Healing Hair: 3 Things I Did To Holistically Solve My Hair Loss Problem Jennifer Dent Brown

Hey, Lux Cypher, welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. As I am recording this, it is a Thursday and I am preparing to make a quick trip down to Florida for Mother's Day weekend. And I of course will make some time for the beach and/or the pool. I haven't even checked the weather yet, so hopefully the weather is good, but I am so grateful that I have a business where I can just hop in the plane and fly 2.5 hours south to go to warmer climate to see my family. It really is a blessing to be an entrepreneur and to be a coach. So let's talk about hair loss today. I know this is a topic that I have not talked about in, in, in a lot of detail on the podcast, but before I actually dive into the pod— into the topic of hair loss, I want to make sure that you, as my listener, as a LuxeLifer, I want to make sure that you're getting everything that I have created for you. So go to jenniferdent.com. And click freebies in the menu. And from there, you can sign up for my email club called Forever Well. And once you're inside the club— I laugh when I say that to myself— you can expect to receive emails from me with quick tips to keep you losing weight instead of gaining weight. Um, you'll get to hear Stop Dieting Forever success stories to keep you inspired. And you'll get exclusive discounts on a lot of my favorite products and early announcements of special offers. In fact, I have something new that I will be announcing to the members of the Forever Well Club first. So if you are a ride or die Luxxipher, you've been listening to the podcast and you want to be the first to know what's happening inside Stop Dieting Forever, uh, you want to make sure you join the Forever Well email club. So you can go to jenniferdent.com/emailclub. It is 100% free to join. Just, just, you know, follow the instructions when you go on. Um, if you can't remember jenniferdent.com/emailclub, the links are in the show notes, or just go to my homepage jenniferdent.com and you'll see freebies at the top on the menu, and you can go from there. All right. I want to make sure that you know about the, the club. All right, y'all, so let's talk about hair. If you know me, you know that I am low-key obsessed with my hair, have always been obsessed with my hair. And a few weeks ago in episode 197, the title of that podcast is 3 Things That Are Keeping You from Losing Weight and It's Not the Food. Um, I was discussing hormones and some of the symptoms of dysregulated hormones. So I'll put the link in the show notes. You can go back and listen to that episode, but I very briefly shared my story of learning that I had adrenal fatigue caused by high levels of chronic stress. And one of my early symptoms was hair thinning. Like I just mentioned that very quickly in that podcast. and I talked about a supplement that I was taking, and a couple people emailed me and they took advantage of the $20. Because y'all like, y'all like a good discount, right? Y'all like a good deal. Um, you can get $20 off of your, uh, first order of Nutrafol, but I'll talk about that in a second. But I was talking about how my hair was thinning, and that was one of the first signs of my hormonal imbalance. And I remember at the time, I just didn't like— my hair just didn't look as full around my face, and I could tell it was definitely thinning. It wasn't like— here's the funny thing, like, one of the benefits— I'm using benefits in air quotes— of doing this work as a coach, as running my own business, is teaching clients. I'm always on video, and a lot of what I do is recorded. So the group coaching calls are recorded, the curriculum that I have every time I teach. Inside the program, it's recorded. So I have ooh gobs of recordings, ooh gobs of trainings that I can go back and see old videos of myself. And so it was very clear to me when I looked back at the videos from like a year ago, 2 years ago, that my hair was much longer, much thicker, and much fuller, especially framing my face. So At one point when I noticed it was really bad, my hairstylist took a photo of my hair because, you know, that's what we do. I wanted that before photo from her vantage point. So I was— imagine me sitting in the salon chair and she had washed and shampooed my hair, blow-dried it straight. She hadn't curled it yet, so it was straight. Um, and she took a photo like standing above me from, you know, because she was standing, I was sitting. and it was before my hair was like full and curled and the, the breakage and the thinness was so apparent. It was like, I was mortified. I was mortified. So after seeing that photo, I immediately went into solution mode. I was like, okay, Jennifer, we got a problem here. How are we going to fix it? And as I've been talking to different women, uh, what I— for some reason I talk about my hair a lot, or I get comments on my hair, or people will, you know, say things about my hair, and we just end up having a conversation about hair. And I end up sharing, like, last year, about 18 months ago, my hair was extremely thin around the edges. Um, and if you have been— if you're in