Episode 318: You’re Not the Problem: Why Most Wellness Advice Doesn’t Work for Your Energy
This episode kicks off a series of foundational conversations — the kind that remind you: it’s not you.
It’s the systems you were handed. We’re unpacking what happens when you try to follow all the “right” wellness rules and still feel exhausted, bloated, or like something’s off — and why Human Design and functional nutrition offer a new way to listen, rebuild, and reclaim.
This is your permission slip to stop blaming yourself — and start working with your body, not against it.
Listen to the Episode:
“If you’re putting in the effort doing all the “right” things, but you’re still spiraling, still tired, still fighting burnout, you’re not working with the natural rhythm of your energy.”
Read the Transcript:
Hello there, and welcome back to the podcast! I'm so excited to be back here with you!
You all have been telling me that you’re enjoying opening the show with my “three things”, so this week:
Fun / Joyful I had my front door repainted, which was very exciting because it was long overdue I had a touch of food poisoning -- which wasn't the fun part, at all, but while I was sick, I binged a bunch of shows that I really enjoyed: The Residence on Netflix, which is a murder mystery series – I always love a good “whodunit.”
I watched the Chef's Table: Legends. Apparently, the Chef's Table series has been around for a decade. I've never watched it, but the latest drop of the show spotlights four legendary chefs: Jamie Oliver, Jose Andres, Thomas Keller, and Alice Waters.
I’m so fortunate that where I live, in the Bay Area, we have the signature restaurants of two of these legends -- The French Laundry by Thomas Keller and Chez Panisse by Alice Waters.
I’ve never been to either, but as I watched the show, I looked up reservations so I hope to visit both soon!
Oh, I also watched Fountain of Youth, a movie on Apple TV. It was cute, like the film, “National Treasure, " and I also just finished “Your Friends and Neighbors”, which is a series on Apple TV. Love them all!
I’m currently watching Mobland on Paramount Plus and all I have to say is that Helen Mirren is crazy in that show – I love it!
The third “fun and joyful thing was getting some vegan gelato on a gf waffle. Last weekend I visited the Farmers Market at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. One of my favorite vendors is a small pop-up called Flora Gelateria and they make the freshest tasting gelato I’ve ever had with innovative flavors! This time I got the Tangerine Almond Nougant. I would not have put those flavors together, but it worked! So yummy!
Kind I’ve been watching the French Open, and my 80-something year old aunt is a huge fan of Carlos Alcaraz, so I’ve been calling her before his matches to make sure she knows they’re on so she can watch it live or tape it. She loves watching him play and hates to miss any of his matches - it's cute.
I was kind to myself and gave myself complete rest days. With an Undefined Sacral Center, it’s a struggle to know when enough is enough. I’d been feeling run down, and I realized that I hadn’t had a complete rest day in almost three weeks, so I was kind to my body, and didn't take just one complete rest day, but I took two complete rest days – back-to-back – and I needed it! I felt so much better for it!
I must thank you, because after the last episode, Episode 317, several of you shared your self-portraits with me, which is what I had challenged you to do. Thank you for taking the time to take your self-portrait and thank you for not only sharing it with me, but also for trusting me with them. The photos were gorgeous – you’re gorgeous! It made me feel good to see them and I hope you felt good taking them and see them! And it's not too late. If you haven't listened to Episode 317 yet, go ahead and listen to it, and then take your self-portrait and send it to me – I’d love to see it!
What I Did Well / Like About Myself There was no new episode last week because I honored my need for rest. I needed a mental break, so I let go of the self-imposed pressure that there must be a new episode every week. I needed a break and I’m glad I did.
I’m embracing a “summer hair, don't care” attitude. I used to have board-straight hair but as I’ve gotten older, it's now textured, wavy on the top and curly on the bottom. I've never had this kind of hair before in my life and I don't quite know how to take care of it, so I'm always blow drying my hair straight. But it's summer and its hot so I’ve been letting my hair air dry. It's very low maintenance, and I’m learning to embrace the natural waves.
Last week, I launched a new masterclass I’ve been talking about for weeks. It’s called, “Food, Mood, Design: Decoding Your Body’s Signals.” A bunch of you got a special discount, you're taking it right now which makes me so happy because I'm really proud of it. It’s a process that’s been transformative and empowering for me and I’m happy to teach it to you! You can find a link for it in the show notes for this episode at livefablife.com/318.
And if you're wondering why it's important, well, that's what we're talking about today.
I want you to raise your hand if you've ever followed “food rules,” counted calories, tried whatever the latest diet craze is, or if you bought all the supplements, and yet you still feel exhausted, still feel bloated, and still feel like a shell of yourself.
I'm raising my hand because I did too. And when those things didn’t work for me, I thought that I was the problem. I thought that I wasn't strict enough, that I wasn't disciplined enough, that I was weak and didn't have enough willpower.
If you’re feeling or have felt this way too, I want you to know that it's not you. You're not the problem.
