[Beginnings & Breakthroughs] Thriving With Autoimmune Disease With Traci Thau

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Welcome to Beginnings and Breakthroughs. This is where I celebrate and coach.

People just like you who are on.

A mission to heal their metabolisms, feel better fast and live their best lives. We will be walking through what's worked.

For them and what they've discovered on their journeys.

And then I'll coach them on their next best steps. And if you're interested in being a guest, stay tuned and I'll be sharing how you can join me too. All right, I will be right back with our awesome guest. Welcome to Beginnings and Breakthroughs. I am going to be talking today to a long time member of our community, Tracy. Tracy was diagnosed 20 plus years ago with Ms. And as she was growing up, like when she was second grade, she started having debilitating migraines and had IBS in high school. College now has some of these things back again. She'd done all of our programs, which by the way, super cool thing. We are updating all of the programs. So I know people going, where are the programs? They are like being renovated, updated, upgraded, coming soon. Just watch. Anyway, she's done our detox. She's done breakthrough food intolerance. She did breakthrough carbon intolerance. She had great results. Covid hit and kind of took her out. Not that Covid itself took her out, just, just a lot of stuff that went on and she kind of got off track. So I said, consider this your virtual kick in the butt. And that's what we're going through is like what do you need to consider when you have an autoimmune disease? She's looking at having surgery. How do you prepare for that? And you know, just what are some of the things that we need to do mindset wise to get us to put ourselves first and realize that, you know, there's not off days, on days, it's just how do we, how do we make sure that we are doing what's best for ourselves every day while also giving ourselves some Grace, I will be right back with Tracy, and I'm really looking forward to sharing this interview with you.

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All right, Tracy, I'm. I've been watching you for years. You've been in the community. I'm super excited to have time to chat with you.

Me too. Very excited about today.

So I'm just going to do a little like we've been talking offline. I'm going to share some of these situations going on and then some of the things that I would say are like top priorities. And so what you shared offline is that you got diagnosed with Ms. 21 years ago and you basically have been able to keep yourself pretty stable. And a lot of that was through diet. And you did the my detox, which the detoxes are coming back by the way. We are, once we, once we launch the new seven day swap to drop and the new 21 day breakthrough food intolerance cleanse in the three month breakthrough weight loss resistance program, then we are going to be doing the cleanse as well. So everything's coming back. I've just been upgrading everything. So you've done all of those things. You've were like, building on the success of each of them. Then Covid hits and. And took you out. Not just cause of COVID not the actual Covid itself, but because of a lot of confounding variables creating problems. And then on top of that, recently, you've sustained a pretty bad foot injury. And so what we're gonna unpack here is we're gonna unpack the foot and the Ms. And kind of give you an inspirational kickstart again.

That sounds amazing.

Yes. All right. And the first thing I'm going to tell you, and, you know, I consider Dr. Terry Wahls a good buddy, and I think she is, like, the hero for Ms. I'm not sure if you know who she is.

I did the Wahls diet.

