Jaime Hartman (00:06):
Welcome to the AIP Summit Podcast presented by AIP Certified Coaches. Hi, I'm Marie-Noelle Marquis from Urban AIP.
Jaime Hartman (00:13):
And I'm Jaime Hartman from Ready Set AIP. And together our mission is to equip you with the tools, knowledge, and support you need to effectively use the autoimmune protocol, whether you are aiming to take control of your own autoimmune health or guiding others through it.
Jaime Hartman (00:28):
And today we're talking about why the answer to autoimmune overwhelm isn't more information, it's more clarity. In this episode, we are welcoming back Jennifer Franchak, functional nutritionist and AIP Certified Coach. You may remember her from episode 38 where she walked us through the 5R framework and the gut immune connection using the GI MAP test. If you haven't heard that one, please go check it out. We'll link it in the show notes because today's conversation builds right on top of it.
Jaime Hartman (01:04):
This time, Jennifer and I sat down for an interview instead of featuring a presentation, and we talked about something a lot of you have probably felt, having more information available than ever before and still not feeling any clearer about what actually matters for your body. Jennifer shares what she's seeing in her practice with women who have tried nearly everything and why the goal isn't to gather more information, it's about gaining clarity.
Jaime Hartman (01:33):
We also get the full details on her live workshop called the Flareup Freedom Blueprint. This episode is coming out on October 5th, 2026, and the workshop is live on October 14th and the resetration closes October 11th. So if this sounds like something you need, there's still time for you to grab a seat.
Jaime Hartman (01:51):
All right, let's get into it. Thanks for joining us today, Jennifer.
Jennifer Franchak (01:59):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
Jaime Hartman (02:03):
Well, now this is the first time that we have recorded an interview with you, but it isn't the first time you've actually been on the AIP Summit podcast. We actually featured the audio from your presentation at the seventh annual AIP Summit. It was called Decoding Gut-Driven Flares. That was in episode 38. And in that episode, you walked the listeners through the 5R framework and the gut immune connection using the GI map. For anyone who hasn't heard that yet, we'll link to it in the show notes. Now, Jennifer, since this was recorded back in January, what, if anything, has changed in your practice or in how you apply or explain that framework to your clients?
Jennifer Franchak (02:43):
Sure. So the 5R framework really informs my recommendations kind of behind the scenes. So I don't necessarily sit down with my clients and teach them, here are the five Rs, which by the way, if you're not familiar with this, you're not sure what I'm talking about, the five Rs are remove, replace, reinoculate, repair, and rebalance. And it's basically a framework that's used in functional nutrition, functional medicine to think through the different aspects of gut health. But I use the principles of the 5R framework within my autoimmune harmony methodology to guide the recommendations that I make for each client. So for example, all of my autoimmune harmony clients work through the autoimmune protocol, but that's part of a much larger, more individualized plan. So it's not presented to them as now we're doing the remove step. But before I make those recommendations, I really want to understand the person's individual situation.
(03:35):
So I want to understand what's going on with her body and what might be contributing to her flares before we start deciding what she needs. And I'm looking at her symptoms and her history, what she's eating, her digestion, her stress, sleep, labs, all of those different pieces. And because two women can have the same autoimmune diagnosis and need very different things, we want to really make sure we're looking at the individual picture. And one thing that my clients have really taught me this year is just how much AIP needs to be personalized because all of my clients, like I said before, we work through the autoimmune protocol together, which fits into the remove and replace steps of the 5-R framework,
(04:19):
But that doesn't mean that it necessarily needs to look the same for every person. So for example, I had a client this year who came to me and she had some pretty significant digestive issues and she was eating a very restricted diet because she felt like foods were contributing to her symptoms. So in her case, I really had to be very careful about thinking through what she could digest, whether she was getting enough nutrition, what foods we actually needed to remove, and then how we could safely really expand her diet again. And for her, the whole process has been a lot longer than it normally is with most of my clients, but that's what she needed in her individual case. So I'm constantly learning from the clients who I work with, and I think that this year has really reinforced just how flexible we need to be even when we're working within a framework like the AIP or the 5Rs.
Jaime Hartman (05:14):
Yeah, I so agree. I'm always learning from my clients. It's amazing how much I learn with every new person I work with. Now, I remembered when we shared your episode in episode 38, again, listeners, if you want to go back, that Marie-Noelle and I were both really struck by your framing of flares. You talked about how we should not really think of that as the body attacking itself, which is what we're sort of conditioned to think of autoimmune flares as, but that they're an overprotective immune system just sending a message because that gut immune communication has broken down. Is this still something that you emphasize or walk your clients through as a concept?
