Stop counting calories, do this instead with Sue-Anne Hickey

You are listening to episode number 62 with Sue Ann Hickey. If you're someone who wants to make major changes in their life, someone who wants to achieve their goals, or maybe you're someone who knows this is not as good as it gets but you have no idea where to start, on the Reinvent You Podcast, we explore different types of people, their successes and failures, and how they reinvented themselves to create the life they love. It's our hope that from hearing their stories that you too may have more insight into what it takes to build a life that you envision for yourself. Here to help you do that is performance and life coach Travia Steward. My guest today is Sue Ann Hickey, a certified naturopath and a weight loss specialist. Her passion is in helping clients heal their ailments naturally, lose weight, and regain their energy and happiness using a personalized body type plan called Body Typology. It's a system for lasting weight loss. Today, today on the podcast, we talk about things from Sue Ann's work as a naturopath to what types of toxins that we find in our everyday products, the 4 body types that, you know, that, that Sue Ann uses as a form of her methodology to transform your health. We also talk about how to stop counting calories, how to increase your energy levels, you know, which exercises are better for your body type, and so much more. Tune in right now as we get into it with Sue Ann Hickey. Sue Ann Hickey, thank you so much for joining us on the Reinvent You podcast. And so I would love it if you would introduce yourself to my audience. You know, you don't have to necessarily give us the elevator pitch, but give us some context as to who Sue Ann Hickey is and what makes you the perfect guest today for our topic.

All right, thanks so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Um, yeah, so I am a certified naturopath, uh, love helping people heal their ailments naturally, learn about how to eat healthily. I think I think so many people are misled. There's so much misinformation out there. And I came through this path through many detours in the road and trying to find my own way and many challenges, you know, growing up as most of us have. Yeah. And going down the wrong path many, many times. And then finally it was yoga that was my catalyst for change. I started practicing yoga and everything changed. I started getting interested in healthy eating and meditation and spirituality and started kind of healing my emotional challenges, shall we say, and finally segued into from being a yoga teacher for 24 years and now a naturopath. So I just love what I do. I'm someone that really walks the talk, so yeah, you won't find me eating bags of chips very often, but occasionally, because it's not about going 100%, right? There's always balance of having what I call our deviations, not feet split deviation. So, okay, nice.

Well, thank you for that. So when you say naturopath, right, so where is that balance between, you know, you're a naturopath and like if something really happens to Sue Ann, when does she actually go to the doctor and take a pill?

Right, question. Yeah, yeah. And that comes up when I go to see the osteopath for, you know, adjustments and my body's inflamed and my boyfriend's like, You know, you could take an Advil, which would, which would, you know, benefit the inflammation that's caused by the adjustments. I'm like, I can wait a bit. So I am, I am a bit reluctant to take pills and medication, but it's not often that it's needed. But yeah, I mean, of course, I, I'm a big believer in both. We need the medical system. Medication keeps people alive a lot longer, does a lot of wonderful things. However, I'm a firm believer that the body has a natural ability to heal when given the proper tools. So I'm all about that as well.

Right. So when given the proper tools, so what do you mean by that? When given the proper tools, are you talking about nutrition? Uh, like, what are you speaking of specifically? The proper tools?

Yeah, mostly, um, nutrition is— that's my basis where I always start with my clients. I'm the big believer, and my whole platform is all about eating right for your body type. Stress management is right, right up there because, of course, you know, 99% or more of us have stress. We always have stress in our lives. There's no avoiding it. And without finding better ways to manage our stress, then that can take our health down the road to a very bad road of a lot of ailments and illnesses, of course. Exercise, of course, right up there, very important. And also being aware of how many toxins we're being exposed to. So how can we reduce those toxins in our homes, in our skincare products, in our cleaning products, laundry detergent? I mean, all those four factors are really important. And then the final one is working with mindset. I often tell our clients, my clients, that working with our thoughts is about 99% of what we do because it's our thoughts, obviously, that control our habits and our feelings and, you know, what we put in our mouths and how we, you know, our negative self-talk and all of that. So it's— we work a lot with that too, right?

