510 Mastering Wellness 101: Bite-Sized Changes with Big Impact, Dr. Wendie Trubow Discusses Optimizing Your Health, Energy, Digestion, and Joy

Hello, truth seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn Tru Health podcast. We had amazing episode with Dr. Wendy Trubeau, who's coming back on the show. We had her in episode 482 where she shared her personal story of recovering from mold and heavy metals and environmental toxins. And she teaches about mycotoxins and how we can repair the gut in order to repair our immune system in order to gain true health. And that was episode 482. And she comes back today to teach the foundations of health and where to start. If you're feeling unwell and, or if you're feeling good but you know that there's a better you you could have, you know that there's like, man, I feel good, but I'm not optimal, then we're going to go through a checklist today of things that you can do to improve, to tweak, to biohack, to. To enhance your health. Just tiny, tiny tweaks that make a huge difference when it comes to digestion, absorption of your nutrition and optimization of your immune system and increasing joy and happiness in your life. Basically, we're just going to go through and look through all the little things you do each day that, that make a huge difference. Recently I heard someone talk about the little things that make the big difference. Like, for example, if you skipped brushing your teeth today, there wouldn't be any substantial change to your dental health. If you went a week without brushing your teeth, obviously you'd have bad breath and your teeth would kind of feel fuzzy. But no real substantial change to your dental health. Now you go five years without brushing your teeth and you're going to be screaming in pain in the dental chair and be very, very, very uncomfortable, right? So that's the accumulation of little daily changes. And today Dr. Wendy talks about those little things. So let's say, for example, she talks about chewing your food. We've all heard the saying, chew, chew, chew your food, right? Chewed like 20 times. And the average person only chews three times. And I've caught myself. I've actually counted and caught myself, went, wow, I barely chewed three times before I swallowed that bite of food. And we do not absorb all of our nutrition when we barely chew our food. And so if you could imagine, if you counted and became more conscious of chewing your. Put down your fork, chew your food now, maybe 20 times per mouthful is too much for you, but try six chews instead of three. You've just doubled the amount of absorption and digestion from your food, going from three chews to six chews. Now try 10. Try 10 chews and be mindful. You will find that you're optimizing your digestion. So we go through these little tweaks that you can make to your life that are going to make a huge difference a year from now if you do them every day, a huge difference. Even a week from now, if you do them every day, you will start to feel powerful changes in your life. Another thing we talk about in today's episode is sleep. And of course everyone knows this, right? Like everyone knows they should drink water, everyone knows they should get enough sleep. But if you're sleeping on a mattress that wasn't designed for your optimal sleep, then you're not, no matter how good you are about going to bed on time, you're not getting optimal sleep sleep. Recently I had an episode with Joey Woodward, episode 504, where we talked about a mattress that was specifically designed as a medical device to not only prevent bed sores, but to help the body heal bed sores up into stage four bed sores. And they're used in hospitals today. This type of material that then they put into a completely organic, non toxic mattress that's made by, by hand in the US I have one. It was life changing. Actually, my husband and I were just joking about it this morning because he was up in the night. He's, he's doing a fast right now. You know, God love him, he's on day four of a fast. And there's somewhere around the first few days of a fast, one or two nights is kind of rough, it's, it's just restless. The body's doing a lot of detoxing and usually when we detox, we're, we're feeling it. And he doesn't have any symptoms other than he was just wide awake probably four in the morning and, and he was up quite a bit. And this morning he goes, man, I did not get great sleep last night. And I'm like, really? Because when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I, I, he was sound asleep. But he says he was up half the night. And he goes, you know, with our old mattress, every time I would have been awake, you would have felt it. And that's so true. And we don't, with this mattress we can sleep on it. And he could be, he could be jumping on one side, I'm not going to feel it on the other. But the, the most important thing about this mattress is you get the deepest restorative sleep. That is, of course, unless you're doing some kind of detox and fasting, then, oh, your body's just going to do what it does. But normally amazing sleep is had with the Organixx mattress. I highly recommend checking it out. I do have some news I just got this week and that's why I want to talk about it. So if you listen to my about the Intellibed organics mattress, you're going to want to purchase one in the next five months and that is because the company was just bought by a different company. And unfortunately, the huge discount that we, that I negotiated with the creator of this mattress that has been honored for the last few years, this, our great, great, great discount is going to be going away. And that's sad. But you have five months, you have the next five months to purchase this mattress. Now, this mattress lasts for over 25 years and there's people who even have had one for 30 years and still sleeping on it perfectly does not warp. It's amazing. So it's really a fantastic investment. And as far as mattresses are concerned, you are saving money because you're, you're paying. It's like you're paying twice as much as a normal mattress, but it lasts, you know, four to five times longer than any mattress. So you are saving money. Plus you're getting way deeper sleep that's going to restore your body. And it feels like absolute heaven to lie on this. And you can be in any position. You can lie on your back, you can lie on your sides and you'll be able to sleep soundly through the night with no pain points at all, no stiffness. You will not wake up with any pain from sleeping from sleeping positions because it cradles your body perfectly, keeps your spine perfectly aligned no matter how you sleep. And I just cannot say enough about how much I love this and how I wish all of you had one. I want you to go to learntruhealth.com bed and that's where you can check out the webinar we did about the science around this mattress and the materials and you'll learn more. So if you really want to geek out on understanding the studies and the science and everything that went into it, go to learntruhealth.com bed and check it out. And if you'd like to explore the Fanc Fantastic Listener discount and special with all the goodies that they throw in and the, the discount and the free shipping and everything, go to learn true health.com organics. That's learntruehealth.com organics O R G A N I X and then you can always call them. They're wonderful. They're open seven days a week and when you call them, mention the Learn Trail podcast with coupon code LTH to be able to get the huge special. Their phone number is 866-647-5513. That's 866-647-5513. And I'm going to have all this information in the show notes of today's podcast. But Remember, you have five months from today. Today's September 2023, so you have five months in order to get this special. Now their organics company is working on a prototype right now to replace what they're using and they promise it's going to be amazing so that we'll have something in the future to offer after five months. However, this specific technology and what I sleep on and what I recommend currently and what I love and it's 100% non toxic, doesn't off gas, anything doesn't smell weird and it's super healthy and clean that is available only for the next five months until that basically the company that just purchased it is going to take over and stop all of the specials and discounts that was arranged by the own with the owner originally. So check it out, get it for yourself. They also have an amazing return policy, money back policy. So really there's no risk. It's just, just do it. Just jump in. And I know they also have financing, so just don't, don't let anything stop you. If you know that your sleep is is affected by your mattress, if you're in pain when you wake up, if you wake up several times a night to roll over because your shoulder or your hip hurt or your back hurts, just get it and try it and if you don't like it, return it. Get your money back. I have had such great results with this that I really, really swear by it and I would love to see all of you getting such deep restorative sleep as would our guest, Dr. Wendy Trupo when we talk about it in today's episode. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Continue to come back and learn and share. Share with your friends and family. Be sure to jump into the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group and also make sure you go to learn Trout.com and join the newsletter. I send out newsletters when I'm talking about things that are really important like if There's a huge special on something or if I've published an article or if there's something that we all need to know, like something to take action on that we all need to know. I make sure I keep you up to date. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. If you have any questions at all, please reach out to me. I'm here to help and here to support you. I'm also a health coach so if you're ever looking to work with someone, I'm here to help. You can always find me by contacting me through Facebook or through on my website learntruehealth.com enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host Ashley James. This is episode 510. I am so excited for today's guest. We have back on the show Dr. Wendy Trubo. And you can find the free very exciting ebook that she's giving us by going to 5journeys.com promo. Dr. Tro, you were on the show in episode 482 and now you're back and we're going to dive deeper into understanding how toxins and stress affect our hormones and how there's, there's such a powerful need for us to focus on making sure we're being as toxin free as possible both from our outside world and the, the internal world that's that's going on inside us that we need to support our monctry systems, our detox pathways in order to maintain health in every system of our body and longevity and well into our old age to be as healthy as possible as long as possible. This is your mission and you're here for, for us today to dive deeper. So welcome back to the show Ashley.

Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Feel, feel free to call me Wendy. You don't have to call me Dr. Dr. Trumo during the talk.

Well, thank you Wendy. Yeah, I'm really excited to dive in. Something we were talking about before we hit record which is a question everyone has after listening to episode 482 that the last episode that you were on and also listening to other episodes. Great doctors are coming on, teaching us amazing things, opening our eyes and then we're left after like a 90 minute interview going where do I start? Where do I begin? I just, I, I don't feel well. I'm not 100 healthy. I'm sick of the allopathic drug based western medical system that tells me to wait to get sick and then go to the doctor and get Put on drug after drug after drug. That's not health care. That's disease management. That's symptom management. That's not actually correcting my body or helping me in any way. And I'm just getting worse and worse and worse and feeling sicker and sicker. So then they turn to holistic health podcasts to see, well, what can I do? Because I'm just at my wit's end and all the doctors I've seen that are giving me drugs are making me feel worse, not better. This isn't health, this isn't restoring my body. They hear you talk and then they go, where do I start? What do I do? And I'd love to dive in. You have an amazing clinic. So anyone who's local to you, I know you've got sort of near Boston, right? You want to tell us a little bit about, about your clinic for those local. Now you do telemedicine also, or how would people reach you if they're just like, I don't know where to start. And I just want to have a, I just want to see what Dr. Wendy.

Sure. So if you're at the point where you need you, you need the doc, call the doctor, right? Like call the midwife. When. If you're at that point where you need someone guiding you and you're so. Interestingly, we were just parsing through the Massachusetts state laws the other day. So if you're, it's really weird. If you're, if you live in Massachusetts, you can establish care remotely. If you live outside Massachusetts, you have to come in person to establish care. Now that makes no sense to me because if you're remote, you're remote. What difference does it make? But technically we're not supposed to practice medicine across state lines, but if you establish care in Boston, or sorry, in Newton, where our clinic is, then you can go back to having everything else be telemedicine. So it's a little goofy. But we are located in Massachusetts and we have an insurance based medical functional medicine practice and it's a membership. So like similar to joining your gym, except we're focused on how to get you to feel freaking amazing all the time. That's our goal.

