FMBGN-HW-Balanced Nutrition-That Fits Real Life

Your feed is full of nutrition rules, but your body still feels stuck. We’re joined by Francesca Scerbo, founder of Balanced Nutrition, to talk about what actually works when you want better energy, better digestion, and a plan you can live with not a short-term diet you’ll quit by next month. Francesca brings a food first, evidence-based perspective shaped by her background in clinical nutrition and exercise science, plus real life experience coaching clients through change without the all-or-nothing pressure.

We dig into why “diet” is often a recipe for disaster and how a lifestyle-based approach adapts to your schedule, stress, and goals. Francesca explains why gut health matters so much right now, how inflammation shows up as bloating, gas, belching, and bathroom issues, and why supplements can’t outrun ultra-processed food. She also shares a simple experiment many people can try: removing gluten for two weeks, then reintroducing it to see what your body tells you.

We also focus on women’s health and hormones, including why many women undernourish during perimenopause and menopause, how cortisol can fight fat loss when you overdo cardio, and why strength training and protein intake matter. Francesca offers concrete starting points like aiming for 100 grams of protein per day and building your morning around 30 grams, along with the bigger picture: hydration, sleep, stress reduction, and learning to read food labels.

If you’re ready for a realistic nutrition plan that supports gut health, hormone balance, and sustainable weight loss, listen now then share this with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review so more neighbors can find it. What’s one small change you want to make this week?

Balanced Nutrition
Francesca Scerbo
(239) 610-4921
9341 Tulipano Ter, Naples, FL 34119
francescascerbo121@gmail.com
balancednutritionlifestyle.com
@francescabalancednutrition

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Mission

Intro/Close 0:00

Welcome to the Fort Myers Beach Good Neighbor Podcast Health and Wellness Series, brought to you by REnew You, Natural Health and Beauty, where we make wellness feel possible and turn everyday choices into stronger living. Each episode brings you uplifting conversations, local resources, and practical tips to help you look better, feel stronger, be emotionally balanced, and more connected to the community around you. So take a breath and settle in because feeling better starts right where you are.

Meet Francesca And Balanced Nutrition

"Cabo" Jim 0:31

Welcome, good neighbors. Today we have Francesca Scerbo from Balanced Nutrition. Welcome.

Francesca Scerbo 0:37

Hi, thank you. Super excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

"Cabo" Jim 0:41

Absolutely. Pleasure to have you on the show and learn a little bit more about you. So without further ado, why don't we jump in? And for those that aren't familiar with balanced nutrition, why don't you explain a little bit about what you do?

Lifestyle Coaching Versus Diet Culture

Francesca Scerbo 0:53

Sure. So Balanced Nutrition is the name of my nutrition coaching company. So as uh as I'm gonna inform you all today, so I'm a nutrition coach. Um so what I do is I customize nutrition plans based on each individual's nutrition needs. Think of it like personal training for your nutrition. So it's a one size fits you approach to uh health and wellness. And what I do is I sit down with my clients and I work with their uh whatever it is they're looking for, what their goals are. Maybe if they have some uh blood work from their doctor where their doctor wants them to maybe focus on their diabetic A1C or their cholesterol or their blood pressure or their inflammatory markers, I help them use food to heal internally, to help them get on a really good nutrition program that's not necessarily a diet, but it's a lifestyle change.

"Cabo" Jim 1:48

Absolutely. So you you mentioned it. So what sets us apart from traditional dieting programs?

Francesca Scerbo 1:54

I I hate that word diet is if is a recipe for disaster. Diet is is disaster. So really, um, I don't like to use the word diet. And the difference between a lifestyle program and a diet is in order for one to have proper um nutrition, their nutrition has to fit their lifestyle. So if you're a busy mom or dad, if you have a high stress job, if you have um different hours where you work, your food needs to work around that. So I help people kind of navigate through that, in addition to helping them get healthier, whether that's to lose weight, improve their biomarkers. When you're in the word diet, diet automatically for people is like that scary word that means I'm never gonna be able to have that cake or I'm never gonna be able to have my indulgence. Not true. It's just if once you reach your goals, then yes, but it's it's it's about figuring out what works for you. So the diet always means that like I'm gonna just get rid of it and then I'm gonna bring it back, where the lifestyle is more how do I implement all of this into a well-rounded wellness program?

