How to Get Your Partner on Board With Functional Medicine

Today I'm joined by my husband, Johnny Kozlowski. We are going to dive into how we prioritize our health as a family of four, how we support each other in our own health, journeys as a couple, and a little behind the scenes of running my nutrition business. Hi, Johnny.

Hi, Brigid.

So we've done a few takes by now, and our goal, as we just discussed, is to be as conversational as possible. And so I want it to be like, I'm just saying to you, like, take. Tell us exactly how we live our lives. If you had to explain to me, like, how do we live our lives and how we prioritize our health, like, how would you summarize it if you were just like talking to someone that.

You just met chaotically? And we largely make it up as we go along.

Yeah, that's true.

It's probably how it is. I think our, our schedules are. Are just truly chaotic between the multiple jobs that I manage, the business, living up here in Ohio, having to travel as often as I do. You getting back into traveling now, like coming out of a season of having back to back kids in a extremely short amount of time that we did not intend or planned. And largely our lives are just kind of like just keeping all this plate spinning or all the marbles on the table, like, the best we can.

Yeah. You basically described our lives many times. It's like we've been living in a blender for the last two years. And this is like, no one knows what's happening in an enzyme in time because there's. There's so many plates that we're juggling. But I feel like we, we're doing a pretty good job.

Yeah. And just. But historically, every time that you've ever said, I think things are going to slow down, it's just the start of a new cycle of getting into whatever it is that we're going to get into.

Wait, this is a problem that I have because you and my team, like I've been saying for years, things are just going to slow down. And they're like, we leaving you a really long time ago. I don't know. I like to live at a fast pace.

You. You very much do. So. Yeah, our lives are just very much all over the place. Like, nothing is truly concrete because month to month, my schedule changes. And whether that's between flying commercially or flying for the military or the different traveling opportunities that, that you have that we go on to, the kids growing and getting involved in more stuff, the holiday season, being near your family, Just a lot of very normal things, but we try to intertwine them as much as possible. And then getting out of this black hole that we've largely had with the kids over the last couple years and just getting out of the woods with them, trying to also re. Engage in some social things that we should be doing as adults as well. And it's just been a juggle. And then obviously, everything in life ebbs and flows. And I feel like we're finally getting into a little bit more of a flow coming out of these last couple years. Like we have on top of moving up to. Up to Ohio like we did.

Yeah.

So it's just been craziness. That's pretty much how the easiest way to describe our lives.

Our lives have changed so much in the last two years.

Oh, yeah.

It's like, unrecognizable.

Yep. Absolutely. Especially if you look outside and you see the.

Yeah. Going from. Going from Florida to Ohio. Definitely did not.

It's not the way people normally do it.

It's not the order that people. Yeah. Usually do it. Okay, so where should we start? Maybe on, like. So our schedules are super busy and all over the place. Like, there's no cadence. There's no, like, consistency in our schedules because you're traveling or you're home, and then I'm solo parenting with the kids and, like, flexing. I feel like what we do a really good job of is I flex my work schedule for you, and then you flex your work schedule for me. So when you're gone, I'm solo parenting with the kids.

And.

And we do have a nanny during the day. That's our angel. Like, we would not survive without her. We have family help from people like my sister who, you know, come over regularly, which is so helpful. But the. I'm solo parenting with the kids, and then, like, I try. I've been traveling, like, once a month in the last few months where then you take the kids. And when you're a pilot, like, it's different schedule because when you're home, you're home, and then when you're gone, you're gone. So it's like, really hard when you're gone, but then it's much easier when you're home. And then I try to, like, flex my schedule accordingly. From a health standpoint, with us having so many things that we're juggling.

Well, I think. I think more so just on the point that you're talking about, it's like, we like that give and take that has to exist just the way that both of our lives are like, you're incredibly busy with the business and everything that we've done and the constant changes that are happening with the business itself, with the market having to adjust, taking advantage of opportunities that, that might exist out there. Like it's, there's a ton of give and take and I mean like, like one of the biggest things that we've always said, like the strongest parts of our relationship is that we're a great team.

We're a great team.

And, and even though we do have plenty of opportunities to, or plenty of times that we do yell at each other and we largely, I handle a lot of confrontation head on and in terms of dealing with it then and there. But at the end of the day we, we definitely are on the same page in terms of like where we want to be in our lives with our kids, what we value, what we value with each other. And, and it's not like there's this massive thing that we carry on from day to day and even though we don't really talk about it too frequently, we're both very like minded in terms of like what we want out of our lives. And, and even when things get rough, we do have the ability to kind of maintain focus on, on that point.

Yeah, agree. And one of those things that we agree a lot on is like prioritizing our health. I feel like that's a common anchor that we have both for ourselves and then also like for our kids where even like with having kids we've taken such a different approach than a lot of people will take with, you know, like no added sugar for McKinley until she was 2 and focusing on like Johnny is obsessed with foot health. So our kids, you know, they, they like didn't have shoes for at least the first year and a half. Now we're getting well kind of the first year. He, you know, picks out flat soled shoes to help with like their, their, their foot development and other things and you know, like making sure that their food is organic and other things that we just kind of go above and beyond for in addition to then focusing on our own health even amidst the chaos. It's not like, because things are crazy that we're like, okay, let's just like get takeout every night. Cause we rarely ever get takeout or you know, like habits.

The biggest thing with that is we didn't reinvent the wheel. Like we're not overly original in necessarily any of the stuff that we're doing. I mean with the network and everything that You've had, I mean, coming from a prior history of military medicine and a culture of, as a, as a pilot, you don't go to the doctor to get things taken care of and those kinds of things, or just in the military medicine machine that I came from, with the diagnoses that they were getting and the difficulty in getting second opinions or just maybe not even knowing better myself, because that was my only adult health care that I had really had any kind of experience or exposure with. But we largely have used our network, our resources, not been afraid to ask questions, use the positive examples that both of us have had in our lives, and then also come into raising our kids and what we wanted to focus on with our own background and the things that we had struggled with or the current problems that we have. And then since they're half, each half of you and I not wanting them to necessarily be exposed to the same issues that, that you or I had. And whether that's like potential for disease progression or muscular skeletal limitations that I certainly have and the number of issues that I have as a result of that or the surgeries that I've had over the years and, and just knowing where that came from so early on and especially McKinley being, being the first of these and just the footwear like I get thrown under the bus on all the time. But yeah, just, just easy things that we find that are important that we, we each want to bring into, like how we raise our kids.

We double down on, you know, it's not. So then we get opinions from other people around us, but it doesn't really like sway the way that we do things. And we're also not gonna pay the course.

