Episode 86: 8 Easy Ways to Take Control of Your Health and Prevent and Fight Cancer, with Samantha Harris

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Hi ladies.

So I'm so excited for today. My guest is such a beautiful human. She's just. Fabulous. You're going to love her as much as I do. She is a beacon of light, you know, when you are going through some tough times because she knows, she's been there, she has a beautiful story, and she is on a mission to create healthy women in this world. So I am all about Samantha Harris. I just, I'm loving everything she's doing because we're kind of on the same mission. So Let me just talk about her really quick before we dive in because you probably know Samantha Harris from TV. She was the co-host of Dancing with the Stars and Entertainment Tonight. She's been on a ton of shows. She's an Emmy Award-winning TV host and journalist. She's a bestselling author of a book we're going to talk about today. She's a certified health coach and fitness trainer, nutrition advocate, and promoter of healthy living. So back in 2014, she had stage 2 invasive breast cancer. cancer at 40, and she ended up going on this quest to figure out, like, why did this happen to me and how do I get back to being healthy? And she wrote this book, Your Healthiest Healthy: 8 Easy Steps to Take Control, Help Prevent and Fight Cancer, and Live a Longer, Cleaner, Happier Life. So this book is awesome because it translates comprehensive research-backed knowledge into an easy-to-follow action plan for maximizing health energy, and happiness for life. So Queen of the Kardashian Empire Kris Jenner says, this book will change your life. Dr. Drew Pinsky said, this well-researched book features so much great practical advice. So she is a highly motivated speaker. She's warm, you know, genuine. I just absolutely love her. So she's been, you know, on the COVID of many fitness and health magazines, including Shape, First for Women, Fit Parent, Muscle and Fitness Hers, Pilates Style, Wellness, Women's Running. So, I mean, the list goes on and on of what this woman has accomplished. She was named Survivor of the Year by Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Los Angeles in 2017 and also led its 2018 Parade of Promise. So she serves as an ambassador for Susan G. Komen and the American Cancer Society. And she's a member of the Entertainment Council for Feeding America. So the really cool thing is, alongside her husband, Michael, they founded this online community called Gotta Make Lemonade. It inspires positivity in the face of adversity. So this is why I love her so much, because you can Google and research and find the information to Either, you know, help recover from a cancer diagnosis or prevent it by being healthy. But a big piece that I find so important is your mindset and your positivity. And Samantha has figured this out, and what she has created is really beautiful. So this Gotta Make Lemonade organization, she has, um, A group of women who are just living their best lives. So I encourage you to check her out on Instagram @samanthaharris.tv, okay? And become part of her community. It's beautiful. So you are going to love this episode. Stay with me. We are going to talk about the 8 easy ways to take control of your health. So we're going to dive in. It's awesome. Here we go. Well, welcome, Samantha, to the Functional Gynecologist Podcast.

Thank you. I am so glad to be here, and I am so lucky to have you as an incredible guest expert on my Your Healthiest Healthy Community show. And now I get to be on yours. So this is awesome.

Yes. Oh my gosh. I loved being on your Instagram Live because your community is amazing. Like a bunch of kick-ass women who want to take control of their health and they're doing what they need to do. So that's why I wanted to talk to you today. I want to know, Everything that you're doing with these women, because you're making such an impact. It's beautiful.

Thank you. Thank you. It's so interesting to come from the world that I came from in television. And from the time I was 12, growing up in Minnesota, I asked my parents, hey, can I have an agent? I was this go, go, go, go-getter, right, from this young age. And it's so interesting to have made this pivot. Really, I'm going to be 48 this year, and God, like celebrating every moment of it, obviously, especially being a cancer survivor and, and being now, you know, 40 was when I was diagnosed. So I'm like, bring on the gray hairs. I'll still dye them, but bring them on, bring on the wrinkles. Like, I celebrate that so much. But it's so interesting to have made this career shift and pivot to something that I'm so passionate about, where I never thought I could be as passionate about something as I was about pursuing a career in TV. And it's such a more fulfilling passion because I'm helping so many people in whatever way I can to grasp their— and take a hold and control of their best health and living their healthiest, healthy life possible.

Yeah, I just love it so much. I think that every struggle we go through has a purpose, and the people who live amazing fulfilling lives are the ones who like dig down and do the work and figure out, why did I just go through that hell? Why did this happen to me? And make lemonade out of lemons like you did, right? So I would love for you to share with my listeners like what happened at 40, you know?

I— yes, and I, I, I really feel it's important to share it because we have so many of us who are sort of, you know, so stressed, pulled in 20 different directions, not necessarily taking care of our health because we are taking care of so many other people.

Yes.