"Cabo" Jim 3:00

So, what what are some of the misconceptions people have then with about just generally eating healthy?

Francesca Scerbo 3:08

I think people think that they need to eat bland to eat healthy, and that's not true. And I think people also think that they don't, they won't ever be able to eat out to be healthy. I think that um, you know, we kind of get overwhelmed with social media and what a lot of um people are putting out there that aren't professionals like myself. They're just following a plan that works for them and looks really cool and they social media produce it. Um, I like to state real facts. I like to kind of state what it is that I'm doing and what I know through my studies, um, because I have my master's in clinical nutrition and I also have my bachelor's in exercise science. So having the two together, exercise nutrition, really does help. Um, really, what I think happens is they feel that everything that they're gonna eat is gonna be a green juice or chia pudding or um just bland white rice. And that's not necessarily true. It's all gonna be

Her Story And Food First Approach

Francesca Scerbo 4:02

based on what it is your goal is gonna be. And there's some great recipes. Um, I have actually three cookbooks that are on Amazon. You can search it through my last name. And I put great healthy, simple, easy recipes in there that when my clients are using them, they're like, wow, I can't even believe I'm eating this and I feel full satisfied and like I had a really good meal.

unknown 4:23

Nice.

"Cabo" Jim 4:23

So, what led you to get into the world of nutrition and wellness to start off with?

Francesca Scerbo 4:28

Uh, great question. So um, everybody has a story, and I have mine, obviously. So um I spent my younger teenage years um be basically body shaming myself. Um, I was an anorexic teenager. Uh, so I was uh basically at the point of no return. And people like myself, exercise professionals, family, friends, nutrition coaches helped me kind of get back to my usual life self because I was on the brinks of going into um an institution to get some help. And it just I uh that wasn't gonna happen for me. So I was able to, through the coaching and the guidance of my family, get the help of nutrition um coaches and fitness coaches. And when I saw what they were able to do for me, I knew I had to be doing something like that in my own life. So I went and got my bachelor's, I got my personal training certification, I teach Pilates. I went back at 40 years old, which is crazy, but I did to get my master's because I really wanted to dive into the clinical part of nutrition where it's more about the food, not about the supplements. It's about the food because you can't out-supplement poor nutrition and you can't out-exercise a poor diet. So I wanted to really understand how nutrition could continue to help the masses, which is why I decided to specialize in gut health, which everybody's talking about. The new one is hormones. Everyone's talking about hormone health. A lot of that is really um, you know, affected by the food we eat, inflammatory foods, seed oils, you know, going back to the basics, um, you know, certain types of nutrition plans and certain, I'll use that word, diet. You have the Mediterranean diet, the carnivore diet, the, you know, the seafood diet. Um, so all of those things have a place, but they're just not all for everybody. So taking little components of everything and putting them into a program for an individual that has certain needs is really what I like to do. And I and I did it for myself. And I've I've evolved throughout my 25 plus years in this business to, you know, for with my own health. So I know it can be done.

Gut Health Basics And Red Flags

"Cabo" Jim 6:42

So you mentioned gut health. Why has that been such a huge topic lately?

Francesca Scerbo 6:47

So I've been doing a lot of talks throughout Southwest Florida on this topic, and I've personally dealt with GI issues. I had acute IBS, um, I've had GERD, I've worked with a lot of people that have multiple um types of um GI stuff. But your gut is the second brain of your body. It's where your immune system is kind of at its most productive. So when we're not taking care of it, when we're stressed, when we're feeding it poor food, when we're giving it alcohol and high sugars, we're actually inflaming our system and we're making our insides sicker. And our stomach is made up, especially the gut, is made up of different microbiomes, your probiotics and your prebiotics. I think that we've gotten so into that term. Like I just take a probiotic, it's great, but not every probiotic is designed for everybody. So you have to make sure you kind of talk with your doctor, understand what's going on, and then use the food first. Because a lot of times, if you just kind of do some sort of an elimination plan, which is what I have some of my clients do with guidance, you can really start to heal the gut by healing the inflammation. So GI and gut is massive because a lot of people have very different types of autoimmune.

