Shakin' Hands

Ep. 29 | The Nutrition Advantage - Abigail King

• Jack Moran • Season 1 • Episode 29

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Jack speaks with Abigail King, founder of AK Functional Nutrition, on how functional nutrition impacts health and business performance. Abigail shares her journey of starting her own practice, the foundations of health she prioritizes with clients—including nutrition, sleep, and stress management—and how taking care of your body drives productivity. She also discusses overcoming self-doubt as an entrepreneur and balancing wellness with the demands of running a business.

AK Functional Nutrition

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Hello everybody and welcome to Shakin’ Hands I'm your host Jack Moran You can find me on Instagram at Jack Riley Moran Today on the episode we have Abigail King a functional nutritionist We do it in In little Yeah I just talk to some clients this morning Little afternoon podcast talk with Jack So getting on well getting the day started off right Yeah So tell us a little bit about like what you do Give me like a little bit of a background Yeah So I'm a functional nutritionist I have my master's in nutrition and functional medicine I'm a certified nutrition specialist Really what I do on a day to day I work with clients one on one I have a virtual practice Abigail King Functional Nutrition and I deal with a lot of clients that struggle with gut issues gut imbalances hormone issues start with their nutrition kind of chronic inflammation sort of pictures So I work through their case and help them get better How did you become interested in that Why did you enter that profession So how far back do you want to go I mean I in the beginning we got the time Yeah we got the time So I mean I grew up with a mom that loved to cook So that's really where a lot of it kind of started I was always kind of in the kitchen with her helping her cook just innately kind of like gravitated towards healthier food which was kind of rare come to find out with my friends wondering why I'd always been just like eat an apple or whatnot but I really just came from my parents being good role models Fast forward I went to College of Charleston I graduated with a BS in Public Health and I mean I thought through college I wanted to maybe do you know go through medical school My brain is more like sciencey That stuff just kind of make sense to me Learning how like the body works and all So I actually got an internship summer going into senior year with a natural path here in Charleston Natural like doctor you know and if I'm guessing that's like a natural means Yeah Yeah So it's basically like a medical doctor but they're trained in more nutrition kind of root causes approach Identifying imbalances in the body instead of treating symptoms Yeah Yeah So I interned with her and she really is opened my eyes to really holistic health medicine how food can really change the trajectory of someone's health And so after I interned with her for a couple of years and I thought okay do I want to do medical school or do I want to you know be a hospital administrator I thought that for a minute But after just seeing how much food lifestyle can really change somebody's like health and mental health to performance Everything I thought you know that's kind of where I want to go So I got my master's in nutrition while I was working with her and in my clinical hours was under that practice After I graduated with my master's I there wasn't really more growth for me in her business So at that point I was I decided to start my own business really had no intentions to I kind of just winged it That's working So I go sometimes not bringing it so much anymore but a little more strategy to it But yeah fantastic Kind of What's your outlook on like the conventional like Western medicine approach to health and wellness There's a time and a place Right They are very important for more like acute issues So you know breaking your bone heart attack any brain surgery tumor very important But people's health conditions cannot be fixed with a pill or surgery It goes much deeper than that Like there's inflammation can be brewing for years So learning how to like when I work with my clients I'm identifying where are these sources of inflammation and where how are we going to put those fires out and how are we going to return balance to your body And it's not overnight with a quick fix that most people you know a scene That's what well I should rephrase that Like conventional medicine It's it's taught people to want to correct quick fix And that's not what they're getting when they come to somebody like me because we're trying to change their lifestyle and prevent them from actually getting to the point where they need that like acute care Is there any like one size fits all methodology like for being happy and healthy or just like fundamentals that a person should Yeah I would say fundamentals I mean I call it that's what I call like my foundations I have clients that come to me and they want a quick fix But I have to explain to them this is not that sort of scenario in practice Like it takes time for the body to heal and you have to focus on the foundations first before jumping to even like supplements and just fancy things like IVs therapy or whatnot like So the foundations that I like to teach my clients of course is nutrition eating more you know closest to nature just to keep it simple whether you follow whatever diet kind of paradigm philosophy but just eating closest to nature So making sure your nutrition is dialed Sleep Are you prioritizing your sleep Kind of your sleep wake cycle the same every night and then making sure you're not deficient anything I really like to have my clients get