And what this cancer diagnosis— and I want to— I'll dive back into the story in a moment— did for me was it really gave me the permission I didn't realize I needed to put myself first in many ways. That doesn't mean I'm not taking great care of my family.

I am. And I—

but I make sure there's time for self-care. And so let me just take you back. I was about to turn 40, 2014. I figured, you know, my dad died of colon cancer at 50. His mom was a breast cancer survivor. I'm as fit and healthy as I've ever been. So you know what, let's set a baseline and get— let's go get one of those mammogram things. So I had a mammogram. The results came back clear. It's what we expected. But Dr. Tabatha— oh, not— I mean, it was just crazy. Only 11 days later, I was changing after a workout. And you know how those sports bras, they constrict you and you're like, I gotta move the girls around a little to the left, a little to the right. Well, thank goodness I did because it was in that that I discovered a lump.

Wow.

And I didn't think it was cancer because, well, I had just had a clear mammogram. So I went to see my OB-GYN because, well, she was the only doctor who did a regular, you know, clinical breast exam. So I called her. She did a quick clinical exam, said it was nothing. I'm turning 40. It's probably glandular and that's what boobs look like at that age. And so she sent me on my way. And a month later, still having that lump there, I said, you know, it's not cancer, but I should get a second opinion. So I went to see my internist, right? What do I know? I didn't think it— same thing. It's nothing, but we'll keep an eye on it if you think it's something. And then before I knew it, the holidays came and left and 4 months had passed. That snarky, pesky little lump was still there. And I finally said, you know, I should go see someone who looks at breasts every day as their specialty. Not for one second realizing, uh, it's only oncologists who actually only do that. So here I was, and I remember walking into the breast center at this hospital in Santa Monica and thinking— and seeing the words oncology, and I think, why am I in a place for cancer? Huh. I mean, I don't have cancer. Did a battery of exams. We did the clinical, just feeling the breast. We did the ultrasound, 2 ultrasounds, a needle biopsy, and actually eventually also an MRI. And the craziest part is not one of the tests actually diagnosed that it was cancer.

Wow.

But, and this is the but, so 2 things. One, we have to be our own best advocates. Had I not kept listening to that inner voice, had I, you know, I pushed it away for a while and finally I got really quiet because sometimes we have to really quiet ourselves to hear the whisper of our inner voice. They're not always screaming at us, right? And, and the constant nagging of my inner voice is what propelled me into action to go get this opinion of the oncologist. And then making sure that we're really going to see the best caregivers we can in our area. And so thankfully, because I was at a great place, this incredible oncologist listened to her gut and she said, you know, it doesn't say— you know, she said, literally she said, I have good news and bad news. The good news is it's not cancer. The bad news is I don't know what it is, and I advise we take it out anyway. Anyhow, and so for a girl who had never had a surgery in her life outside of my wisdom teeth being removed, I went in and I had a lumpectomy. And that also said no cancer until a week later I went for the final pathology results to look at the incision and all of that, told my husband, stay home, it's not cancer, we're good, and found out it was not only ductal carcinoma in situ contained within the duct, but also invasive breast cancer.

Wow.

And that's when my journey began.

That's incredible. I mean, what an important point. You need to trust your intuition and listen to yourself because you above everyone knows your body and you know when something's not right. And I hear that all the time with my patients, like, I keep telling my doctor and they just aren't listening, but I know I don't feel right. And so I love that you're like telling women, go find another opinion, keep searching, get You got the answers you're looking for because it saved your life. It did.

And that's one thing why I love what you do, right? I mean, you are a gynecologist, but you have this functional medicine approach so that your patients aren't— you're not just going to treat what the symptoms are and try to just patch things up. You're looking for the root cause. And I didn't even know what a functional doc was. I didn't know what an integrative doctor was. And now I have a whole wonderful slew of other medical practitioners who go beyond what the traditional med schools teach them. And we have to— thankfully, there's so many great resources online, and now we can do so many virtual appointments if you don't have a great functional doc in your area. But that's why you're giving not just your listeners, but also your private patients a gift.

Well, thank you. I mean, it's so important, and I would much rather intervene before you get the diagnosis, right? Like, if we would've stopped to talk to you you maybe at 37 or 38, we would have found out you were having symptoms of estrogen dominance or other inflammatory conditions or something driving this process. So I love your book. I think it's super important that everybody reads it because you are breaking it down for like, let's get healthy and let's not wait for this diagnosis. Right? Right.

Right. Well, so here's the crazier thing. So since my diagnosis, I've been a national ambassador for Susan G. Komen. And from working so closely with them and all the work that they do to empower women to know their breasts, to take action, to get their mammograms, but also the research for ideally finding a cure at some point. Um, what I learned from them baffled me. So 1 in 8 women, as you well know, will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.