Nice. Very cool. And you know, your background understanding, you know, gynecology and understanding women's hormone systems and understanding the body from the medical doctor standpoint. But then you dove into studying functional medicine and understanding how do we, how do we, instead of looking at what, what, what drug do I need to give this person? Right. Because that's a very MD approach. Let's find the problem and give it a drug. You're like, let's, let's dive in and see what's going on in the body as a whole and then help that body as a whole become healthier and healthier and healthier. And you uncover things that we didn't even know we had like leaky gut and mycotoxin exposure. Right. So really, you know, interesting things that have simple solutions once we, once we figure out we have that problem. It's not simple when you're sitting there with brain fog and leaky gut going why do I feel like crap every morning? But simple once, once we can identify what it is and then move forward with, with making corrections. So someone could come fly into Boston, then come to your clinic and, and see you in person to establish care and then, and have a beautiful vacation. Boston's gorgeous. Especially in the summertime. You know, not so much in the winter, but you know, that's cause I'm from the east coast too. So I, I just, I'm like, I'm, I'm okay with not visiting snow in, in cities during winter. That's just my thing. But maybe, maybe you'd like it. Maybe it'd be beautiful to you and then, and then you could go back home and, and continue to see Dr. Wendy and her team. So that's, that's one possibility. Another is Dr. Wendy, you've got a book coming out very next year. We're really excited about that and you have a ton of information on your website, including the free book that you've given us@5journeys.com pro promo. So lots of great information we can dive into. But where do we start? Let's talk to those listeners who are suffering, who have the brain fog, have the hormone dysregulation. Either it's sex hormones, stress hormones or thyroid and they just, they're feeling like poop. But where do they start?

Yeah, I love this question, Ashley, because we really believe that, that most humans have the agency and the ability to get at least, you know, 60, 70, 80% of the way they are on their own. Like, you don't have to have me, but some people need me and some people don't. So let's talk to the people who are really self starters and want to get things going and are like, okay, now what? So the really lovely thing is that functional medicine and our approach looks at that you're an entity unto yourself. So it's not like we're pulling off your thyroid and we're only dealing with your thyroid or we're addressing only your gut. You know, what's addressing one part of your body is going to address the other parts of your body because it's an ecosystem. So if you start to fix the ecosystem, all of it gets better. Right. The rising tide lifts all boats. And so what you see is there are some foundational behaviors that are extremely impactful. Are they gonna get you 100% of the way there? Probably not. But on the other hand, if you're teetering on the edge or if you're just a little bit dysfunctional, it will go a long way. So let's dive into what those are. So you can't change your genes. So I'm gonna set that to the side. But what you can do is manage your thoughts, because the way you think about things can serve as a toxin or a stressor. And so what you want to focus on is that you manage your thoughts and you create thoughts. You have, like 65,000 thoughts any given day. And most of them, when you're talking only to yourself, are really unkind. And those set off a cascade of stress hormones and gut dysfunction and liver dysfunction that then has you not absorbing your minerals in a state of sympathetic fight flight or freeze and not detoxing. So that's not ideal. We really want to be in a parasympathetic state where the liver and gut and adrenals are balanced and you're able to deal with the toxins, including your hormones, because hormones can be a toxin, and then put them in your gut or your kidney, pee, poop or sweat them out, and life goes on. And you, you know, and it's a nice cycle. So managing your thoughts so that you don't go down a stressful pathway is one critical thing to start with. And it's free. I'm really into, like, things that you have control over that are free. You might argue that you don't have control over your thoughts, but I would say with practice, you are able to change the way that you think to yourself. So I'll give an example. Especially, especially women. But men can do it, too. When something doesn't go perfectly, we have this habit of internalizing it. Like, God, you're such a failure. God, I'm such a screw up. And there we go, you messed up again. You're never gonna get it right. Obviously it didn't go right because you did it. You know, things that are just sort of generalizations about ourselves, but honestly, those things aren't true. Ashley they're not intrinsically true. Like, I can't knock on that truth. I can knock on the table. I can't knock on that as a truth. It doesn't hold up. And yet we talk about it like it's true. So starting to take those thoughts and convert them into ones that are kinder and actually more accurate. So instead of saying, oh, you're such a screw up, you could say something like, didn't go the way I hoped, or I'm a work in progress, or I worked really hard on that and that didn't go how I hoped it would, or let me look and see what things I did that may have made that outcome not ideal so that I can not do them again in the future. Right. These are all sort of openings as opposed to hammering you with what a failure you are. And the reason it makes a difference is the thoughts you have alter your adrenals. So let me pause there before we go into other stuff you can do. Comments, questions.

Yes, I love the focus on your thoughts and understanding that our mental body affects our physical body because we think that our thoughts are innocent, right? That they're somehow, they're somehow separate from our body. But our, our unconscious mind is always listening to our thoughts. And just based on our thoughts alone, we can trigger the autonomic nervous system's fight or flight response just with our thoughts alone. You could hook yourself up to many machines that are measuring your stress response. And just by thinking about things you don't want made up, things you don't want to have happen in the future, we can see heart rate elevate, we can blood pressure go up and your, your dilation of your eyes can change. And we can, we can see all the indications that you're in a state of stress just by your thoughts alone, because your body is listening to your thoughts as if everything you're thinking about is happening right now. So if I'm like, I don't, I don't want to, I, I, I don't want to miss my mortgage payment, or I don't, I don't want to get fired from my job, or I, I don't want to be homeless or whatever, I, I don't want to be fat, I don't want to be sick, I don't want to be in pain, what, whatever it is that I don't want your, but your, your body cannot process a negative directly. So even if we think we're saying, well, I, I'm stating, I'm stating in a positive, I'm Stating I don't want those things. But like I, I could say to you, don't think of a red apple, don't think of a green tree. Right. Don't think of a blue sky. We're gonna think about, don't think of a green frog. We're going to think about those things. So when I say I don't want. When we focus on when we don't want to have happen, just like when we say negative things to ourselves, our body is perceiving those things as threats and going into a state of fight or flight. And so we're triggering this, this response, this neurological response that turns off healing mechanisms. When we're in fight or flight, our body shunts resources towards immediate survival. Fighting and fleeing and shunts resources away from digesting and creating healthy new tissue. And so the more we're in fight or flight, the less we're healing and restoring our body.

Totally.

Yeah. So I love that you're, you're saying that, number one, we have to check, we have to check our stinking thinking and, and be more gracious and loving with ourselves. Very early on it was like somewhere in the first, it might have been episode like 17 or 18 or 16, somewhere around there, within the first 20 episodes of this show back seven years ago, I interviewed a mental health counselor that said if you looked at your relationship you have with yourself, like the self talk you have with yourself, as if it were two people talking, you'd call the cops on yourself. We are so abusive to ourselves and we give it a free pass because we think it's, it's not important. Right? It's okay, it's okay to talk to ourselves that way. But if we talk to other people the way we talk to ourselves, we, it would be incredibly, it would be perceived as incredibly abusive. So yeah, it's really good that what you're saying, just check in and, and you gotta start treating yourself with that love and respect that you deserve. Because if you want your physical health to be healthy, you have to make sure that your, your mental self talk is, is in alignment with your health goals.

Totally. Train your brain.

Train your brain.

Let's, let's talk about the next thing that you have control and agency over that nobody likes. Ready?

Ready.

Every human listening to this needs more sleep than they're getting.

I knew it. I knew you were gonna say that.

You knew it. The shoe dropped. Boom.

What is it, what is it about like 10:30 at night when you know you should be in bed? It's just like. But I Want to scroll. I want to have fun. I want to watch Netflix. I want to. Now it's time to do the dishes or something. No, no, no, no, no. Now's the time to be in bed. But what is it about needing that dopamine at night that is just. It's so exciting. And the kids are asleep. It's late at night. It's now, this is me time. How many moms have I heard who are, who are sick and exhausted and have hormone problems, but it's like they, they won't go to bed earlier because that's their only me time. Right? I had one client who switch, I asked her, just, just switch it up instead. Go to bed with when the kids go to bed and then wake up early and you'll still have your me time, but you'll have it in the morning for that. And changed her entire life. She still had this same amount of me time, but she was twice as productive and also felt amazing through the day.

Yeah, yeah. So I would say humans are pretty chronically under slept. And the consequence of that is that, you know, you wouldn't fail to change the oil in your car or change the tires when they're bald or do upkeep on your car. You wouldn't ignore your car and expect it to perform optimally. And yet getting less sleep than the body needs causes it to perform suboptimally. So I love that idea to go to sleep when the kids do a b. I'm a huge fan of get into a routine. Right? So this is where no human is an island because you're gonna need the buy in of the people in your life. Like, I have teenagers and they love to, to chat at 10 o' clock at night. And I'm always like, I love chatting with my teenagers because they're fun and they're funny and I love connecting with them. And my oldest is going off to college, so it's particularly poignant that I only have, you know, another couple months of these interactions before she's out of the house. And, and yet it doesn't work for me. Like, I need to go to bed at 10. And so my, my husband is very on board with this. My teenagers, I do keep needing to say, like, okay, how about you come up to the bathroom and you can chat with me while I get ready for bed instead of us chatting down in the basement? Which then 45 minutes goes by, right? That's one. Get off the screens. Because not only are they messing, you know, they're very addictive. And I believe that all of this causes us to want to eat more because it's all suggestive. It's riling us up. And then even more than that, the blue light is messing with your melatonin, which means that your sleep quality is diminished. And so it's really important to establish a routine where you get off the screens by at least an hour before bed and then do things that you enjoy doing are restorative. You know, that doesn't include email, honestly, that does not include email, that does not include projects, that does not include working. It means you get off your screens and you start getting ready for bed. I take an hour to get ready for bed, partly because I, you know, futz around and then I go talk to my kids and, you know, I'm not like concerted getting ready for bed. I'm distracted getting ready for bed. But essentially what happens physiologically around 10 o' clock at night is that if you're not in bed and you're not on your way to bed, you get a second wind and you literally push out more cortisol from your adrenals. So now your body's like, oh, wait, wait, no, I'm awake, I don't need to go to sleep. Because your body thinks a lion's gonna eat ya. You just want to look at Facebook or Instagram for a half hour. But it does have that impact of jacking up the system and having you release a second wind. And then the challenge is you're not tired, so you don't go to bed. So it's really important to block the light, get off the screens, have a routine and have buy in from your partner so that they can, you know, if you get human, they can go, you know, get off the screens, it's time for bed, right? You have support.