Oh, so you're touching on so many things, and I know, you know, oh my God, like, I just want to unpack every bit of that. So can we go and break down— and, you know, one thing I loved about you, the reason why I wanted to have you on, on the podcast was I, I definitely want to talk about the body types, you know, um, But I really want to talk about the toxins. And so when you talk about toxins, like I'm someone who is, you know, I'm a breast cancer survivor. And so, and, you know, and I have issues with the word survivor, you know, because I, you know, I just, you know, I had breast cancer at the beginning of 2020. I don't think of myself as a survivor. I think I've beaten it. So survivor makes me think I'm hanging on by a dinghy somewhere and, you know, I'm still treading water and I'm surviving. I don't think of myself as that person. So I just want to get rid of the word survivor. I had it, it's gone, because that's— the word survivor messes with my mindset.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, so I just get rid of that. I had it, I'd beaten it. So when we're talking about— and I remember doing a lot of research, you know, about the toxins that, you know, you put into your body. And so I remember going through, you know, because breast cancer really close to the lymph nodes, I was like What about my deodorant? You know, is it something with that? You know, what are like, specifically, what type of toxins do you think people could look out for as far as keeping their bodies a little healthier? You know, what would you recommend, like 3 big things that they should look out for?

Yeah, I mean, it's not my expertise, but, um, I know, like, there's parabens and perfumes, because perfume is chemical. And what's the— they have long names— phthalates and things like that. I mean, what I usually tell all my clients to do is check out the website Environmental Working Group. You can just Google Skin Deep and that will pop up. And there they have tons, like, I think 10,000 or more products that they rate with either green green for healthy, yellow for okay, red for, you know, high in toxins, stay away from this. So that's a really beneficial place to start with because it's so unregulated here. Um, I think there's 100— what is it— in the, in the year— in Europe they banned, like, I forget the exact numbers, but like maybe 13,000 or more, um, products and, okay, like rather ingredients in the skincare products. And you, in the US, I think it's 11. So it's just crazy that there's no regulation in our beauty products. So, right, I try and find companies that really promote healthy, um, ingredients and stick with them.

And love that.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, that makes so much sense. So, so I really want to dive into the reason why I wanted to have you on here, because I'm always looking for better ways to, you know, drop pounds. And so one thing I loved about what you talk about are the 4 body types. And so when you said 4, I was like, I thought there were 3, you know. So when I think about it, I think of like mesomorph, ectomorph, and endomorph. And you said 4. And so I'm so curious, and I didn't want to go and do any research to see what 4 is Sue Ann talking about. So what are the 4 body types, and how can we use the 4 to transform our health?

Yeah, yeah, it goes— so it goes quite a bit deeper than the, the 3 body types, and it's a little similar but a lot of differences. So it has to do with the glands. So we recognize for women there's 4 types, and actually for men there's 3 types. So thyroid, adrenal, pituitary, or for the woman only what we call gonad type, which has to do with the ovaries. And it— there's nothing wrong with those glands. Some people think, oh, I have hypothyroid, therefore I must be a thyroid type. No, you can be any of the body types and have hypothyroid. The way it works is we all have a dominant gland. For myself, it's a thyroid. For someone else, might be adrenal, and so forth. And that gland is working harder than the others, so it creates an imbalance and it creates cravings and maybe like low energy and all these things. And so when we start eating the right food at the right time for our body type, it balances the glands. We feel better, we feel more balanced, cravings almost disappear, appetite is kept in check, and weight drops off more easily. So it works amazing. It completely transformed my health and my life. I can tell you a little bit about my story if you like. Um, when I started eating right for my body type and I'm was so blown away. It's like, okay, I have to tell everyone about this.

I would love to hear your story. Absolutely. And, and, you know, and actually, if you— I would love to hear your story, and then I would love it if you could speak to how do you figure out which is your body type.