like regular lab work to make sure we're checking in and watching the trends throughout the years Exercise movement stress component You know the foundations Yeah some things are really widespread when it comes to like treating each person You want to make sure you're addressing each of those foundations And we kind of like I didn't preface this yet on the episode where we talked about before like why this is interesting to the podcast is I am a firm believer that diet is and you know your the health of your body correlates a lot with your productivity And if you're trying to be an entrepreneur you need to be extremely productive So having a good foundation is the you know building one of the main building blocks for that productivity But so that's kind of you know just a preface like why I think it's very important what you're doing You mentioned a couple times inflammation Is that something that you see that's very common Why is chronic inflammation a big problem So it's basically when when I say inflammation I feel like most people think is just like heart disease or diabetes just like these big disease states But there can be like low grade inflammation that's just making you feel tired or off or just like you know brain foggy not focused So those are all signs that there's an immune shift in your body That's what inflammation is There's certain there's a shift in the immune system that's driving up this inflammation that's causing your symptoms And so inflammation can come from many different sources I always explain this to my clients It can be due to a deficiency It can be due to a toxicity in the body an imbalance in the body and hormones It can be due to you know gut imbalances and the microbiome There's a lot of pathogenic bugs that are driving up these or causing more inflammatory compounds to be released Stress is a biggie So whether it's someone that has like anxiety is perceiving a lot of stress in their environment or if there is a lot of like situational stress going on you know that's driving up inflammation So you have to identify all those sources and realize that it can be coming from a lot of different sources And then you begin to kind of work on each of those camps So if I had to go through like coming as a client and I can think of like I'm trying to think of like the issues that an entrepreneur would be dealing with like let's start with mood What would be the first thing that you would look at and like Is there kind of a synopsis of where you would you know think would be like the first culprits of that like yeah issues of mood So I would think possibly a blood sugar imbalance possibly vitamin D deficiency possibly B12 deficiency and then maybe hormones But I would start with like these things first So blood sugar imbalance is the person Are they

you know waiting till 1:

00 to eat They're doing really hard work out in the morning They're breaking that fast There's a bagel you know that's going to disrupt the sugars in your bloodstream and can affect your energy and mood So we're making sure that they're eating properly balanced meals Let's check your vitamin D levels Are you close to 60 and 70 Because your vitamin D can affect your mood your immune system B12 can affect your energy your mood liver detox which can make you feel like sluggish And then what was the last one I mentioned Oh hormones So a lot to talk about there But yeah look at me Imbalance in that section too Okay So now what about energy Like I'm burning out like halfway through the day Would that be a lot to do with like the meals that you're having throughout the day And then what would be the kind of that like ideal diet throughout the day to support that productivity Right You're feeling sluggish throughout the day That was what this person's feeling you know burnt out and yeah Yeah So I don't actually have a conversation with them about their sleep and recovery They could be I mean and this podcast is geared towards like entrepreneurs right High high achieving professionals probably maybe a little more like type A you know they're yeah high achievers They're doing a lot or what are they doing to help offset that And so I talk to a lot of like my clients that are like doctors themselves or lawyers trying to explain okay you have a lot filling up in this bucket of like that's filling up your stress bucket whether it's good stress or not You're just doing a lot of it's like a lot of hard workouts and you know tough conversations with clients patients just your workloads intense What are you doing to help like offset that Are you making sure that you're getting you know adequate sleep Do you need to do more for recovery And then of course the food conversation So what would you be eating Definitely emphasizing adequate protein especially in your first meal Like when I'm looking at a client's overall nutrition and diet it can be overwhelming to work on like everything at once So I really try to kind of reel it back and be like okay let's work on your first meal because that really is like most important whether you have it at 9 am or 11 Depends case by case and what's going on with the person if you're implementing any like fasting or time restricted eating But yeah making sure you're having adequate like protein upon waking or close enough to your workout making sure you're having adequate fiber with your meals like Whole Foods healthy fats So just making sure they're balanced in that sense And so you talked about oh sorry You said you're talking about sleeping What are the like minimums for sleep Sleep requirements to have a happy healthy life Productive life Yes So between 7 and 9 hours everyone's a little different Some people don't need as much sleep You know their sleep type Prototype's a little bit different But what's