Jennifer Franchak (05:52):
Yeah. And the way I really like to think about that and what I wanted women to take away from that part of the presentation is this idea of reframing how we think about flares. So of course, with autoimmune disease, there is an immune response against the body's own tissue. So unfortunately we can't get away from that, but instead of feeling like I'm having another flare, my body's betraying me, we can start thinking, okay, my body is giving me information. What can I learn from this? And because when we start thinking about our flares more like information, we can really move from a place of fear and start becoming more curious. So instead of only reacting to our symptoms, we can start looking at what was happening leading up to that flare. So what changed with my food or my sleep or my stress or my digestion?
(06:44):
Was I sick? Was there something else going on? And that shift from fear to curiosity is really important in the way that I work with my clients because once you become curious, then you can start observing instead of just reacting. And that's when you start noticing patterns that you might not have recognized before. And those patterns are what gives us clues about what deserves our attention. So yes, that idea is still very much a part of how I work, but today I'd probably talk about it even more in terms of learning to recognize your own patterns because I really want to emphasize the goal isn't to blame yourself for a flare or assume that every flare has just one obvious trigger. It's really to start gathering useful information so that your symptoms feel less random and you can make more informed decisions. Does that make sense?
Jaime Hartman (07:36):
It totally does. And again, that emphasis on the word learning, we're all learning and then information. And that leads me to the next thing I wanted to talk with you about today. You and I have been talking offline in conversation in some emails recently about the challenges of helping our clients navigate a world with more information than ever before. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what you're seeing in your practice in regards to this and what the women you work with really need?
Jennifer Franchak (08:05):
Yeah, and I think this is such an important conversation right now because we have more health information at our fingertips than we've ever had before. So you can go on Google or Instagram or insert social media platform here, and then you have all of the AI right now, ChatGPT, where we can look up almost anything we want and find some sort of advice telling us what we should be doing. And on one hand, I think that's amazing because it's empowering and people have access to information that they never had before, but it's also a little bit of a double-edged sword because having more information doesn't necessarily mean that you know what to do with it or how to apply it to your situation. And that's super important with autoimmune disease because there can be so much individual variation. So like I said earlier, two women can have the same autoimmune diagnosis and have really different symptoms and different health histories and different things influencing how they're feeling.
(09:05):
So even if you read something online that might be really accurate, what you really need to ask is, is this actually relevant to me? And I think that's where a lot of women get stuck. And what I see women trying really hard to do is take in all of this information and put it into practice because at the end of the day, they desperately want to feel better. They want their symptoms to calm down. And so they're trying different diets and supplements and lifestyle changes and whatever they've heard might help. And sometimes they're doing a lot of really great things, but they still don't know which things actually matter for their body. So they end up with more and more information, but not necessarily more clarity. And so because of this, they're not getting the results that they were hoping for. And I think that what women really need is help sorting through all that and help with understanding what's accurate, what's relevant to me, what does my own history and my own pattern tell me, and then what deserves my attention first?
(10:09):
Because the goal isn't to know everything there is to know about autoimmune disease, it's to really understand your own health well enough so that you can make more informed decisions.
Jaime Hartman (10:20):
Yeah, absolutely. And you, I know, have talked about the women you coach as being the people that have tried all of the things, nutrition, gut health, supplements, medications, stress, sleep, lifestyle, all of it. What have you come to realize about these women who have already tried all of the things?
Jennifer Franchak (10:40):
Yeah, so one of the things I talk about a lot is that there are many different pieces to your autoimmune puzzle. I like to use that analogy. And medication can be a really important piece of the puzzle, but then we also have nutrition and gut health and stress and sleep and all of those other pieces. And a lot of women who come to me have actually worked on many and sometimes all of those things, but the problem is they still don't know how to fit those pieces together for themselves, for them. And these women are really busy. We're all busy, but they're usually trying to manage their health on top of everything else they're doing. So they have careers, they might have families, responsibilities, and then they're essentially, they're trying to become their own health detective on top of everything else. So it's really difficult to figure out, first of all, which pieces matter the most, then how to implement those pieces, and then doing those things consistently enough to know whether or not they're actually helping.
(11:40):
And so a lot of times at the end of the day, they end up throwing spaghetti on the wall, so to speak. They might try a supplement because an influencer recommended it, or they try a diet because someone else with autoimmune disease felt better on it. And those might be perfectly reasonable interventions, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that's what their body needs. So we want to move away from randomly trying things and start asking, why am I doing this? What information do I have that tells me that this is something I should actually be focusing on? And by the time a lot of women get to me, they're exhausted, they're frustrated, they feel like they've done it all. They're taking their medications, they're seeing their doctors, they've changed all these things, but they're still having symptoms and they're like, why? What is going on?
