Episode 415: Healing Timeline: Expectation vs. Reality
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
After working with hundreds of 1:1 clients (and thousands across all of TFN's offerings), Erin has noticed some VERY predictable patterns in the healing process. And spoiler alert: healing rarely looks the way people think it's going to!
What happens during "the dip" and why do so many people feel like quitting around months 3 and 4? Erin gets into the expectation vs. reality gap that keeps people stuck on the hamster wheel of healing, the nervous system patterns that surface when things start changing, and the difference between feeling “good enough” and feeling like a completely different human.
If you're in a season where you're questioning your progress, doubting your body, or wondering if anything is ever going to work for you, this might be the episode you need most.
In this episode:
The dopamine hits that come from finally getting answers, labs, and a plan
Why Erin doesn't want you to depend on practitioners, protocols, or wellness influencers forever
The surprising reason clients start pushing their boundaries around months 7 and 8
Why feeling amazing, overdoing it, and crashing can actually be a sign that your world is expanding (!)
The importance of embodiment and why it’s a part of Erin’s C.A.R.E method
Resources mentioned:
Experiencing symptoms? It could be related to your gut.
Episode 397: Die-Off During Gut Healing: What’s Normal, What’s Not, & What To Do Next
Episode 406: You Can’t Manifest Your Way Out of a Dysregulated Nervous System
Want more of Erin?
Manifest Your Health is our neuroscience backed membership designed to help you reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system, and finally break out of the symptom loop.
Subscribe to Erin’s Substack for a no-nonsense space about health, entrepreneurship, and manifestation.
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Feeling mostly better is not the finish line. Mostly resolved is not the same thing as fully integrated and fully healed. The wins that you feel in the beginning and even up through month six are super real and they're absolutely worth celebrating. But we don't want to quit just because we feel good enough. I want so much more than good enough for you. I don't want you to feel good enough. I want you to feel the literal best you've ever felt. And there is a difference between my belly feels better and my whole world has changed.
Welcome to the Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast, spelled with a K, because we do things a little differently around here. I'm your host, Erin Holt, and I've got 15 years of clinical experience as a functional nutritionist and mindset coach, creating a new model that I call Intuitive Functional Medicine™, where we combine root cause medicine with the innate intelligence of your body. This is where science meets self trust. Your body already knows how to heal, and this show is going to show you how. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health, be sure to follow and share with a friend, because you never know whose life you might change.
Hello my friends. Welcome back to the show. Today we're going to talk about healing timelines.
We have worked with hundreds of clients here at The Funk'tional Nutritionist, thousands if you include all of our offerings. And while of course, every healing path is unique, there are a lot of similar patterns that we see. And so today I'm going to share a lot of that real world data with you from our own clients and what makes a healing experience successful. I recently did a deep dive into the data and there are very specific patterns that we see that I want to share with you here today. And my goal here in recording this episode is to help you understand some of your potential struggle points and why you might be experiencing them. And if you're a practitioner listening to the show, same deal for your clients. I am sure that you're seeing a lot of the patterns that I'm about to share here. So this might be able to contextualize it for your clients and maybe even share this episode with them if they feel frustrated with their progress or lack thereof.
And just a heads up, this is going to be a longer episode. Probably, I think it's going to shape up to be a longer episode. So take me on a walk with you, Take me on a drive. Listen to this while you're cooking dinner. Settle in and let's get into it. And we also have to talk about healing timelines, expectation versus reality. Because in my experience there can be a significant gap between these two things. And I think that gap can contribute to frustration, frustration with yourself, frustration with the process, frustration with your body, and even sometimes frustration with your practitioner.
I think this gap can also contribute to you feeling like you are spinning your wheels or you're on a hamster wheel of healing. It can lead to a defeatist attitude about your health and your ability to heal, or the ability for others to help you. I just received this comment on Instagram a couple of days ago that said I want to do this so bad, but I've done and paid for so many programs that only half deliver that I feel like this won't work in either. And not because of your program, but because of me. I'm the common denominator. And I just super appreciate the honesty and the vulnerability here because I think a lot of people can relate to her comment. And when I look at this, I also think, is it the programs that half delivered? Maybe that's totally possible. I've certainly seen that before.
