Natalia Restrepo, expert in nutrition and women's health: "Changing your diet costs much more than quitting smoking"

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• Mindful eating, how to train the brain to follow a diet well

For the last 12 years, she has been working on women's health and fertility in Valencia, her headquarters, from where she also organises online programmes, workshops, retreats... An expert in yoga, doula (she helps women who choose to give birth naturally), she also consults at the exclusive Sha Wellness Clinic in Altea (Alicante). For all of the above and a few other things, Natalia Restrepo is a difficult professional to categorize, especially when she expresses her dream of "growing a community of women who want to heal, love themselves and achieve their life purpose" or when she refers to that mysterious "feminine energy" (a concept that at first produces a deep distrust in this journalist) that, He says, we lose when "we orbit in the opposite direction to our deepest nature, adopting inverted schedules for endocrine functions – being awake at night and sleeping during the day – when we eat based on products and not food, when we look for painkillers so as not to observe the reality of the body, nature...). Changing (other) habits is their professional day-to-day, so we turn to it at this crucial time of the year, when so many of us think that maybe it's a good time to leave behind tobacco, 'chips', a sedentary lifestyle, alcohol... and start a new life full of health.

These dates arrive and many people propose that in the following year they will change their bad habits and lead a healthier life. Do you really think this is a good time to make that kind of statement or are we just buying ballots for disappointment? It all depends on where you are. Generalizing, I think any excuse is good to make habit changes. If the beginning of a year is the impulse that leads you to do them, then fantastic. If we spin a finer thread, in seasonal changes, especially in the most drastic ones at the atmospheric level - autumn and spring - making changes in our diet in a smart way with the environment can help us to go through them in a more balanced way. From your experience with your clients/patients, what do people look for most when considering something like this? Lose weight? Feeling less tired? Finding a new meaning to your life? My work is mainly focused on women. Most of them come to my office for advice, they are women with hormonal disorders, endometriosis, polycystic ovaries, amenorrhea or any other imbalance in the reproductive system. They rarely come because they want to improve their quality of life by being well. And yet, you start to feel bad long before you are aware of it... What warning signs from our body-mind do you think we should listen to, pay better attention to, to realize that a change is necessary in our lives? I think character is the first thing that changes when we start to get sick, but it's something subtle and progressive and we don't pay attention to it. When you start to feel more irascible, reactive, irritable, tense, it is usually a very clear alarm that something is not going well, but we attribute it to other more tangible things (work, family, money...). Then begin problems with sleep, intestinal disorders, and in most women, hormonal problems, which on the other hand are closely connected to the pituitary gland and hypothalamus, responsible for managing many of our emotions such as stress, anger or depression. It's the fish that bites its own tail. Quit smoking, stop drinking, change your diet, exercise... Of all these changes in habits, which one is the most difficult in your experience? Without a doubt, food. Think that food is something deeper than we imagine. It's our culture, our education. When we change the way we eat, we are breaking down very strong barriers, removing foundations, and this generates a lot of rebellion. Everything we eat today becomes our blood tomorrow, just as every day we excrete toxins from the blood through urine, sweat, mucus, etc. This means that we are what we literally eat. Therefore, changing the quality of your blood also means changing the way you have grown, transforming your attachments, your desires, and changing your condition. And if you combine several bad habits, eating badly and drinking alcohol, for example, can you stop everything at once or should the changes be gradual? It depends on your state of health. For me, each person is different. The moment you are in, your personal history, your life habits, your state of mind. There are times when the situation is so strong that not only do you have to leave all the things you have mentioned, but there are than to make a more drastic change. However, there are people who need to go very slowly so as not to despair. To be told by a specialist that you need to make a lot of changes to your lifestyle can be overwhelming. Do you think that on your own, without professional help, you can get on the right track? If you have the disposition to listen to your body, research the effects of your changes in serious media, read food books, and not do kamikaze acts (such as 10 days of juicing, not eating more than once, eating only meat and vegetables...), maybe yes! The fact is that everything seems to show that the fear of the future – lung cancer, for example, of a smoker – is not motivating enough to give up bad habits. So where should we look for motivation? We live in the age of magic. Every small ailment is soothed with a magic pill that eliminates the symptoms, inhibiting the possibility of experiencing a little pain or discomfort. Eliminating these symptoms can be a problem, because when the body no longer knows how to gently ask for help, it attracts attention! Unfortunately, being already sick is the biggest motivation for people. We are as a society in a state of laziness, absorbed in other things that are not real life, and in that self-absorption we lose any iota of attention and connection with the body. Let's talk about food. If we are not willing, in any way, and for whatever reason, to make drastic changes to it, what three things do you consider elementary, the most basic, to begin with?
Good quality unpasteurized ferments, whole grain cereals and more organic vegetables. Is there an optimal way of eating for women that differs in any way from the optimal way of eating for men? Well, speaking in purely biological terms, yes. Women have a different body: bones, muscles, hormonal system, vision, reproductive system (which internally modifies certain aspects of the bladder and even the bowel, depending on the position of the uterus). Every food we put in our mouth has an effect on our body, which may or may not be beneficial. I would never give the same diet to a man with problems in his urogenital system, with fertility problems, as to a woman with endometriosis and fertility problems, basically because that man does not have a uterus and that woman does not have testicles. To the woman, she would give food to help her eliminate the stagnant mucus in her uterus and to the man, food to strengthen his sperm. You often refer to the 'feminine energy'. I'm very skeptical of any phrase that has the word 'energy' in it. What exactly do you mean when you talk about it? It's all energy. Although I understand that the term is distorted. When I talk about feminine energy, I am referring to the energetic composition of the main organs that allow menstruation, multiple orgasms, a baby in the womb or breastfeeding... But that seems very intangible. How do we know it, how do we handle it? Is it also related to food? We don't have to look for it, it's intrinsic to us. It's not something we intellectualize. An almond tree is an almond tree, it is not considered how to be more almond tree. However, when we orbite in the opposite direction to our deepest nature, adopting inverted schedules for the functions and functions of the universe, we are not able to do so.When we eat based on products and not food, when we look for painkillers so as not to observe the reality of the body, nature, energy is lost. In the consultation we look for a turning point, we reach agreements on new habits, of all kinds, to recover the body as it is originally, in its essence. You make withdrawals every once in a while. What kind of people come to these retreats and what exactly do they consist of? It's one of the things that makes me happiest. The retreats are mostly for women. Women between the ages of 25 and 65 attend. These are trips to do nothing, to get out of the loop in which we are immersed and experience for a few days being in community, to meet other women that we do not find in our "algorithm of life". The retreats I usually do are yoga, in which I introduce talks on food and healthy lifestyle habits. What do women look for in these retreats? What do they want to achieve? Many women are just looking to rest; others, to learn more about food and share with other women. When I say sharing, I mean learning from the history of others. It's funny how we think that the things that worry us or happen to us only happen to us, but when we give ourselves the opportunity to share with others, to put our judgment aside and listen, we realize that many others go through similar things throughout life, and this is super revealing. I, for example, in every consultation I go through, in every course I teach, I always learn something new for myself.