Yeah. And at the end of the day, even when that stuff does happen or accidents do happen, it's not like we let it ruin our day. I mean, McKinley did have sugar before she was 2 because we had guests over and one of the daughters that were older that, that was over, that was slightly older than McKinley was standing on the stool and was just handing McKinley cookies.

She handed one cookie.

Yes, cookie, singular. Fine. But handed her a cookie. And it was the best day of McKinley's life. And, but it didn't let us derail. We got back on track.

It was a TBC recipe. It was a recipe from the Bean Collective or Christmas cookie recipe that I had made for everyone that had come over. And then, yeah, the four year old gave it to McKinley and we turned around and we're like, McKinley, what did you just eat?

Yeah. So we didn't Fall. I mean, not like we felt completely off the wagon, but at the same time it didn't like ruin us in the sense that we felt like we were failures.

Right. We know that she has level of resilience to come back from it, but we've got going on track to the research that exists like in the benefits of trying to remove sugar until the age of two. James has had sugar a few more times with just the, you know, like being the younger child and us only being able to control what we can control with the chaos of having two kids in one year as Irish twins. So, yeah, I agree. But I would say for you, like, so I brought you into functional medicine. I would say, wouldn't you?

I would say so.

When we met, Johnny was really into CrossFit and he was like visibly very healthy because he was super. He looked very healthy on the outside, super fit, very muscular, like all the things. But then there were. You were very inflamed and having a lot of health issues that I started to. To point out to him, like, this isn't normal. This isn't normal, this isn't normal. And that's when you really started to like, focus more in embracing functional medicine and functional medicine philosophies and like getting you into the sauna and all these things that like, initially I had. I'll take credit for bringing you into.

Well, how it really, how it really happened, just because I feel like I'm always better at telling the story accurately, was. Was when I think we went out for Mexican when you came down to visit in Jacksonville one day and we went to a Mexican restaurant in Jack's and I had a margarita with dinner and I started having some significant abdominal cramping as a result of that. And spasms. Yeah, some spasms or whatever it was. It was something I had been dealing with honestly since like I was in high school. That I can remember back to. Like, I remember the first time it happened. I was drinking a Red Bull when I was in like probably 10th grade. And I. The only way I got through it was either bearing down and just kind of waiting for it to subside, or I would drink a lot of water to hopefully like dilute it and make things calm down. Or alternatively, if it was bad enough, I would just make myself throw up, drink some water, and then just go on with my day. And I remember when I told you how that's how, how that's the way I solved that problem, you looked at me and you said, that's the dumbest thing I'VE ever heard. And. And then that started. That started this process. So that's really one of those things. And. And this is kind of like getting more into my story specifically, but just kind of how I've seen so many people deal with things, and especially being in the aviation industry and how, um, or just being a male and how we handle our health so differently than women do. But I just had created a normalization of all of these different things that were going on. I, like, was normalizing taking a nap every afternoon or having to just mainline coffee in order to get through it. I was normalizing these massive abdominal pains that I was having, or certain GI bleeds or having to have multiple colonoscopies, or the fact that I had lost a couple organs before or when I was in my late teens and early twenties. So just so many things that I just kind of like you come up with a way to cater to those ailments, like I did. And I found a way to live my life at a much lower level that we realize now than was possible.

Yeah. So then we took you through some functional medicine testing that I ordered and put you on a specific, very specific, very rigid protocol. And it was interesting because even in the first few days, remember how you were, like, laying on the couch, like, in so much pain because of removing the foods, and you were like, how is this possible? Like, we eat so healthy at baseline. But like, I'm having, like, remember the symptoms that you were having when. In the first few days of starting that protocol?

Yeah, because it was. It was shortly before that point where it got so bad that I. I could drink one beer and it would make me. Make me throw up.

Yeah.

So at that point in time, you pretty much got. Had all autonomy on making decisions on what I was going to do going forward, despite the fact that we were. We were just dating at that point.

But you're just dating. But I also, like, had you do your genetics testing to be able to look at your genetics because you're a freak.

And that's true.

Then we went into the functional medicine testing to be able to look deeper at what was happening and created the protocol, started doing the supplements, removed certain foods short term to help to decrease the inflammation. And in a pretty short period of time, you lost £20.

Yeah, it was like six. Six weeks.

Six weeks.

Which I've always. I've always been able to fluctuate weight. Pretty.

You lost 20 pounds and now you've maintained it for the last, like, four years.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, the way five years. The way that I, that was 20.

We were, we weren't married.

So yeah, I was like 29, beginning of 26 years ago I think is when, when it started because it was right after my foot surgery. But the way that I always describe it, it was just like, I mean, obviously this is a conversation that happens all the time when I'm flying in a plane and you're crossing the country and you got nothing else to really talk about other than what's wrong with you.

So every flight that Johnny flies, he like comes home and then tells me the full health history of the pilot that he was flying with because. And he's like, yeah, he has like.

Not necessarily, but it's like we often how it, it comes up because. And just, I mean in my industry specifically, but with just so many people out there in our lives, like so many people are really not doing well. And a lot of it is just from my perspective, it's just that normalization, right? Like people just kind of normalize feeling bad because in most cases you don't feel bad overnight. Feeling feeling bad is a multi year decade type thing and that becomes your norm and you don't necessarily recognize that deviation from where you, where you were years and years ago potentially. So yeah, it's kind of how like a lot of this stuff comes up because I mean it's, it's like one of the things that I've noticed, it's like, like even from back when I was doing CrossFit, like people in CrossFit never stop talking about CrossFit. It's like it kind of, you kind of get that in health. It's like when people aren't feeling good, like they're more prone to talking about like not feeling good because they, they don't feel good or when people feel really good. Like we've seen with the programs like and all these amazing things that we've been able to do as and I've been able to see as interning full time for the last however many years is like when people do truly turn their lives around and they start feeling good, they don't want to shut up about it because it's amazing. And I mean that's, and for me that's, that's even the case because I, I would say I'm hands down from like a nutrition energy management standpoint, definitely not muscular skeletal because I feel like I'm still, still trending in the wrong direction on that. But I feel like hands down I'm the healthiest I've been than I In the previous 35 years of my life.

Yeah, I mean the, the changes that happened with your health, like you, you lost 20 pounds. You, you don't nap ever. Now like I literally can't nap. He'll fly across the country, like multiple time zone changes and like get back so late and then the next day is just like up and like cruising through the day and never stops moving.

And from coming from the point where I was hour to two hour nap, I would have to drag myself off the couch. And that was like almost every single day.