Yes. Yeah. So start with my story. So, um, when I first got interested in yoga, as I mentioned, was a big catalyst for change, and I immediately switched to a vegetarian diet. And I think a plant-based diet is one of the healthiest diets we can eat. But however, it may be hard to get enough protein for certain body types. So I was vegetarian for 16 years and then I started taking my classes to be a naturopath. And my teacher was talking about the body types. And when she was describing the thyroid type, I'm like, that's me, that's me, that's me, that's me. 100% across the board. There was no doubt that that was my type. And she was telling me, you need way more protein than you're getting from your vegetarian diet. And here's the yoga teacher saying, "No way." I'm like, "There is no way. Forget it. That's not going to happen." I was super stubborn. But meanwhile, I had had eczema on my hands for over 20 years. I was hypoglycemic. So if a meal was delayed, I would be like very, very, very irritable. Any of my ex-boyfriends would attest to that. I had up and down energy all day. I was hungry all the time. You know, I'd start my day off with cereal. It was a lot of carbs, a lot of sugars, eating all the time, never feeling satisfied. My energy would crash every afternoon. I would yawn for half an hour nonstop. And it was just like, yeah, completely unbalanced. And so I don't know how many weeks it was of my classes, like days and days of classes when I finally said, okay, this makes so much sense. I'm going to try. I'm going to start eating chicken and fish and eggs and eating right for my body type. And I'll give it a try. So I did. And all of a sudden my energy started getting better. My strength increased. My energy crashes were a thing in the past. I felt so much more balanced because I was finally getting the protein, especially at breakfast. And I was in a cycling club at the time, and I went from being like riding in the slowest group over time, maybe like by the time the second year I joined back in, I started riding with the fastest guys in the club out of a, you know, we're 450 members.

Yeah.

So, so I never looked back and kept on. I've always eating this way and teaching my clients how to eat this way as well. So how to figure out your body type and what's this all about? As I said, it's our dominant gland. And when I'm working with a client, I look at their cravings, I look at their energy levels, I look at even their personality. I look at what kind of foods they prefer. What ailments they're more prone to. So I can give you—

interesting.

Yeah, I can give you a bit. Like, people that want to lose weight are often either adrenal body type or gonad body type. So I'll describe both of those for those that are interested in dropping the pounds more. So I'm interested.

Yes.

So the adrenal body type is usually a strong upper body and usually a large chest. They are strong in general. They're the strongest of all four types. They're generally sociable. They love to be around people. They kind of— it can be the life of the party. There are more timid ones, but they're usually— they like to be sociable, like to be around people. Their cravings can include many things. They often go towards red meat, sometimes fried foods like french fries. They often like their red wine when they drink alcohol. That might make them feel stronger. They also can like sweet things, but it might be more a little bit on the fatty side of sweet things, so like pastries. They, um, if they gain weight, it tends to be belly, but it might be upper belly, like it might be kind of underneath the chest and in the chest. So they gain weight a little bit more upper body. Um, they are, as I said, they're strong, hardworking, very determined. You know, if a challenge comes up, they have a feeling they can overcome it, right? They might be a little bit slow in the morning, but generally they're, you know, once they're up, they're ready to go. But they might, you know, in this morning, I'd like my coffee, takes a little while to get going. And, um, but once they do get going, they, as I said, they're very strong, so they might say they're tired and they keep on going. For them, the ailments that they have to be aware of as they get older could be high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular issues. So, you know, they might be more prone as they get older to heart attack, stroke. So very good for them to follow a healthier diet, reduce the fat that they crave and the salt and things like that. So that's about the adrenal type. And then the gonad type, or for the women only, They're usually the pear-shaped, so often a little bit bigger lower body. That being said, we can't tell a person's body type by their shape alone because we can be thrown off. So that's why, you know, all— I look at all the different factors. So the gonad type is the very motherly, caregiving. They usually love to have kids. They might have, you know, 3 kids. They love to breastfeed their kids as long as possible, if that's possible. If they don't have children, then they, they're often choosing choosing professions, or even if they do, they choose the caregiving professions— psychologist, massage therapist, uh, um, doing, yeah, all the helping professions. Nurses, a lot of nurses are gonad types. They, um, often like cheesy things, sauces, might like creamy sauces, a little bit more salty than sweet. Usually they need more sleep than any of the other body types. They have to— when they have a good night's sleep, they're like, oh, Ah, that felt great.

Okay.

Um, they're— they do take care of others so much that they often neglect themselves and they put themselves last. So that's one thing that really needs to be overcome. And their ailments tend to have to do with the reproductive system. You know, as I said, gonad has to do with the ovaries. So they will have challenges with PMS, maybe polycystic ovary syndrome, could be, um, ovarian cysts, breast cysts. Yes. Yeah. Anything to do with the reproductive system. Maybe when they go through menopause, that will be more challenging for them. So all of those, those are the two body types. Do you recognize yourself in one of them or not really yet?

