Meet Kat Spangler

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kat Spangler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kat, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Truth be told, my purpose found me. Everything I’ve done in my career – helping women lose weight, heal their gut, reverse their autoimmune disease, get to the root of their most stubborn health conditions when the western medical system failed them – it was all because I didn’t want anyone to go through what I went through.

I grew up dancing. I loved it. Every waking hour if I wasn’t at school you could find me at the studio. But my health constantly got in the way. I had debilitating fatigue that wouldn’t let up even if I got 12 hours of sleep. I got sick constantly. My digestion was unpredictable and embarrassing. The cystic acne that covered my face, chest and back, plus the layer of fluff around my midsection made me self conscious around all of the other seemingly flawless dancers.

For close to a decade I got passed around from doctor to doctor. No one could tell me what was wrong with me. Some said it was in my head. Others put me on medications because their side effects would help with my symptoms. Even at a young age I knew I shouldn’t be taking a cholesterol medication just to normalize my digestion.

Finally I took matters into my own hands and pursued a career as a holistic health coach. I remember I was a sophomore in college when I came across a module that listed every one of my symptoms. It turned out I had something called candida (a fungal gut infection) and leaky gut. That was the start of an entirely new life for me.

Over the course of the next 10 years I would only dig deeper into my own health issues while exploring holistic ways to heal, unknowingly paving the way for what I would eventually do with my clients. I would find out that I had hypothyroidism caused by the autoimmune disease Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. I would go on to battle h pylori, SIBO, mold toxicity, parasites, and estrogen dominance. All the while collecting lesson after lesson that I could use in my own practice, helping women skip the years of trial and error I endured.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am not your mother’s health coach. What I’ve found in my industry is most coaches find one way of doing things and put all of their clients through that one ‘method’.

But that’s negating a vital truth about nutrition and health: bioindividuality trumps all. Bioindividuality is the idea that what works for one body does not work for every body. It’s why you can have a study saying that fasting is great for weight loss, meanwhile it makes you crave sugar and overeat. It’s why one person may feel incredible going low carb while another feels lethargic and weak.

One size does not, and can not, fit all.

And that’s where I come in. I don’t have one program that I run all my clients through. I meet my clients where they’re at and design a protocol that works for them, their goals, their lifestyle, and their preferences. I help them figure out what’s blocking them from finding success on their health journey and address THAT – and it’s different for everyone.

Some need to address underlying physical blocks like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances, or a high toxic load (all of which we find out with functional labs). Some struggle with a poor metabolism due to years of dieting.

Others have more emotional blocks they need to work through to take back control over their eating choices. Or they have limiting beliefs that hold them back – one of the most common ones I see is the all-or-nothing mindset that says things like “if I mess up once the day is ruined” or “If I can’t do it all I might as well do nothing”.

With that said, I’m aware that 1:1 coaching and functional labs can be cost prohibitive for some and it is my goal to empower as many women as possible to feel in control of their health and their body. Which is why I recently launched my membership program, The Club.

This membership is next level. Members immediately gain access to every program I ever have or ever will create (which currently includes Follow Your Gut, Unleash Your Transformation, The Hormone Belly Blueprint, and The Fad Diet Detox) allowing them to find the program that’s right for them. Again, no one-size-fits-all even in my membership.

They also get to join me for multiple live challenges per year covering topics like how to make a habit stick, breaking the all-or-nothing diet loop, and overcoming stubborn weight.

Of course they get loads of delicious, easy, healing recipes.

AND the best part is they get direct, unlimited access to me via our community message board. I liken it to having a coach in your pocket who can be there to answer any questions you have or give you any accountability you need in real time.

All of this is included for less than $1 per day because I never want cost to be what prevents someone from getting the support they need to heal.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The 3 qualities that were most important on my personal healing journey were my persistence in tracking down the root cause of my symptoms, my perseverance in the face of many failed protocols and slow healing time, and my optimism in my body’s ability to heal.

The best advice I have for anyone starting on a healing journey, especially when dealing with chronic conditions, is to be just as on top of the way you speak to yourself as you are on top of your food choices. Your mindset will literally make you or break you when things get hard – and they will get hard.

I have tons of episodes on mindset in my podcast Follow Your Gut. But one place to start is to develop what I call a Thought Bouncer.

I think about it like my brain is the hottest club in town and I have a very picky bouncer deciding what thoughts are allowed to get in. If the thought isn’t helpful, I turn it away and pick a better one.

For example, one limiting thought might be, “I’ve been eating clean for 3 weeks and am not getting any better. This clearly isn’t working, I might as well just quit.” I would catch that thought and see it for the negative influence it is and replace it with something like, “It took way longer than 3 weeks to get here, keep going. Quitting now will only delay relief even more.”

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I would love to collaborate with functional medicine doctors both locally in Dallas and virtually. They are doing such amazing things when it comes to helping patients find their root cause. But a lot of their wisdom and advice ends up going unused because even when people know what to do, getting themselves to follow through with it is a whole other story.

I’ve made it my business to understand the science of behavior change and can help patients implement the plans they’ve been given because I have the time to coach them through the process week by week, navigating obstacles as they arise.

Plus, having gone through so many healing protocols myself, I can empathize with the patients in a way that helps them trust me – an essential part of any coaching relationship.

My specialties include metabolic health, gut health, and hormonal balance, with a particular focus on patients struggling with hypothyroidism and hashimoto’s.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.katspangler.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/follow.your.gut.nutrition/
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@followyourgutnutrition
  Blog: https://katspangler.com/blog
  Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/follow-your-gut/id1475377392