my community and you've been rocking with me for a while, you'll probably go back and look at some older videos and be like, oh yeah, I know, I can see what she's talking about. So we talk about hair and a lot of y'all are struggling with hair thinness and hair changes and you're like, what is happening? And I end up sharing my story. So, you know, I was like, you know, I think I just want to take this to, take this to the podcast and explain to people my thought process and how I went about solving this health issue. Because for me, That was the first thing I thought about, like, oh, this is a nutrition deficiency. This is a health issue. This is something that I can fix. I'm using fix in air quotes with nutrition first and supplementation versus running to the doctor. In fact, one of my stylists— I have more than one— one of my stylists was like, you should go see a dermatologist. And I was like, a dermatologist? I was like, because she wanted to make sure it wasn't like alopecia or something different. But because the breakage was very concentrated around my hairline, it was very clear that it was probably stress-related, hormonal, hormone-related. So I was like, okay, I'll, you know, put that in the back of my head. But I was like, a dermatologist is going to give me, you know, some type of injection or give me something topical to use. And that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to take a more holistic approach first. So I want to share with you my process and what worked well for me. Take with it, take from it what you want to. And if this is an issue for you, I hope that my story helps you. And of course, if you have any additional questions after you listen to the podcast, please email me, um, and just ask. I'm— or send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook. I'm more than happy to respond to you. All right, so let's talk about— let's, you know, before we talk about the 3 things that I did, let's talk about the causes of hair loss first. Uh, there are many, so it could be anything from genetics to hormonal imbalances to lifestyle to nutritional deficiencies. I mean, any of those things can contribute to hair loss at any point in your life. So it's very hard to pinpoint exactly what needs to be addressed. So you, you know, you can spend a lot of time like figuring out like, oh, this is, you know, I think my hair loss is because of this. I think it's because of this. You could be wrong. I think the one most apparent case of hair loss and hair thinning would be after you have a baby. So postpartum shedding, that is very common. It's very like obvious. You have a baby, your hormones are already in flux, you have other symptoms. And your hair is shedding, that is a temporary imbalance because you just had a baby. But for the rest of us who didn't just give birth and all of a sudden your hair is healthy and then all of a sudden it's not, it's not something you just have to like suck it up and just deal with it and say, oh, it's just age or it's just whatever. Like, no, there are things that you can do to improve the health of your hair holistically. When I say holistically, I'm saying like you're doing it from the inside out, not from an external topical injection or Rogaine cream or, you know, I didn't try any of those things. I don't know if they work or not. And, you know, they— Rogaine is like a huge business, so it works for somebody. But I decided that I wanted to fix this problem from the inside out. So if you see that you want to begin a hair health journey, because that's what it is when you have a physical symptom, like you need to lose weight or you need to improve your— the quality of your hair, it is a journey because you are going to be experimenting. You're trying different things. You're tracking your data, you're evaluating, and you're just trying different things to see what is going to move the needle. So for me, there was 3 things that I looked at, and you can take these for yourself as well. Supplementation is one thing that I did. Stress management, which I adopted later on in the journey. And then hair-friendly— hair-friendly foods. If you're watching the— if you're watching the video, I'm like, how many fingers am I holding up right now? Hair-friendly foods. Of course, nutrition is the first thing that I go to, but let's talk about supplementation first. And so this is very, this is very shortly after I had the photo. I'm trying to think, was it before the photo or after the photo? I think it was after the photo that my hairstylist took. So I was visiting one of my estheticians here in Philly because I have more than one. Shout out to Dr. Gina Charles. She is the owner of Serenity Aesthetics and Wellness Medical Spa here in Philly. She is a board-certified family doctor and a skin of color specialist. So she is amazing. If you're in Philadelphia and you have any type of anything that you want some help with, and especially if you're a woman of color, go see Dr. G. She is amazing. Um, anyway, she was hosting a special event at her, her office. And so I was invited and I went and it wasn't even about— it was about laser hair removal. So she has this brand