I, we have this go back and forth with my husband because I'll be like, why did you let us sample it? He's like, I'm taking, I'm taking your cue. Like, he, he, he's like, he's like excited. He's fine with staying up late, but because I'm the one that always has to go, okay, it's 10 o', clock, we're getting in bed, let's go, come on. But if I don't, if I lose track of time, then he's like, oh, good, I'm getting away with staying up late. And I'm like, why is, why is it sometimes having a husband's like having a teenager? I tease him, I tease him. He's he's very responsible about many things. But then there's just some behaviors that are like. And me too, right? Like I, you know, I'll catch myself be like, how is it 12:30 at night? I'm supposed to be in bed hours ago. Same with my eight year old.

Second wind.

Yeah, exactly. And my eight year old. I mean, I want to know when second wind happens for kids. Because that kid, man, if I'm not, if I don't start bedtime, like you have to start dinner at like between 5 and 6 and then bedtime has to start at 7 for him to be asleep by 10. I'm just like, it is like I have to be the entire evening is trying to get that kid to go to sleep. And, and it's just because he, he has energy. I don't feed him any sugar. Heats. Incredibly healthy. He's, he's physically active for at least half the day. He's just, he's a very healthy kid. But this kid does not shut off, right? So it's just like he doesn't like have that. Oh yeah, I'm kind of getting tired, you know, So I have to like make it be this whole routine where it's like, okay, now we're winding down and now we're reading a book. Now we're, you know, getting in bed and cuddling. And now we're reading a book and we're, you know, making sure all the lights are off. So it's just this big rigmarole to get him to sleep. And I'm just wondering, like, when does that happen? Is that, is that more like for teenagers? Because kids don't seem like they ever turn off. But for me, I can feel that second wind. It is right around 10:30, like clockwork. If I'm awake at 10:30, I'm going to be awake till 12:30 or 1 because I got that extra boost of cortisol. I'll be tired at nine. Like my body will be like, oh wow, I could totally go to sleep now. But then if I'm awake at 10:30, it's like, oh yeah, I could definitely, you know, pull half an all nighter at least.

Time to party.

Time to party.

So here's the problem, actually, like humans, it's so funny that, that I would say this was the best positive impact from COVID which was that, you know, we have all these children, they go to all these activities and we have all these carpools. And in Covid, we didn't have any of that. And I ended up getting Approximately nine hours in bed every night because I didn't have to get up until later because I didn't have to drive any carpools. They were at school, at home for school. And my office is eight minutes away from my house. That includes walking in and walking out. So it's super close. And so I ended up getting about nine hours a night. And I. What I realized was, you know, I was. I used to be proud. Like, oh, yeah, I get seven hours of sleep. Okay, I got seven hours in bed. So if you're listening to this, you need more sleep than you're getting. Seven hours in bed translates to approximately six and a quarter or six and a half hours of sleep. It's not enough time for you to hit the deep and the REM and the true restorative time in which the cells in your brain and the rest of your body get smaller so that the interstitial space drains, so that your toxins drain into the glymph and the lymph so that you get them out of your body instead of hanging out in your. In the fatty tissue of your brain and your organs and your bones. You need that time. So aim for at least eight hours in bed with the lights off. That's not like in bed reading. No, it's in bed with the lights off where you're trying to sleep because you inevitably have awake times. You're not 100% efficient. So every human needs more sleep, and you have control over that. You need to get in bed by 10 and not get up till 6 or, or 9 to 5. Whatever.

Love it. You just explained how our brain detoxes. And I've seen the studies that when people are chronically sleep deprived. So let's say getting six hours of sleep a night or that, like you said, they're in bed for seven, but they're actually getting six out six or maybe six and a quarter. They're not going into the deep sleep. Or people who sleep with, like, dogs on their bed or noise outside or they don't have. They don't have, like, the kind of curtains that can block the light. So they're really. Their. Their sleep becomes disrupted. They don't get the deep sleep. Their brain does not detox. And it. It. Where we see in the studies that it accumulates these weird proteins and that they're seeing it. There's a relationship between that and dementia.

Yep.

That, that we need to let the brain detox drain that it's like. It's like at the end of the night, you Put all the dishes in the dishwasher and you turn it on. Well, what would happen if you didn't, if you forgot to hit the on button, you forgot to hit the start button on the dishwasher. You come downstairs, there's no dishes, all the dishes are still dirty. And, but we do that every single day. That is our brain, right? You didn't hit the start button and let your body wash the brain and detox it by not getting enough sleep. And another thing you said that's really important is that the screens in the blue light before bed decreases melatonin production. And what they're seeing now in studies is that melatonin is even more important than, than all the other antioxidants the body makes. That, that melatonin is a master antioxidant that's helping our body prevent major disease. It's not just we, for a long time we thought it was just helping our sleep cues, helping our circadian rhythm. It, it actually is incredibly healthy for decreasing inflammation. They've done studies around breast cancer and seeing that, you know, melatonin production and breast cancer lowers inflammatory breast cancer. And I'm sure you have even more information on that, but just that maybe that you could share. But, but melatonin is incredibly important and we have to, we have to guard our protection of it very closely. What are some natural ways that we can increase melatonin production? Like tart cherry juice is one way we can support it. I know you've talked about like blue, blue blocking glasses or just getting off the screens. Are there any ways that we can help increase healthy melatonin production?

I want to look at it. How to preserve your melatonin, meaning if you. So the melatonin starts to increase right around 4 or 5 o' clock in the afternoon, your melatonin actually does start to increase. And so what you want, I always think about it, naturally increases. And so what we want to try to do is not diminish it. So for example, if you wake up in the middle of the night and you have to use the bathroom, or you, I don't know, you're awake, whatever, don't turn the lights on because the light makes the melatonin go away. Right? So keep the lights off, get off the screens, wear blue light blocking glasses, start to dim the lights because it signals the body. Oh yeah, right, the melatonin is higher. I should be going to bed. And the torture juice is fantastic. We actually increase melatonin intake for people who have had any type of infection or particularly if they had Covid, because melatonin is such a powerful antioxidant. So increasing it in times of major stressors for the body is fantastic. And then you can start to wean down after. After the, you know, big pump, big bump.

When you say increase, you're talking about taking in exogenous melatonin.

Yes.

What forms of. So what you're saying is not something you want to get on, like habitually for years and years, but. But. Or is that even safe? Can we talk?

Yeah, sure. So it's interesting. It doesn't look like you'll necessarily suppress your melatonin unless you're doing the things that suppress it, like being on screens, being up, you know, staying up. Chronic illness will. Will suppress it. But just taking melatonin doesn't look like in the short term will. Will suppress it. And there's a million forms, Ashley, that it's really challenging. So you can take natural forms derived from the high melatonin containing foods. I know there's a liquid, it's a much smaller dose because it's much more concentrated. And then there's also pill forms that you can take. So it kind of depends what quote unquote scene you're in and what you're looking for and whether you feel strongly that it come from food or not. So it's all over the map.

What do you prefer for your patients and clients?

We tend to do the. The pills, actually, because it's. We have a very varied practice. And so we often do the, like a 3 milligram sustained release melatonin. And then anyone who's going through a massive infection or some type of major immune challenge, we will increase them. Depends on the person. So I don't want to give a number, but we'll increase them to higher numbers.

Yeah, yeah, got it. And I've. I've taken it. And any, anything above 3 milligrams, I feel like I'm not sleeping. Like I'm sleeping, but it's like that weird lucid sleep where you, like, feel like you've been awake all night and then I'm groggy all the day. All day. So there's a certain dose that can, like, feel like you're drugged all day and then you just can't, no matter what, you can't shake that feeling that you're groggy and you're like you're asleep.

Yeah. And actually, one of the solutions for that is to take it much earlier because the melatonin in our bodies is increasing around 4 to 5p. And so instead of taking it at bedtime, back it up by hours and take it. Well, we're recording it. You know, you might not be listening at 4 in the afternoon, but we're recording at 4 in the afternoon. And that's actually when you want to take your melatonin, if you. To see if that can alleviate, not only improve your sleep, but alleviate that groggy feeling.

Oh, wow. Very interesting.

Yeah. All right. So that's the sleep. We've only gotten two. There's a whole bunch more.

Let's do it.

You need to. You need to. Well, things that you can do on your own. So the next thing to do is really have an authentic conversation with yourself about your food. Because food is medicine and you are what you eat. And so it's very difficult to be optimally healthy and feel freaking amazing when you eat inflammatory food that challenges the body. Because don't forget, even the best of intentioned humans who have a very clean lifestyle, no matter what you do, you are still being exposed to a waterfall of toxins every day. Just look around. If you have a rug, unless it's wool, you're getting exposed to some type of plastic. Your mouse, your computer, your phone. Plastic, metal. The air you breathe can have various chemicals. The water you're drinking, also chemicals. The food you're eating, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides. So it's really important because you eat every day and you eat three to six times a day, depending on who you are, that you level up your food. Now, perfection is the enemy of good and better. Okay? You don't have to be perfect. Really? I really want to stop and repeat that. You do not have to be perfect. You have to be better.

Yeah.