Yeah, it happened a lot. And your cognitive function, like, I joke about how you're just so much smarter, but it's not a joke. It is true. And so obviously I joke because I'm like, I'll take responsibility for it. But your ability to process information. Johnny reads. Johnny listens to so many audiobooks and he can take literally any problem and solve it so quickly. Whether it's like teaching himself. We joke about how he like teaches himself everything on YouTube, whether it's like how to pave the driveway or how to fix the like completely redo the dock in our neighborhood that he volunteered for over the summer or how to cut our son's hair that he like learned how to do on YouTube or how to you know, change all the things that you did in my Jetta where you like changed literally every single part in the Jeddah. So it's like you're.

Which I wouldn't have had to do if you took it through a car wash one time in the eight years you lived in Ohio with it. But that's a whole separate point. But.

My brain is not as attuned to the day to day details as Johnny is. Johnny, he says surviving. And I like am keeping thinking about the kids things and then all the things that are happening in my business or with people's lab values or other things that my brain works much better at. So we compliment each other.

Your survival skill is putting the right people in your lives to keep you moving forward.

That is my survival skill. That's a good skill to have.

Yeah, sure, I agree. As the person on the receiving end.

Of it, I would feel safer if my survival skill was the. Was like actual survival like Johnny's, where I have no doubt that he could keep us surviving in any instance that happened in our lives. But your cognition just like went through the roof. And I think that so many people are dealing with brain fog and things that are tied to inflammation. So much of it. I mean it was Obviously gut imbalances. The colonoscopy had shown that you had borderline Crohn's disease. The doctor said there was nothing that you could do about it. We told him about like, yeah, there was ton.

Tons of inflammation, like everywhere.

We told him about the turmeric capsules and a few things that you had been doing at the time. And he kind of was like, I mean, you can do it, but it's not really going to help much. Like you'll just have to continue to get routine colonoscopies, but you're not bad enough for us to do anything about it, like from a medical standpoint.

And there was also such a. Because that was one of the instances where we went and got. We went out and largely because of you, we went out and got a second opinion to have the test interpreted. Interpreted because one doc was saying that I had Crohn's and wanted to like, look into it or like start talking about going down the medication route almost immediately. And then you were obviously very against that. And it was something like, I'm, I'm not one to just jump into a prescription by any means, and I've never really been that case my whole life. But you wanted that second opinion. And so we did that. And I went out in town and we talked to a doc and he.

Had a non military doctor.

He had a completely different opinion on what he was seeing and was more interested in just giving the scale where it was at, monitoring it and seeing it and how it progressed. And I mean, obviously as I'm getting a little bit older, it's something that I have to do more regularly with a family history of cancers like most people have. But it was something that, yeah, that we were largely able to mitigate and with whether it's the like ibs, IBD type things that I was dealing with, like very early on when we first met, on top of like all of the other upper GI stuff that was happening, I mean, it's almost exclusively been mediated with diet, lifestyle and supplements. Yeah, because I mean it's. It's something like with all my aviation physicals and military physicals and all the stuff that I have to do, all of those things are on my record and they have to be. They have to be talked about and I have to report them and, and that's one of those things where I can continually say that I'm mitigating it through diet and lifestyle. And then all the aviation docs that I've worked with, both in the military and the civilian Space are like. Are happy with, like, that as a mitigating option for whatever. Whatever the condition is.

Yeah. Which has led to then Johnny talking about it with so many different people, trying to be like, you know, getting the health history from the pilots, or when you're on the golf course or wherever it is that you're like, okay, I think you have dysbiosis, or I think this is inflammation, or when you were just staying with Jason Adriana last week, where you're like, I think that the eczema issues Tyler's having, like, and some of these other things, you should consider this and this and this. And Bridget can talk to you about this and you can read this book.

Oh, yeah. I'm a. I'm a hype man. For sure.

The. The ultimate hype man. People ask all the time, like, how do you do everything that you do? And probably, like, one of the top reasons is you and, like, being so supportive. I think that if you're a female that has a lot of, like, goals and aspirations and the passion, obviously, that I have for being able to help as many people as we can, that, like, none of it would be possible without you being my number one cheerleader.

And sure, we can go with that.

Why? You don't like the word cheerleader?

I mean, supporter.

Like, supporter number one supporter number one advocate number one marketer.

I love. I love those other three.

Number one free intern. So Johnny's been joking for the last however many years that he's just the free intern because he figures out so many things, whether it's, like, setting up the camera situation or many different things, that mailing out all the my food is health boxes. When we were in the early days where, like, even from the small honeymoon that we took that wasn't really a honeymoon, but, like, we're in North Carolina and, like, pushing out the My food is health boxes on the, like, suitcase.

The luggage cart. The luggage cart carrying in your desktop computer into the hotel.

Because carrying my desktop, you want to go work on. I insisted for a number of years that I needed a desktop computer to work on. That's true. Okay, let's talk about consistency. You're so consistent with your routine, whether it's like, the sauna or exercise or from a meal prepping standpoint, like, if we're not doing a TBC dinner or meal, then you're typically, like, batching a ton of broccoli or potatoes or chicken or whatever it is. How do you. How do you feel, like, consist? Like, how are you able to be so consistent.

I think one of the biggest things probably with how I do the day to day is just knowing that you only have so much time to deal with. And I personally do not have a problem like with ex, like exercise or working out or whether it's the sauna. Like if I only have 45 minutes to put into working out or put into something that I'm going to do for myself, I have kind of a thing like I love doing the sauna quite a bit and I would almost rather do the sauna than exercise to a degree. But I know if I can mix those together and I can do, I can start this on, on preheat and get a 15 minute workout and try to move quickly in that amount of time. I definitely prioritize strength training over any kind of cardio type thing.

But you do do the peloton too though?

Yeah, I do the peloton on occasion.

Go for a run sometimes.