You've just been taught to override your signals instead of trusting them.
And so today, I’m leaning into my Projector lens, zooming way out to look at the big picture and what I mean by “you've been overriding your signals.”
In fact, a bit of a preview, this episode is the first in a series of foundational conversations that we’re going to have that lays out the core beliefs behind how I work -- my approach. We’ve talked about them a lot together over the years, but what you’ll hear is my fresh take on it and how I help women to stop outsourcing their wellness and actually start understanding themselves and what their bodies are telling them.
So, let's dig in.
If you’re like me, you were taught that after doing all the “wellness things,” if you still don't feel better, you need to double down more. That you lacked self-discipline and control and needed to stick to the rules harder because you hadn’t tried hard enough.
So, you tried to summon more willpower, but it just left you feeling like a failure, like you didn’t try hard enough, aren't strong enough, that you're lazy, or even worse -- that you're not a good person.
I'm raising my hand because I went through this too. There were many times that I tried something and wondered why it worked for everyone else but me. It made me self-conscious, and I wondered what was wrong with me.
But now I know better and here's the truth, most of the conventional wellness plans, and yes, I’m calling it “conventional wellness”, just like there’s conventional medicine, there’s also “conventional wellness”, most of the conventional wellness plans that we’re fed are built on someone else's rules.
They don't consider your rhythm, and every time you follow someone else's plan, you're overriding your energy.
What do I mean by overriding your energy? You may think that I mean aligning with someone else's Human Design, and yes, that’s part of it which we’ll get to in a bit, but what I also mean by “overriding your energy” is that you're ignoring what your body's telling you.
Like I talked about how I’d been feeling run down, and it wasn't that I was ignoring it, I didn't even notice that I was running ragged until the messages, the body signals started getting more prevalent. I kept going, and going, and going, until I realized that if I didn’t slow down, I’d burnout -- again.
So, overriding your energy is ignoring or not even noticing the signals that your body sends you. It means holding yourself up to someone else's standards and then belittling yourself when you can’t meet those standards, having thoughts like, “I'm too sensitive about this”, or “I'm not trying hard enough.”
Listen, the truth is that the wellness world is the wild, wild west. Anything goes and its very noisy. I'm not going to go on a tangent right now with my thoughts on this, although I have a lot of them, but I will say that my approach to wellness is integrative. It's always been and always will be inclusive of both Western and holistic practices based in science and in ancient wisdoms. And it will always be rooted in bio-individuality and what makes each person unique.
The circumstances and conditions of your personal history, genetics, the environment you live in or have lived in, your daily habits, your energetic design – all these things factor into your bio-individuality, who you are and how you arrived at the state you're in right now.
So, if you’re quietly, or loudly, struggling, feeling overwhelmed, confused, frustrated and like you're doing all the right things that you're “supposed” to be doing, and you're not feeling better or seeing improvements, I urge you to pause, to take a breath, and take inventory.
Does your wellness plan, the things you do in the name of “wellness”, feel supportive of you? Does it feel nurturing? Do you feel good? Or does it feel like it's another task added to your to do list?
I learned about the practice of Early Morning Pages in nutrition school. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a practice of freewriting the first thing that you get up in the morning. You open your eyes and just start writing. The idea is that you haven’t fully woken up to consciousness yet, so you’re tapped into your sub-conscious, so you freely write from that space to unlock insights for clarity.
I'm sure I wrote a blog post on it 10 years ago. I tried to make it a practice. I loved the idea of it and honestly tried to like it, but I hated it. It felt like a chore and the last thing I want to do when I open my eyes in the morning is pick up a pen and start writing.
I never handwrite anymore, so my handwriting is terrible and half the time even I can't read it. My hand also hurts from writing. And I struggled with free writing – it felt daunting. Well now that I know I have an Undefined Head center and what that means, now I get why it felt that way. My thoughts are all over the place, which I guess is the point of Early Morning Pages.
But anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that when something feels like a task and it doesn't feel supportive, let it go.
Let me be clear – what I'm talking about here isn’t about doing less. It's about doing what works for you and releasing what doesn't. Just because it works for someone else and you like the idea of it but you aren’t getting anything out of it, doesn’t mean that anything is wrong with you, or that you’re a lesser person.
You’re not here to fit ourselves into someone else’s plan. Because your wellness practice should make you feel…well, well! Wellness, right? Your wellness plan should make you feel good, uplifted, energized and rejuvenated. because the cost of misaligned wellness is too steep.
So, if you’re putting in the effort doing all the “right” things, but you're still spiraling, still tired, still fighting burnout, you’re not working with the natural rhythm of your energy.
If you're bitter, angry, frustrated, disappointed, resentful and you feel ashamed or confused, you’re doubting yourself, or you start to obsess about not doing enough, my friend, I’m here to tell you that whatever it is that you're doing is working against you rather than with you. It’s likely doing the very opposite of what your intentions for it are. And you're feeling all those emotions because you're trying to fit yourself into someone else's mold, someone else’s plan.