So start where you are and level up. Think of, think of food as a spectrum as opposed to a destination. Right? Like, I've been in this game for 17 years, and I still practice leveling up, and I still sometimes go, oh, wow, that really snuck in. And I don't want to eat that way. Right. I have all these teenagers in the. I have three teenagers and one preteen. You know, they're not like, hey, cook me up some hummus. They're like, let's make popcorn and let's. Let's have ice cream. And I'm like, I don't eat ice cream. I don't like. I actually never liked ice cream, even as a kid. I know that's, like, not American, but I don't like ice cream. And probably because I had, you know, a dairy allergy. As a kid and now I just don't like it and I don't eat sugar, so. Or I work hard not to eat sugar. So anyway, take a, have a good honest look at your food. Basically the goal is that you eat food that looks like itself and that's minimally processed and you can recognize. Now a lot of people will say to me, I made pancakes myself. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. That's still kind of processed, right? Because you had to grind the flour. So there are a few ways that you can do it that are better, right? If you did eggs, you did a pancake with egg and banana. That's way better than taking flour and grinding it and then making it into a pancake. So I would say grain free does is a higher level, so it's an improvement. But really look to what are the ways that you can make an improvement that are sustainable. It's not about dieting, right? This isn't a temporary thing that you're going to do for three weeks, get your beach body on and then you're going to go back to it. No, this is like, how are you going to eat to promote lifelong vitality? Because that's very different than eating for a diet. It's not a diet, it's lifelong vitality eating. It's different, right? It's like Michael Pollan's forks over knives. Fill your plate with cruciferous and green leafy vegetables. Eat some protein of your choice, whether that's vegan beans and lentils or whether that's actually animal flesh. And if it is animal flesh, make sure it's grass fed. Grass finished. Chickens really aren't meant to be fed on grains. It increases their Omega 6 content. And so, you know, look to where you're getting your chickens from. See if you can, or your chicken meat. See if you can upgrade. It's very challenging and it's expensive. So you know, pick a battle that works in your family. You can get frozen vegetables organic, they're much less expensive. But do your best to level up and do your best to minimize alcohol and do your best to cut down your sugar. If you, if you did that, you'd be like, wow, you know, I, I really did great work. Is it perfect? No. But remember we talked about, you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be better.

I love that you say level up because I come from many years of playing video games in my youth and like level up. Like you want to like Super Mario, get that mushroom level up and, and Just thinking like make it a game, make it fun, right? How can I level up this, this meal right for next time? Or how can, you know, thinking about making dinner, what can I do to level up my dinner? The other day we went to the beach and we, we live really close to the Puget Sound. I, I grew up on the east coast, live on the west coast now. And, and so we just went, we're like a few blocks away from the Puget Sound, went down to the beach and I cooked a bunch of food, put it in glass container, Tupperware and, and brought it down and shared it with, with all my other friends. And as we're all eating, they're looking at, it's, it's a oil free stir fry of vegetables, mushrooms and over brown rice with some seasoning. And they're loving it. And they're like whoa. And they look at me and one of them says, so do you, do you cook with frozen food or is this like fresh? And like how do you, how do you do this? How do you get all these vegetables in? And I said listen, my, my thing is good, better, best, right? So good might be a can canned beans or some kind of canned vegetable, right? Better is frozen, best is fresh. And pick one and try to upgrade, right? So it's like at least like, you know, the, at least you're getting, if you had no vegetables in you and a can of vegetables comes along, at least you're getting some vegetables. I'd prefer fresh obviously, but there's times when I, I stock up the freezer with organic vegetables just because there's times when I don't have the time to chop up. But I also am committed to not eating out. I'm committed to 100% of my meals being, being home cooked. I'll take them, I'll take them with me as I go out. But I'm committed to never eating at restaurants because that has, that has caused a lot of my health issues. And even if I'm choosing healthy things at restaurants, it's still the lowest quality ingredients. They're not organic. They're using omega rich vegetable oils that are just, are very pro. Inflammatory and, and I just don't want to feed my cells that. It's, it's, it's fun. And my addiction brain wants, it wants just like my addiction brain would love to go to a casino and gamble, you know, or would love to stay up all night watching Netflix or would love to like, I don't know, just name it and some kind of a dopamine Rich activity. There's no dopamine rich activities that are over stimulating the dopamine that are, that are healthy. Right. Because, because we, the long term things, I, I look at my long term goals and that takes patience and emotional intelligence and it takes putting, putting aside the dopamine for now, for the dopamine later for that. So I'm like, I'm gonna eat home cooked meals and I'm going to choose frozen, as much frozen or fresh, as much as possible and get vegetables in. And then I get to have that reward later on down the road. And every day I feel slowly better, better, better, better. So just look at the plate and go, you know, level up like you said, Good, better, best. How can I make this better? How can I make a better choice? And know that whatever you put in your mouth is feeding every cell in your body. So you know, if you're eating a chick Fil a, whatever, or McDonald's, whatever, hold that in your hand in your mind, imagine it and go, do I want to feed these ingredients to every cell in my body? Those cells that are keeping cancer at bay and reproducing to become healthy cells? Like, is this gonna actually make healthy cells or is this gonna make me feel miserable? And it's gonna, it's, you know, temporarily. You'll feel good for 15 minutes, maybe less, probably less. Five minutes. It takes about five minutes to eat a hamburger. And then that's days of the body having to deal with the effects of all the toxins and inflammation from that food.

Yeah, it's funny because I have celiac disease, which is the end, which is the autoimmune end result, end of the road for an allergy reaction to gluten, which is the wheat. It's what we make our bread with. And so I don't generally eat out because I'm often very reactive to the cross contamination. But I've noticed, it's so interesting you talk about the quality of the oils, because I've noticed that when I eat out, I've started to lean towards. And when I eat out, it's like once a quarter, right? We're talking about four times a year that I'll eat out. And I really focus on trying to stay as close to the way I eat at home because I find that when I not only eat out, but eat food that I wouldn't normally eat, I'm inevitably sick. I'm like, oh, that wasn't worth it. That was not worth it. So it's really important if you're gonna eat out choose foods that you would normally choose at home, right? So don't go whole hog, go half hog. And the next thing I would say is, it's really important. And these are all things that you have control over, right? Chew your food. My family has not yet taken this on. I took this on about a year ago after I was reading about. If you think about food, the average human chews a mouthful three times and then swallows. However, if you have food, it then needs to be broken down and digested and the minerals and nutrients absorbed. And the more times you grind it or chew it, the better the surface area that your body will have to work on. And the greater the surface area, the more likelihood you'll be able to break it down. Then the easier you'll be able to break it down. So you want to chew your food 20 times, 30 times, like, chew it until it's. You just can't chew it anymore. And my family always teases me because I'm literally the last one at the table chewing. They're all done. They're done. They're like, bye, Ma. We're like, I'm like, I'm still eating.

Okay?

So I'm still eating because it takes, when you're joking, about five minutes to eat a hamburger. I'm like, oh, it probably takes me 10 now because every mouthful takes so long, right? So when you're eating and this kind of morphs into the next thing that you have control over, which is manage your stress. And why that relates to food is that when you eat, you want to be in a state of parasympathetic activation. So before you eat, take a few deep breaths, signal the body that a lion is not about to eat. You chew your food, breathe while you're eating, connect with people while you're eating. Now, that's not the only way to manage your stress. It's really. But it's one thing that really is very glaring is when you're looking at your health, if you are in a state of sympathetic activation, as we mentioned, you're not going to absorb your food because digestion gets shut down. So you want to see the body. Okay. All right, guys, get ready. It's time. It's time to get to stuff that makes you feel good, right? But be conscious about it. That's one. And then the other side of that is that you want to manage your stress every day. Not just around food, but manage your stress so that you tilt the scales, tilt the balance beam towards. Tilt the seesaw towards rest, relaxation, parasympathetic digestion, absorption, recovery, as opposed to tilting it towards inflammation, sympathetic, sympathetic overload, and ultimately disease. Because the body. The body gets shut down, and you don't go down the pathways of normal, healthy behavior. And what you wind up with is autoimmune disease, chronic disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, you name it. And I'm going to say, okay, it tracks back to inflammation and toxins. So you really want to manage your stress, and that's either getting out and moving your body or meditation or walking meditation or tai chi, whatever it is that for you is that thing you want to do it.

And inflammation. I keep hearing people say, oh, inflammation is the cause of disease. I'm like, it's present in. I can't think of a disease. Inflammation isn't present in, or at one point was present, but it's not the cause. It's definitely an accelerant and it is present. Right? But our behaviors and our way we eat and the way we manage stress, the way we sleep, all these things. Things go into whether we're increasing inflammation or helping the body regulate it healthfully in a. In a, you know, you could say, decrease inflammation and then keep it in within homeostasis, right? Keep it in healthy, healthy levels. There's a naturopathic physician that was the dean of Bastyr. I've had her on the show. Amazing woman. Dr. Molly Niedermeyer. She was my nature path with my. With my son when I was pregnant and was our pediatrician. She had this saying. She'd go, do you have socks? Do you have sock. Do you have sock syndrome? And I'm like, what are you talking about? She goes, do you. Do you eat over the kitchen sink? Like, she had this, like, abbreviation for, like, where do you eat your meal? Because she could catch her patients, most of them, if they're female of a certain age who are managing the family, they're doing the cooking. They'd be sitting there and their meal is standing up over the kitchen sink or over the stove. Just that's where they're eating their meal or just standing in the kitchen. They don't even sit down with the family because they're. They're busy cooking the food and then feeding the kids and then, you know, getting the laundry done and watching the kids and making sure they eat. And then they're just standing there shoveling their mouth a full. A few mouthfuls of food in their mouth over the kitchen sink before they go off to soccer practice or whatever. And she's like, no, you actually have to Sit, sit down and turn off the stress response and chew your food and calm down. Like, you do need to carve out time for yourself. You can't just sit, stand over the kitchen sink and eat your meals. And that was a big eye opener for me. This, this concept that there's women who don't actually have any meals sitting down because they're so busy managing everyone else that they never think that they to. In order to digest, they need to sit down, breathe, and chew their food. And that. And that just amazes me that we take for granted, you know, how. How our body functions and how to help our body function optimally because we're navigating and we're kind of the cruise directors of all these little people in our life. And, and for me, it's like the cruise. Cruise director of my whole family and my business. And. And I run a giant organization of a 500 mom organization of local homeschoolers. So it's like I'm organizing and being this cruise director for everyone else. It's like, no, I need to prioritize sitting down, digesting, taking care of myself. That, that you are important. But moms will. And, you know, busy, busy women. I can only speak for what it is to be a woman. I don't know what it is for to be a man, but I do see my husband sitting down and eating. So I think maybe men sit down and eat more than women.

Well, it's more about ownership. And I think the thing that I would say that I think is really powerful for all the women listening and the men, actually. So if you're the female, if you're the person who's responsible for this and you're eating while standing, this is a, this is a. This is what you're demonstrating. This is the role modeling you are doing. So what you're teaching your children is when you're a parent, don't take care of yourself.

Yeah.