"Cabo" Jim 8:06

So how you you spoke about that. What but what are some of the common signs your gut may need some attention?

Francesca Scerbo 8:12

Oh bloating, um, gassy, uh, you can have uh, you know, bathroom issues. Um, you can, you can, you really can tell a lot of it could be a lot of belching. The thing with GI, Jim, is that everybody's symptoms are different. That's why it's not just a blanket statement for, you know, if you have IBS or you have colitis or you have GERD, it's this. It's when I work with my clients, we try one thing, and if it doesn't work, we pull that out. We try something else, we pull that out. And then we try to find what works because everybody, like I said, everybody's different. So that's why the GI world is really interesting because there's a lot of different medications. Not a lot of the medications work for everybody, and there's a lot of ways that you can heal it just by calming the internal inflammation with food.

"Cabo" Jim 9:03

Now, is there maybe a simple change that listeners today could could implement that would help support a healthier gut?

Gluten And Sugar Elimination Trial

"Cabo" Jim 9:10

Watch gluten. Big thing, huh?

Francesca Scerbo 9:15

Is I'm an Italian girl and I get it, and I have a gluten sensitivity, but watch gluten. Gluten and sugars are a disaster for your GI system because a lot of it is ultra-processed. And a lot of the um functional medicine doctors that I follow and that I admire are all talking about how this ultra-processed food wave is really hurting us. And a lot of that is everything in a box. And although pasta tastes delicious, um, you know, it's really how many times a week are we eating it? What size are our portions? There's a lot of really great alternatives that I love to teach the people that I work with that they can use as substitutions for pasta. I don't take it out unless you have an issue. But if you're really looking to heal the gut, you know, try a little bit of an elimination. Take out gluten for at least two weeks and see how you feel. And I guarantee people that take it out and then put it back in start to feel the symptoms instantaneously.

"Cabo" Jim 10:12

And you know, everybody's a doctor nowadays because they can Google it, right?

Francesca Scerbo 10:15

So yes, fat GPT is the new doctor.

"Cabo" Jim 10:18

Right.

Baby Steps Through Confusing Advice

"Cabo" Jim 10:19

So, how do you approach working with clients that feel overwhelmed or get conflicting health information?

Francesca Scerbo 10:25

Um, what I love to do is kind of, you know, we're sitting down talking right now. I love to kind of do a little bit of hand holding. This is a baby step process. Um, people, we're not where we are in our health overnight. This has been years of potentially um poor information or bad habits or high stress. So I like to take the individual and kind of let them understand that I get it. Look, from a person who had had a severe eating disorder, I was on the other side of it too. There's two different ways: people who are overweight, people who are underweight, people who are not healthy due to um different types of uh medical diagnoses. So there's so many different variations to what's going on. But I like to baby step the process. I do not overwhelm people at the beginning. You get a you get a meal plan when we start and we keep breaking it down all the time. And we go with what you're comfortable with. I don't go in and say everything has to be out of your pantry by tomorrow morning. We don't do that. We we take the baby step process. Tell me what you're currently doing, and then we can make the changes from there.

"Cabo" Jim 11:29

Absolutely.

Women Hormones Protein And Strength Training

"Cabo" Jim 11:30

So let's talk about women and health for a minute here. Many women struggle with the you know, fatigue, weight changes, hormone shifts. What role does nutrition play in helping them feel their best?