Yeah. So I'd say probably like doing specific cardio maybe like one or two times a week. And then especially if I am on the road traveling for like the flying jobs, I, I'm able to kind of work that in with whatever that schedule is. I don't travel with running shoes or anything, just, just the vivos. But I think the biggest thing that has helped me stay as consistent as I have is just knowing how to be lethal with the time that I have to be very deliberate with jumping into a workout. And kind of like my whole journey through trying to become as healthy and everything as I can be has come from me. My trying to lift as much as I could. I was spending two to three plus hours in the gym a day doing a specific type of programming that was in line with like more like CrossFit training type stuff. And I just got to the point where with dealing with different joint issues or having back problems or neck and shoulder problems on occasion. And then in conjunction with like having to sit for eight or ten hours pretty much straight doing some of the flying that I was doing, like my body really wasn't putting up with it. And I just kind of got to the point where my priority was feeling good as long as I could, as often as I could. And that really kind of reframed like what my focus was. It was just moving better, it was more functional, less pain as, as a huge thing, which is something that I'm constantly fighting with with just some of the, some of the problems that I continue to have. But it really kind of shifted the priority in terms of like I Know that even if I only have even 10 minutes or 15 minutes, whatever it is, or if I have no time, I'm doing my 100 push ups a day routine and patching that in a, in a series of sets just to know that I'm getting some kind of stimulus throughout the day. So it's, it's never, it's never a all or nothing. It's always a something in between. Some days I might have all the time to, to do a half an hour, 45 minute workout and then do the sauna for an hour, which those days are awesome when I can do that. But I mean especially with having kids, it's few and far between. But I know that if I, if I do have even a small amount of time, I'm still able to use that time as effectively as I can. And, and like we always have a conversation about, and just coming from the aviation industry specifically, you have to put that oxygen on yourself first. You have to be able to take care of yourself first to put yourself in the most resilient state possible. Because those life challenges, those adverse events and things like that are like the red herrings that nobody sees coming. They exist and they're gonna hit you at some point in time. And if you are not in the most resilient position you can be to take that, take that life stressor, take that your kid comes down with some kind of illness while I'm on the road or, or like traveling or whatever, or work is stressful or I'm, I'm not overseas or whatever it might be like if you were not taking care of yourself and you've already worn yourself down to the bone, like you're not going to have the ability to like take care of the kids or take care of your, yourself or the house or the family or us to the best extent that you can for sure. Yeah. And that's, and that's kind of my mindset on it is just wanting to be in a position where I'm as resilient as I possibly can be at all times. And I know for me personally and just going into like mentally being in a, in a good state like that, moving my body, exercise, getting outdoors, social things like all, all of that stuff puts me in a better place mentally where I can show up more and more effectively in all these other parts.

Of our lives and for both of us like in a more stable mood and not like lashing out at each other or lashing out at our kids and being able to like sleep better and being Able to have the energy to like do the activities with them that we know are so important for their development and happiness and those sorts of things.

Yeah, absolutely.

So for someone that's like Johnny's kind of our. We call him the life coach. He gifts me his life coaching services every year for my birthday.

Life life coach and health coaching coupon for the year.

So if you were to life coach me right now about like consistency or time for someone that's having a difficult time prioritizing themselves, like, give it to me straight.

Well, I mean like you've come and obviously I've. I could never put myself in your shoes for what you have gone through from a physiology standpoint over the last couple years. I mean just what like going from our miscarriage to getting pregnant with McKinley all on like first tries. And I mean we've been so fortunate and largely because of Renate and Vita and Wenatal and how all we do is apparently get pregnant anytime that we, we slip up. Which I'm just mortified of at this point. I've been saying for a while that if like we've been going back and forth on having the third child and just that if we were to get pregnant again, that's fine. I'm just going to walk into the woods and nobody's going to ever see me again. So. But, but just how you have gone through so much that I could never be able to understand. But just seeing it on the outside and how taking just those little steps is one of the biggest things that you kind of don't do right. You are, you've always been. Been one to like kind of take everything on your plate at one time. And it's like I always joke about like closest alligator to the boat or just take it one, like take it one step at a time or one bite at a time, like kind of thing in, in terms of getting these things off your plate. But just having that understanding of like the less that you put yourself first to a degree and obviously with kids and stuff like that, like that's never really a thing. But the less that you show up for yourself and take care of yourself and ensure that you are eating throughout the day, which you don't do a.

Lot of eat since it's like Johnny helps me eat throughout the day, but I do eat throughout the day.

You like, you get to the grindstone and I'm like, I'm like, have you had any food today?

Yeah, It'll be like 1:30. I've been on meetings for hours and then he's like, have you eaten? And I'm like, no, I haven't eaten yet. Would you be able to, I guess, lunch.

You like always eat breakfast?

Yeah, I always eat breakfast. I always eat dinner first thing in the morning.

But I would say lunch if I'm.

If you're not home and you're out of town, I'll do like a smoothie or leftovers or something like that. But yeah, I can like push it to like 2pm or something that I'm going downstairs to actually eat lunch.

Yeah. And I will.

And. And also like, it's hard for me to. Because I would say that from a nutrition standpoint, we're. We're like checking all the boxes of what we preach. What I preach.

Yeah.

In our programs and things of that nature, the exercise is where I'm really like trying to get back to because I just. With. We don't have any consistency in our schedule. So I.

Well, you are also a little more high maintenance in the sense of how you want to exercise. You want your exercise to be very sterile. Like in this box kind of thing. You're. You're very particular in terms of like the quality of the class or the instructor. Or like.

That's true.

Depending on the peloton or if we're doing legree or yoga or whatever.

That's true. I don't like to go to a class if I'm not going to be inspired, if it's not going to be a good teacher.

Yeah. So you've been. So that has been a like.

And then Johnny's like, something is better than nothing. I'm like, I know, but like, I only have so much time and then I'm just gonna be frustrated in the class. That. So yeah, I, that has been a setback. But I would say my biggest setback right now is just. And I'm doing much better, especially since finding Lindsay's workouts. Like, I'm doing them much more regularly in on YouTube. But the difficulty is just that there is no cadence in our schedule. So Johnny, like every. It doesn't. There's no consistency where it's like, oh, he's gonna be gone for like these days every single month where we could get into routine. So like, I know I'm waking up with the kids every morning and then like once, once our nanny gets here, then I'm like handing them off. And then like I have to start my day because I have a team of like eight plus people that are like waiting for me on deliverables and things. To review and like our clients and our partners and other things. So it's, you know.

Yeah. Which has been, which has been the, the, the thing that from a outside looking in perspective, just to try to like, encourage you to take care of yourself and be able to step away and do certain things and also just try to find like, what works best for your schedule. And I spend plenty of time throughout the day or the week, like, reminding you of certain things or just like asking questions. And then. Yeah, I do understand. I mean, we are like, everybody's different in terms of like, what's the, what's the motivation? What's the encouragement that they want? What is it that they need to feel like, inspired to implement something and, and do it on a regular basis? I, I don't really have that problem because I can like, cold turkey pretty much anything or like, just. I'm very much the kind of person that will just do it, knock it out and just kind of fit it in with everything else that's. That is going on. And you are obviously very different than that, which is. It takes some adjusting from, from me and.

Well, I'm different than that. And it's. I also would say it's different when you're running a company. Yeah.