But what's also possible is that there are misaligned expectations playing a role here too. A few weeks ago I mentioned ozempic culture, which is this term that people are using in a pretty derogatory way to describe the culture who just want a quick fix or an easy solution that instant gratification. But like, let's be honest, isn't that most people, our brains want to bring us toward pleasure and away from pain. If you get to your goal in four months or 14 months, what path are you going to choose? If you could get to your goal in a pill or in a lifestyle overhaul, which path would you choose? The desire or the propensity to lean toward Promises of instant gratification are not inherently wrong. Natural. It totally makes sense. So the problem is not the desire itself. The problem is that we keep going after the quicker, easier option and expecting big, profound, long lasting results.
It's an expectation issue that this time it's going to be different. I'm going to set my expectation that this time is going to be different, even though reality has always proved otherwise. So here's what's real. Quick fixes can get us quick wins. That is so real. But quick wins are usually pretty fleeting in most people people. If you get really, really, really honest with yourself, most people don't want fleeting results when it comes to their health. You don't want just one cycle of a better period and then have it return to mayhem.
You don't want your bloating to go away in a couple of weeks only to return two months later. You don't want to lose weight super fast and then gain it all back super fast. We really do want long lasting results. It's just that what it requires to get those long lasting results is rarely instantly gratifying. Ain't that a kick in the head? I heard on a podcast just yesterday I was out for a walk and I was listening and I paused so I could write this down. It was James Wedmore, who's a business coach, so he was talking about this in the business sense, but he said people want the end result without learning. This is such a big important statement. So I'm going to circle back around to this.
Make sure you stay till the end of this episode because I do think it will create a shift for you if you can really understand what is being said here. But for now, let's just all collectively admit what we all really do know to be true. Healing years of dysfunction or imbalance in the body is rarely a quick and easy fix. I just finished reading Lena Dunham's latest memoir, Fame Sick, and there's a part where she's talking about the relationship she had with Jenny Connor, which is her ex, best friend, co writer, business partner. And that relationship had been pretty dysfunctional for years and was not going well. So they decided to meet in a therapist office and this is what she wrote. She said we had officially moved past the point where 50 minutes with a therapist, however skilled he was, could set us right. And I laughed at that because it's really no different than someone coming to us, coming to my practice with four or five years of digestive issues, maybe ibs, maybe sibo, hormonal issues, a little hot Hashimoto's, fatigue, skin issues, anxiety, waking, all the stuff that we see all the time and then being like, so like what do you think? It's going to take a couple sessions, you know, a couple quick sessions.
It's like we're good as a team, as a clinical team, we're good. But we cannot defy physiology. It's this expectation verse reality thing. Thinking you can resolve years of imbalance and symptoms in a few short calendar months is a pretty unrealistic ask of your body. So let me explain our clientele to you, the clients that we work with in our one to one practice, because I suspect that there will be some overlap between that audience and you guys, my podcast listeners. So our clients have already tried a lot. Elimination diets, supplements, lifestyle changes, self research, functional medicine, conventional Medicine therapy. These are people that have really done the most 55%, that's more than half have already worked with at least one functional medicine practitioner before.
And the large majority have already spent thousands of dollars, like $5,000 or more. Most people with a significant portion spending upwards of 10 to 25k. So they've already invested their time, their money, their energy, their focus, like they have done a lot. And so because of that, our one to one offering has remained month to month for close to 10 years. Honestly, I moved to a month membership model like really like almost 10 years ago and have stayed the same since. So that means there's no minimum commitment when you work with us. Now that is subject to change, because anything is subject to change. But the reason that I set it up this way is because the majority of our clients coming to us have worked with other providers and have maybe not had the best experience.
So we never want people to feel trapped. I want people to feel safe with us, especially if they've had some not so great healthcare experiences in the past. And there's also so much doubt when people come to us because they have tried so much. They're like, is this really going to work? Is this the thing that's actually going to work? And look, our track record is pretty phenomenal, but just telling people that doesn't always alleviate their doubt. So having our one to one services set up this way can make people just feel a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more safe with us. And up until recently, and by recently I mean last week, our website said no long term commitment required. And again, that was written intentionally to make people feel safe with us. But what I realized, especially after diving into the data, that that kind of frames long term commitment as a not so great thing.
