Dr. Kim Bretz ND - Fundamentals Of Health, 6-420 Erb Street W (yes, we've moved 2 doors down, right next to Beechwood Wellness Pharmacy), Waterloo, ON (2026)

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6-420 Erb Street W (yes, We've Moved 2 Doors Down, Right Next To Beechwood Wellness Pharmacy)

09/08/2026

September doesn’t need a reset.
It needs a rhythm.

Canadian summers are so wonderfully chaotic.

We picnic.
Meet friends on patios on a Tuesday evening.
Have random barbecues.
Travel.
Stay outside later than planned.
Eat ice cream whenever the opportunity appears.

We do things we rarely do in November or February because summer here feels both glorious and brief.

And then September arrives.

School starts.
Work gets busier.
Activities return.
Calendars fill.

Everyone seems to need something at once. At the same time, many of the people I work with tell me they’re ready for a little more routine.

Not because summer needs to be corrected. Not because the barbecues, patios or ice cream were mistakes.

Because routines can make regular life easier.

• Regular meals mean fewer last-minute decisions.
• A familiar grocery list reduces mental load.
• An earlier bedtime can help after weeks of late evenings.
• Movement can return to the calendar instead of happening between weekends away.

And our bodies appreciate the predictability too.

None of this requires an intense September overhaul. You don’t need to detox from summer, compensate for what you ate or create an entirely new version of yourself.

Maybe you plan a few dinners.
Pack lunch the night before.
Restock the foods that make breakfast easy.
Return to a class or walking routine you enjoy.
Go to bed a little earlier while holding on to every bit of evening light we have left.

Summer is wonderful partly because it interrupts our routines. September can feel good because it brings some of them back.

We don’t need to undo the summer. We just need to find our rhythm again.

09/04/2026

A smaller appetite doesn’t create smaller nutritional needs.

I develop medical education for healthcare professionals, and one of my current projects has me looking closely at nutrition during GLP-1 therapy. These medications can substantially reduce appetite and food intake. For many people, that is part of how the meds work.

The number on the scale may be moving in the desired direction.

But eating less food doesn’t mean the body suddenly needs fewer nutrients. When appetite drops significantly, it can become harder to get enough protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals and overall energy from a smaller amount of food.

That may matter even more when someone is eating very little for an extended period, experiencing persistent gastrointestinal symptoms, losing weight rapidly, already following a restricted diet or at greater risk of losing muscle.

Weight loss can be the intended outcome while nutritional risk is increasing.

Both things can be true.

That doesn’t mean everyone taking a GLP-1 medication needs a long list of supplements. It means we need to look beyond the scale.

• What are they actually eating?
• Are they getting enough protein while still including fiber, fruits, vegetables and other nutrient-dense foods?
• Are gastrointestinal symptoms interfering with intake?
• Are there symptoms or risk factors that warrant bloodwork?
• And are we supporting muscle with resistance exercise, rather than relying on protein alone?

GLP-1 therapy can help improve important health outcomes. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.

The goal isn’t simply to eat less.

It’s to make a smaller intake count nutritionally, and recognize when food alone may no longer be meeting someone’s needs.

09/02/2026

Patients often arrive with pages of results:

A stool test showing a potentially “bad” bacterium is slightly elevated
A food-sensitivity panel listing dozens of foods to avoid
A hormone result they were told proves something is “out of balance”

Each result can feel like a clue.

But an abnormal-looking number doesn’t necessarily explain the symptoms. And it doesn’t necessarily give us something useful to act on.

A bacterium may be present without causing a problem
A result may sit outside a company’s reference range without indicating disease
Food-specific IgG testing can identify foods someone has eaten, but it cannot reliably tell us which foods are causing symptoms
And during perimenopause, hormone levels can fluctuate enough that a single measurement may tell us very little about the overall transition

The problem starts when having a result makes us feel we have to treat it.

Eliminate the bacterium. Remove every food on the list. Correct the supposed hormone imbalance.

Then repeat the test to see if the numbers have changed.

Meanwhile, the person may be spending more money, taking more supplements, restricting more foods and becoming more worried without getting any closer to understanding why they feel unwell.

Testing can be extremely valuable - I use testing frequently. But before ordering a test, I want to know:

• What question are we trying to answer?
• How reliable is the test for that purpose?
• Could the result genuinely explain the symptoms?
• Would either a positive or negative result change what we do next?

If we don’t know how to interpret the answer, or the result won’t change the plan, another test may add uncertainty rather than clarity. The goal isn’t to collect every available piece of data.

It’s to find the information that helps us make a better decision.

08/31/2026

You restricted food because eating made you feel worse.
Now the restriction may be keeping the cycle going.

The relationship between gastrointestinal symptoms and eating disorders is complicated, and it can move in both directions.

Gut symptoms can make eating difficult.

Pain, bloating, nausea, fullness, reflux, constipation or diarrhea can lead you to avoid foods because eating has repeatedly made you feel unwell. But restriction can also change how your gut functions.

Eating too little can slow gastric emptying and intestinal movement, contributing to early fullness, bloating, discomfort and constipation. The very things you're trying to fix with the eliminations.

Those symptoms can then seem to confirm the original fear:
Eating more, or reintroducing food, feels unsafe.

