Well, when I have a symptom then I do something about it.” The reality is, as symptoms are, by the time they’re showing up they’re … you’re already way down the path. It’s not a good indication as to whether or not, just because you’re symptom free, that you’ve got good health. I think that’s where some people can kinda get tripped up as they’re going through their healing process.

What are some of the challenges that a patient might face on their way to maintenance?

Well, I think that’s one of them right there is just being kind of symptom-oriented or being focused on just symptom relief. We’ll show this diagram here and I’ll talk a little bit through it right now. We’ve got this … I decided that it was a good idea to kind of illustrate this for patients so that they could get a bigger picture on what it means to restore health from a foundational level. This diagram here kind of illustrates that. If you look at this, it’ll show – you start off at the very front here, with the diagram on the left hand side here with correction and strengthening, or basically symptom relief. In this phase of the program, you can kinda equate this somewhere between the fine tuning phase, where we’re really handling the priority stressors of the body and by stressor we can identify that as being an immune challenge or some kind of a food sensitivity or some kind of environmental expose or toxin that the body’s gotten exposed to throughout the way.

We’re starting to do some organ repair as well. I like to call it we’re getting the organs … we’re starting to get the organs back online, if you will. As this sort of earlier phases of healing and observation, where, again, we’re pulling … we’re handling some of those deeper layers and those long term health challenges and we’re building the organs back up over time. As we’re doing this, we’re also making some life repairs. One of the biggest factors that goes into someone being on a maintenance program and getting there faster is really gonna be around their ability to make life … necessary life changes. That happens for everybody on a gradient level and over time as well. Certainly, if a life change is difficult then, often times, it’s … we’ve gone too far too fast with trying to make daily changes and whatnot, but it is an important part. You can’t be on a nutritional program and wanna see your health improve and eat a diet of sugar. They don’t coexist. You can’t use nutritional supplementation to overcome bad lifestyle habits.

We’re also making those as we go throughout the process as well. With the diet, speaking of that, we’re reducing the bad stuff, and we’re increasing the good stuff. We’re getting clearer on which foods need to be avoided so that the body can repair – we’re reducing sugars and carbohydrate loads, we’re increasing our good proteins and healthy fats – we’re asking clients to food log during this time so they can be extra conscientious of what’s going on with their diet. All in all, what we see with the vast majority of people that are following along and following our recommendations is gonna be major symptom improvement and improved health. They’re excited about it and they’re happy about it. We’re excited about it and we’re happy about it. They feel great.

What most people don’t realize, therein, is the potential danger zone, which is now you’re at a point where you’re feeling better and you think, “Well, I don’t really need to take these supplements anymore. I’m feeling pretty good. I think, well maybe I’ll just stop detoxing. I know she said I had something like heavy metals. I feel better, though, so I don’t think that really I need to finish detoxing those heavy metals.” Or, “She said she found some kind of an immune challenge. Well, I feel better. I feel great, so I don’t think I really need to do anything more for that immune challenge,” kind of thing. That’s misleading. Again, that’s the being oriented to the symptom picture. That’s where people can kind of get hung up. They think they feel better. “Well, I don’t wanna make the trip down to her office. I don’t wanna pay anymore for supplements,” whatever it might be.

That’s where we go into this danger zone. Really, that’s the part where it’s the most critical because now, if you’re at that point, and you just drop off, well, given enough time, it’s likely that those stressors haven’t fully been handled, they’re gonna return in some form. They’re gonna have an impact over time, again, in some form. It may not look like the exact same symptom picture that brought that person in here in the first place, but it’ll inevitably show up in some other way. Now you’re back in the office or starting again, fine tuning, or kind of … we’ve lost some ground, if you will. The most effective way to do this, really, is just to leverage what … the steps you’ve already taken, which is getting through fine tuning, getting through healing and observation, and just up-keeping what you’ve already done, and then just using this system as a way to deal with little things that come up, little health crises, like you catch a flu or you catch a bug or whatever, and longer term and maintenance.

We’re really focusing on anti-aging. We’re really focusing especially on making sure that the brain has what it needs as is ages, the skin. We’re doing cellular repair. We’re focusing more on the weight loss challenges and things like that that are going to be lasting, weight loss in here is more of a longer term deal because the reality is is most people’s bodies are not trying to lose weight in the beginning, your body’s oriented to help you survive. Over time, addressing some of those organs that caused the body to go into a poor metabolism or retaining weight or fat and dealing with those toxicities of the body is the best way to handle those weight loss issues instead of trying to do some fast thing that then turns around and creates more organ dysfunction in the end. That’s the maintenance, so doing more supportive care. It’s really less focused on symptoms and really just more about health and longer term vitality.

Once a patient makes it to maintenance, what might be some of the benefits that they will see coming from that?

Well, again, just kinda going back to what we were talking about, better health, sustained health, less problems with catching bugs that are out in the environment, handling day-to-day stress better, feeling more vital. I’d like to say, from my personal experience and in patients that I see enter into these modes, they’re given a new lease on life. It’s like when your health is handled, now you have the ability to do what … things you never thought you could do kinda thing. I’ve seen a lot of people go through that transition. Really it’s not even a transition. It’s a transformation into a new capacity for their life and for … and then that spills over into their spouse’s life if their spouse isn’t in already and/or their children. Everybody benefits when you’re feeling better. All the people around you in your life benefit from that in addition to yourself. It’s really, from my perspective, quite limitless in terms of when you get your health handled what else you can do with your life is up to you.

That’s great. Thank you so much.

Thank you!