(12:28):
And sometimes what's really frustrating is they're doing something and it works for a while and then it stops working. But at the end of the day, they're not missing effort. They're putting in so much effort. They're doing all of the things. What they need help with is just kind of stepping back and looking at the big picture and connecting those pieces and figuring out what deserves their attention first.
Jaime Hartman (12:52):
I so agree with all of this. I can see it, how it happened in my own life, even just by example of looking at what happened to me. I was doing all of the things on top of a really busy life. And what I found was that it helped to some degree. I felt quite a bit better, but once I started to step back and make some lifestyle changes, I actually saw even greater healing. And if I had realized that what might've helped me get there faster was to address some of those lifestyle pieces like the stress and the sleep, instead of thinking I had to go all in on nutrition and actually cause myself more stress, knowing that that would've been what deserved my attention first might've helped me in the long run. We all get where we're going on whatever path we're on, but it's so true that how they fit together, what do we really need to focus on first is so key to getting to the point where you start to feel like you have control and you're feeling better.
Jennifer Franchak (13:47):
Yes.
Jaime Hartman (13:48):
Now, Jennifer, our audience includes obviously a lot of people who are just living with autoimmune disease, but also a lot of health coaches and other practitioners who are working with people who have autoimmune disease. For those practitioners specifically, could you share a little bit about how you talk to clients about the difference between that gathering more information and the gaining clarity, and could you offer any advice for them on how to help a client see their own patterns rather than just handing them another done for them protocol?
Jennifer Franchak (14:22):
Sure. Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, I think there's such an important distinction between gathering more general information, which I'm a lifelong learner. I'm somebody, I love information and I have a tendency to do that. You learn more and more and more, but then we need to make that distinction between gathering more information and gathering information that's actually specific to the person in front of you. So I can learn everything that there is to know about Hashimoto's or rheumatoid arthritis or different things that might help, but that still doesn't tell me what's the most relevant for the particular person, for the person who's standing in front of me. And that's when clarity starts to happen is when we're gathering information about her, her history, her symptoms, her current circumstances, what's actually happening in her body or hand. And one of the things that I like to do that helps me to understand my clients better is really understanding their individual terrain.
(15:16):
And this is a term that we use in the functional nutrition, functional medicine world, and it really means the whole picture of what's going on with that person that might be influencing how they're feeling and how their autoimmune disease is showing up. So we look at symptoms and digestion and nutrition and stress and sleep and lifestyle and labs. I feel like I'm saying these words over and over again, but these things matter so much. And then we use tools like journaling and observation. So then we can start stepping back and asking, okay, what does all of this information tell us when we look at it together? And then I think one of the most valuable things we can do as practitioners is to teach our clients how to become good observers of their own bodies. So instead of reacting to every symptom or change,
(16:06):
We can help them step back and get more curious. What changed? What did my body do? Is this something that keeps happening or was this a one-time thing? So we're looking for patterns instead of just drawing a conclusion from one isolated event. And then we use those patterns to help us figure out what deserves our attention first. So maybe we start noticing that every time a person goes through a period of intense stress, like you were just mentioning that you realized later that stress was a really important piece for you, we might notice, hey, every time she goes through an intense period of stress, her digestive symptoms get worse and her autoimmune symptoms tend to flare. And that doesn't necessarily or automatically prove that stress caused her flare, but now we have this pattern that shows us that, hey, stress is a really important piece of her autoimmune puzzle.
(16:58):
And that's different than just saying, like you said earlier, here's a protocol, go run with it, or here's a protocol that I give everyone with your diagnosis.
Jaime Hartman (17:07):
Yeah. Now we're going to talk about your Flare Up Freedom Blueprint. Could you walk our listeners through that? And I'd like you to also share specifically, because I'm curious too to know why, why you built it in the way you did. It's a live, if I understand correctly, a live interactive 90-minute workshop. So I want to hear that. And then if you can let our listeners know what they would walk away with at the end of those 90 minutes that they didn't have going in.
