Brain Fog, Candida, Sugar Cravings: The Root Cause

You might have seen that I recently finished writing the manuscript of my first functional medicine book — Mama Shine! The 4-step method to end your body burnout (for good!) for women in their late 30’s & 40’s (working title). I’ve been working in the background putting the steps in place to publish the book. Super excited!

In the book, I follow three women who are all experiencing body burnout symptoms, and the steps they take to get to the root cause of their health issues and end body burnout for good. They are a composite of myself, as well as the many women we have worked with who have been juggling all the things. The women in my book are called Hazel, Rose and Isla — I can’t wait for you to meet them!

I wanted to share with you a snippet of Rose. This part actually didn’t make the final draft of the book (gah, there were so many edits and cuts — it felt like killing off babies!). But alas! I have resurrected this snippet to make a blog post — haha.

Background on Rose

Rose is a combination of many women that we have served. She was well and proper burned-out, exhausted. Her skin was dull. Her eyes clouded. Her words were slow and disjointed. Even the way she walked and sat was ‘tired.’ Rose was struggling with fatigue, big time. She was a 38 year old mum of three, ages four, six and eight, and ran her own remedial therapy business. In addition to fatigue, she also struggled with brain-fog, low mood, sleep issues, thrush, and muscle weakness…oh, and the maddest sugar cravings!

Detect Physiological Imbalances

In our practice, we always say: you can’t have physiological symptoms without there being a physiological imbalance. This is why we TEST, NOT GUESS. Rose’s lab testing revealed that she had mitochondrial retraction, low dopamine, dysbiosis, including a candida overgrowth and parasites, and methylation issues. All of this made complete sense, given her combination of symptoms. For example, candida can lead to sugar cravings and thrush, fatigue can come from mitochondria and dopamine issues, methylation issues can affect sleep and brain fog.

But our detective work doesn’t stop there. Knowing what body systems have burned-out is super important to restore the body back to good health, but it’s NOT the root cause.

My next question when we get lab test results back, then, is: WHY? Why did the body systems burnout in the first place? What is the root cause?

If you ever want to end body burnout, and not just get “short-term” relief, then the root cause MUST be addressed. It’s all good and well to take a bucket-load of supplements targeted to the body systems tested, but it will only be a bandaid approach if nothing else is addressed — sure it’s a natural bandaid, but a bandaid nevertheless.

Getting To The Root Cause

Many people are onboard with there being “root causes”. Most practitioners and clients believe that root causes lie in poor diet, lack of sleep or exercise, EMF’s, heavy metals, having kids, stress at work, “bad” genes, relationship issues, or even trauma from the past.

But wait, Filly, aren’t these root causes?

While all these are root causes, I would call them “surface-level” root causes. They definitely have a HUGE impact on the body systems, but they are still only scratching the surface when it comes to the deepest root cause.

The deepest root cause actually comes back to the choices you have made in your life, right back to the stories you created about yourself as a kid, which has set your body up for expressing dis-ease. Even if you have a genetic mutation, it will only express if given the right environment.

Ask “Why?”

The most powerful word you can ask yourself is why? Why am I in a state of body burnout? An in-depth way to discover this is to continue asking “Why?”. When you can no longer answer the question “Why?”, then you have hit the deepest core root. Most people need a coach to dig to the deepest root source, as many people stop at behavioural or environmental or relationship causes, and fail to dig deep into the subconscious state where the core root lies.

Let’s look at Rose’s candida overgrowth, for example:

Rose, why do you have candida overgrowth?

Because I eat sugar all the time.

Why do you eat sugar all the time?

Because I crave it.

Why do you crave it?

Because it tastes yummy.

Why do you need something yummy?

Because I enjoy yummy things.

Why are you using sugar to find joy?

Because I have little joy in my life.

Why do you have little joy in your life?

My life is so exhausting mummying and working. I have no time for myself.

Why do you have no time for yourself?

Because I’m busy.

Why are you busy?

Because I’m always looking after other people.

Why are you looking after other people?

Because that’s my duty.

Why is it your duty?

My kids would starve if I didn’t.

Why is that an issue?

Because I’m their mum. They depend on me.

Why?

Because I love them.

Why is loving them an issue?

I don’t think it is.

Isn’t it? If it was an issue, why would it be an issue?

Well, I guess loving them too much means I don’t look after myself properly.

Why don’t you look after yourself properly?

Because I love my kids more than myself.

Why?

Because I don’t feel loveable.

At the top layer of Rose’s health issues is candida overgrowth, along with all her other body system imbalances. But we quickly see that the root causes go further than that. They are also behavioural (food choices), and lifestyle (work-family-life balance), and relationship (mothering ‘too much’). But at the deepest level it comes back to how Rose feels about herself. These dysfunctional beliefs affect EVERYTHING — especially the health of your body.

We could do the same thing for other root causes of candida — like antibiotic use, mould exposure, stress, alcohol consumption. When we branch out and dig deep into other root causes with clients, the same deepest root cause — a dysfunctional and often hidden belief about one’s self — always shows up, regardless of what the top-level root cause was.

If you’re someone who has been stuck going round in circles with your health issues, and no medication, supplement, diet, or lifestyle change has led to long-term results, THIS could be the missing piece to the puzzle.

If you are someone who wants to get to the root cause once and for all, and find freedom in your health and live your best life, then you are the type of person we LOVE working with! To find out if you’d be a good fit for our Ending Body Burnout Method, book in for a free discovery call here.

Filipa Bellette is Co-Founder of Chris & Filly Functional Medicine. She is an accredited Clinical Nutritionist & Functional Medicine Practitioner. She is also a Ph.D. thought-leader, award-winning writer, and regularly published as a guest blogger & in the media. Together with her husband Chris Bellette, Filipa has worked with over 2,000+ busy, burnout clients in the last 10+ years, and specialises in producing healthy, balanced, and happy Mums & Dads…or as she calls it, a Power Parent! Filipa’s own passion for producing high-performance Power Parents came from her own personal experience of Mummy Burnout, after having babies and juggling the demands of business, family, and her failing health.