Okay, great. Because I think, like, when I look at ms, what's interesting is when I wrote the Virgin diet and had people pull out the top seven, what I called hi Fi Foods, I wasn't working in autoimmune at all. I was purely like, I've always focused on weight loss resistance. That's my jam. And what was crazy that started happening was people who had autoimmune diseases were coming in going, my autoimmune disease, I'm off medication. Like, it's reversed. Like, crazy. And so, you know, when you hear this stuff, and I remember, you know, I just did something with. With Dr. Terry Wahls, and she was saying, you know, I was doing all these supplements, really, kind of like looking at the mechanisms of actions and the deficiencies and everything else. And then when she dialed the diet in plus the supplement, she goes, it was like a week. And everything changed. Crazy. So the big thing I'm going to tell you is with your health, you do not have the margin of error. Now, the reality is, if you're 40 plus, you don't have a margin for error anymore. Like, what we could do in our 20s and 30s was one thing, but, you know, now we don't. And especially with you with kind of chronic irritable bowel syndrome, stuff that happened when you were in high school and now has resurfaced and chronic migraines since second grade. And this autoimmune disease, which diet is always gonna be a massive trigger, you just don't have the luxury of going, yeah, I'm have a cheat day. First of all, I hate cheat days. Can we be honest? Like, I hate cheat days and more. I Look at and go. Instead of thinking cheat days, which gets into a whole weird diet mentality of being good or bad, all that stuff makes me nuts. Instead we look at, okay, if we know with what you have going on between the ibs, autoimmune and migraines. And I would say to me, those are all intertangled. It's not three separate things, they're three things together. What we need to look at is how we can really support the best gut ever, the best microbiome, really reducing inflammation. How do we support that? And how do we first start with diet and making sure that we pull any triggers out? And if there are things like you said offline, I wrote it down. I'm like, okay. And I went back into diet Diet Coke if I could think of the worst thing for migraines. And I'm like, come on. But here's the thing. There's a great swap for that. Now is it better than, you know, like, would water be the best thing? Yes. But can we be in the real world and say, okay, if you really are like, I want a Diet Coke and I get it. The hardest habit I ever broke was Diet Coke. I swear I used to drink like two liters a day. And I was like, you cannot do this. And this was decades ago that I finally broke free of this. But Zevia, which is stevia sweetened cola, is your swap for that. Because you cannot have these artificial sweeteners. Like, you cannot have them. They're just a big. They're bad for you on so many levels, right. They disrupt the gut microbiome, they can.

Trigger.

Different kind of neuro excitatory issues. Right? So it's like I go, ooh, no, we can't have that. But Zebia, literally, Zevia Cola, great swap for the soda. Okay? And that's. And this is what I want to really look at is go, okay. My biggest goal is for us to learn how to use diets therapeutically to grab the stuff, learn what works for us, and then figure out how. This is just how we live. We're never off or on something. We're learning and implementing and learning and implementing and then we're kind to ourselves. We're not going to be like, you know, there's enough people out there who will be mean to you. Let's be honest. Maybe not you specifically, but I'm, I mean, like, I'm always amazed at like how mean people can be.

Like, especially about diet, right?

Oh my gosh. You know, God forbid I say something about a scale. I Get attacked. But the deal is we don't need to be mean to ourselves. There's plenty of other people who will be mean. You know, don't listen is my big advice. We need to be kind to ourselves and use in a lot of grace. And so if you're going, all right, you know, I just got tired of doing this. I just said, heck with it. Instead, go, okay, let's. Let's retract and go, where am I now? What do I want to ensure that I'm. How I'm doing? My gut feels healthy. I've got great mobility. I'm able to do the things I want to do. I don't have headaches. And what do I need to do to do that? How do I need to take care of myself and put myself first to do that? And then what are the things that I'm like, going, oh, I really missed this. Are there ways that I can do a different version of that? Because you mentioned, you know, obviously if you've got Ms. And gut problems like gluten free, dairy free, corn free, soy free, peanut free are non negotiables. And doing a very autoimmune, paleo type of diet, question mark would be to see if you react to eggs or not. I know you've been incorporating them. I'd still want to see, because they can be a trigger for autoimmune. So we have to check it. And that's where really looking at virgin diet, the paleo style, which I have in the cookbooks, like, what are the more paleo means? That means legumes come out. And also I would pull all nightshades out because you talked about having a potential interface there. And I always have people do the virgin diet. And then depending on how you feel right there, do we need to go deeper? Do we need to look at nightshades? Do we need to look at oxalates? Do we need to look at histamine? The reality is, why do we start to have those issues? We've got a permeable gut. We need to calm all that stuff down. And if you can see a trigger. When I eat this, this happens like that. Is your body trying to go, Tracy, hello, Pay attention. Right.

I'm actually very interested what you have to say about oxalates, too. Because I've developed kidney stones, little ones, which I never had before. So I'm not quite. I read what oxalates are, but I don't really. I think I. For a while, I think I was eating too many vegetables. Is that possible? Can you eat too many vegetables or too much of the right food?