new— well, it was new then, but she has this fabulous new laser that is great for darker skin and it does all the things. So I went to the event to learn about the laser, but in the meantime I was talking to her and somehow we started talking about hair and I was telling her about my hair issues. And so she showed me some products that she was already using and she shared her own personal story of hair regrowth. She had gone through an extremely stressful, circumstance where her child, her youngest child, was in the ICU. Her hair was falling out, and she's got long, beautiful dreadlocked hair, and she like literally had bald patches in her hair. And so she showed me her before and after pictures, and she told me what she was taking. She was taking a supplement called Nutrafol and using their topical serum. And then she showed me what her hair looked like now, and she was like, I wasn't even taking it consistently. She's like, I didn't even take the vitamins that often. I was really using the serum more. So I was like, whatever, like, give it to me. So she was selling it. I bought it at the event. I bought my first 3-month supply, and I was already familiar with Nutrafol because they have commercials and I'm in their target market. So I'm seeing the commercials. I've looked at their website, I've seen their before and after pictures. I've Googled Nutrafol, you know, before and after photos and seen people's testimonials and all the things. So I already knew that, you know, it looked like from a general perspective that this product could work. But her testimonial and her story and seeing— actually seeing the hair growth, I was like, oh, okay. So yeah, this is an investment I am willing to make. So I bought my first 3-month supply of Nutrafol Women's Balance for women over 45, and I also got the hair serum which she recommended. And I took it religiously for 3 months. Nutrafol is a commitment. It's 4 pills a day and the hair serum. I did not use the hair serum every day. I used it depending on the hairstyle that I had because I wanted to keep, you know, my hair straight and the serum is wet. So if I put the wet stuff on my hair, then, you know, my hair would curl up. So, but I was— I religiously took the vitamins every day for 3 months. Granted, my bad, I didn't take any photos, so I didn't see much of a change in the first 3 months, but I didn't take any photos. So it could have been a change. It could have been more noticeable if I had taken before and after photos, and I didn't. So this is one of the points I want to share with you. Like, when you're starting a journey like this, Photos are important. Collecting your data is important so you can actually see what type of progress you're making. Inside Stop Dieting Forever, we know we track our weight by calculating our weekly weight averages and using that data to see how we're progressing. So I use the serum inconsistently, but I did take the pills every single day for 3 months. And I took a break after the first 3 months because I wasn't like getting them regularly. I just ran out. And because I got them from her place, I didn't go back. It was just like this little bit of a lag in between the time that I re-upped on my order. So at that point, I was reading something about Nutrafol and I read that it can take up to 6 months to see noticeable results. In like 3 months, I forgot exactly what they said. It's on the website, but in 3 months of taking it, you know, like it's working internally, it's helping, you know, do something to your hair follicle and stimulate this and, you know, fix this. So seeing visible results in 3 months is— or not seeing visible results in 3 months is normal. So I was like, okay. And I'd also spoken to another hairstylist who said her clients had really great results with using it. And she said, one thing about Nutrafol is— and this is actually with any supplement— once you stop taking it, you're going to stop seeing results. So it's so funny that I see myself and my clients sometimes because we want quick, fast results. We want them in a hurry. I'm like, okay, 3 months, 90 days. I should be like Rapunzel at the end of 90 days knowing that it takes time. And when you're committed to a journey, a weight loss journey or a hair journey, You're committed for the long haul. You're not committed for a short period of time. You're committed to keep going until you get the results that you want to get. We want to see, period. So I didn't have that mindset when I started. And, you know, this is fine because I'm sharing, sharing my lesson with you and the way that I was thinking so you can approach it differently. So I recommitted to Nutrafol. I went back and I got on the subscription plan. So now they're coming to my house every 90 days. And, you know, the funny thing is I've always taken hair vitamins, like I've taken hair vitamins for years. And before Nutrafol, I used to take GNC Nourish Hair for years, years and years and years. And I always noticed a difference when I stopped taking those vitamins. So I already knew, like, Jennifer, it's like you already know if you stop taking it, it's going to stop working. So if you're going to start taking a