Well, no, I think adrenal. Some of the things more or less probably adrenal.

Yeah. And you do have a strong shoulder, strong upper body. So I mean, I can only see a part of you.

Yeah. No, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, a lot of the things you said in the beginning for adrenal, yeah, I definitely related to that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, it's fascinating to figure out people's body types and then, um, it goes— so how it works also is with the person's metabolism, kind of. So as I said, the adrenal type, and actually the gonad type also, can be a little slow in the morning, even if the adrenal type, as I said, if they have kids and they have to get them out the door, they'll be up and at 'em and ready to go. But in general, your metabolism can be a little slow in the morning and it goes up during the day. So then your food plan would follow that. A smaller, lighter breakfast is perfect for you. A medium to light lunch, like a vegetarian lunch, could be perfect. And then dinner is the main meal of the day. That's when your metabolism is highest and that's when you're going to burn it off most easily. Really? So, yeah.

Yeah.

So some people try and do the opposite and they think, I need a big breakfast with a lot of protein and they might have like eggs. If some, for some adrenal types, if they have a big breakfast, say they're going out, or, you know, bacon and fried eggs and toast and hash browns, that could trigger them to be hungrier all day long. Whereas they have, if they have something lighter like a smoothie, um, maybe like a kamut, kamut cereal, like a good quality cereal, or yogurt and fruit, something lighter They'll be fine right until lunch. They have a lunch, as I said, medium to light lunch and then dinner, and the pounds will drop off really easily following that plan. Wow.

So, yeah, I— oh my God, Sue Ann, I never would have thought that because as a matter of fact, I always thought, huh, just the opposite, that you get up. Yeah. Like, wow, that you shouldn't be eating a bigger meal at dinner when you're going to go to sleep.

And, you know, well, not too late, like dinner around 6 is perfect.

Right.

And it doesn't mean like a big quantity dinner because portion control is something that's actually challenging for a lot of adrenal types. They have to be careful of portion control.

Right.

But it's when you have like, say for lunch you had, as I said, vegetarian protein, you might have like a lentil soup or a bean salad or, you know, something with chickpeas, hummus. And then dinner would be when you have maybe more chicken or turkey or fish. So it's a more consistent protein that will fill you up. And I'm also a big fan of good quality carbs like brown rice or quinoa or sweet potatoes. So you have a little bit of that, lots and lots of veggies, right? And eating 3 meals like that would really, really help you feel balanced. And right. Yeah.

So for the, for the adrenal, look, now I'm just being selfish because now I just want all the answers to help the adrenal. So where do carbs fit in with eating for your body type? Do you think it's okay to eat carbs for every meal?

Yes. As I said, for breakfast, you might not need them. If you're having a smoothie, then you don't, you don't need them for breakfast, or you might have like yogurt and fruit. So you don't. And for carbs, for our purposes, when I talk about carbs, I mean whole grains such as brown rice, quinoa, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and things like that. So I'm, yeah, I'm a big fan of good carbs. Switch up your white bread or your wheat pasta with good carbs, and not a lot, half a cup. And my clients go, "Half a cup? That's nothing!" If it's like, if I'm having pasta, I am like, "Yes!" But they're happy that they can at least have some carbs. And when you have like, switch up white rice for brown rice, you're going to be satisfied side so much longer.

Yeah.

And especially at lunch, adding in like half a cup, half a cup of quinoa at lunch, it makes all the difference. You know, if my clients say, oh, I just had a salad with a bit of protein. Did you have your carbs? No. And I was— and they were hungry a few hours later. Add in the carbs, you're not hungry. And that goes for anybody, add in any body type, add in the carbs, right? You're not hungry a few hours later. So then you're not reaching for the unhealthy snack.

Right. So carbs are definitely not the enemy with your program.

Not at all. No, you don't. I mean, we don't gain weight from eating brown rice or quinoa or potatoes unless you pile them high with butter and sour cream.

Wow. What is the origin of this whole BITE type, the gonad, the adrenal? Where did this originate?

