Learn True Health with Ashley James

Become a Certified Health Coach Through IIN just like Ashley James! Get their Valentines Day Special! Experience a free sample of their program: learntruehealth.com/coach Dr. Bradley Nelson's websites: http://www.discoverhealing.com http://www.drbradleynelson.com http://www.emotioncodegift.com   The Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson https://www.learntruehealth.com/the-emotion-code-by-dr-bradley-nelson   Highlights: What is the Emotion Code What is the Heart-Wall Trapped emotions can accumulate in one area and cause pain The Emotion Code can be used on humans as well as animals   We all have emotional baggage but does yours cause you physical pain? In this episode, Dr. Bradley Nelson talks about the Emotion Code and how it can help release trapped emotions and alleviate the pain that is caused by emotional baggage. Intro: Hello, true health seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. I am so thrilled that you’re here today to learn from Dr. Bradley Nelson and his Emotion Code, how you can heal physical illness through healing the emotional body. He has just thousands upon thousands upon thousands of testimonials on his website. You can check out hundreds of thousands of people around the world that have had amazing results, so you’re going to love today’s interview. Now, I got to tell you about a special that’s happening right now. If you’ve been a listener for a while, you’ve heard me talk about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. That’s the online health coach program that I took to become a health coach. It’s either a six-month program if you’re a full-time student. Or if you’re like me you’re a busy mom or dad or just busy with school or career and you just want to be able to become a health coach but fit it into your very busy life, then you would take their year-long program. It adds up to about 20 minutes a day of videos and audios, and over the course of that, you learn over 100 dietary theories. But more importantly, they teach you how to be an amazing health coach from the standpoint of counseling, of that emotional side of health coaching because really, everyone knows to drink more water, go to sleep early, but why don’t we, right? What’s going on there? You teach your clients how to create new healthy habits that stick and how to go through the emotions to get to the point where you’ve increased their joy and vitality in every area of their life, and that’s something that IIN will teach you how to do as a health coach. Now, I was surprised to find out because I’ve interviewed the CEO and also the founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. It was very interesting for me to find out that about half the students take their year-long health coach training program just for their own personal growth because the program offers so much more personal growth. So if you want to become a health coach just for your personal growth you can absolutely do that by going to IIN, or if you want to become a health coach, you can also go to IIN. They’re having a great sale right now for the month of February, so you’re going to want to call them and check it out. They already offer a great discount for my Learn True Health listeners. So when you call IIN, just mention my name, Ashley James, and Learn True Health podcast. But right now they’re giving my listeners an even better deal for Valentine’s day. And of course, isn’t that so appropriate? This month we’re all focusing on the energy and vitality of love, just bringing in more love and joy into our life and focusing it on maybe a bit of that romantic love. But also the familial love, the love for friends and family, especially the love you have for yourself, so let’s do some self-care. If you want a free module from IIN, you can go to learntruehealth.com/coach. That’s learntruehealth.com/coach and check it out. If you want to learn more, just give them a call. Just google IIN. Their phone number comes right up, and those who answer have actually been through the program so they can help you. Awesome. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Let’s help as many people as possible to learn true health.   [00:03:21] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 455. I am so excited for today’s guest. We have with us Dr. Bradley Nelson. I absolutely am thrilled to introduce you to his technique, and you should get his book The Emotion Code. You can also go to one of his websites, which is emotioncodegift.com and he gives you some great free goodies. Dr. Bradley, I’m really excited to have you on the show because in so many cases I’ve seen where people can heal their body on the physical level when addressing emotional blockages. And when going in and healing things on an emotional, mental, and even spiritual and energetic, everything comes back online. The vitality of the body and the joy comes back online. I’ve seen so many people with chronic pain when they address the emotional side of their chronic pain, even though for years they’ve been going to chiropractors, getting acupuncture, or maybe even getting injections of some kind of steroid. But when they address the emotions, the pain went away and it’s absolutely fascinating.  I even had a woman on the show recently talk about her Ph.D. thesis was scanning people’s brains while they did emotional work and saw that the pain would actually leave the body. She could see it in the brain, and that sometimes, that chronic pain was in the emotional centers. It lived in the emotional centers of the brain, and how fascinating is that? And this is something that you specialize in is helping people to heal on the emotional level like we should be focusing on. We focus on healing the body physically, we should be focusing that much effort if not more effort on making sure we’re healthy emotionally. I’m thrilled that today you’re going to teach us more about your technique, the Emotion Code. Welcome to the show.   [00:05:23] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, thank you, Ashley. It’s really great to be here.   [00:05:26] Ashley James: Absolutely. Now, you have this really fascinating story that led you—both personally and professionally—to where you are today. I would love for you to share with our listeners so they can fully understand what happened in your life that had you become the healer you are today.   [00:05:42] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, it really started when I was seven years old I was really sick with the measles, and I’d overheard my parents talking. I knew that the plan was I was going into the hospital the next day and I was going into something called an oxygen tent. You know how it is when you’re a kid and you overhear your parents and they don’t think that you’re listening, but you are. So I knew the plan. That night, I was lying on the couch. My parents had made a bed for me on the couch so that I could be near their room. I’m lying there on the couch just feeling really sick, and everyone else has gone to bed. My parents came into the room and my mother said to my father, “Honey, will you kneel down with me and say a prayer for our boy here so that he’ll be able to get well,” and so they did. Knowing my dad, I’m sure it was probably the first time that I ever heard my dad pray. My dad was a really great guy but he just was very private in that way.  Anyway, here they are, they’re kneeling down by the side of the couch. My dad is praying for me that I’ll be able to get well, and in the middle of this prayer, I had this unbelievable thing that happened. It started at the top of my head and it went whoosh through my body to the soles of my feet, and I was healed just instantly. Now to go from being really sick one moment to being completely well in the next moment is just so bizarre, so impossible, and so unforgettable that I remember that like it happened yesterday after all those years. So I held my tongue until my dad was done praying, which didn’t take long. When he was done I said, “I’m better. I’m totally better. I’m totally better.” And they said, “That’s fine, go back to sleep. Tomorrow you’re going into the oxygen tent.” But the next day proved it. I was totally well. So I filed that away. What I learned from that experience was that there is a higher power that we can draw upon, that higher power goes by different names, and I don’t think that it really matters too much. I think that we all have that capacity that we can ask for help from that invisible higher power, so that’s what I learned. Fast forward about another seven years, things tend to run in those seven-year cycles, right? I started having these pains in my back that were so extreme they’d come out of nowhere and they would take my breath away or put me on the ground. I mean, it was like being stabbed with a knife or being run through with a sword or something. It was really extreme. My parents took me to the hospital and they ran all these tests on me. My parents were told that I had kidney disease, that it was about 50% fatal I found out years later from my mother, and that they had nothing to offer. There was no medical treatment, and my parents were told that my kidneys were either going to survive or not. If they didn’t survive, I wasn’t going to survive basically because they didn’t do kidney transplants back then. It was a long time ago. My parents decided that they would take me to see some alternative doctors, some holistic doctors. Now, these doctors were actually a couple of old-time osteopathic doctors. If you go to an osteopath nowadays, in most cases it’s like going to a medical doctor. They prescribe books and so on, and there are some of them who still do some of the things that the old-time osteopathic doctors used to do. Their profession was a lot like chiropractic is now back in those days. What happened was I think in the early 1960s or maybe the late ‘50s, the medical profession basically came to the osteopathic profession and said, look why don’t you just join us and we’ll make you like us and you can prescribe drugs and so on, and so they did. But these two, it was a man and a woman and I never really knew for sure, but I think they were kind of fond of each other. They may have a relationship, I never knew. They stayed out and didn’t want to have anything to do with becoming allopathic medical doctors, and so they stayed out of it.  They practiced out on the edge of town in a wheat field in a trailer house. I remember sometimes going there and there would be a busload of people that would just be leaving. People in other states would charter buses and come out and have treatments from these people. They were really really amazing people, really great healers. Dr. Alan Baine and Dr. Ida Harmon were their names. So my folks took me to see these people. I can remember scraping the mud off my shoes trying to get into their trailer, and it was such a different experience from being in this big multi-million dollar clinic where they ran all these tests, where they couldn’t help me, they had nothing to offer. These people started working on me and right away I started feeling better. The pains right away were less severe, less frequent. And within about a month, I had pretty much forgotten that I’d never been sick. My parents took me back to the hospital and they ran all the tests on me, and as I recall they ran the tests twice. They said, “Well, that’s a spontaneous remission. Whatever we did must have helped.” I was only 13 years old, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew that these people had actually helped me. So I decided at that time this is what I want to do with my life. I want to be a healer, and if I need to practice out on the edge of town in the middle of a wheat field in a trailer house, hey, that’s fine with me. Because those doctors seemed to know what was going on with me, and they seemed to know what I was doing. As far as I knew at age 13, doctors that were found in trailer houses out in wheat fields on the edge of town that seemed to be their natural habitat of doctors got results.   [00:12:25] Ashley James: Man, I want to see a doctor in a treehouse. Just imagine what they could do for you.   [00:12:33] Dr. Bradley Nelson: I did see a doctor in a treehouse once. It was in Hawaii. I’d hurt my back and found a chiropractor. I remember I was waiting in his office and it was on the north shore of Oahu. He actually climbed up the tree and then all of a sudden hopped into the open window from the tree into the waiting room. I thought, okay, I’m in the right place.   [00:13:01] Ashley James: This is my doctor.   [00:13:05] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Exactly.   [00:13:06] Ashley James: What kind of things did the osteopaths do to you? I mean, I’m imagining some form of almost like osteopathic or chiropractic adjustments, but what else did they do to help you heal your body so that your kidneys functioned again?   [00:13:22] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, mainly they were realigning my spine and they ultimately ended up giving me various different kinds of potions and concoctions that they had put together. But that’s mainly what it was back then. I had misalignments going on in my spine that were interfering with the communication between my brain and my kidneys that weakened my kidneys. They started realigning things for me. It was amazing how well it worked. I mean, really, the change in my body was something that was very obvious to me, something that I could really feel. That’s what happened back then. So then, time went on and in 1980, I spent a semester at Brigham Young University Hawaii campus, which is in Laie on the North Shore of Oahu. That’s how I met that chiropractor that came in through the window. Anyway, I took a class in computer programming, and man, that was just something that I just immediately took over my life—computer programming. I became a computer programmer, and as time went on, I used to do consulting.  I had a business, I called myself the Computer Tutor, which I thought was really clever. Back in the early ‘80s when people would buy computers for their business and they’d have absolutely no idea what to do with it. It would just sit there. They’d hire me to come in and look at the business, program things, and get things set up. So that’s what I did, and I really, really loved that. There was something about computers that appealed to the perfectionist in me. If I wrote a program and it wasn’t actually perfect, it wouldn’t work. That had a great appeal. So what happened was time went on. At the time, I was going to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah eventually and studying various different things. But I was about six months away from going into the MBA program to get my Master’s in Business, and I had decided that’s the direction I was going to go. I had this dream of going into the healing arts years before, but I kind of lost sight of that. So my wife and I went back to Montana where I’m from and we were sitting around with my folks. It was Christmas time 1983. Out of the blue, my dad said to me, “Are you sure that you don’t want to go to chiropractic school because it seems like such a great career and you’ve always wanted to do it?” I said, “No, I’m going this other direction.” And he said, “Well, why don’t you think about it one more time?” So I said, “Okay.” So my wife and I made up a pro and con list, on the one hand getting an MBA and going to work for some big company, and then on the other side going into the healing arts. If you’ve ever done a prone con list like that, I mean, there were appealing things on both sides, and doing that exercise didn’t really help me. But having learned years before that there’s a higher power that you can draw upon, that night I got on my knees and I prayed. I just said, “Father in heaven, if you have anything to say about this, help me to know what to do because I’m kind of in the middle of the fence now. I could go either way and be happy.” So that night I was awakened three different times. When I would wake up it would almost be like I’d been having a dream, but it was an unremembered dream. I would wake up and my mind would be full of all these thoughts of how great it is to be able to help people naturally, heal people naturally, serve people, and so on. I would think, well, yeah. That’s true. But then, on the other hand, the computers and then I’d fall back asleep. That happened three times that night, so I’m still not convinced the next day and still don’t know what to do. So that night I’m on my knees again and I’m praying and asking God can help me to figure this out because I still don’t know what to do—kind of thick-headed, apparently. That night, the second night, I had this experience where I was awakened again three different times like the night before, but on the second night, each time that I was awakened, the thoughts that I had when I was awakened, the feelings that I had were—if you can imagine—really exponentially more powerful each time. So that on the second night on the third time that I was awakened it was overwhelming at the thoughts of service to mankind, humanity, and the whole planet. I mean, it was absolutely overwhelming. And right then, I heard a voice that spoke to me as clearly as I’m speaking to you right now, Ashley, and it said, “This is a sacred calling.” And I thought, okay, I get it. Thank you. So that was it. I never looked back. When I got into practice I figured well, God’s gotten me into this, maybe he’ll help me now. So I developed this habit, and the habit was that before I would go to work on someone I would just take a moment and just ask for help. I just say, “Father in heaven, please help me to help this person. Help me to know what they need in Jesus name, Amen,” basically like that. And it was a totally private, totally personal habit. Nobody ever knew that I was saying a prayer for them, but I was, and it was just a momentary pause really. But I’ll tell you something. I absolutely know for a fact that that higher power—whether you refer to it as God, Father, Jesus, the Creator, source energy, or whatever you want to call—is real, knows what we’re doing, and is aware of our lives. There were times back then when somebody would come in to see me and I didn’t know sometimes what to do. I didn’t know how to approach this problem, I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to help this person. And in response to that silent prayer, the information that I needed would just flood into me like an avalanche of understanding. Sometimes it would be a totally different way of looking at things than I’d ever either ever considered before, and that nobody else had ever considered before either. So basically, I was in practice for 17 years in a brick and mortar practice and for about another two and a half years in a distance practice. I had that habit all those years and nobody ever knew it was a totally private thing. Now I teach it as part of what I teach to people how to use the Emotion Code, how to use the body code. It’s part of what you do and what we teach people all over the world that it’s an important thing. Whatever you believe, it’s not a denominational thing. It’s just that if you believe in a higher power, well then, you’d be silly not to ask for help because you can get it. It’s available for the asking. So one of the most powerful things that I learned during those years was that all of my patients—no matter how old or young they were, no matter what they were suffering from, whether they were dealing with migraine headaches, neck pain, back pain, knee pain, infertility, asthma, digestive problems, depression, anxiety, phobias, panic attacks, PTSD, eating disorders, or self-sabotage of some kind—I saw the gamut. All of those people had something in common, and it was that they were suffering from what you might call emotional baggage.  We use that phrase emotional baggage, right? And we usually use it in reference to somebody else. We usually say things like, that guy’s really got a lot of emotional baggage, and it’s true. The thing is we all have emotional baggage, but what I learned is that our emotional baggage is actually a real thing. That our emotional baggage is a lot more concrete than we have ever thought. To understand how this works, you have to understand what the body really is.  If you look at your hand, for example, that hand looks pretty solid. You can slap it down on your desk. It makes a nice thunk sound. But if you were to put your hand under a big microscope like say an electron microscope, and if you were to keep zooming in and zooming in and magnifying your hand more and more and more, pretty soon you’d be looking at cells, then pretty soon you’d be looking at this parts of the cell, then pretty soon you’d be looking at the DNA, and then pretty soon you’d be looking at individual molecules. At somewhere between a million and maybe 850 million times magnification, eventually, you’re looking face to face at a single individual atom. If you keep magnifying a little more, you see inside the atom. There’s really nothing in there. It’s empty space. Our bodies are pure energy. Now, we think of energy and we think of the matter, and we think that they’re different, but they’re really not. Albert Einstein said that there really is no matter. That all that matter is energy that has had its vibrations slowed down enough to a point that we’re actually able to perceive it. And so that’s what our bodies are. Our bodies are made of pure energy.  Some quantum physicists actually figured out recently that because our bodies are energy, you could easily put all 7.8 billion people on earth into a little box the size of a sugar cube and there would be room for even more. That is if you could take all of the empty space out of these bodies of ours. It’s a strange thing really, our existence and these bodies of ours. That they are really more of a force field than anything else. But if you talk to any quantum physicist, they’ll all tell you that that is absolutely the truth about our existence, which is hard for us to wrap our heads around but that’s the truth of our reality, the truth of our existence. So anyway, sometimes we feel intense emotions. Sometimes our parents are arguing, we’re little, and we’re crying ourselves to sleep at night. Sometimes we’re in high school, we go through a breakup, and it’s devastating. Sometimes somebody close to us dies or is sick, or sometimes we have a bad job. I mean, who knows. We have all kinds of things that go on, and we experience all kinds of emotions, and emotions are a tremendous gift. If we didn’t have emotions, I don’t think our lives wouldn’t be worth living. I think our life would just be a flat line. So we have these emotions, and we have positive ones like joy, happiness, and so on, but we also have negative ones. It’s the negative ones that tend to cause trouble for us. Think about a time in your own life when you were really upset about something. Maybe it wasn’t that long ago. Maybe it was today. Maybe it was last week. Were there things that you went through in your life that was difficult? Did you ever cry yourself to sleep at night, were you ever abused, or did you ever go through anything that was difficult to bear? The reality of it is the vast majority of people, with few exceptions, have gone through emotionally difficult things. Now, the problem is when you’re feeling an intense emotion of anger or maybe it’s resentment, frustration, grief, or sadness—whatever it might be. When you’re feeling an emotion like that, if you’re feeling it powerfully enough, your whole being—that whole energy field that is who you are—can be resonating and vibrating with that particular frequency. Sometimes what happens is that emotion can be too powerful, and it can actually then become lodged in the body, and this is emotional baggage. We refer to this as trapped emotions. A trapped emotion is a ball of energy that is from about the size of a baseball to about the size of a softball, and these become lodged in the body. They can lodge anywhere in the body, and then they will cause a couple of different effects. They will cause physical effects. Pain is one of the big effects that they tend to cause. Again, when I was in practice and I had all kinds of people suffering from all kinds of different problems, I found that emotional baggage or trapped emotional energies were often at the root of all of these problems. So to give you an idea of how this can work, there was a man that came in to see me many years ago. He had really severe low back pain. It was a 9 on a 0-10 scale, he said. He rated himself. If it’s a 10 you go to the ER and he was a 9. He was in a lot of pain, and I tested him using the Emotion Code. And with the Emotion Code, what we’re able to do is we’re able to very simply, very easily tap into the subconscious mind.  The subconscious mind is where all the good information is. It’s the part of you that is keeping track of everything that’s ever happened to you in your life. It’s the part of you that remembers everything you’ve ever done, every face you’ve ever seen in a crowd, everything you’ve ever eaten, tasted, touched, or smelled. All the emotional energies that have gotten trapped in your body. I’m testing him and I find he has trapped emotion, the emotion is anger. Testing a little bit further, I found this had occurred about 20 years before, and he immediately spoke up and remembered what had happened. He said it was a work situation. He had been falsely accused of something and was really angry about it. That was the emotion, that was what created this trapped emotional energy in his body. So I released that trapped emotion, and his pain level went from a nine to a zero in the snap of a finger, boom. It was gone. It was unbelievable. He kept bending over, walking around in my office, twisting this way that way, and exclaiming he couldn’t believe it. It was like a miracle really, and I was grateful that it worked so well. Why did that happen? There are two parts really to this story, but the first part is the pain relief that this guy got. Why did that happen? Well, you see, when you have a trapped emotion, it literally is a ball of emotional energy. What it’s doing is it’s residing somewhere in your body, and it’s distorting the normal energy field of your body. When the normal energy field of your body is distorted, that’s all your body is ultimately an energy field. This guy had a trapped emotion of anger. It was in his low back, and after 20 years of having all of those tissues distorted by that anger energy, eventually, it was causing severe pain. With the release of that trapped emotion, the pain was gone because that distorting force that that emotion was creating in those tissues suddenly was gone. Well, the story didn’t end there. A couple of days later he came back in to see me for a follow-up visit. He said to me, “My back pain is still gone. I still can’t quite believe it, but I have to tell you something. When I came here I had another problem that I didn’t tell you about. For as long as I can remember, I’ve basically been what you would call a rage-a-holic. I’m always yelling at my wife and my kids. I’ve got to watch road rage. I’ve been to anger management several times, it hasn’t really helped me. I’m just an angry person. I’m just kind of on edge all the time.  Since you worked on me and you released that emotion of anger, I feel really different. Things that would set me off before don’t set me off now. I feel kind of relaxed and I feel a certain level of peace. How did you do that? How does that work?” At the time I said, “Well, I really don’t know. I just work here.” But here’s what we believe, okay. Think about this, and this is I believe the actual truth about emotional baggage.  This guy’s got this ball of energy, this ball of anger in his low back, which seems very strange but I’m telling you that’s how this works. It’s distorting the energy field in his low back until eventually, it’s bad enough that he comes to see me. But overall of those 20 years, it has altered his personality because when a situation would come along in his life where he might tend to become angry, he would become angry much more readily, much more easily. Why? Because part of his body is feeling that emotion of anger 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You see, every emotion is a frequency, it’s an energy, and it’s a particular vibration. Because part of his body was already vibrating at that frequency—that vibration of anger—it was easy for him to fall into that resonance. That’s why after 20 years, he believed that he was an angry person until that trapped emotion was released.  That’s a great example you see of what our emotional baggage does to us and how it affects us. It’s such an incredible thing. Sometimes people have physical injuries that leave them with pain for years and years and years, and by removing their emotional baggage, sometimes that just disappears even though it was a physical injury in the beginning. In fact, just a couple of days ago—we post a new testimonial every day on our site. We have far too many that we can actually post. Our site is at discoverhealing.com, by the way. I’m looking at our site and there’s a testimonial I want to share with you.  This was from February 2nd this year. A woman named Sabrina from Valbonne in France said, “Twenty years ago, I had a big car accident with two whiplashes in a row. It was very painful and for years I had substantial neck problems and vertigo. The agony became worse over the years and, because I had children, I could not get any rest. Eventually, five years ago, my body collapsed with neuralgia and I had to stay in bed for days.” Neuralgia is nerve pain. “The pain was so intense that I went to see several doctors and chiropractors, but it did not help very much. Sometimes it was so excruciating that they could not even touch me. Then I heard of the Emotion Code and it was like a miracle. I healed myself! Today I can play tennis, run, look after my kids, and work once again. This method saved my life! Many thanks! I want to share it with everyone who is in pain because I know how much things can improve!” There’s a great example of that, right? Somebody who had a really bad car accident 20 years ago and using the Emotion Code on herself she was able to, apparently, get out of pain. She says it saved her life.   [00:34:35] Ashley James: I’d be curious to know—and maybe you wouldn’t know maybe from her but from others—was the trapped emotion about the car accident or did she create the car accidents because of a trapped emotion? The reason why I bring that up is one of my past mentors was getting in a series of fender benders until she realized that she was creating them. It was other people hating her, but there were so many. It was like 12 of them. So many of them that she realized because she was very spiritual and did a lot of emotional work herself—master practitioner and trainer of neuro-linguistic programming. She saw in herself when she went back and went okay, why am I creating this? What’s my belief system? What’s going on. She realized that she was creating them because of the emotional distress she was having around her job and how much her unconscious was fighting her because it was completely going against her value system. Staying in that job was going against every fiber of her being but she kept shoulding herself like golden handcuffs, like I should stay here. So she was creating these disruptions to basically not go to work, but there’s a lot of emotions around her work, around feeling neglected and abused. So she had to work on that, get away from the job, work on the emotion, and then she stopped creating car accidents. But she thought isn’t this interesting that some people—if you get out of victim mode in life right, and I really always have to preface this when I talk about being victim versus being at cause. I’m in no way saying that rape victims created it for themselves. This is just an exercise, it’s a mental exercise.  But if you can take on the mental exercise of being at cause in your world versus being a victim of things that have happened to you, then from the standpoint of being at cause you can go, so why did I create that? And not for blame but more for what’s going on at the unconscious level that I put myself in this position to be in this accident? Even if someone else hit me, what’s going on? Can I own this from the standpoint of what can I learn from it? How can I grow from this and what is there for me to learn here? Is there something that happened in my life that had me put myself in this situation?  Because all of our conscious and unconscious choices have led us to where we are today. And so if we own them and then we can learn from them, then we can look back and go, oh maybe this is connected to the emotions that were happening, the turmoil, or the unresolved issues that were happening prior to the accident. I just wonder if in her situation, if she couldn’t heal fully from the neck pain because of emotions that created during the accident like feeling the injustice of being in a bad accident, or was it that she was having issues with motherhood, with her husband—whatever dissatisfaction in her life, whatever stuff was happening before the accident, still her body was holding on to that pain from the injury for years later because she hadn’t worked on it. So I would just be interested to know what is the root cause? In a lot of cases, when it comes to an injury that lasts for years, is the root cause prior to the injury oftentimes, or is it the emotions from that injury itself?    [00:38:19] Dr. Bradley Nelson: It depends. If I had to bet, I would say that probably there was some emotional baggage that helped to precipitate the accident. When we have trapped emotions, what they do is they send out—they’re continually broadcasting their vibration out into the universe. And so then that tends to draw things to us that tend to create more of that. The other thing that happens is when you have an injury—the intense emotional experiences that you go through after that for years or decades—will often tend to become trapped in that area and make the distortion worse. A great example of this is a guy that I worked with many years ago. This guy came into my office, his name was Steve and he came in with his wife. He had a really severe tennis elbow. I mean, his arm was in a sling and he couldn’t turn the keys to start his car. It was so excruciating. I was barely able to touch the area, there was so much pain there. So I started working with him and doing the normal chiropractic things and I wasn’t having too much success with it. So at the time, I was just learning about the emotional side of this, I was learning about trapped emotions. So I asked his subconscious mind, and we use muscle testing different types to get answers from the subconscious, and it’s all taught. We teach it very clearly in the Emotion Code book.  So I asked his subconscious mind, is there a trapped emotion that is contributing to this tennis elbow? And the answer immediately was yes. What I found was that he had a number of trapped emotions that had become lodged in that area of his elbow during the years that he was in high school. Now he was about 42 years old when I was seeing him. So he’d been out of high school for a long time, but it was funny because every trapped emotion had to do with a girl who had basically rejected him.  It was so funny because his wife was sitting there, and I’m muscle testing him and he’s saying, “Well, let’s see. Was it Sheila?” His arm would go down, “No, okay. Was it Cheryl? No. Shawna? Oh, yeah. That one’s strong. Yeah, Shawna. Yeah, she dumped me.” And so it was all these trapped emotions about that. Here’s the thing, he was on the tennis team in high school. So what’s happening is as he’s dating these girls and they’re rejecting him, he’s also playing tennis and he’s incurring micro-trauma to those muscles that are being used the most. So that’s where the trapped emotions would lodge. The interesting thing about it is I think there were six different trapped emotions that needed to be released. The story’s in the book actually. It was so funny.  But the amazing thing really is that every time we’d release a trapped emotion, the pain level would just instantly drop. The pain level just kept dropping and dropping and dropping with the release of each trapped emotion until finally, we cleared the last trapped emotion and the pain was completely, completely gone. He couldn’t believe it. He took the sling off and he’s moving his arm around. I could go in and I could press deeply into those muscles, there was no pain anymore. I remember that was the first time that I had seen this phenomenon where you can have more than one trapped emotion in one place. But that was a great example to me of how trapped emotions can accumulate in an area and can eventually cause just extreme pain. What we find now is that about 90% of all the physical pain that people have is actually due to their emotional baggage to trapped emotions. We’ve got almost 7,000 practitioners of the Emotion Code now in 80 countries around the world, and we’re all finding the same thing. That if you’re in pain, there’s a very high probability that that pain is actually due to some emotional baggage. It’s actually really simple.   [00:43:02] Ashley James: Absolutely. I’m a master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming timeline therapy and hypnosis. Back in 2005, my mentors were enamored with the book Healing Back Pain.   [00:43:22] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Oh yeah, by Dr. Sarno.   [00:43:24] Ashley James: Yes, Sarno. So what he discovered—unfortunately, he has passed away. I tried to get him on the show but he had passed away. Well, he was working, and I don’t think he was a medical doctor. I mean, this was back in 2005 I read the book. But he was doing work with hospitals and looking at the records and more administration work, looking at all the administration stuff seeing that all these back surgeries these patients were still having pain. Oh, we got rid of their bulging disc. We surgically removed it. Why do they still have pain? Why are they still on disability? Why are they still on these drugs? So he started to look at stuff and found that—I can’t remember the statistic right now, I wish I could remember off top of my head, but it was so crazy something like 70% of all the MRIs they do, there’s some form of a bulging disc and yet people are asymptomatic. He’s like, how can we have someone who has a bulging disc that has no pain, but when people have pain in their back we always assume it’s a bulging disc. So we do these scans, then we blame the disc, and then we remove the disc, but they still have pain so it’s not the disc. So what is it? And then he just dove in like you did, figuring it out. What he saw was that there was ischemia, which is a cutoff of blood flow to the muscles when there was an emotion withheld. So I had a client come to me, this was 2006. So still, a long time ago. She was a long-distance runner, she was in a lot of pain, she was very fit, and she was in her 50s closing in on her 60s.  She said, “I’m on Tylenol—three every day—and I really don’t want to be on it because it’s not exactly good for you.” I started talking to her. I was like, “Well, how long have you had the pain?” She’s like, “Oh, you know a few years maybe four or six years.” And as we kept going back in her history, it’s like her brain couldn’t fully accept or remember. It actually had been more like 15 years that she had been in pain and been on these drugs. She’s like, “Oh wow, I didn’t realize how much time had passed.” I got to the root cause because guilt kept coming up as we talked, and what we figured out was she’s catholic and she had an abortion. She felt so guilty about it and she said to herself, “I have to pay for this guilt with pain.” She actually said that. She wouldn’t allow the doctor to give her pain medicine during her abortion, and she said, “I have to pay for it with pain.” And she did, but what was interesting because I was also in Canada, I was a registered massage therapist and worked in sports rehab, in sports medicine.  Before we started our session I said, “Can I palpate your back?” because she was pointing towards the quadratus lumborum on the left side, and I palpated. On the left side, it was hard as a rock ice cold. Now, this was in Florida. I was living in Florida at the time. I mean, it’s warm. On the right side, it’s flush, it’s a very good color, it’s warm and palpable. But on the left side, it’s like I’m touching granite. I thought this was interesting. This is ischemia. The whole muscle is just not letting any blood flow in, and that’s incredibly painful. Of course, when bands of muscle cause ischemia around the innervation of the nerve, it will create just incredible pain. Sometimes the pain will travel to different areas, but it’s very painful. As she gets into talking about guilt, the pain goes up. I keep asking her where is your pain level? Now, I mean, my session with her was like six hours long. Sounds like your session would have been like six minutes. Your program sounds like maybe it’s more effective in that it sounds a lot quicker. But by the end of it, we released the negative emotion of guilt at the root level. I said, “Where’s your pain?” and I’m kind of expecting it to be less. She’s like, “It’s gone. It’s gone.” She’s like jumping up and down. She’s like, “How is it gone? How is it gone?” So she goes back to her hotel room and I didn’t tell her to do this because I’m not a doctor, but she flushed all of her meds down the toilet. She was on three meds, one of them was an anti-anxiety med. She came to me the next day she’s like, “I took myself off all my meds. I’m not on the pain meds. I’m not on the anti-inflammatory meds. I’m not on the anxiety meds. I feel like a million bucks. I feel amazing.” And her pain was still gone. “Can I touch your back?” and her back on both sides were warm and palpable.  That was the most amazing thing for me to see that someone physically that their muscles that were holding—I mean like you said, the size of a softball or a baseball. Her entire quadratus lumborum, which is quite a big muscle, so bigger than a softball was hard, ischemic, cold, and holding on to guilt for 15 years. That to me just blew my mind. How many people are on meds, emotional medication, and also physical medication, and suppressing and putting a band-aid on and just pushing it down and pushing it down and pushing it down and then poisoning their bodies? And they’re not free of it.  That affects every area of their life just like one of your clients whose anger spilled over into every area of his life. Her guilt spilled over into every waking moment of her life, so just to be free of that. I’m so excited that people can learn your technique through your book and they can also then train. Can anyone become a practitioner of the Emotion Code?   [00:49:23] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Yes, anybody can become a practitioner. There’s really no prerequisites. It’s a simple program. It’s a six-month program, most people do it in about half the time. If you’re interested, there’s more information there—discoverhealing.com is our website. Listen to this one because it never ceases to amaze me. Here’s one that came in from a guy named Robbi Cuijpers from Posterholt in the Netherlands. This was posted on the third, so today’s the ninth. Anyway, he said, “One night I woke up with a terrible toothache. It was around 2:00 AM and I couldn’t sleep anymore. I was suffering so much I was about to call the emergency desk and go to the hospital. It felt dreadful. Then suddenly the question popped into my head, “Could there possibly be some trapped emotions causing this horrible pain?” “So, I gathered all the willpower I could find, jumped out of bed, and started sway testing for trapped emotions.” That’s where you stand up and your body will sway forward for yes and backward for no. “And yes, I had some trapped emotions that were causing the tooth pain. With the release of each emotion, my toothache instantly subsided. With the fifth and last emotion released, the pain was practically zero. I then went to bed feeling on top of the world knowing the power of The Emotion Code.”   [00:50:43] Ashley James: That’s amazing. I love it. And the unconscious mind controls all of our muscle movements. I’ve seen that. I’ve seen it where you can ask your unconscious mind questions and it can control the micro muscle movements of a finger or an arm, or like you said, the sway test. If someone is in a wheelchair, there are other ways. You could do it because the unconscious mind controls the muscles of the body. You can communicate with it, which not that many people know.  I was always afraid of my unconscious mind when I began to study, learn more, and dive into it, and then once I developed a relationship with my unconscious mind, it was actually the most rewarding thing because it’s you, it’s the rest of you. It’s the rest of you and your unconscious mind. It’s just you, it’s just more of you, but it’s the rest of you that loves you. Your unconscious mind adores you, loves you, wants to keep you safe, wants to keep you healthy. I mean, trying to understand John E. Sarno’s philosophy behind why the unconscious mind creates this ischemic pain? I’m not saying it’s always ischemic pain because like you’ve mentioned it can be injuries and joints and things like that, although I’d love your opinion. I guess the hypothesis is that the unconscious mind wants to resolve these issues and so it’s bringing it to your attention.   [00:52:06] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, that’s exactly how I look at it. Yes, the symptoms that we have are really just the subconscious mind trying to get our attention so that we can open a dialogue and figure out what’s really going on. What the underlying cause of our problem really is. What is it that’s unresolved? What do we need to deal with that we’ve never dealt with? I love what you said about the subconscious—that it adores us and it is the rest of us. It’s absolutely so true. That’s what it is. It’s not just pain. Listen to this one. This is another one. This was posted on February 8th, I guess yesterday. This woman Susan from Utah wrote and she said, “My husband, John, recently went through radiation therapy for prostate cancer. One of the side effects has been a terrible itching that would not stop after his therapy. His radiation doctor said that John could be allergic to something new but didn’t think the medication he had prescribed was doing it. John went to a dermatologist and was told that all older men get dry skin and that was it. I had recently read the Emotion Code and I tried it on his itching. The next day he completely stopped itching! In his eyes, this was a miracle!” You never know. Try it on anything.   [00:53:25] Ashley James: Right. Well, the thing is, all day long we have emotions. All-day long we have experiences, and how often do we actually sit back and unpack those experiences, process those emotions, and digest them like you would digest a very healthy meal? It’s like we’re taking care of our bodies, and so many of the people who are listening would sit down and eat a beautiful very nutritious meal, chew each bite until it’s fully digested, and really give themselves, bathe themselves in nutrition. Give themselves the time, the space, and the peace to digest their food because they know nutrition is so important.  And yet when it comes to our emotions, we treat it like we’re going through the drive-thru and just scarfing it down and not even tasting it and then just throwing it back and expecting our body just to deal with it. Just deal with it. It’s so funny that we’re treating our body like we’re eating fast food when it comes to our emotions, but we take our physical body so seriously and we don’t take our emotional body that seriously. I also believe there’s a stigma, and it depends on your generation. I see the younger generation. I’m 40 years old. I’m turning 41. Hopefully my mid-life is years to come, but I look at the younger kids and I see that they’re more open to counseling and therapy because there’s not a stigma for them. For the older generations, there was a large stigma around going to counseling. The thing is that working on your emotions is like going to the gym. You’re just going to the gym for your heart and your mind and just find the right trainer. Not every trainer out there is going to be the right trainer for you. Not every counselor is going to be the right counselor for you.  But I have clients who say that their sessions, working with their therapist have been the most rewarding thing possible because it’s just the place they get to digest, absorb, process, release, let go of, and understand their emotions and how they react. And then they notice that they stop just reacting and spewing onto their family and spewing onto their kids. They actually catch themselves, they take a deep breath, and they’re able to then come from a place of communication that has love and has respect because they processed all the stuff that happened last week, last month, last year instead of just bottling it up and then spewing at people. This particular idea of sitting down and respecting our emotional and physical body by working with the Emotion Code I think could be so rewarding. Now back to my question about ischemia, is it always muscles? Is it always ischemic pain, or do you find sometimes there’s bone pain? I know you mentioned that man had tooth pain. That could have also been a referral pain from a trigger point. Do you think it’s always ischemia though, or have you seen it where there’s absolute evidence that it’s not created in a muscle?   [00:56:42] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, yes. See the thing about it is trapped emotions can lodge in different areas. They can really lodge anywhere. They can lodge in a specific organ. So the way that we look at it is a little different from Dr. Sarno’s, and I have tremendous respect for what he did and the consciousness that he was able to create for people that this kind of thing goes on. But trapped emotions can lodge in different places. One of the most fascinating things that we see is that they will often form into a wall around the heart to protect the heart from being broken, and we call that a Heart- Wall. That’s one of the most interesting things that we see. With the Heart-Wall, it’s not necessarily that we see the ischemic pain so much. Although sometimes, people do have that. But there’s a whole another dimension to it. Anciently, the ancient peoples believed that the heart was the seed of the soul, the source of love, the source of romance, the source of creativity, and really the core of our being. Even now, after all these thousands of years, anywhere you go on earth, if it’s Valentine’s day or if someone is romancing you, they’ll give you a box of something tasty that’s probably shaped like a heart. So these are ancient ideas. I mean, the word heart is mentioned just shy of a thousand times in the bible, for example. There are these scriptures in the bible that say things like God doesn’t look on the outward appearance of a person, instead, he looks on the heart. There’s another one that says that as we think in our hearts, so we will be. In the west, we’ve never really paid much attention to those old ideas because medicine is still very mechanistically oriented, still very rooted in Newtonian physics. So the heart is just a muscle and we know it’s a muscle. It just pumps blood, that’s all it does, and that’s how we’ve looked at it for many, many years. But in the last 20 years or so, there has been new instrumentation developed, and new studies that have been done that show some amazing things. For example, they found that when one person is feeling love or affection for another person that their heartbeat will become measurable in the brain waves of that other person on an EEG. They found that their heartbeats will synchronize. So there’s this connection going on between all of us that we have not necessarily been aware of. But what we discovered, what was actually shown to us back in 1998, my wife had a dream. She asked me to help her decipher her dream. As I’m trying to do that, all of a sudden I have this experience that I can only describe as a waking vision where the room that I was in suddenly disappeared and I’m looking instead of this incredibly beautiful hardwood floor with this understanding that my wife’s heart is underneath this floor.  Now, this is one of the strangest things that I’ve ever experienced, and I don’t take drugs. I don’t even use caffeine anymore. I’m very straight that way. But anyway, this lasted for several minutes. I told my wife what I was seeing and understanding. She didn’t know what it meant either. We prayed, asked God to help us figure this out. We started muscle testing her, and what we found was that when she was two years old—because she was born into a very volatile, very dysfunctional family—she, at some point around that age, thought her heart was going to break and so she started building a wall around her heart. This wall was literally made from layers of her emotional baggage. So she’d had this wall around her heart all of these years. We asked if we could start removing these, and it took us a couple of weeks to take down this wall one emotion at a time.  When the last one was removed, all of a sudden, things really shifted for her because for one thing, whatever group of friends that she’d ever been with, she never really truly felt like she belonged anywhere like she was always the odd person out. She always felt kind of expendable until that was removed, then suddenly, she felt like she belonged. The depression, the anxiety that she had to deal with decreased dramatically. Initially, when we discovered this, it was really shown to us. It’s very much a God thing trying to get this out into the world this understanding. Initially, I thought it was maybe just her, that she was the only person on earth that had this. But what we find now is that about 93% of people have this phenomenon going on, and it’s called a Heart-Wall.  The most recent testimonial that I have about this—we’ve got about 10,000+ testimonials on our site. We get new ones every single day. We’ll pick one every day and post it. This one came in on February 4th. This is from a woman named Fawn. Apparently, one of our practitioners from Ohio said, “My most meaningful experience using the Emotion Code is with a client named Paul. He is a 70-year-old man who had such a horrific and abusive childhood that he built a Heart-Wall to protect himself. He never married or even had a close relationship. He has had many acquaintances but no close friends. After our Emotion Code sessions, he is now transformed! He went out and got his motorcycle endorsement at 70! And now he is actively looking for a lady to enjoy it with him. He simply shines! The transformation is the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed.” Think about this, 93% of people have this phenomenon, this Heart-Wall phenomenon going on. What it does is it interferes with your ability to give and receive love for one thing, but also to really create the life that you want because the best ideas that you’ll ever have are not in your brain, they’re in your heart. And the heart we know now is really a second brain. The heart is filled with gray matter and white matter, it really is a second brain.  In fact, when scientists a number of years ago looked at the communications along the nerves between the brain and the heart, they found the vast majority of communications were going from the heart to the brain, and they were expecting it to be just the opposite. What one of the first people that I saw after we worked on my wife with this was a nurse that came in to see me. She was 38 years old, and she came in because she had this terrible neck pain that she’d seen a couple of doctors for—they haven’t been able to help her. As I was talking with her she told me that she was single. She had not dated in eight years and was never going to date again.  So she’s 38, hasn’t dated in eight years, she’s basically celibate. She was an attractive person. I said, “Well, why do you feel this way? What happened to you?” She said eight years before, she’s really deeply in love with this guy who dumped her and broke her heart. That was it. She hadn’t dated since then. So I tested her and found, sure enough, she had put up a wall around her heart from that breakup. There were three emotions, three layers making up this wall. We cleared those emotions one at a time, and when the last one was gone, instantaneously the neck pain was gone—instantaneously.  When we see instantaneous pain relief like in this case and like in the case with the guy that I told you about in the beginning that had the anger from 20 years before, I think there’s more going on than just the ischemia. I think if those arteries and veins open up a little bit, it’s going to take a little bit of time for things to shift, but we see instantaneous relief of pain in many cases. That’s what happened to her. That’s not the end of the story though. She left the office feeling totally fine and didn’t come back for three months. When she came back into my office—I’ll always remember this—she looked great. I said, “Hey, you look great. I haven’t seen you for a while. How are you?” She said, “You know, my neck’s been fine since I was here. You cleared that Heart-Wall for me, that really works. About two weeks after I was here, I found out my childhood sweetheart has been living right around the corner from me for almost eight years. We’re dating and we’re in love, and I think he’s going to ask me to marry him.” Wow, what a shift. Holy smokes.   [01:06:04] Ashley James: You got me fascinated when you said that it can manifest in the organs. We often hear anger in the liver and fears in the lungs or the kidneys. If someone has something with their pancreas, an illness with their pancreas because, with type 2 diabetes, it’s not necessarily a pancreatic issue. If someone has a known illness with an organ or like fatty liver disease or they have a traumatic brain injury, have you seen people take something—either acute or chronic—that’s in an organ that’s been labs diagnosed, been tracking it, seeing that yes there’s an injury or there’s a disease state and they worked on the emotions that were there? Have you seen people, their bodies heal to the point where they’ve been able to heal organs?   [01:07:16] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Yes. For example, one of the most common examples of that that we see is actually infertility where we find trapped emotions, for example, in the uterus. By removing those trapped emotions [inaudible 01:07:35] conceive. Think about all the different organs. The first thing that you have to understand is that every disease process that people experience has an emotional component every single time. In our experience now, doing this for 32 years, there’s always an emotional component. If you identify the emotional component and you release that emotional baggage that’s affecting that area, then yes, things turn around. We’ve seen it happen over and over and over, so yes. In fact, trapped emotions can affect very specific parts of the body. For example, you might have a trapped emotion affecting your pineal gland, maybe the hypothalamus, or the pituitary. You might have trapped emotions that are affecting the thyroid gland. See all that this does really is it just removes the encumbrances that are in the body’s way of being able to function like the body wants to. The body wants to be healthy, it wants to function normally, but when you’ve got emotional baggage, those are encumbrances, those are blockages to really being able to heal and to function normally. In fact, here’s a really dramatic story that I haven’t thought of for many, many years. But in talking about this, it’s reminded me of this. There was a woman that came in to see us once who had fibromyalgia, which is this pain that you get all over the body that is very difficult, no known cure, and so on. I was able to help her with that, and then she told my wife and I about her daughter. What had happened with her daughter was that her daughter had gotten married about six months before, but her daughter suffered from vaginismus, which is the tightening down of the opening of the vagina.  She and her husband, still after six months, had not been able to have intercourse. They’d never been able to consummate their marriage. The marriage is starting to show signs of stress, and so she asked if we would look at her daughter. So we did so. Her daughter came in and we checked her. My wife found something that I don’t think we’d ever seen before, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen it since. But this girl had what we ended up calling a vaginal wall.  So in the sense, if you think about a Heart-Wall, if you feel like your heart is going to break, you’re feeling a physical sensation like there’s an elephant sitting on your chest, or maybe like you can’t breathe. There’s a physical thing going on there. The subconscious mind will put up a wall. The wall is an invisible wall to us, but to the subconscious, it’s very, very real I think. My wife’s Heart-Wall, the symbolic material was wood. She grew up in a house with hardwood floors.  So the subconscious will always choose some kind of material, and we’ve seen heart wall symbolic materials everything from plastic to glass to iron. But anyway, this young woman had a wall that her subconscious mind had put up in that area of her body to protect herself, and then she told us that she had been sexually abused at some point as a child. So anyway, we cleared the trapped emotions that were creating that, and it was the next day her mom called us and she said, “Guess what? Everything’s working. Thank you.” And in fact, she said, “Her husband is coming home. He’s spending his lunch breaks at home now for a catch-up.”   [01:12:02] Ashley James: I had a friend who had that and she had to have surgery. She had surgically had her vaginal opening altered so that she could have intercourse. It’s very interesting that she had the same condition. She spent years doing everything. Obviously, she didn’t learn about the Emotion Code. It would have been a lot easier than having surgery.   [01:12:31] Dr. Bradley Nelson: That was their next step really. Their next step is surgery. But luckily, we were able to avoid that.   [01:12:37] Ashley James: I’m just going to throw this out there, I like to get weird. What about people who are in a coma who has maybe dementia. Maybe children who are nonverbal autistic or adults who are non-verbal autistic. Is there any way to do this technique with people who can’t clearly communicate with you?   [01:13:05] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Oh yes, absolutely. It’s not a problem at all. The reason why is because the subconscious mind never sleeps. So it doesn’t matter. People can be worked on when they’re asleep, when they’re in a coma. In fact, let me tell you a story. This is actually in the Emotion Code book. We have twin boys. My wife and I had seven kids together, and then she had a daughter before we met. So we have a total of eight, but we have twin boys that are 31 years old now. When they were four years old, we thought that one of them had a problem with his hearing because he wouldn’t speak in full sentences. His brother on the other hand was a total chatterbox, but he wouldn’t speak in full sentences. We just didn’t know what was wrong. So we took him to a hearing specialist thinking maybe he was a little bit deaf, but his hearing was totally fine. At that time, we were really first learning about trapped emotions. So one night, we decided to work on him when he was asleep. Now, in the book, we explain how you do this. It’s a simple process, but we worked on him when he was asleep and we found that he had an inherited trapped emotion of anger from my wife’s father.  So in other words, when my wife was conceived in the womb, there was emotional energy of anger that was passed from grandpa. When we conceived this little boy of ours, that energy was passed to him. So we cleared that, released that. He’s asleep so we’re working on him when he’s asleep, no problem, subconscious never sleeps. We cleared a couple of other trapped emotions. The next morning at breakfast, guess who will not shut up. My wife and I are just looking at each other like a couple of owls like we just cannot believe what’s happening. We all have emotional baggage, and getting rid of it is so important. If you think about it, if you’ve got a heart-wall and there’s about a 90% chance that you do, then what that’s doing is it’s interfering with your ability to give and receive love and your ability to really create the life that you want because your best life and the best creative ideas that you have are actually in your heart, are not in your head. The beautiful thing about the Emotion Code is that it’s really, really simple. Anybody can do it. Kids can do it. We have kids that are having great success with it in different parts of the world. You can learn how to do it yourself, you can use it yourself, use it on your own kids, you can use it on your husband, on your wife, on your children, and so on.   [01:16:25] Ashley James: Can you do it with babies?   [01:16:27] Dr. Bradley Nelson: You absolutely can do it with babies. You can even do it with babies before they’re even born. When they’re in the womb you can work on them.   [01:16:35] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. That is so cool. I’m 32 weeks pregnant so I better start reading. Can you do it with animals?   [01:16:42] Dr. Bradley Nelson: You absolutely can do it with animals. In fact, let me see, there was a story that I was just looking at here on our site. Let me see if I can find that really quick.   [01:16:56] Ashley James: I consider myself an open-minded skeptic, like a really, really open-minded skeptic. I wouldn’t be prompted to ask that question if I hadn’t had an experience where a friend of mine asked me to do emotional work on her dog and I’m like I’ll try.  Basically, the dog’s parents are splitting up. The two owners were going their separate ways, and the dog was picking up on the tension and it was a wiener dog. All of a sudden, his back legs stopped working. He became paralyzed, and the vet said this is common with wiener dogs. But there was no trauma. He didn’t fall down, get kicked, or hurt. He didn’t bump himself. He just all of a sudden, his parents are splitting up. There’s tension in the household, and now he isn’t working. So I sat with him, I held him in my hands, and I just started my heart communicating to his heart. All of that information came flooding to me. I’m like, okay, let’s fill you with love and get you to see that your parents love you. You’re going to be in their lives and you get to have two homes now. They’re going to share. Your parents are getting divorced but you still have them. They’re not leaving you. They’re just leaving each other. The three of us were talking to him and telling him that, and then he got up and started by his tail and his legs worked again. We’re like okay, that works. I’ve had other people on the show who are healers. One guest of mine helped a horse with her fertility issues. She was having miscarriages basically and this horse wasn’t able to conceive. So he did emotional work with the horse and the horse was able to heal from the emotions of all the sadness from the lost pregnancies. And then the next one worked and she was able to get pregnant. I’m like, okay. You know what, there’s something very interesting going on here. Of course, animals have emotions. If you’ve ever had a cat or dog, you make a connection with them, and there’s more there. There’s love, there’s acceptance, there’s joy. They have some very interesting emotions. There are so many studies done now where they can actually see that animals have emotions. I’m not doing a debate as to whether they have a soul or not, or whether they go to heaven or not. I mean, those are all very interesting conversations to have. But the fact is that if we as humans can—and we’re animals too—but if we can heal physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, energetically by using the Emotion Code and working on our emotions and healing them, why not animals? I love that you said we can work with babies. I just imagine the parents who have autistic children who are non-verbal could be doing this with their children. How beautiful is that? Sorry, you had a testimonial about working with animals?   [01:19:55] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Oh, right. This one just came in. This is from a woman named Beate in Germany. This came in on the first of February. She said, “Lilly, the dog of a family friend, suddenly no longer wanted to go up the stairs in her home and only managed to do so with a lot of start-up and motivation from her owner. Nothing seemed to be wrong physically. By the time my friend shared this with me, sitting together in a cafe, it had been going on for a long time. So, right there I connected remotely with Lilly the dog, and released a few of her trapped emotions. When my friend got home that afternoon, Lilly ran up the stairs without any complaints. A few days later, when her “fear of stairs” came back, I was able to solve a few more things. Now Lilly has no more problems walking up the stairs.” And what’s interesting about this one too is that this was done at a distance. Of course, that’s because this is energy medicine really in its purest form. It’s not bound at all by distance, and so that’s a fun one, huh?   [01:20:59] Ashley James: Right. When you start studying quantum physics, you realize we’re all in the milieu together. It doesn’t matter if we’re 1,000 miles away or 1 foot away from each other. We have this energetic connection. I just love that. It blew my mind. It completely changed my life. My life took a 180 after I saw the movie What The Bleep Do We Know because I went like oh my gosh. This energy. Stop thinking in terms of chemicals and matter. Think in terms of energy. It’s all about energy. So that just makes total sense that emotions are energy and having them trapped in the body, very interesting. You lived and went to school in Hawaii for a while. I studied Huna because I thought of the ancient Polynesian technique. I wouldn’t even call it a religion because it was more like their lifestyle. It was how they breathed, how they loved, how they healed, how they fished. Huna was their philosophy for living, and in Huna, there’s a belief. Now, this is hundreds or thousands of years old, who knows, but it’s an ancient Polynesian belief system about living and life. They believed that emotions would become trapped in the body like black boulders stored in bags inside us. Like if you looked at a river and saw a river with no boulders would be calm, but a river with many boulders would be turbulent. So they had this idea that the more trapped emotions you had, the more the chi was turbulent within you and was thrown off. So I’ve always carried that imagery in my mind. So of course we would want to heal and release these emotions. Now you’ve talked about getting the book the Emotion Code, but you’ve also talked about this course. Could someone who was very passionate like I am wanting to do this to all their friends and family, let’s say, and themselves and obviously the family being receptive, would the book be enough? Would it suffice, or should someone who really wants to do this technique with their animals, their kids, their husband, and their friends—should they take the course? Who should take the course and who should read the book?   [01:23:24] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, the information is definitely in the book. People all over the world are reading the book, putting it into practice, learning how it works. If you really want to master it or if you want to actually charge people for sessions, then we do want you to go through the certification program. The certification program that we have is an online program, and it’s available—you can go to discoverhealing.com. It’s actually on sale right now. It’s not an expensive program. It’s all online. You go through at your own pace. Most people will go through it in about three months, the record is two weeks. It just depends on how motivated you are. But the nice thing about that is that it gives you rails to run on. I mean, think about it, I know that you’ve done this because I’ve done this and I think so many people have done this where you go to some really great course or something and you buy some materials and then a year later you come across it when they’re still shrink-wrapped. You think, oh yeah, I really wanted to learn that.  So the certification program gives you some deadlines, enables you to really learn it well, and get a lot of practice. You have a student advisor that helps you and gives you any kind of feedback that you need. But it also is all in the book. I mean, if you want to learn it from the book and use it on your friends, family members, and so on, by all means, go for it. It’s all in there. But if you want that added experience of getting certified, then yeah. If you want to do it for a living, then we want you to do that for sure.   [01:25:12] Ashley James: So why specifically? Because we have a lot of health coaches that listen to the show. I’m sure they’re all perked up and already on your site ready to sign up because this would be a great adjunct to health coaching. What is different in the live course that’s from the book? Are you teaching them how to work with people, what to look for, or the precautions? What is it that you get out of the live course that really helps you work with people on a professional level?   [01:25:44] Dr. Bradley Nelson: The course, in part, consists of 10 different recordings. They’re basically presentations where I go through with two of our top practitioners that have been doing this for many, many years. We discuss and kind of bounce things off of each other in explaining things. So what we try to do is we try to explain all of it from the very beginning in a way that makes it very easy for everybody to understand. That’s part of it.  You’ll gain insights from certification that you won’t get from the book. But also, in the certification program, you have homework. Your homework actually is the book itself. We supply the text of the book and the book on audio for you. You’ve got homework and then you work on yourself, and you’re one of the people. There are, I believe, 20 people that you have to work with, but you can count yourself as one of those people.  As you’re working with people and you’re releasing trapped emotions, you’re recording everything that you’re doing online on our site at discoverhealing.com in the back end at a location that’s just for you for this, and you record all that information. Then as you’re doing that, you do have to work with some animals, you have to totally clear the Heart-Wall from a number of people. What it does is accelerates your ability to do this because it’s like coaching. I mean, nobody really gets to the Olympic level of any sport without having a coach. It’s not possible.  That’s kind of what this program does. You’re able to see videos of other people doing this and sample sessions that are actually done that our practitioners are doing. You learn how to do this the right way. You learn how to do it better at a distance and so on. And then you’re quizzed on everything. There really is no final exam. You basically pass off each part of it as you go and so each part builds on the next part. But we have lots and lots of people doing it. It’s a great program. We consistently get very, very high 90% feedback from everybody doing it, that it’s a great program. Anyway, the book itself if you’re just wanting to explore this a little bit maybe, you can go to emotioncodegift.com. There you can download the first couple of chapters of the book for free. We can give you those for free, you can try those out. If you want to get the book, the book’s available on Audible if you want to listen to it, amazon.com of course, Barnes & Noble—are they still in business? I think they are.   [01:29:09] Ashley James: Yeah. It’s Borders that went under.   [01:29:12] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Borders, yeah. What about B. Dalton? Are they still? I can’t remember.   [01:29:14] Ashley James: I was so bummed. Where I lived in Vegas—Henderson, Nevada just off of Stephanie, there was a Barnes & Noble and a Borders practically beside each other. That would be my favorite Saturday afternoon activity. I’d go pour through all of Barnes & Noble and then I’d pour through all the Borders. They would actually have different books depending. I would always go with the self-help, personal growth, and spiritual sections. That was my shtick. It was funny.  My husband’s and my second date we did that. We went to Barnes & Noble and Borders. I pointed out every book I ever read and he bought every book I ever read. He walked to the register with his hands full. He spent hundreds of dollars, and I looked at him. I’m like this guy listening to me. He’s serious. This guy’s serious. Oh, man. That was cool because he said he was into personal growth but then he was like putting his money where his mouth was. That was pretty hot I’d have to say. But we’ve been married for almost 13 years. I pretty much knew almost instantly that there was something special there. So yeah, I miss Borders. Barnes & Noble’s around. I still do shop there occasionally. I love that you have an audiobook. I’m absolutely getting your audiobook because I love listening to audiobooks. I’m excited about that. Any listener can listen to your book or read your book and begin to immediately apply these techniques. They don’t have to take the course, but if they want to do it professionally they should take the course because they’re going to get it on a much deeper level. That is so exciting. While I’ve been interviewing you I’ve made a list of at least 12 friends, clients, and family members that I want them all to get your book. I imagine all the listeners have done the same. No wonder you’re so popular. This is so needed in this world. Dr. Bradley, I really want to have you back on the show. I’d love for you to continue to dive into this topic and explore it. Today was just to get us an introduction, get our foot in the door, and of course, everyone’s going to go get the book. I’m going to definitely go listen to your book, but I’d love to have you on the show you know after I’ve finished the book, and then maybe we can go deeper a bit into this topic. I know my listeners will absolutely love that, especially since they’re all going to go out and get your book too. And of course, they’re going to go to emotioncodegift.com and get the gift you’re giving out. Is there anything you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview?   [01:31:51] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, I would just say that we’re living in this very unique time of the earth’s history where the world is in this transformational process. To me, it’s almost like the earth is in labor. It’s trying to give birth to this new world where so many of us want it to go. A world where people are living from their heart, and a world that is just so different from the world that we’re used to where darkness has so much influence over so much that’s been done in the world. This work, the Emotion Code, is part of this transformation. It’s just a little piece of it. Think about when you read about somebody that is hurting someone else or has done some terrible thing, you can bet that there’s a Heart-Wall there because you see we feel with our heart. That’s why if someone is really hurting us or we’re really deeply grieved, we feel it in our chest, we feel it in our heart. And the brain that is in our heads doesn’t really feel. I mean, using the brain that is in our heads, the extension of that has created the world that we’re in now in many ways where we’re still using war to settle differences between nations, dropping bombs, blowing people up, and all kinds of crazy things, which seems to the logical mind to be perfectly appropriate. But eventually, we are moving now towards a world where we’re all going to be living from our heart, you see, where love is going to rule the day. This work is about helping us to get there. It happens on an individual level. Get the book, learn how to do this. You can work on yourself, you can work on your family members, you can do so much healing not only for your own family that’s alive, but when you remove emotional baggage that has been inherited and passed down your line, you’re releasing it from them as well. We might want to talk about that next time because I’ve got some great stories I can tell you about that.   [01:34:11] Ashley James: Let’s do that. Awesome. Let’s have you back on the show and we’ll talk about inherited emotions. I have some amazing experiences about that as well. Again, an open-minded skeptic, wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced it with my own experience. It’s pretty amazing, and it’s been documented actually. They’ve scientifically proven that the stress from trauma is passed down. They’ve been able to measure it, which is just so fascinating. But you can get very specific, and very specific trauma, very specific emotion that can be passed down for generations.  So it’s up to us to stop that, to heal it, and to allow the healing to go in both directions for past generations and future generations. So I’d love to have you come back on and we can talk about generational healing. I’d also like to ask you about past life healing if that’s ever come up because that is something that will challenge us in a very interesting way.  Dr. Bradley Nelson, I had the absolute pleasure having you on the show and can’t wait to have you back. It’s truly a gift and an honor to be in this day and age when we are birthing a world and we heal ourselves, heal thyself, help heal our friends and family. And if enough of us are going to tip the scales, we can help birth a world where love, peace, and consciousness are the things that we strive towards, the things that we resonate—coming from the heart instead of coming from the mind, like you said.   [01:35:50] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Yeah. We’re going that direction. Well, thank you, Ashley. It’s been really fun. Let’s do it again.   Get Connected with Dr. Bradley Nelson! Dr. Bradley Nelson Discover Healing Emotion Code Gift Facebook – Dr. Bradley Nelson Twitter – Discover Healing Instagram – Discover Healing YouTube – Discover Healing Book by Dr. Bradley Nelson The Emotion Code   The Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson https://www.learntruehealth.com/the-emotion-code-by-dr-bradley-nelson   Highlights: What is the Emotion Code What is the Heart-Wall Trapped emotions can accumulate in one area and cause pain The Emotion Code can be used on humans as well as animals   We all have emotional baggage but does yours cause you physical pain? In this episode, Dr. Bradley Nelson talks about the Emotion Code and how it can help release trapped emotions and alleviate the pain that is caused by emotional baggage. Intro: Hello, true health seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. I am so thrilled that you’re here today to learn from Dr. Bradley Nelson and his Emotion Code, how you can heal physical illness through healing the emotional body. He has just thousands upon thousands upon thousands of testimonials on his website. You can check out hundreds of thousands of people around the world that have had amazing results, so you’re going to love today’s interview. Now, I got to tell you about a special that’s happening right now. If you’ve been a listener for a while, you’ve heard me talk about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. That’s the online health coach program that I took to become a health coach. It’s either a six-month program if you’re a full-time student. Or if you’re like me you’re a busy mom or dad or just busy with school or career and you just want to be able to become a health coach but fit it into your very busy life, then you would take their year-long program. It adds up to about 20 minutes a day of videos and audios, and over the course of that, you learn over 100 dietary theories. But more importantly, they teach you how to be an amazing health coach from the standpoint of counseling, of that emotional side of health coaching because really, everyone knows to drink more water, go to sleep early, but why don’t we, right? What’s going on there? You teach your clients how to create new healthy habits that stick and how to go through the emotions to get to the point where you’ve increased their joy and vitality in every area of their life, and that’s something that IIN will teach you how to do as a health coach. Now, I was surprised to find out because I’ve interviewed the CEO and also the founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. It was very interesting for me to find out that about half the students take their year-long health coach training program just for their own personal growth because the program offers so much more personal growth. So if you want to become a health coach just for your personal growth you can absolutely do that by going to IIN, or if you want to become a health coach, you can also go to IIN. They’re having a great sale right now for the month of February, so you’re going to want to call them and check it out. They already offer a great discount for my Learn True Health listeners. So when you call IIN, just mention my name, Ashley James, and Learn True Health podcast. But right now they’re giving my listeners an even better deal for Valentine’s day. And of course, isn’t that so appropriate? This month we’re all focusing on the energy and vitality of love, just bringing in more love and joy into our life and focusing it on maybe a bit of that romantic love. But also the familial love, the love for friends and family, especially the love you have for yourself, so let’s do some self-care. If you want a free module from IIN, you can go to learntruehealth.com/coach. That’s learntruehealth.com/coach and check it out. If you want to learn more, just give them a call. Just google IIN. Their phone number comes right up, and those who answer have actually been through the program so they can help you. Awesome. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Let’s help as many people as possible to learn true health.   [00:03:21] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 455. I am so excited for today’s guest. We have with us Dr. Bradley Nelson. I absolutely am thrilled to introduce you to his technique, and you should get his book The Emotion Code. You can also go to one of his websites, which is emotioncodegift.com and he gives you some great free goodies. Dr. Bradley, I’m really excited to have you on the show because in so many cases I’ve seen where people can heal their body on the physical level when addressing emotional blockages. And when going in and healing things on an emotional, mental, and even spiritual and energetic, everything comes back online. The vitality of the body and the joy comes back online. I’ve seen so many people with chronic pain when they address the emotional side of their chronic pain, even though for years they’ve been going to chiropractors, getting acupuncture, or maybe even getting injections of some kind of steroid. But when they address the emotions, the pain went away and it’s absolutely fascinating.  I even had a woman on the show recently talk about her Ph.D. thesis was scanning people’s brains while they did emotional work and saw that the pain would actually leave the body. She could see it in the brain, and that sometimes, that chronic pain was in the emotional centers. It lived in the emotional centers of the brain, and how fascinating is that? And this is something that you specialize in is helping people to heal on the emotional level like we should be focusing on. We focus on healing the body physically, we should be focusing that much effort if not more effort on making sure we’re healthy emotionally. I’m thrilled that today you’re going to teach us more about your technique, the Emotion Code. Welcome to the show.   [00:05:23] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, thank you, Ashley. It’s really great to be here.   [00:05:26] Ashley James: Absolutely. Now, you have this really fascinating story that led you—both personally and professionally—to where you are today. I would love for you to share with our listeners so they can fully understand what happened in your life that had you become the healer you are today.   [00:05:42] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, it really started when I was seven years old I was really sick with the measles, and I’d overheard my parents talking. I knew that the plan was I was going into the hospital the next day and I was going into something called an oxygen tent. You know how it is when you’re a kid and you overhear your parents and they don’t think that you’re listening, but you are. So I knew the plan. That night, I was lying on the couch. My parents had made a bed for me on the couch so that I could be near their room. I’m lying there on the couch just feeling really sick, and everyone else has gone to bed. My parents came into the room and my mother said to my father, “Honey, will you kneel down with me and say a prayer for our boy here so that he’ll be able to get well,” and so they did. Knowing my dad, I’m sure it was probably the first time that I ever heard my dad pray. My dad was a really great guy but he just was very private in that way.  Anyway, here they are, they’re kneeling down by the side of the couch. My dad is praying for me that I’ll be able to get well, and in the middle of this prayer, I had this unbelievable thing that happened. It started at the top of my head and it went whoosh through my body to the soles of my feet, and I was healed just instantly. Now to go from being really sick one moment to being completely well in the next moment is just so bizarre, so impossible, and so unforgettable that I remember that like it happened yesterday after all those years. So I held my tongue until my dad was done praying, which didn’t take long. When he was done I said, “I’m better. I’m totally better. I’m totally better.” And they said, “That’s fine, go back to sleep. Tomorrow you’re going into the oxygen tent.” But the next day proved it. I was totally well. So I filed that away. What I learned from that experience was that there is a higher power that we can draw upon, that higher power goes by different names, and I don’t think that it really matters too much. I think that we all have that capacity that we can ask for help from that invisible higher power, so that’s what I learned. Fast forward about another seven years, things tend to run in those seven-year cycles, right? I started having these pains in my back that were so extreme they’d come out of nowhere and they would take my breath away or put me on the ground. I mean, it was like being stabbed with a knife or being run through with a sword or something. It was really extreme. My parents took me to the hospital and they ran all these tests on me. My parents were told that I had kidney disease, that it was about 50% fatal I found out years later from my mother, and that they had nothing to offer. There was no medical treatment, and my parents were told that my kidneys were either going to survive or not. If they didn’t survive, I wasn’t going to survive basically because they didn’t do kidney transplants back then. It was a long time ago. My parents decided that they would take me to see some alternative doctors, some holistic doctors. Now, these doctors were actually a couple of old-time osteopathic doctors. If you go to an osteopath nowadays, in most cases it’s like going to a medical doctor. They prescribe books and so on, and there are some of them who still do some of the things that the old-time osteopathic doctors used to do. Their profession was a lot like chiropractic is now back in those days. What happened was I think in the early 1960s or maybe the late ‘50s, the medical profession basically came to the osteopathic profession and said, look why don’t you just join us and we’ll make you like us and you can prescribe drugs and so on, and so they did. But these two, it was a man and a woman and I never really knew for sure, but I think they were kind of fond of each other. They may have a relationship, I never knew. They stayed out and didn’t want to have anything to do with becoming allopathic medical doctors, and so they stayed out of it.  They practiced out on the edge of town in a wheat field in a trailer house. I remember sometimes going there and there would be a busload of people that would just be leaving. People in other states would charter buses and come out and have treatments from these people. They were really really amazing people, really great healers. Dr. Alan Baine and Dr. Ida Harmon were their names. So my folks took me to see these people. I can remember scraping the mud off my shoes trying to get into their trailer, and it was such a different experience from being in this big multi-million dollar clinic where they ran all these tests, where they couldn’t help me, they had nothing to offer. These people started working on me and right away I started feeling better. The pains right away were less severe, less frequent. And within about a month, I had pretty much forgotten that I’d never been sick. My parents took me back to the hospital and they ran all the tests on me, and as I recall they ran the tests twice. They said, “Well, that’s a spontaneous remission. Whatever we did must have helped.” I was only 13 years old, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew that these people had actually helped me. So I decided at that time this is what I want to do with my life. I want to be a healer, and if I need to practice out on the edge of town in the middle of a wheat field in a trailer house, hey, that’s fine with me. Because those doctors seemed to know what was going on with me, and they seemed to know what I was doing. As far as I knew at age 13, doctors that were found in trailer houses out in wheat fields on the edge of town that seemed to be their natural habitat of doctors got results.   [00:12:25] Ashley James: Man, I want to see a doctor in a treehouse. Just imagine what they could do for you.   [00:12:33] Dr. Bradley Nelson: I did see a doctor in a treehouse once. It was in Hawaii. I’d hurt my back and found a chiropractor. I remember I was waiting in his office and it was on the north shore of Oahu. He actually climbed up the tree and then all of a sudden hopped into the open window from the tree into the waiting room. I thought, okay, I’m in the right place.   [00:13:01] Ashley James: This is my doctor.   [00:13:05] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Exactly.   [00:13:06] Ashley James: What kind of things did the osteopaths do to you? I mean, I’m imagining some form of almost like osteopathic or chiropractic adjustments, but what else did they do to help you heal your body so that your kidneys functioned again?   [00:13:22] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, mainly they were realigning my spine and they ultimately ended up giving me various different kinds of potions and concoctions that they had put together. But that’s mainly what it was back then. I had misalignments going on in my spine that were interfering with the communication between my brain and my kidneys that weakened my kidneys. They started realigning things for me. It was amazing how well it worked. I mean, really, the change in my body was something that was very obvious to me, something that I could really feel. That’s what happened back then. So then, time went on and in 1980, I spent a semester at Brigham Young University Hawaii campus, which is in Laie on the North Shore of Oahu. That’s how I met that chiropractor that came in through the window. Anyway, I took a class in computer programming, and man, that was just something that I just immediately took over my life—computer programming. I became a computer programmer, and as time went on, I used to do consulting.  I had a business, I called myself the Computer Tutor, which I thought was really clever. Back in the early ‘80s when people would buy computers for their business and they’d have absolutely no idea what to do with it. It would just sit there. They’d hire me to come in and look at the business, program things, and get things set up. So that’s what I did, and I really, really loved that. There was something about computers that appealed to the perfectionist in me. If I wrote a program and it wasn’t actually perfect, it wouldn’t work. That had a great appeal. So what happened was time went on. At the time, I was going to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah eventually and studying various different things. But I was about six months away from going into the MBA program to get my Master’s in Business, and I had decided that’s the direction I was going to go. I had this dream of going into the healing arts years before, but I kind of lost sight of that. So my wife and I went back to Montana where I’m from and we were sitting around with my folks. It was Christmas time 1983. Out of the blue, my dad said to me, “Are you sure that you don’t want to go to chiropractic school because it seems like such a great career and you’ve always wanted to do it?” I said, “No, I’m going this other direction.” And he said, “Well, why don’t you think about it one more time?” So I said, “Okay.” So my wife and I made up a pro and con list, on the one hand getting an MBA and going to work for some big company, and then on the other side going into the healing arts. If you’ve ever done a prone con list like that, I mean, there were appealing things on both sides, and doing that exercise didn’t really help me. But having learned years before that there’s a higher power that you can draw upon, that night I got on my knees and I prayed. I just said, “Father in heaven, if you have anything to say about this, help me to know what to do because I’m kind of in the middle of the fence now. I could go either way and be happy.” So that night I was awakened three different times. When I would wake up it would almost be like I’d been having a dream, but it was an unremembered dream. I would wake up and my mind would be full of all these thoughts of how great it is to be able to help people naturally, heal people naturally, serve people, and so on. I would think, well, yeah. That’s true. But then, on the other hand, the computers and then I’d fall back asleep. That happened three times that night, so I’m still not convinced the next day and still don’t know what to do. So that night I’m on my knees again and I’m praying and asking God can help me to figure this out because I still don’t know what to do—kind of thick-headed, apparently. That night, the second night, I had this experience where I was awakened again three different times like the night before, but on the second night, each time that I was awakened, the thoughts that I had when I was awakened, the feelings that I had were—if you can imagine—really exponentially more powerful each time. So that on the second night on the third time that I was awakened it was overwhelming at the thoughts of service to mankind, humanity, and the whole planet. I mean, it was absolutely overwhelming. And right then, I heard a voice that spoke to me as clearly as I’m speaking to you right now, Ashley, and it said, “This is a sacred calling.” And I thought, okay, I get it. Thank you. So that was it. I never looked back. When I got into practice I figured well, God’s gotten me into this, maybe he’ll help me now. So I developed this habit, and the habit was that before I would go to work on someone I would just take a moment and just ask for help. I just say, “Father in heaven, please help me to help this person. Help me to know what they need in Jesus name, Amen,” basically like that. And it was a totally private, totally personal habit. Nobody ever knew that I was saying a prayer for them, but I was, and it was just a momentary pause really. But I’ll tell you something. I absolutely know for a fact that that higher power—whether you refer to it as God, Father, Jesus, the Creator, source energy, or whatever you want to call—is real, knows what we’re doing, and is aware of our lives. There were times back then when somebody would come in to see me and I didn’t know sometimes what to do. I didn’t know how to approach this problem, I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to help this person. And in response to that silent prayer, the information that I needed would just flood into me like an avalanche of understanding. Sometimes it would be a totally different way of looking at things than I’d ever either ever considered before, and that nobody else had ever considered before either. So basically, I was in practice for 17 years in a brick and mortar practice and for about another two and a half years in a distance practice. I had that habit all those years and nobody ever knew it was a totally private thing. Now I teach it as part of what I teach to people how to use the Emotion Code, how to use the body code. It’s part of what you do and what we teach people all over the world that it’s an important thing. Whatever you believe, it’s not a denominational thing. It’s just that if you believe in a higher power, well then, you’d be silly not to ask for help because you can get it. It’s available for the asking. So one of the most powerful things that I learned during those years was that all of my patients—no matter how old or young they were, no matter what they were suffering from, whether they were dealing with migraine headaches, neck pain, back pain, knee pain, infertility, asthma, digestive problems, depression, anxiety, phobias, panic attacks, PTSD, eating disorders, or self-sabotage of some kind—I saw the gamut. All of those people had something in common, and it was that they were suffering from what you might call emotional baggage.  We use that phrase emotional baggage, right? And we usually use it in reference to somebody else. We usually say things like, that guy’s really got a lot of emotional baggage, and it’s true. The thing is we all have emotional baggage, but what I learned is that our emotional baggage is actually a real thing. That our emotional baggage is a lot more concrete than we have ever thought. To understand how this works, you have to understand what the body really is.  If you look at your hand, for example, that hand looks pretty solid. You can slap it down on your desk. It makes a nice thunk sound. But if you were to put your hand under a big microscope like say an electron microscope, and if you were to keep zooming in and zooming in and magnifying your hand more and more and more, pretty soon you’d be looking at cells, then pretty soon you’d be looking at this parts of the cell, then pretty soon you’d be looking at the DNA, and then pretty soon you’d be looking at individual molecules. At somewhere between a million and maybe 850 million times magnification, eventually, you’re looking face to face at a single individual atom. If you keep magnifying a little more, you see inside the atom. There’s really nothing in there. It’s empty space. Our bodies are pure energy. Now, we think of energy and we think of the matter, and we think that they’re different, but they’re really not. Albert Einstein said that there really is no matter. That all that matter is energy that has had its vibrations slowed down enough to a point that we’re actually able to perceive it. And so that’s what our bodies are. Our bodies are made of pure energy.  Some quantum physicists actually figured out recently that because our bodies are energy, you could easily put all 7.8 billion people on earth into a little box the size of a sugar cube and there would be room for even more. That is if you could take all of the empty space out of these bodies of ours. It’s a strange thing really, our existence and these bodies of ours. That they are really more of a force field than anything else. But if you talk to any quantum physicist, they’ll all tell you that that is absolutely the truth about our existence, which is hard for us to wrap our heads around but that’s the truth of our reality, the truth of our existence. So anyway, sometimes we feel intense emotions. Sometimes our parents are arguing, we’re little, and we’re crying ourselves to sleep at night. Sometimes we’re in high school, we go through a breakup, and it’s devastating. Sometimes somebody close to us dies or is sick, or sometimes we have a bad job. I mean, who knows. We have all kinds of things that go on, and we experience all kinds of emotions, and emotions are a tremendous gift. If we didn’t have emotions, I don’t think our lives wouldn’t be worth living. I think our life would just be a flat line. So we have these emotions, and we have positive ones like joy, happiness, and so on, but we also have negative ones. It’s the negative ones that tend to cause trouble for us. Think about a time in your own life when you were really upset about something. Maybe it wasn’t that long ago. Maybe it was today. Maybe it was last week. Were there things that you went through in your life that was difficult? Did you ever cry yourself to sleep at night, were you ever abused, or did you ever go through anything that was difficult to bear? The reality of it is the vast majority of people, with few exceptions, have gone through emotionally difficult things. Now, the problem is when you’re feeling an intense emotion of anger or maybe it’s resentment, frustration, grief, or sadness—whatever it might be. When you’re feeling an emotion like that, if you’re feeling it powerfully enough, your whole being—that whole energy field that is who you are—can be resonating and vibrating with that particular frequency. Sometimes what happens is that emotion can be too powerful, and it can actually then become lodged in the body, and this is emotional baggage. We refer to this as trapped emotions. A trapped emotion is a ball of energy that is from about the size of a baseball to about the size of a softball, and these become lodged in the body. They can lodge anywhere in the body, and then they will cause a couple of different effects. They will cause physical effects. Pain is one of the big effects that they tend to cause. Again, when I was in practice and I had all kinds of people suffering from all kinds of different problems, I found that emotional baggage or trapped emotional energies were often at the root of all of these problems. So to give you an idea of how this can work, there was a man that came in to see me many years ago. He had really severe low back pain. It was a 9 on a 0-10 scale, he said. He rated himself. If it’s a 10 you go to the ER and he was a 9. He was in a lot of pain, and I tested him using the Emotion Code. And with the Emotion Code, what we’re able to do is we’re able to very simply, very easily tap into the subconscious mind.  The subconscious mind is where all the good information is. It’s the part of you that is keeping track of everything that’s ever happened to you in your life. It’s the part of you that remembers everything you’ve ever done, every face you’ve ever seen in a crowd, everything you’ve ever eaten, tasted, touched, or smelled. All the emotional energies that have gotten trapped in your body. I’m testing him and I find he has trapped emotion, the emotion is anger. Testing a little bit further, I found this had occurred about 20 years before, and he immediately spoke up and remembered what had happened. He said it was a work situation. He had been falsely accused of something and was really angry about it. That was the emotion, that was what created this trapped emotional energy in his body. So I released that trapped emotion, and his pain level went from a nine to a zero in the snap of a finger, boom. It was gone. It was unbelievable. He kept bending over, walking around in my office, twisting this way that way, and exclaiming he couldn’t believe it. It was like a miracle really, and I was grateful that it worked so well. Why did that happen? There are two parts really to this story, but the first part is the pain relief that this guy got. Why did that happen? Well, you see, when you have a trapped emotion, it literally is a ball of emotional energy. What it’s doing is it’s residing somewhere in your body, and it’s distorting the normal energy field of your body. When the normal energy field of your body is distorted, that’s all your body is ultimately an energy field. This guy had a trapped emotion of anger. It was in his low back, and after 20 years of having all of those tissues distorted by that anger energy, eventually, it was causing severe pain. With the release of that trapped emotion, the pain was gone because that distorting force that that emotion was creating in those tissues suddenly was gone. Well, the story didn’t end there. A couple of days later he came back in to see me for a follow-up visit. He said to me, “My back pain is still gone. I still can’t quite believe it, but I have to tell you something. When I came here I had another problem that I didn’t tell you about. For as long as I can remember, I’ve basically been what you would call a rage-a-holic. I’m always yelling at my wife and my kids. I’ve got to watch road rage. I’ve been to anger management several times, it hasn’t really helped me. I’m just an angry person. I’m just kind of on edge all the time.  Since you worked on me and you released that emotion of anger, I feel really different. Things that would set me off before don’t set me off now. I feel kind of relaxed and I feel a certain level of peace. How did you do that? How does that work?” At the time I said, “Well, I really don’t know. I just work here.” But here’s what we believe, okay. Think about this, and this is I believe the actual truth about emotional baggage.  This guy’s got this ball of energy, this ball of anger in his low back, which seems very strange but I’m telling you that’s how this works. It’s distorting the energy field in his low back until eventually, it’s bad enough that he comes to see me. But overall of those 20 years, it has altered his personality because when a situation would come along in his life where he might tend to become angry, he would become angry much more readily, much more easily. Why? Because part of his body is feeling that emotion of anger 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You see, every emotion is a frequency, it’s an energy, and it’s a particular vibration. Because part of his body was already vibrating at that frequency—that vibration of anger—it was easy for him to fall into that resonance. That’s why after 20 years, he believed that he was an angry person until that trapped emotion was released.  That’s a great example you see of what our emotional baggage does to us and how it affects us. It’s such an incredible thing. Sometimes people have physical injuries that leave them with pain for years and years and years, and by removing their emotional baggage, sometimes that just disappears even though it was a physical injury in the beginning. In fact, just a couple of days ago—we post a new testimonial every day on our site. We have far too many that we can actually post. Our site is at discoverhealing.com, by the way. I’m looking at our site and there’s a testimonial I want to share with you.  This was from February 2nd this year. A woman named Sabrina from Valbonne in France said, “Twenty years ago, I had a big car accident with two whiplashes in a row. It was very painful and for years I had substantial neck problems and vertigo. The agony became worse over the years and, because I had children, I could not get any rest. Eventually, five years ago, my body collapsed with neuralgia and I had to stay in bed for days.” Neuralgia is nerve pain. “The pain was so intense that I went to see several doctors and chiropractors, but it did not help very much. Sometimes it was so excruciating that they could not even touch me. Then I heard of the Emotion Code and it was like a miracle. I healed myself! Today I can play tennis, run, look after my kids, and work once again. This method saved my life! Many thanks! I want to share it with everyone who is in pain because I know how much things can improve!” There’s a great example of that, right? Somebody who had a really bad car accident 20 years ago and using the Emotion Code on herself she was able to, apparently, get out of pain. She says it saved her life.   [00:34:35] Ashley James: I’d be curious to know—and maybe you wouldn’t know maybe from her but from others—was the trapped emotion about the car accident or did she create the car accidents because of a trapped emotion? The reason why I bring that up is one of my past mentors was getting in a series of fender benders until she realized that she was creating them. It was other people hating her, but there were so many. It was like 12 of them. So many of them that she realized because she was very spiritual and did a lot of emotional work herself—master practitioner and trainer of neuro-linguistic programming. She saw in herself when she went back and went okay, why am I creating this? What’s my belief system? What’s going on. She realized that she was creating them because of the emotional distress she was having around her job and how much her unconscious was fighting her because it was completely going against her value system. Staying in that job was going against every fiber of her being but she kept shoulding herself like golden handcuffs, like I should stay here. So she was creating these disruptions to basically not go to work, but there’s a lot of emotions around her work, around feeling neglected and abused. So she had to work on that, get away from the job, work on the emotion, and then she stopped creating car accidents. But she thought isn’t this interesting that some people—if you get out of victim mode in life right, and I really always have to preface this when I talk about being victim versus being at cause. I’m in no way saying that rape victims created it for themselves. This is just an exercise, it’s a mental exercise.  But if you can take on the mental exercise of being at cause in your world versus being a victim of things that have happened to you, then from the standpoint of being at cause you can go, so why did I create that? And not for blame but more for what’s going on at the unconscious level that I put myself in this position to be in this accident? Even if someone else hit me, what’s going on? Can I own this from the standpoint of what can I learn from it? How can I grow from this and what is there for me to learn here? Is there something that happened in my life that had me put myself in this situation?  Because all of our conscious and unconscious choices have led us to where we are today. And so if we own them and then we can learn from them, then we can look back and go, oh maybe this is connected to the emotions that were happening, the turmoil, or the unresolved issues that were happening prior to the accident. I just wonder if in her situation, if she couldn’t heal fully from the neck pain because of emotions that created during the accident like feeling the injustice of being in a bad accident, or was it that she was having issues with motherhood, with her husband—whatever dissatisfaction in her life, whatever stuff was happening before the accident, still her body was holding on to that pain from the injury for years later because she hadn’t worked on it. So I would just be interested to know what is the root cause? In a lot of cases, when it comes to an injury that lasts for years, is the root cause prior to the injury oftentimes, or is it the emotions from that injury itself?    [00:38:19] Dr. Bradley Nelson: It depends. If I had to bet, I would say that probably there was some emotional baggage that helped to precipitate the accident. When we have trapped emotions, what they do is they send out—they’re continually broadcasting their vibration out into the universe. And so then that tends to draw things to us that tend to create more of that. The other thing that happens is when you have an injury—the intense emotional experiences that you go through after that for years or decades—will often tend to become trapped in that area and make the distortion worse. A great example of this is a guy that I worked with many years ago. This guy came into my office, his name was Steve and he came in with his wife. He had a really severe tennis elbow. I mean, his arm was in a sling and he couldn’t turn the keys to start his car. It was so excruciating. I was barely able to touch the area, there was so much pain there. So I started working with him and doing the normal chiropractic things and I wasn’t having too much success with it. So at the time, I was just learning about the emotional side of this, I was learning about trapped emotions. So I asked his subconscious mind, and we use muscle testing different types to get answers from the subconscious, and it’s all taught. We teach it very clearly in the Emotion Code book.  So I asked his subconscious mind, is there a trapped emotion that is contributing to this tennis elbow? And the answer immediately was yes. What I found was that he had a number of trapped emotions that had become lodged in that area of his elbow during the years that he was in high school. Now he was about 42 years old when I was seeing him. So he’d been out of high school for a long time, but it was funny because every trapped emotion had to do with a girl who had basically rejected him.  It was so funny because his wife was sitting there, and I’m muscle testing him and he’s saying, “Well, let’s see. Was it Sheila?” His arm would go down, “No, okay. Was it Cheryl? No. Shawna? Oh, yeah. That one’s strong. Yeah, Shawna. Yeah, she dumped me.” And so it was all these trapped emotions about that. Here’s the thing, he was on the tennis team in high school. So what’s happening is as he’s dating these girls and they’re rejecting him, he’s also playing tennis and he’s incurring micro-trauma to those muscles that are being used the most. So that’s where the trapped emotions would lodge. The interesting thing about it is I think there were six different trapped emotions that needed to be released. The story’s in the book actually. It was so funny.  