like the most important principles is the hours that you're getting But actually what you in terms that is your consistent like sleep wake schedule So trying to go to bed at the same time every night whether it's 9 or 11 you know sticking to that is really important for your sleep pattern because it helps with the way I don't know if you ever seen like your circadian rhythm or anything Is that Yeah Well yeah that's part of it too Your so your circadian rhythm has to do with it's your sleep wake cycle and it's governed by a hormone cortisol And then melatonin kind of offset each other So your cortisol rhythm rises or your cortisol rises in the morning about like two hours after waking It should be at its highest point That's what's given you like your get up and know your energy And the more fine tune your sleep wake cycle is the more like stronger of a cortisol awakening response you can have You have an interesting car it's called And then so your personal time about two hours after waking Then it slowly starts to come down And then it should be

pretty much zero around like ten 11:

00 And then when the sun goes down it triggers melatonin That comes up we get sleepy we go to bed So really it's like following the sun like nature Really want to sync to what our bodies naturally want to What are the most common bad habits that you see with clients You use common bad habits Well we're talking about my Charleston clients There's a lot of good food here So social eating drinking finding that balance It's not a bad habit So maybe I shouldn't say that but late night snacking that's a biggie Just like grazing and even just grazing throughout the day not having your substantial like meals that's not a great habit for multiple reasons for blood sugar for like motility for your microbiome So yeah not having like solid meals grazing a lot I can think of another one What do you think about like people every single weekend getting you know breaking their sleep schedule and ingesting toxins throughout the weekend and then trying to have a productive week after that Is there any like research that would support that being I'm not good Yeah I mean I'm sure there is just my referring to that whole heap your sleep wake cycle the same I mean I'm I happens to me happens to everybody You know you're not going to go to sleep or it's things come up you go out to a late dinner or you go to a concert or like whatnot like stuff comes up You just have to know okay what can I do to get back to it And if you you know are more social you are having more drinks or traveling more more of those sort of stressors like how can we support your body while doing that You know I'm a question that I get a lot from like potential clients is can I like not drink or do I have to not drink on your program Or can I like you know never have sugar on your program Like no this is like a lifestyle change Like we want to create a healthy lifestyle But then again you want to have fun So you got there's a balance and how to support your body through those challenges Right What is your program like What are the the baseline of your program So all I have a three and six month program basically where clients are at the initial 75 minute console I go through their history health history I go over their labs We talk about each of their main concerns and I'm identifying during that session what's going on in their body and prioritize how we're going to get them better Whether it's someone that comes to me with you know chronic gut issues IBS someone that's a female that's not cycling having like hormonal issues somebody that just wants to feel bad or they're just feeling sluggish or whatnot So I kind of prioritize come up with a plan and we follow up every other week for 30 minutes through that 3 or 6 months What is like the most recent insight that you've gotten in your field like that you find interesting something that you're pursuing or you think is like pretty profound anything Yes I think all of the research and like resistance training is pretty fascinating And you know most people think weightlifting resistance training whatever you want to call it is just for like you know vanity like body composition and have goals But when you work on building muscle maintaining good muscle having just good muscle health it has downstream effects for your metabolism because your muscles are the biggest storage of glucose They hold like a ton of sugar like glucose And we get through our food and it sensitize ourselves to this hormone called insulin that's responsible for basically letting glucose into our cells so that we can have the energy to perform or whatnot But maintaining good muscle health is good for our metabolite metabolism I like long story short and for like longevity as we age and getting old I mean people are a big risk when you're old and really worried about it right now But like falling I'm seeing like my grandparents get old and I'm like falling in you because like you know eating good protein and you know training can have done wonders Yeah I'm glad you mentioned longevity That was my next question Have you looked into like biohacking or anything like that What what tools are you I know nothing about it so I was hoping you could tell me something I just know the terminology Yeah So I'm not an expert in biohacking realm So let's see when I think biohacking a lot of like the fancy tools and equipment and things like that like the red light So you can get to help stimulate your mitochondria and like recharge your mitochondria which are like the energy powerhouses of the cell As we age we get our mitochondria decline just because of aging And also things we do age them faster So red light therapy is kind of a biohacking tool Okay I do have red light So I guess I am