64. Why Eating Healthier Gave You a Migraine (And How to Fix It)

Dr. Leslie answers a question from her Facebook group: "Why do I get a horrible migraine every time I try to eat healthier?"

If you've ever felt trapped between knowing you should change your diet and your body punishing you when you try, this episode is for you.

Dr. Leslie explains why abrupt dietary changes, - yes, even healthy ones - can trigger debilitating migraines. She breaks down how your digestive system becomes acclimated to your current routine, even if that routine is fast food and survival mode.

When you suddenly switch from a Big Mac to chicken and broccoli, your body goes into shock. Your gallbladder prepared for fat that isn't coming. Your pancreas expected glucose that never arrived. Your stomach doesn't have enough acid for all that protein.

The result? A three-day migraine that makes you give up on healing entirely.

Dr. Leslie reveals why this isn't a detox reaction or a sign that healthy food doesn't work for you, it's simply your hypersensitive system responding to change. She explains how to make gradual shifts that support your digestive function instead of overwhelming it.

If you've been stuck in the cycle of wanting to heal but feeling worse every time you try, and you'd like guidance on making changes your body can actually handle, Dr. Leslie offers free consultations.

Schedule your free consultation with Dr. Leslie below and discover how to support your body without triggering more pain.

https://www.drlesliecisar.com/apply

Free Training: 5 Proven Steps to Being Migraine Free (Even if you think you've already tried everything.)

https://www.drlesliecisar.com/5SHMN

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Free Facebook Group: Healing Migraines Naturally, with Leslie Cisar, ND