Huh.

And so here I thought, okay, well, 1 in 8 women, my dad had colon cancer. There's a colon-breast connection. My, his mom had breast cancer. It must be genetic. Well, only 5 to 10% of breast cancers are actually hereditary. So when I learned that the battery beyond the BRCA gene, I had a battery of other more extensive genetic testing, and granted, we don't know all the possible, we haven't found all the genes yet, but there are a lot of them out there, and I had no genetic link to my cancer. And so being that my background is in journalism, I put my research hat on and I began reading everything I could, speaking to as many experts as I could, And I determined it really is what we put in, on, and around our bodies that affect our overall wellbeing, that turn on or off dormant cancer genes or other autoimmune or chronic disease genes that are just living in cells that living in our body, right? That just are waiting to get the action they need.

Yeah.

Or ideally, you know, through— I love the study of epigenetics, which obviously talks about how your environment and your behaviors, meaning how you're eating, what you're putting on your body, all of those things, affect what's happening inside. And that we— where I came up, you know, I grew up thinking, well, gosh, if, you know, if diabetes is in my family or if cancer's in my family, well, uh, throw my hands up, I guess I'm gonna get it too. So it's just gonna happen at some point. But no, we can be in control. We can take control and change how we are living our lives.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, oh my gosh, so many good points. Where do we even begin? So you created this whole community of women and you educate and empower. And I cannot even explain what I think is the most important piece that you bring to the table is your mindset, your positivity, and your beautiful quest for just living a happy life that supersedes anything that you can do physically or medically, all of that. I just believe in the power of positivity and you just take it to the next level. So—

Thank you.

I would love for you to speak about that a little bit because I really do think that's Why you are thriving as well as you are.

It's really, it is so true. Mindset plays a huge part. It had played a huge part in my cancer recovery, but also understanding that we have the power to take control of our health. And so I wanna share that with your listeners. So first of all, when I would, I want you guys to think, so I wrote this Your Healthiest Healthy book in 2018, and I don't for one second want I don't want you to think, your listeners to think, well, gosh, she was just Miss Polly Positive all the time. No big deal. Here she had cancer. Boom, boom, boom. Walk in the park. She just changed her mindset and got with— no. I innately am a positive person and cancer struck that down so hard that I thought I was going to be crushed under the weight of it.

Mm-hmm.

My daughters were 3 and 6 at the time. My husband thought, I don't know how to raise girls. What the hell am I going to do if you're not around? How am I gonna live without you? You lost your dad to cancer. Is that the life that I'm looking for for my family now? What are we gonna do without you? I was so riddled with anxiety that I could literally feel it, like this energy, a very uncomfortable energy vibrating through my body. And I knew I had a long path ahead of me. I had 3 surgeries in 2014. That also came with 3 long recoveries and getting myself back. And I said, you know what, I can't feel like this. I can't go on feeling like this. And there are kind of just a couple of ways to take that. You either drown yourself in drugs and alcohol and negative behaviors and hateful attitudes and a negative mindset, which is a really horrible way to live and a horrible way to model for your kids. Yeah, and not be there for them. And I think having kids helped me really say, you know what? I've got to choose the other paths. I need to flip this cancer diagnosis on its head, and anything that comes at me, I need to figure out where is where's the positivity in it? Where's that silver lining? And it some days it wasn't easy, but positive self-talk. Really got me through, and I didn't even realize that was a thing back then. Now it's like one of those go-to to feel like, "Whoa, what are your top tips for anxiety?" I was like, "Well, and you know, dealing with stress and building a positive mindset." Well, there positive self-talk is one of the top ones. Control what you can control, and worry when you have to worry. And I can delve into those a little bit more, but those are my three main things. So with positive self-talk, this is what it looked like. You have a cancer diagnosis. What's good about it? And you have to fight off the urge to say, well, nothing. This sucks.

Right.

Okay, wait. No, no, no. Wait. I'm gonna dig deep. Wait. What's good? Well, we caught it pretty early, actually, so I have a great prognosis. That is fantastic. What else is good? I have a wonderful support squad. I have great health insurance. Okay, good. You're on a roll, Samantha. Keep going. And literally saying these things out loud Or looking in a mirror and saying them into the mirror and really feeling it, right? Positive affirmations are things that you say with an I am or I have statement that don't necessarily have to be true, but the more you say it, the more you believe it. So, you know, those were the— but those things did exist. And also on top of that, I was in otherwise really great health. I was exercising regularly. I knew that that would contribute to making my risks during surgery less, my recovery road a lot faster. The risk, complications, loss. So that positive self-talk is what helped me get through.