Francesca Scerbo 11:42

So I think what happens for women, speaking from one herself, is we tend to undernourish ourselves because we're trying to lose weight because all of a sudden this hormone bubble exploded. And out of nowhere, we have a belly we never had. We're not able to lose weight the same way that we used to. Um, we have hot flashes, we have mood swings, we have it all. And um, that was one of the reasons I wrote my third book, which is a cookbook called Eat to Beat Your Hormones, is because I needed to come up with a way to not just exercise. Because what happens too is women out-exercise their um nutrition and we elevate our cortisol levels. When we elevate our cortisol levels, that's your internal inflammation. Your body will not let you lose weight. So, what are we doing? We're doing so much cardio. Women, I can't tell them enough in all of my talks, don't lift the pink weights, lift weights. Lift something that you're comfortable with because muscle density is actually so much more beneficial for increasing your metabolism. And when it comes to food, um, again, cutting back on the amount of gluten that we're eating, eating real food, a lot of fiber, um, that actually helps. And protein. So many of us are not hitting our protein goals. And I'm gonna be fully transparent. I don't hit my protein goals every single day. It's hard. It's really hard. I work with a lot of even my men who are doing macros. It's hard for them to hit that number. So I start with a baseline of like, aim for a hundred grams a day. Start with that. So there's a tip I can give you guys. Um, aim for 100 grams and um and see where you go from there. Start your day with protein, 30 grams. Start your day with 30 grams of protein. You'll be surprised that it just doesn't happen. So the food is really going to be beneficial. And when I do hormonal coaching with a lot of the um women and they start with that, they they start to instantaneously feel the change because the sugars and the carbohydrates um in our bodies are what's dropping our, you know, it's like you have a spike and you have a drop. Also, as women go through hormones, we have something called insulin sensitivity and metabolic syndrome, which means that our insulin's kind of all over the place because our hormones are. We're we're working with our thyroid, our pituitary glands, we have estrogen, progesterone, all of those things. So we really need to make sure that we're not oversaturating our body with those things, with over-exercising, overproducing one macro, which would be a carbohydrate, and undernourishing our proteins.

"Cabo" Jim 14:14

Yeah, truly. And our bodies are constantly changing. So, you know, I think you kind of touched on that a little bit here too, but you know, what used to work, you know, what we used to eat, what used to work, doesn't work anymore. Do we need to change our routine, much like our body is changing?

Planning Meals For Busy Schedules

Francesca Scerbo 14:29

Correct. And I think that, and and it's tough because a lot of people don't like to to to eat breakfast. A lot of people don't know what to eat. And if you have a job that's I gotta be out the door really quick, like my my work days start at, you know, I'm up at, you know, a quarter to five and I'm at the studio by 6:30, you know, seven o'clock the latest. Um, so for me, um, I don't wake up and eat stuff. I make sure I always plan. So I bring stuff with me. There's a lot of different things you can do. The key to a successful nutrition plan is exactly that planning. You know, it you it's you need to like go to the supermarket, you need to meal prep, you need to know what you're gonna do every day. It doesn't have to be perfect, but an idea, like some sort of a guideline of what you want to do to see the results that you want to see.

"Cabo" Jim 15:22

Absolutely. Because when you impulse, you know, impulse by, you're buying the things probably aren't the best for you, right? Because you're just hungry and you want to satisfy that hunger.

Francesca Scerbo 15:30

That's right.

Rewards Of Slow Sustainable Progress

"Cabo" Jim 15:31

So what you've been in the industry for a while, dealt with a lot of different types of people and situations. What's been one of the most rewarding moments in your career so far?

Francesca Scerbo 15:41

I have to say, Jim, I've been so blessed for my whole career. Um, it's been such an evolution. It's been a ride. Um, you know, I lived in New Jersey, I went through the pandemic where my business was shut down. Um, I came down here to Southwest Florida and kind of relaunched everything. And I think the hardest thing is getting people to understand the importance of your health, you know, especially after, you know, what we went through, it's so important to really, it's important to have fun. Here, I named the company Balance for just that. If you don't have balance in your life and you're just all one and not the other, there's a complete disconnect. And I think it's really hard for people to understand that if you um if you put the work into it, if you understand, which is why I love to educate, then it's really not as complicated. But seeing people um kind of going all in really fast, that's why I'm not a big New Year's resolution girl, because your New Year's resolutions will die the third Friday of January. Um, because it's just you're you're going in too fast. You're trying to work out every day, you're trying to eat clean, but for the last six months, you didn't. So you it's it's that's not the way to start it. The way to start it is understanding like, make it one goal. My goal is I wanted to go to the doctor's next time and have the best blood work possible or the or better than I had it before. That's one goal. Then the next goal is maybe I want to be able to fit into a pair of pants. I don't use a scale a lot with my clients because it's defeating. Um, so I always say to them, pick something you haven't worn because when you lose inflammation, you lose weight because you lose bloat. And then if you're strength training, your body reshapes. But it's really, I think the the biggest one is just getting people to understand how important it is. It's so easy to just say, eh, my family's in town next time. Eh, I'm going on vacation next time. Eh, I'm gonna do that, just keeps adding up. And honestly, time's time just keeps going. So, you know, grab on to the reins and and get going and hire professionals that really can help you.