supplement, you have to put it into your brain. Like, you have to commit to taking the supplement. It is not like you're not taking supplements and like treating them like, you know, you would do a 7-day round of antibiotics. You take 7 days of antibiotics, it targets the issue, and then it's gone. That's not how you should be approaching taking supplementations for your body because your body constantly needs whatever it's missing. So if your body's not naturally producing what the supplement is giving, as soon as you stop taking the supplement, guess what's going to happen? Your body is going to go back to not producing the thing. So just kind of supplementation 101. When you're going to take a supplement, decide if it's working, don't stop, keep taking the supplement. So I recommitted and now I'm— I've been taking Nutrafol for, gosh, probably almost a year now. Yeah, probably almost a year. And I'm super happy with the results, super happy with the way that my hair hair is coming in, it's so much thicker, especially around my hairline. Um, even my stylist is like, oh, your edges are looking good. I'm like, I know. I don't have to like fill them in with like powder to fill in the dark spots. Like, it was a whole thing. Um, and the rest of my hair, because the back of my head is like the healthiest part of my hair, is like ridiculously healthy. I'm so pleased with it. So I'm, I'm a Nutrafol fan. I'm not— this isn't— podcast is not endorsed by them, um, but you can use a link in my— in the show notes and you can get $20 off your first order. But remember, if you're going to start with Nutrafol, you've got to commit. It's not like, oh, let me just try it and see type of thing. You got to commit to keep doing it. So That is the first thing that I, I worked on with supplementation. That's like the easiest thing to do. Go buy some awesome pills and start taking them. Again, Nutrafol is 4 pills a day. I take them all at nighttime. I am used to taking supplements, so it's not a big deal for me. And yeah, and that's what you do. Take it and move on. Okay. So the second thing that I worked on later was stress management. So at that point, when I first started with the supplements, I wasn't 100% sure what was happening. And I wasn't— definitely was not aware of— I knew it was stress. Like, I knew that I needed to, like, take it down a notch. I just didn't know how. I love my business. I love coaching. I love solving problems for my clients. I love seeing their wins. I'm like, thinking about it all the time. And I knew that that's not healthy. I just didn't know how to change. So I had the awareness, but I hadn't yet figured out anything. I have since figured it out. But stress management, what is most important, is prob— is probably the first thing that you need to do if you're thinking you need to go on a hair health journey. I was not aware of the damage that the stress had done to my hormones at the time because this is before I had all of my hormones tested. So I wasn't doing any stress busting activities. So the stress busting activities is a concept that I created based out of this whole experience for myself that I now teach my clients inside of my program. Um, stress busting activities literally is you being intentional about managing your stress every single day. You know, you're going to be stressed every day. Like, let's— that's just a given. You know that you're going to have stressful periods throughout your day. A lot of us are so used to being stressed, and this was me, the chronic level of stress. You're just used to it. It feels normal. And let me tell you something, it's not normal. Operating at a chronically stressed state is not normal. And the biggest awareness I had is when I got— well, I had the Oura Ring for a while, but they rolled out a new feature where you can— it measures your daytime stress levels. I already knew what my nighttime stress levels look like, right? So my HRV, my heart rate variability, but they rolled out a new feature. It now measured your stress state during the day. And OMG, that was a wake-up call. I was like, golly, like my body physiologically was reacting, was in a stress state. Like for 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 hours during the day. Crazy. So that's when I really got serious about stress management. I came up with the concept of stress busting activities, which I now teach inside of my program. But you should have a toolkit of stress busting activities. And we— I have a whole, whole lesson about all the different things that you can do. We've been adding to it inside the group because, you know, everybody has their different things that they like. But you should be applying some type of stress busting activity every single day in your life, period. Period. So again, during the first 30 days or the first 90 days when I was taking the Nutrafol, I was not doing anything about stress. It was not even on my radar, which could be a reason why I didn't see much of a difference in the first 90 days of taking the supplements. Um, but since then I have implemented stress busting activities. There's one major one that's really, really helped me reduce my stress