into hacking What else Like the like peptides You can inject growth hormone and NAD and all that stuff I'm not really into that Like I was clients more on the just foundations Some of that stuff like wigs me out I'm like well I might be working in the short term We don't know what the long term effects are Yeah I mean I get a lot of questions about some of my clients or text me I mean what do you think about like NAD what's that again NAD yeah it stands for a very long word which I'm not gonna butcher It is a cofactor for ATP Okay Which is what our mitochondria make which is energy for ourselves So like I said as we get older mitochondria decline And it's thought the theory is you supplement nad you get a IV of NAD and it's it's helping your mitochondria to make ATP I don't think it's the doses that are needed are much higher than what you can get in Supplement and supplement is so expensive So I just and it's not quite like a sure thing I want to live longer which try to eat whole foods lift weights on walks be outside have good social connection Yeah there's a big social component right Yes yes That kind of goes along with like the mental health aspect of it all What was that documentary called It was like blue zones Oh the blue zones yeah What do you think of the Buettner I think it's great I think it's opened a lot of people's eyes I love home you know there's a lot of more wellness documentaries on Netflix whether you agree with all of them or not but it's just helping people become more aware of you know environmental things that can affect your health How you live your life affects your your health outcomes There's one on another one called Hack Your Health on Netflix About the gut microbiome You seen that one in an hour It's fascinating I the it's worth a watch Yes Yeah it's worth a watch I'll have to check that out What would you say is like your definition of success What are you trying to achieve through your entrepreneurial journey as a nutritionist Neutral by definition yes Definition of success Well at this moment my definition would be having like better health outcomes for my clients You know getting an iPhone with them after you know two weeks and hearing they're having more energy they're sleeping better Like they're just enjoying life More like just that's makes me feel successful If you could define like a single instant now that you're like I'm no I'm successful what would that require And maybe not just in your professional life maybe in your personal life as well Like what are kind of those like boxes you're looking to check Yeah Aside from like professional I think lithium Yeah Yeah I think of the boxes that I would check is this should be an easy easy response It's a tough question for a lot of people Right Yeah Yeah I think having a solid like who you hang out with in your community Yeah Knowing that you feel like confident and you know people have your back and you trust them That's always a good place Like a you always feel good when you're at that place You know if some something happens and you know you have your team tribe so you feel like you don't have that Yeah I do okay I guess I feel successful that I don't know if you feel successful already Yeah I mean I my personality I'm so like into like the day to day the next week Look at my calendar What do I have Like I guess that's the thing I could work on is all right what would define success like next step like yeah I don't know I need to think about that as the years coming to a close That would be a good reflection Question Are there any limitations that you deal with or have dealt with in the past Limitations Time So everyone's limitation Is that something that causes you anxieties Time it does for me for sure Feeling Yeah Feeling overwhelming You have so much to do And I mean I have pretty good boundaries around it Like I'm pretty structured with like my sleep Like I will get to bed at like 9 to 10 because and I know I have to get outside of the next morning or to go do my workout Makes me feel good Yes I have 1 million things on my plate but this is kind of what I try to teach my clients too You have to have your boundaries and you have to have your non-negotiables because if you don't take care of yourself then you can't take care of others and be there to and in whatever capacity is needed Well what's something let's follow up with that What's something that you do now that you didn't do before that you wish you did before earlier Something you do now that I wish I did earlier Okay Maybe a habit or you know could be anything or something you wish you knew like early in your career or just in your life Yeah Yeah I think putting yourself out there and making new connections and meeting new people like things like this You know I work for myself work from home and I'm trying to do you know collaborate more with people And I wish I knew that earlier I feel like I could you know be a little bit even more successful now So it was it's scary making that leap in the beginning like into you know producing income of you know your own venture Was that like a tough leap for you in the Yeah No I remember being so when I was interning I was also kind of oh I kind of I was health coaching I was helping the doctor kind of take on some of her clients And so that was like my first like one on one with clients And I was really nervous like and then I thought all right when I start my own business it's all going to be me You know it's all going to be on me So that was a little you know kind of like imposter syndrome sort of feeling like am I do I know enough to start my own Can I help people But then once you start talking helping people you have one client You have ten you have 50 Just build that confidence and you don't know You don't know till you