Body Brief — Katia Davis

Katia,

I want to start somewhere that might not feel obvious. The anxiety you have around food is not a mindset problem to push through. When eating something that crosses your path by accident can genuinely make you seriously ill, the vigilance you carry around food is not irrational. It is rational. And it is exhausting in a way that most people do not account for, including most health practitioners.

What I want to offer you here is a picture of what I see when I look at your whole situation, not just the training or the eating in isolation. Because what you are describing, the tiredness that sleep does not fix, the slow healing, the brain fog, the low mood, the bloating, the wired-but-tired feeling, this is a body that is carrying a significant internal load. And that load has a story.

You want to feel healthy and whole. Strong and well. That is a clear and honest thing to want. And I think the path there looks different from what you might expect, because the problem is not that you are not trying hard enough. You are clearly trying very hard. The problem is that the things that would actually shift this have not yet been properly addressed.

Let me show you what I mean.

xx Madison

The Audit

What’s working

You move your body regularly and you push hard when you do.

Two to three classes a week plus yoga self-practice, and you show up to work. You said you push hard and know you worked. That matters. A lot of people at your level of systemic load stop moving altogether. You have not. The habit is intact and it is worth a great deal.

You have a structured, grounded day at home.

Breakfast before client calls. A proper afternoon snack. Evening walks with your dogs. These anchors are doing more for your nervous system than they might look like. Consistency in daily rhythm is one of the clearest signals you can send a dysregulated system that things are okay. You are already doing this without necessarily knowing it is medicinal.

You know your body well enough to notice when something is off.

You named the slow healing, the tiredness that sleep does not fix, the fact that things have shifted in the last six months. That self-awareness is the starting point for everything. You are not dismissing what your body is telling you. You are paying attention. That is exactly right.

What’s missing

A proper functional investigation of what is actually going on internally.

Thyroid condition, perimenopause, iron deficiency, autoimmune condition, confirmed gut issues, hormonal contraception, severe coeliac. That is a significant stack of conditions, each of which affects the others, and all of which are happening simultaneously. The standard approach of managing each one separately is almost certainly why you are still not feeling well despite doing a lot of the right things. This picture needs to be looked at as a whole.

A food framework that acknowledges your gluten situation without making every meal a source of stress.

When cross-contamination is a genuine medical risk, the anxiety around eating out is completely understandable and completely valid. What is missing is a set of safe defaults that feel nourishing and abundant rather than restrictive and anxious, so that food can start to feel like something that supports you rather than something you have to navigate around.

A training approach that works with your healing body, not against it.

Your right knee, your hip and lower back injury, the slow healing you mentioned. Your body is asking for a different kind of input right now. Pushing hard in group classes is one mode. But given what your system is managing, there is a strong case for pairing that with training that actively supports recovery, mobility, and structural integrity rather than always adding more load.

What I want you to understand

Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition. Every accidental gluten exposure, even trace amounts, triggers an immune response that damages the gut lining and impairs absorption of iron, B12, and other nutrients critical for energy, mood, cognition, and healing. This means that the tiredness that sleep does not fix, the brain fog, the low mood, the slow recovery, these may not be primarily hormonal or lifestyle issues. They may be the direct downstream effects of gut damage that has not fully healed. Optimising your training and nutrition matters. But until the gut is genuinely healed and absorption is working properly, the ceiling on how well you can feel is lower than it should be. This is the most important thing to be investigating right now.

This Month’s Needle Movers

Three priorities for the month.

Get a full functional blood panel

This is the single most important thing on this list. Not because everything else does not matter, but because without knowing what is actually happening internally, every other effort is working in the dark. Standard blood tests will not give you the full picture. You need ferritin not just haemoglobin, free T3 and T4 not just TSH, vitamin D, B12, full coeliac antibody panel to check for ongoing exposure, and ideally a full hormonal panel given where you are in perimenopause.

The slow healing, the tiredness that sleep does not fix, the brain fog, the low mood. These are not personality traits or stress responses that need managing. They are symptoms that have a biochemical explanation, and that explanation is findable. A good functional medicine practitioner or integrative GP is the right person to run this with. This is the thing that changes the ceiling on everything else.

Let your body heal before you push it harder

You have a hip and lower back injury that is taking a long time to heal. You mentioned it yourself. Slow healing is one of the clearest signals a body gives that it does not have the resources to repair and build at the same time. Continuing to push hard in group classes on top of an unresolved injury, on top of the systemic load your body is managing, is likely extending the healing timeline rather than shortening it.

For this month, the goal is not to train harder. It is to train smarter. Keep the yoga and lighter movement. Put the high-intensity classes on hold until the hip and back have genuinely resolved. That is not giving up. That is giving your body the conditions it needs to actually get better, which gets you back to full training faster than pushing through will.

Build a set of safe food anchors that feel good, not just safe

The anxiety around food is real and it makes complete sense given your situation. But anxiety around eating is also physiologically stressful, and chronic stress around food affects digestion, cortisol, and gut healing directly. The goal is not to eliminate the caution, which is genuinely necessary. The goal is to have enough safe, nourishing, genuinely enjoyable options at home and on the road that food can sometimes feel like pleasure rather than always feeling like navigation.

