ITN STUDENT SUCCESS: TAMMIE DUGGAR

Meet Certified Transformational Nutrition Coach, Tammie Duggar!

She’s a wife, mama, Health Coach, business partner with her husband, and our favorite healthy recipe creator!

Tammie combines practical tools for improving the gut, combined with mindset tools to skyrocket healing for her clients!

After being inspired to educate herself and take her (and her family’s health) into her own hands, she found a new way of living a life full of health, joy, and fulfillment!

Read on to be inspired by our very own Tammie Duggar and all the fantastic things she’s doing in this world! (Oh, and did we mention that she’s one of our talented blog contributors?)

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN COACHING?

Since the spring of 2014 — over four wonderful years!

WHO IS YOUR NICHE?

I help people with chronic GI problems and also help my clients create a mindset to heal!

WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST SUCCESSES AS A HEALTH COACH?

While I have had many success stories, I’ll share just a couple!

I think my biggest success is taking the leap to fully immerse myself into my husband’s practice and to create “our practice”.

He always said he could easily give people recommendations on how they could change their health, but they would rarely follow through!

Now, I get to help our clients make the vital mindset shifts that lead them successfully to habit changes and results in overall lifestyle habits that create what they are looking for.

TELL US YOUR STORY

I got off to a rocky start in life!

You see, I was born six weeks premature and only weighed 3 lbs. 11 oz. The doctor discouraged breastfeeding because I was so small. So I missed out on a critical window to develop a healthy gut and immune system.

As a small child, I always had digestive issues and allergies — my seasonal allergies lasting most of the year. I was sensitive to animal dander, perfumes, and fragrances. Even raw fruits and veggies would often cause my mouth to itch and my throat to feel like it was closing off.

It seemed like I was constantly battling sinus infections and strep throat. In addition, I was always bloated and gassy, which led to some pretty painful nicknames and lots of teasing from my brothers.

It just so happened that my mom was a nurse for a pediatrician, so I had free access to every drug that came along to treat my symptoms but despite that, my symptoms never really went away.

As I got older, I learned to live with my symptoms, and I resigned myself to the fact that I’d have these issues all of my life.

A MORE NATURAL APPROACH

Shortly after I got married, Jerry and I started seeing a local chiropractor who showed us many natural healing ideas.

Lo and behold, after only a few short weeks of getting regular chiropractic care and improving our lifestyle, my seasonal allergies went away!

Witnessing first-hand how my body could heal when I changed my habits and rebalanced my nerve system made me fall in love with natural healing. Jerry had his own incredible experiences in those early years. Before we knew it, we were headed off to chiropractic school for his education.

While we were in chiropractic school, my husband developed a major health crisis. He learned that he was sensitive to several foods like gluten and dairy. When we switched our diet to help him heal, we both noticed a big difference in our health.

In the 1990s, it was difficult to eat gluten and dairy-free, and so we were really eager to gradually re-introduce those foods back into our diet as soon as he started feeling better. We didn’t feel quite as good but rationalized that it was okay to have just a little bit here and there.

MY HEALTH GRADUALLY DECLINED

As the years went on, I started having more intense symptoms related to the foods that I ate. So much so that I would often find myself doubled over in excruciating pain in my abdomen for hours at a time.

I figured that the little bit of gluten I was eating was probably the culprit, so I doubled down and removed all of it from my diet.

Cutting out gluten seemed to help for a while, but then my symptoms would come raging back, seemingly out of nowhere.

This was so frustrating to me — I felt like my diet was good, and I had already learned so much about how the gut worked.

I had studied and become a Certified Culinary Nutrition Expert and had created a successful cookbook. I was even teaching classes and helping other people heal their relationship with food!

Can you imagine how frustrating that would be? I felt like a fraud because I couldn’t solve my problems, and I often wanted to give up.

We ran a bunch of lab tests and GI scans, but neither my husband or the other doctors I saw could find the source of the problem. The tests would come back negative with a “you’re in perfect health” report.