So it's very important to model healthy behaviors around food, because children really don't understand what to do unless they see it right. So they learn to chew their food from you. They learn to sit and have civilized conversation at the dinner table. And that, I mean, I have to acknowledge, I always get up during dinner, almost always. And I notice that I sit closer to the kitchen, and my husband sits as far away from the kitchen as he can get, pretty much. And so there's something to the seating and the responsibility. But especially even if you're the man listening to this, if the other. If your partners in Your life are doing this. You're role modeling for these kids. And you're also not connecting. So there's tremendous value to being at the. Being at the table, connecting. And I. Gosh, I remember. You know, it's so funny you say that, Ashley, because I remember saying to a patient, wait, what? You don't eat with your kids? She was home with her kids. And in my family, what happens is we make lunch. You know, on weekends, we make lunch, and we sit down and eat it together. I don't make it for them. And then they eat while I'm cooking. That. That's ridiculous. Like, that doesn't. That doesn't even make any sense to me. You know, you got. You need. Part of the. Part of the value of meals is connecting. And so it's really important to stop, make enough food for yourself and for them and sit down. If you got to get up four times, I get it, because I get up, too. But do your best, right? Better.

Yep.

Good. Better.

Best.

Do your better.

Yep. Do. Do your better. And eventually you're gonna be doing your best. Just choose to level up. Choose something to level up. Choose an activity and do it. There's. There's a million things we could do better. Don't. Don't, like, feel like a failure. Feel like you're, you know, you're doing it all wrong. Just choose one thing. Baby steps, right? Like, I. I committed to not eating out at restaurants, and I put a counter on a little app that counts the days since I've been at a restaurant. I found a sobriety app because I was like, what kind of app would just count days? Like, super simple. I just don't want to have to, like, every time, look at the calendar and be like, okay, it's been how many weeks? I just want something I can, like, log into and. And it tell me how many days since you could have maybe an accident, you know, an accident app. Like, how many days since an accident? Or for me, I found a sobriety app. So I'm. I'm counting the days since I've been at a restaurant or eaten restaurant food, and. And thus, how many days have been eating straight without any break? And I love it. This one. So it's like, this one health thing I can do for myself because there's a million things I can do for myself. This one thing. I chose one thing, and I'm like, this is what I'm focusing on right now in this part of this year in my life is how many days can I go by eating 100% home cooked meals. And then it's like for me, good, better, best. It's like if I have to grab a can of food, I will. If I have to grab a frozen bag, I will. As long as it's whole food ingredients that I'm making from scratch. And it has been wonderful. I am, I'm so proud of myself and I feel so good. And the, the biggest thing was just committing. The biggest thing was just doing it and then being okay with really simple meals, being okay with, okay, we're having potatoes for dinner, like, and then I'm going to steam some broccoli because that's all I have the mental capacity for. That's fine. We all filled up on delicious potatoes and steamed broccoli. And then when I have more, more of a brain for it, I make bigger, you know, productions. I made this amazing salad that was like, knock your socks off salad. And I will, I'll recreate these delicious meals when I have more time. But sometimes just keeping it simple, grabbing, grabbing a smoothie. That's another thing I want to ask you about. There's a lot of controversy around smoothies about making whole food smoothies because, like, oh, well, you should be chewing your food, you shouldn't be drinking it. I'm like, I get it. But the good, better, best model allows for room for making a smoothie as long as it's not a bunch of like, potions and stuff. Like, it's, you know, some people choose to do that and that's, that's okay. But like, let's just take a bunch of real food and juice it or put it in a smoothie because it's fast, it helps break up the fiber a bit and then you're, you're drinking it so you're getting it in you. The best would be if you could sit down and chew everything. But what are your thoughts on making whole, whole food smoothies?

I mean, honestly, Ashley, I feel like I don't really see a difference between the machine chewing it and me chewing it. Yeah, it's chewed. I don't know, right?

Except it, it does, the act of chewing does start like the mastication does start, kickstart the digestion, right? So, so like we do start digesting in our mouth and that kind of get, kind of primes the pump, gets the whole digestive system going. So if you could maybe like make a chewing motion while you are also drinking your, your smoothie, you could just say, hey, body. But you know, our, our people will inhale a burger and Chew each bite once and we somehow managed to digest that. So I think, I think we could, we could streak a smoothie, get the nutrients from it, because it's a good, better best model. If you don't have time to cook, you definitely have time to blend something.

Yeah, 100%. I, I have no problem with, literally no problem with, with smoothies. I think they're. I have them myself all the time actually. My favorite is a blueberry arugula combo, which I know sounds weird. I actually like the sort of bitterness of the arugula. I like it. My family thinks I'm, I mean, I'm, you know, obviously the, the, like oddball in my family, but we're twins.

We're totally twins. So you do, so what do you. Water. Do you do, like almond milk? Like what do you, what do you, how do you make it? Tell us your.

So I actually do a blend. So I do a protein powder that we have that's designed to support the liver. It gives the liver lots of minerals and nutrients. Remember? I don't know if you remember. Okay, there's a Test in episode 482, did I talk about my terrible genetics? So I have the worst genetics. And the celiac layer means that I'm a terrible absorber. So a normal person might take, you know, two supplements, but because I'm a terrible absorber and I had this sort of hit for so many years, I take a lot of supplements because otherwise I drift too low in my mineral nutrient status. So I do a protein powder that has all these minerals and nutrients that support phase one and phase two in my liver. And then I add. It's so yummy, Ashley. Okay. I add frozen blueberries, organic. I add organic arugula, little baby fresh, actually baby fresh organic arugula leaves. I add cinnamon. I add cacao nibs. I add a powder that has L glutamine in it. It's all designed to support gut function. And I add an extra boost of minerals and nutrients. And then I feel like. And then I add water because I don't like it too sweet. I don't personally drink almond milk or oat milk because the oats are not 100% dedicated gluten free, so I don't want to react. And then almond I just don't do well with. So I don't need almonds or almond milk or any almond products basically. So I just add water and then blend the daylights out of it and drink it.

It's cold rice milk, soy milk, cashew.

Milk, almond I used to do soy milk. It's just too sweet for me. It's too sweet. I was like, oh, I don't like this. So I either had to choose the soy milk or the blueberries. And I would rather have the blueberries than the soy milk because I just didn't like the flavor. It was the, it was like, I don't know, it felt like ice cream. And remember, I don't like ice cream, so I didn't want to drink that.

So someone who wants it to be sweet, they could, they could choose a plant milk. I really also do not. Out of all the plant milks in the world, I would say never do oat milk because of gliadin, a protein similar to gluten. It's just also, we're just as humans, not really meant to eat grains.

I don't do well with oats. I don't eat them because I don't do well with them. And I'm sure it's from the gliadin particle.

Right? Right. So. So I love it. I love it. Yeah. Water. And then if someone wanted sweeter, they could add a banana. Here's a fun thing. You probably know this, but some people might not get green bananas. Get the bananas when they're green, chop them up with the skin on, leave, leave the peel on, make sure they're organic and rinse them really well and then chop them up, put them in a bag and put them in the freezer. And you can blend. You have to have like a high power blender, like a Vitamix. You can blend with the peel. You will not taste the peel. And that has a good, good prebiotic for the. You're feeding your good gut bugs.

That's such a great idea. I love that.

Right? It thickens it up also. And it doesn't make it too sweet because it's not like, you know, ripe ripe, but it gives you some sweetness. So I was surprised, I was really surprised. My family was looking at me like, I'm like, I have, I, like I, I have three eyes. I'm like, I'm taking the bananas, just putting them straight in the blender and they're like, you didn't peel it. I was like, I know, it's great. And you can't try that. Yeah, I know.

A green banana. Yes.

Green. Yep.

Okay, I'll try that. I'll try that this weekend.

The peel has, I mean, you can blend it without freezing it, but it's cool because it's like, it's really hard to make smoothies with green bananas. Because the next day they're not green anymore. Like, you gotta get them when they're green. And that's why, like chopping them up. Another thing about buying greens. So I go to Costco, I get, I get some. My organic food from Costco, like the frozen blueberries. Actually, we've, we. My husband is a blueberry sommelier. He goes, he's sampled all the blueberries. He's a huge blueberry eater. And, and the, the best frozen organic blueberries are from Costco.

They smell the best, actually. I've noticed. They smell fantastic.

They do. They're really fresh, they're juicy, they're great. And we will. I mean, this isn't great. You know, traditional Chinese medicine says don't do this, but we'll eat them fro like a, like dessert. We'll just eat them like frozen. And so you can get. I get the frozen blueberries from there. I get the big bag of power greens that are organic. The thing is, these aren't prob. There's not grown in the ground, so there's not a lot of minerals. Like, you can't say, oh, I'm. I've got a bag of spinach because I want iron. Like, ev. All these things are grown hydroponically in the absence of nutrition. You're just getting like some, some green in you because green is like the, the, the green is good. The, the pigment itself is good. But anything grown hydroponically, you just. If they, if they're not adding minerals to the water, you're not getting it. So that's the problem. We can accidentally get vitamins. We could bump into vitamins if you're eating, you know, fruits and vegetables. But it's really hard to bump into all 60 minerals that our body needs every day. So supplementing is, is a big deal. But I'll get the greens. And if I, if I don't have, if I know I'm not going to be consuming that in the next five days because, you know, like all of a sudden you open your fridge and all the greens are bad because you, you forgot about them. I blend them and free and put them in ice cube trays and freeze it. So this is my good, better, best thing, right? Like as best is fresh. But I can take all the greens and make. And then I can take a bunch of these trays and freeze it all and then put it in a, you know, freezer bag. And then I've got. On the go. I've already made my frozen greens already. I can Grab a few of those ice cubes. I can grab some frozen blueberries and put some water and like you said, cacao nib, cinnamon, gluten, glutamate. And. Did you say glutamate?

Glutamine. Yep.

Sorry. Glutamine. Very different. And. And whatever other turmeric. You could put whatever other kind of good. Good herbs and things like that in there and then. And then blend it, add water and blend. So, yeah, you just. I like smoothies. If you. If you're like, I really want to eat healthy, but I have no time or I don't know how to cook. I'm like, well, everyone knows how to hit the blender.

So, yeah, I got a portable blender for when I travel or, you know, I go to conferences and present. So I actually got a blender. It's a pound and a half. It's the booger now. I'm blanking on. It's a pound and a half blend jet. And it's super light and cute, and so I used that.

So not the nutribullet?

No. It was heavy.

Oh, yeah. It is kind of heavy, isn't it?