You can eat too much of high oxalate foods. And one of the ones that I see where people can get in trouble is they just put, I'm putting spinach in my shake every day. And I'm like, don't do that. You know, rotate these things. It is why we need to eat seasonal, local, organic and rotate and not get into, I'm just going to eat this all the time. Now. There's things that have a lower potential for becoming, for us becoming intolerant to them, but things that are really high in an area like, you know, oxalates. Not all vegetables are high in oxalates. Right. So can be problematic. And with what's going on with you right now, you're going to be best really rotating your vegetables and eating them cooked. All right. So when I look at you going on right now with some IBS issues, migraine issues and an autoimmune, you have no margin for error on the. I'm just gonna have a little pizza that's done. And the issue, the other issue is you've got pizza with tomatoes. So what I would look at it and go, first we have to see is egg a problem for you? You either pull it out for three to four weeks like we do on the virgin diet and then go back challenge, or you can do a food sensitivity test, an IgG4 and see if your, your body's throwing out the anti antibodies on it. Right. Those are the two ways we'd look at that. Depending on that then. And the reason I'm saying this is it will depend the type of pizza crust you can have because there are of course cauliflower crust, almond crusts. If you can eat eggs, Capello's makes an amazing almond crust pizza. You can't use Toma and you're not using cheese. But holy smokes, there's great. You can make a cheese free pesto. My son just made one that was incredible. And you could use some almond ricotta from Kite Hill and things like, you know, little sun dried tomatoes and basil and stuff and make a great delicious pizza.

I love capellas. I get the naked one and just put veggies on it.

Yeah. So you can do that and you can use a, you know, a clean dairy free cheese. And we got to look at the dairy free cheeses because some of them have been like, this is, you know, it's one of the challenges I see in the health food store that makes me nuts because you go into the health food store, feeling like, I'm safe in here. And then you look and you go, wow, they're using canola oil. They're using sunflower oil. So for you, these damaged seed oils that are rich in omega 6s are pro inflammatory. They're bad for you. They're going to be problematic. And also for you, the agave that they'll use to sweeten things or the apple juice concentrate are problematic, so. Because it will make your gut leakier. So we've got to be really vigilant on all these things. And as excited as I am that over the last decade, all of these great alternatives have come out to gluten and dairy and soy. I'm also, like, freaked out because a lot of them are what I call the posers, you know, because you really flip the label. And I'm amazed how many of these products have soybean oil or canola oil in them. It's crazy, you know? Or just have sugar in them. So that's the big thing to be aware of, because when I look at this right now, your diet sounds like it's 85% of the way there, but it can't be 85% of the way there. Like, you just because any little bit of that is a trigger and you don't have the room for the trigger.

And I've noticed the difference. The more I slip up with these extra foods, I've noticed I feel worse. I mean, the fatigue is out of control. The shakes, your shakes are amazing for fatigue. When I do them, like, regularly, big difference in energy levels.

Cool. So, like, let's do them regularly.

I know I have them. I have a whole cabinet filled with JJ products. I was just in there shaking them to see what I need to get. I have what I need. I think I might need extra stuff, but I, like. It's like I. It's like I needed today to, like, get back on track. Like, okay, this has to be out. This needs to begin.

It's my podcast, Kick in the Butt.

It did.

That's right.

I was listening to a couple that I got sent in a new one.

All right. So I just needed a little kick in the butt. I am happy to give you one. It is so funny, Tracy. I had someone said, I had a doctor send me a client years ago, and he goes, she just needs a cheerleader. I go, I am the farthest thing from a cheerleader. I am, like, tough love with love. I am not going to beat around the bush. Like, if you're doing stuff, you Know if someone could soft say, oh, that's okay. It's not okay. Because you want to have, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 more awesome years. And you won't if you're, if you give yourself a little leeway on this stuff. Right.

See, that's why I like straight Shooter. You know what I mean?

So I have my, my fans and my non fans for that very reason. But it's, but it doesn't help you to say, you know what, it's totally ok. Hey Tracy, have the diet coke and the pizza. It's totally fine. No, it's not. It's not going to help you. And that's the bottom line. So we've got to really build a life that you love. And it starts with finding food things that you love. Like I just had a smoothie and I just have like nailed how I love them. And I look at it and go, if we could start your. Start that. Break that fast with a smoothie, preferably the paleo inspired one.

Not the pea.

That's what I use.