And what I'm really starting to question for myself and kind of reframe in my own mind, long term health partnership isn't entrapment. What if it's actually the ideal? And the reason that I say that and the reason that I bring this up, what is so interesting is when I started to dive into the data of our client experience, what I really saw was a very consistent story. And that story is that the longer people allow us to support them on their health journey, the more profound their healing results are. And it's not just that their symptoms reduce and go away, but also what we can track is that their language about themselves and their bodies shift. And if you know anything about me, you know that I am obsessed with language, the words people use to describe themselves and their experience because language is one of the ways that our brain organizes and makes sense of our world. So if someone's language shifts, that tells me that their sense of the world has shifted. Shifted. And this is a really big deal. So let's talk about it.
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Hey guys, if you've been following me for a while or you've been listening to the podcast, you probably already know that when it comes to your health, there's more to the story than what you've been told. A lot of you guys are really smart. You've tried things, you've run labs, you've worked with practitioners, and you're still sitting here like, why doesn't my body feel better yet? That's actually the exact person we work with inside our 1:1 C.A.R.E. You are not doing anything wrong.
It's just that no one has really put the full picture together for you. Inside our one to one functional care method, we look at everything together. Your gut, your hormones, your nutrient status, your nervous system, your history. We don't see them as separate issues, but as one connected story, because it is. And then we help you actually work through that with real support, ongoing guidance, adjustments, and helping you understand what your body is doing and why. Our goal isn't to just help you feel a little bit better for a few months. It's to actually create something that lasts. We don't go for it 90% better, we keep it 100. So if you're dealing with chronic symptoms, gut issues, hormone imbalances, autoimmunity, and you feel like you've tried everything, I really do get it. And at the same time, I'll say this, when we work with someone like you, it's very rare that we don't find what's missing, because that's what we do. We're a team of highly skilled practitioners working on complex cases every single day. You are not doing this alone. You have ongoing support, messaging, access to your practitioner, monthly appointments, where we're looking at your progress, your labs, what's working and what's not in actually adjusting those things in real time so we can find what works for your body, you can apply to work with us through the link in the show notes, and our team will take a look and guide you from there.
Now, since our one to one care is month by month, that's exactly how we see shifts. So I'm going to kind of map it through month over month. And here's the quick and dirty.
And then we're going to get into more specifics and more details. So month one to two, people are hopeful, they're excited, they're like, I have a plan. I'm ready to go. Month three to four is what we call the dip, where people can feel frustrated and doubtful. So we gotta talk about that one, because it's a big deal. Month five to six is where real shifts start emerging, where people are like, oh, I'm starting to see what's happening here. Month seven to eight, we call the surge, because life begins to feel different, and you begin to feel different within your life. And so what can happen is you start.
Start pushing yourself a little. You start finding your own boundaries, which is a really good positive sign, even if sometimes you don't perceive it that way. And then beyond month eight, month nine, month ten, people start to see more of an identity shift. I feel different, like something in me has changed. I have changed. They are thriving. And they're like, I am not going back to the old identity. So, of course, the timeline is slightly different for everyone.
What I will tell you is that a small percentage of our clients have incredibly fast results and their symptoms are significantly improved in three to four months, and they might never actually hit that dip. The majority of our clients start to see significant improvements in about six months. And then some of our clients take longer than six months, and that's really based on the complexity of their case, what's going on in their life, the pace that they're willing to make changes. So they might take 9 to 12 months to complete their care. All of this would fall under the bucket of normal for us in what we see. Okay, so the first couple of months, months one to two, let's talk about what's going on here. Everyone starts super excited, right? They're ready to go. They're eager, they're hopeful.
They just committed. They're all in. They feel like they're in the right place. That's something people will say often. I finally feel like I'm in the right place. Now, of course, there can be a little bit of overwhelm, maybe a little bit of anticipation, anxiety, all super normal. What's actually happening here is that your body has been dealing with imbalance or dysfunction for a long time, usually years, according to most of our clients. In those first two months, we are doing the diagnostic groundwork.