It was heavy for travel. It's not heavy for kind of being around, but it's too heavy for the travel.

And you find it does the job.

Yeah.

Cool. Thanks for that. That's so great. Awesome. All right, well, we definitely talked about food. What's the next thing we gotta examine?

The next thing that you have control and agency over is. And I'm sorry I didn't just list them out. Right. But the next thing you have control and agency over is your movement. So when you look at detoxification. And by the way, we go over all this in the book too. Like, the book really is a roadmap. Dirty girl, ditch the toxins, look great, and feel freaking amazing. It's a roadmap for how do you walk through and start taking. Taking control of all these things? So the movement, Right? So you want to sweat. Sweating's good. I can't tell you how many people walk in my office and sit down and I'm like, so do you move your body? And like. Yeah, I never sweat, though. And I'm like, oh, man. I can already tell you you're a bad detoxer because you're not sweating. So sweating's good. And if you're smelly, it means you're getting rid of your toxins. Have at it. So you need to move your body regularly and you need to be sweaty. Now there's a nuance here, because for optimal health and what I'll call peak health, feeling freaking amazing, you need to both do cardio, which will make you sweat and helps burn calories, but you also need to do weights, which will build your muscle, improve your sugar, the level of the glucose, because there's more muscle to uptake the glucose. It'll protect your bones. So you need a blend. It's not like, oh, I do one or the other. You really do need a blend of building muscle and. And training the heart to be resilient. But you need to move your body because if you're not sweating, you're not detoxing. And it's really important to sweat. Your skin is your largest detox organ, so it's critical.

Yes, I've talked about this in the past on the show, but for many years, every time I went to lose weight, I would become incredibly sick. And this was. It was. Was laughable. It was to the point where it was like, do I. Am I self sabotaging? Do I have a demonic possession? Like, what is going on? Like, every time I go to lose weight, I. I would start by, I feel burning around my eyes. I'd get, like, a sore throat. I'd have all the flu symptoms. You know, the feeling. The feeling around your head like you're, oh, like, I'm about to get a head cold. And then my body would smell like garbage. And my. Sorry to be so graphic. But number two, when I went to the bathroom, I could smell burning rubber and I could taste heavy metals in my mouth. Especially in the morning when I'd wake up, it was like an ashtray was in my mouth. And. And that was every time I lost more than 25 pounds, like, quickly, right? Like, I would do something like, I'm gonna. This was. This was. This was a long time ago, back when I did not know all the cool stuff I know now, but, you know, back in my 20s, I would like. I'm gonna do the Atkins diet, right? I'm gonna like this ketogenic was the thing. I'm gonna do Atkins or I'm gonna do the south beach or whatever. I'm gonna do the Zone. I've done. I've done over 30 diets, and I would. I. Right around the. Between 20 and 25 pounds, this sickness would kick in and it would get worse and worse and worse and worse until I had to stop dieting. It didn't matter what diet. It could be an. I did vegan, I did raw foods, every, everything. But if it was fast weight Loss. I'd get really sick.

Yep.

And it wasn't until I started doing my interviews, it was. I don't know which episode it was exactly, but somewhere in the first two years of doing this show, because I'd already helped. I'd reversed type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections, infertility, infertility, and PCOS. I'd reversed all those things, but I still had this problem. I'm like, what is going on? And then it hit me. I'm like, I don't detox and I don't sweat. I didn't sweat when I worked out. I. I don't detox. And I, and I, I have a heavy metal problem. And my liver would get inflamed. That's another thing. My liver would get all stupid inflamed and it would like stick out. Like you could actually like push on it and see. It was like pushing out. And I get. I got an ultrasound. My doctor wanted me to do a biopsy. I'm like, no, no, no. The ultrasound said it's not fatty liver. It's not cirrhost. It's just angry and inflamed. I mean, and my lab work showed it too. And I was like, what is going on? And then it clicked. I was like, I need to focus on heavy metal detox. So I got a sunlight and sauna and I ended up doing a lot of research on saunas. I interviewed Connie Zak, the co founder of Sunlight, and I got a sunlight sauna. I sweat every single day. And then I did just everything you could possibly imagine holistically to support getting rid of heavy metals. And now when I go to the gym, I cannot believe how much I sweat and I feel amazing. And I did about. I've been doing heavy metal detox and supporting my emunctory systems for, for several years now. And now I sweat. And so when you say if you don't sweat, you're a bad detoxer, it's like, yeah. And you're probably toxic. Like I was.

Yes.

And we've got to support the among tree. Like, if you don't sweat, you need to sweat. Like, we need to get you in the sauna and get you fully nutrified and clean up your diet. And there's like, there's lots of things we can do, but that means that's a good indicator that, that there's like something wrong. We've got to help your body break a sweat so you can get rid of those toxins. Toxins.

So, yeah, totally. Do.

It's. It is so important. It's so, so important. So moving your body for people who are like, I can't do the gym. What do you say? Like, just go for a walk. Find something you love to do. Like, how do you help people? Or, I'm too busy, I'm too busy. I have a. I have four kids and a career. Whatever. Like, people are too busy. How do you help them move their body?

Look, you can. I'm. I'm humming and hawing because I get it. Like, look, I have four kids and a husband. You know, we were talking about like your fifth kid or your fifth something.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of people. And my mother in law's local. My mom is local. I have two brothers who are local. Like, we have a lot of family. We have four businesses. We're starting another one. Like, there's a lot of. There's a lot pulling on us. And I. So I really, from the bottom of my heart, get it. When people say, I feel really pulled in a lot of directions, I'm like, hey, sister, I feel you. So, so I'll offer a couple things. One, you know, I've dedicated my life to making a profound impact on the people around me and helping people transform their health and feel freaking amazing. And so there is zero integrity in touting it for others but not doing it for myself. And so one of the, One of the things that I really started to look at is, okay, how can I carve it in? So one thing I literally did was I put it in my schedule, right? Because other people have control in my schedule. They can book me, they can decide I'm going somewhere, but if I'm booked, they won't do that. So all they see is that I'm available or not available. So I actually put time to workout in my schedule so that nobody can. Nobody can essentially hijack the time for me to sweat. And then I literally just did this this morning. So I had an hour blocked to move my body this morning. However, I had a podcast literally scheduled at the end of that block, which means I can't go for an hour, especially because I then have to. I did my face, but I had to do my makeup. And so I was like driving to my office going, okay, do I go for a walk? Do I not go for a walk? And I remembered, I read the study that everything is better than nothing. So if you can do 10 minutes of exercise, it's better than nothing. And so this is what the conversation I'm having with myself today. So I was like, okay, self, you're gonna go park in the parking lot and you're gonna go for a walk. Normally I go to, I have 15 minutes for travel, I have a half hour for a walk. I have 15 minutes for travel. It's like, I'm down to the minute, right? I'm really, it's literally that sort of regimented. And today I had, not that I had a half hour for everything, including the travel. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna go for a walk. So I went for the fastest walk I could around the office park where I work. And then I drove across the street and went into my office. And so what I'll say to people is there's lots of opportunities to move your body that you might not even think about. Like, park farther away in the parking lot. Always use the stairs. Go for a walk at lunch. If you say to me, I have too much work, my response is, your employer is not going to pay your medical bills, so set some boundaries and go for a walk. Because if you literally can't go for a walk, you, you need to, you need a new job.

Yeah, we need to take a page out of the, the zennials. Is it the, is it the generation Z? They're like, they want like a four hour work week. I'm like, you know what? They're on to something. Like, they're okay with, they're okay, okay with telling their boss, hey, I mean, just, I'm generalizing an entire, you know, generation, which are not all individuals, but, but as a, you know, comparing it to, for example, to the other generations, right? To, let's say the baby boomers, who, man, I watched my parents, they, they both worked themselves, they both own their own businesses. My dad had his own business, my mom had hers. And they both worked themselves into early graves. My mom, she exercised like crazy and, but she just, she never turned off, she never turned off the stress response. She was, go, go, go, go, go. And she died at 55 and she was the healthiest person I knew. That was a big wake up call. Yeah. And my dad died six years later and they both, I've watched them like just. The only time they took a break was, you know, Christmas or like that kind of thing or one week during the summer. But even then my mom would bring work with her. My dad would still be on the phone. Like it was just, they never shut off. Now they love their work and they, you know, this is what it takes to own a business, right? The what Is the saying, I work 100 hours a week, so I have to work 40 hours a week.

Right.

You know, and so being a business owner, it can, it can take a lot more. It's like, it's like another baby, you have another child, but if you die, like my mom, at 55, like, what's the point? What is the point of working your, your butt off to make a successful business? And then you just, she, she just retired and then died. Just, just, just died a few months after retirement. What is the point of life? She thought she was going to leave to be 90, right. You know, what's the point? So it's like, yeah, stop. Examine your life and set those boundaries because you, you deserve to have health in the long run. You know, people that I look up to, like Dr. Esselstyn who had on the show, he, he wrote the book how to reverse and prevent heart Disease. He's in his 80s and he's still skiing, downhill skiing at Vail every year. He's still incredibly active. And that's. I want to be that. But in order to be that in our 80s, we have to be able to do squats now. We have to be able to, like you said, walk around the park. My biggest thing is if you can't exercise because you're whatever, Too busy, throw on a Zumba. Go. Go. You. YouTube is on our TVs now. We all have smart TVs. Go put on a Zumba find. Find your favorite 90s or two mix dance mix from the 2000s. Or find some kind of Zumba class and do it with your kids. Or just, or just do it. Or just do it. Dance around the house and do a cardio laundry, right? And cardio cleaning the house. It is it. No one's watching, right? Unless it's your family. But getting your body moving and in moving in a way that brings you joy is the most important. Because if you're like angry or upset or have self talk the whole time, like, oh, I'm. I'm so weak. I can't believe it. Oh, I'm, I feel horrible. And, and you're kind of like griping to yourself while you're exercising like that. Remember the first part of this interview? Like, that is harming your body, right? And that's like body shaming. And all that negative self talk is actually just counteracting all the good exercise. So you got to move your body in a way that brings you joy. One of the midwives that I'm really good friends with, she has like Lost half her body weight by doing soccer. She found adult soccer, like not professional, just like adults that are just like regular. Like you and me joined a club. They get together, they kick around a ball, they run around and she has a blast. She made a bunch of friends and she just loves it. Now that's like, to me, that's like probably the worst thing ever. Like, I would hate to chase the ball around, but dodgeball, if I could find an, like a, like a. I don't know. So just a bunch of like adults that want to like play dodgeball. Like I would do that. Like, that sounds like a lot of fun. So you got to find something fun and be able to repeat it and do it every day. That's why I said Zumba on the TV is, you know, 20 minutes of Zumba a day or go for that walk or, or park a few blocks away. That is, is going to be healthier in the long run then going to the gym twice a week and, and then being angry at yourself and having negative selft talk the whole time to couldn't.