Okay, good. Because I don't want. The pea is not paleo. And we need to go paleo and then add into that the leaky gut support that's now called. We have had an identity crisis for.

The last soothing gut elixir.

It's soothing gut elixir. It's changing to healthy gut support.

Oh, okay.

So it's had multiple name changes. You know, I was gone a little bit. They did like weird names. We're moving it back to healthy gut support. That's what it does. And I'd also add in collagen. Now you're going to get a little collagen from the paleo inspired shake. However, when you put those three things together, collagen is amazing for helping your gut. And then that the healthy gut support, soothing gut elixir, whatever it is at the moment, is going to really help your gut. Microbiome and help with gut permeability. So those are key, critical things for you to be doing. Because we've got to put the fire out there. We've got to like everything we possibly can do for your gut, we need to be doing.

I didn't know you could put the soothing guttural extra stuff in the smoothie. Yes, mine just sort of sits there because I don't know what to do with it.

Oh, put it in the smoothie. So I just throw everything into a smoothie because otherwise I don't take it well.

That's. So I sit in there. I think the Label's still. I gotta crack it open, crack it open.

Now it has this peach like someone said, tastes like peach and apple. I go, how do you know what peach Snapple tastes like? You shouldn't. But it has a little peachy tea flavor taste to it. So, you know, I mean, but I'm totally fine. So throw that in there too because that is like that. You want to have one of those every single day. Okay. When I think of really mission critical supplements for you because I see that shake as a supplement, right. I look at that, I look at CoQ10 as another key one and probably like 200 milligrams of it.

I think mine's 100, so I gotta up that.

Double it. And which brand are you taking? What are you doing?

I kind of go back and forth between pure and doctors best.

Okay. I love the. I'll give you a little hack. It's the most inexpensive one you can find. It happens to be the company that I work with on all my products made a ubiquinol product, duoconol product called CoQ 10.11. It's on Amazon and it is super high quality, like the best you can get. And it's the, it's like a deal, especially when you buy multiples. So that's the one in 200 milligrams. Obviously you're taking magnesium, right?

Yeah, I take magnesium. I don't know how much it's in here. 200 milligrams.

200 milligrams. So that's all you take one of those. Oh, that's not even, not even cutting it. And that's probably part of the issue. Like I take, I use, I have a product, my magnesium body calm and I take three of those every night. Now with chronic migraines, right, you are going to want to like 500 to me would be a like beginning dose and you're going to be somewhere between 500 and 1,000. You want to edge it up to see what's going on with your gut. Now it's if it's magnesium glycinate, you know there's different types of magnesium. If you're constipated, magnesium citrate or oxide are awesome because they will make you go. But for the rest of us like what you want to use is a little the glycinate or the threonate. And it might even be interesting for you with the migraines to look at the threonate. But for now since you have that one, let's go to two. Make sure. Your GI tract is like, I'm good. Then go to three, sit with three and see how it starts to help with the migraines. Now we have confounding variables because we're also tightening up your diet and taking out things like Diet Coke. But, you know, let's just watch that. Because magnesium is such an important thing, and in fact, so much so that when you get a migraine, what I would have you do is open up capsules and put it under your tongue and let it dissolve.

I never heard of that. That's pretty cool. All right. Undertone. I looked at your magnesium, but it has. Doesn't it have melatonin in it? Oh, I thought there was something in it I couldn't have. I'm very confused about what I can have and can't have because of my autoimmunity and because I have antiphospholipid syndrome, like a blood clotting disorder. So I'm always very unsure.

It might have been. It was probably my vitamin D with K. If you have a blood clotting.

Maybe that was it.

My magnesium is magnesium.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so that was probably the D because you definitely want to make sure your D is optimized with an autoimmune disorder.

Yeah, I take 5,000 milligrams.

Well, it's all based on a lab test. Like, for me, because of my genetics with vitamin D, I have to take 10,000 IUs a day.

When I took 10,000, I got up to 85, so they dropped me down to 5,000 and I kind of hover around 60. 65.