Yeah. Well, and I love the point that you made. It wasn't always easy. That was something I had to actually work on and do and create and shift your mindset. So I love that. I think that we as women are just It's ingrained in us to take care of everybody else and put ourselves last every time. I hear it every day. Why didn't you exercise? Well, because I had to do this and this and this, you know, and we just don't make ourselves a priority. And, you know, I love what you're saying, like self-care is selfless. It's showing love to your family because if your husband had to raise those girls without you, That wasn't a loving thing for you to do, to not be healthy and not take care of yourself. So being, you know, taking care of you was a selfless thing to do. And I just love that you're spreading that message.

So thank you. Yeah, it is something that, uh, it, you know, we, we, we have these limiting beliefs, right, that we can't, we can't do enough, we are not enough. We aren't capable of XYZ. And when we start to do something, whether it, you know, setting small goals, and this is what I work with. So I'm certified as a health coach, as you guys know. I'm, you know, I have my wellness community, and whether it's working with the community or with my private clients, one of the things that we talk about is setting small goals. So I think we live in this society where it's all about achievement, and we have to set the bar so high Yeah. Oftentimes falter, and that— what that does to us internally, right? We feel like a failure. We feel like we never can get it done, whatever. So when we set— I say lower the bar. Set the bar low so that you can have that feeling of achievement. Because if, let's say, you are a couch potato, you just— you haven't been able to work out in the last 7 years, 10 years, whatever it is, and you say, you know what, I am just going to commit To 5 minutes, 2 times a week. And, without putting the judgment hat on of going, only 5 minutes, 2 times a week? Well, that's not even worth it. No, it is. It's so worth it because what happens is you achieve the 2 times a week for 5 minutes. And, maybe one day you're going for 5 and you're like, you know what? I'm feeling awesome because those endorphins kicked in and I'm feeling hot and awesome. And, you go 7 minutes, you go 10 minutes.

Right.

So setting the bar to a place where you can achieve success is really essential.

Oh my gosh, I couldn't agree more. I love those easy wins because you need to have some self-confidence and you need to realize that you are capable of doing anything that you set your mind to. But yes, let's baby step it. I love the baby steps. So your book, you talk about like 8 easy steps to really transforming your health. Can you kind of go over those quickly?

Yes, absolutely. So, and I'll kind of give you a little— there are different pockets. So when it comes to nutrition, right, we don't have to do a 180 overnight. We've been eating however we've been eating for however many decades, right? And is it gonna prevent cancer and heart disease and type 2 diabetes if we, if we don't change overnight? No, we, what we need is to have slow small, manageable steps because it's about long-term success, sustainability.

Yes.

Whether you want to be a vegan or keto or paleo or pescatarian, it doesn't matter what dietary theory you subscribe to. You have to figure out what's right for you. We're all bio-individuals, so what works well for me might not work well for you, etc. Every guru in the in the nutrition space would agree that starting with a plant-based whole foods foundation is key. So when you sit down to your next meal, think, how can I get more veggies into this meal? How can I add some more leafy greens or green anything? Green foods are the top of the whole nutrient density pyramid. If they're— I should say the base in that respect, but the very top of the list. And so how can you ideally aiming to fill your plate half Half full, half at least full of veggies at every meal.

Yes.

But it doesn't mean you have to start today doing it. Maybe just start with it with your breakfast. Maybe you can start with a smoothie, start integrating that and putting— because that's a really easy way to get a lot of healthy, wonderful nutrient-dense foods into your life, whether it's, you know, the greens or the chia seeds and the flaxseeds and the matcha green tea powder. I mean, on my Your Healthiest Healthy website, I have my I have my Samantha Signature Smoothie, which is basically like a kitchen sink smoothie. I put everything in there that's awesome for me that I wouldn't necessarily eat on its own. That's sort of in the nutrition element area. Then when it comes to movement, we just sort of talked about that, so I'll skip over that. That's also, you just have to start. Start moving your body. One point I'll make on that before I move to the next is our bodies crave movement.

Yeah.