Couldn't have said it better. And totally agree. No question.

Man, if everyone who's listening has now checked all these things off, they're already feeling better. Like, you know, you start doing this within a month, you're already going to be feeling better. I have a, I have a feeling that hydration is somewhere in this list though. I feel like we're might be getting towards hydration.

You know, I have to acknowledge that hydration for me is such an assumed that I didn't really think about it. But yes, I mean, absolutely drink. So here's the nuance when we're talking about, because we started this conversation about where do you start with toxins and what can you do? So the goal is that you give your body what it needs so that it can get rid of the toxins that you're exposed to. And so when you're drinking, you want to definitely. If the cells are dehydrated, that makes the, the cell wall unstable. It makes you not able to flush out the toxins. So yeah, kind of assume like drink, drink liquid and preferably organic and. Or filtered and filtered and filter your water to the very highest ability that you have. So whatever your budget allows for, that's the level at which you want to filter your water and your air. Okay. And then the next thing I would say, Ashley, probably the biggest one that you can really clearly see an impact on, although all of these are really impactful, it would be to anytime you're running out of a beauty product, essentially a beauty product, something that you use to clean your house, something you're using to do your laundry. Essentially anything you purchase. We've already talked about leveling up your food. Anything you purchase that you're putting on your body, anytime you buy something new, you want to check it in the Environmental Working Group. I use their app on my phone, ewg. You can also use Think Dirty. These are great apps and they rate the product and you can figure out, oh, if I want to detox, is this in line or not in line? Again, it's not a moral conversation. It's just like, is this going to get me where I want to go or not? So anytime you're buying something new, if it's not highly rated, and I go for the green, 1, 2, 3 and a pinch, that's the rate. Those are the top rated items. If it's not highly rated, then you're gonna want to level up and look for something that is highly rated. So, and if you think about, if you do that every time you're running out of something over the course of the year, you're going to essentially transform the products that you're putting on your body, on your clothes, cleaning your house, you're going to transform a lot of layers of your health just from transforming what you're purchasing. And especially when you think about, not only are these things bad for us, they're bad for the earth. And it can feel sort of woo woo to be like, oh, I want to be good to the earth. But really, if you have children, you want to make sure that the earth is healthy and not a polluted place so that they don't wind up with tons of chronic disease, autoimmune disease, and an even shorter lifespan. We're the most developed nation and we have the worst lifespan. We're like the worst of the developed nations because of all the toxins in the way we live. And so that's fixable, right? But we also want to keep in mind, what are we leaving? Well, not only what inheritance are we leaving for our children and their children?

Well, and we can think about generations, but actually what the products we're using are affecting us, our health, very like right now and also in the near future. Because if you, for example, bathe in tap water from a municipal water source, they're recycling what gets, you know, flushed down the toilet or whatever. They're recycling the water. And if you're using Tide and other harsh chemicals, you're using what, whatever, Mr. Clean or whatever. All those, those things that, you know, if you look on the back of and it has some kind of like this, this contains something that could cause cancer. Whatever. Those cleaners, it's like, oh my gosh, those go into our water supply and in some level are going to come back to haunt us in our lifetime. Not just our children. It is destroying, we are destroying the planet by thinking that, oh, I'm just, it's okay. I'm just using this one bottle and, and I'm just cleaning and then it magically goes down the toilet or it magically goes down the sink and it just disappears. Poof. And then all of a sudden it becomes non toxic. And it doesn't hurt anyone. No, it actually does. It doesn't, it doesn't. Like these are what we call forever chemicals, right? They're, they're forever harming us in our lifetime and in our children's lifetime. And all the animals are in just, you know, everything right now we're killing the soil. With what, with our, the way we're doing agriculture. We're killing the soil. And it is having a, an impact now on weather because we see that the, the. I had a whole episode on this. It's really interesting. But we talk about how we have these droughts, right? And then we have these floods and we can link it back to how we do agriculture and that we remove the top layer of soil which means that the soil isn't retaining, it doesn't absorb the moisture and then release it slowly. And so we end up having these big droughts and then when it does rain we have these deluges and we have these floods and we're seeing it globally because this is how modern farming is and it, and now we're seeing how wrong it is that it's destroying. So our, our kind of like, oh, laissez faire, you know, oh, it's just, it's fine. They sell it in the grocery store and therefore it's okay for me. Most of the chemicals sold in the grocery stores or sold in Home Depot or whatever sold, sold on our shelves in the United States are illegal in the European Union. And that's why we have to do our due diligence and we have to be very conscious consumers. I like to say I become a detective. I'm like Sherlock Holmes. Whenever I have to read all the ingredients, I have to read all the labels. And I still have my eyesight, so I can do that. I don't need readers. But my husband kind of gave up on that.

And.

And he's like, oh, you're taking too long. I'm like, well, here, read the labels with me. He's like, nope. Because he's like, I didn't bring my readers to read all these ingredients with you. But like you said, we can, we can go on environmental working group and, and look, and just the other day my husband wanted to kill some moss that was on the concrete outside. And he wanted to. He was like, oh, let's buy this can of da da da. I'm like, I look on the back of the can. I'm like, are you kidding me? This stuff is. Can kill you. It causes cancer, and if you inhale it, you're going to the hospital. So how is this even legal? You know, you need. You need to wear like a special gas mask if you're gonna use this material. Why don't we just use. And I looked it up. Boron, which is borax, boron, vinegar and hot water and a scrub brush will kill the moss naturally and safely and healthfully and not hurt anyone. And boron. I love using it, a borax as a, as a cleaner, like, because you can use it as a scrub. And I scrub the sink with it and it descales. I wash my kettle with it. And we know it's not gonna, it's not gonna kill us. It's just. It's a mineral. So there's so many things we can do with just some vinegar, some baking soda, and some boron. We can really change our habits around cleaning with these natural ingredients that our grandma used to use. Gotta go back to what grandma did. She was so smart and resourceful and. And then we're not introducing this into our air, into our water, harming ourselves now. And our skin will absorb. When you clean, your skin absorbs it. I have a friend who did the platinum energy system foot detox, and it pulled out. I. I talk about this in a previous episode, but I sat her down, she put her feet in it, and a half an hour later, the water smelled like Febreze and bleach. And it was very, very strong scent. Like we could both, like the whole room started smelling it. Like it. And I looked at her, I'm like, what's going on? And she started. She felt really good. After this half an hour of this foot. This machine is like a rife machine that pulls toxins out of you through your feet. And. And she. She's like, I 15. I didn't know this about her. She goes, 15 years ago, I was A maid and I used all the same chemicals were smelling in this water. I used. And I didn't use gloves. It stayed in her. It's just crazy. Absolutely crazy. That, that. And another thing you can. VOCs don't matter. Here's, here's the thing. We go, oh, but it's low voc. VOC has nothing to do with it. VOC is how a molecule will interact with ozone in our ozone layer has nothing to do with your health. Acetone, if you're in, if they're. Go to a salon and you're smelling acetone, within 15 minutes, if you're just smelt it, within 15 minutes, your liver is detoxifying it. It got into your body. If you smell a chemical, if you smell a perfume, it is now in your lymph system. Your body has to deal with it. Orange peel, if you're peeling orange, that's high VOC. That's not bad for you. VOCs have nothing. Low VOC has nothing to do with whether it's healthy or not healthy. So we have to know that these artificial chemicals, if you're smelling them or if they get on your skin, they're inside your body and your liver has to it. And then that, that causes us to need to use up our nutrients in order to detox it. So I'm a big, big believer in what you're talking about, that we should, one at a time, replace these, these products. Actually, I, I'm not as forgiving as you. I say throw them all out. It's all trash. Everything under your kitchen sink, Everything under your bathroom sink is horrible because. And here's the interesting part, everything in a container, in a bottle is, is off gassing. I can't remember what episode was, but it was like episode 50. It was a long time ago. This woman had a machine that she'd put in your home. And it was like an air filter, but it would capture all the molecules that you're inhaling. And then she would analyze it, put it through a computer, analyze it, and she could tell you the brands of cleaners under your kitchen sink. She'd be like, okay, so you have the Mr. Clean, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because it, even though it's under your kitchen sink and you've had it for years under your kitchen sink or under your bathroom sink sink, it's off gassing. And your body is, is, is in, in small amounts, but your body is still inhaling it and absorbing it, even though it's in a bottle under your kitchen sink. So I say get it out. She even went so far as to say, if you have a garage that's attached to your home, because she can detect chemicals that are hanging out in your garage. If it's attached to your home, it doesn't have, like, you know, 100 solid vapor barriers. She says, don't even buy a home that has a garage attached. You should have a. A separate garage if you're going to store bottles that are. With chemicals.

Well, don't have those chemicals. So you don't have to go about storing them.

Right. Just don't have them.

Yeah, but, you know, the only reason. So let me go back to this, because we didn't talk about this, and this is. This is like, a perfect place to really have people think about is that the chemicals developed in the United States never had to be vetted before they got released on the market. So when we think about, oh, it's probably safe because it's on the market. No, it's on the market because it was never tested. And the Environmental Protection Agency has very little ability to test products unless a company self reports. And what company's going to do that? Right. Because that's their livelihood. And so the EPA tests items that companies self report. You do not have to prove that it's safe. You should be able to show, but when it hits the market, that you don't think it's gonna harm someone. But that's a very different standard. Right. That's like, oh, I don't think I'm pregnant, but you could be.

Right.