Yeah, it's been around quite a while, but it's very little known. There were a few books and a few pioneers. The main book in, I think it was 1985 or in the 1980s, was written by Dr. Abravanel, and he was the doctor who determined these body types. But the diet that he proposed was in the '80s, so it was not healthy because he didn't have the amount of information that we have now. Not as healthy, you know, as like with margarine and with maybe more dairy and things. So my— one of my teachers where I studied in Montreal, she, you know, found this and like, wow, this is amazing. This makes so much sense. But let's take it to a whole new level. Let's make it a really healthy eating plan that you can follow long term, like for the rest of your life, because that's, that's what diets need to be, not some thing we're doing for a short amount of time to lose weight and then go off it again. So she transformed it completely. And then, uh, yeah, so with myself, I, I, one of my friends came up with the term body typology. I'm like, yes, that's it!

Great, yeah, that's a cool name. Yeah, I love that. Well, I saw one of your posts on Instagram where you had a big old headline, "Stop counting calories," which every trainer I've ever worked with says, "You need to be in a calorie deficit," which That means you need to count calories. But Sue Ann says, stop counting calories.

Yeah, I think, yeah, it's something that so many people do. But how long are you going to count calories for? How long are you going to count points for? I want to teach my clients how to eat healthy. Okay, these are the type of foods I need for breakfast. These are the type of foods I need for lunch. This is for dinner. If I'm traveling or when we can travel or eat out, eating out, things like this, I know what to choose. I don't need to count points. I don't need to count calories. I don't need to. Overthink this.

Yeah.

And then also, I think on that post I had talked about, I have a Facebook group and I've seen quite a few times women like, "I'm counting calories, I'm in calorie deficit and I'm gaining weight." So, you know, I'm just, "Well, just send me your food journal and I'll look at it." And their food journal is filled with all kinds of sugar and processed packaged foods and, you know, unhealthy carbs and Yes, they're staying underneath their calories, but they're eating garbage and junk. So the weight's not going to come off and you're never going to be healthy eating that way.

Right.

Yeah. Wow. Let's learn how to eat healthily.

Right. So you're more of a proponent for intuitive eating, like know when you're full, make better choices, but know when your body signals you that I'm full, stop eating.

Yes. And even at the beginning, when I start with my clients, I recommend that they measure, you know, their half a cup carbs until they can eyeball it. Be aware of like how much, you know, how big a piece of chicken or fish or, you know, whatever protein they're having. So because if we say, "I can eat until I feel full," we might go a little bit too far and then all of a sudden, "Oops, that was a little bit too much." Right.

But it was so delicious. I want to keep eating.

Yes.

Yeah.

So it's a little bit of intuitive eating, but it's also like at the beginning, often when I work with clients, they might feel— I tell them, "You might feel a little hungry for the first week or two if you're used to eating bigger portions and a lot of snacks. And then after that, they're like, oh, no, I don't have that overstuffed feeling anymore. I feel good. I don't need as big a portion. Like the gonad type does not need a big portion at all. They can eat small amounts and they're good and they'll lose weight that way.

Right. So for the adrenal type, again, I'm being selfish yet again. You know, I did look at, because every now and then I look up some, you know, I do a lot of research and I go, do I have adrenal fatigue? Because I look up fatigue fatigue stuff all the time because I go, I'm very, very active and why do I feel tired? So I go, you know, you know, it's like, oh, maybe I have adrenal fatigue. So what do you think as far as if I, you know, honestly fall into the adrenal category, what are some things that I could do to increase my energy level?

Yeah. For myself as a naturopath, I always want to find out the cause. You know, what's the cause of your fatigue? What's the cause of your energy being low? Is it not drinking enough water? You know, often the adrenal types challenge— their challenge is not drinking enough water, and dehydration can cause fatigue. Is it, you know, the obvious one, not getting enough sleep? Is it having too much stress on our plate so we're waking up a lot at night and not sleeping well? It could be low thyroid. You know, usually people have their blood tests and and, and that can show if that's there or not. Adrenal fatigue has specific symptoms, which is usually you'd wake up really groggy in the morning. It might take you till 10 or 11 before your energy is okay. You might have up and down energy during the day. You might fall asleep on the couch right after dinner, and then you might be way too wired to fall asleep at night. That's a lot of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue. Most people don't You know, unless we're kind of heading towards burnout, they're usually not there.

Right.