"Cabo" Jim 17:44

Absolutely. You know, as we get older, time flies, as they say, right? So, you know, start slow and just you know, make it a routine, you know. You don't like you said, you don't have to jump in right away because you know that's what defeats a lot of people, like, oh, this is too much work. But if you gradually do it, it becomes a habit and eventually people are healthier. So if you could I I think you could you you mentioned this, but I'm gonna ask you if you could leave listeners with one message about health and nutrition, what would it be?

Labels Stress Sleep Water Real Food

Francesca Scerbo 18:15

Oh gosh, there's so many of them. But the first one would be is is understand understand how to read a food label, understand um, you know, the importance of getting in good quality protein, understand the importance of reducing stress, understand the importance of hydration, understand the importance of sleep. It's not just about the exercise and the nutrition, it's about the whole, it's about the whole body. So if you're not sleeping right, if you're not drinking water, if you're not eating real food, um, you know, your body is definitely gonna tell you, like, hey, something's going on.

"Cabo" Jim 18:55

It's definitely, like you said, a balanced, you know, program, right? You you gotta balance everything out. You can't go too heavy on one side or the other.

Francesca Scerbo 19:02

But you gotta, you gotta start somewhere. So you've gotta, even if you just take one little section, you know, in in a health coaching world, you have a perfect pie, and your pie is different slices. It's family, it's fun, it's finances, it's your career, it's your health. Um, it's if if all of that's kind of all over the place, you're not gonna find your circle. But you need to just take a little bit from each section and get 1% better like every day.

How To Connect And Whats Next

"Cabo" Jim 19:28

Love it. So, how would our listeners go about connecting with you if they wanted to learn more about balanced nutrition or had some simple health questions?

Francesca Scerbo 19:36

Yeah, absolutely. So I have um I've got Instagram and I've got a YouTube channel and I have Facebook and I'm Francesca Scerbo. You can find me through both of them. I also have a website, it's my first and last name, um, Francescascerbo.com. My three cookbooks are on Amazon. Um, my three cookbooks are Fit Cuisine, Balance Nutrition, Healthy Food Made Simple, and Eat to Beat Your Hormones. They're all on Amazon, or you can purchase them through the website. And, you know, right, I'm pretty easily available if you do a Google search.

"Cabo" Jim 20:08

So, what exciting things are coming up for you next in your business? Anything on the horizon?

Francesca Scerbo 20:13

Oh gosh. Yeah. So I'm gonna be doing um a bunch of talks upcoming um at some of the local um areas here in Naples. Um, I'm gonna be doing a pretty big event uh in September. Um, I am part of a group. Um, if you guys see the Power Project book around uh Naples, um in that too. Uh there's that's a great women's group, the Ladies Power Lunch. Um, I'm super blessed to be there. Susie Sarver is amazing. Um, so we're gonna be doing some fun stuff over there. And um, yeah, I'm gonna be doing some more content, uh, potentially doing some more podcasts. So follow me on social media, stay tuned, say hi. Um, there's a lot of good stuff coming up, and it's all education. And if anybody there, anybody out there has any talks or educational things that they would like me to, you know, kind of assist in, I am always willing to um to you know help educate because that's where it starts.

"Cabo" Jim 21:13

Absolutely. You got to learn first. So uh thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for being such a good neighbor, and uh, we hope to see you out in the community here soon.

Francesca Scerbo 21:22

Awesome. Thank you so much, Jim.

"Cabo" Jim 21:24

Yep.

Share The Show And Nominate Guests

Intro/Close 21:25

Thank you for spending this time with the Fort Myers Beach Good Neighbor Podcast, health and wellness series brought to you by REnew You, Natural Health and Beauty. If today's episode helped you, share it with a friend and check the show notes for local resources and next steps you can try this week. Until next time, be gentle with yourself, celebrate the small wins, and remember, better days are built one breath, one choice, and one good neighbor at a time. Also, to nominate your favorite health and wellness expert to be on the show. Go to fmbgoodneighbor.com, that's fmbgoodneighbor.com, or call 239 427 4100. Until next time, remember to cabo until you and keep being a good neighbor.