So it's very important to remember that even though people have good intentions, that doesn't always get represented the way we want it to. And so the chemicals that you're being exposed to, the greenwashing, which makes you think that it's healthy for you, it's not. And so it is up to you to do the footwork. And part of the reason I say go one, two reasons I say go item at a time. One is it's extremely expensive for people. But two, really, the bigger thing is it's overwhelming. So people get stuck and, oh, my God, what do I do first? Well, first, you do what you're running out of. It's practical. Right. You can get your head around. Okay, I'm running out of that. Cool. I want to level up. Let me take a second to talk about tea. You want to make sure you're buying organic tea in bags that are not made of plastic. There is plastic in tea bags unless it specifically says it does not. So you're like happy. Oh, look at me, I'm drinking tea instead of coffee. Coffee's moldy. I didn't want to do that. Okay, great. You're now getting a dose of plastic with your tea. Get rid of the cake, the K cups and the Keurig because you're pouring, you're forcing hot water through plastic. This makes no sense because you're trying to detox, you're trying to do a good job and then you load up so through. So yeah, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of pieces here, right?

Good, better, best.

Yes.

Choose, choose everything out of, out of all these categories. Choose something and do, do better. Do a good, then do better, then do best instead of getting overwhelmed. Because when we see too much.

Oh, I have too much.

Is too much just too much to get overwhelmed? Just choose what you can. Choose what you can do. What can. And just ask yourself that fun question. Make it a game that gives you a little bit of dopamine. What can I level up today? What can I do to level up? And choose one from each category or just choose one from one category that we've talked about and, and go with it. I, I gotta say, one of My Friends formulates 100 all natural organic skincare and it's actually really affordable because she is just such kind, so kind hearted. She crafts it herself in her kitchen after she gets the kids to sleep and she sells it online. Now finally, she's been selling for years locally. It's emmysremedies.com and she's giving our listeners a crazy big discount. It's lth is the coupon code Emmy's remedies. And I love it. You could eat this if you wanted to, but you know, it wouldn't taste good. But you could if you wanted to eat her face cream. Right? And in the next year she's, she's been formulating and she tested. She doesn't test on animals, she tests on humans. So she's, she didn't test. She has a ton of girlfriends that will try out all her stuff and so it'll. But once, once it does come to market, it's been fully tested and used for several years. But she is slowly launching her entire skincare line online. But so far it's just the face cream that can also be used as a body cream. It's delicious. I love it. And it is all natural. So that's emmysremedies.com learn LTH as in learn truth is the, is the coupon code. And just yeah. There's so much information out there when it comes to replacing our skincare products and, and everything under our sink and everything on our counter, everything on the bathroom counter, under the kitchen sink, under the bathroom sink, all that stuff we can find natural solutions for that are not only good for the environment and good and like not harmful for us, but there's also ones that have ingredients that are good for us. Right. In addition to that. So we can find some that actually helps our body, helps the microbiome of our skin, helps helps our stress levels, like you know, using essential oils responsibly. We can, it's using a type of herbal medicine, we can use that and we can make our own natural cleaners or our own, you know, cosmetics and we can have an experience where we're increasing our health while we're also replacing all this, all the junk that's harming us.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, I mean there's so many things that people can do, but that's really what the things that we've talked about are the top things that people, people can really take control over and do without needing any kind of functional medicine person. Now if you did all that and you're like, oh man, I think there's room for improvement. That's when you want to see a seasoned functional medicine person because you're most likely dealing with toxins at that point.

Yes. But take, take the time to do each one. It's so important because like you said, you could get 70% of the way there feeling good and that kind of saves you money in a sense. Instead of like you, you go see Dr. Wendy day one, she's going to tell you to do all this anyway. So instead of paying her to tell you to do this, go do this, see how far you can get and then get, you know, get the help, get the testing, get the, narrow it down as far as diet because diet is so big and like some people are like, well I, I heard the carnivore diet's really good and I hear raw vegan's really good and I hear the west beach whatever diet is really good. What's, what's a way that people can know how, like for that, like you said that long term lifestyle, what's a, what's a way instead of grabbing onto an ideology or like a diet dogma, what's a way that we can know by listening to our body or maybe looking at lab work that we're on the right path? Do you have some kind of hints for people to be able to dial in foods that are healing for them instead of gravitating towards foods that maybe are dopamine increasing but not good for us.

Yeah, I think, I mean this is like a minefield. So let's say there's no. I despise the word diet and implies temporary and it literally think about it. Die. Don't get to the T, you die. So I'm a huge anti diet human. I really only believe in doing things that are sustainable and work for you. And then I'm going to say that there's no one thing, there's no one eating program that's going to work for everyone. So, so what I'm going to say is generally right, big broad brushstrokes. Humans do better when they eat food that is less processed, avoids seed oils, minimizes sugar and that the products look like what they started as. That would be a good guidepost. And then within that you can be vegan, you can eat dairy or not, you can eat flesh or not. But there's a lot of room to swing out and that you want to focus on. Essentially at the end of your meal you want to ask yourself, do I feel good in my body? Does this food feel good in me? Is it kind to me? Is it mutual?

Right.

Like look, I used to love French bread but I got celiac. It is not a mutual love affair. Right. It's a one way street here. And so don't engage in relationships that are a one way street. Make sure your food loves you as much as you love it and don't eat it if it doesn't because it's not worth it.

Love it. Yeah, it's it that those processed foods, it's like an abusive relationship. You love it, but it does not love you back. It hurts you. So get rid of it.

Yeah, have it be mutual love affair. That, that and within that there's a lot of room to have differences.

Yes, exactly. Oh, it's been so great having you on the show again. Remember, listeners can go to 5journeys.com promo and get the download of the how to feel freaking fantastic ebook that you're giving us for free. And we want to stay in touch because your big book is being released. You want to tell us just a little bit about your, your book that's coming out. Is it, is it early next year that it's coming out?

We haven't set a date yet. It's probably about this time next year. So apparently all of our books are so far based on my messes and so I hit perimenopause, like hitting a brick wall. It was really unpleasant. And one day I was sitting in the car. It was the dead of summer, the car was off. My kids were in the car, hence the reason I wasn't swearing. And the sun is baking us, and we're waiting for my husband to get in the car, and I don't know what he's doing. He pokes his head in the car and he asks me something. Actually, to this day I have no idea what he asked me because I was like the exorcist. I looked over at him and I went, do you value your life? Turn on the car. And he was like, okay. So he turned on the car. We get going. I get the air blasting. I'm to going cooling off. And I looked at my perimenopause.

Bitch.

I'm so sweaty and bitchy. And then I was like, oh. Oh. I guess I'm not the only one experiencing this. I think we need to write that book. That's our next book. And so the first book is Dirty Girl, which is based on my hot mess, toxic Breakdowns. And then the second book is about transitioning into menopause. I think our third book is going to be either about constipation or about male sexual performance, ability to get erections. We're gonna go down one of those two paths, and neither of those is personal. It's more just what's on our mind. But that's the book that's coming. It's really a roadmap for navigating the perimenopause into menopause powerfully, gracefully, and with your relationships, your job and your life intact. And not only intact, but thriving. How do you thrive that process, as you go into this new phase and become, you know, become your next self?

Yeah. Well, I know that Ed one's gonna be big, but I have to say constipation, if. If you're constipated, like, everything's wrong. It's kind of like la. When. When there's. When there's traffic backed up or any name a city. Look at the highway. If. If the. If the. If the highway isn't moving, it's like. Like it's just gridlock. Like that. All the ulterior. Everything that feeds into that backs up. And then there's just honking and. And fumes and, like, toxins building up. Especially, like, think about maybe Mexico City, where there's. It's like kind of like a bowl, right? And there's no there's or, or Las Vegas, it's in a bowl, there's no wind. And then if there's a ton of traffic just sitting there, all the toxins are, are, are all the fumes from the cars are just sitting there gathering and gathering and gathering. It's getting more and more and more toxic and that's what constipation is. Constipation is your body reabsorbing the toxins the liver just got rid of and, and us absorbing the. Everything's going wrong. We're getting that build up of all the toxins from, from the bad bacteria. The constipation feeds into the candida culture of our. Of the gut that you don't want. And so it's just like everything gets backed up, everything gets toxic, everything gets crabby. Then we've got brain fog, then we've got hormone disruption eruption and it's just like every system in the body starts failing. All the red lights in the dashboard are going. It is bad news like constipation which people just don't, they just, they don't think it's as serious. It is, it is a big deal. So I just, I am. That's my vote. If I could cast a vote I would say do the constipation one because it once you get the gut corrected and get, get poop going three times a day. You want to poop three times a day. Well formed poops that you don't have to strain and they're so, so good and clean. It's like you don't even need to wipe like you go to wipe and there is nothing stuck to your butt like that. If you can have that three times a day everything feels like you. Like you said you could get 70 better just by correcting these things. If you have perfect poops, 70 of everything go going on in your health is going to start is going to get better. It's amazing. So, so for me my vote is for the constipation one for sure. But also I don't have ED problems in my life so.

Right. If you don't have that problem. I only like the title because we would call it Rise Up. I just want to write it because it's such a fun thing to rise up.

Yeah.

Men's ability to get erections. But no. Yeah. I can see constipation being the big thing. So yeah. So that'll be so the. But the next book is sweaty and From Sex to Brain Function Master Menopause and feel freaking amazing. So that's 2024. Probably around May 2024. It takes about a year to launch a book. So, yeah, we've already got it written. Now we just need to edit it and make the PR plan. So about a year.

So.

Cool.

Well, we'll definitely have you back on the show to talk about more about your book. Every single book. Just come back. Just come back every time. Love to have you. It's it. You're such a blessing and thank you so much for your wealth of knowledge. You have such a big heart and you're alongside us, you know, having these experiences, being human. I know. I've interviewed these doctors who are like, they, like, put themselves on a pedestal, like, nothing's wrong with them. They're perfect and they have perfect health and they're all telling us what to do. And you're, like, you're, like, right there with us. You're, like, sweating and, you know, like, nope, we're all human and we all need to, like, we can, we can learn from your experiences, which is. Which is beautiful. So thank you for sharing them.

Hey, my pleasure. I hope that this was valuable for someone, right. That it makes a difference and give them the tools to take the next step and have a transformation.

Absolutely. And, you know, listeners can go to learnt your health.com and check out the show notes in today's podcast because we have all the links for Dr. Wendy Trud, including her social media, and you can jump on social media and tell her how much this helped you today.

Thank you, Ashley. This is great.