start And I think a lot of people could learn from that as just put one foot in front of the other Like you don't need to know how you're going to get how you're going to get there how are you going to make a million bucks or whatever it is like maybe you want to do financially whatever your goal is you don't have to know how you're going to get there It's just you just take what comes at you and keep rolling It seems to be a reoccurring theme or a pattern with like a lot of our guests is they had that like kind of fear of the imposter syndrome from the beginning How did you kind of deal with that psychologically like and make the leap into the deep end Because obviously it was the right decision And I think for most people that do leap into you know again the deep end and like face their fears and get out of that comfort zone It usually ends up prosperous for them Yeah But it's there's a lot of people that will never get past that stage Yeah And they succumb to those limitations Internal limitations How did you like build the confidence to pursue ahead Well I think the more uncomfortable thing is you put yourself in other things just get easier And that's where I begin to like learn about myself And I listen to a lot of like self-help thing like podcasts books that those sort of topics if I'm struggling in a certain situation or I want to learn more about something whether it's health or relationship building like communication skills like I'll just like I'll just do a deep dive and try to learn more about it But one tool that really helped me because with the whole like an imposter syndrome I would jot down in like a journal a couple things that are like specifically like working well to help kind of rewire and reframe my brain because and I kind of teach my clients some of this too Our our brains are always looking for like the threats in our environment And that like negativity can really bring you down and can make you doubt yourself So that's more in practice that when I started my business in like 2019 I was pretty religious about like okay let's show my brain evidence that I am doing well and I'm thriving And that energy really shifted And I swear ever since then I've been like very busy and haven't looked back I don't do the practice as much anymore but if I feel myself slipping and such like I'll get back to it Do you know anything about like Joe Dispenza Yes You like him Yeah He's like how do you like him Yeah I do like you know I think it's interesting how he talks about or like kind of the fundamental fundamental thing that I've learned from him is like your personality is created by your thoughts and your personality defines your personal reality So when people want to change their reality but keep the same like personality and identity it's impossible Like you have to be committed to shifting that identity Yeah And changing the way that you think And if you're a negative person like yeah I'm creating like positivity within your life within your own thoughts within your language before you can shift that personality to change the way your outcomes are I mean that's kind of what prompted my journal practice of reframing was Joe Dispenza Yes Really Yeah It's his big thing Yeah Is your thoughts control your reality and your biology So of course my brain and more like sciency like how do I optimize even like my health is hard to do that Yeah It's very interesting how like you know the implications of what he's saying is you can basically control your health through him Yeah Your thoughts like which is like pretty profound in the mental health space Yeah Yeah What do you think of that I mean valid or definitely I mean there's placebo trials And how do you believe a better to go That's what his book He he recites a lot of those like studies Yeah Which Malcolm did you I read Becoming Superhuman Oh okay Yeah I was that a second book or his first one I wrote No clue Yeah You are the placebo is the book where he tells of his story of how he broke his back and then you know he was going to have to have multiple back surgeries and walk again And how he healed himself through his thoughts Yeah it's pretty crazy how like here they became a neuroscientist and internal drives that external reality I'm a firm believer in that Yeah I'm going to like science to back it But just through my own like anecdotal experiences Yeah To circle back a little bit on the health I think like two super hot topics right now or trends are one fasting and to ice baths What do you think of the two of those things I think they're both great but case by case So fasting is there's different like versions of that Right So you could not eat just drink water for 24 hours 72 hours or whatnot And then there's like the 16 eight where you're not eating for 16 hours and then you're eating within an eight hour window And there's benefits to it if you're trying to lose weight I mean it's a way of caloric restriction And then secondarily it helps with recovery because if you're giving your body your digestive system a break from having to a lot of energy goes towards digesting If you're eating constantly grazing all day late night snacking waking up in the morning eating like if you're If your digestive system is constantly having to work resources aren't spent elsewhere in the body to help heal so it is a good way to help with recovery and healing and help with your gut health because it gives your digestive system Finally a break to So when I have clients do certain protocols to help balance their microbiome or fix some type of bug that's in their gut or whatnot I'll often use like some fasting to help kind of reset but people that may not be there may not be appropriate for it is like women are a little more sensitive because the hormones fluctuate every