We are not that far from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. And, you know, when you look at the history of the, you know, the world and the universe, right, we are just still a tiny little fragment of that. So we're not, you know, developmentally that much further from where they were. They moved all day long hunting for their food, eating, you know, whatever they could when they could. Oftentimes, right, they would have— they would only have the big meals when they could get a good kill. And otherwise it was a lot of berries and veggies and vegetation that they were grazing on as they were moving their body every day. So our body is about growth or decay. When our cells are being told we need to move, we need to get action happening, our cells are growing and they're still proliferating in a good— the good way, not the bad way of proliferation. And they're continuing our longevity. When we are sedentary, right, whether it's sitting in our car watching, you know, driving to work or sitting watching Netflix, we're going from sitting to sitting to sitting to sitting. So when we're sedentary, what's actually happening, we have cell die-off daily. It's just part of obviously what we need to do for regeneration, but we're not regenerating, we're just dying off. So we need to tell our bodies, oh wait, I do need energy, I do need to move. And the more you move, even when you're tired, the more energy you will actually have. So that's for sort of the movement and fitness element of it. Really important. The mindset, we talked about that already a little bit. The mindset is another huge part of that. So not only just what you're doing internally, but also who are you surrounding yourself with?

Yeah.

Are you surrounding yourself with other positive people? I call them positive Paulies in the book. Or are you surrounding yourself with the negative Nellies, right? And sometimes we have to really assess who they are and what we can do to either set boundaries or extract them from our lives completely. I actually take you through a process of asking different questions to yourself about specific people to be able to assess which one are they in your life. Look, we're not going to be cutting off our relationship with an important family member completely, but I also have clients who have actually had to do that because it was too negative, depending on what your upbringing was. So, you know, and it might simply be that mom that you see at school drop-off every day who, every time you leave a conversation with her, makes you feel less than, makes you feel just that stressed, your shoulders are your ears, And so you decide, you know what, next time I see her, I'm just, oh, hi. And you just, you just, you know, extract yourself from that situation. So really figuring out how to deal with those things are also really important.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I couldn't agree more. I think that is so important to figure out boundaries for yourself and realize how other people impact your energy, and they can drain you and create Inflammation and dysfunction physically in your body just from those interactions alone. It's— they're toxic.

Those, those relationships can be— when we have negative relationships, negative interactions on a regular basis with specific people, the amount of cortisol that surges through your body is so detrimentally impactful that we really do need to find and ask ourselves the question, that I list in Your Healthiest Healthy about whether those people are detracting from our lives, right? There are life givers and there are life takers. Who do you wanna be and who do you wanna surround yourself with, right?

Yes, exactly.

Love it. Okay.

What else is there?

Okay. So, one of the huge things that was life-changing for me, well, 2 things. The biggest change was really adding more veggies that really engaged My body in a way that made me more energized, more vibrant than I had ever been. But the other really big thing was because I spent my TV career in a hair and makeup chair every single day being shellacked with, gosh, who knows what kind of toxic products, right? The hairspray to get that helmet head that could last 10 hours under the bright lights, the fumes of all that, the inhaling of all that. I never realized how harmful that could be.

Yeah.

Right? So a lot of us are aware about the pesticides in our foods and perhaps starting to buy more organic and definitely non-GMO. But what about the toxic effects of your daily makeup, your shampoos, your cleaning products? Are there carcinogens and endocrine disruptors in there? Right? Endocrine disruptors are those things that mess with our hormones. And I think when we think about hormones, we think about estrogen and testosterone and are we a male or female and are we Are we having sex or not? Like, right, am I horny? Am I not? Who knows, right? But, but hormones, they regulate so many important parts of your entire system. So if you have lots of products you're putting on your body that are endocrine disruptors, that mimic estrogen, that mess with the daily makeup of how your body should be functioning, it tends to lead to chronic diseases and autoimmune disorders. So I slowly started first with my deodorant. That was sort of the gateway. I had a lot of cancer survivors say, well, are you still using aluminum in your deo? What do you mean aluminum? I don't even know that. I don't know the ingredients in my deodorant.

Yeah.

And even though the proof is still, the science is still a little wonky on whether or not aluminum can lead to breast cancer, I quickly got rid of my aluminum in my deodorant. And that was my gateway into changing and looking at my other products. So, start small. You don't have to throw— I mean, look, I know how much we spend on our lotions, our potions, our expensive makeup. So, I'm not saying you have to dump out your whole makeup bag tonight, but maybe just start with your concealer or ideally your foundation because it's going over, right, covering the most amount of skin. And then, start to level up. What's in your eyeshadow? And thankfully, there are so many wonderful— There are so many wonderful, clean brands out there that a lot of people probably already know this since they work with you as the functional gynecologist. But so the European Union bans over 1,300 ingredients as possibly carcinogenic or harmful or a known carcinogen or endocrine disruptor. And the US bans 11.

Ugh. That's just— that makes me sick. It's so wrong.

So disheartening. government also bans nearly about the same as the European Union. The FDA doesn't have our best health at heart.

No.