But the amazing thing really is that every time we’d release a trapped emotion, the pain level would just instantly drop. The pain level just kept dropping and dropping and dropping with the release of each trapped emotion until finally, we cleared the last trapped emotion and the pain was completely, completely gone. He couldn’t believe it. He took the sling off and he’s moving his arm around. I could go in and I could press deeply into those muscles, there was no pain anymore. I remember that was the first time that I had seen this phenomenon where you can have more than one trapped emotion in one place. But that was a great example to me of how trapped emotions can accumulate in an area and can eventually cause just extreme pain. What we find now is that about 90% of all the physical pain that people have is actually due to their emotional baggage to trapped emotions. We’ve got almost 7,000 practitioners of the Emotion Code now in 80 countries around the world, and we’re all finding the same thing. That if you’re in pain, there’s a very high probability that that pain is actually due to some emotional baggage. It’s actually really simple.   [00:43:02] Ashley James: Absolutely. I’m a master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming timeline therapy and hypnosis. Back in 2005, my mentors were enamored with the book Healing Back Pain.   [00:43:22] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Oh yeah, by Dr. Sarno.   [00:43:24] Ashley James: Yes, Sarno. So what he discovered—unfortunately, he has passed away. I tried to get him on the show but he had passed away. Well, he was working, and I don’t think he was a medical doctor. I mean, this was back in 2005 I read the book. But he was doing work with hospitals and looking at the records and more administration work, looking at all the administration stuff seeing that all these back surgeries these patients were still having pain. Oh, we got rid of their bulging disc. We surgically removed it. Why do they still have pain? Why are they still on disability? Why are they still on these drugs? So he started to look at stuff and found that—I can’t remember the statistic right now, I wish I could remember off top of my head, but it was so crazy something like 70% of all the MRIs they do, there’s some form of a bulging disc and yet people are asymptomatic. He’s like, how can we have someone who has a bulging disc that has no pain, but when people have pain in their back we always assume it’s a bulging disc. So we do these scans, then we blame the disc, and then we remove the disc, but they still have pain so it’s not the disc. So what is it? And then he just dove in like you did, figuring it out. What he saw was that there was ischemia, which is a cutoff of blood flow to the muscles when there was an emotion withheld. So I had a client come to me, this was 2006. So still, a long time ago. She was a long-distance runner, she was in a lot of pain, she was very fit, and she was in her 50s closing in on her 60s.  She said, “I’m on Tylenol—three every day—and I really don’t want to be on it because it’s not exactly good for you.” I started talking to her. I was like, “Well, how long have you had the pain?” She’s like, “Oh, you know a few years maybe four or six years.” And as we kept going back in her history, it’s like her brain couldn’t fully accept or remember. It actually had been more like 15 years that she had been in pain and been on these drugs. She’s like, “Oh wow, I didn’t realize how much time had passed.” I got to the root cause because guilt kept coming up as we talked, and what we figured out was she’s catholic and she had an abortion. She felt so guilty about it and she said to herself, “I have to pay for this guilt with pain.” She actually said that. She wouldn’t allow the doctor to give her pain medicine during her abortion, and she said, “I have to pay for it with pain.” And she did, but what was interesting because I was also in Canada, I was a registered massage therapist and worked in sports rehab, in sports medicine.  Before we started our session I said, “Can I palpate your back?” because she was pointing towards the quadratus lumborum on the left side, and I palpated. On the left side, it was hard as a rock ice cold. Now, this was in Florida. I was living in Florida at the time. I mean, it’s warm. On the right side, it’s flush, it’s a very good color, it’s warm and palpable. But on the left side, it’s like I’m touching granite. I thought this was interesting. This is ischemia. The whole muscle is just not letting any blood flow in, and that’s incredibly painful. Of course, when bands of muscle cause ischemia around the innervation of the nerve, it will create just incredible pain. Sometimes the pain will travel to different areas, but it’s very painful. As she gets into talking about guilt, the pain goes up. I keep asking her where is your pain level? Now, I mean, my session with her was like six hours long. Sounds like your session would have been like six minutes. Your program sounds like maybe it’s more effective in that it sounds a lot quicker. But by the end of it, we released the negative emotion of guilt at the root level. I said, “Where’s your pain?” and I’m kind of expecting it to be less. She’s like, “It’s gone. It’s gone.” She’s like jumping up and down. She’s like, “How is it gone? How is it gone?” So she goes back to her hotel room and I didn’t tell her to do this because I’m not a doctor, but she flushed all of her meds down the toilet. She was on three meds, one of them was an anti-anxiety med. She came to me the next day she’s like, “I took myself off all my meds. I’m not on the pain meds. I’m not on the anti-inflammatory meds. I’m not on the anxiety meds. I feel like a million bucks. I feel amazing.” And her pain was still gone. “Can I touch your back?” and her back on both sides were warm and palpable.  That was the most amazing thing for me to see that someone physically that their muscles that were holding—I mean like you said, the size of a softball or a baseball. Her entire quadratus lumborum, which is quite a big muscle, so bigger than a softball was hard, ischemic, cold, and holding on to guilt for 15 years. That to me just blew my mind. How many people are on meds, emotional medication, and also physical medication, and suppressing and putting a band-aid on and just pushing it down and pushing it down and pushing it down and then poisoning their bodies? And they’re not free of it.  That affects every area of their life just like one of your clients whose anger spilled over into every area of his life. Her guilt spilled over into every waking moment of her life, so just to be free of that. I’m so excited that people can learn your technique through your book and they can also then train. Can anyone become a practitioner of the Emotion Code?   [00:49:23] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Yes, anybody can become a practitioner. There’s really no prerequisites. It’s a simple program. It’s a six-month program, most people do it in about half the time. If you’re interested, there’s more information there—discoverhealing.com is our website. Listen to this one because it never ceases to amaze me. Here’s one that came in from a guy named Robbi Cuijpers from Posterholt in the Netherlands. This was posted on the third, so today’s the ninth. Anyway, he said, “One night I woke up with a terrible toothache. It was around 2:00 AM and I couldn’t sleep anymore. I was suffering so much I was about to call the emergency desk and go to the hospital. It felt dreadful. Then suddenly the question popped into my head, “Could there possibly be some trapped emotions causing this horrible pain?” “So, I gathered all the willpower I could find, jumped out of bed, and started sway testing for trapped emotions.” That’s where you stand up and your body will sway forward for yes and backward for no. “And yes, I had some trapped emotions that were causing the tooth pain. With the release of each emotion, my toothache instantly subsided. With the fifth and last emotion released, the pain was practically zero. I then went to bed feeling on top of the world knowing the power of The Emotion Code.”   [00:50:43] Ashley James: That’s amazing. I love it. And the unconscious mind controls all of our muscle movements. I’ve seen that. I’ve seen it where you can ask your unconscious mind questions and it can control the micro muscle movements of a finger or an arm, or like you said, the sway test. If someone is in a wheelchair, there are other ways. You could do it because the unconscious mind controls the muscles of the body. You can communicate with it, which not that many people know.  I was always afraid of my unconscious mind when I began to study, learn more, and dive into it, and then once I developed a relationship with my unconscious mind, it was actually the most rewarding thing because it’s you, it’s the rest of you. It’s the rest of you and your unconscious mind. It’s just you, it’s just more of you, but it’s the rest of you that loves you. Your unconscious mind adores you, loves you, wants to keep you safe, wants to keep you healthy. I mean, trying to understand John E. Sarno’s philosophy behind why the unconscious mind creates this ischemic pain? I’m not saying it’s always ischemic pain because like you’ve mentioned it can be injuries and joints and things like that, although I’d love your opinion. I guess the hypothesis is that the unconscious mind wants to resolve these issues and so it’s bringing it to your attention.   [00:52:06] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, that’s exactly how I look at it. Yes, the symptoms that we have are really just the subconscious mind trying to get our attention so that we can open a dialogue and figure out what’s really going on. What the underlying cause of our problem really is. What is it that’s unresolved? What do we need to deal with that we’ve never dealt with? I love what you said about the subconscious—that it adores us and it is the rest of us. It’s absolutely so true. That’s what it is. It’s not just pain. Listen to this one. This is another one. This was posted on February 8th, I guess yesterday. This woman Susan from Utah wrote and she said, “My husband, John, recently went through radiation therapy for prostate cancer. One of the side effects has been a terrible itching that would not stop after his therapy. His radiation doctor said that John could be allergic to something new but didn’t think the medication he had prescribed was doing it. John went to a dermatologist and was told that all older men get dry skin and that was it. I had recently read the Emotion Code and I tried it on his itching. The next day he completely stopped itching! In his eyes, this was a miracle!” You never know. Try it on anything.   [00:53:25] Ashley James: Right. Well, the thing is, all day long we have emotions. All-day long we have experiences, and how often do we actually sit back and unpack those experiences, process those emotions, and digest them like you would digest a very healthy meal? It’s like we’re taking care of our bodies, and so many of the people who are listening would sit down and eat a beautiful very nutritious meal, chew each bite until it’s fully digested, and really give themselves, bathe themselves in nutrition. Give themselves the time, the space, and the peace to digest their food because they know nutrition is so important.  And yet when it comes to our emotions, we treat it like we’re going through the drive-thru and just scarfing it down and not even tasting it and then just throwing it back and expecting our body just to deal with it. Just deal with it. It’s so funny that we’re treating our body like we’re eating fast food when it comes to our emotions, but we take our physical body so seriously and we don’t take our emotional body that seriously. I also believe there’s a stigma, and it depends on your generation. I see the younger generation. I’m 40 years old. I’m turning 41. Hopefully my mid-life is years to come, but I look at the younger kids and I see that they’re more open to counseling and therapy because there’s not a stigma for them. For the older generations, there was a large stigma around going to counseling. The thing is that working on your emotions is like going to the gym. You’re just going to the gym for your heart and your mind and just find the right trainer. Not every trainer out there is going to be the right trainer for you. Not every counselor is going to be the right counselor for you.  But I have clients who say that their sessions, working with their therapist have been the most rewarding thing possible because it’s just the place they get to digest, absorb, process, release, let go of, and understand their emotions and how they react. And then they notice that they stop just reacting and spewing onto their family and spewing onto their kids. They actually catch themselves, they take a deep breath, and they’re able to then come from a place of communication that has love and has respect because they processed all the stuff that happened last week, last month, last year instead of just bottling it up and then spewing at people. This particular idea of sitting down and respecting our emotional and physical body by working with the Emotion Code I think could be so rewarding. Now back to my question about ischemia, is it always muscles? Is it always ischemic pain, or do you find sometimes there’s bone pain? I know you mentioned that man had tooth pain. That could have also been a referral pain from a trigger point. Do you think it’s always ischemia though, or have you seen it where there’s absolute evidence that it’s not created in a muscle?   [00:56:42] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, yes. See the thing about it is trapped emotions can lodge in different areas. They can really lodge anywhere. They can lodge in a specific organ. So the way that we look at it is a little different from Dr. Sarno’s, and I have tremendous respect for what he did and the consciousness that he was able to create for people that this kind of thing goes on. But trapped emotions can lodge in different places. One of the most fascinating things that we see is that they will often form into a wall around the heart to protect the heart from being broken, and we call that a Heart- Wall. That’s one of the most interesting things that we see. With the Heart-Wall, it’s not necessarily that we see the ischemic pain so much. Although sometimes, people do have that. But there’s a whole another dimension to it. Anciently, the ancient peoples believed that the heart was the seed of the soul, the source of love, the source of romance, the source of creativity, and really the core of our being. Even now, after all these thousands of years, anywhere you go on earth, if it’s Valentine’s day or if someone is romancing you, they’ll give you a box of something tasty that’s probably shaped like a heart. So these are ancient ideas. I mean, the word heart is mentioned just shy of a thousand times in the bible, for example. There are these scriptures in the bible that say things like God doesn’t look on the outward appearance of a person, instead, he looks on the heart. There’s another one that says that as we think in our hearts, so we will be. In the west, we’ve never really paid much attention to those old ideas because medicine is still very mechanistically oriented, still very rooted in Newtonian physics. So the heart is just a muscle and we know it’s a muscle. It just pumps blood, that’s all it does, and that’s how we’ve looked at it for many, many years. But in the last 20 years or so, there has been new instrumentation developed, and new studies that have been done that show some amazing things. For example, they found that when one person is feeling love or affection for another person that their heartbeat will become measurable in the brain waves of that other person on an EEG. They found that their heartbeats will synchronize. So there’s this connection going on between all of us that we have not necessarily been aware of. But what we discovered, what was actually shown to us back in 1998, my wife had a dream. She asked me to help her decipher her dream. As I’m trying to do that, all of a sudden I have this experience that I can only describe as a waking vision where the room that I was in suddenly disappeared and I’m looking instead of this incredibly beautiful hardwood floor with this understanding that my wife’s heart is underneath this floor.  Now, this is one of the strangest things that I’ve ever experienced, and I don’t take drugs. I don’t even use caffeine anymore. I’m very straight that way. But anyway, this lasted for several minutes. I told my wife what I was seeing and understanding. She didn’t know what it meant either. We prayed, asked God to help us figure this out. We started muscle testing her, and what we found was that when she was two years old—because she was born into a very volatile, very dysfunctional family—she, at some point around that age, thought her heart was going to break and so she started building a wall around her heart. This wall was literally made from layers of her emotional baggage. So she’d had this wall around her heart all of these years. We asked if we could start removing these, and it took us a couple of weeks to take down this wall one emotion at a time.  When the last one was removed, all of a sudden, things really shifted for her because for one thing, whatever group of friends that she’d ever been with, she never really truly felt like she belonged anywhere like she was always the odd person out. She always felt kind of expendable until that was removed, then suddenly, she felt like she belonged. The depression, the anxiety that she had to deal with decreased dramatically. Initially, when we discovered this, it was really shown to us. It’s very much a God thing trying to get this out into the world this understanding. Initially, I thought it was maybe just her, that she was the only person on earth that had this. But what we find now is that about 93% of people have this phenomenon going on, and it’s called a Heart-Wall.  The most recent testimonial that I have about this—we’ve got about 10,000+ testimonials on our site. We get new ones every single day. We’ll pick one every day and post it. This one came in on February 4th. This is from a woman named Fawn. Apparently, one of our practitioners from Ohio said, “My most meaningful experience using the Emotion Code is with a client named Paul. He is a 70-year-old man who had such a horrific and abusive childhood that he built a Heart-Wall to protect himself. He never married or even had a close relationship. He has had many acquaintances but no close friends. After our Emotion Code sessions, he is now transformed! He went out and got his motorcycle endorsement at 70! And now he is actively looking for a lady to enjoy it with him. He simply shines! The transformation is the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed.” Think about this, 93% of people have this phenomenon, this Heart-Wall phenomenon going on. What it does is it interferes with your ability to give and receive love for one thing, but also to really create the life that you want because the best ideas that you’ll ever have are not in your brain, they’re in your heart. And the heart we know now is really a second brain. The heart is filled with gray matter and white matter, it really is a second brain.  In fact, when scientists a number of years ago looked at the communications along the nerves between the brain and the heart, they found the vast majority of communications were going from the heart to the brain, and they were expecting it to be just the opposite. What one of the first people that I saw after we worked on my wife with this was a nurse that came in to see me. She was 38 years old, and she came in because she had this terrible neck pain that she’d seen a couple of doctors for—they haven’t been able to help her. As I was talking with her she told me that she was single. She had not dated in eight years and was never going to date again.  So she’s 38, hasn’t dated in eight years, she’s basically celibate. She was an attractive person. I said, “Well, why do you feel this way? What happened to you?” She said eight years before, she’s really deeply in love with this guy who dumped her and broke her heart. That was it. She hadn’t dated since then. So I tested her and found, sure enough, she had put up a wall around her heart from that breakup. There were three emotions, three layers making up this wall. We cleared those emotions one at a time, and when the last one was gone, instantaneously the neck pain was gone—instantaneously.  When we see instantaneous pain relief like in this case and like in the case with the guy that I told you about in the beginning that had the anger from 20 years before, I think there’s more going on than just the ischemia. I think if those arteries and veins open up a little bit, it’s going to take a little bit of time for things to shift, but we see instantaneous relief of pain in many cases. That’s what happened to her. That’s not the end of the story though. She left the office feeling totally fine and didn’t come back for three months. When she came back into my office—I’ll always remember this—she looked great. I said, “Hey, you look great. I haven’t seen you for a while. How are you?” She said, “You know, my neck’s been fine since I was here. You cleared that Heart-Wall for me, that really works. About two weeks after I was here, I found out my childhood sweetheart has been living right around the corner from me for almost eight years. We’re dating and we’re in love, and I think he’s going to ask me to marry him.” Wow, what a shift. Holy smokes.   [01:06:04] Ashley James: You got me fascinated when you said that it can manifest in the organs. We often hear anger in the liver and fears in the lungs or the kidneys. If someone has something with their pancreas, an illness with their pancreas because, with type 2 diabetes, it’s not necessarily a pancreatic issue. If someone has a known illness with an organ or like fatty liver disease or they have a traumatic brain injury, have you seen people take something—either acute or chronic—that’s in an organ that’s been labs diagnosed, been tracking it, seeing that yes there’s an injury or there’s a disease state and they worked on the emotions that were there? Have you seen people, their bodies heal to the point where they’ve been able to heal organs?   [01:07:16] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Yes. For example, one of the most common examples of that that we see is actually infertility where we find trapped emotions, for example, in the uterus. By removing those trapped emotions [inaudible 01:07:35] conceive. Think about all the different organs. The first thing that you have to understand is that every disease process that people experience has an emotional component every single time. In our experience now, doing this for 32 years, there’s always an emotional component. If you identify the emotional component and you release that emotional baggage that’s affecting that area, then yes, things turn around. We’ve seen it happen over and over and over, so yes. In fact, trapped emotions can affect very specific parts of the body. For example, you might have a trapped emotion affecting your pineal gland, maybe the hypothalamus, or the pituitary. You might have trapped emotions that are affecting the thyroid gland. See all that this does really is it just removes the encumbrances that are in the body’s way of being able to function like the body wants to. The body wants to be healthy, it wants to function normally, but when you’ve got emotional baggage, those are encumbrances, those are blockages to really being able to heal and to function normally. In fact, here’s a really dramatic story that I haven’t thought of for many, many years. But in talking about this, it’s reminded me of this. There was a woman that came in to see us once who had fibromyalgia, which is this pain that you get all over the body that is very difficult, no known cure, and so on. I was able to help her with that, and then she told my wife and I about her daughter. What had happened with her daughter was that her daughter had gotten married about six months before, but her daughter suffered from vaginismus, which is the tightening down of the opening of the vagina.  She and her husband, still after six months, had not been able to have intercourse. They’d never been able to consummate their marriage. The marriage is starting to show signs of stress, and so she asked if we would look at her daughter. So we did so. Her daughter came in and we checked her. My wife found something that I don’t think we’d ever seen before, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen it since. But this girl had what we ended up calling a vaginal wall.  So in the sense, if you think about a Heart-Wall, if you feel like your heart is going to break, you’re feeling a physical sensation like there’s an elephant sitting on your chest, or maybe like you can’t breathe. There’s a physical thing going on there. The subconscious mind will put up a wall. The wall is an invisible wall to us, but to the subconscious, it’s very, very real I think. My wife’s Heart-Wall, the symbolic material was wood. She grew up in a house with hardwood floors.  So the subconscious will always choose some kind of material, and we’ve seen heart wall symbolic materials everything from plastic to glass to iron. But anyway, this young woman had a wall that her subconscious mind had put up in that area of her body to protect herself, and then she told us that she had been sexually abused at some point as a child. So anyway, we cleared the trapped emotions that were creating that, and it was the next day her mom called us and she said, “Guess what? Everything’s working. Thank you.” And in fact, she said, “Her husband is coming home. He’s spending his lunch breaks at home now for a catch-up.”   [01:12:02] Ashley James: I had a friend who had that and she had to have surgery. She had surgically had her vaginal opening altered so that she could have intercourse. It’s very interesting that she had the same condition. She spent years doing everything. Obviously, she didn’t learn about the Emotion Code. It would have been a lot easier than having surgery.   [01:12:31] Dr. Bradley Nelson: That was their next step really. Their next step is surgery. But luckily, we were able to avoid that.   [01:12:37] Ashley James: I’m just going to throw this out there, I like to get weird. What about people who are in a coma who has maybe dementia. Maybe children who are nonverbal autistic or adults who are non-verbal autistic. Is there any way to do this technique with people who can’t clearly communicate with you?   [01:13:05] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Oh yes, absolutely. It’s not a problem at all. The reason why is because the subconscious mind never sleeps. So it doesn’t matter. People can be worked on when they’re asleep, when they’re in a coma. In fact, let me tell you a story. This is actually in the Emotion Code book. We have twin boys. My wife and I had seven kids together, and then she had a daughter before we met. So we have a total of eight, but we have twin boys that are 31 years old now. When they were four years old, we thought that one of them had a problem with his hearing because he wouldn’t speak in full sentences. His brother on the other hand was a total chatterbox, but he wouldn’t speak in full sentences. We just didn’t know what was wrong. So we took him to a hearing specialist thinking maybe he was a little bit deaf, but his hearing was totally fine. At that time, we were really first learning about trapped emotions. So one night, we decided to work on him when he was asleep. Now, in the book, we explain how you do this. It’s a simple process, but we worked on him when he was asleep and we found that he had an inherited trapped emotion of anger from my wife’s father.  So in other words, when my wife was conceived in the womb, there was emotional energy of anger that was passed from grandpa. When we conceived this little boy of ours, that energy was passed to him. So we cleared that, released that. He’s asleep so we’re working on him when he’s asleep, no problem, subconscious never sleeps. We cleared a couple of other trapped emotions. The next morning at breakfast, guess who will not shut up. My wife and I are just looking at each other like a couple of owls like we just cannot believe what’s happening. We all have emotional baggage, and getting rid of it is so important. If you think about it, if you’ve got a heart-wall and there’s about a 90% chance that you do, then what that’s doing is it’s interfering with your ability to give and receive love and your ability to really create the life that you want because your best life and the best creative ideas that you have are actually in your heart, are not in your head. The beautiful thing about the Emotion Code is that it’s really, really simple. Anybody can do it. Kids can do it. We have kids that are having great success with it in different parts of the world. You can learn how to do it yourself, you can use it yourself, use it on your own kids, you can use it on your husband, on your wife, on your children, and so on.   [01:16:25] Ashley James: Can you do it with babies?   [01:16:27] Dr. Bradley Nelson: You absolutely can do it with babies. You can even do it with babies before they’re even born. When they’re in the womb you can work on them.   [01:16:35] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. That is so cool. I’m 32 weeks pregnant so I better start reading. Can you do it with animals?   [01:16:42] Dr. Bradley Nelson: You absolutely can do it with animals. In fact, let me see, there was a story that I was just looking at here on our site. Let me see if I can find that really quick.   [01:16:56] Ashley James: I consider myself an open-minded skeptic, like a really, really open-minded skeptic. I wouldn’t be prompted to ask that question if I hadn’t had an experience where a friend of mine asked me to do emotional work on her dog and I’m like I’ll try.  Basically, the dog’s parents are splitting up. The two owners were going their separate ways, and the dog was picking up on the tension and it was a wiener dog. All of a sudden, his back legs stopped working. He became paralyzed, and the vet said this is common with wiener dogs. But there was no trauma. He didn’t fall down, get kicked, or hurt. He didn’t bump himself. He just all of a sudden, his parents are splitting up. There’s tension in the household, and now he isn’t working. So I sat with him, I held him in my hands, and I just started my heart communicating to his heart. All of that information came flooding to me. I’m like, okay, let’s fill you with love and get you to see that your parents love you. You’re going to be in their lives and you get to have two homes now. They’re going to share. Your parents are getting divorced but you still have them. They’re not leaving you. They’re just leaving each other. The three of us were talking to him and telling him that, and then he got up and started by his tail and his legs worked again. We’re like okay, that works. I’ve had other people on the show who are healers. One guest of mine helped a horse with her fertility issues. She was having miscarriages basically and this horse wasn’t able to conceive. So he did emotional work with the horse and the horse was able to heal from the emotions of all the sadness from the lost pregnancies. And then the next one worked and she was able to get pregnant. I’m like, okay. You know what, there’s something very interesting going on here. Of course, animals have emotions. If you’ve ever had a cat or dog, you make a connection with them, and there’s more there. There’s love, there’s acceptance, there’s joy. They have some very interesting emotions. There are so many studies done now where they can actually see that animals have emotions. I’m not doing a debate as to whether they have a soul or not, or whether they go to heaven or not. I mean, those are all very interesting conversations to have. But the fact is that if we as humans can—and we’re animals too—but if we can heal physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, energetically by using the Emotion Code and working on our emotions and healing them, why not animals? I love that you said we can work with babies. I just imagine the parents who have autistic children who are non-verbal could be doing this with their children. How beautiful is that? Sorry, you had a testimonial about working with animals?   [01:19:55] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Oh, right. This one just came in. This is from a woman named Beate in Germany. This came in on the first of February. She said, “Lilly, the dog of a family friend, suddenly no longer wanted to go up the stairs in her home and only managed to do so with a lot of start-up and motivation from her owner. Nothing seemed to be wrong physically. By the time my friend shared this with me, sitting together in a cafe, it had been going on for a long time. So, right there I connected remotely with Lilly the dog, and released a few of her trapped emotions. When my friend got home that afternoon, Lilly ran up the stairs without any complaints. A few days later, when her “fear of stairs” came back, I was able to solve a few more things. Now Lilly has no more problems walking up the stairs.” And what’s interesting about this one too is that this was done at a distance. Of course, that’s because this is energy medicine really in its purest form. It’s not bound at all by distance, and so that’s a fun one, huh?   [01:20:59] Ashley James: Right. When you start studying quantum physics, you realize we’re all in the milieu together. It doesn’t matter if we’re 1,000 miles away or 1 foot away from each other. We have this energetic connection. I just love that. It blew my mind. It completely changed my life. My life took a 180 after I saw the movie What The Bleep Do We Know because I went like oh my gosh. This energy. Stop thinking in terms of chemicals and matter. Think in terms of energy. It’s all about energy. So that just makes total sense that emotions are energy and having them trapped in the body, very interesting. You lived and went to school in Hawaii for a while. I studied Huna because I thought of the ancient Polynesian technique. I wouldn’t even call it a religion because it was more like their lifestyle. It was how they breathed, how they loved, how they healed, how they fished. Huna was their philosophy for living, and in Huna, there’s a belief. Now, this is hundreds or thousands of years old, who knows, but it’s an ancient Polynesian belief system about living and life. They believed that emotions would become trapped in the body like black boulders stored in bags inside us. Like if you looked at a river and saw a river with no boulders would be calm, but a river with many boulders would be turbulent. So they had this idea that the more trapped emotions you had, the more the chi was turbulent within you and was thrown off. So I’ve always carried that imagery in my mind. So of course we would want to heal and release these emotions. Now you’ve talked about getting the book the Emotion Code, but you’ve also talked about this course. Could someone who was very passionate like I am wanting to do this to all their friends and family, let’s say, and themselves and obviously the family being receptive, would the book be enough? Would it suffice, or should someone who really wants to do this technique with their animals, their kids, their husband, and their friends—should they take the course? Who should take the course and who should read the book?   [01:23:24] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, the information is definitely in the book. People all over the world are reading the book, putting it into practice, learning how it works. If you really want to master it or if you want to actually charge people for sessions, then we do want you to go through the certification program. The certification program that we have is an online program, and it’s available—you can go to discoverhealing.com. It’s actually on sale right now. It’s not an expensive program. It’s all online. You go through at your own pace. Most people will go through it in about three months, the record is two weeks. It just depends on how motivated you are. But the nice thing about that is that it gives you rails to run on. I mean, think about it, I know that you’ve done this because I’ve done this and I think so many people have done this where you go to some really great course or something and you buy some materials and then a year later you come across it when they’re still shrink-wrapped. You think, oh yeah, I really wanted to learn that.  So the certification program gives you some deadlines, enables you to really learn it well, and get a lot of practice. You have a student advisor that helps you and gives you any kind of feedback that you need. But it also is all in the book. I mean, if you want to learn it from the book and use it on your friends, family members, and so on, by all means, go for it. It’s all in there. But if you want that added experience of getting certified, then yeah. If you want to do it for a living, then we want you to do that for sure.   [01:25:12] Ashley James: So why specifically? Because we have a lot of health coaches that listen to the show. I’m sure they’re all perked up and already on your site ready to sign up because this would be a great adjunct to health coaching. What is different in the live course that’s from the book? Are you teaching them how to work with people, what to look for, or the precautions? What is it that you get out of the live course that really helps you work with people on a professional level?   [01:25:44] Dr. Bradley Nelson: The course, in part, consists of 10 different recordings. They’re basically presentations where I go through with two of our top practitioners that have been doing this for many, many years. We discuss and kind of bounce things off of each other in explaining things. So what we try to do is we try to explain all of it from the very beginning in a way that makes it very easy for everybody to understand. That’s part of it.  You’ll gain insights from certification that you won’t get from the book. But also, in the certification program, you have homework. Your homework actually is the book itself. We supply the text of the book and the book on audio for you. You’ve got homework and then you work on yourself, and you’re one of the people. There are, I believe, 20 people that you have to work with, but you can count yourself as one of those people.  As you’re working with people and you’re releasing trapped emotions, you’re recording everything that you’re doing online on our site at discoverhealing.com in the back end at a location that’s just for you for this, and you record all that information. Then as you’re doing that, you do have to work with some animals, you have to totally clear the Heart-Wall from a number of people. What it does is accelerates your ability to do this because it’s like coaching. I mean, nobody really gets to the Olympic level of any sport without having a coach. It’s not possible.  That’s kind of what this program does. You’re able to see videos of other people doing this and sample sessions that are actually done that our practitioners are doing. You learn how to do this the right way. You learn how to do it better at a distance and so on. And then you’re quizzed on everything. There really is no final exam. You basically pass off each part of it as you go and so each part builds on the next part. But we have lots and lots of people doing it. It’s a great program. We consistently get very, very high 90% feedback from everybody doing it, that it’s a great program. Anyway, the book itself if you’re just wanting to explore this a little bit maybe, you can go to emotioncodegift.com. There you can download the first couple of chapters of the book for free. We can give you those for free, you can try those out. If you want to get the book, the book’s available on Audible if you want to listen to it, amazon.com of course, Barnes & Noble—are they still in business? I think they are.   [01:29:09] Ashley James: Yeah. It’s Borders that went under.   [01:29:12] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Borders, yeah. What about B. Dalton? Are they still? I can’t remember.   [01:29:14] Ashley James: I was so bummed. Where I lived in Vegas—Henderson, Nevada just off of Stephanie, there was a Barnes & Noble and a Borders practically beside each other. That would be my favorite Saturday afternoon activity. I’d go pour through all of Barnes & Noble and then I’d pour through all the Borders. They would actually have different books depending. I would always go with the self-help, personal growth, and spiritual sections. That was my shtick. It was funny.  My husband’s and my second date we did that. We went to Barnes & Noble and Borders. I pointed out every book I ever read and he bought every book I ever read. He walked to the register with his hands full. He spent hundreds of dollars, and I looked at him. I’m like this guy listening to me. He’s serious. This guy’s serious. Oh, man. That was cool because he said he was into personal growth but then he was like putting his money where his mouth was. That was pretty hot I’d have to say. But we’ve been married for almost 13 years. I pretty much knew almost instantly that there was something special there. So yeah, I miss Borders. Barnes & Noble’s around. I still do shop there occasionally. I love that you have an audiobook. I’m absolutely getting your audiobook because I love listening to audiobooks. I’m excited about that. Any listener can listen to your book or read your book and begin to immediately apply these techniques. They don’t have to take the course, but if they want to do it professionally they should take the course because they’re going to get it on a much deeper level. That is so exciting. While I’ve been interviewing you I’ve made a list of at least 12 friends, clients, and family members that I want them all to get your book. I imagine all the listeners have done the same. No wonder you’re so popular. This is so needed in this world. Dr. Bradley, I really want to have you back on the show. I’d love for you to continue to dive into this topic and explore it. Today was just to get us an introduction, get our foot in the door, and of course, everyone’s going to go get the book. I’m going to definitely go listen to your book, but I’d love to have you on the show you know after I’ve finished the book, and then maybe we can go deeper a bit into this topic. I know my listeners will absolutely love that, especially since they’re all going to go out and get your book too. And of course, they’re going to go to emotioncodegift.com and get the gift you’re giving out. Is there anything you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview?   [01:31:51] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Well, I would just say that we’re living in this very unique time of the earth’s history where the world is in this transformational process. To me, it’s almost like the earth is in labor. It’s trying to give birth to this new world where so many of us want it to go. A world where people are living from their heart, and a world that is just so different from the world that we’re used to where darkness has so much influence over so much that’s been done in the world. This work, the Emotion Code, is part of this transformation. It’s just a little piece of it. Think about when you read about somebody that is hurting someone else or has done some terrible thing, you can bet that there’s a Heart-Wall there because you see we feel with our heart. That’s why if someone is really hurting us or we’re really deeply grieved, we feel it in our chest, we feel it in our heart. And the brain that is in our heads doesn’t really feel. I mean, using the brain that is in our heads, the extension of that has created the world that we’re in now in many ways where we’re still using war to settle differences between nations, dropping bombs, blowing people up, and all kinds of crazy things, which seems to the logical mind to be perfectly appropriate. But eventually, we are moving now towards a world where we’re all going to be living from our heart, you see, where love is going to rule the day. This work is about helping us to get there. It happens on an individual level. Get the book, learn how to do this. You can work on yourself, you can work on your family members, you can do so much healing not only for your own family that’s alive, but when you remove emotional baggage that has been inherited and passed down your line, you’re releasing it from them as well. We might want to talk about that next time because I’ve got some great stories I can tell you about that.   [01:34:11] Ashley James: Let’s do that. Awesome. Let’s have you back on the show and we’ll talk about inherited emotions. I have some amazing experiences about that as well. Again, an open-minded skeptic, wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced it with my own experience. It’s pretty amazing, and it’s been documented actually. They’ve scientifically proven that the stress from trauma is passed down. They’ve been able to measure it, which is just so fascinating. But you can get very specific, and very specific trauma, very specific emotion that can be passed down for generations.  So it’s up to us to stop that, to heal it, and to allow the healing to go in both directions for past generations and future generations. So I’d love to have you come back on and we can talk about generational healing. I’d also like to ask you about past life healing if that’s ever come up because that is something that will challenge us in a very interesting way.  Dr. Bradley Nelson, I had the absolute pleasure having you on the show and can’t wait to have you back. It’s truly a gift and an honor to be in this day and age when we are birthing a world and we heal ourselves, heal thyself, help heal our friends and family. And if enough of us are going to tip the scales, we can help birth a world where love, peace, and consciousness are the things that we strive towards, the things that we resonate—coming from the heart instead of coming from the mind, like you said.   [01:35:50] Dr. Bradley Nelson: Yeah. We’re going that direction. Well, thank you, Ashley. It’s been really fun. Let’s do it again.   Get Connected with Dr. Bradley Nelson! Dr. Bradley Nelson Discover Healing Emotion Code Gift Facebook – Dr. Bradley Nelson Twitter – Discover Healing Instagram – Discover Healing YouTube – Discover Healing Book by Dr. Bradley Nelson The Emotion Code

Kellyann's website: http://www.platinumenergysystems.ca Morning exercise that Kellyann recommends: https://www.yoqi.com/qigong-videos Kellyann also recommends looking into Cells or tissue Salts," otherwise known as homeopathic mineral salts. Hyland's brand often is a reliable and easy to find brand sold in most health stores.   Small Changes in Daily Habits can make the Biggest Difference for a Clean and Functioning Body, Mind and Spirit   https://www.learntruehealth.com/small-changes-in-daily-habits-can-make-the-biggest-difference-for-a-clean-and-functioning-body-mind-and-spirit   Highlights: Inflammation is caused by inflamed thoughts and feelings Routines that support cellular health What is nerve toxicity Importance of breathing properly How to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system   When we’re stressed, our body goes into fight or flight mode, which negatively affects our body. Kellyann Andrews is back with more tips on keeping our stress levels low and how to return to the rest and digest mode. She also shares more success stories with the PES system. [00:00:00] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 454. Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. We have here today with us back on the show Kellyann Andrews from platinumenergysystems.ca. You were on episode 292, 293, 329, and 330. This time would be your fifth episode. Welcome back to the show.   [00:00:41] Kellyann Andrews: It’s lovely to be here, Ashley. Thank you so much. It’s such an awesome thing that you’re doing for people to give them the sense of their liberty because they can make their own choices.   [00:00:55] Ashley James: Absolutely. We’re raised in a system where we’re told how to think, where to go, and that we only have one system of medicine. And then we look around and realize, wait a second, I can think for myself, and there isn’t only one system of medicine. There are many systems of medicine. It’s not all one system fits all. You don’t take all the problems in your house to a plumber. Why would you take all your health problems to a doctor that only has one set of tools? Now, MDs are fantastic diagnosticians. That’s really where they shine. That is not diagnosing everything. There are certain things that haven’t caught up yet in the MD-based world, but they’re great diagnosticians. They’re great to go to for emergency medicine. They’re wonderful at stitching you back up. But when it comes to chronic illness, the problem is that they don’t have the toolset, the philosophy, or the training.   [00:02:04] Kellyann Andrews: It’s not their department.   [00:02:05] Ashley James: It’s not their department, and there are so many wonderful MDs out there who really want to make a difference and who do make a difference. There are wonderful MDs who choose to become holistic doctors and they have to get a lot of additional training. But for some people who listen to this show who are sick of being sick and tired, they don’t know why they’re sick and tired, and they’re really sick of being given drug after drug. Maybe they don’t want to be given drugs to manage symptoms that create more problems. Then we need to look at all the different possible avenues for us. A lot of times, listeners decide to take matters into their own hands and learn from many episodes like today’s episode and learn from people like you. And they decide to do things like daily supportive detoxification and nutrition just to help the body manage the daily stressors that we have right now. There are over 80,000 new man-made chemicals in our air, water, food, and soil. We just are not detoxing at a rate that we can handle to get rid of all this pollution, and then that leads to further deterioration. Kellyann, you specialize in supporting the body’s ability to detox. We’ve talked about this in past interviews, and so I highly recommend listeners go and check those out. Today, you’re back here to continue the discussion of focusing on cellular health and resilience. Especially now coming into winter. Resilience allows us to bounce back, to resist illness, and bounce back from it. That’s what we definitely want to create within our health this idea of resilience. So many of the listeners have shared that they’ve had amazing experiences with you with the Platinum Energy System machine, which I have shared in the past episodes my thrilling joy in using and experiencing the detoxification of working with your machine. Again, listeners, go back and listen to those past episodes because Kellyann fills us in on that. But a lot of interesting stories have come to the surface of listeners who have used your system with their children, with their husbands during times when they have a cold or flu, during times when they’re feeling really ill. They’re all noticing hugely positive benefits. I have a friend who has a developmentally delayed son who’s very hard to understand in his speech. After one session, she was almost crying. She couldn’t believe it. She started recording him just to prove it to herself and show it to others. After one session, which is 30 minutes, he was speaking so clearly you could understand every single word. He said his name, he spelled his name, and he was talking like every other child his age. That was amazing that when we support the body’s ability to detox, it affects the brain, it affects the nervous system, it affects every organ in the body. What we need to do is look at how we can support the body’s ability to detox and have cellular health and resilience. So thank you so much for coming back to the show to continue to share with us your information. I know you have so much you want to share today. Since we had you on the show last, how has it been working with all the Learn True Health listeners who have contacted you?   [00:05:58] Kellyann Andrews: It’s so lovely. I just so enjoy being in this field and having the insights and the understanding of toxicology and physiology. Just continuing the journey down the road with the people that are already using it. I mean, daily, they’re calling and saying this transformation has occurred or that transformation. So it’s just a total joy to hear the stories of recovery.   [00:06:33] Ashley James: Are there any specific stories that come to mind that you’d like to share?   [00:06:38] Kellyann Andrews: I mean, there was one case where a little girl was very autistic, very internalized. If you looked at her on a spectrum of introversion versus extroversion, she’d be way down major introversion. She was very inside herself. She was very grumpy. She was cranky. Disposition was not pleasant at all, and she was very impatient, demanding, and just irritable altogether. So they put her in the foot spa. Her father actually is a physician himself, a psychiatrist. Anyway, she went into the foot spa and they said they knew something was occurring because she started to smile, then she started laughing, and then she started communicating and holding eye contact. So all the behaviors reversed towards the scale of extroversion within that session. At the end of the session, she was just happy. And then she went outside and she started galloping around the back garden. The father said he had never seen her do that behavior her whole life.   [00:08:02] Ashley James: Was this temporary or did they continue to see progress with her?   [00:08:09] Kellyann Andrews: They continued to see progress with her and her communication skills became more acute. There was another grandmother who had—I forget the age, I think she was six or eight, I think she was eight—an interesting story because she was always constantly having to check in with the mother when she was trying to write anything to find the words to assist her in the process. But as they noticed when she progressed through the sessions, she started to be able to initiate the sentences by herself. And then the grandmother called her an inventor because in the end she was just happily creating all these different stories and very finite articulate communication skills were occurring without the mother’s help anymore.   [00:09:07] Ashley James: I love it. I spoke recently to one of our listeners and she said that she’s had such great success with the PES. She’s really into holistic health and she has a son who I think participated in the Special Olympics so he’s quite athletic. But her husband’s really not into anything holistic, and they all got the flu, which I noticed any time I feel like we’re catching something like the cold or flu which isn’t often but when we do, we jump in the PES. We notice it speeds up our healing time.  So her husband was suffering the most out of everyone in the household probably because he didn’t take care of himself a great deal, and she exclaimed that it helped him so much to get better quicker that it started to almost make him a believer in holistic health. She was excited to notice that, but that’s what I noticed. Our son has been doing the PES I think since about three, but he would come to us in the morning if he started feeling like he had sniffles or had a cold and he’d ask us for the foot treatment. I thought that was really cute. Without us prompting him, he said, “I want the foot treatment,” because he really did notice he started to feel better after it. That’s fun. Talking about focusing on detox, cellular health, and resilience, I’d like to get into that. How can we support ourselves to the point where we’re creating resilience?   [00:10:59] Kellyann Andrews: That is such a great question because toxicity and illness go hand in hand. That’s what Bruce Lipton was addressing in his book, The Biology of Belief. The focus needs to turn back into the body. We’re always looking outside of our body for the causative factors, but we’re forgetting that it’s the internal environment within the body that is such a key aspect because that is the key to the genetic expression of the epigenetics.  Whether health or illness is being expressed either on a physical level, emotional, or mental, the mindset, the attitude, and emotions are such a key thing as to what is actually environmentally going on inside the body. So at the core of health, there’s one major aspect, and that’s whether you feel safe or not. That’s the bottom line. It’s so interesting to come across this research.  It’s your own thoughts and feelings that you’re expressing that are communicating to the brain and the brain’s communicating to the body of whether you feel safe or not. So the brain and the body then activate a response accordingly to whether you feel safe or not, and that in turn activates your nervous system into action. Now, if you feel safe, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system. But if you don’t feel safe, then you activate the sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight and flight response. This, at the core, is so important because just think about it for a second, Ashley. When you feel safe, how does that feel in your body? What does safe feel like in your body?   [00:13:27] Ashley James: Calm, warm, restful, peaceful.   [00:13:33] Kellyann Andrews: Exactly. So guess what you are communicating to the brain and the brain is communicating to the nervous system. When you feel safe, your body functions come literally back online because you are in a relaxed, at ease, mellow space. But what happens is that when the body and the brain respond to stress—that feeling of not safe—you activate something that’s called the cell danger response. So not safe again activates that fight and flight response, and the brain has sensors in it. So these sensors are monitoring the entire system the whole entire time like the control tower at the airport. It’s monitoring what are the oxygen and pH levels in the body. Of course, stress and toxicity decrease oxygen and increase acidity. So now, the brain starts signaling a not safe alert and the cell danger response turns on. Now, this system of alerts was designed as a short-term response. But the trouble nowadays with COVID ongoing is it’s turned into chronic stress. So it’s become long-term stress and what that causes in the body is the cell danger response to be stuck on. When that happens, then the body is being triggered by those negative emotions and negative thoughts. When the body feels not safe, the person feels agitation, anxiety, and fear. What happens when the body is in that feeling of not safe? It’s in the fight and flight response so here’s how the body responds. It’s set up to flee. The blood goes to the limbs. The energy is increased in the body so the body puts out more glucose. The heart rate goes up, adrenaline comes up, blood flow increases so it brings more oxygen and nutrients. The respiration increases, digestion, and immunity go down, and susceptibility and vulnerability go up. This is where the bad microorganisms, the pathogens move into the body and when the stress is chronic, that’s what turns into chronic infections. So now you have a situation of inflammation, and the inflammation is caused by inflamed thoughts and feelings. I mean, when you just look at it so logically, you can just see.  