Another huge cause of fatigue or low energy is Candida. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

I've heard of the term.

Yeah. So when people take antibiotics repeatedly, it wipes out obviously all the bad bacteria that it needs to, but it also wipes out the good bacteria. And then the Candida or yeast takes over too much room.. And people, people have, you know, different symptoms like feeling bloated, very low energy, foggy brain, craving sweets and carbs all the time. Some people might have more yeast infections. Some people might have toenail fungus. There's many, many different symptoms. And I think it's a huge epidemic that not many people know about. And so many of my clients, I mean, half the people that come to consult me have Candida. It's incredible. And so that's a huge part. So there's many, many causes of fatigue. And right, asking my clients the questions, going through everything together, I figure out why and work on that.

Okay. So now we have the primary two, the primary types. And so correct me if I'm wrong, the two primary types for women are adrenal and gonad, correct?

Not necessarily prime primary because there's also the thyroid type. There's a lot of thyroid types, but For weight loss in general, the thyroid type tends to be tall and taller and slimmer. So because I focus so much on weight loss, I don't have as many thyroid types in my practice. But they, they tend to gain weight around the middle. So it's kind of like a spare tire. We're morning types, so we do jump out of bed full of energy. We're not night owls. We're ready to go to bed. Like, you know, don't, don't ask me to do anything after 8:30 or 9:00. My brain is turning into mashed potatoes.

Right.

So what else about that? We crave sweets and stimulants. So an unbalanced thyroid type will drink a lot of coffee and want the sweets and the carbs and the sugars and the— to keep on spiking them up every day. And we need more protein. And then the last type is a pituitary type. And there's not as many pituitary types. And they, if they gain weight, it's a little bit all over, kind of like baby fat. They have a very young-looking face. Many, many of them can be Asian. They are very cerebral. They're very much in their head. They're very like mathematicians, and they love playing chess and things like that. So it's, uh, and they, they crave more dairy and milk products and cheeses, and that might create a lot of havoc with their respiratory system. They might have a lot of sinusitis and things like that because of the mucus, because of the too much dairy.

Oh, I see. I see. So how do you know which— so now we've been talking a lot about their diet, those types of things, when to eat, how much to eat. What about exercise? How do we know? How do you pair which exercises? You know, again, maybe let's start with the adrenal. Yeah. How do I know which exercises are best for the adrenal type?

Yeah, it's a great question. And there are exercises that are more beneficial to each body type. So as the adrenal body type tends to have the bigger upper body, often they like exercises that will strengthen, you know, with strength. Like often like they like doing weights. I have a friend who does a lot of stand-up paddleboard because she's like working her up— well, the whole body, but the upper body. And actually doing too much upper body workout is not that good for adrenal body type because think of it, you're going to bulk up more your upper body, which is already bigger. So it's better to do maybe more aerobic exercise or, you know, anything using the lower body as well, whether it's like like walking or biking or aerobic type of exercise. And the opposite is true for the thyroid, the rather the gonad body type. They tend to be bigger lower body. So if they, you know, if I have a client that says, oh, I just want to do spinning 6 days a week, I'm like, right, not so good. They would really benefit from doing upper body weights and working the upper body and more than the lower body. The thyroid type, I love speed, and that's not the best thing for me because the thyroid type has a lot of nervous energy. Um, so I should do more, you know, things that maybe strengthen my body more, but I still love speed. Yeah, like riding my bike, my road bike, really, really fast. Or—

right.

So there are specific exercises that are more beneficial to each body type. That being said, I always say that the best type of exercise is the one that you love and that you will do.

That you will do.

Yeah. You know, so if you love to walk, you know, walk as much as you can, whatever you, you know, if you hate the treadmill, then obviously don't try to do something you don't like.

Don't do the treadmill. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Um, I was on a call with one of my, uh, with one of my, my, my, my coaching partners and, uh, just today, actually right before this podcast,, and we were talking about actually balancing hormones. And I knew as a naturopath, she goes to see a naturopath, and we were talking about— and I haven't ever seen a naturopath. I've, I've done essential oils, those types of things. And just, you know, doing a little research on Sue Ann Hickey, I know that that's some of the work that you do. Why is that something that's important to have our hormones balanced. And can you speak to the importance of that and possibly a little bit as to how you do that?