And I know you’re trying so hard but that’s because you've never been taught to understand your body's language.
Now, using your Human Design as a tool for wellness may or may not be a new concept for you, but let’s explore how it is indeed a tool for wellness.
I struggled with fatigue and burnout, digestive issues, self-doubt --all of it -- even after nutrition school and years of functional nutrition training.
There's no such thing as “perfect health” because life happens, and this is why we must be self-observant and aware of the signals your body sends so you can recognize and decode them.
When I dip into the wellness world, I’ve always done my best to follow my bio-individuality and take what I need and leave what I don't, at least in the current moment I’m in, but when I started looking at my energy and how I feel through the lens of Human Design, it's like the dots connected in a way they never had before.
This is what my new masterclass teaches – how to connect what you eat with how you feel and how your body functions with Human Design layered on top of it.
When I started doing this, I started to see patterns that I just didn't notice before. I had more context. My foggy brain and afternoon crashes? They weren't just because I didn't get a good night's sleep, or my blood sugar was a little imbalanced.
When I peeled the layers back far enough, at the root my fatigue, burnout, how I managed (or didn’t) stress, the anxiety, fears, pressures – these were all a result of what happens when a Projector tries to live life as a Generator or Manifesting Generator. When a Projector with an Undefined Sacral Center tries to live life as if it was Defined.
It makes you realize just how connected your energy is to everything; it's so simple and yet equally complicated.
Let me share a story of a past client of mine, to illustrate this to you.
This client of mine had been struggling with several issues, including blood sugar challenges. She kept trying to practice intermittent fasting because she heard on a podcast that it’s recommended to stabilize blood sugar, and she had watched all these Instagram Reels and Tik Tok’s about it too. It seemed to work for everybody, so she gave it a try too.
She’d been trying earnestly, steadfastly to try her hardest to do 16-hour fasts, but it made her anxious and irritated all the time. She was snappy with her family, colleagues and friends – so, you can imagine how her interpersonal relationships were going, right? On top of that, she felt wired at night, which didn't help her sleep. She felt like she was trapped in a vicious cycle.
Now, she's a Manifesting Generator, with an Active Brain and an Indirect Light Determination.
So, being a Manifesting Generator, she has a Defined Sacral Center, and all of that Sacral energy, plus her Active brain that’s working all the time, she needs consistent fuel to support her energy.
She has a lot of energy moving through her, a lot of things she’s processing, so, it’s no wonder that intermittent fasting didn’t work for her. It’s no wonder she felt depleted, had brain fog, blood sugar dips. She wasn’t supporting the natural flow of her energy.
Layer on top of that is her Indirect Light Determination which means that she digests best when eating after the sun goes down or before the sun rises – when the light is not at its peak, which isn’t likely to happen with intermittent fasting.
So, she was trying to adopt this wellness practice, intermittent fasting, that she heard experts discuss on a podcast, and then she watched a whole bunch of Instagram and Tiktok videos about how great it is.
But it didn’t work for her. She felt that everything was a constant uphill battle. It's no wonder she was always tired, grouchy and hungry all the time!
And she was beating herself up over it. She thought she didn't have enough willpower to hold out for 16-hour fasts. Everyone else could do it, so why couldn't she? She lost confidence in herself and often wondered, “What’s wrong with me?” This added more layers of stress on an already stressful situation.
But -- once she understood how her body processes food and energy, it was a game changer.
She's now able to feed and nourish herself in a way that was aligned with her energy, which then leaves her feeling more energetic, more supported and more nourished. And most importantly, she’s regained her confidence and trust in herself.
So, my friend, if you take anything away from this episode, I want you to let go of the idea that you're too scattered, or you're not doing enough, or that you're not enough. You've just been misreading your energy.
If you’ve ever thought, “I'm doing everything right, and I still don't feel like myself”, I want you to know that you're not the problem. You’ve just been overriding your body’s signals instead of trusting them because you haven't been shown how to notice, how to recognize, and how to listen to those signals.
Let's change that, starting right now.
This is what Food, Mood Design: Decode Your Body’s Signals, my new masterclass is all about. It’s where I teach you a tracking process to understand the relationship between what you eat, how you feel, and how your body functions, with Human Design woven into it. This is where you start connecting the dots.
You can learn more by visiting my website or the show notes for this episode at www.livefablife.com/318 for Episode 318.
And if you know someone who's also struggling with their wellness practice, I would love for you to share this episode with them.
And if you're not already subscribed to the show, be sure to do so, because I don't want you to miss the rest of the foundational conversations we're having in this mini-series.
Thank you so much for listening, my friend. I'm so glad you're here, and I can't wait to continue the conversation with you.
And again, if you haven’t taken a self-portrait (not a selfie!) yet and go ahead and do so, and then send it to me, so I can see you too! I'll see you right back here again next time. Bye for now!
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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