Anywhere between 50 and 100 is good, but I push you like, I'd rather see you on the higher end, not the lower end. What you could just do is take one one day to the next. See, the cool thing about vitamin D, it's fat soluble. So you can, you know, it's not water soluble. Where you have to. You sustain it. Right. You have to take the same each day. This one you can rotate.

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The next thing is going into surgery. So one of the things I always do when I'm going like collagen, for me, going into surgery is one of the key, most important things, like when I do surgery and I've had a couple surgeries from old injuries, like crazy surgeries. Like I've had five knee surgeries, one being a total knee from 17, you know, when I was 17, and a hip replacement from a dog attack. So just wild stuff. And so surgery, pre and post surgery can be everything. But one of the most important things to really start to work on and to watch. Of course we've got to watch your kidney stones here, but to make sure that you've got adequate protein, because you really want to make sure that. And where I'd really like you to focus now is using a scale, a bioimpedance scale to be able to look at your body fat, your fat free mass and your visceral fat. Because one of the big things that you want to make sure that you're doing now, you know, everyone's focused on weight loss or fat loss. They're focused on the wrong thing. They need to focus on muscle mass and building muscle mass and getting strong all over, right? So, and I know right now you've got a foot injury, but that doesn't preclude you from, you know, your abs from your, like there's still upper body, there's still a lot of things you can do.

They started doing pilates and physical therapy to get me ready for the surgery for that knee scooter and the whole thing because I don't really have a lot of strength. So we are starting to work on the whole like the hips and Pilates and the upper arms just so that I could do that because it's three month recovery.

And the big thing I would tell you right now is you want to go in like when I'm going into surgery, I train for it. I go in as strong as possible. And so first thing is if you're trying to hold onto and build muscle, you basically need a gram per pound of ideal body weight is your goal, right? And that's a gram per pound of ideal body weight. Not the body weight you are, but the body weight that you want to be divided over three meals. And that's where, you know, you start the day. You break the fast with that loaded smoothie with collagen. And you can get 30, 35 grams of protein just from that, right? So you can kick it up right there. And that's Going to be helpful in trying to get to that, that level and even scoop up a little bit more collagen. Take it to 40. So you look at and go, okay, I'm going to need to increase my protein here. And really for you, protein comes first. And focusing on things like cold water fish wild, because that is going to help with the inflammation. And then non starchy vegetables that are cooked come second, thinking about what, what types of fats you're getting from both of those to see how much fat you need beyond that, with a two to four servings of fat per meal. So if you had wild salmon and then let's say that you did, you know, three servings of broccoli, cooked broccoli with olive oil, you may actually have all the fat you need already. And then the question would be, do you need any slow, low carbs? If so, you got to make sure that you're going paleo on those. So. And not eating nightshades, which doesn't give you a lot of options.

No, I've been doing it. I got it from your book or one of your things I've been doing, you know, because you always say low, slow carbs. So I was doing sweet potato or quinoa.

Yeah. And quinoa is not paleo.

Oh, it's not.

There's always a confusion. It's like, is it a seed or is it a grass? So in true paleo, oatmeal, quinoa, none of those things would be considered paleo. Like anything that's kind of a pseudo grain grass. Same with like wild rice. Quinoa are kind of on the fringe because you could say, oh, they're a grass. Oh, they're a seed. But I think in the true paleo community, like, you know, so it may not be the best choice for you. Like if you really looked at it and went your, you have, you know, two servings of fruit a day. Well, maybe you do one in your smoothie and then another one throughout the day and then you have clean protein and some healthy fats and non starchy vegetables and then a little bit of a slow, low carb with testing out some squashes and sweet potato is probably the keys, the best ones that you're going to get. But, you know, you don't need a ton there, right?

No, I just need, I feel like I always need some sort of carb, whether it's a half a sweet potato or I was doing a little bit of quinoa. I don't use a lot, but like a half A cup or the wild rice or brown rice. Pasta or lentil pasta. That's kind of what I've been doing. Because my stomach doesn't feel as queasy when I do that. Like, if I don't have that, I feel like. It's like when you have. When I have soup, my stomach feels swishy. It's like I need something to soak up the soup or something. I don't know.

Okay, so let's try getting your fluids in between your meals, taking digestive enzymes.

I take belly rice.