We're doing the deep dive. We're doing extensive intake for you. We're running labs or we're reviewing labs. If you come to us already having some, we're identifying root causes, and we're beginning to put together a plan for you. What I want you to know about these first couple of months is that we are laying the groundwork for everything that comes next. And some people start to notice some early shifts, some quick wins, but usually not big, dramatic change in the first couple of months. And that's totally normal because we're just getting started. This is the foundation that your eventual symptom resolution is built on.
So really, your job in the first couple of months is to just show up. It's to ask all of the questions that you have, and it's really just to trust that the process is working, even if you don't always feel that way. The first couple of months, I kind of joke that there's like dopamine hits, you get the labs back, you have a plan, there's something new to sink your teeth into. It's like all new stuff. And so we can ride that wave of excitement for the first couple of months. But then, like with anything new, the novelty of the new experience starts to wear off, and people can hit a little bit of a lull or a dip around month three or four. And I really want you to think about this for yourself in your own health journey or the last time you tried something new. I used to lead a lot of group programs, sometimes 150 people at a time.
So big groups. And I said this every single time at the start of a program. Some of you listening probably heard me say this at some point. Everyone is super excited about starting this now in the beginning, but the novelty will wear off. Life is going to life. Things are going to feel more challenging. So what are you going to do when that happens? And I'd kind of come crashing in with the hard truths and the tough love right out of the jump, because that's kind of my style. But I wanted people to be realistic and plan for setbacks.
It's like that expectation versus reality. When you bail, you don't get the results. When you quit on yourself, you don't reach your goals. So what can we do now when things feel good, to make sure you don't bail when things get hard. We know how you're going to show up when you're excited and when things are new and shiny, we know how you're going to show up when things are going great. How are you going to show up when things are going not so great? Plan for setbacks. Life is going to Life, you know, it's what happens. So in our one to one practice, we call this the dip.
And about 80% of our clients will feel this dip at some point, usually around month three or four. And this is where you start to question, is this even working? You might see some initial results, but you feel a little impatient for deeper changes. Like, why is this taking so long? I've seen some improvements, but I'm not where I hope to be. These are actual quotes from clients that they're actually saying to us, okay, that instant gratification part of us starts to rear its head, which is totally, totally normal. You're like, I want the wins and I want them now. You know, like, I'm ready, let's go. Why isn't this happening fast enough? Or you could also sometimes feel like you're even going backwards and you start to question if you can even keep this up. People will ask, can I take a break from the process without losing progress? People want to pause around this time.
Or people will say things like, I feel like I am the hardest case you've ever seen. We go into this, this is never going to work for me. I'm too challenging. Into that storyline, into that narrative. Old patterns, old belief systems, they start to surface around this time. There's maybe a little self sabotage that comes online. Your nervous system can start to pump the brakes. And for the sake of time, I won't do a deep dive on the whys behind that, but I did cover in depth in episode 406.
You can't manifest your way out of a dysregulated nervous system. That really explains how the nervous system can pump the brakes on the goals that you're actively working towards. And so we can see that during the dip. And while it's not the point of today's show to talk about the mindset, belief, inner world shift that can happen when somebody's on their healing path. It is a part of a lot of people's process where your conscious thoughts are saying, this isn't working. This isn't working fast enough. I'm too challenging of a case. I need to take a break.
But I. When what is actually happening here is that subconscious patterns and belief systems and even fears are surfacing. And that is why all of our one to one clients get access to our Manifest yout Health app. Because that really helps you understand what's going on and work through it. But what I really want you guys to understand is that this is the part of the healing process that most people don't talk about about. And this is the part where people want to bail. But when you jump off here, that's what keeps people stuck on the hamster wheel of healing, feeling like no matter what you do, nothing works and it can really become a self fulfilling cycle. So I want to normalize this process for you because if you understand this is coming, if you understand this is really part of so many people's healing journeys, you don't freak out when it happens.
You're like, oh, okay, this makes sense. I know what's happening here and what's also potentially happening on more of a physical level is that healing is happening beneath the surface. Now, some clients do experience die off reactions where you actually feel temporarily worse. But that can be a good sign that things are starting to shift in the right direction. And I recorded an episode with our practitioner nicole about this. Episode 397 Die Off During Gut healing. What's normal, what's not and what to do now next. So just understand that feeling temporarily worse isn't always a bad sign.