Our current system that we're operating under, the Cosmetics Act that was passed in 1938, has not been substantially updated since then. There's been a bill stuck in Congress since 2015 that is the Personal Care and Cosmetics Act that would have more oversight for the FDA for companies. Right now, the companies self-regulate. If they decide that they want to put phthalates or parabens or mica or talc into their products or formaldehyde, I mean, the list is long of the things that are harmful, they can.

Yeah.

They don't care. When we take control of our health and what our products You'll start to realize there are, thankfully, so many great options out there. 2 things, 2 resources. If there's time, I'd love to share.

Yeah, please.

One is the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org. EWG does some wonderful things. First of all, they're a nonprofit. They are in DC lobbying Congress all the time. They're the ones who actually spearheaded— I don't know if you have noticed, but when you read your nutrition label on foods. There's the calories, the fats, the sugars, the carbs and sugars. But now under the line of sugars, so in the past, let's say you opened, you bought a bag of frozen strawberries, it would say 13 grams of sugar. Well, clearly it's just pure strawberries, so it's just pure fructose that comes from the natural strawberry. And let's say you look at the back of a Snickers bar and it also says 13 grams of sugar. Well, how are you to know if— I mean, clearly most of us would know the fruit's gonna be the safer bet, but how would you know from a nutritional standpoint? Well, EWG helped to— now they have a line that's added called added sugars. So you'll see carbs, sugars, added sugars. So now that Snickers bar that may have been 13 grams— it might be a lot more than that, but I'm just using that as a base— 13 grams of sugar will then have added sugars, 12 grams of Yes. Whereas the strawberries will have 0 grams of added sugar. EWG does some great stuff. They have some fantastic tools. They have a list for foods, for produce with the most pesticide-heavy and the least pesticide-heavy. It's called the Dirty Dozen, which is the 12 most pesticide-heavy fruits and vegetables, and the Clean 15, which would be the least pesticide-heavy. Then, of course, they have a full list as well of the 40 or 50, whatever ones that they test every year. But when you're looking to spend money on organic produce, if you don't want to buy everything organic, because I know our pocketbooks are tight these days, then you can say, all right, well, you know what, I'm just at least going to make sure that my apples and my strawberries and my lettuce and all the things on the Dirty Dozen are organic.

Yeah, I love those lists.

It's a good one, right? And then when it comes to makeup, same thing. They actually offer something called Skin Deep, which is a database that has does thousands of, tens of thousands of different makeup and skincare and shampoo products. And, and actually also cleaning products, but it's listed a little differently. And they give a rating of 1 to 10, 1 being the cleanest, 10 being the most toxic. So you could look up a specific item of a brand, a particular mascara or whatever it is, or lipstick, and they'll say, okay, it's a 4 or it's a 7. That score score is actually an average of the individual scores of every ingredient. The thing to be mindful is if you have a product that is pretty clean but it has fragrance in it, fragrance is actually a 9.

Really toxic.

The reason is because it's proprietary. Those third parties who provide that fragrance to the company who's adding it into their That third party doesn't have to disclose what chemicals are in that fragrance. So it's best to avoid fragrance altogether.

Yes.

But also that's going to skew the final number. And when it comes to cleaning supplies, they have an A through F rating. A, of course, being just like in school, the best. F being you flunked. And that also helps for buying products.

Yeah, I love that. I think it's so important. And fragrance, oh my gosh, if anybody's using a Glade plug-in, please, Please stop ASAP. Those are one of the worst endocrine disruptors there are. I mean, they will just jack up your hormones. So I love that you made that point about the fragrances because we really don't know what's in it or how toxic it is. So important. Okay.

And the candles too, by the way. When you buy your candles, you have a light and then you have— and a lot of the Candles have wicks that are made of lead. So as you're burning it, you're putting lead into the air that you're now inhaling. And the wax, really, you want to go for a cotton wick and either beeswax or soy for your candles.

Yeah. Oh, that's a great point. So do you have any makeup companies that you love and trust and promote?

I do. I do. I mean, not that I'm an ambassador for or promote at all, but yes. If we don't— it takes a lot of time to go on the EWG website and look at your product and enter either individually enter each ingredient, which I spend a lot of time doing myself, or even just looking at the ingredient, the actual particular product itself. It takes a lot of time. Thankfully, first, big companies even like Target and Sephora are starting to have these green and clean shelves or areas of their store.

Right.

Now, I haven't looked enough into seeing what their parameters are to see if they really fall within my really strict preferences.

Right.