Jennifer Franchak (17:34):
Sure. Thank you for asking. I'm so excited about this. The FlareUp Freedom Blueprint is a live interactive 90-minute workshop that I'm offering for women with autoimmune disease, and it will be online on October 14th. And really, the whole purpose of this is to help women to start making sense of their own autoimmune flare patterns like we've just been discussing. And we're going to look at all of the different pieces that can influence a flare and then start connecting those pieces to what's actually happening in their own lives and in their own bodies. And one of the reasons why I wanted this to be live and interactive is because I don't want women to just learn more information. I want them to actually do something with it. So Jaime, I don't know about you, but I have bought many self-paced courses over the years and I've thought this is so great.
(18:21):
I'm going to definitely do this. And then life happens and you never finish the course.
Jaime Hartman (18:26):
Yeah, definitely guilty of that for sure. Yes.
Jennifer Franchak (18:30):
Or you do it and then you learn a lot, but you never really implement what you've learned.
(18:35):
So throughout the workshop, I'm teaching something and then I'm giving you the opportunity to immediately apply it to your own situation. And that's why I created a workbook that we're going to work through together. So there will be activities throughout the workshop that will help you to take what I'm teaching and start looking at your own symptoms and your own patterns and the different pieces of your health picture. So you're not just going to be sitting there for 90 minutes and taking notes and thinking, okay, this is great. What am I going to do with this? You're actually going to start the work that we're talking about while we're there together. And then by the end of the workshop, we're going to pull everything together that we've done into your own flare freedom blueprint. So you will have a clear picture of what might be influencing your flares and some of the patterns that you want to pay attention to.
(19:23):
So what I really want someone to leave with is not just more knowledge because I feel like there's so many webinars and things that you can attend where you're going to have all of this information, we talked about information too, kind of dumped on you, but then you leave and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I learned so much, but where am I going to go with this?" I want the person who attends this workshop to leave with a better understanding of her body and a plan for what to do next. So that's also part of the beauty of this is that the blueprint is something that you can keep coming back to and updating as you learn more about your own body and your own patterns.
Jaime Hartman (20:03):
Yeah, that sounds really powerful. I did look at your website and your testimonials mentioned that even women who are already well versed in AIP and gut health found this sort of training or this sort of experience valuable. What do you think a knowledgeable AIP follower, because I'm guessing that's a lot of our audience or people who are like, "I know AIP. I think I've got a pretty good handle and I know a lot of that lifestyle stuff too." What are they maybe still missing that this workshop would give them?
Jennifer Franchak (20:30):
Right. So I think that's a really important question because knowing a lot about AIP doesn't necessarily mean that you understand your own flare pattern. So you could have read the books and listened to the podcast, you could be doing AIP right now and think, okay, I'm doing all of this. Why am I still having symptoms? What's going on? And AIP is one really valuable piece of the autoimmune puzzle, but it's still not the entire picture. So that's what we're looking at in this workshop is the bigger picture. So we do talk about nutrition and AIP, but we also talk about the other areas that can be influencing how you're feeling. And then the important part is starting to ask which of these things seem to matter most in my situation? Because that's where we start moving away from knowing a lot about autoimmune health in general to actually understanding more about your own health.
(21:24):
And that's where I think personalization becomes really important because you might know about all these different pieces that I've talked about, but you still have to figure out what they look like for you. Which of these pieces matter for your situation? How do you apply them in a way that makes sense for your body and your life? And this workshop is going to give you a framework for personalizing and organizing those pieces so they don't just feel like a scattered list of things that you should be doing. And then like I said before, you can keep coming back to your blueprint and refining it as you learn more about your body. So you don't have to be new to AIP to benefit from this. You might know a tremendous amount already, but you might still need help figuring out how all of that information applies to you.
Jaime Hartman (22:11):
That's great. Now let's just talk logistics for a moment. This episode that we're recording right now is going to be released on October 5th. So anyone who's listening to this in real time will have time to sign up for the live workshop on October 14th. Now, Jennifer, for people who might find this episode later on, what do you want to tell them about how they could get a similar experience if they missed the October 14th?
Jennifer Franchak (22:35):
Sure. So yeah, if you're listening to this before October 14th and you're thinking, this sounds exactly like something that I need, I would absolutely love to have you join me. I do want to say that I have a limited number of seats because I want to keep the group small enough that we will have time for a Q&A at the end and people will have an opportunity to get their questions answered. So registration will close on October 11th. So if you're interested, I would definitely encourage you to reserve your seat before then. But if you're listening after October 14th, don't worry. I am planning to offer the workshop again. I just don't have the next date scheduled yet. But the best way that you can find out when I offer it again is to join my email list because when you join that list, you will get my free Autoimmune Harmony roadmap, and that's a great place for you to start in the meantime because it will help you to start learning how to think differently about your flares and learn how to start making those observations we talked about and looking for some of your own flare patterns.