Great. And then using either. Let's play with quinoa and wild rice, because, again, they're on the edge. And then squashes, pumpkin squashes. And they're, like, the best food that, like, I love.

You know, they get the sweet cravings.

And then you can do beats.

Don't like beats.

Like, yuck.

I like everything.

I was like, I was so with you. And then it was like, no, because.

When I make them, it looks like I killed someone in my kitchen too.

I know, right? They're like, I. I only like them. I have one way I like beats, and that's it. And I don't like them any other way. But, you know, if you did a little beat beat medley with. With sweet potato, maybe that will work. Because we got to figure.

I could try it again.

Parsley rutabaga. Anyway, so play around with that. But it's just tightening up your diet and going, what, you know, what things would I love? And if there is something I'm craving, how do I make the right, healthier, swappy version of it? Because there's always ways to make healthy, swappy versions of it. There just are. Like, I've. I've identified so many different things that I can mess around with. And now with things like Kite Hill almond yogurt and Kite Hill Almond, like, there's.

I love Kite Hill.

I love Kite Hill. Kite Hill. And Megan, you have saved my life. Kite Hill. All right, so there's that. I'd also look out with your gut, making sure, like, a good probiotic, I use yours. Okay, cool. And then. So that's super important. And what other supplements are you on right now?

Well, I tried to be organized, in case you ask me. So I am on your probiotics, your belly rescue, the vitamin D and the CoQ10, the magnesium. I usually take zinc, but I just ran out of it. I was taking fish oil, and I have a bottle of your omegas, but I haven't taken them because I've been bruising. A lot. And because of the aps, I'm like, I take aspirin, I take plaquenil. So these things, you know, do make me bruise more. So I'm always concerned about vitamin E, fish oils to see if there's too much bleeding. So I just don't know what to take anymore.

Like, I'm very interesting with fish oil. And I don't know if you know the story, when my son was in the hospital and they were not willing to push the fish oil up and I was like, all right. And they were concerned because he was on a blood thinner and you know, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I watched their pro time. Every time they're going to go do a lab test, I shoved up his fish oil more, and it never changed a thing. And that's one of the interesting things to look at with supplements versus medications. Medications don't have a floor. Like, they have no ceiling or floor. Supplements are balancing you out and normalizing you. So in general, like, you know, if you look at fish oil, it's very interesting because, yes, while it might thin your blood to what's optimal, it doesn't just keep going.

I see what you're saying.

And the research. There actually is no research showing that fish oil causes this excessive bleed time. Right.

So that totally makes sense to me.

It's just so. I wouldn't, I wouldn't. I'd be more worried about not having it in.

I took it for years until about a year ago, and then I just stopped. And you know what? My inflammation is worse and my sed rate went up for the first time in years. Years. So I thought that was interesting, too.

Yeah. So let's get. I, you know, between food. If you're eating fish that day, then you could take a gram. But I, you know, probably 2 grams a day is going to be your best place. Now if you eat. If you know, eat some wild salmon, then take a gram. The other thing that could be helpful here is curcumin.

A long time ago, I had curry or like so and something in it. I had a major allergic reaction, so I didn't need it for years. They recently retested me because I keep insisting I'm allergic. They're like, you're not allergic. So now I'm just afraid so. I've got your chews in there that my husband's been taking every day. So I have them.

I love them. I'm so try. Like when you were allergic before, what happened?

My lips swelled up, my nose got wide, had a lot of high. This is years ago. It's like 20 years ago, we were making chimichenka. So he grabbed my husband, grabbed the wrong thing. And we think it was either the cumin or the carry powder or whatever. So ever since then, I'm, like, afraid to go near anything like that.

Okay. I know it's really good. For which part of the curry was in there? Remember, what you're doing is curcuminoids are out from turmeric. So when you talked about a spice with all of these things compounds, the chance that it's actually the curcuminoids within the compound that you're pulling out. Right.

Yes. And the allergist test me for. How do you say it? Curcumin. And I was like, I just recently.

Got tested just looking at what's the bigger concern, the inflammation or the hives that would go away if you did.

Have a reaction and take Benadryl. That's true. I just need to try it again. And I have it too. It sits on my counter. Because I keep saying, okay, we got.