week So whereas men they're just stealing their hormones are the same until they become a certain age declines a little bit But certain times of a female cycle you may not want to because it's stressful for the body in your luteal phase So there's certain ways you can kind of shift fasting with like cycling and then ice baths I Spencer Great And I think it's a good way to help boost of men throughout the day Build your stress tolerance is my favorite reason why Because as I mentioned before like doing uncomfortable things life just gets easier Yeah And I have to say I'm not the best at doing ice baths That's very very hard for me Like I love doing sort of like a hard work out other things I'll do that hard But for some reason it's just like I I hate it but I love it What do you do about it I need someone to test a shock This is hard It's hard for me to breathe but I know I'm like okay then that's the hardest things I really really need to do more and lean into Have you ever used the Wim Hof method before doing an ice bath Before Yeah before and through it I thought I was supposed to do it during the ice baths I'm like his breathing Yeah I don't know I've always done it like I'll do one round before getting in and then my second and third rounds are when I'm in and it's like completely the completely takes the coldness away like my mind's completely like on the breathing and makes it way easier Okay I'll see you're more of an expert with that And then I give it a try But I also am kind of like on the other side I'm like okay is it like super healthy to like make your brain think that you're in a like life threatening situation every single morning You do it every morning No Definitely not Oh definitely not what some people do Oh yeah Some people are like yeah I'm sure you have a lot of adrenaline and dopamine and you have a great mood but I don't know like you know I could be completely wrong which seems kind of crazy to like Yeah Trick your brain into thinking that it's dying every single day putting that fight or flight like Well that's the whole thing When I mentioned it's helping to build your stress tolerance So like stress tolerance what that means is you're less affected by stressful situations throughout the day because you already went through this stressful situation But it's more of a adaptive stress It's like a comedic stress good kind of stress and helps to like train I keep saying train your stress tolerance So that's good It's good You sound over too long You don't want to do it after like lifting because it can impede Oh really I would think think that's when most people will like do it is you do a couple hours after Oh okay Or maybe is it 24 hours I'm not Like I said I'm not the expert on the ice bath thing but because like in college I play lacrosse you would get an ice bath after like practice or something So that's not a good practice I think that's been debunked Yeah Interesting Do you meditate at all here and there That's on my need to get better list Yeah sure Yes Is there any like I I do like my own version of it Like I walk outside with my dog and it's like being outside and I don't always I typically listen to like an audiobook or a podcast but on days where I'm like oh my gosh my brain's on overload Like I talked to so many people and I'll just not listening Don't bring your phone and just kind of focus on your surroundings near immediate like the sound of the trees just observing things And that's kind of a way to sort of bring yourself back to the present So that's kind of my mini version of meditating you know And sometimes before bed I'll do like a little meditation I just got introduced this week to like walking meditations where you fixate your intention instead of on the breath Well I guess you're still kind of on the breath but you fixate your attention on the contact point between your feet and the ground as you're walking And try to drive your attention on that which is like pretty cool Yeah Do you meditate every single day You're so good at the ice baths I'm not that good at breath as I can sink The breath is like so fascinating to me Like really how powerful it it is Like It's like limitless The implications for me Like what you can achieve just by like consciously breathing like throughout a workout when it's like things are difficult or anything's difficult like just putting that attention on the breath like tenfold increases what the possibilities are that your body can achieve Yeah You get much more out of whatever you're doing Is there any reason behind that or is there Well when you're focusing on your breath taking longer deeper inhales you're taking in more oxygen so your cells are better saturated with oxygen perform better Interesting Yeah All these things are like little anecdotal experiences Intuitively I feel like work but I don't have any like real backing So it's interesting to have someone like you here that can put like some pragmatic thoughts behind you know the intuitive beliefs But yeah if people want to you know are interested in talking to you more or want to utilize your practice or want to learn more about what you do where can they find you on Instagram aka Functional Nutrition on our website aka Functional nutritioncom I have a whole page of testimonies My different programs on the blog recipes and such So lots of information on there too Fantastic! Well I'm sure people will reach out after watching this Thanks for coming on the links All right guys that concludes this episode of Shakin’ Hands I'm your host Jack Moran Do not hesitate to reach out if you have any more recommendations for guests or questions that you want to be asked on the podcast but other than that we'll catch you next time Yeah You

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