level. Actually, there's two. Actually, there's three. Maybe I should do a podcast about it. If you want to hear me do a podcast about stress busting activities, send me a message and let me know. Um, but I teach inside Stop Dieting Forever, like I said, I teach all my clients about stress busting activities and how important it is to have one every single day. So if you are venturing on this hair health journey, do not ignore the stress management. Like ordering the supplements, taking those every day, that's easy. You want to spend some time really, really understanding how you can lower your stress. And listen, y'all, I get it. I understand you're a high-achieving woman. You're doing all the things. You're taking care of all the people. You're in charge of all the things. You got to make all the decisions. And you're like, yeah, I need to reduce my stress, but you don't know how to, which is exactly how I felt. I didn't know exactly what to do or how to reduce my stress. I want you to just give yourself some grace, give yourself some grace, and give yourself permission to— ooh, maybe this is what you need to do— go on a stress reduction journey in addition to your hair health journey. Now you want to go on a stress reduction journey and y'all, You do these things. If you focus on stress management, you will lose weight, period. Especially if you're an emotional eater. Like, that's hands down one of the main culprits of weight gain and the inability to lose weight. Okay, but I digress. So stress management was the second thing you need to be working on, but I was not working on that in the first 90 days. It wasn't until later where I started to implement my own stress busting activities. And I was still continuing to take the supplements, did I see like, oh, my hair was starting to come in. Okay. And so the third thing that I worked on and that I worked on in this in tandem with the supplements was just the food. So I already know this because I'm certified as a health coach. I already know I wanted to make sure that I was feeding my body the best foods to support my hair. So I was on a skin clearing journey back in the day. I suffered from, you know, in my early 20s, I suffered from cystic acne. And so I was on a— I knew that nutrition could support that as well. So I was like, all right, we got a hair issue. And also the other, other, the other phase of my life, a period of my life where I was focused on my hair, when I was transitioning from relaxed hair to natural hair. So for my non-women of color, you're like, what is relaxed hair? I was putting chemicals in my hair to straighten it, and I was growing that out so I can have all natural hair. So when I was going through that transition, that was another hair journey that I went through. And I was like studying and like, you know, understanding what do I need to do to keep my hair healthy? Because when you're in that transition stage, your hair is like super fragile. And it could break at the drop of a dime. And so I wanted to make sure that my hair strand was as strong as it could be to manage the transition as the, the relaxed hair grew out and my natural hair grew in. So one of the things that you can do to support your hair health is protein, upping your protein. And because of my years of dieting, Y'all, I already knew that I wasn't eating enough protein just on a daily basis. And because of my years of dieting, I can eyeball— I know exactly what 4 ounces of chicken breast looks like, and I know that it has 20 grams of protein. So I already knew that I was not eating in a— that way to support my hair health. So I had to be very intentional about consuming more protein. And I know that I needed to eat at least, at least 100 grams of protein a day, and I knew I was way below that. Um, so I found different ways to add more protein into my day without saying, okay, I got to eat a hunk of steak every day. So I found a nut butter, peanut butter. I can't remember the name of it cause I would put it in the show notes, but it's really, really good. I think it starts with, um, I think it starts, it's like Fit something. I don't know. I don't remember y'all. I'm sorry, but I found it in Whole Foods. It's peanut butter. With protein, so it has pea protein in it. So if you are already purchasing or using peanut butter for whatever, put it in your smoothies or have it on toast or whatever you're eating it with. I just found products that I was already using that already had extra protein in it. So I found the peanut butter, I started using that. I started eating Greek yogurt every day. I was already like, you know, eating yogurt occasionally, but I started being very intentional about eating Greek Greek yogurt every single day with pumpkin seeds, which brings me to the next part of this hair-friendly food section. Um, I added edamame, which I love, or chickpeas, to my salad. So most of— most, most days during the week, actually, no, most days period, I will eat a salad for lunch just because it's easy. I make my own salad dressing. It's just You know, if you follow me on Instagram stories, you may catch a picture or two of a salad that I'm eating, but I started adding