This is really where the deep healing is beginning to happen in this like three to four month mark. So if you bail now, you're kind of missing the mother load. But the good news is that when we can navigate you through the dip, that's when things really start to shift and take off. What we consistently see at month, month, five, six, something shifts. The data consistently shows that clients are beginning to describe themselves differently. They are demonstrating more body literacy, meaning they understand the calls coming from inside the house. They understand their signals and their symptoms. They understand what's going on, and they start making decisions from a place of understanding rather than fear.
These are things that people have actually said to us verbatim around the six month mark. I'm actually feeling great. It's been a couple of years since I felt this good. I'm so grateful. You've given me hope. Everything has been going good. I'm changing my inner health. Symptoms that I thought were just me are starting to make sense.
My cycles are changing. My hormones feel more balanced. This is finally working. I'm starting to trust my body again. So what's actually happening here is that now the foundational work is producing visible, tangible, felt results. Because they stuck with it. They stuck with the process. Their internal environment has shifted enough that the body can start redirecting resources toward repair.
And so we can see secondary systems like hormones, mood, immune function, skin begin to improve as a downstream side effect. Clients are usually pretty surprised by the winds. That kind of show up in unexpected places, like, oh, I was working on my gut, but my. My hormones feel so much better. My cycle feels so much better. So this kind of allows people to see that the healing process happens in layers, and it can be deeper than they originally expected, which is what I always get really, really excited to see. And so what I want you to know is that feeling mostly better is not the finish line. Mostly resolved is not the same thing as fully integrated and fully healed.
The win that you feel in the beginning and even up through month six are super real, and they're absolutely worth celebrating. But we don't want to quit just because we feel good enough. And that is like something I've labeled the good enough syndrome. Because at this point, people are thinking about leaving care not because they're frustrated, but they feel better enough. And that's verbiage that we actually see. I feel good enough. And I think about it like that, this. Like, if your sister or your best friend or your daughter or your favorite cousin came to you and they were dating a new guy, and you ask, how does he treat you? And she says to you, oh, good enough.
You'd be like, get out of that relationship. You know, we want the best for the people that we care about and love. And that's exactly how I think about my clients. It's like, I want so much more than good enough for each other. You, I don't want you to feel good enough. I want you to feel the literal best you've ever felt. And there is a difference between my belly feels better and my whole world has changed, or the way I see myself and feel about myself has changed. My belly feels better.
Like, we can probably get that done in three or four months. Changing your life, changing your world, that's gonna take a bit more time. But it's that piece. It's that component why I started my practice. That's why I started my business. That's why I work so hard to keep this business going, is to connect you people, clients, deeper to their bodies and deeper to themselves. And this is truly what we see on the other side of month six.
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Month six really serves as this like portal way or this gateway into what we call the surge where people are like, I never thought I'd be here. This has changed everything. I'm not the same person I was when I started. And so something has really dramatically changed where we have.
They have, I should say, exceeded their own expectations of what was possible for their health and their healing. Now what we can can also see in this surge, and I want to name this because it's so important for you to understand what's going on if this happens to you, is that, and this is a direct quote from somebody, I felt good for two weeks, then I pushed too hard and crashed. And this happened right around month seven or eight of working with us. So what's actually happening is that the primary symptoms, like the chief complaint, so to speak, the primary dysfunction that brought you to us is addressed. And so the work has actually shifted to deeper layers that may have been masked by the primary issue. So what I mean by that is like, somebody might come in with severe diarrhea. They're like, I need help, and I need help right now. When we get that resolved and then we start to scratch into, okay, let's work on your fertility.
You want to try to conceive in the next couple of years. Let's work on preconception health, let's work on your hormone health, let's work on your cycles. Let's work on some of those patterns. Patterns. Or another example might be, yeah, like, I've had this, like, skin stuff, these, like, rashes. Not really a huge problem. But now that we've dealt with the big problems, we can get into this. Now what also happens here is because people are feeling so much better and those chief complaints are gone, they try to accelerate by doing more, moving more, eating more freely.