No, I mean your schedule, like our schedules are both very different, but just a sense of like always. I feel like I always will remind you to be like, checking in with yourself and I'll just ask you questions on, have you done certain things throughout the day just because of how you can just put your nose down and just get to work and just charge through the day or like, what turns out weeks, like, at times where you, you can like, almost forget to come up for air at times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true.

Yeah. So I mean, just as far as like, the coaching piece, I mean, the.

Coaching piece is I honestly didn't start out the question thinking, like, give it to me straight, like, about me. I was thinking about a person that was not motivated that's watching this. But I'm fine with this going there. I think. Yeah, my life coaching services came through for me. Thank you. I think that it's helpful to see that there's not like a picture perfect version of health. Like, I'm not trying to be here on a pedestal being like, we live the perfect lives, we have the perfect marriage. I'm perfect with, like, how I'm taking care of myself. I mean, I think that we're doing exceptionally well.

We are the furthest away from perfect in any way. But I feel like our, our ability to repair is, is really good, which is why we succeed to the extent we do.

You're talking about our marriage or just.

Like, just like when we, when we face like roadblocks in our lives and whether that's health, the kids, work, anything, I feel like we always can kind of like pick up the pieces, get back to it, get to a functioning state relatively quickly. And I guess in terms of like the, like, the advice for like, if somebody is trying to figure it out, I mean, I guess like, I just was having conversations around this when I was like down in Jax this weekend. And, and it's like you just have, Everybody is going to be different in terms of how they're ultimately motivated, but each person has to have a why. Right? Each person has to know, like, I'm doing, I want to eat better because. Blank. Right. Like, I was just with a friend in the area here who's, who's wife passed away after, after years of dealing with adverse health and then was able to extend her life much further or much longer than anybody had expected. And, and this guy who was paramilitary, he had no real, like, no real desires to, to live a, any particular length of life, but he had come to the realization that he, like, he wanted to try to be around for his grandchildren and for his kids as long as he possibly could. And that was like he created a why at 80 some years old. Yeah. And, and I mean, so it could be at any point in time in your life and it can be business, it can be personal, it can be money, finances, anything. And, or just, I mean, another conversation I was having with a friend this weekend was just about. He wants to be able to be in a position from a health and fitness standpoint where he can go play flag football with his son and go play tennis or be able to go shoot a basketball around and play one on one and not be totally winded or not be at high risk of injury or whatever it is. So I think like, my motivation is different than your motivation. Right. Like, and it's about if you're, I mean, one, you're trying to figure that out for yourself. Like, you just have to be honest and try to try to see, like, what is it that you value in your life, what is it that is important and, and try to build off of that. Right? And if, if you have difficulty kind of figuring out what, what motivates you, I mean, you just, you really gotta get out there and, and I mean, maybe have like a good honest look, look at Yourself, or you can ask your friends or ask people in your life, like, their perspective of you or like things that they think you do well or have success in or whatever it is, but just trying to find that center that you can work off of in order to institute change and to move hopefully in a positive direction to affect where you are going to ultimately end up being one year, two years, five years from now.

Yeah, and I think too that it's like, largely about surrounding yourself with the right people. I was just talking about this on a different podcast interview that I did with Kathy Heller, who interviewed James Clear. And she said, like, I interviewed James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, and I asked him, like, what is the most important habit to adopt first? And he was like, you know, I really think that it's surrounding yourself with the right people, that it creates that, like, normalization around the habits and the patterns and the behaviors that you want for yourself so that it's not hard. Like it doesn't feel hard. And so obviously we talk about that a lot in the. Being collective because so much of what we do is like, around community and helping people, especially women, be able to see that it's possible to, you know, like, lower their cholesterol or lose the weight or improve their digestive health or improve their autoimmune disease or improve their perimenopause or whatever is that they're struggling with. But for people that don't have that in their lives, like, let's say someone has a spouse where they're like constantly feeling like they personally want to make the change, but their spouse is not on board yet, or like, isn't bought in yet or is like, oh, why are you wasting money on organic food? Or let's just like, well, don't, don't.

Shy away from the fact that one of the first big fights that we had was over organic chicken or non organic chicken in Costco, and this is true. Grabbed you grabbed the arm of some poor older man walking down the aisle and asked him to settle this for us. And his response was, I spent too many years with my wife to know, to get involved in a conversation like this. And like in.

Because we were fighting about. Johnny thought that at Costco it wasn't worth the money to get the organic chicken. And I was like, we're buying the organic chicken. This is when we were dating and.

We bought the organic chicken.

And then I gave like, all the reasons why. And yeah, so now, now you're like, you've convert.

No, I'm, I'm totally on board with those kinds of things. And I think just the point on having, I mean, if you can, if you can have a spouse or somebody in the household that is on the same page with you, I mean, that can make a world of difference. Like, we've seen that so often in a lot of the implementation pieces for, for your clients is like, when they, when they have a husband and wife or if they're able to get the kids on board. And like in tbc, we see the feedback from all these, all these people who are making recipes, even our next door neighbors who they pick out the meals for the week with or the smoothies that they want to prep with the kids at the beginning of the week. And, and the whole house gets involved. I mean, that makes the implementation piece so much easier because you're not like, everybody's on the same page and you're not managing all of these different desires, whether from health, nutrition, lifestyle kind of thing.

But for someone who doesn't have out, I'm asking, like, what would your advice be for a woman who's like, I'm trying to improve these things. I know it's important for my family, I know that it's important for my husband, but, like, he's just not on board. And like, then we have these things in our house because he wants them, and then they tempt me. And so then I'm like, making choices that I know aren't in my best interest. Or we go out to eat and he's ordering pizza when I'm like, okay, maybe I'll just have a piece. Or like, I'll have some of your French fries. Like, what advice would you say?

I mean, it's, it's kind of in line with the point I made before where you like, have to be able to put the oxygen on your. On yourself first, right? You have to be able to take care of yourself and put yourself in a position to be able to live your life. And if, if. And everybody's different in terms of like, their ability to recognize it, right? But like, be a leader, right? Like, not like, being a leader in those kind of situations and instituting change in an environment that's not conducive to change is tough. It sucks. It's honestly like trying to buy separate groceries and trying to eat a certain way when you have all those outside influences. I mean, that is a huge deterrence to you successfully moving in whatever direction of change that you're trying, you're trying to make. And at the end of the day, like, you have to want it for yourself more. Right? Like, you like doing any of this stuff. I mean, we've seen people who've bought the program for family members who weren't bought in, and the implementation piece for those individuals was negligible. Right. Like, they, they. It wasn't something that they wanted or were ready for at that point in time in their life. And unfortunately, just the way that, meaning.