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Episode Transcript

hi there it's Doctor Leslie
I wanted to jump on here real quick
and answer a great question
from the free Facebook group
Healing Migraines naturally with Leslie
Caesar and d
if you're not with us in that free Facebook group
please join us
we have almost 12,000 women who want to heal migraines
naturally in the Facebook group
so it's a very dynamic Facebook group
it's one of the largest migraine Facebook groups
it's actually a much more positive place frankly
because it is full of women
who are looking to stop getting migraines
to improve their health and stop getting migraines
sadly most of the migraine Facebook groups
are more focused on managing chronic migraines
with medication because people unfortunately
they've been told that this is something that
that they can't recover from
so unfortunately a lot of the migrant Facebook groups
are not a real positive place
so my Facebook group
it's actually a little corner of hope
within the Facebook community here
for migrants so I invite you to join us
so I had a great question from a new member
I appreciate her self reflection here
she said you know what
I don't eat very well I have pretty poor eating habits
and I tend to binge eat
and anytime I try to change my diet right
cause
I know that I'm not eating in a health supporting way
and so every time I try to change my diet
and eat in a more health supporting way
I get a horrible horrible migraine
so what do I do like how do I get out of this right
she I'm sure
she really feels like she's stuck
between a rock and a hard place right
and how many times do we know
we're really not doing the right thing for ourselves
but we can't stop right something is preventing us
maybe it's something more like internally
on the mental
emotional side where we're sabotaging ourselves
or it's something physical
right where our body is just like
not letting us make those changes right
so I really appreciate this question
and I think a lot of people will resonate with this
certainly I felt like stuck and trapped in my life too
trying to make positive changes
so let me talk about what could be going on here again
I don't I don't know this person
so this is not like speaking directly to her case
but I'm just gonna throw out some possible
reasons why somebody would
feel worse when they're trying to eat a healthier diet
right so first of all
when we have chronic migraines okay
as we all know
I used to have chronic migraines so I get the deal okay
so when we have chronic migraines
our body becomes hypersensitive okay
this is the classic
the wind blows too hard and we get a migraine right
I used to be spectacularly sensitive to the sun
so if I were out in the sun
without sunglasses and a hat for like 10 or 15 minutes
I mean we're not talking a long period of time
very short period of time on a nice day
we're not talking like 90 degree day
we're talking like you know 72 degree day
I would very likely get a migraine okay
so again these little like little tiny thing
I'm getting a migraine right
the barometric pressure changes a little bit
the temperature changes a little bit
we altitude changes a little bit right
I sleep too late I get up too early right
any of these little changes boom
we're in a migraine so we can feel that
our body is very hypersensitive to any little change
so our body becomes acclimated to the environment
that it is in okay
now there's sort of a name for this which is routine
right
my routine is to get up at 6 in the CL 6 in the morning
right my routine is go is going to bed at ten PM
my routine is to eat my lunch at noon
you know
my dinner at 6 my breakfast on the go in the car right
you know like we have these routines okay
so the body becomes acclimated to particular routines
or the particular environment that we're in
routines conserve stressors okay
so if we had no routines okay
so if I would be going to bed
or getting up at any point in time
if I had absolutely no routines
my body would not be able to anticipate anything
and prepare ahead of time for it okay
that would be a lot more stressful
than if the body knows okay
she's going to eat in the car on the run
and and I was just using that as an example
I don't actually do that okay
I don't recommend doing that
but if my body were to become acclimated
to eating breakfast on the run
in my car
then it's going to adjust my saliva production
my hydrochloric acid production
my pancreatic enzyme production
the motility or the peristalsis in my digestive track
my adrenals are going to adjust to that
because it's going to be just more stressful to like
multitask I'm driving
I'm eating I'm you know
whatever I'm doing all this in the car
so that my adrenals are going to adapt to that
the body the whole body
the biochemistry and the physiology of the body
is going to adapt to that
routine of eating breakfast in the car right
so that again
if the body is prepared for something if it says okay
you know what
we're gonna go through this whole stressful thing
every morning but we're gonna amp up and do it
then it's less stressful okay
so with migraines right
any little stressor tips us over into a migraine
and even health supporting changes
are going to generate a stressor on the body okay
so if I am acclimated
to eating in a stressful situation
and my body's got everything
up and running to accommodate that
and then suddenly
I sit at the kitchen table and eat my breakfast
my body is gonna go what what what is this
I we thought we were gonna be driving 55 miles an hour
on the tollway into work
what's going on okay
that's gonna generate more of a stressor on the body
okay if I normally wake up at 6:00 in the morning
and then my hormone cascading is acclimated to that
my digestive track is gonna start waking up right
my everything in my body
is going to get adapted to
waking up at 6 in the morning
if I book that flight early
and I'm gonna have to wake up at 4 in the morning
for that flight oh no
I might get a migraine right
well that's because we are going outside of our routine
and going outside of what our body is acclimated to