At home this is about stocking your kitchen with things that are naturally gluten-free and genuinely satisfying, not just safe. Rice, potatoes, good quality meat and fish, eggs, legumes, vegetables, naturally gluten-free grains like buckwheat and quinoa. When you travel, identifying one or two trusted restaurant options or a supermarket you can rely on in advance removes the decision fatigue and the anxiety from the equation before you are already tired and hungry.

Your Training Framework

Right now, the priority is healing. Not harder. Smarter.

Daily

Your evening dog walk

Keep this exactly as it is. Low-intensity daily movement is genuinely therapeutic for a dysregulated nervous system. Do not underestimate it.

2 to 3 x week

Yoga and gentle movement

Keep your yoga practice. Add hip mobility work and gentle core activation specifically for the lower back and hip injury. This is active healing, not rest.

Once hip resolves

Reintroduce strength training

Start with bodyweight and light resistance. Build the foundation before returning to higher intensity group classes. Your knees and hip will thank you.

When ready

Lagree and group training

These stay in the picture long term. But right now your body needs to build back before it can push hard again without the load working against recovery.

A few things to know

The slow healing you described is a direct sign that your body does not currently have enough resources to repair and perform at the same time. Training hard on top of that extends the injury timeline. Gentler movement, adequate protein, and addressing the underlying deficiencies is what speeds recovery up, not more intensity.

Variety in movement is genuinely good for you and it fits who you are. Lagree, aerial yoga, SUP, swimming. All of it counts and all of it has value. The key is that whatever you choose right now does not aggravate the hip and lower back, and that the intensity is matched to what your system can actually recover from.

Once the blood work comes back and you have a clearer picture of what your body is managing, the training approach can be calibrated properly. Until then, keeping the habit alive and protecting the injury is the entire job.

Your Nutrition Anchors

Safe, nourishing, and genuinely satisfying. Food should not feel like a minefield every day.

Anchor 1 — Naturally gluten-free, not substitute gluten-free

There is a meaningful difference between naturally gluten-free food and gluten-free substitute products. Rice, potatoes, sweet potato, quinoa, buckwheat, eggs, meat, fish, legumes, most dairy, all vegetables and fruit. These are not compromised versions of other foods. They are complete, nourishing foods in their own right, and building your eating pattern around them rather than around gluten-free bread and pasta means you are not constantly eating processed substitutes that are often lower in nutrients and higher in additives.

This matters especially for gut healing. Your gut lining is working to repair itself, and it does that best with whole, nutrient-dense food. Highly processed gluten-free alternatives are safer than gluten but they are not actively helpful. The closer you can get to food in its natural form, the more you are feeding the healing process directly.

Anchor 2 — Iron and B12, every single day

Coeliac disease impairs iron and B12 absorption even on a strictly gluten-free diet, because the gut damage takes time to repair and the villi responsible for absorption may not be fully functional yet. This means you can be eating iron-rich food and still be deficient. Supplementation is almost always necessary, not optional.

For iron, take it away from coffee, tea, and calcium, all of which block absorption. Take it with vitamin C to increase uptake. For B12, sublingual or spray forms absorb independently of gut function and are more reliable when the digestive tract is compromised. If you are not currently supplementing both, this is worth addressing as a matter of urgency given the fatigue, brain fog, and slow healing you are experiencing.

Anchor 3 — Protein at every meal, without exception

Your body is trying to heal an injury, manage multiple hormonal and immune processes, and recover from exercise. All of that requires protein as the raw material. You are currently getting 2 to 3 servings a day, which is a reasonable starting point, but given everything your body is managing, erring toward the higher end and distributing it evenly across meals is worth doing deliberately.

Eggs, chicken, fish, beef, lamb, legumes, Greek yoghurt if you tolerate dairy, good quality protein powder if you need a quick option. All naturally gluten-free. All doing active work for your recovery, your muscle integrity, and your hormonal function. Protein is not optional right now. It is medicine.

Anchor 4 — A travel protocol you can rely on

The anxiety around eating when you travel is completely understandable. Cross-contamination risk is real and the consequences for you are serious. The goal is not to eliminate the care you take. It is to reduce the cognitive and emotional load of it by making fewer decisions in the moment.

Before any trip, identify one supermarket near where you are staying and one restaurant that has clear coeliac protocol, not just gluten-free options. Pack a small kit of safe snacks for the gaps: rice cakes, nuts, protein bars with certified gluten-free labelling, fruit. Keep breakfast simple and within your control wherever possible. The aim is that by the time you are tired and hungry and away from home, the decisions are already made. That is what turns travel from a food anxiety trigger into something manageable.

Katia, I want to say something clearly before I close this.

You are not failing at your health. You are managing something genuinely complex, and you are doing it largely without the level of support that complexity deserves. Coeliac disease, an autoimmune condition, thyroid issues, perimenopause, iron deficiency, hormonal contraception, and an injury that is slow to heal. That is a significant internal load, and the fact that you are still showing up for movement, still eating carefully at home, still paying attention, is not nothing. It is actually a lot.

What I want for you is not a harder programme or a more disciplined approach. It is an actual investigation of what is driving how you feel, and a team of people around you who understand how these pieces interact. The functional blood panel is the place to start. Everything else builds from what that tells us.

You deserve to feel whole. Not as a goal to work toward but as a baseline to live from. That is what we are working toward together.

xx Madison