We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katherine Kiviat a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Katherine, thanks for joining us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?
Early on in my career as a functional and integrative nutritionist, I was seeing a neurodivergent 7yr old boy . His mom had contacted me as a last resort as she had been trying to help him on her own through researching various elimination diets that were getting her nowhere. Her son, let’s call him Sean, was suffering from severe digestive issues, leaky gut, easy bruising, aggression, fear of going outside, and hardly able to communicate verbally. He was also living with two younger siblings and a single mom working from home. Mom was cooking everything from scratch at that point and had already tried putting Sean on a very restrictive GAPS diet.
For our first appointment, I made a house visit due to Sean’s fear of going outdoors. As a somewhat new practitioner, I was excited to try and help, but when I sat down to speak with his mom and asked a series of questions, Sean became increasingly irritated and aggressive, knocking a glass off the table and then throwing a box of chalk at me as I was getting up to leave – ouch!
After speaking to Sean’s mom for a couple hours, going through his intake forms and food log she had kept the last week, we decided to try eliminating salicylates – a group of organic compounds that are found in plants and many medicines such as Aspirin which some neurodivergent people have an intolerance to. This is tricky because many foods high in salicylates are otherwise very healthy like olive oil, blueberries, and other polyphenol-rich foods like apples, grapes, turmeric, and cinnamon. These anti-inflammatory foods can cause irritability, aggression, hyperactivity, sleeping challenges, along with red cheeks or red ears. The reason for this intolerance often has to do with a challenge the person’s methylation and sulfation chemistry
We made sure Sean was still consuming healthy fats, fiber and protein from other foods but cut out those high in salicylates. At the same time, we worked on healing Sean’s gut integrity.
Fast forward to about 2-3 months later, Sean came into my office for a follow-up visit. The rashes that were there when we first met had disappeared, his bruises were gone, he had gained some weight back, and his dimenour had completely changed! His mom was tearful expressing her joy with her son’s improvement in communication with her and decrease in aggression. He had even been going outside to the park more and more. Sean sat calmly on the sofa in my office playing with a game while listening in on our conversation. When he looked up, I asked him, on a scale of 1-10, how do you feel now compared to how you felt when we first met? He said, before I felt like maybe a 2 and now I feel like a 9″. Then he corrected himself saying “no, actually I feel like a 10 or maybe an 11!”
Sean’s story warmed my heart and indeed sparked my interest in learning more about the connection between nutrition and mental health.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am clinical nutritionist taking a functional medicine & integrative approach to supporting clients with interventions that focus on finding the root cause of digestive, endocrine, and mental health conditions, including anxiety, hormone imbalance, IBS, and autoimmunity. I help my clients achieve optimal digestive function, increased energy, decreased anxiety and depression, and hormonal balance through addressing food sensitivities, replenishing nutrient insufficiencies, using professional-grade supplements and functional testing when needed. There are many functional tests out there, but not all are created equal and they can be pricey! I often use comprehensive stool testing for digestive and skin conditions, organic acid testing for mental health conditions, and the DUTCH hormone panel when appropriate.
I strongly believe, and have witnessed in many clients as well as myself, that autoimmunity and other chronic illnesses are profoundly influenced by the state of our nervous system. I can not emphasize this enough. Because of this, a great deal of the work I do with clients is focused on helping them first regulate their nervous system. Without this I do not believe real and sustainable change is possible.
As a young child, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, and later in life with an invisible autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s. Because of this, I have always had an interest in fighting for and empowering others facing challenges. In my photography career, this is illustrated by the work I did with American gypsies, christian Pakistanis living in Islamabad and the book, Women of Courage I co-authored about Afghan women fighting for positive change in their country. After more than a decade working in photojournalism both as a photo editor and photographer, I was inspired to pursue a new career. Triggered by my son’s as well as my own health challenges, I went back to school to get my masters in human clinical nutrition and integrative health. It has become my true passion to empower others with the tools and knowledge needed to help themselves live their best lives.