Jaime Hartman (23:35):
Great. Fantastic. Now, finally, as we start to wrap up, what would you say to the listener who's experiencing autoimmune flares, who feels like they have information overload about what's causing them and what they could be doing? What is one thing that you hope that listener really hears and takes away from this episode?
Jennifer Franchak (23:58):
Yeah, so I think the biggest thing I would want somebody to take away from this is that before you immediately react to a flare by changing or adding something new, I just want you to stop and observe. And I know that can be really, really hard when you don't feel well, because as humans, I think our instinct is I need to fix this. I need to do something. I need to take action. But when we're constantly changing things, it actually becomes harder to understand what our body is responding to. So instead, I want you to try to give yourself a chance to get curious about what's happening. Think about what was happening in the days leading up to the flare, not just what you ate, but things like your sleep, your stress, your digestion, changes in your routine. And then writing those things down can be really helpful because over time you might start noticing a pattern.
(24:51):
You might start noticing that things are repeating and you're not trying to prove, sorry, you're not trying to prove that one thing caused your flare, you're just making observations and you're just trying to gather clues and look at patterns. And if you're thinking, okay, I don't even know what I should be observing, that's one of the things we're going to talk about in the Flare Up Freedom Blueprint. But also I want you to know that you don't have to figure it all out at once. This is a process. So just start by getting curious about your own patterns because the more you understand about what's happening inside your body, the easier it's going to be to figure out what actually deserves your attention, and then you can start making decisions based on what you're observing instead of just reacting.
Jaime Hartman (25:39):
Well, thank you again for being here to talk with me today, Jennifer. It was so nice to catch up with you and for you to share all of this with our audience. So before we leave, would you please let our listeners know where they can learn more about everything that you offer?
Jennifer Franchak (25:54):
So first of all, thank you, Jaime, so much for having me on this podcast. I really enjoyed our conversation, and I just want to say too, that I really appreciate what you and Marie-Noelle are doing with this podcast and all the resources that you're bringing to the autoimmune community with this. So if you want to follow my work, the best place for you to find me is my website, which is jenniferfranchak.com. You can also grab my free autoimmune harmony roadmap there, which like I said, it's a great place to start if you want to learn more about recognizing your own flare patterns. I also have a YouTube channel where I share new content regularly, and I focus on helping women to have a better understanding of the different aspects of their autoimmune health so that they can ask better questions and walk away with something practical that they can hopefully put into practice.
(26:43):
And for women who are looking for more in-depth individualized one-on-one support, I offer my private autoimmune harmony program, and you can learn more about that on my website as well.
Jaime Hartman (26:54):
All right, great. And I'll be sure to put links to all of that in the show notes so that it's really easy for people to find you.
Jennifer Franchak (26:59):
Thank you.
Jaime Hartman (27:00):
Thanks again, Jennifer. That was such a great conversation that I had with Jennifer. I really appreciated how she reframed flares as information rather than a betrayal and how that shift from fear to curiosity really changes what you're able to notice about your own patterns.
Jaime Hartman (27:24):
Yes, I love that too. And I think her point about the difference between gathering information and gathering clarity is something that a lot of our listeners, myself included, are going to recognize in themselves.
Jaime Hartman (27:35):
Yeah, absolutely. So listeners, remember if Jennifer's Flare Up Freedom Blueprint sounded like a fit for you, remember that it's live on October 14th. Registration closes October 11th, and we will have the link in the show notes along with a link back to episode 38 if you want the deeper dive on the five-hour framework and the GI map. You can also find Jennifer at jenniferfranchak.com where she also has a free autoimmune harmony roadmap, and then there's a link to her YouTube channel there as well.
Jaime Hartman (28:05):
Again, we want to thank Jennifer Franchak for joining us today and for helping us again remind you that the autoimmune protocol is more than a diet. It is really a framework with multiple components and multiple ways to approach it. Through this podcast, AIP Certified Coaches aim to bring you resources so that you can feel confident about doing AIP on your own, but with the knowledge that you are not doing it alone.
Jaime Hartman (28:28):
We'll be back with a new episode in two weeks. You can find the AIP Summit Podcast in your favorite podcast player, so be sure to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Jaime Hartman (28:39):
And if you'd like to leave us a rating and review, it will help others find this podcast where we are committed to helping you use the power of the autoimmune protocol to elevate your wellness journey to new heights.
Jaime Hartman (28:56):
The AIP Summit Podcast is a Gutsy By Nature production. Content presented is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