Yeah, sure. Um, why it's so important is because when there's a little imbalance in the hormones, it can make a huge impact on our health, on our wellbeing, on our, you know, having PMS that's completely out of control and, you know, the raging, the depression, I mean, such a huge impact on all aspects of our life. Again, coming back to diet, it's— I've seen such an incredible change in my clients. For instance, some that have Candida and they— in order to get rid of Candida, you need to do a completely sugar-free diet. It's a very strict diet and you take supplements to get rid of it. But when they do that and they come back to me and they're like, like, "I can't believe my periods are lighter. They're not as heavy. I don't have as many. My PMS is almost a thing of the past." And that's only from diet. So it's just incredible how much we can do, but especially reducing the sugar. There are so many natural supplements that we can take to help the body balance hormones also and balance the hormonal issues. I had one woman who had hormonal migraines for 20 years, and a simple, really good quality, um, concentrated ginger supplement got rid of them about 95%. Ginger is a natural antispasmodic, so again, ginger capsules for cramping can be incredibly helpful. So what else, you know, I look at all of that with my clients. I look at their symptoms and in their cycles and figure out what to— how to help them. Menopause is another issue that can be really— we can help a lot. So when we go through menopause, there's two things we need to know with the hormones is that as the estrogen goes down, the adrenal gland pancreas and the liver have to take over from what the hormones and have been— the ovaries rather have been doing for so many years. So if you have a very congested liver, if you have a ton of stress in your life and you have a ton of adrenal fatigue, you will have way more symptoms. You know, case in point, if we drink alcohol when we get older, hot flashes will happen like 5 times comes as, as often and as more often and, and, uh, will be worse. So it just shows you the liver is trying to handle the alcohol, so it cannot help the hormones be balanced at the same time. So everything we can do to help the liver, everything we can do to support the adrenal glands. One simple way to support the adrenal glands is vitamin C and, um, doing like a liver detox, things like that. I had one client client when I first started as a naturopath who would work late as a travel agent, come home, have a late dinner with a lot of heavy fried and fatty foods, and have hot flashes all night long. I'm like, well, yes, you know, you can't burden your liver that way and expect to have your hot flashes be going away. You have to make changes.

Yeah. So you said there are a few— you know, like, I guess, natural vitamins or supplements that you would recommend, like, for women? Like, what would you say are a couple of those? Because I'm interested.

Yes. It's— I mean, it's hard to throw out suggestions out there because, you know, if some people are taking medication or this and that, and you have to— we have to be careful of—

OK. Yeah.

And the other thing Also with supplements is we don't want to work the same way regular medicine works in covering up the symptoms with only supplements. Again, let's get to the cause. Does the diet have to be changed? Does stress have to be managed? But I mean, some people know that black cohosh can help with hot flashes.

Okay.

There's— chaste tree is another supplement. There's a supplement— I use a lot of supplements with a company called Nature Sunshine, which are in Canada and the and a few European countries, and they have a lot of really good quality supplements. They have a yam and chastree supplement that's a combination that's good. They put together combinations of herbs that are really beneficial. So they have one called Woman's Formula. They have another one called Flash Ease, obviously for helping flashes. Yeah, hot flashes. So yeah, those are just a few suggestions.

Perfect. Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I know that you do something that's called Rapid Transformational Therapy, RTT, you know, for short. How do you use that? What is it, first of all, and how do you use that with your clients?

Yeah, it's a phenomenal tool. When I first started my, you know, seeing clients as a naturopath, I thought, wow, the Body Type Plan works amazing. However, There's also always an emotional component. There's always, you know, often emotional eating that's going on or stress eating that's going on and, you know, childhood trauma. And I found that if we didn't address that and help the client work through that, then we can have the best eating plan and they can follow that for a while, but they might go back to their old habits because they haven't healed the emotional eating. They haven't healed the emotional side. So I found found, okay, what, what do I do now? Yeah, I need another tool. So that's when I found out about RTT, Rapid Transformational Therapy, which is an amazing modality, um, kind of like doing therapy in a very short amount of time to really pinpoint the client's challenges. So what we do is we bring them through a whole process to bring them into a really, really relaxed state state, because usually we're in our conscious mind, our thinking mind, our analyzing mind. And if we try and use that analyzing mind and try and get answers, it doesn't work as well as when we get into a really, really relaxed state. And I use Zoom, and then we go back, you know, say someone has OCD or, you know, something, you know, why are they overeating? Why are they— one woman I work with recently, a lot of negative self- talk. So where did that come from? And then when they're in such a relaxed state, they'll easily pinpoint different scenes in their childhood or teen years of where that started. And then it's a whole process. There's many different, um, tools that I can use during the session of what I think is most beneficial, right? But, um, you know, kind of reframing it, you know, you're not 5 years old anymore. You don't have hold on to that belief that happened when you were 5 years old and the thought pattern, because the mind is very smart, but it always wants to hold on to what's familiar.