Someone gifted it to a family member and unfortunately.

But it's also worked out great where people. It was, it was the, it was the catalyst that those individuals needed, and then they took it on and then they came on board and they saw a great change. But everybody. Nobody's going to be the same in that level of motivation. But when you're, when you're trying to affect change, if you know that you are not where you want to be, like, you have to do it for yourself first. Yeah, right. You can be the example in your household, you can be the example to your parents, to your kids, like, show them how it is. And at the end of the day, you're probably going to end up feeling a ton better. So you're going to have more energy to be able to take care of all these things. And the, like, the biggest thing is, like, when you start having more energy, you don't have these different pain points or are dealing with like, all these symptoms of fatigue, skin, whatever it might be. Like, like, that's gonna be evident in the people who are in your life. Like, they are going to notice the difference in you over time. Even though seeing that change, like, weight is always one of, like, the biggest points that people try to, like, measure as success. But like, if you're around somebody every single day, every week of the year, right, you, you might not necessarily. They might not necessarily see that change in you or be looking for it. So you can't really measure, like, the success of how you're. How or why you're implementing what you're doing based on the input that you're going to be receiving from the people around you. So, like, the most important thing is, like, you have to do it for yourself first.

And what we see is that so often when you are able to do that for yourself first, that your family start to take note. Like, they start noticing where they're like, huh, that's really, like, inspiring. Where you have so much more energy or you are, you know, like a totally different person, your mood is so much better. And so I think that it gradually becomes the opportunity to open the door for other people. But being able to be consistent for long enough for that to happen is where it is tough. And then that's where I do think that having community around you, even if it's not your spouse, to be able to like help you keep your standards higher and stay consistent with that is so key.

Yeah. I mean, the encouraging piece alone, like having, having that check in with somebody or if you're having a tough time and you like, you need to talk about it. I mean, that's why I like the group, the group program and all, like the sustained calls that like that we go through every single month or, or the weeks that we have them. Like the check in the accountability piece, how it's, it's not about being 100 all the time, but if you do go, whatever, if you, if you have a non optimal day, like we talk about regularly, it's about like getting back to optimal, like in the best way that you can and, and not shaming yourself for falling off track or whatever it is. It's just like you kind of don't even want to like pretend like there is a track. You just want to like have that, have that like, respect for yourself that you like this is the direction that you want to go and just work towards that every single day as imperfectly as you possibly can.

Yeah. Okay, let's shift gears and talk about something that's surprising about being Brigid or the business itself, or like me running the business and you being along for the ride. Like, what's the thing surprising that people would be surprised to know.

I don't really know if there's any. Anything like surprising that I would say. I think one of the biggest things that I have taken away from, from my intern position, like I've been in for so long. And I mean I've, and I've said this plenty of times in the past, but like for the decade that I spent active duty military, there weren't a ton of moments that I had throughout that portion of my career where I had a lot of truly like gratifying and rewarding experiences and was like, this is why I'm here or something that I was just like so incredibly proud to be a part of or like had seen something that was like so transformative for me. And then honestly, it was, it was that first my Food is health launch that we did where I learned how to do video editing, filming, whatever in our house when we, when we set it up first and just like learned all of these different pieces of the business and was handed like handling the customer service and doing the email marketing and all those kinds of things. But like Johnny was all of the positions was feel. Yeah. The, the catch all Office 2020. Yeah. And. And just in that first program like in something like we launched, we launched a group program without having a group program.

We launched the group program without it being created. Yes.

And then we spent the next 12 weeks just yelling at each other like every Saturday night when all the material was due. But no, the.

It wasn't like it was my first time creating a group program.

No.

Like I led the shared medical appointments at the Cleveland Clinic side functional medicine.

Group program for you out on your own.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the first my food. But just the first iteration also.

But just being along the ride for that and just seeing how like your background, the methodology that you carried into, into the business and into this group program and using that community son, that, using that, that community aspect to heal these people and, and work with them on their problems and just see in just a 10 week course like the feedback from these people and how much their lives transformed in that amount of time. I mean that was like truly impressive to see and that was something that I was like I felt good that I kind of played a part in that and just how people were able to turn their lives around in just the 10 weeks of that program that we were just producing as we went along every single week. And, and that's been something that we've seen in spades. And just one, like how much this is needed for people because so many people that come through the program, it's. I've been dealing with this for 20 years and we're remedying and obviously it's not true for everybody but like some people are coming in and saying how we, they were dealing with these problems for 20 years and how in the span of six or eight weeks of focus on their meta, focusing on their metabolic health and what they're putting in their body and making some small tweaks and changes to their, their supplement or daily routines, they are alleviating themselves of these issues that they've been facing basically their entire adult life and just seeing that over and over and over again and also just being an advocate for it because it happened for me where it's like I am hands down the healthiest I've been at any point in time in my life. And we are, we're still making small changes and tweaking stuff to, to improve just kind of like one, one step at a time. But that's that's easily been one of the most surprising things, is just somebody who's largely just normalized for the first, whatever, 28 years of my life. Just normalized any. Any ailments or conditions that I was faced with and just made it work. Just truly how. How much we can affect the way that we live our day to day.

Yeah, I so agree with that.

Don't let it go to your head.

Well, I think, too, that it's like, we both have so much passion for it and, like, I don't think people realize how much sacrifice goes into running my business and our nutrition programs and, like, helping people in the way that we do and how much, you know, I didn't pay myself for years.

Yeah, I mean, we still don't. We still haven't done. We're five years overdue on a honeymoon. We took our first family vacation back in February. And. And yeah, I mean, we just. It's just been a grind.

It's been a grind. But I don't think that it would have been possible to do all the things that we've done without one, obviously, like, you being so bought in and so supportive and two, us both feeling so passionately in the way that we do about, like, the impact that we're having. And both, like you said, like, coming from such, like, our own personal health transformations that have taken place from.

Or the fact that my job allows me to go to Italy for a month or Japan for a month or do layovers in the Caribbean in. When it's. There's a foot and a half of snow outside in the Cleveland winter.

So that is true, too.

It's a. It's a. At least I get a little.

