Today we’d like to introduce you to Jade Arellano.
Hi Jade, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I am a living example that the body was designed to heal.
In 2008, I had just moved back to Oklahoma and was living an unhealthy, standard American lifestyle, typical of a single woman in her late twenties. I ate fast food for breakfast, typically forgetting to eat most of the day and often having nothing but wine and popcorn for dinner.
When I became unexpectedly pregnant, I was forced to take a look at the ways my lifestyle impacted my growing child. I found I had extra time on my hands, and I began researching the impact that everyday products can have on a person’s health. I began changing up everything from the food I ate to the body products I used. I didn’t have any major health issues at this time, and I enjoyed a healthy pregnancy. I even got into running long-distance post-partum, completing a full marathon and many halves. I became a certified yoga teacher as well as a personal trainer, and after deciding I no longer wanted to work in advertising, I went back to school to earn my MS in Clinical Nutrition.
When my son was diagnosed with ADHD early on, I went down even deeper dives of research to figure out how I could help him to function more easily in a conventional school classroom. My second pregnancy and birth in the middle of graduate school added another layer of stress to my life that at the time I thought was manageable, but it soon became clear that I was not well.
I was consistently experiencing fatigue, insomnia, brain fog, and joint pain but chalked it all up to #momlife because my physician told me I was just tired and stressed -he wasn’t entirely wrong, but that was also a bit apparent! I continued staying up late into the night to complete my school work, waking up early to teach yoga classes in order to make ends meet, and caring for two young children during the day while my husband, who hails from East Dallas, was at work. I began adding to my laundry list of symptoms- chronic headaches, bloating, inability to lose weight despite lots- AND LOTS- of exercise- all this in addition to the fatigue, insomnia, brain fog, and joint pain. I switched physicians, and my new doctor suggested I had food sensitivities, so I eliminated gluten from my diet and felt some mild relief from joint pain and bloating and my chronic headaches disappeared.
During my time in graduate school, I was learning more and more about what these symptoms might mean, but my new physician still wouldn’t test my thyroid function and told me I just needed to sleep more -she wasn’t wrong, but also not completely right! I was so tired I would fall asleep on short car rides, I still couldn’t lose weight, and I felt like I was missing out on quality time with my children and husband.
After graduation, I was lucky enough to begin working for a functional medicine physician, and he agreed to test and evaluate my thyroid- and was adamant that we include thyroid antibodies. Sure enough, my thyroid hormones indicated subclinical hypothyroidism and I now had a Hashimoto’s diagnosis. Although it was a relief to know this actually wasn’t all in my head, I had to figure out where to start on unfurling the tangled list of potential causes for my autoimmunity. I started with the gut and discovered through stool analysis that I had a parasite called Blastocystis hominus- a very common factor in developing Hashimoto’s. I successfully eradicated parasites and my digestion improved almost immediately. Over the next 5 years, I began tackling many aspects of my health, while also developing my online nutritional therapy business and helping women just like me- women who deal with a laundry list of symptoms that can’t be explained by conventional medicine.
I discovered several chronic nutrient deficiencies and began supplementing to improve them, and I took a much more emphatic approach to manage my stress and sleep quality. Addressing sleep and stress was KEY in healing my body.
I stopped working late into the night and began getting daily exposure to the morning light. I stopped over-exercising with crazy amounts of cardio in an attempt to lose weight and began strength training with heavy weights instead. I disconnected from social media outlets that I knew triggered a stress response. I learned breathing exercises that could calm my heart rate in the middle of an adrenaline rush. I continued retesting my nutrient levels and changing my supplement regimen as needed.
Almost 7 years later, I don’t need to nap in the middle of the day to stay up until 9 pm. I can attend my kids’ multiple weekly sporting events and cheer excitedly from the sidelines. I’m able to walk my dog 3 miles a day and still strength train 5 days a week, but I prioritize rest days as well. I rarely get a headache, my joint pain is gone, my brain fog has almost entirely disappeared, and I rarely have reactions to food (although I’m still 100% gluten-free, and likely always will be).
My health journey didn’t happen overnight, and in fact, is still in process – but it has been so worth it!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Every success story has hiccups along the way. When I graduated from NYCC, I had a ton of really exceptional knowledge, but no business plan! I was lucky that my first degree was a Bachelors in Business and Marketing from the University of New Mexico, and I’d worked as a Media Buyer for a few years, so I did have a bit of knowledge about business, but being an entrepreneur was completely new to me. Early on, I saw any client that would make an appointment with me, and it wasn’t until I took some online business-building courses that I realized I needed to discover who it was I really wanted to help. It was immediately clear to me that the clients I got pure joy from working with were women whose story very much mirrored mine as far as the frustration and overwhelm of dealing with autoimmunity.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Origins Nutritional Therapy is led by me, but it’s unique in that I can offer physician care for women needing their thyroid medication managed. My Medical Supervisor, Dr. Zalzala, has been a mentor to me and offers his services to my clients when conventional medicine isn’t helping in their recovery.
I work closely with women who are dealing with autoimmune conditions and chronic inflammation- Hashimoto’s, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are the most common diagnoses I see. I use a tag team of HTMA (Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis) testing alongside blood chemistry to determine underlying nutrient deficiencies and causes of inflammation. My method is incredibly unique, as I am able to go beyond simple dietary changes and a guesstimating system of what might work. Rather, I’m able to find concrete results for my clients in a shorter amount of time than a traditional dietitian might be able to. Because I have a physician working with me, I’m also able to order labs that most nutritionists or dietitians can’t, from conventional blood work to functional medicine testing for mold, Lyme, gut infections, and feed sensitivities.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
I have been extremely lucky in the fact that my business wasn’t negatively impacted by Covid-19. If anything, I’ve been even busier in the last 18 months! I think a lot of this is due to the fact that more and more people are understanding that Covid is much riskier to catch when an individual is obese and has underlying health issues such as Type 2 Diabetes, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and high cholesterol, and they really want to take control of their health! Many of my clients are at higher risk as well due to their compromised immune status, so making sure we are continuing to address any insufficiencies in nutrients like Zinc and Vitamin D have become a bigger part of my protocols.
Pricing:
- Consults start at $400
- 6-month programs begin at $233/mo
- 12 months programs begin at $250/mo
Contact Info:
- Email: jade@originsnutritionaltherapy.com
- Website: www.originsnutritionaltherapy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jade_arellano_cns/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jrennels
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JadeArellanoCNS
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg1nbGbMo3WacObevF7oq1A
- Other: https://linktr.ee/JadeArellanoCNS
Image Credits
Mary Morrow