But they're definitely a step up, and I'm so happy to see these big brands getting on board. But also, unlike— but like going to a Sephora, there are some online retailers who have very strict protocols of what brands they allow to sell online. On their websites. And they sometimes even go beyond the European Union's 1,300 list of banned ingredients. Sometimes they even go into the multi-thousands of banned ingredients. So those websites are Detox Market, Follain, which is F-O-L-L-A-I-N, and Credo Beauty. Those are the 3 that I tend to go to. Even if I don't buy from their website, it allows me to say, okay, look, I can learn about these other clean brands. Some of the brands for makeup that I love, I'm a huge, huge fan, probably my favorite is called Crunchy. It's sold only directly from— Crunchy with an I at the end. It's sold directly through reps. Kind of a Beautycounter is another one. They're both multi-level marketing companies that sell, but their products, what I love about Crunchy, actually I think pretty almost everything that I have on my face face is that, um, except for my mascara. It's the one thing that's still dirty because I can't find a mascara that will do the job I need for my wilty lashes that wilt after I curl them. And I try the— all the others. I can't even use regular mascara. I have to use waterproof or my lashes will wilt. So, right, it's like that 90/10 rule, whether it's with food or with your beauty products. Figure out what you need the most, what works for you. Um, so Crunchy, uh, Beautycounter. RMS is nice. Really clean, beautiful. ILIA, I-L-I-A, is another wonderful one. Even Bobby Brown, the guru Bobby Brown in makeup. She sold her brand that carries her name. It's a toxic brand. She's even distanced herself from it, even though it still has her name. She actually went to the same health coaching institute, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, that I went to, and she's a certified health coach as well now.

Awesome.

Yeah. I don't think she's practicing as a health coach, but what she did is she went to this— it's a year-long program. It's an incredible program. intensive. And what she did is she actually launched a brand called Jones Road. And actually, Bobbi Brown was a guest as well, like you were, Dr. Tabatha, in my Your Healthiest Healthy Community, where she— Jones Road is all clean. It's a very natural, like super uber natural looking. So if you're looking for more va-va-voom, it's probably not the brand for you. If you're looking for like, I just want to like look fresh and like me, but like Like kind of an awesomer version of me.

Yeah.

That's what her line's all about. By the way, any of your listeners who want to follow me on Instagram, which is SamanthaHarrisTV, and then send me a DM, I'll shoot you guys some of this info, or if you guys have questions or you find a brand, you're like, Samantha, I don't know if this is good, I'm really active on it and really try to get back to people. Obviously, for the members of Your Healthiest Healthy Community, which is a subscription based membership. Every week I do a live coaching session with them. I bring in a live guest expert like awesome Dr. Tabatha. I, um, I— and I have some really huge gurus in the health and nutritious nutrition space that I've already had on and who are coming up soon, from Dr. Michael Breus, who is known as the Sleep Doctor. You see him on the Today Show and Good Morning America a lot, to Dr. Joel Fuhrman, who— whose book Eat to Live is phenomenal. And anyway, the list goes on. If you guys know the Blue Zones, I have Dan Buettner, who is the creator of the Blue Zones, where he studied the longest-lived people in the world, who are the most number of people who've lived to 100 or more, still like virile and chopping wood. So anyway, so I do a live coaching session, a live guest expert, and because I've been a certified trainer for more years than I'd like to admit, I also I also do a live workout every week that's for all levels with modifications to level it down to ramping it up and all of that. So I would love to invite your listeners to become a member because I'm very active and then respond even more so.

Yay. I love that so much. All those links will be in my show notes, definitely, because they need to connect with you. They need to get on Instagram, go to Samantha Harris TV, and join your group. Like, get part of this amazing, beautiful community and just reclaim your health. I just— there's nothing better you could do for yourself, right?

Yeah, that we have to— if we— like you said earlier, self-care is selfless. And self-care isn't just, you know, going to get a massage. It is working out. It is taking time with your girlfriends. It is taking a bath at night or foam rolling. It is reading a book. It's all those things that you're doing to take time to breathe and enhance your life. It is giving yourself a nutritious meal, right? If it means putting a Post-it note on the fridge to say, nourish yourself today, as a reminder to not choose the cake that might be sitting in there from the birthday party last night, which we all do. I mean, look, we— I know.

You beat yourself up. You just have to keep moving forward and keep better choices, right?

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And we do have the power to change. We do have the power to change our palate, right? Sometimes they tell you when you're bringing up kids, they say, give the kids something 10 times before they might like it. We as adults sometimes need to keep trying it 10 times.

Exactly. I think you need to give yourself more credit. You are capable of changing everything about you, what you eat, how you move, getting off the couch, how you think, who you surround yourself with. So thank you for being such a beacon I just, I love you. You're the best.

Oh my gosh, you are a bright light, and I appreciate— I'm so glad we have connected. And the other last bit too, just before we go, with different pillars of reaching your healthiest healthy life is— and it's part of the mindset, but really it is mindfulness and breathwork, whether it's full-on meditations or even just taking 30-second to 2-minute micro-meditations.