and that's gonna generate more of a physical stressor
and then
we are going to get tipped into our migraine zone
if we don't have enough resiliency
and vitality to weather that additional stressor okay
so if your body is acclimated to a particular food
and you abruptly change the food that you're eating
you are going to generate a physical stressor
on your body
because our digestive function is the major thing that
our body does
the vast majority of our energy
expenditure every day is on our digestion okay
if you were to ask people
what do you spend most of your energy
you know
what does your body spend most of its energy doing
we might think oh
moving our muscles
that must be most of what my body spends its energy on
or like maybe our brain you know
running our brain is that what my body
yeah that's probably what my body
spends most of its energy on
every day it's our digestive function
okay so our digestive track
the human digestive track
can acclimate itself to a wide variety of food okay
we're not like a polar bear
that has to eat a certain food all the time or
you know I have two cats
they're carnivores you gotta feed them meat okay
they don't eat plants
so the human animal can eat a wide variety of food
we can have people living at the equator
eating mostly plants and everywhere in between
and our digestive tract will acclimate to that
but if I
a person living in the Chicago suburbs and shopping at
you know mainstream grocery stores and eating that food
if I were to suddenly go to the Arctic Circle
and eat a slab of whale blubber
how sick would I get right
my digestive track is not acclimated at all
to breaking that type of food down
and so it wouldn't be able to break that food down
it would be completely caught
off guard and I would probably get very
sick in my digestive track
I would expect that and then if I'm prone to migraines
well again
that's a great way to get a migraine okay
so you know this this woman she says
you know I know that I'm not eating healthy food okay
so I don't know what she's eating
but probably I mean she's a chronic migraine sufferer
she's probably barely making it through the day
maybe she's eating like a lot of fast food right
because I can go through the drive through
and I can get something I can't go in a grocery store
the lights bother my eyes
I can't cook anything
I can't stand for more than 15 minutes
without feeling poorly but you know
I gotta eat I'm hungry
let me just go through the drive through
and I'll get some fast food
maybe that's what she's doing okay
and she's saying well
I know this isn't health supporting
of course you know
if I ate a little bit better
I'm sure I would feel better
let me try to eat a different type of food
so she goes home
and she cooks maybe a little chicken breast
and she cooks a little broccoli or something like that
and she tries to eat that well
her body is acclimated
let's say it's acclimated to you know
a Big Mac and fries okay
so it's acclimated to a certain amount of fat
but that's gonna be a relatively high fat meal
so it's her liver and her gallbladder are acclimated
to having enough bile
and squirting enough bile into her small intestine
to emulsify that higher fat meal
so her gallbladder is like ready
I got a lot of bile here I'm ready for this fatty food
there's probably a lot of glucose in that
McDonald's meal we've got the bun made out of wheat
which is a glucose dense food
we've got the French fries
potatoes potatoes are a very glucose dense food
and so we got a lot of glucose coming in
so her whole
metabolism is acclimated to a pretty
good amount of glucose coming in
and then we've got a little beef Patty okay
so not a lot of protein okay
so I don't need as much stomach acid
if I have a little less protein
I don't need as many pancreatic enzymes
if I've just got a little bit of protein right
so
her stomach and her pancreas are gonna adjust to that
so if
her digestive
track is acclimated to a Big Mac and fries
every night around you know
5:36 when she's coming home from work and then
you know one day she says
you know what I wanna feel better
and I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna cook that broccoli
and I'm gonna have that for dinner well
so now
we've got a meal that doesn't have a lot of fat in it
chicken breast
is one of the least fatty animal foods you can eat okay
so instead of like all of the fat from the fries
and the fat from the little bit of beef
now I got a real lean meat well
my gallbladder is sitting here with all of this bile
squirting it into my small intestine
but there isn't a lot of fat in there
so that's not gonna go real well okay
and then I'm used to a whole bunch of glucose
coming in from the hamburger bun
from the French fries and I just had a little broccoli
there's hardly any glucose in broccoli okay
very very little glucose
so now my pancreas is like ready and raring to go
my the insulin production
that the pancreas is used to making is like okay
we're gonna get a lot of glucose
we're gonna need a lot of insulin what
there's no glucose here right
we're gonna completely throw our pancreas off guard
okay so also
we're used to a little bit of protein in that little
tiny McDonald's Patty okay
maybe maybe that's an ounce
maybe it's 2 ounces of beef
not a lot of protein okay
now I'm gonna eat like a whole chicken breast
now there's a ton of protein my stomach is like
I don't have enough acid for this right
so I mean
this is just like a disaster waiting to happen right
no wonder you're getting a migraine after this okay
so this is why you can't make abrupt changes okay
when you have chronic migraines
your system is in a hypersensitive state okay
everybody's body is going to acclimate
to the environment that it's in
women with weekly migraines
if you're having eight or more migraine days a month
I'll show you how to drop them to near zero in 90 days
without adding more medication
or I work with you until you do
my client Katie
is a 35 year old wife and mother of two
who was struggling with severe migraines
that affected every aspect of her life work
home and social she had tried it all