A NEW LAYER OF UNDERSTANDING

We were always searching for new answers. Then one day, my husband learned about a relatively new condition called SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). The description was exactly what I was feeling.

He learned that often people with SIBO don’t completely improve by addressing diet alone. It seemed to explain so many of the unanswered questions we had been asking ourselves for years.

We learned that there may have been a long-standing issue that could have caused this overgrowth to be there despite all of the good things that I was doing with my diet and lifestyle.

This chronic underlying problem was triggering a low-grade inflammation and keeping me from feeling my best.

Sure enough, the breath test came back positive, and so we did our research on treatment options!

As you might imagine, my case wasn’t a simple one. I likely had this condition for most of my life.

I had to do multiple rounds of treatment to resolve it. So when we finally saw the test results come back negative, it was such a happy day! My digestive symptoms are few and far between, and I finally feel better than I have in decades!

SHARING MY JOURNEY OF HEALING

I often reflect on all of the amazing things I’ve learned along my journey.

I’ve learned how to personalize my diet so that it is right for me. I know…

• What I can eat a lot of and what I have to be careful with.
• What happens when I get stressed out. I take extra care of myself when I’m going through those inevitable stressful times we all deal with.
• What supplements work for me and which ones don’t seem to make an impact.

I’ve got over two decades of experience “in the trenches” making huge changes in my families eating habits while my children were young and then again when they were teenagers. (I understand that this can be challenging!)

In the process, I’ve done hundreds of hours of research and “book learning” to understand the most current approaches to diet and gut healing, and I’ve been able to translate my life-long passion for food and food prep into becoming a Certified Culinary Nutrition Expert.

But even more than just the physical skills and knowledge I’ve gained, I’ve realized that my journey has helped me understand so many of my client’s emotional challenges as well.

BEING ABLE TO RELATE

I know what it’s like to manage the awkwardness at parties and special occasions when I’ve had to pack my own food.

I’ve dealt with the insensitive comments of others who were ignorant of the complexities of digestive problems. I know what it feels like to be different and to feel like you’re missing out.

As my journey unfolded, I could see that what I was learning could help so many other people. You see, when you’ve had just about every symptom you can have, it becomes so easy to have compassion for others who are suffering.

I felt my heart leading me to become a Health Coach and to work with other people who are feeling frustrated, lost, and confused.

So I devoted a year of my life to becoming a Certified Transformational Nutrition Coach (CTNC) through the Institute of Transformational Nutrition.

I love the opportunity I have now of sitting knee-to-knee with people who are dealing with health issues that are a bit scary and overwhelming to them.

My heart is filled with so much empathy and love because I’ve been where they are now. My heart is also full of hope and confidence for them because I know they can make a difference in their health.

They can heal and get back to feeling fabulous. I know that the answers they are looking for are looking for them as well. So if they are open and trust in the timing of the Universe, they will find the answers they are looking for.

HERE’S WHAT TAMMIE HAS TO SAY ABOUT BEING AN ITN GRADUATE

ITN gave me the extra knowledge and confidence to assist my clients in accomplishing their goals.

I love the structure of ITN — how it teaches that our health is not only physical but emotional, mental, and physical.

I love the practical “How to Apply” what is taught approach that ITN offers.

The coaching calls that Cynthia does have really helped me improve my skills when working with clients.

When I initially started coaching, I knew what my goals were for my clients, and it would be so frustrating when they didn’t follow through on suggestions or challenges.

With the added layers of coaching that I learned from ITN, I can help clients through their blocks and then guide them in setting goals that they feel comfortable achieving!

WORK WITH TAMMIE

Tammie offers:

• 1-on-1 coaching
• Recipe eBooks, recipes, and kitchen tips
• Webinars
• Online programs
• Clean living resources (natural beauty care and home cleaning)

FOR MORE ON TAMMIE

Website: www.duggarwellness.com
Instagram: @duggarwellness
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/duggarwellness/