Mm-hmm.

Through the day, it really helps you to refocus, to center yourself, and being able to learn to breathe through stressful situations. So if you're sitting in traffic or that jerk cuts you off or the mom at school says something rude and you let it almost deflect right off you because you take a breath and you start to learn how to breathe properly and breathe right and breathe often, not in the way that, you know, that is under your control, is super Super important.

Oh my gosh, what a great point! I love doing that just to like recenter, refocus, set my intention. It just it can totally shift how you're feeling within minutes.

So it does, it does. And for for those who are interested, I also am doing a couple of wellness retreats. So finally, I've been waiting for COVID. I don't know. Now now it's you know it's it's. It's on, it's off, who knows what's happening, but, but my retreats are happening. So all that information is also in the links in my bio on Instagram.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Samantha.

You're the best. Hey, you know what, I'm gonna throw one last thing. You know what, for any of your listeners who DM me on Instagram, so again, Samantha Harris TV, if they're interested in coming to one of my retreats, I will throw a discount their way, at least $100 or more, and a free consult with me. So just, you guys, you know, let me know that you heard me here with Dr. Tabatha, and we can, we can do that.

Oh my gosh, that is so awesome. I really want to go to this retreat, so I hope I can make it happen.

Yeah, I would love it. I'd love nothing more. Thank you for having me.

My pleasure. You better come back again sometime.

Absolutely. Wow.

Isn't Samantha just a wealth of knowledge? And I love her spirit and her energy. She has it all figured out. So I encourage you to get her book, Your Healthiest Healthy, and really start to take those baby steps to implementing a new way of life. You know, if you're not moving your your body regularly. Start moving it, doing those baby steps. Start swapping out the dirty beauty care products for cleaner products. Start adding more vegetables into your diet. I know these seem basic, but they can have a profound impact on how you're feeling and what's happening in your body. I don't want you to get to the point of getting a cancer diagnosis to these changes. It shouldn't have to be like that, you know? So I just love when people take their adversities and, like, try to make the world a better place. So I love Samantha for that. I think she's fabulous. My biggest takeaway today— oh my goodness— listen to your body. We have so much intuition and we— I think we're really really in tune with it as children. You know, when we are uncomfortable, we get a tummy ache. You know, our little voices tell us to stay away from danger, that type of thing. But we're kind of trained to ignore that as we age and, you know, poo-poo it and not worry about it. And I really think if you can get back into tune with what your body's telling you, Then you're going to be so much better off. And oftentimes that looks like meditating, getting in— you know, I will physically lay in bed and do a body scan. And what am I feeling? And what— how is that a good or a bad feeling? Why is it happening? Does it go away when I acknowledge it? Does it intensify? You know, these are all things that I've learned from studying guided meditation with Joseph Goldstein. But if you can really hone in on what is your body trying to tell you, then when something's not right, like Samantha was saying, she just knew that lump didn't belong there and there was something going on, and she was persistent, but it was because she was listening to her intuition. And so if you can tap into that and start to listen to what are these signals your body's telling you, I think you're going to make huge strides. And I come— I always come back to symptoms. Symptoms are a message from your body that something is not right. It's a warning sign. It's your body screaming at you to listen and investigate. And so symptoms are not to be covered up. They're not a nuisance to try and ignore or get rid of. They are a warning sign. They are a message to say, why is this happening? What is going on that my body's telling me this? What is my body telling me? So that was my golden nugget from this episode. I hope you got something out of it to add to all the other golden nuggets from all the other episodes because, you know, our life is a journey. You're on this journey to be your best self and maybe you don't have any kind of cancer, autoimmune disease, any major diagnoses. That's amazing. But we all have room for improvement to live our most vital and beautiful lives. So I love that you're here sharing this time with me and that, you know, I feel really honored that you would trust me to, you know, listen to the guests I bring on. I make sure like they're top-notch and what they're saying is true to what I believe. And, you know, I just— I'm so passionate about educating you guys to just have informed choices in your health. Ask questions, keep searching for answers so you can be your best version of you. So shoot me your questions, shoot me your comments. If it sucks, let me know that too. Like, I want to know what I can change. I know my voice isn't so hot, but, um, that's what happens when you finally go to a concert after a year and a half. So, all right, ladies, keep working on being your best selves. Share this with every woman you know because we are a sisterhood. We need to lift each other up and support each other. It's not a competition. So Share this with all the women you love and know. Shoot me your messages. Give me, you know, a review. I would love it and I appreciate it. And then come back next week. So have a kick-ass week, ladies.