edamame, which is just soybeans, or chickpeas, additional protein into my salad in addition to the chicken or the salmon or the steak, whatever animal protein that was already in my salad. Another thing that I started doing was I was already drinking matcha green tea because It's really good for you. But I started adding collagen powder to my matcha tea and Truvani protein powder, vanilla chai to be specific. For those of you who are on my— in the email club Forever Well, y'all already know that I love Truvani and I have mentioned it before in the newsletters. Truvani protein powder is amazing. It's so clean. I think most of the flavors only have 5 ingredients. The Food Babe, if y'all know who the food— I can't think of her full name, but when I was going through health coaching school, the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, the Food Babe was a graduate of IIN. So I remember following her and she— I learned so much from her about how jacked up the American food system is and how many chemicals and gross stuff are in the foods that we consume. All of our favorite foods that we're consuming. So her journey, Food Babe, because she has her own story of like going from very sick to healthy because she changed her diet, I learned so much from her. So go Google the Food Babe, um, but Truvani is her company. And so she has created these protein powders and bars and things that are just You know, really, really good and really, really clean. So we love vanilla chai in this household. Um, so I started putting that in my matcha tea in the afternoon. So, or sometimes I would drink it in the morning, uh, along with my glutamine powder and whatever, whatever else I needed to put in there, a little bit of flax milk. And that was like my evening or my mid-morning afternoon. Beverage. Another thing I started doing to up the protein was eating canned salmon. I was already buying like the frozen fillets of salmon and cooking those pretty much a lot during the week, but I read an article about the benefits of canned fish. So canned tuna, canned salmon, sardines. I'm like, mm-mm, not eating some sardines, but I can get down with some canned salmon. And the Whole Foods brand of canned salmon is delicious. It's really, really good. It's wild-caught salmon. Um, so I started putting that in my salads. Sometimes I eat it in the morning with my eggs. It's just extra protein. Um, okay, so I upped my protein. That was one thing that I did from a nutritional standpoint. The other thing that I knew I needed to do was make sure I was getting all my trace minerals. Um, and when I was on my previous hair care journey and my skin journey, when I was transitioning from relaxed to natural and I was trying to clear up my cystic acne, I do remember taking enough zinc and iron. It was very important. And if your body isn't getting enough iron, guess what it's going to do? It's going to scavenge it from other sources in your body, which is your hair, because iron is stored in keratin, which is in your hair strand. So if you are deficient in zinc, it can lead to hair loss. So if your hair is shedding, um, definitely look at— it could be an iron deficiency. So you want to make sure that you're getting enough zinc and enough iron. I remember I used to take a zinc supplement because this is another— when I was on the other, other journey, other hair journey, um, and there isn't a ton of research. I looked, there isn't a ton of research on how zinc supports hair growth, but I do remember all of the hair influencers that I followed on YouTube at the time, they all took zinc. And all the hair vitamins that I tried and took, you know, back in the day, they all had zinc in it. So you want to focus on foods that have zinc and iron in them in addition to the supplementation. Um, the other thing that you want to focus on when it comes to food, and this is what I focused on, was really like fiber, getting enough fiber and fermented foods. I go through phases with fiber. Um, I do know that fiber supports your gut health, and any— actually, and fermented foods. So any foods that support your gut health are important because your gut, your GI, your gastrointestinal system, it is a foundation of your health. So a happy gut can mean a happy head of hair. And so anytime you have any sort physical chronic, like, annoyance or deficiency, or just like a— something's just not right, anything from like brain fog to allergies to, you know, constipation, really, really, you want to focus on getting your gut health in order. And you can do that very easily. So look at eating more fiber and more fermented foods. So I just got really consistent with my fiber intake and eating fermented foods. Yogurt. Yogurt is my fermented food of choice. I also found that there's some cottage cheeses that have— which cottage cheese is higher— it's protein, it's a protein source. Um, but they also have like fermented cottage cheese where that has those cultures as from fermented food in the cottage cheese. So you're kind of getting like a double bang for your buck. But other fermented foods are kimchi. So you can get a little bit of kimchi and it's like fermented cabbage. Sauerkraut, same