every drug and natural therapy out there
none of it helped and she was only getting worse
in the beginning she was skeptical
but she trusted and followed the 12 week plan
and got incredible results
she said she finally feels like her normal self again
after suffering with migraines for over a decade
she has never felt more alive
because she can finally be the mom
she always knew she could be
I have worked with women just like Katie
from all across the United States
overcome migraines naturally
so if you're serious about healing your migraines
naturally then tap the link in the description
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now back to the podcast
everybody's body is gonna acclimate to the routines
that the person has and anyone makes an abrupt change
their body is gonna go through a massive shock
and have to quickly adjust
but if we're prone to migraines
the stress of that can easily tip us into a migraine
okay other people who are not prone to migraines
they're prone to other symptoms
that aren't as horrible as migraines
they're not gonna feel great right
if somebody's acclimated to eating a Big Mac and fries
and then they eat a chicken breast and broccoli
they're probably not gonna feel great
but if they're not prone to migraines
they're not gonna get a migraine
they're not gonna be bedridden after it right
but they may not feel great
maybe they have you know
upset stomach or they have a loose stool or you know
something like that
but it's not like now I'm in bed for 3 days
cause I had a healthy meal
but can that happen to a migraine sufferer
you betcha OK
ask me how I know I've been through it personally OK
so this is the thing like
and a lot of people when they reach out to me
they think that I'm gonna give them like a food list
or I'm gonna tell them hey
you need to eat like this
and yeah I know what where we need to go to right
I know how to put together a health supporting diet
not a migraine diet okay
but a health supporting diet
that would be appropriate for
for anyone but we can't do that too quickly okay
if I have a new client that has daily headache
I'm not gonna have them make any abrupt
changes to their diet I'm gonna look for okay
what's the one thing we could do
that's gonna be a little bit more health supporting
that their digestive track can handle
and that's not gonna generate too much stress
on the system and I
I identify that and I make that recommendation
and then I monitor them to make sure
that what I recommended
and what I anticipated happening
is actually coming true okay
and I tell my clients the the the the first week
usually I have people make a little
change to their eating habits
to get a little bit more nutrients into the system
and
move them towards a little bit more health supporting
eating habits but I tell my clients
my first concern is that you don't get a migraine
and I'm looking for that right
so if I make a little if I recommend a little change
and somebody has an uptick in head pain okay
we need to back off
we need to make an even smaller change okay
so I tell this to my clients all the time
my top priority
the thing that I'm looking for first is
we can change what you're eating a little bit
and you still feel like okay right
you're not feeling worse
because absolutely it can happen
it happens all the time
I'm like proactive on this issue
so what you're describing with your experiences
you know how she
the question is
how do I push through what's going on here
is this like a detox reaction
primarily
it's just the shock of this abrupt dietary change
on your system
and any stress can tip us into a migraine
if we don't have enough resilience and vitality
to weather that so
that's what's happening more than likely
to you when you try to make those changes
so again we
you know we don't have to eat a certain way
because we're prone to have a special migraine diet
you do not need to avoid trigger foods
if your digestion is not working properly
and you're overloaded with metabolic waste
material and toxins then yeah
you can have food reactions right
if my digestion is not functioning well
and I eat a really nutrient dense food like a tomato
then yeah I may not feel good after eating a tomato
but it's not the tomato it's my digestive function okay
so I'm not saying
just go out and eat whatever kind of food you want or
or you know that you know
food doesn't affect you obviously right
we have had the experience of repeatedly eating
certain foods and getting a migraine
or not feeling well afterwards
but it's this is a very important point
it's not because of the food
it's because our digestive tract
can't break the food down
so we want to make small incremental
gradual changes that move us towards the goal
but not so much that it's gonna generate
so much stress on our body that
and tip it over into a migraine
and we have to give our digestive tract time to adjust
because again like
if I fly here from Chicago up to the Arctic
and have seal meat I'm not gonna feel good right
but if I have a little seal meat and you know
the food that I'm used to
and then a little bit more seal meat
and the food that I'm used to
eventually my track is going to acclimate
to the need of diet at the Arctic Circle
because we're humans and we're omnivores
and we have a tremendous ability to adapt
unlike other animals so it it can happen
but I just can't like
abruptly make those types of changes okay
this is still the case
if we're gonna move from what we know to be
not that health supporting eating habits
to health supporting eating habits
we wanna make those changes gradually
and the more chronic our migraines are
the more slowly and carefully
we wanna make those changes
and at the same time
we wanna get our digestive tract up
and running so that it can digest
all of this health supporting food
so thank you for the question
I hope that helps
and I hope that explains why you're going through this
so thanks again for joining me today
let me know so first of all
join the Facebook group
and then definitely post your questions for me
so that I can get them answered for you
so I will talk to you soon