So the key thing is that in that moment of stress, whatever that is that hits the button of reacting within your body being in nature, we’ve got to stay conscious in that moment because the fight and flight response takes you to the hindbrain and you just go into the step on the cat’s tail reaction. You’ve got to catch yourself in that moment because if you can consciously shift back to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is activated by feelings of safe, it governs your digestion, your immunity, your respiration, your heart health, your brain health, your ability to detoxify, and it also brings down inflammation. So in the moment of stress, it is just so interesting to see and just look at this in your own life—how are you responding in that moment of stress? Because what is happening is you’re telling yourself, your biocomputer, and all of your biologies that you’re not safe and so you go into that fight and flight response. But what we need to shift to is to realize the impact that our negative emotions and thoughts are having on our biochemistry.  So anxiety, worry, anger, frustration—they’re all causing the sympathetic nervous system to go into overdrive in the fight and flight response, and it’s all activated by what you’re thinking. But what it’s affecting is your organs—your liver, your kidneys, your lungs, your spleen. And this all occurs when a person feels unsafe. So isn’t it interesting, Ashley, how Louise Hay completely focused on this in that if you look at her affirmations, she always brought in I am safe. So she intuitively got it, but she didn’t really understand the science behind it.  But even on a mental level, it impacts the body because the interesting thing about the body is the body only knows now. Whether the stressor is real or imagined, so it could be a negative projection, it could be anticipation, it could be an actual restriction or even a sense of loss of freedom. All of these are stressors and they all bring our ability to heal, repair, and have the immune system active. It all decreases all of the above. So what we have instead is a higher level of acidity and toxicity, and that also impacts the fight and flight response, impacts the body’s ability to detoxify itself. It actually inhibits the body to detoxify.   [00:20:33] Ashley James: I mean, we talk about detoxification as a concept. I think when people hear detox, they think of some major cleanse like doing a liver detox, a liver cleanse, or a colon cleanse. My neighbor, who knows I’m into holistic health, texted me the other day and said, “I want to do a lung and colon cleanse.” I think he even used the word detox. He wanted to detox his lungs, and I said, “Listen, we need to actually sit down and talk about this.” So we had a call. Because there’s one thing to think about detox as an annual sort of cleaning of the house. Sometimes people do a spring detox, like a spring cleaning where they drink a bunch of juice, do a bunch of yoga, and they just do like a week’s worth, a weekend, or something.  Sometimes people will do a fast, but it’s this idea that it’s separate from the rest of our routine and our life and that it’s this one time a year. It’s like taking letting the body have a vacation and we just nurture the body in this cleanse or detox session. But why is it actually important to focus on supporting the body’s ability to detoxify every day and incorporating that even into coming into the holidays? Especially now with the higher levels of stress and coming into a time where people might be drinking more, eating more sugar, taking less notice of what they’re putting in their body. What kind of routines can people incorporate on a small scale, on a day-to-day basis that supports cellular health?   [00:22:20] Kellyann Andrews: Where do we begin? I loved what you said there because the point is that it isn’t a once a year kind of event, it’s every day. I mean, would you clean your house once a year? Would you clean your car once a year? You do clean the chimney once a year, but that’s about the only thing.  The body gets clogged up by a continuum of toxicity coming into it. And as you mentioned at the beginning, the volume of chemicals that are now on the planet that we’re exposed to. The unfortunate part is that the planet has become 100 times more toxic in just 30 years. So a lot of these women that I’m assisting have children within that category of the last 30 years. The wonderful thing about children is that they do respond quicker because they haven’t been on the planet as long. But the unfortunate thing for the children is that they have been on the planet when it’s been the most toxic.  So there are so many different aspects that you can address, and the key of course is you’ve got to get the body moving. You’ve got to get the lymphatic system moving. I mean, there are so many different ways to be able to assist that, but the most important thing is that we’ve always got to bring back into the formula the emotional aspect. So if you’re going to go do exercise, don’t do something that you absolutely hate doing or that you’re resenting that you’re having to get up at 5:00 AM in the morning and go to the gym in the cold. Do something that makes you feel good, that you enjoy, that you love doing.  Being out in nature is the most quieting thing to the human nervous system and just to tune in. I remember when COVID first happened, I just stood on my porch and listened to the birds. I thought well the birds don’t know anything about all this that’s going on, and they were sounding so joyful and so chirpy because the noise of the humans had come down. So the joy of the birds had come up.  So when you can just tune your sensory perceptions into what makes you feel alive, what makes you feel energized, what makes you feel good? What are those things? Whether it’s aromatherapy, yoga, tai chi, or Shiba Fa, the key thing is to move the body. And when you do it in a method that’s slow and purposeful with the breath, you just have so much greater impact because the key is that when we get these toxins on board internally, toxins are inhibiting our bodies to detoxify themselves. They’re actually causing what I call log jam beaver dam.  Toxins are poisoning the nerve’s sensory perceptions and inhibiting the signaling communication of the body. The body’s ability to censor what’s going on in different parts, and it’s affecting our arcadian rhythms. So that’s where you see people with sleep disturbances, agitation, restlessness, and anxiety. When the body has so much on board in terms of toxic content, it destabilizes the cell membranes. It poisons the tissue and the enzymes. It poisons the entire neurological system.  Here’s an example of a woman that we met. Actually, she was a spa director at Sofia a few years ago. We were there, we had the equipment, and so we were giving sessions to the spa people. We walked in and this woman, I have to tell you, looked like she had—you spoke about partying—the world’s worst hangover. I mean, she just had this hangdog look. So I just said try to be polite, “What happened to you?” So then she said that she had just found out that she was living in a house that was full of mold. And she was down in your area. The volume of rain in the wintertime there, it’s not surprising. Anybody in that zone hasn’t got massive mold issues. She was experiencing physically in her body that she had an extreme amount of fatigue, and at that time, why she had the hangover look was because she was just completely in a brain fog. I mean, her face was white. Her whole disposition was completely submerged. So what happened in the process of her detoxifying is that she released a lot of fatty content, and that was what was clogging up her lymph system. So of course, that was causing the inflammation in her body. So the sinuses started to drain the, lymph nodes behind the ears that were swollen actually shrunk during the session, which was really awesome. And at the end of it, her brain fog was completely gone. She was so thrilled, amazed, and shocked. She said, “This is the first time I’ve done any kind of intervention where I’ve had such dramatic results in the first session.”  But the interesting thing is that Dr. Stephen Genius is a doctor here in Edmonton, Canada. He said, and this makes such sense when you think about it, “The idea that heavy metals, chemicals are harmful to our bodies, and that they are in fact preventing our bodies from detoxifying effectively is the key to our present and future state of health. The body forces constantly are in a fight mode to try to stay healthy. Toxic chemicals and heavy metals compromise our immune system. Our detoxification organs—liver, lungs, kidney, colon, skin—cannot function properly to remove the toxicity.”  That’s what you saw in the case with this woman with mold was that her body was already compromised, and then she got assaulted with one more thing that literally just caused the dominoes to go backward in the wrong direction.  So it’s been such an interesting journey to see all these people coming in. The trouble nowadays, as you understand Ashley, is that 200 plus diseases and more are all increasing daily and they’re all autoimmune. So autoimmune diseases are diseases of contamination. It affects the body organs because what happens is the toxicity attaches to protein molecules and they’re contaminated. Now, they go throughout the body and they attach to healthy tissue, and the immune system finds them and it tries to clean them out and it goes after them.  So it’s misunderstood that the body is attacking itself. What it’s trying to do is just move the toxicity out. The bottom line is that we got to clean out this toxicity. For example, Ashley, with your own body, what signals and symptoms cue you that it’s time that you need to detox? What is the feeling inside your body?   [00:31:32] Ashley James: Well, when I was younger, I became very in tune with my body because I had an allergy to dairy. So for the first six years of my life, I wasn’t on a restricted diet. My parents didn’t know any better, I ate dairy, and was feeling sick all the time. I had a sore throat. Luckily, I didn’t develop ear infections, which is incredibly common for children who drink cow milk. But I did have constant sore throats, and sore throats for me was the first sign that my body was weakened. And then I have burning in the eyes and I’d feel tired. And then we went to Dr. D’Adamo in Toronto. He had a clinic in Toronto and I believe a clinic in Philadelphia. I was six years old and he said you need to stop eating milk, yeast, wheat, and sugar. And overnight, my mom transformed our kitchen. So I grew up, from then on, living on soy milk, no sugar, and very less gluten, I suppose. We didn’t know gluten was back then, but we didn’t have any wheat in the house. What I noticed is that my resilience went through the roof because I almost never got sick, and when I did, it would always start with a sore throat. That was my body saying you’re run down. If I pulled an all-nighter because I’m a kid, I don’t want to go to bed, and I’m at a birthday party or something or at a sleepover. But when I would run myself down or if I snuck a bunch of candy at Halloween, my body, when it was run down, would start with a sore throat. That was always my body’s saying okay, even if I didn’t have an infection my body would get a sore throat telling me it’s time to back up, rest, and start following a better protocol. And then as I got older, that wasn’t my body’s first response. Since I’ve been pregnant, exhaustion because, of course, hormones in pregnancy are kind of crazy. I’ve had about four hormone-induced migraines, which started with the aura during my pregnancy, especially in the first and the beginning of the second trimester where I got the aura. I had blind spots like I couldn’t see in front of me, and I wasn’t afraid because I knew what was happening. I know it’s a migraine coming on that’s induced by hormones. So I got the spots. The spots kind of clouding my vision I could hardly see. And what I have done each time to prevent it from becoming a full-blown migraine because I would never take any kind of pain medication, especially during pregnancy, right? I took the Magnesium Cream from livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. I love their Magnesium Soak and I got the Magnesium Cream. Listeners have heard it. If they’ve been listening to the show, they know how much I love that. There’s a coupon code, LTH, and I use that cream—the Magnesium Muscle Cream—and I rub it all over my neck. I drink plenty of water and then I jump in the PES. I get a session of PES and then I lie down in a darker room just to hang out. Each time, it has stopped the migraine in its tracks.   [00:35:20] Kellyann Andrews: Awesome.   [00:35:21] Ashley James: I know, it’s just amazing. That would have been a full day’s worth of suffering. Because when you get the aura, you have about two hours before it becomes—I mean, everyone’s different right, but for me, I have about two hours before it’s a full-on migraine. Each time I followed that procedure and I found that it was just so remarkably quick how I could just stop the inflammation in its tracks.   [00:35:48] Kellyann Andrews: Let me give you insight around that because I’ve had a series of car accidents in my life, and my poor head has been crushed too many times. Anyway, I used to get those visual—what do you call it—prism. A prism light where it’s almost like you’re looking in through the crystals that hang down from the chandeliers.   [00:36:16] Ashley James: Distortion.   [00:36:17] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah, distortion and just like those weird mirrors in the circus. So anyway, one time it happened to me when I was out driving. Luckily, at that time, I was just coming back into the car and so I sat down. But I had just been to the health food store and in the front seat, I happened to have a whole bunch of biochemical tissue salts. The tissue salt line the Schuessler is the originator of it, and then Hylands is the brand. Well anyway, I had in the car #6, #8, and #10. So I just immediately started taking them like crazy about every 5 minutes, and within about 10 or 15 minutes, the whole thing completely disappeared. I had no headache, nothing. Because I always use my body as the field test. It’s like, okay body, is this what you want? So it’s always a question of experience and experiment. So what I came to realize was those migraines, because the brain is so hypersensitive to acidity and so are the eyes, that it was an acidity symptom. So you did exactly the right thing because magnesium is an alkalizer, and then you went to the foot spa and that detoxified you of the acid. So when you download the acid and you uptake the nutrients that alkalize you, bingo, immediately there’s a shift. Now, here’s an example, which is really quite interesting. So there was a woman who was opening a clinic during COVID. Can you imagine? I mean, opening a clinic at any time would be unbelievably stressful, and just the logistics of all that entails. But she was opening it in COVID time. I mean, if we want to talk about fight and flight, she was about 1000%. Anyway, I had her test her pH before the session. Then I usually wait about 20 minutes to half an hour after the session, if possible, because that gives the body that little bit of time to recalibrate, as I call it. Because we were doing a draining, she just went ahead and did the pH before, then she did the pH right when she came out of the system, and then I had her do it half an hour later. So what was so interesting to see was before her session, her pH score was 6.5. After her session, her pH was 5. For me, my God, this thing’s supposed to rebalance my pH. What the heck happened? But then, I had her take it half an hour later and her score was up to 7.5. So what happened there was prior to her session, she had a mineral drink and it was full of alkalizing agents. So she brought her pH level up so I called that an influencer. That she took an influencer prior to her session. So the 6.5 was her influencer score, but after her session, that was her native score where her body was really at. Then having dumped the acid, and we knew she dumped the acid because her feet exfoliated like crazy. We’ve tested the water and we know that acid water helps get rid of all that dead epidermal skin. So then we had a retest in half an hour later—having dumped the heavy metals, having dumped the acid—now she was at 7.5.   [00:40:40] Ashley James: When someone gets your foot spa—I think the term foot spa really doesn’t do it justice. It’s six different complicated technologies in one, and doesn’t it come with pH test strips?   [00:41:01] Kellyann Andrews: Yes.   [00:41:03] Ashley James: And they’re great. It’s my favorite brand, in fact, of the pH test strips that it comes with. It’s so much fun to test yourself before and after and see that, in fact, your pH does become even healthier after doing it. But you also did some interesting work with athletes, I believe. That you saw that it decreases lactic acid in the body. Can you talk a bit about that?   [00:41:29] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah. When the other people that have very high levels of lactic acid are people with Lyme. So we tested both Lyme patients and actually Olympic athletes. These Olympic athletes, I mean, if you want to talk about a diagnostic ability, these guys in the gym and the equipment that is available to them and the fine-tuning. I mean, their fine-tuning is just shaving seconds off their performance, but those seconds can make a difference between being a gold and a bronze. So their ability to monitor what is happening in the body is phenomenal—the equipment they have. Anyway, so what they found was they had the athlete do his training performance. I mean, some of these people in what they do with the athletes—I mean, I feel so sorry for athletes—they actually train them to exhaustion. There’s almost not left in them. Then the pH got tested and the acidity was very high, but the lactic acid level was skyscraper high. So then what they did was they let the body just recalibrate and readjust after that normal adaption to see what the level of resilience was, and then test their agility, their flexibility, and their timing. I mean, it’s just so amazing how finite it is So then what happened was did the same thing all over again, but this time after the training event put them in the foot spa. At the end of the foot spa, retested the lactic acid and it was street level again. And it’s really interesting because working with people with Lyme, we’ve also seen this recovery aspect. I mean, I’ve had so many Lyme patients phone me up and say yours is my go-to because it’s the only thing that makes me feel good. But you just think about that acid in the body. I mean, if you have acid on your skin, you know exactly what that feels like. Well, can you imagine what a poor little nerve cell feels like? I mean, it’s just incredibly overwhelming to the nervous system that level of acid, and it just so undermines the whole entire performance of the body and the body’s ability to be able to operate at any kind of level. The number one thing that the body will do is to focus on getting that acid out of the body. We know that from examples of diseases such as arthritis where the body is literally cannibalizing itself in terms of its skeletal system because it can’t find enough alkalizing nutrients or minerals in the body. So it will pull from whatever sources it has because the body’s number one mission is to stay at a conscious level. That’s its number one function is to stay conscious, and it will sacrifice all other aspects.  So when we do things like extreme sports, extreme stress, or staying up overnight, we just completely knock the body’s balance and rhythm out of orbit. And then the body has to try to recalibrate, but it’s that recovery. How quickly are you recovering from these broadsiding events—the setbacks, the stressors? And that tells you a whole lot about where your body’s at. And if you’re able to recover quickly, then your systems are online. But if it’s taking you a long time to recover and you’re what I call dragging anchor through life, then you know that your reserves are low. But the number one thing is that you’ve got a high level of acidity on board.   [00:45:58] Ashley James: So you’d brought up what I notice in my body when I’m just starting to feel run down, acidic, or just noticing higher toxicity. I think that’s something really important to acknowledge that we need to become in tune with the first steps, the first signs that we’re going down the wrong path. Back before I cut out a lot of unhealthy foods in my diet, I just felt bad all the time and so that was kind of like my normal. I didn’t know because I was habituated. I didn’t know that was my normal. A lot of people are walking around eating foods that inflame them, living a lifestyle that inflames them, and then they have to compensate by drinking lots of caffeine in the morning, drinking alcohol at night, up-regulate themselves, downregulate themselves, taking aspirin or Advil, taking in sugar just to manage, just to try to get through the day. They’re using substances.   [00:47:06] Kellyann Andrews: Self-medicating.   [00:47:07] Ashley James: Self-medicating throughout the day just to survive, and if we’re unconscious about that, we’ll just continue to drive our health deeper and deeper into the ground. And then you take that person and you get them off of—I’m going to say for me it was dairy, gluten, pesticide food, GMO food, and they’re eating less processed foods. So avoid flour as much as possible. So now you’re eating foods that are just whole plants, whole foods.   [00:47:44] Kellyann Andrews: I call it food in God’s format.   [00:47:46] Ashley James: God food. So walking through the Garden of Eden. I like to call it single-ingredient food. There’s an apple, I eat it. For those who choose to eat animals, just choose something that’s closest to nature as possible. Not a factory farm, but something that lived in a pasture and was very happy about its whole life eating organic, and living a full life that didn’t involve a factory farm. That makes a difference. You take that person off of everything that inflames them, and then a month goes by and they have a new normal. And then if you give them the old foods that inflame them, they, all of sudden, feel like they have a hangover the next day. That’s how I feel. I remember the first time, we had cut out all alcohol because we decided to go sugar-free. Not that either one of us drank excessively. We would drink socially, but we cut out all alcohol, all sugar, we went gluten-free, and we were eating 100% organic. I remember we went down for Thanksgiving, this was 10 years ago just coming up to our 10-year anniversary. We each had a shot of Crown Royal. I don’t know what it is about Crown Royal, I always used to love it. I think it was just one shot each but we ended up, on the way home—because it was a three-, a four-hour drive home from Portland to Seattle with the traffic—we had both splitting headaches. By the time we got home, we were hungover. We had splitting headaches and we felt as though we had partied all night long and had a hangover already. We hadn’t even had the opportunity to sleep, and we thought that’s so interesting that we came from such a clean diet and then went back to eating just sugar, dairy, and whatever was served basically at thanksgiving. How quickly our body said, no, don’t do that.   [00:49:53] Kellyann Andrews: You’re body said what the heck?   [00:49:55] Ashley James: What the heck? And that was us feeling the body revolting from feeding it poison. So if we eat poison all the time, we’re habituated, and that’s our new normal. But then when we take it up to the next level, now our new normal feeling even more energy, vitality. Once we start cleaning up our diet, we need to be in tune with what it feels like to start to go backward, slip backward? What is your body’s first warning system for slipping backward? For some people, it actually starts with emotions. We cannot disconnect the emotional body from the physical body. So when we eat certain foods, we can have an emotional response, and it’s very apparent in children. You give children too much sugar, they become frustrated easily. They have temper tantrums. They cannot control their emotions very well. Adults do too, but we mask it a little better than them, and we ignore and push aside our emotions. We don’t realize that when you eat things that are inflaming your body, it can actually come out as feeling angry, frustrated, losing your temper quicker in certain circumstances, or everyone’s irritating you. So you feel normal but everyone else is to blame.   [00:51:18] Kellyann Andrews: Isn’t it interesting how toxic thoughts create toxic substances, and toxic substances create toxic thoughts?   [00:51:26] Ashley James: I think we just have to check in with ourselves and each go—for me it could be fatigue, it might be my first sign that my body’s going in the wrong direction or becoming more acidic, needing a detox, needing to come back to the foundations of health. And it can be something as simple as what does dehydration feels like in you? This morning I woke up and I felt like I’m a little dehydrated. I’m going to really push the water, even more, today and get in some minerals. I checked in with myself, but if we don’t check-in and go, okay, I have a little bit of tension in my shoulders. I might be wearing my stress. My mom would say don’t wear your shoulders like earrings.   [00:52:11] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah, that’s a great expression. That is classic.   [00:52:15] Ashley James: Right. We both would wear our emotional stress in our physical body, and so we have to check-in. Check-in with yourself as you wake up in the morning, where’s the tension? Is there tension? Are you tired, or do you have mental clarity? Are you wide awake? Are you happy? Are you irritated? What’s going on? Your body is telling you right now if there’s something off or not, and it can be something very simple like really getting back to a cleaner diet. It can be needing to shift your thoughts into less toxic thoughts. I mean, it could be an accumulation of many things, but it does take checking in every day and then making little adjustments every day. That makes the biggest difference. You’ve talked about why is it so important to have these healing thoughts rather than toxic thoughts. Because our body’s always listening to our internal dialogue, our body creates the stress response based on what we’re thinking and what we’re focusing on. So it is true that toxic thoughts create toxicity in the body and vice versa.   [00:53:21] Kellyann Andrews: Now the interesting thing is to see how broad range the signals or the symptoms of toxicity are in the body. So we already talked about fatigue, brain fog, and what I call dragging anchor. We talked about the headaches and the migraines, but mental confusion—a drugged kind of feeling—and then, of course, the classics are puffy eyes, baggy eyes, dark circles under the eyes. But most people will just try to minimize that they have gas, indigestion, irritable bowels, and reflux. They try to just ignore those signs, but the trouble with the body is the volume is very low at first and it increases up to a scream when you don’t attend. So if people have sluggish or slow elimination, then that’s going to show up as acne and skin issues. But it’s so interesting, Ashley. I have people phone me up all the time and say how come I’ve never had this issue before and now they’re 40, 50, or 60. When the beginning, people used to phone us up when they were in their 50s, 60s, and 70s with degenerative issues. But now, we have people phoning us up in their 20s, 30s, and 40s with what used to be considered degenerative senior citizens diseases. But nowadays, we’re hearing that even teenagers are having heart attacks. So some of the other symptoms that where you need to detox, the one classic one that people phone up all the time is about achy joints and muscles or stiffness. But even slight things like people have a low-grade fever, but the feeling level, the ones where people aren’t recognizing these are symptoms of needing to detox is depression, anxiety, anger, sadness, frustration, irritability, restricted breathing, sleep issues, restlessness, and pain. A lot of people aren’t associating that with the need to detox. So I always say if you have symptoms in your body, you have toxicity on board. I was watching someone else’s podcast or video the other day, and this person specializes in toxicology issues. They were saying that 90% of illnesses out there are related to toxicology issues.   [00:56:26] Ashley James: Scary.   [00:56:28] Kellyann Andrews: It’s pretty astounding. But when you think, if you have an environment that’s highly acidic, it’s full of heavy metals, it’s got agriculture and industrial chemicals in it, the more toxins that are present, the more parasites love that environment. Parasites thrive in the toxic environment, and what does that do in the body? That decreases your circulation, it increases what I call a log jam or beaver dam where it impedes the flow of blood and lymph through the body, and basically, people have clog ups in circulation. Of course, that’s exactly what edema is. But they’ll have a clog up on an organ level. The increase of toxicity in the body causes increased inflammation. But the saddest thing that I ever am exposed to is these poor children that are either ADHD, autism, or along that line, and they’re experiencing brain inflammation. What happens is that when the lymph system up to the brain gets clogged up—one of the things that have really been endorsed these days and I really need to bring this to people’s attention are the keto and paleo diets where they’re really emphasizing a lot of protein and a lot of fats. But what I’m witnessing in all our clients is that’s what’s clogging up their lymph system because they’ve got a hyper acidic environment and then they got all these fats on board. The liver and the gallbladders are not responding to be able to that load of fat in the body. It’s not digesting it and it’s clogging up the system. So now, up to the brain, it’s congesting the circulation to the brain. Now the brain goes into an edemic kind of state. It becomes swollen, but because the brain cannot expand because of the skull, that’s where you’re seeing these children that are experiencing inflammation in the brain and they’re knocking their heads on the ground to try to stop the pain, to numb the pain. I mean, it’s just so horrifying. But what they’re finding now is that it’s the vagus nerve that controls the parasympathetic nervous system, and the vagus nerve is what actually Dr. Klinghardt has found. That 90% plus of his patients all have toxic vagus nerves.   [00:59:29] Ashley James: Can you explain for those who don’t know? What is the vagus nerve? What’s it responsible for? Why is it so important?   [00:59:36] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah. It’s the control tower at the airport. So the interesting thing is that what inhibits the vagus nerve—before I answer that question—is toxic thoughts, toxic substances, chemicals, and heavy metals, stress and stress patterns, physical toxicity, and of course the vagus nerve is right up above the jawline. That’s where all of the dental issues are manifesting, and so of course amalgam fillings, heavy metals, and all the chemicals that they use in dentistry are completely toxifying that. Of course, then you have viruses and infections. The bottom line of the vagus nerve—so what happens is you have, first of all, the human nervous system. You have the autonomic nervous system covering all unconscious functions such as digestion, heart rate, respiration. So the vagus nerve is the signal highway that connects the brain to the rest of the body. It connects to the digestive organs, the liver, the lungs, the spleen, the kidney. It’s how the body monitors blood sugar’s heart rate, respiration, oxygen levels. The vagus nerve is the on and off switch for the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system.   [01:01:19] Ashley James: So when you say Dr. Klinghardt, who we’ve had on the show. He’s the one that turned me on to the Platinum Energy System because he has had great success with the last 40 years working with children on the spectrum and seeing that detoxing them of heavy metals and eliminating things that are causing them to have inflammation, but especially detoxifying heavy metals from their brain. That they go from, for example, being unable to speak or hitting their head—nonverbal, to being able to make eye contact, talk, emotion, communicate in such a short period of time.  He’s been doing this for 40 years, and one of the big things he uses is your system in his clinic. He recommends his patients, especially those with Lyme disease, although he does have a lot of autoimmune patients that are sort of mystery patients, and he’s great at working with them as well. He’s been doing this for over 40 years. So I had Dr. Klinghardt on the show. But that’s what made me so fascinated was that we could speed up the detoxification of organs such as the brain to remove heavy metals using this method, and that was quite exciting. He says most of his patients though have vagus nerve, inflammation, or toxicity. What does that mean to have nerve toxicity?   [01:03:04] Kellyann Andrews: That whole understanding is that you have a clogged lymph system going up to the brain. It causes inflammation, basically, through the neck, the carotid artery, and all of that area. The circulation is limited, so now the brain can’t get the nutrients up into it. But even more so, at night, you can’t get the toxicity out of it. So now, everything that’s up there is getting locked in and saturating into the tissues. So heavy metals are the number one thing that they’re finding that is inside the nerves. What they’ve also found is that the heavy metals are like a doorway for how the toxicity or the heavy metals are actually using the nerves as a pathway. So when the vagus nerve gets toxic, it affects everything downstream, as I said, all those different organs. So what they’re seeing with vagus nerve toxicity is symptoms such as autoimmune, brain, and memory issues, anxiety, arthritis, even anorexia and bulimia, autism, infections, parasites, fungal, viral, bacterial. And then all of a sudden, because it controls the blood sugars as well, people are becoming insulin resistive. It also controls heart health, digestive issues, and systemic inflammation. So people are experiencing things like fatigue, food sensitivity, nerve pain, fibromyalgia, heart issues, migraines, tendonitis, MS, mood disorders, and on and on and on because you just think of all of the organs that the vagus nerve connects with. Well, if the vagus nerve is toxic, the vagus nerve is not functioning normally, and now the sympathetic nervous system is on overdrive because of the stress levels, and people can’t go into rest and digest mode anymore.  You see people who have insomnia, what happens is when the brain gets too toxic, the whole entire brain area is antagonistic because of the hyperacidity because that’s not the environment it was designed to be in, slight alkalinity it was. And now, that’s just driving the nerves crazy. So it’s sort of like a mouse or a gerbil on a wheel. It just won’t settle down, and that’s why you find people that cannot sleep at night or they wake up and their brain is just like that mouse on a wheel.   [01:06:30] Ashley James: So many people have problems with anxiety and then they will become so desperate they turn to medication, which makes the system more toxic because it stresses the liver. Any time we take a medication—this is something really important to know. You can google this. This isn’t like far out there. It’s known, and it’s actually taught to MDs, but they don’t really stress it enough. Every medication, both prescribed and over the counter depletes, the body of something—vitamin C, CoQ10, and many, many different minerals. It takes the body effort to process. The liver has to process a man-made chemical. Medications are artificial. Now, I’m not here saying don’t ever get on medication, medication is bad. What I’m saying is that we have to be very cautious, and we have to understand that any time we take one, it does harm the body. We need to be aware of that.   [01:07:40] Kellyann Andrews: The other thing is that it stops its signaling ability. Antidepressants, I mean, it just shuts down the body feeling. It’s a tough one because medications, as you have pointed out, do have their place in acute care. When you’re in the emergency room, you definitely want to have something that will stimulate your heart if your heart stops. However, where we get in trouble with medications is where we take them long term and they weren’t designed for chronic care. They were only designed for acute care. And then you do start to go into the side effects because that’s the accumulative toxicity effect in the body. A lot of times, it’s hyperacidity.   [01:08:35] Ashley James: Right. So here we have a person who has, let’s say, the toxicity of the vagus nerve. They are starting to realize they might have that because you’ve mentioned that one of the known symptoms or signs that we have is that we can’t turn it off. We’re constantly worried, we’re constantly stressed. We can’t get out of stress mode.   [01:09:07] Kellyann Andrews: Obsessive thinking.   [01:09:10] Ashley James: We can’t get into feeling safe mode. We can’t get into healing the parasympathetic nervous system response of rest and digest. That’s definitely a sign that we’ve been probably unhealthy for a while or going down the wrong path for a while. Whenever it finally sinks in, for someone to go, okay, now I need to make changes. I need to find a better direction. How do we start to heal the vagus nerve? How do we start to detoxify that?   [01:09:49] Kellyann Andrews: What’s really interesting is that for the longest time, I was just fascinated to watch clients recovering from the process of detoxification. I just thought, wow, it’s so brilliant what is occurring. But the brilliancy is the body knowing what it needs. If we would just trust our bodies to know, I mean, it has thousands of years of intelligence designed into it. That’s what instinct means is that there’s an inner knowing—a GPS system, a true north navigational system—that has the understanding of how to rebalance itself. What we got to do is to create a healing environment, and we need to create an internal environment in which the body can then come optimally on board again online. What we’ve found by working with clients using our system is that one—the key factor is—get that lymph system moving. Because everybody who comes to us, and believe me, I have clinics sending me their most vulnerable patients. People that they can’t even work with because they have been so chronically sick for so long and they’re in such a state of inflammation and congestion. I call that state cellular constipation where everybody has a clogged lymph system no matter what their symptoms are. The severity of the symptoms equals the severity of the clog up. It’s like an LA freeway in traffic hour, nothing’s happening. With the immune system, that’s like the UPS trucks can’t leave the warehouse. They can’t deliver the parcels. So when the lymph system’s clogged up, it just log jams the entire body’s circulatory system. So number one, you’ve got to get that lymph system open. You’ve got to get the flow happening because all the other drainage routes downstream will start to work. It’s like, as a simple visual, the liquid Drano commercial. The sink’s all clogged and nothing’s happening, and it sure doesn’t look pleasant either. So the thing is that once that lymph system is moving, what we see categorically come out are heavy metals and then everything else that shouldn’t be in the body because the body’s wisdom knows what’s a nutrient and what’s a toxic substance. It is trying its hardest to get rid of that toxic substance. But when the exit routes are log jammed and beaver dammed, it tries to get it out any way possible, and of course, that’s when you see it coming out on the skin. But what we found is that most patients have a history of mold toxicity, and then, of course, parasites, bad microbes, heavy metals, and toxic chemicals. But there is a commonality also with the dental work being done and of course the amalgam fillings, and that’s what’s causing the huge problem, of course, with the vagus nerve. So you’ve got to open the lymph first. You’ve got to get hat drainage happening, especially out of the brain. Then what you begin to see is that the health returns. And the way that it returns is you decrease the acidity, you increase the oxygen—which increases energy, you increase the blood flow, you increase the lymph flow. Now the body can sleep and relax because its parasympathetic nervous system is back online, you see tension and stiffness go down, you see digestion and elimination go up, ang you see calmness return to the system.   [01:14:24] Ashley James: Don’t we all want that? You said we have intuition, and I believe we do. I really feel we’ve been trained to not listen.   [01:14:45] Kellyann Andrews: Wait. I need to pause there for one second. You have the right concept but we need to do a slight edit in that sentence. And it’s you that chose that. It’s the person themselves that chose that. What we have to do is we have to retrain the brain because you’re right, in a way. Society has trained us from school onwards to shut down the signals of the body. When you’re in the middle of class, you can’t get up to go to the washroom, it’s inconvenient, or whatever. So we do start to dummy down the signal. The body is brilliant at communicating but the key is are you listening and then are you responding?   [01:15:29] Ashley James: So it does take really listening. I interviewed Dr. Alan Goldhamer who co-wrote a book called The Pleasure Trap. It’s a fascinating read and I highly recommend it. He talks about how our brain developed over—however long we’ve been here, thousands of years. That we look to seek pleasure from eating, from reproducing, and from resting. That’s how we survived as long as we’ve survived is that we take the time to rest when we can. We take the time to reproduce, to procreate, to pass on our genetic code, and we eat. The foods that give us the biggest dopamine hit are the foods that will also have the highest calorie density, and that really helped us a thousand years ago when there wasn’t any processed food. But it doesn’t help us now because now it’s so easy to acquire foods that are high in hyper-palatable ingredients that trigger dopamine. I think that part of it is society has trained us to not listen to our intuition, but we’re also—from a very young age—been marketed to look at substances like food and beverages to increase dopamine, to increase pleasure. We seek dopamine more the unhealthier we are because we have less and less dopamine when we’re sick, when we’re tired, when we’re toxic, when we’re inflamed.   [01:17:16] Kellyann Andrews: That’s like wanting to be in the rocking chair, be held, and just feel good. So we’re doing whatever we think on a self-medication level that tries to restore that feel-good aspect. But one of the things that can quickly help you that’s easy is just getting your oxygen levels up in the body because, of course, when the oxygen levels go down, that’s when you feel tense, stiff, tight, and your intercostal muscles can’t expand. So the tight tissue inhibits blood flow. It inhibits the intercostal muscles to have any flexibility for better movement, and then, of course, that even affects the hips in terms of flexibility and the pelvis being able to move freely. So the more flexible you are, the more oxygen moves through your body, and it’s like the analogy of a fish through water. So the trouble too, which you pinpointed, is our lifestyle these days where we’re living sedentary lives because of our jobs. We’re sitting at a computer where we’re not mobile like we used to be in ancient times. As the stiffness increases, so does the poor circulation, and the body’s more vulnerable to stress and anxiety. So the way we think and how we feel also increases that tension or relaxation. It increases the acidity and toxicity or decreases it by how we physically respond. So breathing is so not only essential—it can’t last long without it, but it actually will shift a degeneration cycle to a rejuvenation cycle. Chronic stress can be turned around to be instead of chronically stressed, you can be relaxedly alert, and it will improve your digestion, your optimal health. But the trouble is that almost everybody isn’t breathing the right way.  Now it’s really interesting even with the yogas. The yoga and exercise groups are training people to stop being chest breathers, shallow breathers, just the upper respiratory sort of your upper lung capacity. But they’re using the belly to breathe in and out so the belly should expand and the belly should contract. But in doing the investigation into the best breathing methods was nose breathing. Now a lot of people have congestion in the sinuses. I mean, that makes it a little tough. But as you start to nose breathe more and more, I’ve found with clients that it starts to open up the upper respiratory, all of the sinuses. So nose breathing is number one to bring up your resilience and your health creation. So try this as a method. Do a big exhale first, but what I want you to focus on is your diaphragm not your belly. So I want you to focus on the diaphragm going up and down like an elevator.  So now do a big inhale but do it slowly and focus on your diaphragm and really notice how that diaphragm moves down towards the belly button with inhale. Now it’s almost the opposite. So now, when you do a big inhale, bring the diaphragm down, and then once it’s down then continue that inhale, and you have to train yourself to be able to do it. It can be a little frustrating at first because we’re not used to doing it this way, but then what you want to do is you want to take the air down to the lower part of the lung so that you actually expand the intercostal muscles to expand out because that is what creates more capacity and more volume. So what’s very interesting—tying this back into the nervous system—is that the vagus nerve is connected to the diaphragm. So when you do diaphragmatic breathing, so literally it massages your organs, but it signals your body that you’re safe. So one of the things that you can do in that moment of stress—whatever the stressor is—you catch yourself completely tensing up. As you said, your mother-in-law saying about the shoulders up as earrings. So catch yourself in that moment of stress. Now, in your body somewhere is a center that signals you when you’re uptight. So a lot of people it’s the gut. As soon as they have the stress moment, they get tight. Usually, people stop breathing or hardly breathe at all. But there’s a place in your body and you just need to find it, and how you find it gets triggered by stress. Find that part in your body that is your signal of stress, and what you do is you breathe right into that. But when you do that diaphragmatic breathing, you literally are choosing at that moment a new choice and the choice is to stay in the parasympathetic nervous system, not move into fight and flight, and just to stay in mellow mode.  When you stay in mellow mode, you can make brilliant decisions. You see that you have options. You look at your life more from an eagle point of view rather than an ant point of view. To an eagle, it looks down and everything is very small. All the issues in life are just put in perspective. It’s a very wide-angle camera kind of view of life. But when you’re an ant, everything looks like skyscrapers, and that’s when you’re in the sympathetic nervous system mode where you globalize that everything in your life is not working. Where it’s one aspect that’s not working and then you just need to shift back to your forebrain, which is the mammalian side of the creativity of thinking, the front part of the brain. So the things you can do is one is diaphragm breathing, two is to bring your awareness to your forebrain, which is your thinking center. The back part of the brain is the reactive, animalistic, fight-or-flight part. So bring yourself to the front part of the brain. Now you can do that by actually tapping on the brain or just visually push on the brain because wherever the pressure is the attention goes. So by pushing on the forebrain, you literally cause your awareness to come to the frontal lobes.  But the other thing you can do is just now, at this moment, look throughout through your eyes very consciously. And if you’re in a room, outside, or whatever, look to see colors and textures as if you’re an artist and you’re going to draw this landscape or whatever. So just really focus on the difference between colors and textures. By coming to the forebrain through your eyes, you’re actually bringing the energy of the brain to the front of the brain and that will bring you into your thinking centers. Then you start to focus on solution orientation. But if you’re in the hindbrain, in fight and flight, you’re totally in that reactive mode, there isn’t any sense of options. There’s just a feeling of entrapment.   [01:26:29] Ashley James: Well, I think we’ve really illustrated the point of how physical health, diet, our lifestyle, and our emotions are all connected and they all affect each other.   [01:26:48] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah, it’s interesting. On that level, just one more thing—which I think is really important because it ties into both the physical and the emotional—is at what frequency is your body operating at, and that is hugely impacted by your emotions and your thoughts. So when you have a setback, you want to see how quickly your resilience level is in rebounding out of that situation, is it a short-term thing, or are you carrying it forward? Do you continue to re-go over whatever derailment happened or do you move on? But what’s interesting, Ashley, is the frequency aspect of the human body. Now, healthy is about 58, but when you have a cold of the flu, your frequency drops down to 57. When you have candida overgrowth, it drops to 55. When you’re receptive to Epstein Barr, it drops down to 52. And when you have cancer, it’s 42 and death begins at 25. So it’s so important to keep your frequency at a high level because that will affect everything in your body because your body is designed to operate at that set level. I mean, life is disturbing. It’s like a lake that’s beautifully serene and calm and then all of a sudden these storms come along. What’s your ability to recover from the storm?   [01:28:42] Ashley James: How quickly can you bounce back? How soon do you detect that there’s something off, and how quickly will you bounce back?   [01:28:50] Kellyann Andrews: One of the keys is your energy level, and that’s why I wanted to bring in frequency because there’s a huge correlation between your energy level and your toxicity level and the impact that it has on the mitochondria inside the cells. Because the mitochondria or your power creators are their energized bunny creators. So when cells are toxic, they’re inhibited in being able to create energy. We need to make our mitochondria really happy. What makes them happy is breathing, water, and nutrients. So the key to cellular health is creating that energy, and the greatest thing that I’m so happy to share is that thiamine B1, is the fuel source for the mitochondria. It’s so amazing because if you feed the mitochondria, then their ability to do their job is just heightened. But when the mitochondria aren’t functioning, the nerves aren’t able to fire properly. The acidosis in the body starts to cause edema and inflammation. The glucose utilization goes down. The blood flow goes down. The health in the gut goes down. The whole ability of the autonomic nervous system, its ability to function, and the signal goes down. So it all depends on the mitochondria. The mitochondria are key of course to be able to help the body detoxify.   [01:30:57] Ashley James: I just did an interview with the scientists behind Viome, the at-home testing company that helps with understanding what chemicals your bacteria make from the food you eat. Because there are hundreds of thousands of pathways of genetic expressions of your bacteria. Mitochondria are bacteria in our cells, and they have a unique relationship with the bacteria in our gut. They’re actually finding that our gut will send signals to our mitochondria throughout our body and that we want to, obviously, establish a very healthy microbiome that can also help the mitochondria. We’re just scratching the surface in terms of understanding the importance of the bacteria in our body. Eating foods that contain highly processed foods, sugar, alcohol, oil has even been known to harm the good bacteria in our body while inviting and creating that environment—the petri dish—that allows the unhealthy, not only bacteria, but yeast and parasites to thrive. If people who are not really listening to the body, it isn’t until they’re really sick that they’re noticing a difference. But those of us who really listen and really focus on and listen to our body, we’ll start to feel off fairly soon into going down the wrong path. That’s why I like doing a symptom inventory checklist. I write down symptoms, and I get all my clients to do this as well. Write down all your symptoms no matter how big or how small, even the ones your doctor says oh you have that because it’s genetic, you have that because of your age, you have that because you’re a woman or because you have a uterus, or because of your work. Whatever it is, write down every symptom you have and then make three columns: frequency, duration, and intensity.  So how often does it happen is the frequency. Duration, how long does it last? An intensity, on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it? Either it’s every how many times a day, how many times a week, how many times a month, and then you come back to that list a month from now. You can also even notice like on times during the full moon and during a new moon, do your symptoms get worse? Is your sleep disrupted during a full moon or new moon? Do you find yourself craving things, more tired? Those are absolute signs that you have an imbalance in the gut, whether it be a parasite, candida, or otherwise. So we have to listen to the symptoms of the body, and then if your symptoms are getting worse and not better, we really need to pump the brakes and go in a different direction, figure out what’s going on. If you’re staying the same, okay, well that’s good, but let’s see what we can do to improve. Maybe pick one and look at what you can do to improve it. And then if you’re getting better each month, keep at it. It’s a fantastic way to just check in because we often forget. I had a client once who made some changes to her diet and she started taking supplements and six months later she said I forgot I used to have weekly migraines. She hadn’t had a migraine in six months.   [01:34:31] Kellyann Andrews: It was a joy that she forgot.   [01:34:33] Ashley James: Yeah, but she was like I can’t believe it. I actually forgot. I had to remind her.   [01:34:38] Kellyann Andrews: I know. I see that all the time. It’s so fun people come in with all these derailments, and that’s why I have them—from a nursing background—monitor their own health and chart their progress. And that’s why doing the pH for three days is so awesome because it’s not just one moment in time. Because as we saw with the women who had it at 6.5, it’s what you did right before that made that difference. But when you track it for three days doing it three times a day—both urine and saliva—you get a whole different picture.   [01:35:10] Ashley James: Listeners can go back and hear our episode all about pH that we did.   [01:35:18] Kellyann Andrews: That was 293.   [01:35:20] Ashley James: Yeah, that was episode 293. You’ve shared stories in the past, but after sharing this information with us, do you have any more stories of client recoveries, returning to health after changing these factors in their life?   [01:35:39] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah. I mean, I could go on for days.   [01:35:43] Ashley James: Please do.   [01:35:44] Kellyann Andrews: It’s just so amazing. We had one girl who came to us, and she actually had down syndrome. Her own mom described her as a zombie, which is just really sad. But anyway, she had a series of sessions, huge lymph clog up, and then a massive download of other content including heavy metals. But it was like she popped out of the cocoon. She was so incredibly internalized and then she became literally like a butterfly just so outgoing and gregarious. When the downs people smile, it’s like their whole body lights up. But what happened was she initially had sessions at a clinic and then the mother purchased. So it was a month before we were able to actually do them in her home environment, and in that month’s period of time she clogged all up again. So by the time she got back home, she was back in the cocoon again. I assisted her in the first session over the phone and it was so amazing because the mom said during the session she said oh, I think she’s feeling better because she’s smiling big time. So then, after the session, mom and I were doing the cleanup, tidy up, and all of the procedural stuff. So then I said we’ll have her go and just go check in with her body and see how she feels. Well, she came back into the room and she was clapping, dancing, and singing around the room and I could hear her. I think that’s just such a perfect illustration, image, and visualization for all of us in whatever life experiences we’re having, especially in this COVID time where you just feel like you’re in a box and there are no doors. Can you imagine what this poor girl felt inside her body not being able to communicate? We’ve actually had autistic children have a series of sessions. A teenager, I remember one time, after she cleared enough of this toxic content out of her body being in the brain, she was able to communicate what her experience was. One of the things was that she would never let anybody touch her and that she had to dress herself. Well, that sort of drove the family crazy because she was so slow in the process. But later she told the reason that was because her skin was burning, and if anybody touched her, it was just super painful.   [01:38:43] Ashley James: Do you have any stories that you can share of long-term working with your system for a while? What kind of results do people get after long-term use?   [01:38:58] Kellyann Andrews: I mean, whatever they experience in the short term just becomes more pronounced over time. We’ve had people who have been with us since 2004, and it’s been a fun journey because I had this one man. I think he came to us when he was in his 60s, and he was in quite a state. He had heavy metal toxicity‚ really extremely, and he had to literally go out and stand in the snow to calm down the burning of his feet.  After a series of sessions, he no longer needed that. Now he’s in his 80s and he phones me up and he’s just chirping away like a robin in springtime. He’s just so outgoing, energetic, gregarious, and just a happy camper. He says, “When I came to you in my 60s, I was really going downhill rapidly and I just didn’t even want to be here. But now, I get up at 6:00 AM in the morning. Do you know all those people that have to have a cup of coffee? Not me. I get up and I’m just ready to go.”   [01:40:20] Ashley James: I love it.   [01:40:21] Kellyann Andrews: So it’s really fun, but one of the cases that happened recently that really astounded me because I’ve seen a lot of people coming out of themselves, so to speak, when they’re introverted and going extroverted. But this man was really unusual. He grew up in a toxic sort of like an Erin Brockovich story. He grew up in one of the most toxic cities in New Jersey. They actually told me what it was but I can’t remember what it was now. It’s probably better I don’t tell anyway. So he ended up with cancer and went the traditional route in which then they did chemotherapy, radiation, CAT scans, dyes, meds, and the whole pathway. So anyway, by the time I got to be with him, it was actually his wife who was my client. But she actually had crashed her own body because she was caretaking him, and that’s sometimes what we see is the caretakers end up going first because they’re so exhausted. But in this case, she asked me to look after him while she used the system to balance her issues out. So I did the first session with both of them, and I mean when the guy came on the phone, I was just shocked. He spoke a few words and then there’d be this huge pause and then a few more words and a huge pause. So I was moving at about a fifth gear at the time so I slowed it down to first and just connected in the space, time, and place that he was in, and then just kept him going through the session and checking in. By the end of the session, he was talking like he was the old record player when you played it at 33 and it went to a very slurry kind of level. That’s how he was talking. But by the end of that session, he was talking like you and I, normally at a 45-degree speed. So then I had him get out. Now this man was a lawyer, so you can imagine how much he would value his ability to communicate and his articulation. So he got out of the foot spa and I knew that he had had a shift because of the tone in the voice, the clarity, and the speed. I had never really experienced that so dramatically on an auditory level. We got him out of the system. Because of his mental orientation, I said, “So how are you feeling? Do you feel a little more alert and awake? And he said, “Yes.” I mean, it was like a disc jockey kind of tone and volume that came out of it and it was so awesome. And then what happened was he said, “And something else.” And I said, “What are you experiencing?” And he said, “Everything in the room is brighter.” So I had him tune into his eyes. I said, “Okay, well let’s look through your eyes and tell me what you’re experiencing.” So he looked outside and he said, “Oh my God, everything has come back into focus again.” So I was just astounded. But you know what, when you think about it in Chinese medicine, of course, it’s the liver and the eyes. But the nervous system and the eyes, the nerves, and the eyes are the most vulnerable to high levels of acidity. Of course, he was loaded with heavy metals. I mean, he had a huge pH shift in his session and his skin exfoliated like crazy, so we knew that he had downloaded a lot of acids. But instantaneously, the body responded to that, and that’s what’s so great. I mean, here’s a guy that’s in a chronic, debilitated for years kind of situation—able to do a reset. And of course, that’s the immediate thing, but then the clog up comes up. It’s like onion layers. So then you just have to continue to unlayer as the body starts to allow that toxicity to come out. But it’s just so astounding how significantly toxicity affects human physiology and especially the system.   [01:45:14] Ashley James: I love it. Well, these are the kind of experiences I’ve had with the PES. I have a family member who was, back in July, on many medications, using a walker, barely able to walk. Then started using it diligently three times a week, and about a month or a month and a half into using it diligently, he had a physical therapist coming to the house to offer in-home care. He took his blood pressure and said you have to go to your doctor right away. I’m very concerned. Your blood pressure is dangerously low. They actually went that day to the doctor. I mean, I was so happy that they got such quick care given that with COVID, it’s been difficult at times. The doctor that day took him off of some medications and decreased the dosage of other medications. So he eliminated some medications. It’s been several months, he’s been using it diligently three times a week. He hasn’t changed his diet, he’s stubborn like that, and isn’t taking supplements. There’s only so much you can do, but what I did see is that he’s gone from barely able to walk with a walker to now he no longer uses the walker. There’ll be times when he crawls in and gets in the machine and then 30 minutes later he’s got a bounce in his step. He has color. Oh my gosh, he looked gray and white. He looked like a ghost. We really didn’t think he’d live very long, and now he has color again. It’s really, really interesting to see the people use it for several months straight diligently how much they’re getting out of it. Now imagine if he then shifted his diet to be even healthier.   [01:47:30] Kellyann Andrews: The domino effect.   [01:47:32] Ashley James: Right. I’m hoping he also would benefit from shifting his thinking into healthier thoughts.   [01:47:44] Kellyann Andrews: But as they start to feel better that’s what’s really awesome. I had a woman who came to us in the beginning, and she had a fatty liver. Her liver enzymes were off the chart. Her blood sugar was so bad they wanted to put her on insulin. But you know what, it was their attitude. I was jokingly saying with my husband, “Boy, you can feel that person’s attitude 20 feet away.” So her attitude was just completely negative that it was like focused on everything in the world was wrong and what everybody else did was wrong. But in the process of her using it for six months, she went back and got retested and no longer had a fatty liver, liver enzymes normalized, her blood sugars normalized. She lost 60 pounds of weight because she didn’t need the storage closets for the toxicity anymore, but it was the attitude change that was so awesome. She started going to a new sewing group, she became much more involved with their church, she became more social in the community, involved in causes, and now everything in the world was right.   [01:48:51] Ashley James: Beautiful. I love it. I’m a big, big fan of the PES. I’ve had great experiences. In our Facebook group, we have several listeners raving about the results they get with themselves and with their families. I highly recommend getting the system and using it for yourself. Listeners can contact you. So you don’t put much information on the website, you’re very hands-on. Listeners can go to platinumenergysystem.ca and talk to you, give you a call and actually talk to you. The feedback we get—the listeners have given—is that you are so giving of your time and so generous, and you really, really care and really help people. Everyone has had a very positive experience working with you. If someone’s not sure they want to buy one because they want to try it out, you will help them find a practitioner in their area that has one so they can go and get a session. I know Dr. Klinghardt charges something like $80 a session, whereas if you own it yourself it would be like $12.50 a session. You’re obviously saving money in the long run if you have one yourself. But if you just want to try it out, I would definitely go find a practitioner if you can and get a few sessions and try it out for yourself.   [01:50:21] Kellyann Andrews: Right now that’s kind of interesting. Did you know that California just went into lockdown?   [01:50:27] Ashley James: Yeah.   [01:50:30] Kellyann Andrews: They even have a curfew now. So the ability to go to practitioners right now is limited, but also because of our presence—we’re in Canada. We don’t have a huge population of practitioners in the US.   [01:50:46] Ashley James: Well, I suppose it would just depend on what area they are in. It’s worth asking, right? It is worth asking. If you have the means, get one. You do give a really beautiful discount to listeners, and you’re so giving of your time. I’ve been very impressed with your system and your services. I know it’s helped me a great deal. My liver was inflamed and I’ve shared this before. I was struggling with the ability to detox heavy metals. Listen to my interview with Ben Lynch. He’s a naturopath actually local to me. We have not yet crossed paths in person, but I have interviewed him. His book is called Dirty Genes, it’s a great book. You can also listen to the episode to get really a really good glimpse into the book. He talks about different things in our daily life that epigenetically shift our gene expressions to shut down our ability to detoxify. One of which, I mean these are simple changes you can make in your life. If you cook with a gas stove, there’s formaldehyde in gas. And if you don’t always have the hood on or the fan to suck it all outright, or if you have your gas oven on and you don’t have the vent on, we are inhaling. We’re increasing the pollution in our house, and considering many people around the world are now stuck at home almost all the time. They’re increasing their air pollution, which it’s known that the internal air pollution of our house can be 10 times more toxic than being downtown, outside.   [01:52:32] Kellyann Andrews: And you’re in it although these days.   [01:52:35] Ashley James: Little things. There are little changes you can make to help your body detoxify, and this is what I was looking for because my liver was really inflamed. I was waking up tasting heavy metals in my mouth. My body was creating a stench of burning rubber. It was very interesting. So I kept struggling and also my because my liver couldn’t handle it, every time I went to those weeks, every time I made a health change like eating even healthier my body would shed more weight, and then my liver would become even more inflamed because it couldn’t handle the toxins that were stored in the fat. Our body stores heavy metals in our fat tissue as a way to get it away from the organs if the liver can’t process it. So here I had, for years, this difficulty with a hugely inflamed liver. I did not have fatty liver or cirrhosis liver, I’m thankful. My liver was distended, you could actually see it pushing outside under the rib cage. In the ultrasound, she said it was just a very upset angry liver, very inflamed. I was having problems. My liver could not detoxify perhaps because I have MTHFR gene expression that doesn’t allow me to methylate B vitamins. I was really focusing on getting all the nutrients that my body needed at the correct levels. Maybe there’s something inflamed in my diet, but really, it was my body having such a hard time with detoxifying. My naturopath said, “Why don’t you try finding ways to bypass the liver sweating in a sauna and a foot a foot spa.” There are so many knockoffs out there. There are so many bad saunas out there. There are so many knock-offs of this technology that you sell, and I knew that.   [01:54:39] Kellyann Andrews: I call them the wannabes.   [01:54:41] Ashley James: Right. You could go on eBay and buy something for $200 that claims it’s what you do but it’s not. It’s a knockoff from China.   [01:54:49] Kellyann Andrews: I wouldn’t be putting my feet in that water knowing what I know.   [01:54:53] Ashley James: No, absolutely not. It’s quite scary, and I like how you’ve actually tested the water. Putting the array in the water and testing the water with the machine running with no feet in it. You share that information. You’re not actually creating more toxins by putting your feet in this water, and then you have results where you’ve shown what comes out of people and you have that water sent to a lab and tested. So I spent a long time looking for the real McCoy, the right sauna that actually gets results at eliminating heavy metals, and also with your technology as well. I speak more about how I found you back in podcast episode 292, which is a great one to go back and check out to learn more about the technology of how this works.  But using your system and using the sauna, I have had such amazing results, and of course, adjusting diet to have more greens and more herbs that help the body get out heavy metals. My liver went back to normal. I no longer taste heavy metals. I no longer have a problem with detoxifying. My liver is happy. Actually, all my lab work—and I’m so proud of it. The last time I got all my lab work, which was about, let’s see. I’m 20 weeks pregnant and I got it when I was about 9 weeks pregnant. Okay, about 11 weeks ago I got all my lab work and it was the best lab work I’ve ever had. Every year, it just keeps getting better and better and better. My liver, enzymes, all of them are finally in normal ranges. I attribute that hugely to working with your system. I adore it. Any time a friend comes over I give them a treatment and they love it. I’ve had some amazing experiences. I share that in one of the previous episodes where I had a friend who got in it, she was feeling very sick, she had a cold. Afterward, she was up and running and jumping around but also the water smelled heavily of something like Febreze and chlorine. She looked at me and it was shocking how much that water smelled heavily of these substances. She said “15 years ago, I was a maid and I never wore gloves. These are the chemicals that I used,” and they were stuck in her body and they got pulled out. I was in a pool in February before the shutdown happened. I was swimming in a chlorinated pool, and then it was a few months later. I don’t remember if I took a break from doing the PES, but I remember two months later I jumped in the PES and the water smelled hugely of chlorine, like pool water chlorine. I thought that’s really interesting, and every time I do go in a chlorinated pool, which isn’t often, my PES water—even if it’s weeks or a month later—the stuff that comes out of me actually pulls the chlorine. Because I live on a well so I never have exposure to chlorine, and it pulls the chemicals from the pool out of my body. You can smell it in the water. I also feel like a million bucks. I feel lighter. I have energy, I have mental clarity, I feel amazing.   [01:58:20] Kellyann Andrews: Your body’s brilliant at detoxing. It knows how. You just had to get the exit roots open. I mean, we see that when we eat things like asparagus. The next time you go to pee you smell asparagus.   [01:58:38] Ashley James: Because the body is eliminating the sulfur.   [01:58:42] Kellyann Andrews: Right but also asparagus is great for the kidneys because it helps to detoxify the kidneys.   [01:58:50] Ashley James: Sulfur-containing foods—I mean, for some people it’s not healthy, but for most, it’s quite required by the nervous system. But also, it’s required in repairing cartilage. Cartilage requires sulfur. I thought that was really interesting.   [01:59:11] Kellyann Andrews: Well, you think of the sulfur drugs in terms of antibiotic, but that’s where garlic was a classic antifungal, antiviral, anti-everything. Get all the bad guys out.   [01:59:22] Ashley James: Eat your garlic.   [01:59:25] Kellyann Andrews: Just the bad guys out, but I always used to joke. It keeps the bad guys away, but it keeps the people who have the bad guys away too.   [01:59:35] Ashley James: Yeah, because you’re smelling wonderfully of garlic. That’s true.   [01:59:39] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah, exactly. But you look at those cultures that have longevity built into them. They’re eating those kinds of foods. When you have a clean aquarium and you feed the fish the right food, is it really surprising that they’re thriving?   [02:00:00] Ashley James: I love that you do continue to bring up the analogy of having a clean aquarium because a clean aquarium invites the good bacteria in. For anyone who’s successfully had fish, I used to breed African Malawi cichlids that require making sure you have a very healthy tank. I used to actually have over 10 running fish tanks in my house. It was how I got out of my depression after my mom died. My boyfriend at the time just noticed that the only thing that brought a smile to my face was watching live fish, and so he encouraged me. I learned all about how to foster healthy fish tanks. The first month or so with a fish tank is really messy because you don’t have an established microbiome. It’s kind of like taking antibiotics and all of a sudden all your good bacteria are dead. Now, whatever you eat, you’re either going to create crazy bad cultures in your gut or you’re going to create good cultures—same with the fish tank. So there are many similarities between managing a fish tank towards better balance and better health because that always invites the good bacteria, which sustains the entire environment. Thus also relating back to our own body, that the cleaner our body is the better the environment is for everything else to live in harmony.   [02:01:32] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah. The mucky aquarium is the analogy that—of course, as you pointed out—the human body, and the fish are the cells. But in the murky aquarium—the one that’s green, slimy, and yucky—is an environment that’s high acidity, low oxygen; but the clean aquarium is high oxygen, low acidity, slight alkalinity, and high minerals. That’s why the fish thrive.   [02:02:03] Ashley James: It has been such a pleasure having you here today. You’ve shared so much. Is there anything you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview?   [02:02:11] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah, a couple of things. How to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Again, just retrain the brain. So the number one thing in that moment of stress—whatever it is that’s triggering you to have a derailment—catch yourself on a breathing level and do that diaphragm breathing. So on inhale, the diaphragm goes down; on exhale the diaphragm comes up. And then if you can train yourself to be a nose breather it’s just better because you could create a higher level of nitric oxide, which helps to vasodilate your whole circulatory system. The other thing is because of this time and the weirdness—I mean, we’ve never ever experienced anything like this on the planet where it is such a pivotal point in history that I so want to help you all in terms of being able to find balance. So here’s on the emotional level—Bach Flowers. Bach himself was a bacteriologist in England, and he was a Harley Street doctor, so really highly regarded. But anyway, he would get into emotional states, he’d go out in nature, and he’d be drawn to what made him feel good again. What was the balancing factor in nature? So he created (I think) 32 or so remedies. But in terms of Bach Flower, when COVID first happened, my first response to COVID was to go to the health food store and get two bottles of Mimulus. How I remember that is when you’re on the computer and you hit the minus screen, so this is to minus fear. Mimulus is to minus fear. Willow the trouble with what we’re experiencing is it’s so, so easy to go into victim mode around all of these regulations and restrictions. So to stay out of victim mode because you want to stay in the driver’s seat, not be in the backseat of the trunk, you want that feeling that you’re the one who’s making the choices. So willow is great for that. Cerato is the one that increases your intuition, and that will cause you to stay in the forebrain. And then because of all of these things that are occurring and all of the changes, walnut is really great for any kind of change and especially when there’s a resistance to change.   [02:05:05] Ashley James: Is that just eating walnuts, or is this something else?   [02:05:08] Kellyann Andrews: No, this is the Bach Flower walnut.   [02:05:10] Ashley James: Back Flower walnut, got it.   [02:05:14] Kellyann Andrews: These are all the remedies from Bach. So Bach Flower Remedies. The other thing that’s really important is to feed your nervous system. So in the cell salt line, Hyland’s is the brand that’s in the US, #6—there’s 12 in the line—is kali phos. Now, what’s really interesting about that, Ashley, is that it’s potassium. Kali is potassium. So a lot of us get a lot of sodium but we don’t get the balance of the potassium. So this is potassium phosphate and it physically feeds the nervous system and calms it down.  When I went on the doctor’s call with that company, they’re doing a webinar, and they had a person on there who’s whose client was a naturopath. He was telling the story and he said mainly the naturopath had women as his patients. But he gave all of his patients that one cell salt, #6 kali phos, and 80% of their symptoms disappeared on that one cell salt. That’s because we’re nervous system beings, and this literally feeds the nerves. Now on the other level, B1 thiamine, anybody who has MS is completely deficient in thiamine because thiamine is involved in creating the myelin sheath. I mean, everybody does research on thiamine. You would be amazed at how significant thiamine is. But it’s number one for feeding the mitochondria.  Well, when you think of the mitochondria or your power cells in every cell of the body, they’re what create the ATP or energy—the glucose kind of thing—for the body to power up to do its signaling, to do its communications, to do its function, to do its enzymes, to do absolutely everything. With Ashley, the focus is always to feed the body.  So I always jokingly say when you go up in the mountains it says don’t feed the bears. So I say don’t feed the bugs. So instead, when you’re stressed, do not underline four times reach for what is classically called comfort foods because the last thing they will do is create comfort in your body. But instead, have a cupboard—and this is what I do. I have a cupboard that I open and then I create green drinks. So I’ve got about four different green powders and I’ve got turmeric in there, barley grass, then I took a bunch of chlorella, then protein sources, and all these things. So anyway, in the moment of stress, take what would be normally an addiction to junk food and change that—train the brain to change the crave to power nutrients and feed that to your cells and watch what happens. And then the other thing was just a reminder about tapping your brain in the front. Either tap or press on it, focus on the eyes and look at colors and textures. That will bring you to your forebrain. Now the things that will help to stimulate the vagus nerve, the interesting thing, Ashley, is the combination of essential oils clove and lime. What you do is you put it on the mastoid bone—the back of the ear has that rounded part. You put it right on there with some oil. Never put your essential oils on straight. You always want to put a carrier oil in there. So put that right on the mastoid bone and it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system.  But here are the other things that also do—the deep breathing, which we mentioned diaphragmatic breathing; yoga; and interestingly enough, gagging. So that’s quite interesting. Gagging actually stimulates it, but when you think of where it is right up in that jawline a little bit north, I mean, it’s right in that whole area. So gargling, your whole oil pulling process will stimulate it.  Freezing cold water will do it too. I mean, what have we all been told is to have a shower and end it with cold water, but I can tell you that probably 90% of this population is not doing that. I’ve just started to stimulate it myself at the end of a bath. I will pour cold water over my head and then part of it will go down my body. It is a shock to the system, but again you’re stimulating that zone of the body. And then things like singing, humming, chanting, laughter, and smiling. The key to all that we’ve said today is really your body is so absolutely brilliant at healing, but it needs your help to do so by the choices you make daily. And as a matter of fact at the moment. So the first step in any healing journey is to create a clean healing environment. Amen.   [02:11:22] Ashley James: Amen.   [02:11:24] Kellyann Andrews: It’s awesome to be with you. I always love being with you. We could talk for days. But gratitude is so important. Just tell the people you love that you love them. Leave them cards. Let the world around know that you love them, acknowledge their good behavior. Just minimize their bad behavior, but acknowledge their good behavior. There’s a movie years ago and I wished I had remembered. I saw it when I was a teenager. It was about this woman who got married and her mother, as a wedding gift, gave her this book and it was a dog training book to train the husband including rubbing behind his ears, how fun is that. I often think about that movie and it’s a question of training ourselves to the good behaviors, but to acknowledge the people around you. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. The more that you can focus on being a sunshine presence of love, not only does that hugely bless your own physiology, your emotional being, your mental being, but you radiate that out into the environment.  When you see all these people out in the stores, and of course, now the stores that are a whole other topic on toxicity what’s on the floors and making you do hand sanitizers. The thing is that when those people sergeant major you—use the hand sanitizer, I just smile at them and I say I’m sorry I can’t do that because I’m very chemically sensitive. But I just smile at them. I mean, it’d be really easy just to give them back their own energy level. But you got to switch it. You just got to change it around so that you’re giving out beautiful energy. Because if there’s ever a time on the planet that everybody needs love, and Jerry Jampolsky said that in his book, Love is Letting Go of Fear. If people aren’t coming from love, it’s because they’re needing love.   [02:13:48] Ashley James: And their vagus nerve is toxic.   [02:13:52] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah, their vagus nerve is toxic and it’s in dormant mode.   [02:13:58] Ashley James: They’re stuck in stress gear.   [02:14:01] Kellyann Andrews: Exactly. So when you smile at people, all those people that are so frightened because you’re within 12 feet of them, you just smile at them and send them this loving energy and watch what happens to their face. They just completely light up too because they don’t want to be in a state of fear. None of us do.   [02:14:24] Ashley James: And even if you’re wearing a mask I’ve noticed—and I thought this was really interesting that you can tell someone’s smiling by looking at their eyes. You can even see the shift in their face.   [02:14:35] Kellyann Andrews: Yes, it’s their energy level.   [02:14:38] Ashley James: Just because they can’t see you smile, you could actually hear someone smile. That’s what I learned. A long, long time ago, I was a sales manager for an international training company that did personal growth and development work, and I learned that people can hear you smile. Actually, listeners have given me feedback. They’re like I know you’re smiling. Just because someone can’t see you smile, maybe someone’s blind, they can feel it. They can feel the intention, the energy, they can hear it.   [02:15:11] Kellyann Andrews: It’s a frequency thing.   [02:15:12] Ashley James: Right. If they’re not looking at your mouth, they can see it in your physiology. When we’re actually authentically smiling, our whole physiology has micro muscle movements that change. There’s a really great woman on YouTube. I’m forgetting her name right now. It’s really great. She takes all these different political speeches and she gives you the insights as to their physiology—whether they’re lying, whether they’re apprehensive, whether there’s something else going on.   [02:15:46] Kellyann Andrews: Lie detector.   [02:15:47] Ashley James: Yeah, she’s a lie detector, but she’s actually a body language reader. There was one person that was doing a fake smile and she paused and she says, “See, they’re moving their mouth but nothing else is moving. They’re not actually smiling. You will know someone’s smiling when their eyes move, when their ears move, when they’re actually engaging all these muscles in their head.”   [02:16:13] Kellyann Andrews: Unless they’ve had Botox.   [02:16:17] Ashley James: Yes, that’s another thing But when someone’s authentically smiling, they’re smiling with their energy, they’re smiling with their voice, they’re smiling with everything.   [02:16:27] Kellyann Andrews: They’re smiling with their soul.   [02:16:29] Ashley James: Right. So use the energy of a smile as your shield, as you’re exuding love and acceptance. I think a lot of people need that right now.   [02:16:43] Kellyann Andrews: Yeah. We all stood in line to be here at this time, which is very, very interesting in terms of the pivotalness of this historical moment. I mean, the whole thing is that you came here to be an evolving—well, the only way that I can say it is an evolving sun presence because the more you can be sunny on the inside, you radiate that out. I mean, the challenges of moment-to-moment life are going to absolutely challenge that. I had a couple of derailments happen yesterday and I just caught myself laughing and just saying, okay, is this a moment of resistance or resilience? So we have to train the brain to resilience.   [02:17:40] Ashley James: Because when there’s resistance, things break. When you see something that’s resisting in nature, it breaks. Right now, we have lots of wind storms in my area. The branches that are not flexible break.   [02:17:57] Kellyann Andrews: The difference between an oak and a willow.   [02:17:59] Ashley James: Right. We need to have more resilience to bounce back, to be flexible, to flex. I interviewed a woman recently on reversing osteopenia and osteoporosis and preventing bone degeneration. She said it’s not about how much bone density we have. This is the misnomer. You can have bone density, but your bones can be fragile because they don’t have flexibility. She says the Japanese have one of the lowest rates in the world of hip fractures, and these people live a long time and they’re quite active. It’s because their diet has given them flexible bones.   [02:18:45] Kellyann Andrews: And they’re physically active.   [02:18:47] Ashley James: They are. Their bones are strong but they’re not so minerally dense that they’re fragile, that they have resistance, that they break under pressure. They flex under pressure.   [02:19:01] Kellyann Andrews: That’s why rebounds are so great because you’re actually creating three different forces on your bones all at the same time, but it creates that flexibility. The flexibility of the muscles in the bones is the same with the emotions and thoughts. So in the moment of stress, you’ll notice that you want to have a total no response, that you’re totally going resistant. But at that moment, if you can absolutely accept whatever is happening, then you can shift gears and move through it. But if you get stuck in resistance, you’re not going anywhere. It’s just going to antagonize your thoughts, your emotions, and your physiology.   [02:19:48] Ashley James: A lesson I learned from Tony Robbins—and I really, really love it. He says when something is happening that you’re resisting, that you disagree with, that you don’t like. Something is happening in your life and you don’t have control because it’s something that’s happening regardless. You ask yourself what’s good about this, not in a joking manner, in a really serious what is good about this? He gave the example of a client who is a lawyer and his partner was retiring, selling, or something was happening. I think he was also going through a divorce, but there’s so much wrong in his life. He’s losing his company, he was trying to make a partnership, he was losing his marriage, and he couldn’t see any positive way out of it. Tony kept saying the same thing over and over again, “What is good about this? What’s good about this situation? Honestly, genuinely, what is good about this?”   [02:20:53] Kellyann Andrews: What’s the silver lining?   [02:20:55] Ashley James: Right, but what good could come of this? What good could you make come of this? What is good here? And at first, he couldn’t think of anything, which is often the response. Then he started to see things. He goes, “Well, my son is graduating and I’ve always wanted to work with him.” I think he was also graduating as a lawyer, and there was no room in that other company for him and his son to work together. He, by the end of the session, had realized that now he has the opportunity to start a new company with his son. And then he’s like, “Well, now I’m not attached to this building I’ve been driving to, and I hate the location.” It was somewhere in LA. “I’ve always wanted to live on the beach and work on the beach.” Now that all these things have changed in his life, now he gets to actually do what he’s wanted to do but couldn’t because of other restrictions. So by the end of the session, he had decided he was going to move to Venice beach, work and live there so there’s almost no commute, and spend a lot of his time with his son and build this new business. All of this was just so exciting to him, but at the beginning of the session, he couldn’t even see past all the bad. Yes, there are bad things. Bad things will always happen. And if we resist and push and resist and push, we’re constantly triggering the stress response. And if we look for what’s good about this, in this bad situation, what good can I make of this genuinely? We may find all these wonderful opportunities for healing, for growth that we never saw before because we could not let ourselves see that because we were too focused on pushing back and resisting what we didn’t want to change.   [02:22:45] Kellyann Andrews: It’s a classic of the hindbrain, forebrain response. So when you come to the forebrain, then you can see the options. But if you’re stuck in the back brain and animalistic fight or flight, you just feel trapped.   [02:23:00] Ashley James: Yeah. So do that deep breathing, do everything that Kellyann said to do today. Go to her website, platinumenergysystems.ca, give her a call. Check out the Platinum Energy System, I love it. Get those Bach Flower remedies and the essential oils that she talked about. Deep breathing is so important. Then catch yourself and turn your thinking into healing thoughts that don’t trigger the panic response in the body.   [02:23:28] Kellyann Andrews: Exactly. Love your body to health.   [02:23:32] Ashley James: I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been such a pleasure to have you back on.   [02:23:37] Kellyann Andrews: Well, wonderful to be here and to visit with you. All right, God bless everybody because this is quite a time that we’re in. But the awesome thing is that you have full capability of turning this around in all of your lives, in all the ways to being—as Ashley just said—where’s the good in this?   Get Connected With Kellyann Andrews! Official Website Recommended Readings by Kellyann Andrews Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon The New Human by Richard Gordon Power of Now+Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle A Return To Love by Marianne Williamson Check out other interviews of Kellyann Andrews! Episode 330 – Holistic Habits And Success Stories (Part 2) Episode 329 – Stories of Success Through Detox Episode 293 – Balancing pH Episode 292 – Creating Wellness

Check out the Healthiest Non-Toxic Mattress Webinar: LearnTrueHealth.com/bed Check us out on Lbry https://lbry.tv/@Learn-True-Health:f Andy's website: https://www.thegreendesigncenter.com/consultation-services   Achieving a Non-Toxic Home and Work Environment  https://www.learntruehealth.com/achieving-a-non-toxic-home-and-work-environment   Highlights: Why measuring indoor air quality a false premise for certifying something as a green building What is a VOC What is greenwashing Things that off-gas in the home Actionable steps that you can take to have a cleaner/healthier home   Most of us think that since we’re mostly at home nowadays, we’re already safe from harmful chemicals, but that could be far from true. Just because we don’t see or smell the chemicals doesn’t mean that it’s not harming us. In this episode, Andy Pace shares the things that we have in our homes that are toxic and off-gas. He also gives us some actionable steps that we can do to have a healthier home. Intro: Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. Welcome to 2021. I hope you guys had an amazing December and got some time to rest and relax as I did.  I’m now officially in my third trimester of being pregnant with our second child. If this is news to you, I’ve mentioned it a little bit on the show. I used to be completely infertile. I was diagnosed infertile, actually, by an endocrinologist who told me I’d never conceived children naturally. I had severe polycystic ovarian syndrome. I had a bunch of other health conditions as well including type 2 diabetes, chronic infections, and chronic adrenal fatigue, and I used natural medicine and holistic medicine in the last 12 years to regain all of my health. I no longer have any of those issues, and we conceived our first son totally naturally and on time and intended. We decided to go for it. The timing just felt really right for us, and we conceived again on our first try. We’re having a girl this time, we’re so excited. I’m now 27 weeks, going into 28 weeks pregnant. What’s amazing is this pregnancy has been so much easier compared to the last one, and that’s something that I want to explore in further episodes because I spent six years focusing on going from really poor health to getting myself to the point where I was fertile again and healthy. That was for our first son, and that pregnancy was still very, very difficult for me. A lot of issues came up, and I addressed them with my Naturopathic physician and my midwives. We were able to have a healthy birth, but it was still very, very stressful, and difficult on my body. And so after we had our son, I spent the last five years—and of course doing the podcast as well—learning so much from all these amazing guests we’ve had on. I spent the last five years really focusing on getting to even the next level of health.  So if you’ve been a long time listener or you’re a new listener, go back and listen to those episodes because, in the last 453 interviews, I’ve really taken to heart so much of this information that we’ve absorbed from all these great guests, all the courses I’ve taken online, and of course, my continuing mentorship with several really old-school holistic doctors and Naturopathic doctors that I’ve been mentored by over 10 years now. What happened in the last five years is I focused on really getting specific with what diet is the most healing and restorative for my body? What can I do to detox heavy metals, remove parasites, support my liver and other organs? I shed a lot of even further inflammation and weight, and I saw my blood levels be the healthiest they’ve ever been. What’s really, really cool is I just had that freedom. The freedom I’m experiencing in my body is something I haven’t had since I was a child, and that is so exciting. I keep telling my husband when the baby kicks, I actually forget I’m pregnant, even though I’ve got this really big round belly in front of me. There’s definitely an obvious baby belly, but I forget through the day that I’m pregnant. So when she kicks, I’m like oh yeah, oh my gosh, I’m pregnant. And that’s so funny because, with the first pregnancy, I was so sick the entire time. I never forgot I was pregnant. And now I walk around, I just feel normal until the baby kicks. That to me is a great example of what you can achieve with holistic medicine, what you can achieve with health. That there are these levels of health. And when you think you’re like I’ve spent the last six years, two years, one year, six months, or how long you’ve spent investing in your health. You might plateau and you’re like okay, this is good. I’m good. And then you learn something else and you decide to take it to the next level. Maybe do a cleanse, a detox, a fast. Maybe change up your exercise routine or your sleep habits. Whatever you do to take it to the next level, just look back after a few years of doing that and go wow, everything that I’m going through now is so much easier than it used to be. And that is such a cool, cool feeling. I never would have thought that I would have achieved this much in my health 10 years ago, let alone 5 years ago. I’m so excited to be on this journey with you. Wherever you are in your health journey, whether you’re a total health nut like me, and you’re in really, really great shape, or like most listeners, they have some health complaints, they have some things. We have some listeners that are newer to the holistic space, and they’re really sick of suffering. They’re just really sick of medications that are not really helping them to get there, to get to their health goals, and they’re just ready. They’re ready to make some amazing changes. In this podcast, my goal is to get you that information, to help you to achieve not only your health because physical health is just one aspect of your life. But when you have physical health, how much more ease you have to love yourself, to love your family, to be connected to your friends, to be connected to your creator, to be connected in nature, and have that energy moving through you and just experience the world. Your body is your vessel, and your experience of the world is greatly affected by the health of your vessel. By giving your body everything it needs, all the nutrition it needs to achieve optimal health, you’re giving your entire life and all those you love a better experience, an increase in joy, vitality, and a sense of purpose. So continue on this path no matter where you are. Let’s make 2021 be just such an amazing transformative year. You get to say if this is your year of transformation, and I’m going to bring you episodes that are going to help you to continue to transform your life, to make it into the one that you want. The one that you see in your future as the one you want. My goal was to have an easier and healthier pregnancy this time around, and I didn’t even know that it could be this good. I’m letting you know it’s so exciting the things that you can achieve. Now today’s guest, I am absolutely ecstatic for you to learn from because this is an area we have touched on a little bit on the show. I mean, over 450 episodes, there’s a lot to cover. But the idea that everything in our surroundings—our carpeting, our mattress, the paint on the walls, all of this goes into our health. And our guest today is an incredibly experienced man when it comes to non-toxic environments. He has been in the building industry and focusing on materials used in homes, even in cars, and offices that are non-toxic for the human body long before we ever heard the word green, green technology, or green building. All that kind of came out in the ‘90s. He’s been doing this long before that, and he tells this story and it’s just absolutely fascinating. He has a lot of great actionable information. And so if you’re thinking this year you’re going to renovate your bathroom, repaint some part of your house, or get new flooring, what’s really cool is you can contact him. We talk a little bit about this in the interview. You can contact him, and he’ll do really quick 15-minute consultations, and he’ll point you in the right direction so that it can fit in your budget and be non-toxic. He has so many great resources. It doesn’t have to be expensive to create a healthier environment for yourself. So just strap in, enjoy this episode. There’s so much to learn. Now I want to let you know about a webinar that I was part of creating with Jason Payne, who is the founder of my favorite mattress of all times. I really took mattresses for granted. I was just sleeping on whatever, and then we went and bought what I thought was a really expensive mattress at a box chain store a few years ago, and it was the highest end one that was within our budget. I thought man, this is going to last us 10 years. It didn’t even last us three years until it was so warped that my husband and I were in so much pain and just so stiff every morning. I was really upset about that, and I looked and I looked and I looked.  I talked to a lot of other holistic people in this space, and the more I dug, the more I realized that most mattresses out there, first of all, are designed to only last a few years, are off-gassing really bad stuff for our health. They’re designed in a way that doesn’t allow us to have deep restorative sleep. So I finally found a mattress that I absolutely love. I did a ton of digging, and I cannot tell you what a life-changing experience this has been. I had the creator of this mattress on the show a while back, and then we decided to make this webinar so you can see and learn more.  What I want you to do is go to learnturehealth.com/bed. That’s learntruehealth.com/bed. Sign up for the free webinar. It’s going to teach you a bit about mattresses in general, non-toxic mattresses, what’s the difference between that and regular stuff out there, probably between that and what you’re sleeping on now. And in this specific mattress, how the technology works to make it so that you don’t have pressure points so that you stay in deep restorative sleep longer. You come out no longer in pain, no longer stiff. Some people have actually gotten off of pain meds because of this bed. It’s pretty amazing. Check it out, learnturehealth.com/bed. Why this webinar is relevant to the topic of today’s episode is because this is just another thing in your house that you want to replace. When you’re ready to replace your bed, you want to replace it with this one because it is non-toxic, and it also will last over 25 years. That will save you a ton of money. If you think about it, if you have to buy a mattress every five years because they get warped or have to go to the chiropractor, you’re in pain, and so you’re compensating for that pain because you have a wonky mattress that’s off-gassing some chemicals. That doesn’t save us money and save us our health. This is why I love this mattress, and I can’t say enough good things about it. Go to learntruehealth.com/bed and check out that webinar. Come join us in the Facebook group if you’re on Facebook. Just search Learn True Health on Facebook, we’d love to see you there. It’s such a supportive and wonderful community, and you can always reach out to me there in the community if you have questions. And of course, you can always email me, ashley@learntruehealth.com. Thank you so much for being a listener, and thank you so much for sharing these episodes with those you care about. If you have any friends or family that are looking to renovate this year or looking to change anything in their home or office, you definitely want to share this episode with them. It’s going to make a big difference. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day, and remember, go to learntruehealth.com/bed and check out that webinar.   [00:12:12] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 453. I am so excited for today’s guest. We have with us Andy Pace, the founder of thegreendesigncenter.com. Now, how I found Andy, it’s been quite interesting. If you’ve been a long-time listener, you’ve heard me interview the Sternagels. I had Teddy Sternagel and her husband, Ryan Sternagel, on the show. They have a child who had cancer and had been through treatments twice. His cancer came back. Thank God, praise God, I am so thrilled to share that their child is cancer-free. They did a lot of holistic medicine. Through that, they really became aware of how toxins in our home, how things that we take for granted, that things that are completely “safe”, that are sold in stores are actually contributing to the amount of toxic load in our body, and thus contributing to cancer and other diseases. They became so acutely aware of this that they moved from Washington state. They bought a beautiful plot of land in Utah, and they built their home. Every single square inch of this house is non-toxic or the most absolute healthiest choice possible of material. I asked Ryan, how did you do this? You became an expert on everything non-toxic. He goes, “No, you have to talk to Andy. Andy’s the guy.” So I said, “Andy, please come on the show and share with us…” Obviously, for those who want to build our dream non-toxic home, we’d want to talk to Andy. But for those who live in a house or even a rented house or rented apartment, there are so many choices we can make to make better choices for our home environment to decrease the amount of toxic load in our bodies and also for our pets. I’m sure we can discuss this, but some people will spend thousands of dollars on their pets and not take care of themselves. So I got to tell you that the cancer rates for our pets have gone up, and pets live in our homes 24/7. They don’t get to leave much unless we take them out. They’re seeing now that it’s the toxicity of the off-gassing and everything inside the house that contributes to increases in pet cancer. And of course, if we’re seeing that in animals, we’re seeing that in humans. So, Andy, I’m so excited to have you on the show today. You’re going to really open our eyes and share with us all the things that we can do to clean up our environment so that we’re living a non-toxic or the least toxic possible lifestyle. Welcome to the show.   [00:15:13] Andy Pace: Thank you so much, Ashley. It really is my pleasure to be with you and your audience today. It’s always exciting for me to talk to a new group of listeners out there in the world, and to hopefully open up some eyes to what’s really happening and how to make our living environments much, much healthier.   [00:15:37] Ashley James: Absolutely. We’re going to get into it. You have so much to share with us today. Now you do podcasts. Do you have your own podcast?   [00:15:46] Andy Pace: I do. It’s called Non-Toxic Environments.   [00:15:49] Ashley James: Awesome. And I’m sure my listeners will want to check that out. Of course, the links to everything that Andy Pace does is going to be the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. I’m really curious to find out though, what happened in your life that made you want to become an expert in non-toxic environments and non-toxic homes? Did you just wake up as a seven-year-old and you said I really want to become an expert in flooring, paints, and home design for green living? What happened in your life?   [00:16:16] Andy Pace: Well, quite a coincidence there, I actually kind of did as a child want to get into the business of selling building materials, and here’s why. My family has owned a commercial construction material supply company that dates back to the 1930s, and we’ve been here in Wisconsin ever since. When I was in high school, actually before that, as a small child I remember sitting around the dinner table. Unlike most homes, when you’re having dinner conversation, we weren’t talking about sports or school. I was listening to my mom and dad talk about these architects, these contractors, and projects. At a very young age, I just got really interested in the entire building process. During high school and during college, I actually was helping the family company program computers. This is the late ‘70s, early ‘80s when computers really first started coming around, and I was setting up a computer system for our family business and again got to learn more. But when I got to college, for me, it was just a no-brainer that I was going to enter the family business of selling commercial construction materials.  For the first two years of my career, I was involved in working with some of the largest commercial architectural firms in the country and assisting them in specifying and detailing the proper products for certain types of applications. My specialty at that time was industrial coatings. We carried a couple of lines of these industrial coating materials—very specialty. They were used in very intricate applications of airplane hangars or humane society projects. This particular one that really got me going on the health kick was a project that was a below-grade parking structure. So essentially, it was three underground floors of parking underneath a 20-story condominium complex. The architectural firm and engineering firms that were hired to do this project brought me in to make sure we supplied the right materials to cover the concrete to withstand all the oils and greases of cars.  Well, after our crew installed the primer coat onto the concrete—essentially, they prepared the concrete, cleaned it all up, put the primer on, and you have to remember that all of the products that we’re supplying were water-based because we knew this is an underground parking garage. There are people living and working in the condominiums and offices above. We can’t use anything that has a lot of solvent to it. We made sure to use water-based products. Well, after the primer coat was applied, we started getting phone calls from people living and working in the condominiums above the parking garage. We couldn’t really understand why because we were using a water-based product. We made sure to put up plastic barriers so that the fumes wouldn’t carry throughout the building—obviously, that didn’t work. After we received a phone call from a United States senator’s office who happened to be in this building—I remember this vividly—about 20 minutes after that phone call and we were all standing around talking about how we’re going to proceed with this project, three of our workers collapsed.   [00:20:34] Ashley James: You’re all standing around?   [00:20:35] Andy Pace: Yes. Three of our workers collapsed. They couldn’t breathe. There were inhalation complications due to the coating that we were using, and we could not understand why. It’s a water-based product. Well, I learned the hard way—at the age of 22 years old—that a water-based coating doesn’t mean solvent-free, it doesn’t mean toxin-free. It means that 50% of the liquid component in the product is water. The other 50% can be whatever the manufacturer chooses to make their product apply better, cure faster, so on and so forth. When this product was curing, it was an epoxy material. It actually sucked the oxygen out of the room. So we had three workers rushed to the hospital due to these inhalation complications, and they ended up being fine. But the important thing was it taught us a very vivid lesson. Just because something is water-based doesn’t mean it’s safe, and just because a manufacturer or somebody says oh don’t worry it’s fine, to not take that seriously.   [00:22:02] Ashley James: Just because it’s sold in stores. That’s something we really, really need to wrap our brains around. I’m from Canada, I live in the states. I love living here. This is my home, and Canada is also my home. But in both countries, I think we walk around feeling a little bit bulletproof. We’re privileged in that we don’t live in squalor and poverty. Obviously, I wish everyone in the world was taken care of, and that’s the utopia I wish we could create for us. But the truth is that we are so privileged. Just to be in Canada, in the United States—some of the richest economies in the world—we are definitely more privileged than other countries. So I think we walk around feeling a bit bulletproof. People assume we don’t have any parasites. People assume that’s something that happens with one of those countries but not this country. And then when we look that the European Union has banned thousands upon thousands of chemicals that are in food, that are in building supplies, that are different medications, and they’re not banned here. You got to scratch your head. Why are there chemicals banned in other countries but are readily being used and are on the shelves here? We have to really get that it is buyer beware when it comes to food, when it comes to anything you use in your home, when it comes to cosmetics. There are over 80,000 man-made chemicals that have been invented in the last 10 or 20 years. Our bodies don’t know what to do with these chemicals. The liver doesn’t know how to process it. And we’re seeing all kinds of health problems continue to rise. So that was your first big wake up, and that’s interesting because your family had been in the business for so many generations. But these chemicals weren’t around in the 1930s like they are now. There were different chemicals, but now there are some really scary chemicals available, especially when it comes to building homes. What did you do in your business? You’re 22 years old, you’re getting a wake-up call around these solvents. How did you change your business? Did you go back to school? What happened next?   [00:24:38] Andy Pace: What I did was I just started researching, and this is before the internet. I couldn’t just jump on Google and start looking at article after article of these stories about chemicals and so forth. I actually had to do it the old-fashioned way and go to the library. I had to talk to people in the medical field. It’s interesting. What really did it for me was on this project, we still had a contract with the owners of this building to supply a coating and so we had to finish the job. But we realized we couldn’t finish it with the products that we started with. I did a lot of research, talked to a lot of people, a lot of friends in the industry, and finally, the manufacturer that made the coating for us said, I think I know somebody who might be able to help you with this job. He put me in touch with a very, very small company out of—at the time—Riverside, California. A company called American Formulating and Manufacturing. I never heard of them. This company started in 1980-81, and they manufactured paints and coatings.  