thing. Put it in your salad. Take a spoonful in the morning. Eat it on an empty stomach. Get your probiotics. So another supplement that I highly recommend is a pro and prebiotic called Seed. I tell all of my clients to get it. And you take 2 in the morning and just every single day. It keeps everything moving along. The way that it should, keeps your gut, your gut happy. And again, with supplementation, like, you don't take probiotics for 10 days and thinking you're going to get an improvement. Like, you've got to keep continuously taking them. So you're committing. So my husband and I, we both have subscriptions to Seed. He gets his, I get mine, and like, we're all— we always have Seed probiotics, um, in our household and in, in our bodies, most importantly. So when it comes to fiber, like, I think I pretty much get enough fiber every single day. My protein bars that I like to eat, so it has a lot of fiber in it. I like the One brand protein bar. So it's like 20 grams of protein and like, I forget, 15 grams of fiber. It might be more than that. Um, but that's like an easy way and enjoyable way to, you know, get that protein and your fiber in. The One brand of protein. Bars. And again, fibers is easy if you eat your vegetables. Y'all, eat your vegetables. One thing I learned when I was becoming a health coach, and this is just a habit that I've just taken with me since then, is to eat vegetables at every single meal. Add vegetables to every single meal. Doesn't matter what kind of vegetable, but whatever you're eating, it needs to have some type, some sort of vegetable in it. So even like eggs, I eat eggs pretty much every day. I always add spinach to them. I always have green eggs. If I don't have spinach with my eggs, it's like weird. I eat a lot of salads. Like I was saying, I eat a lot of salads for, for lunch. Eat a salad a day, whether you eat it for dinner, for lunch, eat it as a precursor to a sandwich or a meal. It's an easy way to get greens in. Currently, I am obsessed with curly kale in my salads. You can add leafy greens to your smoothies if you are a smoothie drinker or you're drinking a protein shake every day. Spinach is like the easiest thing because it doesn't have— it's the least bitter of your greens. It's the easiest thing to add and mix into other things without really tasting it. So just a general rule of thumb, add a vegetable to every single meal. So just in summary, when it comes to hair-friendly food, you want to just consume foods that will give you the most nutritional bang for your buck. Um, and here's the thing, y'all, when you consume more of these foods, you're automatically going to be crowding out the processed foods that you may already be consuming right now, but it's not supporting your hair health. Crowding out is a concept that I also teach inside Stop Dieting Forever, and it's easiest way to transition from eating a standard American diet and learning to love healthier, whole, unprocessed foods. Okay, so things you can buy are eggs, salmon, chicken, Greek yogurt, lentils. Oh, my husband makes the best lentil soup. Oh, it's delicious. Cashews, pumpkin seeds. I put pumpkin seeds in my Greek yogurt every day. I put pumpkin seeds and cacao nibs in my Greek yogurt. Sometimes I'll put a little bit of honey in it. Uh, most recently for the sweetness, I have been adding raisins, raisins into my yogurt. It tastes delicious with the pumpkin seeds and it's got the crunch from the cacao nibs. It's like one of my favorite things to eat every single day. Uh, any of your leafy greens, broccoli, avocado is a great source of fiber. Kimchi, sauerkraut, and miso are going to be your fermented foods. So that's just like a quick list of things that you can throw into your cart and make sure that you throw it into your body if you want to improve your hair health and your body. Your body will also thank you in addition to your hair. Um, the other thing I made sure that I did, and I'm a very good— I mean, I'm pretty good of a water drinker, but you can always drink more. You can always drink more, and it's really hard to overdrink when it comes to water. So My, my personal general rule of water drinking is 3 liters a day. I love the Beaker bottle. BK, I think it's pronounced— in my head all these years I've been calling it Beaker. I met someone and she had a Beaker bottle with her. She called it BKR, and I was like, what? She's like, oh, the BKR bottle. I was like, is that what it's called? You know how you just been saying the wrong thing? Like there's certain songs you just been singing the wrong lyrics for years until you find out what the real lyric is. That's kind of how I kind of feel about this bottle, which I have right here. If you're watching the video, this is it right here. It's my 1-liter BKR bottle. Love it. It's a company owned by women, designed for women. It's a glass bottle, so you can put it in the dishwasher. Um, it's got a smaller mouth, so it's easier for a woman's smaller mouth to drink from. And it's a silicone cover. So they have all different types of designs and covers now that you can buy. I've had this one for years, y'all. A year, probably at least 10 years, if