Little Johnny gets a little break, and then I just double down on solo parenting and running a business and trying to take care of myself. It is very interesting because of how long I've been doing what I've been doing to see the increased awareness, like, it's so much more normal where, like, friends of yours are talking about doing, like, cold plunges and saunas and, like, we'll run into people and they'll talk about how they're doing, function, health, or, like, getting in depth labs done. And for so long, like, no one knew what I did. And now it's become, like, it's so many more people are aware from the combination of, like, Covid to even, like, I would say Maha, whether you're pro or against, like, the increased awareness around, like, how what you're putting into your mouth impacts your health and how you feel?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's just, there's so many, there's so many fads that like, just in the short time that we've been doing this that have have cycled in and out. Right. Like, like you can't eat this. You can eat this and, or different types of fasting things or cleanses. And like, I mean I haven't, I feel like that was a huge thing for a period of time and now I don't really seem to hear anything about cleanses anymore or whatever it is. But then, yeah, now we're getting into the age of the GLP1s and a lot of, like a lot of people that are getting into peptides and now it's the democratization of access to labs and additional testing, which I think is like some great movement. So there's, there's so much stuff like changing in the industry. It's like who knows what's going to necessarily stick so rapidly, but so much rapid at the end of the day. Like if, like what we know is that if you're not taking care of yourself and you're not even if you have all the markers in the world to know where, where your body stands, right. Like if you're not doing the 80 solution, ish. To, to make sure that you're taking care of yourself, it's like you can have all the data in the world. And that's what I mean. We've had enough conversations with folks that are getting, getting lab information done and they just feel like they don't know what to do with it or they, they aren't any healthier because of it. Right. Like, I think that's, that's been one of the biggest things. It's like we find so many people that all that will like circle back to the programs or that when they finally do find the programs, they, they feel like it was the piece that they were ultimately missing because like buying, just buying food in America, like having traveled all around the world, like I have like our food system that we have to live in is atrocious and it's, I mean it's an absolute joke what is considered food. And I, I will still. Or like, like both of us make mistakes regularly. Where.

What do you mean mistakes?

Like when we're shopping or like so both of us make mistakes regularly when we're like out at a store or something like that and we are maybe moving through kind of quickly and we go to grab a, maybe it's like a salad dressing or some kind of paint, sugar, some kind of thing off a shelf. And it looks like it should be good for all intents and purposes. And maybe you don't scan every little, like, thing on the label, but it looked like it should be healthy. And then when you get it home and it's, it's added sugar as the, maybe like one of like the first three ingredients or something on it, and you're like, dang it. And like, we brought these pickled onions home that had like, had like a ton of extra sugar in it. And I didn't even know, like, you would add sugar when like, in pickled onions. So just, there's just like, you, you can truly have all the best intent in the world out there to try to institute this change. And still there's an entire industry that's specifically designed around fooling you to think that foods are, are healthy.

Yeah.

And that's. And that's tough.

It's tough. And. But I would say that the increased access to labs is very positive. It's a positive step in the right direction. I've been advocating for people just to know the information about their body for the last 11 years, but I would say, like, you're talking about is that the lab information can only take you so far and that most people, like, have the information. But then where our programs, like the being collective that we feel so strongly about is being able to help people with the consistency element to help to move those labs in the right direction. And, you know, a lot of it is it comes down to, like, the diversity in your diet as being one of the core nutrition pillars, like more phytonutrients and polyphenol variety, more fiber and of course, protein being important as well. But helping people be more consistent in those choices is one of the most important ways to impact your health long term. And that's what the research supports from a nutrition standpoint.

And then it's like the education piece on top of it too. Right. That's one of the greatest things with, like, I remember the first time we went shopping with the TBC website.

Yeah, right. I know.

So.

Right.

That's like people, people think it's, it's. I mean, it is this, like, daunting thing. Like, if you're not used to cooking, if you're not used to doing recipes. I mean, as somebody who, like, literally never uses recipes, Johnny's the best. He refuses to use recipes or ways and measures. Anything unless you're doing.

Sometimes you'll do 2 BC.

But just like we've I mean, the feedback that we've gotten from so many people about actually how easy the implementation piece of it was. Like, one of my buddies in my squadron, he and his wife were just getting in a bad spot and I mean, he's a little older than, than me and, and he just was like we were at the point where we just needed to do something. It was like literally what he was saying. And he. They did blood sugar reset, they signed up for Kickstarter and he just texted me out of the blue the other day and obviously just like being head down and kind of like forgetting that, that they had, that they had ended up signing up for it. And he was just talking about how amazing it is and how surprised he was at how easy it ended up being. Yeah, and, and I think that's one of the biggest, biggest things. It's like you can, you can tell people what they need to do a hundred times, but if you're not necessarily showing them how to do it or making it easier to get to that, that end point, it's, it's a lot, it's a. Can be a lot more difficult to, to really implement what it is that you're telling them to do.

Okay. The last thing I want to touch on is traveling. So a lot of people struggle with food, with traveling, and you obviously travel for a living. So how do you do it with staying consistent? I think most people like, say that it's not possible to be consistent when they're traveling, so they just decrease their standards. But you're like extremely. Maybe talk about like packing your supplements then what you end up doing when you're on the road.

Yeah, I mean, the first thing, I mean from a supplement standpoint, just we have our supplement containers and I've been doing a pretty similar stack for a long time now in terms of fish oil, magnesium, the theracumin and the digestive enzyme that I've been on in addition to taking the Wenatal. So I've got a system where I get all those things in the containers and then now I guess I'm taking in a little bit, I'm taking creatine as well with the, the couple different beekeepers, naturals products that we do, and elements, I guess there's a lot of stuff. So. But I, I found, I found a system where I just take all those things, keep them in the same case, and it's consistent. I travel with that every single time. So. And even for me personally, I found that if I don't put my supplements in the containers I'm way less likely to even take them in the first place. So making sure that I'm packing those in advance and taking them on the road is huge. So I always have that in my bag with me and just all compact in that one, that one container. And then the other thing, and the other thing would be that you've talked about is like having yourself set up for not having food emergencies. That was kind of like the. One of the big things to have some snacks with me in order to bridge the gap between meals if I needed to. And I've kind of gotten to the point over time where I eating bad food or food that doesn't ultimately make me feel good, which I have a pretty good idea of what those foods are. Now. I know how I am when I'm hungry, I know how I operate when I'm hungry. And whether it's from cognition or just body fatigue, anything. And so whether it's I'm taking perfect bars or have a chomps beef stick with me or I got a pack of macadamia nuts, I know that I'm either not going to eat or just eat those smaller foods that I bring with me in an effort to not eat something that's not going to make me feel better at the end of the day. So it's. That's kind of a non negotiable for me. It's where I'm not. I would rather be hungry than eat something that's going to make me feel poorly. And that's how I manage it. A lot of times when I am on these like longer trips and things that I'm doing a lot of it. It can be difficult with time zones or where I am in the world, but you can kind of have a general idea of just going like meat, vegetables and a rice or like a potato in general is pretty consistent at pretty much any part of the globe that you can find yourself. So and if you have to avoid sauces or whatever it might be because you don't know if like maybe that has gluten in it, which is something that I try to avoid in general. You can really kind of strip down any menu no matter where you're at, to just ensure that you're getting like food that's ultimately gonna keep you on whatever type of plan that you're looking.