Born in NYC and having lived abroad for 20+ years, I have experience in vastly different environments from the U.S., France, and Italy to Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Thailand. This opportunity exposed me to the best of both Eastern and Western healing modalities. I have lived with and worked with people from all walks of life and am well versed in many different cultural beliefs and dietary observations. With a previous background in the photojournalism industry, I have experience working with clients from all four corners of the globe, fast paced work environments, and stressful jobs. I am also an experienced mom to a son who suffered from asthma for years as well as someone who has herself struggled with and now manages her own autoimmune conditions.
Like many practitioners in the field of wellness, I have a personal history with chronic illness.
I had worked as a photographer for magazines all over the world including Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Time and The New York Times Magazine. I had travelled and lived in challenging but incredibly inspiring places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Jerusalem, France and Italy.
Minutes after our son was born, he suffered from a pneumothorax and had to be transported from the small hospital where I had him to a larger one an hour away. Although he seemed to fully recover, at 10 months old he developed bronchiolitis, and would then would go on to have asthma attacks about every 2 weeks when he would catch a cold or a virus at the playground. This led to hospitalizations, too many rounds of Prednisone and a lot of stress for us. It wasn’t until he was three years old, when we moved to Thailand, that things began to change. We were advised to change his diet and run some functional tests to see where his nutritional needs were lacking and where there might be any imbalances in his body that needed help. It was literally within two weeks that he was off his daily steroid inhaler and never suffered from another asthma attack again (he is now 14).
It was around that time, when I decided to go back to school to get a masters of science in clinical nutrition. I was so amazed by the effects we had witnessed in our own son, I wanted to help others. I was in the perfect location to study the balance of Eastern and Western nutrition along with complimentary medicines. It was only while I was in graduate school that I realized all that stress from constantly moving from place to place, having a child who was constantly ill while trying to work as a magazine photographer had taken its toll on me. I had developed an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s. I felt EXHAUSTED all the time, had little motivation, my moods were all over the place and my GUT was seriously trying to tell me something. After years of grad school and using myself as a guinea pig, I was able to emerge from it healthier and happier than I’d been in years. It was through this entire journey that I realized how different each person is and how we can’t all do the same thing, by following the same protocol to get back to our true selves. Everyone is unique and deserves the personal attention of looking at them as an individual.
I now channel my passion for food, nutritional knowledge, yoga and meditation into helping others reach their optimal health in safe, effective, practical ways.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I would say that I have had be very resilient since childhood. Being picked on by teachers because of my dyslexia, I really had to learn to advocate for myself and learn how to use my own unique talents to my advantage. I had to learn how to study, take notes and even listen to information from books differently than other children. It was a real struggle when everything seemed to take me longer than others. My parents sent me to a summer camp in middle school for children with dyslexia, and it was there that I really was given the tools needed to succeed. Once I had those tools in my toolbox, I soared through high school with impressive grades and after college went on to get my masters in science. Because I was given the tools and education I needed to help myself, I succeeded. And, that is what I aim to do for my clients now. I want them to feel empowered and confident enough to advocate for themselves
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
Other than training/knowledge, and sometimes even more important, is the ability to listen to someone’s story and hear what they have lived through, what they are going through that makes them a unique individual. Their story usually contains many of the clues or even answers we as clinicians are looking for.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nourishingrootsfl.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nourishingrootsfl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Nourishingrootsfl/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nourishingrootsfl/
- Other: WOMEN OF COURAGE: https://www.amazon.com/Women-Courage-Katherine-26-Oct-2007-Hardcover/dp/B013J9JRD4/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3S74HGQIG1V2Q&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2ohXPsTakWu3udXSndQMr0wG7pf_bqeHFiQu-x40IEM.SJwo5DfkMDs4yWJsqEYl4Z26dDffxmd77SBIZ-aQQ1c&dib_tag=se&keywords=Women+of+Courage+and+katherine+kiviat&qid=1736535261&sprefix=women+of+courage+and+katherine+kiviat%2Caps%2C116&sr=8-2
Image Credits
Photo credit: Scott Heidler and Katherine Kiviat