Yeah, yeah.

And just because it's familiar. And so with RTT, let's make it unfamiliar. Let's let go of that. Let's blow that popsicle stand up. You're not 5 years old. You're not 10 years old. You never will be. We're releasing that, and then we reframe name it. And then at the end of the session, I make a positive recording using the client's words about how they want life to work— look like without the— say it's the— without the negative self-talk. So, oh yeah, um, I, I make a really wonderful recording about, you know, now I'm choosing healthy foods, I'm, you know, giving myself a lot of self-praise and self-love. It feels so good. I feel good about myself.. And I use a lot of their words that I do, I find in the intake session before we meet, make them this positive recording that they need to listen to for 21 days. And one client put it really well. She said, it's kind of like you took a negative black wire out of my brain and put in a positive white wire.

Yeah.

So it's, I'm super excited. It's a relatively new tool that I'm using with my clients. And really great results. Yeah, so super happy to be using this tool. One woman just said last week, like, she was floored. There were a lot of tears during the session. She's like, we— I've done 3 years of therapy and we never touched on that. And, you know, the next session in her follow-up, she's like, I feel like I should ask for my money back from my therapy because you, you just pinpointed the exact, like, trauma and the pain that needed to be released.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. That is very, very powerful. So wow, this is— this has been so incredible, Sue Ann. Thank you so much. So can you— I know you've been talking about, you know, a lot of this transformational work that you do with your clients with the body typology and just, just all this RTT. How, how else do you work with your clients? You know, what is the work that you do with them? How can people get in touch with you and work with you if they were interested?

Yeah, so I mean, body typology is a big part, as I said, because I love doing weight loss. I just became known for that. But it's also helping people heal their ailments naturally, whether it's digestive issues or migraines or, you know, hormonal imbalance, things like that. So finding the, the right tools that their body needs to heal that. And to get in touch with, with me, my website is easy to find, bodytypology.com. Travia.steward.com, and I put together a really fun free offer for anyone that's interested. It's a Jumpstart Your Weight Loss Toolkit. So with that, you have a 3-day healthy eating plan with the shopping list. You have an, I think, amazing guided meditation to overcome emotional eating using the RTT. So it's— I've gotten a lot of great feedback from that. And the third thing is a healthy alternatives food checklist. So it's a great way to say, okay, I can replace, as I said, my white rice with my brown rice. So it gives you the whole checklist of all the different foods that you can replace and find healthier alternatives. So you can find that also on my site, bodytypology/toolkit. It's there as well.

Perfect. This is— this has been really, really good, Sue Ann. So thank you so much. And, you know, I look forward to implementing especially some of these, these changes. You know, like, I, I feel confident that I am of the adrenal body type now, you know, because I think I'm an endomorph, and now I feel like I'm an adrenal type. So there you go. And I'm not going to be so paranoid about eating eating, you know, maybe a slightly bigger meal at dinner. You know, I was paranoid about that before. So yeah, so thank you so much for the value that you provided on the podcast today. We really, really appreciate it. Thank you, Sue Ann.

It's my pleasure, Travia. It's been a lot of fun to teach you and hopefully your listeners also a little bit about the body types, and hopefully that they learn some things and they can implement some of my suggestions as well.

Absolutely. If you like what you're hearing and perhaps you're interested in having a complimentary conversation with me, click the link at the bottom of the show notes. Thank you so much for listening. If you even want to know more about what I'm up to, head over to traviestewart.com. And if you like seeing the videos of the podcast, every episode is on my YouTube channel. Take care, guys.