To get that inflammation down. And the big thing that we got to get going is that you need to prioritize both getting that protein level up and moving and just getting your body strong. Surgery or no surgery. Like, your biggest thing. And in fact, this is a call out for every woman 45 plus. And I am on, like, this is going to be one of my life's missions, is that we do not age gracefully. We age with power. Like this whole aging gracefully to me says frail. You know, I'm like, no, I want you in there pushing the heaviest weight you can handle, not the little pink dumbbells. And, you know, the heaviest weight you can handle right now might be your own body weight.

Right.

It might be a push up against a wall. I don't care. That's it's the heaviest weight that you can do. Or. And it might be your body weight again, it may just be you, you know, standing. And I don't know what you can do right now with your feet. If you can even do a squat over a chair.

They got me doing that Pilates.

You know, it's like, this is every day you need to be doing some movement. And look at, like, there's a great thing for home called the TRX trainer. So you can be doing. It's 120 bucks. Like, this is the COVID lifesaver thing. You can have a home gym for $120. We have got to be focused on your balance. We have got to be focused on overall body strength, core strength, everything. It's got to be a priority.

I added the resistance bands because I heard you talking about that once. And the recumbent bike, because I can do that now.

Cool. And are you doing bursts on the recumbent bike?

Well, as of yesterday, they just added that. Well, I don't know if they're bursts. They're hills. Is that burst? Yeah, they added that.

Hard, easy, hard, easy, hard, easy. How many days are you going to physical therapy?

Twice. And then three times a week. I've got this, like, home exercise routine to do. But I did it over the weekend, too. I don't know if you're supposed to.

But work out every day, do something every day, move every day.

That's what I've been trying to do.

Push yourself.

And I'm walking better.

Awesome. Let's just prove everybody wrong. You know, when we were in the hospital with Grant, my son Grant, his dad said, grant, prove everybody wrong. And I go, that's the best.

Good advice.

Prove all those doctors wrong. You know, I mean, just strengthen up. I blew out my knee. I mean, tore my ace ACL completely, my pcl. I mean, it was just a train wreck. And I was able to have that like that for 25 years because I just made everything so strong around it. Because I thought, you know what? I'm gonna put this off as long as possible because the science is getting better and, you know, like, I'll do it when I need to do it.

So that's really good to know, because I didn't know if you could actually strengthen the ankles enough with the kind of injury that I have to stabilize without and not have to do surgery.

Big question. Who knows? Don't know. But I know one thing. You need to stabilize yours. Whatever happens, you need them as strong as possible. You need them as strong as possible going in. And you need your whole body as strong as possible. We all do. You especially do. So whether you're getting the surgery or not, you need everything surrounding it as strong as possible. Because you know what's going to happen the minute they put you in a boot, you are going to atrophy like crazy. Like, when I had to go in for my knee surgeries, even starting in my twenties, when I had them, I would train so heavy on that leg so that when it went atrophied, I had. I could afford to lose muscle.

I didn't think about the atrophy. Yeah.

So, you know, there's so much to do there. So I would really be focused on working on that. And I'd also see like, is it a partial tear, a full tear? Like what is it?

The ATFL is just gone. So that's full. And the partial is the tendon.

Yeah. So what's interesting with the tendon is if either one of these two things and what you'd want to find like I have an amazing chiropractor, naturopathic doctor who does this in Southern California for me. And generally you'll see this with sports docs, physical therapists might. I don't know if they legally can do it, but they are injections and there's two different types and one's prolotherapy and one's prp. And so if you Google those and look for those, they're inexpensive compared to stem cells. And this is basically one's using kind of a glucose sugar water type of thing. And that's the one they try first. If that doesn't work, they then go to prp, which is basically platelet rich plasma. They take your blood, spin it and then inject it just like they do with Vampire Faceless. So I've been able to get through a lot of injuries with that and so has my bonus daughter had a big shoulder injury from volleyball and got through with that.

My brother did the prolotherapy. Loves it.