So we restricts further. The symptoms continue. And the cycle becomes increasingly difficult to escape.

This doesn't always look like the eating disorders people commonly recognize.

Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, or ARFID, isn't necessarily driven by weight or body-image concerns. Someone may restrict because they fear pain, bloating, vomiting, diarrhea or another consequence of eating.

What began as a very understandable attempt to control very real symptoms can gradually compromise nutrition, shrink the range of foods someone can eat, change your physiology and interfere with daily life.

Dietary treatments for gut conditions can be useful. But before recommending another elimination, we need to ask:

• How much are you actually eating?
• How many foods have already been removed?
• Can you reintroduce foods when symptoms improve?
• How much fear now surrounds eating?

Research in people receiving neurogastroenterology care has found an association between previous exclusion diets and higher odds of ARFID symptoms or disordered eating patterns. That 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 mean exclusion diets caused the eating disorder.

But it does give us a reason to think carefully about who receives restrictive dietary advice, how long they follow it and what support they receive.

Sometimes persistent gut symptoms don't call for another food to remove.

Sometimes we need to treat the gut symptoms while helping someone feel safe enough to eat again.

08/30/2026

Who gets to call themselves a hiker?

A friend said something after our week in the mountains that I haven't stopped thinking about: she didn't see people on the trails who looked like her.

But she was there. And I think that matters.

We get a lot of messages about what an outdoorsy person looks like. What a fit person looks like. What someone hiking through the mountains is supposed to look like.

Sometimes those images help us imagine ourselves doing something. And sometimes, when we don't see ourselves in them, they quietly tell us that maybe this isn't a space for us.

Julie didn't wait until she looked the part.

She hiked the mountains as a celebration.

She climbed and descended thousands of feet, had hard moments and spectacular ones, and experienced places that she'd wondered if she was capable of reaching.

Her advice after all of it?

Feel out of place. Do it anyway.

You might discover that the picture of who belongs there was too small in the first place.

08/28/2026

I recently spoke with a patient who was convinced a keto diet was the best choice for her health.

Her social media feed reinforced that belief every day.

And, she did lose weight.

But she didn’t feel particularly well.
The diet was difficult to maintain.
Her cholesterol kept climbing.

Yet everywhere she looked, she saw another post explaining why keto was the healthiest way to eat.

That’s the problem with health echo chambers. When we encounter the same message repeatedly, it can start to feel like established truth.

But repetition isn’t evidence.

And weight loss alone doesn’t tell us whether a diet is supporting someone’s health.

We also need to ask:

• How do you feel?
• Can you sustain it?
• Are you getting the nutrition you need?
• What is happening to your bloodwork?
• Does this way of eating fit your health history, preferences and life?

There may be specific clinical reasons for using a ketogenic diet. But that is very different from treating it as the healthiest choice for everyone.

An algorithm can’t determine whether a diet is supporting your health. It sees what keeps you 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝.

It doesn’t see the whole person sitting in front of me.

08/28/2026

Different ages. Different bodies. Different countries, histories, fitness levels and challenges.

Some of us came here together. Some of us began as strangers (and sorry to you all - we can be a lot to take all at once).

And I think some of us arrived carrying a version of the same question: Am I strong enough for this? I know I was really nervous (terrified?).

Over the past week, we climbed, laughed - a lot, struggled, encouraged one another and kept going. We waited when someone needed time. We cheered when someone did something that frightened them. We accepted help - and learned that needing support did not make the accomplishment any less ours.

You cannot look at a woman and know what she is capable of. Strength doesn’t have one age, one body or one appearance.

With good people beside we became a group. It was truly magical.

And we did it.

08/26/2026

I would be described as having a pear shape.

I've spent a lot of time realizing I can't really change that and most of the time I'm okay with it. And other times (which are fewer and farther in between), I want to see something different in the mirror.

But today was a celebration - my body is strong and it can do really hard things. My legs took me up and over mountains and through days of challenging terrain.

It made me think of the fact that my mass - the weight of me - protects my bones and keeps me able to do the things I love with the people I love.

As women we're often told we need to be smaller, skinnier or just less. I disagree - we need to take up space and celebrate what we can do. And to do that, our goal can't be for us to simply be small.

I don’t need less of me. I need more years of doing what I love.

08/26/2026

We still have far less research than we should on how reproductive hormones affect the gut, particularly during perimenopause.

But that doesn’t mean we should dismiss what women notice.

Hormonal changes may influence gut movement, sensitivity and gut-brain communication. For someone who already has IBS or another gut condition, those shifts may make existing symptoms more noticeable - and may seem more unpredictable.

Tracking symptoms for a few cycles won’t always reveal a tidy pattern, especially in perimenopause. But it may help you recognize that your symptoms aren’t as random as they feel. Seeing a pattern can be validating. It may also help you anticipate changes and adapt how you manage symptoms at different times.

We may not fully understand the relationship yet.

That doesn’t mean we should dismiss what women are noticing.

Dr. Kim Bretz ND - Fundamentals Of Health

09/08/2026

09/04/2026

09/02/2026

08/31/2026

08/30/2026

08/28/2026

08/28/2026

08/26/2026

08/26/2026

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