And sometimes they hit a wall when they do, or they hit a little, little speed bump. And that is not a sign that the work has failed or that you have failed. This is actually a really positive sign. It's a sign that your body has healed enough that you can actually do more, that you have the energy to do more. When you have the surge, basically, your life is getting bigger, your world is expanding. This is the contraction expansion continuum that I talked about two weeks ago. Remember we discussed the health to isolation pipeline, where when you're trying to get healthy, your world can actually shrink. And long term, that can actually be the opposite of healing.
So the surge is a really good time. Like, I took two steps forward, then I took a step back. That's amazing because you are stretching the edge of your container of what feels safe. That is a sign of growth, that is a sign of healing. But without us there to contextualize that for you, you Might misinterpret that as a setback or like your body isn't strong enough to handle that. And that is what can keep you stuck in old patterns. People can stuck in their healing work when that healing work reinforces the patterns that we really should be challenging, changing and disrupting. But this often requires a little bit of guidance and a little bit of hand holding.
And so that's why I, in an ideal situation, people are allowing us to navigate them beyond that six month mark and into the surge. And then at that point those that are staying with us even longer than that, past the eight month mark into nine, ten months. That's when we really start to see embodiment. So we call our one to one work the Functional CARE method. CARE is an acronym and the E in CARE the last step stands for embody. This is where we see you completely embody this work. People will say things like I feel lighter, I feel more stable. I'm learning to listen to my body in a way I couldn't before.
I am forever grateful for all the improvements I've made. I've come so far, I don't want to go back. This is who I am now and one of my personal favorites. This has been one of the most important investments of my life. At this point. We're way past symptom management and into optimization. Clients at this stage have really internalized a new way of understanding in relating to their bodies. They're no longer in reactive mode, reacting to things as they come up.
They are are proactive. And that's really what I mean by they get to embody this work. They are a living, breathing example that this work actually works. A couple of weeks ago I talked about going to the IFM conference and Dr. Jeffrey Bland was there and he turned 80 and he was like bouncing around like a spring chicken. He's not what you think of when you think of an 80 year old in your head. And I'm like this is embodiment. He is embodying the work.
Everything I do and everything I offer in my work is geared toward sustainable change. Sustainable meaning that not just you can achieve it, but you can also maintain it and continue it long term. I want you to be able to make this investment work with my team and then do this for yourself forever. I want you to lock this in and be able to maintain it. It's the idea behind self source over outsource. This is one of like the central plumb lines of my entire career and body of work. I want to teach you how to self source your own answers. So you're not always dependent on other people to tell you what to do with your body.
We don't want you dependent on us forever. Do we create frameworks and paths to help you get there? Absolutely. People do need guidance. People do need support. Support. We want you to let us help you, but then we want you to go out and like ripple this out into the world. Like show the world what you've been able to do. Show the world the stuff that you're made of.
There's nothing better than watching our clients, like go embody this in the world. So at the beginning of the show I referenced the quote, people want the end result with without learning. Here's what is so real. It's the learnings that get you the end results. Through this process, you are learning about yourself. You begin to understand yourself better. You understand your body better. You feel better.
Yes. But you also understand how to keep yourself feeling better. Better. You don't have to check in with somebody forever and ever and ever. You don't have to run to Instagram to see what the latest wellness influencer is telling you what to do. You know, inside, you know, you are so confident in your own knowing. You're so confident in your own health, in your own body. Eventually you stop thinking about it.
It's not something you have to work toward. It's just who you are. And you know that to be true. True. That's the embodiment piece. That kind of end result does not come from instant gratification. I hate to break it to you, I hate to be the one to have to tell you that, but it doesn't. And that's why we see the deepest change.
The longer people are in care with us, because that whole time they are learning. And it is the learning that gets you the results that you actually want. This is truly my biggest wish for you and it is why I'm so committed to this work. And if you need this kind of support in your life, you know we are here for you. Fill out an application to work with us one to one. We get back within one to two business days and we've got some summertime openings so we can get started with you sooner than later. And I hope that this was helpful and I love you guys a lot. And we're taking a break next week for the 4th of July, but we will be back back after that. So I will check you in July.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you got something from today's show, don't forget, subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.