not longer. I think I've had this before I got married. So this is a good investment. I think a, a 1-liter bottle might be $50, $55, $60. Definitely a good investment. I drink, literally drink drink out of it every day. I try to drink 3 of these. I get through 2 pretty easily. The 3rd one is a crapshoot. The 3rd one, I have to be like really committed to getting it down. But 3 liters a day of water is good for my body and it's good for my hair. So those are the things, the 3 things that I— in my thought process, the 3 things that I focused on to get my hair back to its healthy state. And I also just wanted to share my thought process because a lot of times I hear from my clients when I share something, they're like, oh, oh wow. And I'm like, yeah, I forget y'all don't think like this all the time. So they're like, yes, please share more of how you think and how you solve problems and things like that. So this is what this podcast is about. The other thing, the last tip I want to give you with anything, if you're tracking your hair, like your hair journey, or you're doing your weight loss journey, It's really, really important to track your data. It's so important to track, collect your data, track it, and so you can track your progress. Data tracking is a great strategy that we use inside Stop Dieting Forever, and it's a skill. So I teach my, I teach my clients like how to track your data without the drama because it's such a useful tool to look back to see what you've been doing over a period of time learning how to track that to your progress. Because when you can do that, this is how you make incremental improvements over time, because you can say, oh, this works, or, oh, this doesn't work. So let me change this instead of being like, well, I've been doing this for 90 days and I don't know if it's working, it's not working. And so no, like, you cannot come to me at the end of 90 days and be like, it's not working. I'm like, okay, well, let's look at your data. Let's see what you've been doing. So when you're tracking your data, it's very easy to pinpoint what's working and most importantly what's not working, so you can make those adjustments and you track for another 90 days. It's brilliant. So I want you to also do this with your hair if this is something that you want to do. So I think the best way to track your data, track your progress, would be with pictures. You know, exactly what I didn't do, but I wasn't really thinking about like, I need to track my progress. I was just like, nope, this is just going to work. But the information that you can learn about your habits and your lifestyle when you're tracking your data and you understand the skill of tracking and evaluating, it's invaluable because you can do it with so many other things. Again, when you join Stop Dieting Forever, you can learn how to track your data and evaluate it so you can continue to make progress towards your goal continuously. And it's none of this like It's not working and I don't know what's happening. All right. So that is how I solved my hair thinning problem. And that was my most recent hair health journey. And all of these things that I mentioned that I'm doing, it wasn't like I'm just going to do it until my hair is fixed. It's like, no, this is just what I do now. This is just what I do now. I'm just more conscious of it. Okay. So thanks for tuning in to this week's episode and be sure I gave out so many resources. If I missed any, if I mentioned something, I didn't put it in the show notes, just message us and we'll add it in. Um, but yes, definitely check the show notes for direct links for all of the resources. Some of them have discounts and deals that I mentioned in today's podcast. And you can also find direct links on how you can lose weight for the last time without a diet and no drama. Trauma by working with me as a group member or a private client. And you can also find out how you can sign up for the club. Maybe I should just call it the club. Um, and for those of you who don't know, that's a take on 50 Cent's song, "We Up in Da Club," back in the '90s. So anyway, or maybe that's like the early 2000s. So you can join the Forever Well email club, um, when you go to the website, and the link is in the show notes. I also invite you to share this episode with your friends. Share your thoughts with me by leaving a 5-star review. I just got a 5-star review come through. I just noticed it today. Thank you from Weight Loss 4 U. I'll just read it real quick because it was— I just literally just read it. She said, or he said, or they said, so I'm not sure what the pronoun is. Such a great podcast. Jennifer's approach to weight loss is amazing. I mean, who really wants to spend all their time wrapped up in diets anyway? Not me. This podcast is a great resource for those who want to lose weight and keep it off without wasting time on yo-yo diets. Definitely worth staying tuned in to learn from all her wisdom and guidance. So thank you, Weight Loss 4 U, for your 5-star review. All right, come follow me on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube, all the All right, y'all, live luxe. I will see you in the next episode.