Yeah, it's. You do every single thing you possibly can and then if that doesn't work, you, you know, have the surgery. But you know, the challenge with you is if something's torn, it's gone. None of those are going to get it back. So the question is, can you make it strong enough without it and if you can't, which probably will be problematic depending on how big of a stabilizer that is. And if you can't do it, then, you know, get yourself trained for it, then get yourself super duper duper strong. Make sure you're also getting good vitamin C because that helps build collagen. You need vitamin C to build collagen.

I don't do any vitamin C or calcium because I don't know if I'm supposed to with the autoimmunity. And I don't know what I can and can't do. Those are my two confusion points.

Well, vitamin C is A you can definitely do. You're getting it anyway in food. So vitamin C is a definite and I would do. I have. I love my sparkling C. I've been.

Dying to try that, but I didn't know if I could.

Oh, you totally can. Yes. Vitamin C is a definite. It's so important for collagen. Calcium. The only issue with calcium is. I'm not sure on that one with you. I more focus on, like calcium rich foods. So if you are. If you are able to do sardines and like canned salmon, you are my hero. Like, ick.

But I live on broccoli, though.

Yeah. So because vitamin D helps you absorb calcium, vitamin K directs it to the right places. And I don't know what your vitamin K status is and with what you're on, I can't really say, go take some.

I'm allowed to have vitamin K as long as I do the same amount.

Yeah. So if that's the case, what you can do is, is because you really. As long as. As long as they let you have the same amount. Usually it's the same amount in food, though, make sure that they allow you to do it supplementally because you have to check with that. So that's what I would do there. Those are like the big rocks and that's what I always like to look at, are like, what are the big rocks that can help you the most? And I think the big, biggest rock is we all have something. You know, everybody's got something. You might have gotten a little bit more dealt a little bigger hand here than most on some of these things. But there's so much that's controllable with this, like massive. It's massively controllable with diet and lifestyle. And the other thing I would highly recommend is doing some kind of like. I personally love Dr. Joe Dispenza's meditations on this because he's got these quantum healing meditations that are out of this world that really help you just kind of focus on your future self, how you want to look and feel. So that would be the other shout out I would do is to check that out. He's got. You are the placebo and breaking the habit of being yourself. So some great information out there that really helps you. It's what I've worked with Grant on right from the beginning of future pacing and putting him like, you're going to be 110%. What does this look like? Because even now he had a second injury and they're like, oh, he's got dementia.

He's.

He's got. They put you into the worst state. And I'm like, no, we're not there. We're not doing that. Like, we're in here, you know, so.

You don't want to feel like you're in this box. You need to keep going.

So don't. So get out of the box. That's not for you. But a lot of it is. It's going to be the mindfulness stuff that you. Where you put yourself into your future self, and your future self, Mississippi, is not an issue. It's completely at bay. Your body is stronger than ever. You feel the best you've ever felt, and you realize that you don't want to do anything to mess that up, right?

No, that's true. The best I ever felt is when I was the strictest with my diet and exercising every single day, and I hardly had any symptoms.

Good. Let's go there.

Yeah. So I know it can be done.

You know that you're doing it.

Yeah, I have to do it.

No, you're doing it.

I'm doing it.

You are doing it. And by the way, you don't have to do it. You get to do it. How lucky are you? You know, when I have pity parties where I look at Grant and I think of the things he's lost in his life, which is this just dumbest way to look at things. And inevitably, every time I'm doing that and I'm seeing them, I see someone who passes by who's clearly, like, totally paralyzed and got massive brain injuries in a wheelchair. And it's like the universe reminding me, be so grateful.

I think attitude is everything. I've definitely always been like that one who just keeps like, all right, that's done. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. So cool. That's definitely my attitude.

Awesome. All right, well, here's my big ask from you is I want to hear how things are going. I want reports in.

All right. I'll get onto the community page there.

Fabulous. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It was great to talk to you.

You are so welcome.

Valuable advice.

My pleasure. No, that. Well, that's not even in. In your realm. This is what you do and who you are. That's it.

That's it. I'm on this now.

Cool.

All right.

Thank you so much.

See ya.

Bye.

Bye. Bye.

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Hello listeners, this is Ann Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I tag all things Books and Reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading Next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader, and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and Visit our website whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.