To stick to then often I feel like one thing that you do well is that you like save. You make the time to sit down at restaurants while you're traveling to make sure that you have a good Fuel source instead of continuing to rely on snacks where historically like I would rely a lot more on snacks. And now likes and being married to you, when I travel even without you, I'm like, I have to make an effort to stop and have a big breakfast at the hotel or something like that that I didn't always prioritize in the past and how much even just starting out your day with a big breakfast that you know you have more control over impacts your satiety and your ability to say no to things that you experience later on in the day. And I'd also say that you do a good job of stopping at like Whole Foods or other grocery stores and then creating your mini fridge in your hotel. Like if you're on, you know, you're in Denver for like a week for training or something like that, where you will stack your refrigerator based on the foods that you know you're gonna eat. Where you get like the salad containers.

Yeah, I mean like on the road, if, if I just don't have a great option from a restaurant standpoint, but there is a grocery store by there, I'll buy the mixed greens salad container, like 10 ounce container, whatever it is. And either if they have pre cooked chicken that's in the deli section or if I'm just buying like deli meat if I have to, if there's no other like really like protein option that's there and then like a container of hummus or something and I'll put all those inside, just inside the plastic container where the lettuce that, that the lettuce came in. And then I'll just shake that up and I'll just eat that as a salad, which is, it's not like it's the world's best salad that you've ever had, but it's hitting a lot of those things that you really need from like a nutritional standpoint to get yourself kind of through the day. So like it's just, it doesn't need to be sexy or whatever. I just know that it's like nourishment that I'm ultimately gonna be better suited to hold off or eat something like that instead of go and eat at some like fast casual or. I mean I haven't had fast food in years, but like when, like many years. Some, I mean, some kind of. I mean we had salad and a chili there and we regretted it afterwards. But that was probably like four years ago.

That was our last time I fasted.

Yeah, but, but even in like some fast casual instances, unless it's like, I mean I love Kava. Chipotle is kind of going downhill a little bit, but we still go there if we. Yeah, we do it from time to time, but in a lot of places, like you'll have a grocery store available but you'll have nothing but fast food restaurants outside of that. In some of these places that I travel and I mean a lot of times if I do have longer travel days and I'm relying on the perfect bar or like the chomps beef stick to give me, give me throughout the day. Sometimes when I'm on these trips I'll just end up having one massive meal like in a late afternoon or something by the time I get into a location. And, and that turns into me like sitting alone at a table at a restaurant ordering two meals and then looking like an absolute psychopath. But, but it gets the job done and it pushes me through and it kind of enables me to kind of do that cycle. And at the end of the day like I still, I'm sleeping well, my energy state is, is good overall and I'm not, I'm not feeling this need to like just go grab anything from like some convenience store that's in the airport.

Yeah.

To get me to the next meal kind of thing because like at the end of the day I just know like again it's like I, I know how I feel when I'm hungry and I can work with that. But I, I don't know how putting that in my body is ultimately going to make me feel from an energy standpoint or cognitive standpoint. So I just don't do it.

Yeah. And they do offer meals for you on the planes like as a pilot, but they're all garbage for the most part. So you just don't eat them.

Yeah, I stopped, I stopped eating this summer actually like after flying with a couple guys who, because I was noticing and everybody's different but I was noticing that I was having some gastrointestinal problems while, while I was flying from eating.

Even with making the like healthiest option and checking off a gluten free meal and those sorts of things.

Yeah, just. And it's just one of those things because I mean I'm not overly familiar with the process that is involved in getting that food. Food to that position. But it's just something that I wasn't feeling good when I was eating and I just decided to stop eating it. And it's been a positive change since.

Then because it's alarming. Like when you have people flying planes that they're not just given like the highest quality of nutrition to be able to support their brain and their energy. And like, it seems like such a liability to me. Obviously we think differently than, than the way that the traditional system thinks.

Yep. I think that's just the reality of catering to the broadest group possible at the greatest scale that they possibly can.

Yeah. And paying for the health care on the back end of the poor health of the employees. That's my only point. And then also another thing that you do really well when you're traveling is always going to the gym of the hotels to fill your water bottles because the gyms of the hotels always have filtered water. Something I learned from you. So we always go into the gym, fill our water bottles a few times, like a day when we're staying in a hotel room to make sure that we have filtered water.

Yeah, that's been, that's been more so. I think it's beginning of last year when I did that metabolomics.

Yeah. Organic acids test that we run in my food is health.

Whatever. Like there's one of the like, toxicity markers or something. And it was a, it was like a byproduct of like plastic production that is often found in water bottles. And it was the first time I had been elevated in it and it was like through the roof. It was like massive increase relative to the one that I had done a couple years prior.

Yeah.

And the only, I mean, the only thing I could really think of is just like how my job had changed because I was. We. We didn't have two kids back to back, so I wasn't on multiple, like maternity leaves one after another. And the only thing I could think of is like, when I am up there flying, I was drinking multiple liter plus liter and a half plastic water bottles and then refilling them. And then whether I'm being. Whether I'm down in the Caribbean or Mexico or grabbing a bottle because it's easier and more convenient when I'm doing layovers on whatever coast that I find myself in or traveling overseas and not having access to filtered water over there, like in the rooms that we were to stay in and just drinking out of plastic water bottles. There. There was definitely like a lot of things that I could look back on and see like, possibly that there was a correlation. And we still haven't, we haven't retested that lab by any means, but I think in the last year I've probably, I've probably had less than, than maybe 20, 30 bottles, like bottles of water, since by just trying to make sure that I'm, like, filling the water bottle up, finding those drinking fountains wherever they might be. And obviously you're limited to, like, whatever type of filtration options that you have, like, when you are in these locations. But. And like, for us, having reverse osmosis at home and the positive changes that that has had on specifically my coffee machine. But. But yeah, just really trying to use our metal water bottles or glass water bottles as much as we possibly can.

Yep. Johnny Kozlowski, thank you for being part of the Being Bridget Show. Thank you for tuning in. I hope that this episode helped you in thinking about ways that you can optimize your own health journey or maybe even just stick with things that you know are important. Having the ability to not sway even when people are pressuring you from your outside influences, being able to positively influence your spouse, to having an impact on your family members. All the things that we discussed today. So thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next time.