So I started a conversation with them, and it turns out that AFM was a company that was founded by a man who himself developed cancer being in the paints and coatings industry as a formulator in a lab tech. He made it his life-ending mission—literally, his life-ending mission because he died of cancer—to formulate recipes for paints, coatings, and specialty products that are completely free of the health hazards and toxins that got us into the problem in the first place. I was introduced to the company, and I spent probably a good two years just trying to figure out what am I going to do with this information? Again, I came from the commercial construction industry. I’m used to working with architects, engineers, and contractors. But when I first started researching the materials from AFM, I thought to myself, I’ve got to go to somebody who I know in the field that can maybe give me some feedback. It just so happens that a good friend of mine was the head of buildings and maintenance for the largest medical complex in Wisconsin. I reached out to my friend Jim and I said, “Jim, I’ve got this new paint product. The manufacturer claims that it is good for people who are subject to sick building syndrome, environmental illnesses, and something called multiple chemical sensitivity.” I said, “I’ll give you the product. Just use it in one room of the hospital so we can get some feedback so we know what’s going on with this.”  Well, he did that for me, and I was there when the painting crew was applying it to one of the rooms. It was amazing. I was watching this crew applying AFM safe coat paint on this hospital room. I couldn’t smell a thing. It looked absolutely gorgeous, and the crew gets done. They’re talking to Jim, the head of maintenance and buildings and so forth. I’m thinking to myself, this is wonderful. They must use thousands of gallons of paint a year. I would love to be able to work with a medical facility like this. Jim comes back to me and says, “Yeah, they’re not going to use it.” “What? What’s wrong with it? He said, “They didn’t like the way it applied it. It was thinner, thicker, or something than what they’re used to.” Gave me all of these really ridiculous excuses why they didn’t want to use the paint. After doing this though, I remember getting one doctor and one nurse—separate times—who came up to me and came up to us during this and said, “This is amazing. Where can I buy this for my house?” I thought, well, it’s not available. It’s only available commercially for hospitals, schools, and so forth.  This nurse said specifically, “I have to make sure that whenever they’re painting in my department, that it’s got to be on my time off because I literally get headaches instantly when they start to paint. It could be 15 rooms down. I’m getting a headache.” That’s when I really started looking at the whole chemical sensitivity thing. But it also dawned on me at that time, well maybe I should just start selling this to people who are asking for it, not try to sell it to companies who are just caring about the bottom line. Really, that’s what happened with the hospital is that I found out later on.  The next day, Jim calls me and he says, “I’ll tell you what. The reason why they don’t want to use your paint is because when the painting contractors have a contract for the hospital, they buy paint at this really low price in bulk. But they can also use it for all their side jobs. So they would lose that profit margin for all their side jobs. And they will refuse to use anything that takes away that profit margin.” I learned, at that point, that hospitals are not necessarily always looking out for our best health. So, it really opened my eyes to the industry. From that point on, the conversations I had, we launched a catalog company—because again, there were no internet websites at the time—selling what we called Common Sense Healthier Building Materials. This was 1992 when we did this, 1996 I believe is when the United States Green Building Council was formed. And the late ‘90s, early 2000s is when the LEED program started, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The entire green building movement started in the late ‘90s really, and that’s when that term became so popular—the term green building. What happened was those years of studying chemical sensitivity, chemistry, how it affects the human body and so forth—as soon as green building became the norm and became so popular, the entire health aspect was completely forgotten about by the industry. They just focused on energy efficiency and global environmental concerns, which are of course both important, but had nothing to do with human health.   [00:32:45] Ashley James: That is absolutely fascinating. I have a friend, she got a degree in green buildings. She’s one of the very few females in the industry in Seattle who manages these high-rise buildings. She’s right there at the top. She manages all the general contractors. She works with the architects and manages these two- to four-year projects where they build these huge mega buildings. She was passionate about, not only energy saving but non-toxic. When we started this interview, I was thinking to myself, what kind of degrees did he get in this? But you were in it before there was even a class you could take.   [00:33:46] Andy Pace: Correct. There wasn’t anything. That’s the thing is that people who are actually getting degrees in sustainable building, sustainable management, or are becoming certified by the U.S. Green Building Council and the LEED program, nothing against what they’re doing. It’s fabulous what they’re doing, but you have to look back to the entire premise of green building and what is used as a metric to validate a building and it’s indoor air quality. In my eyes and many others’ eyes out there, the entire premise is false.   [00:34:39] Ashley James: Explain why. So we’re talking about indoor air quality. Why is measuring indoor air quality a false premise for certifying something as a green building?   [00:34:49] Andy Pace: Okay. We’ve all heard that stat that indoor air quality can be 10 to 100 times worse than LA on a bad day.   [00:34:59] Ashley James: Right. Especially that we’re all at home. I mean, so many people this year work from home. Many children are at home for school instead. I’m not saying that these office buildings or school buildings would be any better or worse but now is even more important to focus on the air quality inside our home and what’s off-gassing in our home. It’s interesting that you say that isn’t the best metric for a non-toxic home or a green home.   [00:35:29] Andy Pace: Well, it’s not necessarily that part. The fact that indoor air quality can be 10 to 100 times worse than LA on a bad day is actually true. But how do they measure? What is the main metric used for measuring indoor air quality?   [00:35:55] Ashley James: I was going to guess that it was some kind of measuring the amount of chemical particles.   [00:36:03] Andy Pace: Okay. Specifically VOCs. You hear this everywhere. VOCs are regulated by the EPA. VOCs have to be lowered in manufacturers’ materials, very similar to the CAFE standards of automobiles. For example, a paint manufacturer decides to start making a zero VOC paint. Not only does it meet the regulations for what a water-based low VOC paint is, but it also allows the manufacturer on the whole to manufacture some of their other products that are very high in VOCs because overall, the average is lower.   [00:36:50] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. And for those who don’t know what VOCs are, volatile organic compounds, can you just go back? For listeners who have no idea what you’re talking about, what are VOCs?   [00:37:01] Andy Pace: This ties a bow around this whole thing that I’m talking about. Let me give you the exact definition of what a VOC is. A VOC means a volatile organic compound. A volatile organic compound is any carbon-based molecule that’s readily vaporized at room temperature that could rise to the upper atmosphere combined with nitrogen and UV and create smog.   [00:37:31] Ashley James: So that really doesn’t sound like it’s applicable in a house.   [00:37:33] Andy Pace: No, and this is what I’m talking about that the premise is entirely wrong. Just because something is a VOC doesn’t mean it’s unhealthy for humans. And toxic materials—things that are harmful to humans—are not necessarily VOCs.   [00:37:59] Ashley James: So give us an example of a VOC that isn’t toxic. If I was diffusing peppermint essential oil in my home, would that show up as a VOC?   [00:38:12] Andy Pace: It can. How about this. Peel the skin off of an orange, it’ll release 850 grams per liter of VOCs.   [00:38:20] Ashley James: Clearly something that’s healthy for us or non-toxic for us to peel an orange.   [00:38:26] Andy Pace: You know what acetone is, nail polish remover?   [00:38:31] Ashley James: Yeah.   [00:38:32] Andy Pace: Open up a can of acetone in your house. Just open it up, let it sit there.   [00:38:39] Ashley James: I hate that smell so much.   [00:38:41] Andy Pace: Within 15 minutes, everybody who lives in that house will have detectable levels of acetone in their liver.   [00:38:46] Ashley James: Oh my gosh.   [00:38:47] Andy Pace: But according to the EPA, it’s not a VOC. So you have to remember the premise of the whole VOC regulation. It’s because of outdoor air pollution only. There is no regulation on the books based upon VOCs because of their inherent danger to humans. It’s alluded to, it’s talked about, it’s referenced, but it’s not actually a real regulation. The reason is because you mentioned it before. There are over 80,000 chemicals used in the production of building materials and home goods. Out of those 80,000 chemicals, only 3% have ever been tested for the toxicological effects on humans.   [00:39:40] Ashley James: Oh wait, hold on. I think that warrants a little bit more discussion. This is crazy. We assume that every drug on the market has gone through rigorous testing, right? And then we take that same assumption and assume that every man-made chemical that is available for our house, for our body, or for our food has been rigorously tested. And you’re saying that only 3% has been tested for safety with humans?   [00:40:10] Andy Pace: Correct.   [00:40:11] Ashley James: And they haven’t been tested in combination with other chemicals.   [00:40:17] Andy Pace: No, not at all. What happens is in the United States, when a manufacturer invents a new chemical compound—and keep in mind, this is happening at a more rapid pace because of things like the VOC regulations, and I’ll get to that in a second. The manufacturer comes out with a new chemical. It submits it to the EPA. I could be wrong about the exact number of days. I believe it’s 120 days that the EPA has to essentially approve it or reject it. So they get 120 days after the application date to approve it or reject it, and they could say, nope, we reject this because it’s going to kill off half the population. However, because manufacturers are coming out with these new chemical compounds at such a rapid pace, and there’s something like a two-year backlog to do testing, the regulations as they are written today state that if the EPA can’t get to actually testing them within that time period or initially they rubber-stamp it approved.   [00:41:36] Ashley James: And how do they test it? On animals? Really, how do you test these chemicals?   [00:41:41] Andy Pace: That’s also kind of an unknown. The fact of the matter is that if they get 120 days to test and they don’t test it within 120 days, they have to automatically approve them because there’s a two-year backlog for testing. What happens then is they leave it up to the consumer to essentially file class-action lawsuits with other consumers who’ve gotten sick because of it. If this were a true leave it up to the marketplace sort of thing where manufacturers were forced to disclose their ingredients, then I can see that would actually be, in my opinion, a better way to go because now you have a complete list of everything that’s in these materials. I’ll use paint because I know paint the best. On the MSDs or the safety data sheets for a gallon of paint, it’s not an ingredients list. It’s essentially a list of certain chemicals that make up more than 1% of the volume or are not part of a proprietary blend. And they have to list those certain chemicals that may have a hazard component to them. When a manufacturer puts together something like a gallon of paint, you look at the MSDs, and you see three things listed, how could paint be made of three things? Well, it’s not. It’s made of 30 things. Most of those ingredients each make up less than 1% of the volume, therefore do not have to be listed on the safety data sheet. That’s where the real bad stuff is hidden. You’ve got to remember that the VOC regulations, the safety data sheet regulations, everything out there are written for the protection of the manufacturer, not the consumer. The entire green building movement and indoor air quality component of the green building movement is based upon reducing VOCs in a space. Yet VOCs have nothing to do sometimes, most times, with the true hazardous component of what’s being used inside of a building. Because there are only a couple hundred chemicals used in building materials that’ll be classified as VOCs, yet there are 80,000 chemicals that are available for use. We’re focusing on the wrong things. We’re not focusing on the toxicity of the ingredients, and the reason why we’re not is because we can’t. Because manufacturers are not being forced to disclose their ingredients. Because they’ve lobbied enough to say to every governmental agency out there that listen, I don’t want to give up my ingredients list because that’s proprietary. I don’t want somebody to copy my products. It really is difficult for somebody. Believe me, I’ve given this presentation to architectural societies—a room full of people who have been practicing architecture for decades. They’re experts in buildings, and some of these people are experts in green buildings. I tell them about this whole VOC thing and their jaws just drop open. It’s not talked about whatsoever. It’s not talked about that the EPA actually publishes a list of 27 different toxic chemicals that are fully allowed to be used in zero VOC formulations of materials because they specifically do not create a low-level smog. Because they don’t react with nitrogen the way that most carbon-based chemicals do. Manufacturers are allowed to use acetone, ammonia, butyl acetate, and trichloroethane.   [00:46:17] Ashley James: These are chemicals that are stressing the liver, causing health issues. But because they don’t contribute to smog, they’re fine, they’re safe. I don’t trust the EPA.   [00:46:29] Andy Pace: Because it’s the EPA. They’re the environmental protection agency.   [00:46:34] Ashley James: Here’s why I don’t trust them. On 9/11, so many of the emergency responders and the volunteers have gotten major health problems. The EPA was very quick to say—and you can google this and watch news videos of it on 9/11—the air is safe to breathe. The air was not safe to breathe, and these workers and volunteers that were trying to find anyone alive in the rubble or they’re working through the rubble day and night were all exposed to what has either killed them by now or given them a lifelong crippling disease. And the EPA completely failed them. They should have said no, the air is not safe to breathe. Anyone with an understanding of what was in that air would have said the air is not safe to breathe. They need protection. They need some kind of protection to go in there. That for me I have not trusted them since then. When we trust an organization with our health, we tend to become relaxed. We have to look at how our relationship is as adults with organizations because I think we sometimes become children. I trust this big organization that’s supposed to be looking out for me. It’s like we become children again trusting our parents to do the right thing for us. So we have to get that it’s always buyer beware, always, always—even if there’s an FDA, a CDC, and all these alphabet soup organizations. They’re not the ones responsible for our health, even though we’ve given them that responsibility. We still have to do our research. We still have to know that everything that we put in our mouths, put in our bodies, and put in our environment is our responsibility. It’s scary. This is the dark side of the way our manufacturing is, the way our consumerism is. That it is buyer beware. And I love that you found the AFM so early on because it allowed you to find a company that was ethical. I love finding ethical companies to work with like yourself who are going to spend a few more dollars to make sure that the building materials you’re using are safe. Now, what do you think about the environmental working group? Do you like them as a resource when it comes to looking at ingredients for what could be healthy?   [00:49:26] Andy Pace: I do. I certainly use a lot of the information they publish. I also look at the product declaration and health declarations that some companies are now having done by a third party. I think that there are certainly many more responsible manufacturers out there now than there ever used to be. I chalked that up to the fact that again, I was telling the story of how we got really started with this. The green building really hit its zenith in about 2005, 2006. At the time, I was actually the president of one of the largest architectural associations in the country. I was talking to friends and colleagues all around the country, and all they talked about was green building. What happened in the late 2000s? The big recession happened. From a residential standpoint, it used to be that I’d have a customer come in and say, we’re remodeling the bathroom. I want to use this really cool concrete with a recycled glass countertop in the bathroom. I’d say, okay, well here’s the price. It’s a little more expensive than these other materials that are more commercially available. They said that’s all right. I love the fact that it’s recycled content. I think it’s going to be great to tell my neighbors and friends about it. At that time, people were spending money to buy anything green because that was just the wave we were going on. Then the recession hit and nobody spent money on new homes, remodeling. It was the first time in history that when the new construction market went down, usually what happens is remodeling goes up. Well, first time in history where new construction went down, remodeling went down because people were losing value in their homes for no reason. We were finding that the homes were just overvalued. And so people were losing the equity in their homes. They didn’t want to put any more money into them because it’s just going to be a waste. That didn’t really correct itself until about 2013. When those customers started coming back into the marketplace, it’s interesting. The individuals who were buying green for the sake of buying green before, a lot of those folks were coming back to us saying, “Hey, remember I worked with you a few years ago?” “Yeah, I remember.” They would say, “We’re remodeling one of our rooms, and we’re looking for healthy flooring or healthy paint.” Their mindset changed during that time. They realized that if they’re going to spend—as you pointed out before—a little more money buying something that’s green, well what is it doing for them personally? They came back to the marketplace saying it’s got to help us personally as well if I’m going to spend more. I might as well buy something that’s actually healthier for us because while 50% of the world at any given time is going to tell you that the green building movement is garbage. We don’t have to worry about it. Probably closer to 95% of people would say yeah, but if it’s healthier for me and healthier for my family, now it’s worth it. They almost re-educated themselves to say all right, here’s why we’re going to spend a little more because I don’t have to worry about the toxicity of this stuff. Since then, we’ve seen an explosion in the healthy building market, and very rarely do I get a customer now calling up and asking me if there’s any recycled content in the product that they’re buying. They’ll say, “How does it affect my family? I’ve got somebody in the household who’s got an immune disorder.”   [00:53:56] Ashley James: I like that you said healthy building market because green like you’ve said, some kind of builder who’s been certified in green material, that might not even be non-toxic.   [00:54:10] Andy Pace: Correct.   [00:54:12] Ashley James: I’ve interviewed two people from this mold mitigation company that I really like, Green Home Solutions. I really like them because they invented a kind of enzyme that cracks open mold and digests it. So the mold is not there anymore. If you bleach mold, it’s still there. Even though it’s dead it’s still releasing the toxins. They have something that kills the mold and stops it from releasing its toxins, and then it even stops it for up to two years or something like that and it’s all-natural. It’s just an enzyme that’s completely safe. In the interviews, they shared that these newer homes that are “green” are worse for mold than 100-year-old homes that are drafty. Drafty is actually good. Let’s say you bought a home that’s built in 2018 and it’s “green,” they made it so heat effective to keep in the heat so you use less energy, to keep in the air conditioning so you use less energy. There are so many barriers and there’s very little flow from outside air, and that ends up trapping moisture in parts of the building—either the basement or the attic. And then they’re seeing in these newer homes a ton of mold. I thought that was fascinating because here I’m thinking we’ve been constructing houses for thousands of years. This is not a new science, and yet we expect that the latest in architecture and building homes—especially because they call it green—would mean that it is healthier and safer. So what you’re saying is that a green home isn’t necessarily healthier or safer, and could actually be more toxic because it’s trapped the air in thus keeping these chemicals, not necessarily VOCs, but these chemicals. Like you mentioned the acetone for example that within 15 minutes of inhaling it, it’s in our liver. Keeping what’s off-gassing inside the house, and then if it had mold somewhere in the house, keeping all the toxins inside the house and the house isn’t breathing enough, that’s kind of scary. You do a healthy building. I don’t like the term green building because that makes us give up our power again. That makes us go, it’s a green building, I trust everything here. We stop looking. We stop questioning. So we have to continue to question even though something is “green.”   [00:57:07] Andy Pace: Yes. About 15 years ago, I created a building product rating system of my own. There’s a green garden, there’s a green seal, there are scientific certification systems, and all these different organizations’ floor score and so forth. All these third party solutions give us information about whether or not a product is considered green. Well, what I found was when I was trying to train my own staff here and trying to make it so that when a customer called up, everybody on staff would be able to give the same information, without influence, to our potential customers. What we found out was, after our extensive research on this, there are actually 27 different reasons why you can call a building material green—27 different reasons—and all boils down to three main categories: environmental health, sustainability, and human health. So a lot of these reasons why products are called green essentially go into a category that we would call greenwashing, which is when a manufacturer or a salesperson essentially over exaggerates the overall environmental and health benefit because of maybe one little component, and I’ll give you examples. There was a very large big box home improvement store here in the US that at the time, in the 2000s, they started adding these eco tags to several products that they were selling in their stores. Eco option or something like that, I forget what the terminology they’re using. This is an eco option, and they put an eco option tag on bags of fiberglass insulation, which first off it’s not an option. Here in Wisconsin, when it gets to be 30 below 0 in the wintertime, it’s not an option to use insulation. It’s actually building code, but they were selling it as an option because that’s an energy saver. They were putting an eco option tag on an electric chainsaw because it uses electricity to cut down trees instead of fuel. That’s a prime example of greenwashing. There was a manufacturer here down the street that was making, I forget at the time what it was, but they started advertising in the trade publication saying that they were a green company because they have all local manufacturing. Nothing was made overseas until you found out that 98% of the components that they were using were manufactured overseas before they finally put it together here—greenwashing. Patagonia, I love their products. They were winning environmental award after environmental award because of their eco fleece jackets, hats, and gloves. What eco fleece essentially is taking plastic soda and water bottles, they melt it down, they spin it into a fleece fabric. Great, you’re taking stuff out of the landfills. You’re taking stuff out of the ocean, which in and of itself is fantastic. However, the chemist that originally invented PET back in the ‘30s said in his original report that this product should never come in contact with human skin because it enters into the blood system, it can turn chemicals into trihalomethanes, and essentially eat the body from the inside out. So we’re giving awards to manufacturers for poisoning us. These are all forms of greenwashing. And so I use this to create what I call my degree of green program. When a customer comes in, we have three main customers that come to one of our showrooms. The first customer comes in and says we are building a new house. It’s got to be as human toxin-free as possible. We have a seven-year-old with autism. She responds very negatively to chemical off-gassing and exacerbates her symptoms and so forth. We need a house that is as synthetic chemical-free as possible. Can you help us? The next customer walks in and she says I’ve been on this earth for 55 years. I’ve been a burden to the earth for 55 years. Can you help me remodel a home using all recycled, repurposed, and renewed materials? I want nothing manufactured virgin for my house. The third customer walks in and says can you help me build a home with the lowest carbon footprint? Now, which one of those customers is wrong? None of them. They’re all right in their own way. They’ve all developed their own personal degree of green. The first customer is about human health. The second customer, it’s about sustainability. The third customer is about environmental concerns. All of them are right, yet the industry as a whole treats everybody the same—they call it green.   [01:03:01] Ashley James: But the one who’s using recycled material, that’s not necessarily a healthy home.   [01:03:07] Andy Pace: No, not at all.   [01:03:09] Ashley James: And the one that’s doing the lowest carbon footprint isn’t necessarily a healthy home. It’s not necessarily a low toxic home either.   [01:03:16] Andy Pace: And that’s the thing. So yes, I focus on health. That’s what I do. I focus on human health first. What I do is I help customers who are trying to build a new home, I act as their consultant liaison with the architects, the contractors, and all their subs. I always look out for the customer’s best interest when it comes to human health first. And sometimes, that means you have to maybe give up a little bit of the eco-friendliness or the sustainability aspect. The healthiest floor material may not be made in the United States, might be made in the Netherlands. The healthiest paint product may not be natural, it may actually be synthetic. These are the things that we have to look at and say there is no broad brush for everything. We have to actually look at the ingredients, and we use a heck of a lot of anecdotal information from the 30,000 customers I’ve worked with over my career to say, generally speaking, here’s what they can tolerate. These are the most chemically sensitive of people out there, and here’s what they say worked for them. So after we have enough knowledge and enough data of our own, we can say, on the whole, these are the ones that work the best.   [01:04:32] Ashley James: Fascinating. I interviewed a guy who—his name’s escaping me right now, but he worked for the DEA, that was it. He was going after the kind of like Miami Vice. He described it as like back in the ‘70s or ‘80s, he’s like Miami Vice. He was going after the mob basically down there. He went into a new office building and then he got poisoned so bad he was in the hospital. He got his whole detective team trying to figure out who poisoned him because they were taking down the mob, they honestly thought the mob had poisoned him. It took him years before he figured out that he was exposed to building chemicals. Basically, back then, there weren’t any regulations for when they build a new building. These are high rises like condos and office buildings. And office buildings have different standards than condos. My husband was a union carpenter for 20 years and so he loved to point out the differences in building materials from living in an apartment to working in an office. There are a lot more regulations in an office building so it doesn’t burn down. I’m like why aren’t the same regulations in an apartment building? I always thought it was interesting, but they use different materials and so there are different toxic levels. He was in an office building that was just built in Miami. They turned on the AC and all the air was recycled. There was no new air coming in. So you can imagine this is like a 50-, 60-story building with all the off-gassing of the new carpets and the paint. A few other people had a similar experience, but he was hit pretty bad. Who knows why. It could be genetics, it could be nutrient deficiencies. Whatever happened he almost died. It took him I think it was 15 years to recover. He found a Naturopath that figured out what his issue was and actually nursed him back to health. But for something like 10 or 15 years, he had to live in the desert. He couldn’t be exposed to any electricity at all. Any electricity would cause his body to go haywire. He had to live in a house that was metal that had nothing that could off-gas, living in the desert, and he called himself basically bubble boy. He wrote a book about it. It was a very interesting interview because it really made me see how some people who are exposed to these toxins cause lifelong debilitation, and if you continue to go to MDs who are not experienced in this realm, they might treat you for fibromyalgia or something that’s sort of like a catch-all without knowing that your migraines are triggered by this chemical or that chemical that’s just in your environment. I have another friend. She and her daughter were debilitated for the last few years because she was exposed to PCBs, radon, lead, and furans—I don’t know if I’m pronouncing that right. There’s an alternative school here in Monroe, Washington, and there’s a really good AP article on it. Basically, a major company that I’m not going to mention their name because of the lawsuit, and I don’t want them coming after me. Let’s just say it’s a chemical company that was more recently, in the last few years, bought by a pharmaceutical company. There’s a huge class-action lawsuit with hundreds of students and parents, several of which have died of cancer and other diseases because of their exposure to these chemicals in the school building. The school district said the school was safe when it still wasn’t safe. There were PCBs basically dripping from the ceiling and leaking onto the children, onto their desks from these old light fixtures. Just the horror stories that came out of this building. These are old buildings. They said that the chemicals are in the caulking, that they’re in the light fixtures. There are several building materials that were even 60 years later still causing health issues. We have major, major issues with old buildings like the ones with PCBs. And then we have issues with the very new buildings, right? It’s not like you can say, oh well, my condo was once a schoolhouse that was renovated. It’s a 100-year-old building or a 50-year-old building so it must not have the 80,000 chemicals in it. That’s not necessarily true. What we’re looking at is any home can be toxic.   [01:09:38] Andy Pace: Any home can be toxic. The question I get quite often from clients is can you give me a time frame? If I’m going to look for an existing home, and I do have a number of clients who’ll actually hire me to help them go through Zillow listings to see which homes might be best for them. Is there a certain time frame that I should be looking at or that I should be avoiding?   [01:10:03] Ashley James: When were homes the healthiest? What era?   [01:10:08] Andy Pace: Interestingly enough, homes that were the healthiest were the ones built prior to World War II. After the war, this is when manufacturing really started ramping up with plastics. Could there be things like lead in the house? Yes, but that’s easier to remediate. Asbestos wrapping around pipes and insulation, easy to remediate. We can see it. We can take care of it.   [01:10:40] Ashley James: Copper pipes or whatever.   [01:10:41] Andy Pace: But homes themselves, as you said before, were built so energy-inefficient that it allowed for fresh air to come to the house. Homes that were built after the war and specifically homes built in the ‘70s and ‘80s are the ones that I typically avoid. The reason for that is the whole sick building syndrome and environmental illness thing really started becoming problematic after the oil embargo of the early ‘70s by OPEC. Because building materials and buildings themselves were being built tighter, more energy-efficient because of the cost of energy. I mean even in commercial buildings that you could adjust the amount of fresh air coming into these commercial spaces, the building managers would essentially cut down the amount of fresh air just so they didn’t have to pay to heat or cool it. This is when we first started really learning about environmental illness inside of a building.  In the ‘80s, that really came to a head because this is when manufacturers really started ramping up with new technologically advanced building materials and things like building wraps that were used on the outside of a structure before your siding that would slow down water come into the building, but it would also slow down the water leaving the building—any moisture inside that cavity—and this is when mold started, and really to be a big problem in the ‘80s. You had building materials that were made out of wood dust instead of solid wood. That wood dust was held together using urea formaldehyde-based adhesives, and all this is just a recipe for mold. Homes that were built to be sort of airtight but not really just means that moisture gets locked in that exterior cavity wall and eventually you’re going to find a mold spore on some of the lumber that’s going to proliferate because of the environment. Homes that were built in the ‘90s, 2000s, this is when you started getting homes that were being built, utilizing a bit more of what’s called building science. But they still weren’t really focusing on the human aspect—a human living inside of the space. And now with what we call the healthy building, that’s first and foremost. That’s the very first thing we look at is the health of the human occupant. Everything else is secondary.   [01:13:45] Ashley James: As it should be. I mean, it’s your home. If you’re focusing on the health of the human, then the health of the pets is going to come with it. And it’s not like we’re doing this every day. You build the home once, and hopefully, you live in it for a really long time. If it does have a carbon footprint, if it does have an environmental impact, I mean you’re not doing it all the time. You’re doing it once, and hopefully, because you built it to your specifications, it’s your forever home.   [01:14:13] Andy Pace: That’s the thing. Part of the equation of building a healthy home is also to utilize materials that you don’t have to replace too often because every time you have to do a project in the home and bring in outside contractors, you’re causing disruption to family life. You’re causing disruption in the air handling equipment. You’re bringing in potential chemical toxicity. So if I can use a flooring material that’s going to last 50 years as opposed to something that lasts 20, even though that flooring material is a little more expensive, in the long run not only is it less expensive because it lasts twice as long, but it’s also going to cut down on any potential toxicity in the future. We make decisions based on human health first. Now the number one question I get from customers is how expensive is it to build a healthy home? It’s got to be more expensive.   [01:15:11] Ashley James: That’s the first question my husband asked me last night. I told him how excited I was about this interview. We were cooking dinner and cleaning dishes, and I told him how excited I was. His first question was, “Well, I wonder how much more expensive is it?” I said, “I mean, Ryan and Teddy had spent pretty much all of their money on all the holistic treatments for their son.” I mean they told their story. This isn’t the secret, but they had to sell their house and they spent all their life savings on their son, and yet they were still able to afford to build their dream non-toxic healthy home. I told my husband, I’m like, “Well, if Ryan and Teddy could do that after years of exhausting all their resources on saving their son’s life, it sounds like yeah sure, it could be a bit more expensive, but it doesn’t sound astronomical. It doesn’t sound out of one’s reach.”   [01:16:17] Andy Pace: Well, there are two things at play here. Number one, what are your tastes for design? Do you want plastic switchblade covers or do you want brass? Think about that. Do you always gravitate towards things that are in the higher price range because you like the better style and you like things that are flashier and so forth? The other thing is quality level, longevity of materials plays the biggest impact. I actually had an email conversation with a potential client yesterday, and she just can’t wrap her head around the fact—she says, “I’m sorry, but every time I start doing research on healthier building materials, it seems like my prices are going up.” And I said, “Well, what are they going up from?” What I mean by that is then let’s take paint for instance. Again, I know paint the best. If you’re choosing a gallon of paint that is considered low-cost paint, you put it on the wall, it looks fine. But in six months, the paint starts to dust and shock chalk off the wall, starts to lose its color, lose its luster. You can’t wash it cause it’ll wash right off the wall. This is what’s called an architectural grade or commercial grade paint. It’s used extensively in the commercial industry, and the reason why is commercial buildings are typically repainted every three to five years. That’s just the schedule they’re on. Inside of a home, if you ever paint your house, you never want to do it again. It’s not an easy task. You have to move furniture. You have to mask everything. You got to take time off of work, or you hire somebody and you spend gobs of money but they do quality work. The fact is that most homeowners never want to repaint walls, or they don’t want to do it any more often than every 20 years. So premium grade residential paint is far superior in durability, longevity, and color retention than any commercial architectural grade paint out there. When you call a contractor to give you a price on a home, you’re calling three contractors. Most often, these paint contractors are going to be bidding on paint that’s at a very low price point because they just want to get the job. And most homeowners, let’s be honest, don’t have extensive knowledge of paint. I wouldn’t expect them to. People don’t call up and say I want this quality. This is the product I want. They just say, can you give me a price to paint my house? They’ll give them a price and there it is. 60% to 80% of the price that they get from the contractor will actually be labor and overhead, and a very smaller percentage of 20% to 40% is actually the material itself. If you double the cost of material, you don’t double the cost of the project.  When people compare pricing and they say it’s so expensive to buy healthy paint, the difference is when you buy healthy materials, 9 times out of 10 you’re also buying higher quality materials, longer-lasting materials because we’ve taken that into the equation. This is why we sell it because you’re not going to have to repaint in 20 years unless you get sick of the color. So when you say this really price-conscious paint is $30 a gallon and your toxin-free, human-friendly paint is $60 a gallon, but ours lasts four to five times longer. And it’s free of toxins, it just so happens to be. So you’re not paying the extra because it’s healthy, you’re paying the extra because it’s better quality. So now let’s look at an entire home. Use that mentality for an entire home.  If you were to build a home-based upon big-box deals and lumber yard seconds, you can build a home for $120 bucks a square foot. If you’re going to build a home that you want to be your life-ending home, and you want to be able to resell this home and not lose value because of the quality, you want it to improve value. You might spend $180 to $250 dollars a square foot because it’s better quality. It’s lasting longer, and you can see it. You can feel it in the home. So it has nothing to do with the health component, the pricing. It has to do with quality.   [01:21:13] Ashley James: So, if someone could have a budget and build their home, I mean they don’t need the granite countertops, they don’t need the brass light fixtures. If they have a budget in mind and their sole purpose is we want a non-toxic home, but I like that you say let’s look at investing a bit more if you can. Let’s look at what lasts 50 years versus 20 versus 5. If you’re doing this, you’re hopefully building your forever home. Now, what about people because it’s less likely that everyone’s listening is going to build their home, although that is my dream. That’s my win the lottery; I’m calling you tomorrow. But if someone’s remodeling, and especially again, I hate to bring up the fact that so many people are homebound these days and may continue to be. Major companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have said that they’re thinking everyone’s going to be basically working from home for the next year. And then who knows with the schools, but many kids are homeschooling or long-distance learning. So the whole family is at home—not everyone, but a lot of us—and you’re looking around going, man, I really wish I had a better floor. I know I’m looking at my carpet wishing I could replace it right now. And if I did, I’d replace it with something that was non-toxic, of course. So there are certain things that people want to fix up around the house, maybe even just choosing a caulking, looking at their bathtub going, wow, I really need to re-caulk this bathroom before some mold comes in. Or I want to repaint a certain area. Maybe a little do-it-yourself home project. Where would they go to get some resources? Your website is great. The greendesigncenter.com has great information, but could someone hire you to consult them on small projects as well around the house?   [01:23:11] Andy Pace: Interestingly enough, I think most of my day is spent on consulting calls with customers all over the world who just have a few quick questions. Unlike a lot of consultants that are hired only for projects, I spend most of my day on 15-minute phone calls. You have a couple of questions that somebody says listen, we’re looking at getting a new heating and ventilating system for our house. Can you just give me a few things to look for? Or we’ve got a contractor here and they’re helping us fix the deck outside. What should we look for a finish or for construction adhesive and so forth? I would love to have our website be a 100% effective educational tool for all of these things, but the fact of the matter is that it’s impossible. It’s impossible to be able to service everyone just with the information online because everybody’s projects are so different. They all have their own little quirks and issues to deal with, and the only way that I can help is with that conversation. We talk it through, we figure it out. I’ve got a wonderful client in Hawaii that will hire me every couple of weeks for between 15 minutes and an hour. He himself was a commercial developer for years. He’s retired now, but he said to me last time after working with him for about two years, he goes, “You know Andy, I’ve worked with a lot of consultants in my career. You’re the only one I can actually have a conversation with and you get it. You understand it.” I come from the building industry, but I’m so used to working with people who have little issues that just need to be fixed. Whether I sell the product or not is kind of irrelevant when I’m being hired as a consultant because I just want you to get the best help that you can. If there is another company that I know of in your area that can provide the services or the materials that you need, I’m going to point you in that direction because ultimately, you’ve got to get this taken care of quickly. The first customer that I can remember who I really, really went to school with, I’ll say, is a client in Northern Illinois back in ’95. She called me up and she said that she’s been living in one room of her home coated in aluminum foil for the last two years.   [01:26:06] Ashley James: I believe it.   [01:26:09] Andy Pace: I mean, you talk about the person you were speaking of who lives in an aluminum box. This is essentially what they did. There’s a product out there called Dennyfoil. It’s essentially an industrial aluminum foil that we use to cover things that are off-gassing. When nothing else works, this does. It’s ugly, it’s metallic, it’s shiny and slippery, but it works. When people have no other thing that they can do, this is what they do. She lived in that room for two to three years. For the last six months, her husband was remodeling the house and I was helping her husband choose materials and so forth. She was able to move into that house. Every once in a while, I still get a card or a letter from her just to say thank you. I’m in business to sell materials and to sell my services, yes. But I can’t tell you what it’s like to have customers who call or email and say you saved my life. I’m not a physician. No, I don’t save people’s lives. I don’t think so. But there are people who have such extreme health issues they’re just looking for somebody to believe them, number one. Because let’s face it, a lot of these folks have been trying to go to their regular doctors and they’re basically being told they’re crazy because no, that can’t happen. You can’t be allergic to chemicals, so on and so forth. But they find somebody who understands it, has been there before. I myself have some sensitivities. I know what it’s like. And then we have customers now that we have helped like the Sternagels who can live in a house that is safe for them and their family. I mean, it makes it for me getting up every morning and going to work, it’s remarkable and really indescribable.   [01:28:24] Ashley James: I love it. When they say you’ve saved my life, you’ve saved the quality of their life.   [01:28:30] Andy Pace: Yes.   [01:28:31] Ashley James: I mean, they certainly might have died sooner. I mean, we’re all eventually not going to be here in this body. Eventually, we all move on, and it is really about the quality of life that we can create. Having true health means being symptom-free and having a long healthy life that is as symptom-free as possible, as long as possible. I love hearing about 100-year-olds that run marathons. That’s the kind of 100-year-old I want to be. I don’t want to be the 100-year-old that’s suffering in tremendous pain. I want to be 100-year-old running marathons and gardening. I want to die when I’m 120. The life I live now is what is going to determine the quality of my life later, barring any accidents. That’s what we need to think about when we invest in the health of our home. That that all these materials that come into our life, our food, everything we intake, everything we breathe in, everything we apply to our skin, everything we ingest, it all plays a role in whether we’re going to live that long, healthy, symptom-free life or whether we’re going to suffer now or suffer later. In holistic medicine, Naturopathy, they look at what they call the Vis or the constitution. And there are two types of constitutions that people have, and you would know both of them because everyone has a friend in their life who has a very weak constitution. The weather changes and they’re bedridden or something. Maybe they eat a little bit of sugar, drink too much wine or too much coffee late at night, and the next day they’re wrecked. They just have a very weak constitution. Those people typically take better care of themselves than the ones like me who have a strong constitution. I can plow through anything. The iron stomach, I can handle anything. We typically don’t slow down to take care of ourselves until we pass out. I’m imagining the three construction workers, three strapping young men who are standing there in that meeting probably feeling woozy all day not telling you until they completely pass out. They probably had symptoms, but they didn’t listen to those symptoms because it’s not manly to go, I have a slight headache or I feel a little weak. Maybe I need to sit down, and then they pass out. That’s the strong constitution. And in Naturopathic medicine, the ones who have a weak constitution actually typically live longer healthier lives, believe it or not, because they slow down to take care of themselves and listen to their body. It’s the people like me who had to wait for the cosmic 2X4 to hit me over the head before I went, oh I guess I should take care of myself. So the ones with the strong constitutions, I’m speaking to you guys, even though we’re not affected necessarily by all the things that are off-gassing—although I hate the smell of acetone. My body goes ew, but I don’t get a migraine from it. I know other people do. Okay, my liver is processing it. I don’t want to over toxify my liver. My liver is doing a lot of good for me right now. But it doesn’t put me down and out to have acetone in my environment. Whereas other people, like the woman you mentioned who had to live for three years with aluminum foil around her, would be put down and out if she was inhaling acetone.   [01:32:10] Andy Pace: Without a doubt.   [01:32:12] Ashley James: Right. So those who are very quick to have symptoms typically will take better care of themselves, and hopefully though, they don’t go to the first drug available because that just masks symptoms. It doesn’t actually get to the root cause. And those of us who have strong constitutions who are like I could live in any home, I don’t care. Well, not everyone in the immediate family that’s going to be living in that home has a strong constitution. The husband might be strong, but the wife is always suffering or vice versa. So that’s one reason to really focus on having a healthy home instead of just toughing through it. And then understanding that those of us who tough through it will suffer later because eventually, the body will break.   [01:33:01] Andy Pace: I love the way you describe this because it helps to talk about the fact that everybody is different. The example I use with customers is everybody is born with a drum inside of their body, that all the chemicals and pollutants that we are exposed to on a daily basis, they all filter into this drum and then there’s a spigot on the bottom of that drum that filters it out of the body. Well, sometimes that drum gets filled up faster than others. Some people’s drums aren’t as big. Once that drum fills up and it’s actually filling up faster than it’s draining out, it starts to spill over the top. That’s what chemical sensitivity is. It’s the fact that the body says no more, I can’t do it. There are three main ways that a person becomes chemically sensitive. One is massive exposure. This is where you hear of somebody who is exposed to a massive chemical. You said about the person you were talking about earlier, massive exposure because of new construction. And there’s probably some chemical—formaldehyde-based—that caused that exposure. I’ll give you a good example of that. When the EPA built its own headquarters in Washington DC 30 years ago.   [01:34:37] Ashley James: Oh my god, I’m just imagining the disaster. Okay, go on.   [01:34:41] Andy Pace: So the EPA built its new headquarters, and within the first two weeks, I believe it was 1200 people who worked in that building had to go home because of getting sick. It turns out it was the carpet and the carpet adhesive that was causing everybody to get sick. To this day, 30 years later, there are over 100 people who are still on permanent disability.   [01:35:12] Ashley James: No. This is such a great example. So many people blindly trust that the EPA is out for our best interest. They wouldn’t approve a chemical in our environment that would harm us, but they themselves were poisoned by their own building materials that they were supposed to approve.   [01:35:36] Andy Pace: Correct. That’s because of just what they’re looking for. They’re not looking for human health issues. That’s an example of massive exposure. Or another example would be legionnaires disease. When you have these legionnaires in Philadelphia who are massively exposed to this bacteria. The second way that people become chemical sensitive is typically a high-impact medical procedure—car accidents resulting in surgery, childbirth changes the chemistry and electrical impulses in a person’s body. It’s something to do with a health-related issue that changes the chemistry in the body. So you hear this all the time that somebody just has a medical procedure and all of a sudden they get rashes every time they use a certain type of soap. It just changes the chemistry of the body.   [01:36:44] Ashley James: Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Joel Wallach—who’s one of my mentors, I’ve had him on the show a few times. He’s been my mentor for the last 10 years. 80-year-old Naturopathic physician who’s also a research scientist, a pathologist, a veterinarian, and has a degree in soil agriculture is really interesting. He would say that when we go through major health events, the body becomes depleted of certain nutrients.  For example, selenium is a trace mineral that the liver needs in order to recycle glutathione, and the body also needs in order to protect the thyroid. When we go through major issues like childbirth, an infection, or surgery, and if we’re not getting enough of that in our food, which so much of our food is depleted in certain minerals, then the body becomes more depleted. Then the liver cannot process toxins in the same way it used to because it’s just deficient. He often says if people all of a sudden have these chemical sensitivities after some kind of health event, that we have to look at nutrient deficiencies that were exacerbated by these life events. Well, you mentioned legionnaires. For those who don’t know anything about that, can you fill us in?   [01:38:01] Andy Pace: A little bit. Legionnaire’s disease is essentially a bacterial infection that was caused by legionella—I shouldn’t say bacterial infection. It was actually a mold that was growing in the HVAC system of a large convention center. These people, these conference-goers, these American legion, the legionnaires—where this kind of came from—were getting sick. And after much research, I realized that this is what caused it. It was mold in the HVAC system in a stagnant drip pan that was not cleaned out properly.   [01:38:57] Ashley James: And so they end up having lifelong issues and exposure. So anytime they’re exposed to other toxins—that’s something that a lot of people don’t know is that when you’re exposed to mold, mold could actually live in your bloodstream and mold can continue to cause toxins for years to come inside your body. Just like a parasite would continue to grow or bacteria or yeast. It’s similar to that, and there are certain foods, herbs, and supplements we can take to mitigate that and help the body rid it. But that’s like that barrel that you mentioned. I interviewed Dr. Stephen Cabral who wrote a book, The Rain Barrel Effect, and it’s almost the exact same thing that you said. Our barrel gets full, and we’ve got the spigot at the bottom. The spigot is like how healthy are your kidneys, how healthy is your liver, how healthy is your emunctory system to remove the toxins, and how much is coming in on the top. And then eventually, when it overflows, we’ve got these weird symptoms like someone will have migraines, someone will have rashes, someone will have digestive issues, and someone will just be exhausted all the time or be in pain all the time.   [01:40:19] Andy Pace: That’s what comes in the third way that people become chemically sensitive and it’s the most common—low-level exposure over a long period of time. And again, it’s just that barrel fills up. Maybe it’s when you’re 30 years old, 20 years old, or 80 years old, and at some point, the barrel fills up. What I see—and I’m not an MD nor am I a chemist, but years of experience showed me that when your barrel fills up, it’s typically something that is petrochemically related to what caused the spill that will cause the next symptom or the next reaction.   [01:41:09] Ashley James: Can you explain that?   [01:41:10] Andy Pace: And in our experience, formaldehyde is that key trigger. Formaldehyde is found in so many products around our home.   [01:41:20] Ashley James: Give us some examples.   [01:41:22] Andy Pace: Well, the best example I can give you is a carpet. Not to scare anybody.   [01:41:28] Ashley James: My bare feet are on the carpet right now. I’m kind of freaking out.   [01:41:31] Andy Pace: Okay. I will warn you that I have been told by some people that I scare them once in a while, but I don’t try to.   [01:41:43] Ashley James: I think every guest scares us a little. The thing is, we don’t want to be the ostrich with our head in the sand because that’s how we end up with long-term exposure, to begin with. And you’re not the total bearer of bad news because you’re giving us some resources to fix it. But okay, here we have formaldehyde and carpet. Is it all carpet or only some carpet? And does it eventually all off-gas, or is 50-year-old carpet, 20-year-old carpets, or 10-year-old carpets still have it?   [01:42:12] Andy Pace: So if someone were to ask me what’s the one thing I can do in my house today to make it healthier, I will always say remove the carpet. I’d rather have you live on a plywood subfloor until you can afford new flooring material. Now, I know nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to walk around their house barefoot on plywood. I understand the logistics of what I’m saying, but I say this because—and barring a couple of shining examples of some healthy materials that are out there.  A company called Nature’s Carpet from Canada, another one called Earth Weave from here in the US. They do make a synthetic chemical-free carpet that my most sensitive clients can actually use. But their materials—in the grand scheme of things—are used in 1/100 of 1% of homes in the United States, if that. So that’s why I say removing the carpet and here’s why.  There was a researcher chemist years ago named Rosalind Anderson. She did an amazing study on the effects of carpet and the effect of a shaft of light coming through a window and heating up a space of carpet. Because back when she was doing these tests she was using lab rats, she found that carpeting as old as 20 years old would still off-gas enough to literally kill laboratory rats.   [01:44:07] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. And just think anyone’s cat loves to go lie in the sun on the carpet.   [01:44:15] Andy Pace: Yes. So you mentioned before when you were talking about how this also affects animals, that’s exactly what I’m thinking of. How do I wrap a bow around this? Several years ago, I was introduced to a testing system that actually AFM used for their paints and coatings to prove the effectiveness of their materials. There was a very well-known scientist in Japan, Dr. Nagasawa, and he created a method to determine the emissivity of formaldehyde off-gassing from a fixed surface. I’m trying to explain this as easy as possible.   [01:45:11] Ashley James: I mean, by all means. If you want to get a little technical or get into the science, we’re all for it. You don’t need to dumb stuff down for us. My listeners are super smart.   [01:45:21] Andy Pace: I’m sure they are and so allow me to geek out a little bit.   [01:45:25] Ashley James: Yeah, please do. Let’s geek out. All right, let’s do it.   [01:45:28] Andy Pace: This is what makes me happy. So if you’re a building biologist or an indoor air quality scientist, you walk into a space, you’ve got a handheld monitor, and it tells you that you have elevated VOCs and elevated formaldehyde. You might even do an air capture test where you’re absorbing air into a tube and you’re actually looking in a lab either with a spectrophotometer or the types of devices to read what the chemical compound is in the air. So a customer calls and says I’ve done these really, really intense tests and I found that I’ve got a formaldehyde problem in my house. Where’s it coming from? Well, AFM years ago started working with Dr. Nagasawa and found that he used the system to actually determine what in the house was releasing formaldehyde. We can all guess it’s from the carpet, maybe from paint that’s still off-casting, maybe from cabinetry, or this or that. But when you are trying to remediate something inside of your home and you’ve got a formaldehyde problem, you’re literally throwing darts at what you think can be the problem. I mean I had a situation a few years ago where a client of mine called up and said, “All right, we’ve had two air quality scientists in our house. They tell us we’ve got elevated formaldehyde. The whole family is sick. And what we’ve determined and what they’ve determined is well it’s this we put in new prefinished hardwood flooring in our house. They have all said we’ve got to remove it and replace it with something else. So I’m calling you to verify that and can we get a flooring material that’s not going to off-gas formaldehyde?” I said, “Yes, you can get a foreign material that’s not going to off-gas, but let’s just make sure it’s not something else.” Well, I drove up to Minneapolis, and I actually had what’s called a FRAT system—formaldehyde release attenuation test. We import it from Korea. We’re the only company in North America that uses this test. I use the FRAT system in her house, little sensors I placed all over the place to prove that it was the flooring material that was causing the formaldehyde off-gassing. After a half-hour, and I took those sample collectors from all over the house all over the floor, found that the newest new flooring material released zero formaldehyde. But yet they had ultra-high levels of formaldehyde in the house. So I started thinking to myself, well, what else in the space could be releasing formaldehyde at that level? I checked cabinetry. I checked the painted walls. I checked the furniture. I even put a sensor on a return on an outlet thinking that maybe I’d get some off-gassing from the insulation in the wall that would come out through the outlet and maybe we’d prove it’s that. After about two hours of testing, it dawned on me, what’s the only other thing in the house that was new that could cause this type of off-gassing? Again, this is a 5,000 square foot home, $50,000 or $60,000 dollars worth of new hardwood flooring, but every room had an area rug. I tested every area rug to find that the formaldehyde off-gassing from the area rugs was well over the toxic limit. We’re looking at between 300 and 500 parts per billion of formaldehyde coming just from each area rug in the house, and every room has at least one or two.   [01:49:32] Ashley James: I mean, okay, so it’s a hardwood floor but it’s a huge house—sounds really fancy. But these area rugs, are you talking about the kind you could just pick up at Ikea?   [01:49:42] Andy Pace: Sure. Once you find an Ikea, Target, or the ones you buy online for thousands of dollars, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that formaldehyde is used in the chemical dyes, formaldehyde is used as antimicrobials and flame retardants in the backing.   [01:49:59] Ashley James: So even if you get one of those really expensive Persian rugs, they still have the formaldehyde off-gassing?   [01:50:04] Andy Pace: There can. It may be less because there’s no backing to a Persian rug, but there are dyes used. This is what got me on the whole carpet kick. I mean really got me on the carpet kick. It taught me two things. Number one, for the cost of the testing, I improved this family’s life instantly. It’s a six-hour drive from where I live to Minneapolis. So I drove home, and by the time I got home, there’s an email from my customers saying everybody is starting to feel better already. All they did was remove the area rugs and put them in the garage. They were actually talking about either replacing the material or actually building a new home because they didn’t know what to do.   [01:50:56] Ashley James: What did they do with the area rugs? Did they throw them out? I mean, you don’t want to donate them. Were they waiting for them to off-gas?   [01:51:03] Andy Pace: That’s a dilemma. I mean, that’s one of those environmental sustainability dilemmas. You don’t want to throw it out to add to a landfill. You don’t want to donate them because it’s dangerous. Again, it’s not always dangerous to everybody because they don’t have as small of a bucket as they had. So I’m not exactly sure what they ended up doing with them. I do know that they replaced them with healthier area rugs and it made a difference. So formaldehyde we know is a big, big trigger, and that’s why we use this FRAT system now to help test homes. I have clients around the world sending me samples of what they want to install, and we’re going to test it first. So let me get back to Dr. Rosalyn Anderson who is doing the testing of this carpet. It got me testing carpet in homes like regular wall-to-wall carpet, and people would hire me to test 30-year-old carpet. I’d find that 30-year-old carpet still off-gases toxic levels of formaldehyde.   [01:52:04] Ashley James: Does this test heat it up? I’m sorry to interrupt. Does this test heat up the carpet, or is it just testing it at the same temperature like 70 degrees?   [01:52:12] Andy Pace: Pacificity at room temperature. I’ve done some elevated heat tests just to show the difference. But when I test carpet in somebody’s home, I always test it at the temperature that they’re going to keep it at.   [01:52:28] Ashley James: You might be coming in the fall and their windows are open and it’s 67 degrees and they like it. But in the wintertime, maybe they crank up the heat.   [01:52:41] Andy Pace: About a 10- to 15-degree variance doesn’t do much. Do you know what I found that does more? Humidity. Now, this is where it starts to really get into the wonky building science stuff. I am finding that most people’s homes and the health of the occupants are just as affected by the elevated humidity or elevated moisture than they are from the chemicals themselves. And the reason is when you get humidity in a home or moisture in a home that gets into a surface, as it evaporates out of the surface, it carries with it the chemical footprint of where it was. So chemicals in materials are more apt to become airborne and therefore ingested, inhaled, or absorbed by us if they come off of a surface with the humidity coming from that surface.   [01:53:42] Ashley James: That makes total sense because so much of the body is water and humidity allows for toxins to travel farther and also get absorbed by the body more readily. That makes sense. So if someone’s living in the desert, the formaldehyde coming off of their carpet is less, or the body’s ability to absorb it is less?   [01:54:08] Andy Pace: It comes down to the individual, but I find that the body’s ability to absorb chemicals—there’s just more chemicals available in the air when you have higher humidity.   [01:54:30] Ashley James: Okay. So that’s good to know.   [01:54:35] Andy Pace: This is where this subject becomes there’s no right or wrong, there’s just more information. The more information we get the better. When a customer says they’re having a problem in their home, I’ll ask them, have you done an air test? Do you know what the humidity level is? Do you like to open up the windows? And they’ll say, “Yeah, we painted today and we opened up the windows.” Well, that brought in more humidity. There are so many things that could cause, which is why this is just not an exact science yet, and we really have to take each customer individually.   [01:55:11] Ashley James: Right. We got off track, but you’re telling a story of using this special machine and you’re using it on carpets. You’re finding formaldehyde, which is only one of many things that off-gases from most carpets.   [01:55:34] Andy Pace: Correct. There are many things that come off of carpets, but we always look for formaldehyde as the one thing that we can not only test for but we can control.   [01:55:46] Ashley James: Now I interviewed Dr. Ben Lynch, it’s episode 225, and he wrote a book called Dirty Genes. I highly recommend that book, and he mentioned some simple things that we can do in our lifestyle right now to reduce toxic overload. But one thing he said, which just floored me because I’ve always cooked with gas, very seldom have I used an electric stove. I’ve opted for homes, apartments, condos, or whatever that has gas. I’m a foodie, I love cooking healthy food, but gas for me is so much fun to cook with versus an electric stove or induction stove. He says if you cook with gas, you absolutely 100% of the time have to have the ventilation on, the hood on, and there are even homes and I’m surprised I’ve met two friends who have gas stoves and have zero ventilation, zero hood. That surprised me, but what he said was if you’re using natural gas, you are breathing in formaldehyde because formaldehyde is in natural gas. I don’t know if it’s just in it or they add it to it. But it is in natural gas to the point where if you don’t ventilate, you’re breathing in more formaldehyde. What he said was—and I’m trying to remember, he obviously can say it in more scientific terms, but it essentially causes an epigenetic shift in our gene expression in the ability for our liver to handle toxins. So it shuts down or suppresses our ability to handle toxins, which then is going to make it worse.   [01:57:18] Andy Pace: It overloads the system, and that’s the thing. Now, the flip side of that is you start cooking using electricity and now you have to be concerned about electromagnetic fields. So this is where with our clients I’ll have to say, there is no perfect solution for everybody. There’s no one thing that helps everybody. So Ben is right in saying that if you’re cooking with gas, it has to be well ventilated, and I’ll take that one step further. If you’re going to use a gas range top or stove, you better make sure it’s the absolute best quality unit you can afford because as the quality level goes up—and this is why I always recommend using Wolf, Viking, or Thermador. I know they’re very expensive, but when you get to the more expensive units, they have sealed burners. So yes, when you’re cooking you have to have the vent on. But what if you’re not cooking? What if the unit is just sitting there being unused? The lesser quality systems will actually leak little bits of gas out of each burner. I own a natural gas detector, and I go around to some people’s homes. It’s like oh my gosh, this is a toxic level of gas that’s coming out. And beyond that, even with the expensive units, you have to be concerned about the connections of the gas pipe itself. Making sure that was done properly and you inspect it every couple of years to make sure it’s not leaking. Because that’s where you’re going to get natural gas leaking in your home passively without you even using the stove. Nobody is going to run their exhaust hood 24/7 in case that happens. We only run it when we’re using the stove. So be mindful of the quality. If you know somebody with a meter or buy one yourself and just check it. I use it around the house all the time to make sure that my furnace isn’t leaking, my hot water heater isn’t leaking. I’ve used it in commercial buildings. I mean it’s just an invaluable tool.   [01:59:41] Ashley James: That is so fascinating. What other things are really common that is mind-blowing that people don’t know about?   [01:59:52] Andy Pace: So inside of a home, when it comes to chemical toxicity or chemical off-gassing, 90% of what you can experience in that indoor air quality is going to be because of things you can see and touch. Floors are number one. Floors are always the first thing we look for, and obviously, you know how I feel about carpet, but floors, in general, can be the biggest offender in a home. Second thing, walls and ceilings. All of your painted, wallpapered, or finished surfaces. The third thing would be cabinetry and woodwork. The last thing would be your own furnishings and finishes. Your window treatments, your furniture, your clothing, and things like that. Those four things cover 90% of the potential toxins in your home. Insulation behind the walls, sheathing, roofing materials, additives in concrete—things like that only constitutes up to 10% of the toxicity. The problem is that when you’re remodeling a home, you typically don’t get involved in testing or fixing those things. You typically only have one chance to choose the right materials for those applications, and that’s during new construction. So if you’re living in an apartment, if you’re living in a home that you just want to help and you can’t do anything structural, and I’m not saying throw out your furniture, throw out this, throw out that. When it comes time to buy something new, then let’s try to choose things that are organically sourced materials that are actually being sold as being free of health hazards and toxins.  You can’t really replace your cabinetry when you’re renting, but you can improve the indoor air quality by maybe getting a portable air purifier. Keep in mind that the bedroom in anybody’s residence, home apartment, it doesn’t matter. If you own, you rent, the bedroom is the sanctuary, it should be. This is where we spend, hopefully, six to eight hours a night and the body regenerates itself. You have to be in a pristine environment in order for the body to do its best work. Make sure that is the healthiest room.   [02:02:45] Ashley James: I have an Austin air filter and we got it a few years ago. My son has had some issues with asthma, which we finally figured out was related to some allergies, which no one in our family has these allergies so we’re like what’s going on. But sometimes kids will grow out of them. It has allowed us to dive into this world of looking to clean up the air quality even better.  A few years ago—I think it was about three years ago—there were some really bad forest fires in BC, in Washington, and the whole western seaboard was basically on fire a few years ago, as it was this last year. Back then we didn’t have an air filter. I wasn’t even thinking about it. We had all the windows open, and it was kind of really hot. I think it was maybe August or September. It was so hot out that we had a box fan blowing cool air into the bedroom. Of course, it was blowing all the smoke into the bedroom, and I wasn’t really thinking about it because there weren’t any forest fires near us. But the air quality was so poor that it damaged our lungs. All of us ended up, within a month or two, with bronchitis. I talked to my Naturopath who said that pretty much all of her clients that didn’t have an air filter ended up with some form of bronchitis or pneumonia, and that’s what led me to look into this. I kind of was like hitting myself because I’m so into health, how could this have been in my blind spot? But this is how we learn. After research and talking to a lot of holistic doctors, I ended up getting an Austin air filter. It is an investment, it’s between $600 and $800, depending on the unit you get. I decided to get the one that removes mold and viruses. I mean really tiny particles, and we have loved it. When we walk into the bedroom, it actually smells like a forest. The air changes when we walk in. It’s very interesting, and I don’t particularly feel like I live in a toxic home, but that air filter we run in the bedroom, and it really does change the feeling of the air, the smell of the air—just the quality overall. We run it all night long, and now I don’t even want to sleep without it on. I just love it.   [02:05:11] Andy Pace: That’s my personal favorite brand too. As a matter of fact, you speak of the fires that were happening a couple of years ago. I had a customer of ours living in Northern California that actually went around to all of her neighbors in her subdivision because she bought one from us, loved it so much she went to every neighbor in her subdivision and said if you want to improve the air quality of your home instantly, you need one of these. She organized the purchase of two pallets, two full shipping pallets of Austin airs to be shipped to her house so she could get them to all the neighbors.   [02:05:51] Ashley James: I just love her. The big one, the one that I got that’s like the big bedroom unit does 1500 square feet. When there is bad air quality from the fires, we move it out into the living room, which is kind of the grand room and it very quickly recycles or cleans out all the air pretty much in all the major living spaces in the house.  Don’t cheap out and get the small one because you can move it around. It’s on wheels and you can move it around different parts of the home. If you’re hanging out in the kitchen, living room, dining room area during the day, just have it running there. I’ve moved it into the office before. It’s a little overkill in a 200 square foot office, but better than getting the smaller unit and then regretting not being able to clean out the whole house.   [02:06:43] Andy Pace: Right, and the larger units just do it quicker also in those smaller rooms. That’s the only limitation of a portable is that it can only really purify the air in the space that it’s in. Because we sell the Austins and we’ve been very happy with that, but we have a lot of situations where customers are looking for a whole-house solution. They have kids in different bedrooms and people in different areas of the home. There are whole-house solutions as well, but tell you what, Austin has the highest amount of carbon in their units of any other system we’ve used before. They’re just highly effective, they work. They might be a little noisy for some people. I’m used to it.   [02:07:29] Ashley James: I like the sound. I don’t know. It doesn’t make a squeaking noise or any kind of high-pitched noise. It’s just a nice whooshing sound. It’s air moving, and I got used to it really fast and actually enjoyed the sound. We put it on medium when we’re sleeping, but when I first go into the bedroom, I’ll turn it on high and let it do its thing. And then I put it on medium and I find that that speed for me is great. I don’t like the sound of the low speed. I resonate with the medium speed sound. It’s not annoying at all for me. I do know some people who are like I can’t sleep with any sound on. And then for me, I’m like, okay, well then have it run on high for a few hours before you go to bed and then turn it off, or just try to get used to it.   [02:08:14] Andy Pace: yeah I turn it on high when I leave for the office, and I turn it on medium or low when I get home.   [02:08:19] Ashley James: That’s a good idea. And these filters last forever. They’re four or five years before you have to replace it. It’s not like something you have to replace every few months like the filters in your furnace. I was thinking, you have been in this business for so long, having been connected to so many people around the world, is there a country that’s doing it right? Is there a country that you can say like Finland? Is there just a country without a doubt, across the board, has healthier homes?   [02:08:51] Andy Pace: This is going to be an interesting conversation I think because I used to hear this all the time from people. I wish we did things like they did in Europe. Well, you have to remember that here in North America, the way we build homes is based upon what we have the most access to. In Europe, the way they build homes is what they have the most access to. It just so happens that here in North America, we are plentiful with hardwood. So homes since the 1600s have been built using a lot of wood. The problem is there are not a lot of homes that remain from the 1600s because wood is a natural material that eventually breaks down. It eventually absorbs water, warps, and molds, and cracks and is subject to weathering. When I was in Italy many years ago, the villa that I stayed in was built in the 1400s. And it still operates today as a hotel 600 years later. The Colosseum built 2,000 years ago still stands. Why is this? And that’s because they use a lot of stone, a lot of concrete because that’s what’s plentiful there. Now, of course, they’ve adapted to the marketplace, and they’ve started using wood for a lot of construction. But you got to remember that they still have that mindset of using materials that last a long time.  Homes in Sicily when I was there on that same trip, they’re not designed to be the latest fashion and the latest color and craze. They’re designed to last because they pass them along to the next generation. Carpet, this is a good example of here, in the United States, we use a lot of carpets. In Europe, they don’t use a lot of carpets. If they have carpet in their house, it’s typically a wool rug, and it’s typically a wool rug that they can roll up and take with them if they ever move because wool lasts 80 years. Whereas the plastic and synthetic carpets that we use here are designed to last 7 to 20 years at maximum because we typically either move or we get bored with what we have and we want to change it to make it look different. It’s the mindset of that. They’re not as concerned about trends, fashions, and comfort per se. They’re more concerned about cost, longevity, and passing along to the next generation. So I guess I’d say Europe has a lot of things on us. Older countries than the United States, the United States is so young. We’re only a few hundred years old. When you take an airplane from New York to Los Angeles and you notice that 99% of what you fly over is greenery and not homes, they’re not people, you’re flying over unhabituated space. When you go to Europe and you say well Italy’s got 50 some million people living in it, and it’s the size of the state of Wisconsin. We’ve got 5 ½ million people. It’s that there are more people there. They’ve been around longer there. They’ve learned to live within their environment. So that’s just the way it’s done. There are a lot of countries that still don’t do things like refrigeration for foods because they can’t afford it or they don’t have a good electrical grid. They buy the food that they prepare for the day, and whatever’s left they don’t save for tomorrow, they usually give it to the farm animals. That’s done. Tomorrow we’ll buy food for tomorrow. And so that’s the mindset they have. They do a lot of recycling because they have to, they don’t have a choice. Now, I wish there are things that they would do that were better. I think the rest of the world does a very, very poor job in recycling specifically plastics. I think the United States leads the world in recycling, and the reason is because we’ve figured out a way to monetize it and make it worth everybody’s while. So there are things that we are doing here. I think from a health aspect, we’re doing some things that are better than what’s done in Europe. But I just think that they have that mindset of longer-lasting and therefore they look at things a little bit differently.   [02:14:20] Ashley James: Only coming from the standpoint of a healthy home, and I love that explanation because it’s true. It’s based on the history of the culture, it’s based on the materials that are readily available. But in terms of only looking through the lens of a healthier home or the healthiest homes, is there a country out there that is standing above the rest who has better regulations? Who their version of the EPA is actually doing their job, or they don’t allow for formaldehyde in their carpets? Is there any country that’s just really standing above the rest?   [02:15:04] Andy Pace: I think that there are a number of European countries that are doing some things that in my eyes just really stick out just from a common-sense standpoint. And I’ll be fair, there are some states here in the US that are also doing that. There are some states now where it’s building code you have to put in a heat recovery ventilator to bring in the fresh air. Because as we talked about a little while ago in our discussion, new homes are being built so tight that we’re not getting those natural air flows into the home, natural fresh air because it’s against the building science to have energy leaks. Well, the state of Minnesota several years ago adopted into their building code that you have to have an air exchange system for new construction to bring in the fresh air because they recognize that these homes are being built so energy tight, so efficient that people aren’t getting enough fresh air so I think that’s happening.   [02:16:14] Ashley James: Right. Especially if someone has a few fireplaces going, they’re really burning through their oxygen.   [02:16:21] Andy Pace: It sucks all the oxygen out of the house, right?   [02:16:23] Ashley James: Yeah, scary.   [02:16:24] Andy Pace: Now, I worked with an automobile manufacturer many years ago—BMW out of Germany. At the time,  ng this is when they just started manufacturing cars here in the US. One of their material vendors in Michigan was supplying a plywood component for their SUVs. So when you open up the back hatch there’s a flat panel and you lift up that panel, that’s where the spare tire was. Well, that flat panel was being made from plywood. It was Malaysian plywood that they were bringing into the states, and they were putting carpet on one side and paint on the underside. Well, the SUVs for BMW were only being made in the United States, they weren’t making these in Germany. So they had to export essentially the SUV to Germany to be sold for the German market. The German government wouldn’t allow this SUV to be sold in Germany because the plywood was releasing formaldehyde.   [02:17:35] Ashley James: Oh my gosh.   [02:17:37] Andy Pace: And in Germany, if you make a car that’s to be sold in the German market, there cannot be formaldehyde in the air, in the cab. So this company had something like $2million dollars’ worth of cut plywood to be installed into the BMW SUV, and it halted production because the German government wouldn’t allow it. Now, we were able to provide them with a couple of AFM coatings to solve that problem, and it met the requirements of zero formaldehyde because the safe coat coatings covered up the off-gassing.   [02:18:13] Ashley James: Now, did they give you a BMW X5 as a gift?   [02:18:19] Andy Pace: I wish. But no, it actually got me on the whole kick of finding manufacturers that utilize healthier processes.   [02:18:27] Ashley James: That’s really cool.   [02:18:28] Andy Pace: I mean, if you’re looking for a healthy vehicle, if you buy a BMW, it’s got to be one that was made in Germany for the German market that they also exported to the US.   [02:18:40] Ashley James: Could it be any German car though? I have a VW, I love it. I love my VW. I’ve had BMWs in the past, I’m not actually a fan of new BMWs anymore. In my opinion, their quality has gone down. We have a 1983 BMW and that thing’s still kicking.   [02:19:01] Andy Pace: Oh yeah, it’s solid.   [02:19:03] Ashley James: It’s solid. My husband just replaced the engine a few years ago, but the newer ones, they’re really only meant to last till the end of the warranty, and you do not want to be out of warranty. We saw that coming. But with the VWs, they’re a lot of fun. They’re really great on gas mileage. I’m very impressed.   [02:19:22] Andy Pace: I’ve owned many VW’s over the years, and I absolutely love them. So yes, German cars—   [02:19:28] Ashley James: Made in Germany for Germans, basically. You got to make sure it’s not made for the US market.   [02:19:35] Andy Pace: That’s it, that’s the thing. And a number of these manufacturers now are starting to make cars in North America, so that changes the dynamics. So you got to look for something that was built in Germany.   [02:19:49] Ashley James: We need to—as a consumer—petition the US government, and for Canadians petition the Canadian government to raise the standards.   [02:20:01] Andy Pace: Yes. This is the problem we get into because of lobbying by the big companies. And again, there is no standard for health. All the standards that are being written—at least what I’ve seen—are based upon VOCs. This whole concept of VOCs is just ubiquitous, it’s everywhere. People use a VOC like oh, I bought this paint, it’s zero VOC. I guess I’m safe. I guess I can paint in my house with the windows closed and no mask on. No, there have been class-action lawsuits against paint manufacturers because of people getting sick because their zero VOC paint is less healthy than their regular stuff. The FTC here in the US has fined many paint companies because their zero VOC paint basically dupes the public. Utilizing a VOC as the one and only metric to determine whether or not a product is safe is dangerous because of everything we talked about before.   [02:21:14] Ashley James: Fascinating. Just because you’ve got a whole list of companies, give me a few more. So like you said, cars built in Germany. Not necessarily just BMW, but all cars built in Germany for Germans. Are there any other countries or major products that you are like yes, this is the one to go with when it comes to buying major, like you said, appliances or major purchases for the home?   [02:21:41] Andy Pace: So like I said before when you’re buying appliances, specifically gas appliances, getting the higher-end materials unfortunately are far more expensive but are less likely to have gas leaks. So that’s going to be things like Wolf, Viking, Thermador. Even the GE Profile, really good brand. These units will have sealed burners. It makes them more efficient for cooking because if it says that a burner is 16,000 BTU, you don’t want a leak that lowers the BTU output. So that’s what you’re paying for. You’re paying for that 16,000 BTU. Again, it’s interesting how everything kind of comes back to this. The quality level of the product also means that it’s a healthier material. So if I’m buying 99¢ a square foot flooring from some big box store, chances are if the average price of similar material—just an average price—is $3 a square foot, and the price of really good material is $5 a square foot, chances are the 99¢ per square foot product is going to be inferior in quality and in health. There are some exceptions. There are always exceptions, but generally speaking, you get what you pay for.   [02:23:14] Ashley James: And those companies have to cut corners.   [02:23:17] Andy Pace: It’s coming from somewhere folks. It’s coming from the cost of manufacturing. Paint, I referred to this before. Paint that’s $20 a gallon is not going to last as long as paint that’s $70 a gallon. And I’m not just talking about AFM safe coat, I’m talking about Benjamin Moore Aura, which is $70 a gallon. Great product. It’s not necessarily considered healthier, but it’s a great long-lasting material. Paints can off-gas anywhere from three and a half years to five years on a wall. Once it’s reached a full cure—coalescing of the film—the material still continues to off-gas, and this is something that I think a lot of people don’t understand. Chemical off-gassing and I referred to this throughout our conversation, is actually the release of unreacted chemical monomers from a cured or a solid-state of a surface. Paint can off-gas for three and a half to five years. Little bits and pieces of some of the components that come off as kind of like dust from a surface. Formaldehyde can off-gas from the carpet. I’ve tested carpet up to 30 years old that still off-gases formaldehyde. Plywood because of the urea-formaldehyde used in the glues. I’ve tested 35-year-old engineered wood that off-gases formaldehyde because we cover it up with other flooring materials and it stops off-gassing because it’s covered up. Open it back up again and remodel, you’re just exposing it to come back out again. So all these things can off-gas for very long periods of time. You may not smell it, you may not know it, you personally may not even sense it, but somebody in the house might. And you combine that with all the other things that are in the home that are off-gassing and it creates this chemical soup. So the average home that’s built today has anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 chemicals in it just from the manufacturing of the home, the building of the home. Formaldehyde is just one of those chemicals. It happens to be the one that’s probably the biggest problem causer, but there are so many other things that come off of the surface. And then you have somebody that walks in the home that has freshly dry cleaned clothes or maybe, God forbid, they smoked a cigarette on the way home. And that adds another 2500 chemicals. You can see where we get inundated with chemicals on a daily basis. There is no perfect way to take care of this, I wish there was. I wish there was the perfect healthy home. I wish there was a perfectly healthy product. So what we try to do as a company, as a consultant is to help lower the exposure. We’re never going to get it, 100% folks, it’s just impossible. But we’re going to try to get it lower. We don’t strive for perfection, we strive for tolerance. Let’s get that overall load lower so maybe it’s not going to fill up that bucket at all in your lifetime. Or at least get to a point where we make the home tolerable. People who have lived in that one room of their home covered in aluminum foil understand they’re not going to get perfection. They want perfection because they’ve lived with this horrible problem for years, but they also understand if I can just make it tolerable, I know that when I leave my home I’m going to get inundated with chemicals from other people. But when I come home at least I’m coming to a healthy sanctuary, and that’s what we strive for.   [02:27:09] Ashley James: I love it. Well, you are such a fantastic resource, and of course, I definitely recommend listeners checking out your podcast so they could continue learning from you. They could give you a call and hire you for a quick consult like a 15-minute or a longer consult if they’re looking at replacing flooring or replacing cabinetry, or if they’re just got some concerns about what’s in their house, or thinking about repainting that kind of stuff. We haven’t even scratched the surface. You have so many years of experience, and you, like me, love to dive in and learn. You have had experience with thousands upon thousands of clients. I’m sure there are areas we didn’t even get to talk about today, but we did cover some really well-rounded things and shed light on more of the common things that people need to know about when it comes to the environment of their home. I like that we touched on cars because we spend a lot of time in our home and a lot of time in our cars. Obviously less time on our cars than our home, but sometimes cars can be a more toxic environment especially in the winter. We’re not cracking open the windows, we’re not breathing in the fresh air, and we can quickly build up the things that are off-gassing—all the flame retardants and stuff that are in our cars in the air. You may not experience any symptoms now, but it is filling your bucket and other family members or pets may be worse off than you and not know it. That’s maybe why some people in your home are more prone to aches and pains, are more prone to headaches, are more prone to being fatigued, or having sleep problems. Very common signs of just the body having to deal with more toxins. To wrap things up, what are some actionable steps that people can take? Should we just open our windows even if it’s the wintertime? You’ve already mentioned getting an Austin air filter. They could actually buy it from you, which is great. Are there any others—I don’t want to say quick fixes, and you did mention getting some handheld device that they can test to make sure their appliances aren’t leaking gas? Is there something they could do today, some actual steps they can take today to start to turn things around in the environment of their home?   [02:29:39] Andy Pace: So a lot of that has to do with their living situation, whether they own or they rent. But the first thing I’ll say is if you are just noticing a general uncomfortableness when you’re in your house, you have flu-like symptoms. I know right now it’s a little difficult because as you say, we’re all spending a lot more time in our homes than ever before, and COVID is running rampant. I myself have had it, and it can give you all those same flu-like symptoms. But if generally speaking, when you come back home to your place of living, if you just don’t feel comfortable—there could be anxiety issues. These are all symptoms of some type of indoor air quality problem. Be it from chemical exposure, mold exposure, or even electromagnetic field exposure. So I recommend getting your air quality tested. There are some pretty inexpensive systems on the market that allow you to test the indoor air quality of your home to at least give you an idea of what we’re dealing with. And then from that, again, carpet is an issue, area rugs can be an issue, but most important is to make your bedroom a healthy sanctuary. At least try to get those six to eight hours a night of really undisturbed healthy time to allow your body to heal. Make sure you’re using cleaning materials that aren’t adding to the chemical toxic soup in your house. Probably the best thing I can say for people who are renting is, as a consumer, at least the things that you bring into your house try to make sure that you are doing your best to eliminate chemical off-gassing. Again, it’s very difficult as a renter because a lot of times you’re buying furniture from the big boxes to fill the space and a lot of times, that furniture is made with formaldehyde laden particle boards and plywoods. But if you can, if the budget allows, find better quality materials. It means usually getting products that are made with solid woods. The side benefit is it’s going to be a healthier piece of furniture. So things like that. Just think about how the product might be made, and maybe, if that means holding off on buying something until you can afford something that is of higher quality, that’s going to help you in the long run.   [02:32:32] Ashley James: I love it. Everyone wants to save money, but when you look at buying furniture the cheaper, the material the quicker the furniture is going to break down, and then you have to replace it more often. My bed, for example, I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of health experts before we settled on the type of mattress we were going to buy. And I am so thankful we did because the mattress we bought, not only is it non-toxic and they really pride themselves on this. They’ll even give you 100% of the whole list of chemicals or building materials that have been used to make this bed, but it’s also designed to make the deepest, most healing restorative sleep. If you’re sleeping on something for eight hours and your face is right against it, you could be breathing in God knows what, and there are so many mattresses that have flame retardants and all that kind of stuff that you could be breathing in. I’m so happy that my bed is one of those that don’t. Just like you said, you make healthy buildings, and this is a healthy bed. It’s an investment, it’s a more expensive mattress. It’s double the price of normal mattresses, but they also have a guarantee that it lasts for 20 years or more. They stand behind that. They’ll replace your mattress if there’s any warping or at all for 20 years. Normally, people will replace mattresses every five years because they warp. The cheaper ones just don’t hold up and they cause health problems like back pain and then you have to go to the chiropractor. Some people just choose to get on medication for pain not realizing that they’re cheaper mattresses they saved money on one end, but it costs them on the other end. It’s better to invest in the furniture and the bed that is going to last for 20 years and also be the healthiest for you, and I like that that goes hand in hand. The quality of your health is often something that’s going to last longer. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been so enlightening, and I know my listeners are going to love following you. Andy Pace, it’s been such a pleasure. Your website is thegreendesigncenter.com, and of course, the links to everything that Andy does is going to be the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. And you’ve got your podcast. Give us the plug again, what’s the name of your podcast?   [02:35:01] Andy Pace: Non Toxic Environments, three words. You’re going to find it on iTunes, of course, and all the major podcast providers.   [02:35:10] Ashley James: Fantastic. And Andy, I want you to come back anytime you have some new exciting information or if there’s a topic which we haven’t explored yet that you think worth teaching us on. Come back, I’d love to have you back.   [02:35:24] Andy Pace: I would absolutely love to. You can tell I love to talk, so that’s not a problem.   [02:35:28] Ashley James: You’re in good company. We love to listen to you. Well, I hope you enjoyed today’s interview with Andy Pace. Wasn’t that amazing, so eye-opening, especially I just love that story about how BMW. They can sell formaldehyde-soaked vehicles to us here in the United States, but they can’t manufacture their own formaldehyde-soaked vehicles and then import them from America into Germany because Germany has higher standards. I mean doesn’t that just blow your mind? And that happens everywhere. And that story about the EPA’s own building is so toxic that it has done permanent damage to 100+ employees these last 10 years. I mean, they must just be kicking themselves. The idea that they themselves rubber-stamped and approved all the chemicals that were used in the building process of their new building, and is something we have to deeply consider when purchasing anything for our environment, for our home. Just because you can’t smell it and you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not doing irreparable damage to our bodies, to our families, and to our pets. I’m just so happy that we had Andy on today so that he could share with us this information. This kind of information will empower you. And no matter what your budget is, there is a way to make sure that future choices are healthier ones or non-toxic ones for us, and I’m so looking forward to my future choices being more educated ones because of all the work that Andy’s done and he provides for us. Now, be sure to go to learntruehealth.com/bed, even if you’re not thinking about buying a mattress right now, it’s still really good information to have. And please share it with your friends and family who might be looking for a mattress, especially those who have been in pain who are experiencing inflammation, stiffness, and regularly having to go to the chiropractor because they’re constantly out. They’re like, how did my neck go out, how did my back go out? I was just sleeping.  Well, they definitely have to see this webinar. Learntruehealth.com/bed, check it out. Let me know what you think. I am such a raving fan of this company because they have taken all the materials that are non-toxic to make an amazing bed, but then they created the science to make a bed be the healthiest for us in terms of the deepest, most restorative sleep possible. And of course, we go into discussing that and teaching more about that in the webinar. So go to learntruehealth.com/bed. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this episode and all the other episodes. And of course, you can go to learntruehealth.com and use the search function on the website to check out all of the rest of our great interviews. If you are curious about different topics, just type that topic into the search bar and you’ll find us. And if you’re on LBRY, be sure to check us out there as well. The links will be in the show notes of today’s podcast. That’s just another platform that you can find our podcast.   Get Connected with Andrew Pace! Website – The Green Design Center Facebook LinkedIn        

Fermenting Kit that Ashley recommends: https://amzn.to/3oz2XHJ Specials: Energybits - LearnTrueHealth.com/energybits - Use coupon code LTH Medicinal Aloe - LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe - Use coupon code LTH2020 At Home Test - Viome.com - Use coupon code LTH Sandor's website https://www.wildfermentation.com   Food Fermentation: Process, Benefits, Foods to Try, Tips, and More!  https://www.learntruehealth.com/food-fermentation   Highlights: How fermented foods affect the immune system Vinegar pickle vs. fermented pickle Fermented foods and beverages are full of unique metabolic byproducts Pre-digestion of fermented foods makes the nutrients more bioavailable Can fermented foods be frozen?   Have you ever made your own fermented food or drink? In this episode, Sandor Ellix Katz, founder of wildfermentation.com, talks about what foods can be fermented and the basics of fermenting food. He explains the benefits of eating fermented foods. He also gives some tips on how to encourage kids to eat fermented food. Intro: Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. This episode today is about gut health and fun things that you can do in your kitchen right now to help you build a healthier, happier gut. Before we get to today’s episode, I got to tell you about three resources that have been life-changing, not only for me but for many of my listeners. We actually have specials on right now that this company is offering us. The first one I want to talk about is Stockton Aloe. I had the founder on my show. He is a doctor who has a very unique company. It’s medicinal aloe, and it is the only company that delivers fresh aloe harvested the same day and totally unadulterated. It’s considered raw aloe, it is not processed at all other than they fillet it, and they remove the gel from the inside, excluding the outer layers of the aloe, the outer skins, which can cause irritability in the gut. Often, most aloe drinks on the market don’t exclude those, so most aloe drinks out there produce diarrhea, which is the exact opposite of what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to help heal the good.  There are many studies that show that by consuming, drinking medicinal aloe that we speed up healing time, not only in our gut but also in other parts of the body. People notice that their skin is more radiant. They’re noticing their face is looking more beautiful and their skin is more toned. Obviously, their hair, their nails, and their digestion are better. Everything starts to get better. I’ve personally given some aloe to a few friends who’ve had some serious medical conditions. I had a friend who was going through cyclical vomiting from a migraine that triggers vomiting, and she was just in absolutely dire straits. I gave her a jug of this and she said it was totally life-changing to drink it every day. I’ve had several friends that have had these similar issues like IBS or heartburn, and with all of them, I’ve noticed that by them drinking this aloe, they immediately see results.  What’s really fun is that when our family had a bout of what might have been food poisoning, or it might have been some little gastrointestinal bug. I’m not sure what it was, but our whole family was sort of down and out for the count. Our little son, I got him to start drinking the aloe right away as we had the unfortunate experience of basically having all the symptoms of food poisoning. We all started drinking it, but what I noticed is that it immediately stopped the vomiting. It stopped indigestion, it stopped nausea.  Our son, who I believe was four at the time, started really enjoying it. It doesn’t taste like candy so to have a kid actually like something that’s healthy for you is exciting. And then when one of his friends had a gut issue, my son said, “Hey, drink aloe. It’s really good for you.” To hear a little kid start giving health advice to his other kid friend, it was a very proud mom moment there. But what I’ve noticed is by drinking this, it makes a huge difference in gut health.  And since today’s episode is all about gut health, I have to let you know you’ve got to also listen to that interview that I have. You can go to learntruehealth.com/aloe. That’s learntruehealth.com/aloe and use the coupon code LTH2020. That’s all of December we’re going to get a discount from them. He also gifts us his aloe cream as well which is really nice as a hand cream, especially if you’ve been washing your hands extra or using hand sanitizers extra, you might notice your skin is a bit irritable. I really do enjoy his hand cream. It doesn’t leave your hands feeling greasy, and it’s full of aloe so it’s very rich in moisture but not in grease. He includes that as well.  And then what you do is it comes frozen, you keep it in the freezer. When you’re ready to drink it, it is absolutely fresh. Now, we do talk about it in the interview. I highly recommend going to learntruehealth.com and just searching aloe, checking out that interview, and listening to it because he does share a lot of science behind why drinking aloe is so good, not only for healing the gut but for other conditions as well. To buy it, go to learntruehealth.com/aloe. Use coupon code LTH2020. The other company I really, really like is ENERGYbits. I’ve had Catharine Arnston, the founder of ENERGYbits on the show I believe at least seven times. She has amazing information that she shares about utilizing the healing power of algae specifically chlorella, and her chlorella is only one of a few handful of companies out there that guarantees no heavy metals and no lead. Most chlorellas, if you go to the health food store, go to whatever store and you buy some chlorella, there’ll be a little warning that says that it can cause cancer. Well, that’s because most companies, how they process their chlorella, add lead to it which is clearly not healthy. But her ENERGYbits does not have any heavy metals or lead, and she tests them both in the United States and where she grows the crop as well. She talks all about the quality of her ENERGYbits. What I love about chlorella is it provides a plethora of vitamins and it does have minerals in it, but it also contains readily available amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. So for someone who’s looking to heal the gut and get readily available nutrition from a food source, this is considered a superfood, then you would love ENERGYbits. Go to learntruehealth.com/energybits. That’s learntruehealth.com/energybits and use coupon code LTH to get the best discount. I’ve really enjoyed them. I also interviewed several doctors actually who all talk about using chlorella to naturally and safely remove heavy metals from the body because it does something inside of us where it will chelate or bind to heavy metals. You can use chlorella as part of your very gentle detox, and in fact, it’s even safe for children. I’ve had Dr. Klinghardt talk about how he uses chlorella routinely with children, especially those children who have autism-like symptoms from heavy metal deposits in their neurology. That’s very exciting. You can absolutely type in chlorella into Learn True Health in the search engine at learntruehealth.com to listen to those interviews and learn more about chlorella. And to purchase it, go to learntruehealth.com/energybits. Again, use coupon code LTH. The last company I want to tell you about is viome.com. I recently had both the founder and one of the chief science officers on the show—both amazing interviews. I’ve really enjoyed my results with Viome. It’s an at-home test where you give them a very small stool sample and blood sample and mail it to them. They test over 100,000 genetic pathways that are of your microbiome, of your gut bacteria, and of your mitochondria. And then from that, based on the chemicals that your microbiome produces from the food you eat, then they tell you what kind of diet you can eat to further enhance your health and what foods you should avoid based on the chemicals that your gut produces. Basically, we have a six-pound pharmacy living in our gut known as our microbiome. What is healthy food to me might be actually toxic food to you based on the chemicals that your microbiome produces. They also give you superfood and supplement recommendations to optimize gut health, and it really, really works. I’ve been very impressed. So to learn more about that, you can type Viome into the search box at learntruehealth.com and listen to those interviews to get the test kit, which right now they have a great special on this month for Learn True Health listeners. Go to viome.com and use coupon code LTH. Check it out, I know you’re going to love it. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this information with those you care about. I want to see absolutely everyone listening to this show producing amazing gut health and going into the new year with really healthy, strong guts. Let’s all focus on feeling great and getting to a whole new level of health and vitality for 2021.   [00:09:22] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 452. I’m very excited for today’s guest. We have with us Sandor Ellix Katz, the founder of wildfermentation.com. I’m such a huge fan of live culture fermented foods, and the best way you can eat them is when you do it yourself. It’s actually really easy. I was so nervous about fermenting foods because I thought maybe I’d give myself food poisoning. It’s really hard to mess up once you learn the basics, and I’m so excited that we’re going to learn from Sandor today the health benefits of eating our own homemade fermented foods. Welcome to the show.   [00:10:10] Sandor Ellix Katz: Thanks so much for having me. Happy to be with you.   [00:10:13] Ashley James: Absolutely. Go back to your life. Tell us your life story about fermentation. What happened in your life that made you become incredibly passionate about spreading this information?   [00:10:24] Sandor Ellix Katz: Well, I would say that there were a few steps in the development of my interest in fermentation. The first was as a kid, I loved pickles. My grandparents were immigrants to the US from what’s now Belarus. In our kitchen or in our refrigerator, we always had eastern European style fermented cucumber pickles. I just loved that flavor. I didn’t know how they were made, I wasn’t thinking about fermentation, but I was very drawn to the lactic acid flavor of fermentation. I spent a couple of years when I was in my mid-20s following a macrobiotic diet and macrobiotics places some emphasis on the digestive benefit of pickles and other kinds of live culture foods. I started noticing that these pickles that I had always loved to eat that whenever I would eat them I would feel the salivary glands under my tongue squirting out saliva. I began to associate these foods in a very concrete way with getting my digestive juices flowing. I started really eating them regularly as a health practice, but still, I wasn’t making them myself. The catalyst to learn how to make them myself was that in 1993, I moved from my hometown of New York City to rural Tennessee, and I started gardening. I was such a naive city kid that it had never occurred to me that in a garden, all of the cabbage would be ready at about the same time, and all the radishes would be ready at about the same time. The first year I was gardening—when I was faced with this reality that in retrospect seems really obvious—I decided I’d better learn how to make sauerkraut. I knew I loved sauerkraut. I knew that sauerkraut had something to do with preserving cabbage. I looked in the most basic American cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, and I found out I’ve had a recipe for sauerkraut. I saw how incredibly simple the process was. I shredded a couple of cabbages, salted them, added some caraway seeds, smashed them a little bit, and packed them into a crock. I just fell in love with the simplicity and ease of the process, and then I started playing around with different vegetables, sourdough, country wines, and yogurt making. Before I knew it, I just was down the rabbit hole of fermentation. At first, it was just a personal obsession, and then I got a little bit of a reputation. I was teased by my friends for always showing up with sauerkraut, but I did get invited—after a few years—to teach a sauerkraut making workshop at a local event that was described as a food skill share event. I just loved teaching about it. I loved demystifying the process for people. I mean, you mentioned that you were a little bit scared the first time that you fermented vegetables. That’s a very common reaction, and for whatever reason, I never had that. But as soon as I started teaching about fermentation, I came into contact with people projecting their anxiety about bacteria onto the process. It turned out, it was really fun and interesting to figure out how to demystify it for people and make people more comfortable with it. The initial teaching experiences led me to self-publishing a small pamphlet of my recipes, and then I decided to expand that into a larger book. What began as a book tour in 2003 just became a way of life as an itinerant fermentation educator. At this point, I’d say I’ve probably taught a thousand workshops. I have a few different books. Wild Fermentation is the original book that I wrote. The Art of Fermentation is a bigger book that came out in 2012, and actually, I’ve just published another book that’s not so much about how to ferment things but it’s called Fermentation as Metaphor. It’s sort of addressing how we use the word fermentation in the English language also to describe really any kind of phenomenon that would be bubbly and get things agitated and mixed up. Anyway, I have lots of different interests in fermentation, and I love to share them with people.   [00:15:05] Ashley James: Now, it doesn’t sound like you had any major health issues. Did you notice anything shifting in your body as you continued to incorporate more and more fermented foods? Did anything change about your health?   [00:15:18] Sandor Ellix Katz: Well, I mean I definitely have had health issues. I’ve been living since 1991 with HIV, so I’m approaching my 30th anniversary of living with HIV. The thing is that these foods have always been part of my life. Even before I was thinking about them as a health practice, I was eating pickles all the time, I was eating yogurt all the time. I would say what I notice more is sometimes in my international travels, I find myself in places where I don’t have regular access to live fermented foods. I notice the absence of them. I notice how sluggish my digestive processes become when I’m not eating these foods, and so that really affirms for me how helpful they are in our ability to effectively digest food.   [00:16:16] Ashley James: You said 30 years you’ve been living with HIV?   [00:16:20] Sandor Ellix Katz: Yeah.   [00:16:21] Ashley James: In your 30-year quest to maintain complete optimal health, and I think that you are such a prime example of what we really want to focus on is no matter what we’re faced with, let’s give our body absolute optimal health instead of buying into the fear-mongering that having a diagnosis tends to give us, especially in the mainstream. You are living in incredible health, and you’re looking every day at what you can do to give yourself that vitality. Have you seen studies or looked further into how fermented foods affect the immune system?   [00:17:02] Sandor Ellix Katz: Well, sure. Let me also just clarify for you and your listeners. I mean, I’ve been taking HIV meds since 1999. For the last 21 years, I’ve been on antiretroviral medications. I wish I could say that my story was that eating fermented foods prevented HIV from ever progressing, but I experienced the period of getting very sick and the meds completely shifted the situation.  But the one thing I would say is that almost everyone else who I’ve met who’s taken the HIV med cocktails has experienced digestive problems as a side effect of the medications, and I have never experienced that. That really affirms once again that it’s not always just a choice of one approach or another. You can be in a situation where you choose to do the medical recommendations, take the recommended medications, and still, your digestive processes are important. What you eat has a bearing on your well-being day-to-day. Now, to answer your original question that you asked about immune function, sure, I mean there’s a lot of evidence that first of all, the bacteria of the gut are a huge part of what we call the immune system. That increasing biodiversity in the gut is a great way of improving overall immune function. In addition to the power of the probiotics and the bacteria themselves, fermented foods are nutritionally enhanced in a number of ways. Nutrients get broken down into simpler forms that are often more accessible to our bodies, so nutrients become more bioavailable. The bacteria that are fermenting the food produces various metabolic by-products, some of which have been found to have specific beneficial activity. So for instance, fermented vegetables—which I think is the most basic, the easiest kind of ferment to make yourself at home—have these compounds called isothiocyanates, which were already of interest to cancer researchers because they’re regarded as anti-carcinogenic. Beyond ingesting the lactic acid bacteria themselves, which have this probiotic benefit, the metabolism of the organisms before you eat the kraut produces this byproduct, which is regarded to be anti-carcinogenic. The world of fermented foods and beverages is full of these unique metabolic byproducts, some of which have been found to have really powerful therapeutic potential.   [00:20:09] Ashley James: That’s so exciting. You mentioned that as part of the fermentation process, it’s almost like the plant becomes a little pre-digested for us making the nutrients inside the plant more accessible, for example, sauerkraut. Do you have any specific examples of what nutrients become more readily available to us through fermentation?   [00:20:31] Sandor Ellix Katz: Sure. The most dramatic examples of this are beyond the realm of fermenting vegetables because nutrients in vegetables tend to be fairly accessible to us but think about soybeans. The reason why nobody ever cooks and eats a bowl of soybeans for dinner is that all of that protein in the soybean—soybeans are regarded as the plant source food with the most concentrated protein, but our human bodies are not capable of extracting the protein from a soybean that has been simply cooked. That’s why people never sit down and eat a bowl of soybeans the way they might with lentils, chickpeas, or other kinds of beans. It’s just so dense that our bodies can’t access the protein.  The indigestibility of soybeans was recognized by the Asian cultures that pioneered soy agriculture thousands of years ago. They developed various ways of making it more digestible, and fermentation is the most straightforward way of making the protein of the soybean more accessible. There are all these different methods that people use to ferment soybeans. There’s soy sauce, there’s miso, there’s tempeh, there’s natto, there are many, many other variations of fermented soybeans. They have different flavors, different methods, different organisms, different amounts of time, different environmental conditions they require, but what they all have in common is that that protein gets broken down into amino acids—the building blocks of proteins, and so they become more bioavailable to us and the soybean becomes more nutritious. In grains and certain beans, the minerals get tied up in these chemical bonds that are called phytate bonds that our bodies can’t break down. But a long enough bacterial fermentation will break it down and so the minerals become more bioavailable. There have been all these interesting studies where—okay, I’m going to use the example of this south Indian fermented crepes called dosas that are made of a batter of lentils and rice. But if you just cook lentils and rice and send it to a lab for analysis and then you ferment it into this batter, make dosas, and send the dosas to the same lab made from the same lentils and the same rice, what you find is that the fermented food—based on the same ingredient—has much higher measurable levels of calcium, iron, and other dietary minerals. This is another example of the pre-digestion of fermentation making the nutrients in food more bioavailable.   [00:23:28] Ashley James: That is so fascinating. Do you ferment your own beans and lentils?   [00:23:33] Sandor Ellix Katz: Yeah, sure. I dabble in all the ferments. I mean, it’s not like I ferment everything all the time. But I actually did a workshop just the other afternoon demonstrating via Zoom how to make dosas. I have a jar of dosa batter sitting in the fridge. Every other day or so, I’ve been making some dosas and enjoying them. But I definitely ferment beans. I make miso, I make tempeh, I make natto. I do lots of fermenting.   [00:24:09] Ashley James: That sounds really cool. That sounds kind of advanced.   [00:24:13] Sandor Ellix Katz: One thing I’d just like to say generally is there is nothing that we can eat that cannot be fermented. If we can eat it, it can be fermented. It doesn’t mean everything has equally prominent traditions of fermentation. I mean, some foods have much more elaborate traditions of fermentation than others, but anything we could possibly eat can be fermented.   [00:24:40] Ashley James: That’s interesting because my friend has a really beautiful garden and he was disappointed to find out that kale shouldn’t be fermented. Because he had a lot of kale, there isn’t a good way to ferment it that makes it taste good. Do you disagree? Is there a way to ferment kale or preserve it that makes it taste good?   [00:24:58] Sandor Ellix Katz: Well, kale and any dark green vegetable with a lot of chlorophyll have a strong taste when it is fermented. Personally, I find the flavor of pure kale fermented to be kind of strong. I love kale as a minor ingredient if it was like 90% cabbages and radishes and 10% kale, I think it’s a lovely accent flavor. But I have met more than one person who’s told me that their favorite vegetable to ferment is kale. So I have really learned not to assume anything about people’s taste or that everybody’s taste is going to be the same. You can ferment kale but you might or might not like the way it tastes. I encourage people to experiment and not be fearful to experiment but to experiment in small batches so if they try something and they don’t like it, they’re not discarding a lot of food. I mean, another question people always ask about is zucchini because so many people with gardens have a moment in the summer when there’s more zucchini than they know what to do with. Yes, you can definitely ferment zucchini, but in hot weather, watery vegetables tend to get very soft and mushy during fermentation. The fermentation won’t really preserve the texture of the vegetables for very long unless you have a very cool root cellar to store it in so it might end up being soft and mushy. Yes, you can ferment zucchini, but if you’re planning to ferment lots of it for months, you’re going to end up with something that at least I would find very unappealing by virtue of texture rather than flavor.   [00:26:41] Ashley James: Now, I’d love you to dispel some myths. People often will go by pickles. They’re stored on the shelf, they’re made with vinegar. That’s not a fermented food, is it? That’s not a good probiotic. We want to look for the thing that says live culture, that has been made with lactic acid. Can you clear up some things about this?   [00:27:01] Sandor Ellix Katz: Yeah, sure. Okay, let me say two things. First of all, you can find sauerkraut in the store in a can. That was made by fermentation just the way if you want to make sauerkraut at home you would make it, but then it’s heat processed so it can be in a can on a shelf without refrigeration indefinitely. Heat processing kills the bacteria.  Now the word pickle covers a lot of ground. A pickle is anything preserved in an acidic medium. The old world mate way of making pickles in most places is you put the cucumbers or whatever the vegetables you’re using might be or the fruit in a brine solution, a saltwater solution. Then you add some seasonings if you like, but the acid that develops is lactic acid from bacteria on the vegetables breaking down carbohydrates in the vegetable and acidifying the environment of the brine. What supermarket shelves are full of are the 20th-century pickles. When the process was developed around the middle of the 20th century, what we now know as distilled white vinegar—the vinegar that’s cheaper than water at the supermarket—ushered in a period of vinegar pickles. Vinegar pickles have been traditional, especially in wine-making regions of the world. But in most places in the world, the traditional pickles have been brined pickles and the acid is lactic acid, which is a different flavor than acetic acid which is what vinegar is. But if you make a vinegar solution and pour it over vegetables those are also a pickle. But generally, it’s a hot vinegar solution and it’s a strong enough vinegar solution that the heat and the high acidity will kill the bacteria of the vegetables. Yes, if you want to have live culture pickles, you’re basically going to either be buying them fresh out of an open vessel—the old world way, or if you find it in a health food store or something like that, it is likely to be in a refrigerator. Because if it’s still alive, then you need the low temperatures to prevent a buildup of carbon dioxide in the jar which could make it leak or potentially explode.   [00:29:29] Ashley James: Now, when you have this bountiful harvest of cabbages in your garden and you go to make all this sauerkraut. You fermented it, it ferments for an average of six days. I hear some people do it up to two weeks, but then when you’re done, when you like the flavor, you finish fermenting, I’ve always been told that we put a mason jar lid on it and put it in the fridge. That kind of slows down the fermenting. How do you then make it shelf-stable, or do you need to store it in a fridge or in a cold cellar at that point?   [00:30:05] Sandor Ellix Katz: A cold cellar or you’re in a place that’s just where it just gets cold enough. I mean, I’ve seen people store sauerkraut outside if it gets extremely cold—that becomes problematic, but a cellar would be the traditional way to do it. In Korea, the tradition was you store the winter’s kimchi, you bury your ceramic crock in the yard so that you have the temperature modulation of the earth to prevent it from getting too cold and to prevent it from getting too warm. If you let it sit in your heated home, what happens is that it’s not that it would become toxic. I mean, you can ferment things for a very, very long time. I’m down to the last pint of what was originally 200 liters—about 55 gallons—of radish kraut from last November. I’ve just made this year’s batch, but I’m eating up the very end of last year’s batch. Now it was just in my cellar from November until June, and then it’s been in the refrigerator since June. But if I let it get hot in the summer temperatures, what happens is that these enzymes that are part of all vegetables will break down the pectins and make it get really soft and mushy like I talked about a few minutes ago with the zucchini ferments. That’s the main reason why you have to keep things cool. I mean, one week two to a few weeks, that’s a very contemporary interpretation of how you do these foods. In temperate regions, people would ferment it for months, and they wouldn’t wait months before they start eating it, but they would let it just keep fermenting through the entire winter because there was no refrigerator to put it into.  But then people would always try to finish it up before it gets hot because that’s when the texture will be destroyed. And then also, just in terms of the real practical necessity of it, by the time summer comes there are lots of fresh vegetables to eat. This historically has been primarily something that was about preservation, about getting vegetables and vegetable nutrients through a long winter where there was no or very little fresh vegetable food.   [00:32:37] Ashley James: I interviewed a Ph.D. in Anthropology who figured out—his whole thing is he goes back to humans a hundred thousand years ago. They find all the tools that they could possibly find fossilized. They try to figure out how we ate that long ago, how our ancestors ate. What he sees is that there’s so much evidence for fermenting. That we figured out how to ferment even back then to secure the nutrients out of foods. He says look at a duck, ducks have two stomachs—one grinds the grain, and the other ferments it and that’s how you access it.  For example, corn, we don’t access nutrients from corn very easily unless we put it through a process where we can grind it, ferment it, and fermentation allows those nutrients to become available to us. We figured that out a long time ago, which is really neat cause I feel like, in the last 100 years, we all have amnesia from our ancestral roots. We need to come back to how we have been eating for thousands of years, and fermenting is such a large part of that.   [00:33:51] Sandor Ellix Katz: Yeah, sure. I mean, fermentation is ancient. The current archaeological record suggests that people were fermenting at least 10,000 years ago, but personally, that tells us mostly about the history of pottery because the earlier vessels—before people figured out pottery to have vessels to ferment liquids in—were all biodegradable things. They were either animal membranes, hollowed-out trunks of trees, or gourds. But at some point, people realized that they could stabilize clay and get the clay to hold liquids. Those are the shards that we find. Berries spontaneously ferment into alcohol without human assistance, and there’s a lot of interesting documentation of different insects, birds, mammals, and other animals being drawn to the smell of fermenting fruit. You can watch YouTube videos of elephants gorging themselves on fermenting durian fruits in Malaysia, then getting disoriented, falling over, and basically getting drunk. I think it’s safe to assume that our evolutionary forebears like primates—contemporary primates are definitely drawn to the smell of fermenting fruit. I think it’s safe to assume that our ancestors were drawn to this, and we did evolve with enzymes to enable us to digest alcohol. I mean, fermentation has been part of the landscape.  Really, if we want to talk about the deep evolutionary past, the earliest organisms were all bacteria, archaea, and all these anaerobic organisms that were fermenting. One of their byproducts was oxygen, and that the buildup of oxygen in the atmosphere has something to do with these fermenting organisms that are ancient. All the multicellular organisms that descended from the original single-cell life forms all live with associated bacteria. All the forms of life that the original bacteria and archaea evolved into—all the plants, all the fungi, all the animals—have microbiomes. They have associated populations of bacteria that enable them to effectively function. We’re not alone in this regard. Fermentation is very, very, very ancient, and certainly, in the context of human cultures, it’s just been an integral part of how people in every part of the world figured out how to make effective use of whatever food resources were available to them.   [00:37:11] Ashley James: Absolutely. I want you to teach us. Pretend that everyone who is listening hasn’t fermented something. What’s your favorite beginner recipe so we can all go out and just start fermenting something today?   [00:37:26] Sandor Ellix Katz: What I almost always recommend for people as a first fermentation project is fermenting vegetables, for a few reasons. I mean, first of all, it’s really, really simple and straightforward. It’s just incredibly powerful and supportive of good health. And then to the degree that people might be projecting some anxiety onto the process. While all fermentation processes are safe and foods that are fermented are safer than the same food before they are fermented. But in the case of fermenting vegetables, there are no documented cases anywhere in the world of food poisoning or illness. This food is as safe as it gets. We hear every year about people getting sick from raw vegetables. A couple of months ago, it was red onions. It was lettuce one year, it was spinach one year, it was cabbage one year. Clearly, there’s the possibility that vegetables can be exposed to pathogenic bacteria and make people sick, but if you took those vegetables—even if they’d been exposed to some potential pathogen and then you shred it, salt it, get it juicy, and pack it into a vessel to ferment, the indigenous bacteria will always dominate over incidental pathogens. The lactic acid bacteria that are always on the vegetables—in fact, always present on all plants growing out of the soil on planet earth—will dominate. And then as they acidify the environment, if there were some cells of salmonella, E. coli, or other things that we associate with food poisoning, what they all have in common is that they cannot tolerate an acidic environment. As that environment acidifies, they get destroyed. Fermenting vegetables is the place to start. Generally, what I would say is pick your vessel. I would suggest the easiest thing would be a wide mouth jar. I like to use wide-mouth quart-size canning jars, but you could also just use a jar leftover from mayonnaise or something. Then you need to get some vegetables. You really could work with any kind of vegetables. I mean, any kind of cabbage, any kind of radish is foolproof. But you can also experiment with other kinds of vegetables. I like to mix a few vegetables together. Carrots are beautiful, turnips.  But for a quart jar, it takes about two pounds of vegetables and then adjust accordingly. If it’s a gallon jar, you probably need about eight pounds of vegetables. If you’re working with a pint jar, you might just need one pound of vegetables. Then shred it. It doesn’t matter how finely. You can do it super fine, you can do it in coarse pieces, they don’t all have to be even. It doesn’t matter, but you’re just trying to create some surface area. And then you salt it. It doesn’t matter how much salt. I mean, it matters in terms of how it tastes and I would say because people have such varied tastes for salt, salt it lightly, mix it all up, taste it, just evaluate it, and add more salt if you want. This is not rocket science. It does not rely upon some precise proportion of salt. There are some places where the tradition is to ferment vegetables without any salt at all. There was even a commercial business in the US that was doing that for decades. The kraut wasn’t very good. I mean, I didn’t like it. I mean, the salt really balances out the flavor. The salt helps maintain a nice crispy, crunchy texture to it, but you don’t have to make it extremely salty.  If you’re from a Russian or German family where your grandparents were making sauerkraut, their grandparents were making sauerkraut, chances are the family recipe is extremely salty because going back just a few generations, this was an important survival food. But if your context is not so much making it to survive through a long harsh winter but rather making something that’s delicious, that’s going to support your good health, there’s no reason to make it super salty. You can just make small batches every few weeks. They don’t have to be preserved for long periods of time. They don’t need that much salt. I just salt to taste. I use sea salts. A lot of the literature says to stay away from iodized table salt. I’ve done so many demos where the organizers handed me iodized table salt. I can tell you with confidence, it works even with iodized table salt. Don’t get too precious about thinking you need a certain kind of salt. Vegetables, salt, and season it as you like. You could put a little bit of garlic, ginger, or both, some chili peppers, some caraway, or nothing. Just have it be simple salted vegetables. But you can season it in any way you like. Sometimes people add a little bit of fruit. In the Korean tradition, often, there’s a fishy element—either little dried shrimp or a little fish sauce to add complexity to the flavor. You can do any of that, you cannot do any of that. The most basic is shred vegetables, salt them, mix them around. What I like to do is spend a couple of minutes squeezing the vegetables with my hands when I’m doing it on a small scale. What this does is it basically breaks down cell walls and helps release juice from the vegetables more quickly. On a larger scale, people might use some big heavy tamping tool, or the story I hear over and over again—usually from people older than me who grew up in Eastern Europe—is people remember having their feet scrubbed as children and being put inside of a barrel to jump up and down on the vegetables that their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are shredding. However, you do it, breaking down the cell walls a little bit just helps the vegetables give up their juice so you can get the vegetable submerged, which is the most important environmental factor—getting the vegetables submerged. Usually, I use some sort of little weight at the top. I’ve got these little glass discs that I sometimes use if I’m using a jar. If you don’t have anything like that, you can improvise. What I sometimes do is I save an outer leaf from the cabbage with a heavy spine and use that spine like a little spring to hold the vegetables down. Or sometimes, I’ll take the end of an onion or a fat carrot or something and let that be a top piece to hold things down. Sometimes people fill a little sandwich-sized bag with a little bit of water and let that hold everything down. On a larger scale, if I’m working with a crock, I’ll put a plate that fits inside the crock that can sit on the surface of the vegetables and then a little jar filled with water holding that down. There are different ways to do it, but you want as best you can keep the vegetables submerged because the bacteria don’t need oxygen. Lactic acid bacteria are anaerobic. The place where it meets the air with the oxygen, that’s where all the funky stuff happens, and it’s not unusual. Don’t be freaked out if you get a film developing on the top of your vegetables.  There’s a yeast called kahm yeast that sometimes grows. Sometimes these hairy molds that are totally harmless grow. I just skim them off as best I can and discard them, but know that that’s a possible scenario. The warmer your environment is, the faster that’ll happen. The less salt you use, the faster that’ll happen. But that’s it.  Then leave it for at least three or four days and then start tasting it. Everybody’s taste is different. Some people love it the sourer it gets. The acidity accumulates over time. So to get very sour sauerkraut takes some time. The temperature will have bearing on that. The metabolism of these organisms is faster when it’s warmer, slower when it’s cooler. If you’re doing it in a place where it’s very warm, you’ll get a certain level of acidity faster than you will in a cooler environment. In general, if you have a choice, a longer slower fermentation will generally yield superior flavors to a faster shorter fermentation. Taste it periodically, evaluate the flavor, and harvest it when it tastes right to you. But I’ve had people tell me that two-day-old sauerkraut was the best kraut they ever had in their life. I had someone tell me that two-month-old sauerkraut was very good for coleslaw.  People are all over the place with the flavor they like, and so rather than thinking that you need to conform to some idea of how sour sauerkraut is, just taste it periodically and monitor the evolving flavor. When you feel like you don’t want it to get any stronger—I should say, if you ever feel that you don’t want to get any stronger, move it to the fridge. I often have batches that never make it to the fridge.   [00:47:03] Ashley James: Because you just start eating them, they’re so delicious, and you start sharing them with your friends?   [00:47:07] Sandor Ellix Katz: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it never gets to the point where I have a reason to slow it down. Sometimes I just finish it before I move it to the fermentation slowing device.   [00:47:18] Ashley James: I got to share my two favorite recipes—super simple. Get fresh ginger—not frozen. Just rinse it lightly, put it in the food processor in the thinnest possible setting. Some food processors let you adjust the thinness of the cut. Then I just take just a spoonful of salt and I massage the ginger, like you mentioned, until there’s some juice, until it gives up its juice. And then I cram it into a mason jar, pack it in tight. Of course, the salt is now melted. The juice of the ginger has become a brine, and then I push it down with a fermenting stone like a glass disc you mentioned. Put a lid on it loosely and then put it in a warm dark place for a few days. For me, the temperature of my house, six days seems appropriate. Oh my gosh, it is the most delicious thing. You just take a pinch of it and add it to every meal. It is so freaking delicious. It’s still raw ginger, right? It’s very spicy. It’s very hot, but the heat is so warming to the digestion. It’s amazing. And then my second favorite one, there’s a little bit more work. I saw my friend make a fermented pico de gallo salsa on Facebook and I thought, oh my gosh, I never even thought that you could ferment a pico. I chopped up tomato, onion, and then pineapple—some fresh pineapple, not canned—and then a little bit of jalapeño. Mixed in some salt, don’t add any water. Put it in the jar, packed it down again. The tomato really gives up a lot of liquid, and then I fermented it for three days in a warm dark place. Then I add lime and cilantro, mix it together, and put it in the fridge. It was the most—I made two giant jars of it. I took them to all my friends’ homes that few weeks sharing it. I can’t tell you. It’s so much fun when you get into this because the fermenting changes the flavor and you’re making this new thing, and then you can add it to dishes. It’s very exciting.   [00:49:41] Sandor Ellix Katz: Yeah. Your two examples really illustrate perfectly the versatility of this process because both of those really follow the process that I just described generically that you could do with any kind of a vegetable. When you use tomatoes, they’re sugary, so the fermentation goes much faster. It would be hard to do tomatoes for six weeks. I mean, it wouldn’t be hard. You’d lose all of the sweetness, and it would get extremely sour. Like you, I love a short fermentation of anything tomatoey.   [00:50:19] Ashley James: Now, for parents that want to encourage their children to try this, it’s great to get children in the kitchen doing it with them. I hear that fermenting green beans is a good place to start to get kids excited about this. Do you have any suggestions for parents on what they could start fermenting with their kids to get them excited? My son hates sauerkraut but loves pickles, for example.   [00:50:40] Sandor Ellix Katz: I’ve seen so many kids who just go gaga for fermented vegetables. I think one key is introducing it young. I mean, if you wait until your kid is eight years old and then you put this food in front of them, they’re probably going to reject it. But if they’ve been around it since they were two, then it’s just normal and they’re always going to love it.  The other thing I would say is to always get kids tactile. Get their hands in it, whatever it is you’re fermenting. You’re fermenting ginger, you’re fermenting salsa, you’re fermenting cabbage, you’re fermenting radishes, you’re fermenting string beans—whatever it is, let the kids get their hands in it. Once their hands are in it, then they’re going to be impatient. They’re going to be when is that ready, when can we try it? I think getting tactile is really great, but I love to ferment green beans. I always make a little bit of dill and garlic in brine and make basically dilly beans, so delicious.  In my experience, a lot of kids love pickles, love sauerkraut but I think a real key is trying to introduce the food early. If you want to introduce your kid and they’re already a big kid, then I would say that getting their hands in it might be one strategy to get them more interested in it. Using it as a condiment on something they really like already might be another way to get them to think about it. I’ve heard great stories from parents who have kids who have rejected the idea of fermented vegetables and their strategies for getting their kids to eat them. I remember talking to this one woman who would take the kraut juice, mix it with fruit juice, and freeze it into little popsicles that she would give to her kid.   [00:52:40] Ashley James: Freezing process, do the bacteria survive the freezing process? Can you freeze sauerkraut?   [00:52:46] Sandor Ellix Katz: Okay, it turns out that the issue with freezing bacteria has to do with the water content. When you freeze water into ice, it expands. If your ferment is watery, then you’re going to have some cells bursting, but they don’t all burst at once. Every freeze and thaw cycle, you’ll end up with diminished potency. Bakers often back up their sourdough starters in the freezer, and the typical process would be to thicken it up into a solid-state. You add more flour so it’s a thicker thing and there’s a lower water content so less expansion, so less diminished cell viability.   [00:53:44] Ashley James: Very cool. It has been such a pleasure having you on the show. Your website is wildfermentation.com, and you’ve shared that you have Zoom calls. People can learn from you and watch you. People can buy your books. Is there anything else that you want people to know about your website?   [00:54:04] Sandor Ellix Katz: Yeah, sure. I teach lots of workshops, and I list them all on my website. I also have a page of media links where you can listen to previous presentations, interviews, articles, and such. I also have a section of links just of fermentation related resources, and it turns out, there’s just a vast array of resources for people interested in fermentation out on the world wide web. Definitely check out my website wildfermentation.com. My books are just full of practical how-to ferment different things at home. Fermenting vegetables is a great beginning but it doesn’t have to be the ending. There’s just such incredible diversity in fermentation traditions around the world, and I’m so glad to have this time to share a little bit about it with you and your listeners.   [00:54:57] Ashley James: Absolutely. It’s been such a pleasure, Sandor, having you on the show. Please feel free to come back anytime you want to teach us more about the benefits of fermenting and share more recipes with us.   [00:55:07] Sandor Ellix Katz: Great. Have a great day.   [00:55:09] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today’s interview all about how you can utilize your kitchen to make some powerful and delicious fermented foods. Start experimenting. Now is the time to go out and just experiment and make something that sounds delicious. Try something new. It’s so much fun once you start getting into fermenting. I’ll make sure that I put a link in the show notes of my favorite fermenting lid that you can get for wide mouth mason jars. It’s so easy.  I tried all these different kits, and honestly, so many of them are just flimsy, they break, they leak, they’re plastic, and then they’re kind of complicated. And then there’s this one that’s so simple. It has a spring and it has a lid that has a little valve and that’s it. It’s very affordable, and I will make sure I put the link to it in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. Just go to the notes, wherever you’re listening. If you’re listening to this on iTunes, you can just go into the notes in the details of this episode and you’ll see those links. Or you can go to learntruehealth.com once we publish it there with the full transcript and you’ll see the links there. I’ll make sure I include the links to my favorite canning stuff. Now, if you listen to the intro of this interview, I did talk about three companies that are fantastic resources for you. Viome.com, use coupon code LTH. They have a great sale for the month of December for Learn True Health listeners. You have to use the coupon code LTH to get an even deeper discount. This is a fantastic at-home test kit that you do the test at home, then you send it off to them, and they give you results. You can’t get this information anywhere else. It’s absolutely amazing, but it’s information that will guide you in a totally new way and help you make better choices that will speed up your healing. Not only for your gut but also for mental and emotional health. Most of our serotonin is made in the gut. We could be eating foods that are seemingly healthy but actually lowering your serotonin leading to—sometimes for people—anxiety, depression, lack of motivation. Things that don’t look like they have anything to do with the gut can be absolutely related to the gut. As I shared in one of my interviews with Viome, we talked about my results actually in a recent interview. We talked about how certain foods I had been eating were causing heart health issues. These are foods that are healthy for other people, but because my microbiome converted them into unhealthy chemicals for me, that it was causing issues in other organs. This is what’s happening to all of us. The test results you get from Viome can be totally life-changing for you. So go to viome.com, use the coupon code LTH right now, and get their test kit. Also, I really like their supplements. Their supplements are not a replacement for a multivitamin or a multi-mineral. Their supplements are specifically designed based on your results from your test kit, and they’re designed to support your microbiome to be the healthiest it can be. I started taking them and I noticed right away a shift. I thought that was really cool because I’ve never taken a pre- or probiotic in my life that I immediately noticed great results with, and with theirs I did. Theirs is genetically specifically designed for my microbiome, no wonder I saw results. It was very cool to see that. And then, of course, you can go to learntruehealth.com and search Viome to listen to my two interviews with the founder, with the science officer, so that you can learn more about the science and hear more about Viome. And to get it, go to viome.com, use coupon code LTH, and check that out. I talked about aloe and how much drinking medicinal aloe can help specifically for speeding up gut healing. You can search aloe when you go to learntruehealth.com and listen to my interview about it. To purchase it and get the discount that’s being given to us for the month of December, go to learntruehealth.com/aloe and then use coupon code LTH2020. He’s including a great discount for us, and on top of that, giving us also his aloe cream which is quite nice as a hand cream. I really do enjoy it. And then last, ENERGYbits, which I’ve had Catharine Arnston on the show several times. Go type in algae or chlorella into the search bar of learntruehealth.com and listen to those interviews with Catharine Arnston. She shares a lot of science, a lot of stories, and a lot of very interesting information that was new to me, and I’m a health nut, this is my life. I love learning about this stuff. If you kind of consider yourself a little bit of a holistic health nut just like me, then you will absolutely geek out on listening to those interviews with Catharine Arnston.  To get her discount that she’s giving us right now, you can go to learntruehealth.com/energybits. That’s all one-word learntruehealth.com/energybits and use the coupon code LTH.  Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing these episodes with those you care about. Almost every day, I hear from you guys either on Facebook or in email, and I hear that you have learned about this from friends, from family. It’s so great that this is a grassroots movement to helping those we care about to gain access to holistic health information that’s not readily available, it’s not being talked about in the mainstream of course so we have to go to the source. We have to listen to awesome interviews from these holistic health experts that want to get this information out there.  Please continue to listen, continue to explore, continue to go to learntruehealth.com, and utilize my website as a resource for you. And also, if you’re on Facebook, come join the free Facebook group. We have over 4000 members, and it’s such a wonderful active supportive community where everyone every day—I wake up every morning and one of the first things I do is log in and look at everyone’s questions. I help answer them as best I can throughout the day. So many other amazing health coaches, doctors, nurses, tons of holistic health experts, and just people like you and me who are also just like health nuts love to share, answer questions, give advice, give support, and give encouragement. It’s a great community to be a part of.  Just search Learn True Health on Facebook. Come join the group. We’d love for you to be part of our community. And if you have any questions for me, please feel free to reach out. You can email me at ashley@learntruehealth.com. You can also reach out in the Facebook group.  Thank you so much. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. Enjoy the holiday season. All the interviews I’ve ever done about mental health include gratitude. No matter how bad it is right now or how good it is, make sure that you take time even 30 seconds to focus on what you’re grateful for. Focus on what you do have in your life that you absolutely are so thankful for. Just that 30 seconds of gratitude shifts your body out of stress response and into a healing mode.  The more you do it, the more often you do it, especially if you can incorporate breathing, especially if you can incorporate, moving your body in a way—that brings you joy, getting outside into sunlight—this helps the body shift out of stress mode and into healing mode. Let’s focus on right now, what are you grateful for today? Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day filled with gratitude.   Get Connected With Sandor Ellix Katz! Website Facebook Twitter Books by Sandor Elliz Katz Wild Fermentation The Art of Fermentation Basic Fermentation: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Cultural Manipulation Fermentation as Metaphor

Use listener coupon code LTH at viome.com for the gut and mitochondrial testing and food & supplement recommendations.   Viome Gut Microbiome Testing’s Results Interpretation and Food and Supplement Recommendations https://www.learntruehealth.com/viome-gut-microbiome   Highlights: No one good food is always good for everybody What does metabolites do for the body What does microbiome-induced stress mean How does Viome help improve our health What is the difference of Viome’s supplements   Are all foods, especially fruits and vegetables, beneficial for all people? In an ideal world, all fruits and vegetables would be good for everyone. But that is not the case. In this episode, Ally Perlina shares with us the revolutionary tests that Viome has created. She explains how they came about their food and supplement recommendations and how to interpret their test results. She also shares how their supplements are different from others.   Intro: Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. It’s been a few weeks since I did this interview, so I do have more updates for you. I discuss in this interview the results of the Viome test. You may remember a while back, I interviewed the founder of Viome. Viome is a company where they send you an at-home test kit. It’s very easy to use, and you give them a tiny sample of your blood and your stool. And then soon you’ll also be able to give them your saliva. They run hundreds of thousands of genetic expression pathways on the bacteria of your gut and your mitochondria. What that provides is allows them to see what your bacteria do in terms of what chemicals it makes once you eat. So when you eat something, the bacteria turn it into chemicals. Some of these chemicals are incredibly harmful and cause disease, and we don’t even realize it. Someone could be eating a carrot and that’s causing them to have health problems because their microbiome is transforming something seemingly helpful into a negative chemical for them specifically. For me, it was actually very interesting. My results were incredibly interesting. I have implemented their advice, and I also started taking their supplements. Right away, which really shocked me, I noticed a change in my gut. I have good gut health, but I noticed this entirely new level of gut health. I’m like holy crow, that was amazing. I’m really very intrigued by the results. I think that if you have the means to do so, everyone should do a Viome test kit. It gives you the information you could not possibly ever get from going to any doctor. It’s absolutely state of the art. Today I have on the scientist, the mastermind behind it all, so she’s going to explain. This is why it is a longer interview because she does go through my own results and then explains. I try to have her explain it from the perspective of other people as well and how this would also pertain to reversing disease, preventing disease, increasing longevity, reversing age. You can actually reverse cellular age, which is phenomenal and quite exciting. So all this information is shared today, and I want to let you know that Viome does give us a great discount, both on their home test kits and their supplements. Go to viome.com and use the coupon code LTH as in Learn True Health. So always use the coupon code LTH every time you buy from them and you’ll get the discount. I want to let you know that very soon, and for a very limited time during the American Thanksgiving Cyber Sale that’s coming up really soon, they’re going to be giving us an even bigger deal. So I highly recommend marking that in your calendar and checking it out. You can also join the Learn True Health Facebook group because there are about six other wonderful health companies that have offered the Learn True Health listeners incredible deals for the cyber sales that are coming up during Thanksgiving. I’ll be releasing all that information into the Facebook group, and also email it out for anyone that’s on the email list. You can get on the email list by going to learntruehealth.com, checking that out. Thank you so much for sharing this with your friends and family. Continue to share these episodes. They are life-changing. I’m really looking forward to hearing about today’s episode. It’s going to be a great one.   [00:03:30] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 451. I am so excited for today’s guest. We have a very special woman on the show today. Ally Perlina, you and I have spent the last few hours talking about my results from my Viome test. Back in episode 441, we had one of the founders of Viome on the show—Naveen, and that was quite an eye-opener. I am really in love with Viome. Now I’ve come to know that you’re this mastermind—I don’t want to say mad scientist, but you’re the mad scientist behind it all. You have such an amazing understanding of the expressions of our microbes. When we feed them certain foods, they produce certain metabolites, and how those metabolites affect the rest of our body and potentially create disease or heal the body. We could really use food as medicine on a deeper more individualistic level when we understand our unique microbiome and also understand our cells on a deeper level, which is what your company allows us to do—much more affordably than I ever thought. I’m really excited to have you here today to teach us more about how we can understand—on a cellular level—how to gain health. How to really, really gain health, how to really support our immune system, how to support all of our hormonal systems, how to support our body’s ability to metabolize and to utilize nutrition all by making sure that we focus on what we can feed and what we shouldn’t feed our unique microbiome. Ally, welcome to the show.   [00:05:39] Ally Perlina: Thank you so much, Ashley. I’m so privileged to be doing this with you. I really enjoyed our conversations so far. I think it’s amazing how aware you are of all of the things that are important to look out for and pay attention to when it comes to your health. How curious you are about learning all of the different new technologies and ways of gaining insights about the biology of your body, which is what we’re here to do. I think it is really important to get this understanding and to spread this word, which is what you’re doing here. I’m more than happy to really delve into the results and the data and explain all of this because it’s not always just about talking about the concepts. Because I think to make it relevant, you have to put it in the context of the actual person’s results. So here we are with your results, and I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to review it with you and your listeners.   [00:06:37] Ashley James: Awesome, very cool. Well, before we dive into that though, I want to learn a bit more about you and your background. What happened in your life that led you to become an expert in the science of the microbiome?   [00:06:52] Ally Perlina: What happened to me to make me such a mad scientist? What had to happen in my life? I will speak to that. I actually identify myself in a way as a systems biologist. That involves not only understanding the microbiome but really getting into the complexities and the mechanisms that turn all the knobs and all the different levels of our biological systems. From cells, even microbes are cells in a way. Some are unicellular, right? Our cells, tissues, and fluids to organs and organ systems. From the really biochemical levels of biology all the way to physiology, which is why at Viome, I’m a Chief Translational Science Officer. Translational science is basically about something I’ve been trying to do all my life is to translate the science of all of these different molecules, pathways, and the biology of the situation into something that is immediately actionable for health. I’m a scientist that basically has all the background in biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, and human genetics as well, but who’s always worked in a clinical setting—clinical or pharmaceutical type of setting. I worked with many different pharma companies. I worked for clinical diagnostic labs that became part of Quest for four years. I’ve really worked on things from drug and target discovery to clinical trials. More recently, before Viome, I worked at Human Longevity with Craig Venter that has its own basically clinic component called Health Nucleus and is still there. I was there from early on. In all of the different endeavors and efforts, I’ve always created new novel innovations to connect all of the data at scale to inform clinical healthcare and wellness, especially here in Viome with the wellness space. It’s more scientifically powered. I always felt like a lot of this expertise that we’re given when we get our education, our training as scientists stays in the early discovery, the academics, or early discovery phases within pharmaceutical tracks. But sometimes, we have enough knowledge to take all of these different points of information and analyze it in maybe some novel and creative ways to scale it, deliver it, and do something really sensible with it to impact the health of people right now. Not all of it needs to go through 12 years of any molecular specific drug development process. When it comes to health and wellness like food and supplements, there are so many things that are well-known that we want to be able to just package and scale that knowledge. I’ve always been extremely motivated in actually harnessing this power in information. You can’t do that without embracing the complexity. So in order to translate all that information to health care and to empower people to take control of their health, somebody out there needs to be able to get into the complexities of all the systems. Hence, the term systems biology where you really look at all of the different components and figure out what are the mechanisms of health versus disease.  What are the mechanisms that can give us these points of intervention that we know how to deal with? We can take nutraceuticals. We can take nutrients from drugs or supplements and how they all work together. Because when it comes down to it, it’s molecules in food, molecules in supplements, molecules in your drugs talking to molecules in your microbiome, talking to molecules in your cells, in your lymphocytes, in your brain cells. All of these routes of communication are what I basically specialize in. Those are some of the things we call pathways. That’s the essential part of systems biology, which is needed to embrace the complexity and deliver something actionable for your health.   [00:11:17] Ashley James: How many pathways does a Viome test when they look at the full RNA sequencing and expressions of your mitochondria and their very complex microbiome?   [00:11:38] Ally Perlina: Good question, Ashley. It’s about a couple of hundred thousand.   [00:11:42] Ashley James: Wow. Just a couple of hundred thousand. We went through a few of them, and we’re going to talk about a few of them in our interview today. But that was one of my first questions because as we were going through them, I thought just how many pathways are you looking at. And each individual, as you were going through my results, it was so interesting that you said, if I were to look at half your results, I would have predicted differently the other half. And this is why it’s so interesting how unique we are that we have to look at the full picture to see where each individual person is along their healing journey, and how we can help them right now. My first time speaking with you I brought up that I had figured out that I could not eat eggs. That was the last thing to go to become whole food plant-based. I was still eating eggs, but I was basically like an ovo vegetarian. But I noticed I had these heart palpitations, and I didn’t know where they were coming from. I don’t know why they just presented themselves as they did. But I had completely changed my diet, and thus the microbiome changes I suppose. Because I’d shed all these other foods, it was the last animal product to go. And so these heart palpitations were so frequent they were getting kind of scary. I consulted a cardiologist. I wore a device for several days and it monitored my heart. In the end, he said there’s nothing wrong with your heart, but that there’s a stressor. There’s some stressor your body is going through that is putting your heart in this position, your heart’s reacting to the stressor. He had no tools, of course. I mean, he was a great cardiologist, but he’s like listen, come back to me when you need cholesterol meds. There was nothing beyond that he had for me. The frustrating part is MDs are trained to catch us when we’re ill and hopefully help us so we’re not going to die at that moment. But they’re not trained in how to take you from let’s say just slightly poor health and help you get to optimal health. That’s just not in their wheelhouse. Their wheelhouse isn’t systems biology, looking at the way that each individual person works, how their genetics are expressing, and the genetics of their microbiome is expressing. That’s where you guys come in. I figured out, something just hit me. Why don’t I do an experiment, not eat eggs for a while then eat eggs and see if that’s it? I did that with other foods, but when I took eggs out, my heart palpitations stopped completely. And then about seven days later I had an egg, and by the time I’d finished eating the egg, the heart palpitations were back. And I thought this is very interesting. I attempted the experiment several times, and sure enough, I can give myself basically an irregular heartbeat by eating eggs or not. You saw that in my gut biome. You saw it in my Viome results. You said, oh. When you said it, it was like watching a masterpiece. The way you explained how it all works and how that was feeding this particular microbiome, which creates this type of metabolite which then my liver converts to this, and then my heart reacts to it this way. All the pathways made complete sense from a to b. But as you and I talked, it became so clear to me. If we could explain to people who aren’t biologists what a microbiome is, the bacteria, the complex system that is in our gut, and how much we need it for life and health. I came to the conclusion that it’s like having a factory, having a pharmacy inside our gut. You like that. Some people say it’s like having an animal because it’s about six pounds, so it could be like having a chihuahua in your gut. But it’s actually much more complex than that. It’s like having a pharmacy in your gut or a factory. What you put in is what it puts out, and the metabolites. So it’s not that you necessarily have a bad microbiome, but it’s that when I put in eggs from the choline, my unique microbiome is going to produce something that all these pathways then come together to irritate my heart and could lead to further heart disease down the road. Whereas other people have no problem with choline and wouldn’t have that reaction. But there are other pathways that you put into the microbiome, not necessarily sugar. Everyone thinks you eat sugar, it causes diabetes. Someone could put cauliflower or whatever, they could put something that’s somewhat healthy for someone else, but because of how their pathways are expressing, they put that into their little pharmacy factory—which is their microbiome gut—into it, and then what comes out are the metabolites that would put the stressors on the body that could lead to diabetes, or either cause it or contribute to it. That you can see that many diseases that we’re suffering could be corrected by making sure we know exactly what we as individuals should and shouldn’t be eating.   [00:17:37] Ally Perlina: Right. So let me just get back to a couple of points you said that I think are really important, and maybe some of the listeners are well aware of them. But just to be absolutely clear, I think it’s important to emphasize that no one good food is necessarily always good for everybody, and sometimes it can actually be bad, so it depends. And if you know what it depends on, then we would not be doing justice to health care and wellness. If we didn’t actually delineate what it depends on, put it into some sort of logic, rules, and content, and scale it so it can help the masses.  That’s one of the reasons why when I came to Viome, I made it a huge point right away to make sure that when I developed the scoring system for the pathways or how we connect this to the personalization of the foods, that it’s something that does not need another alley or anyone from my team in the loop to be able to actually release the results. That it’s end-to-end automated. Because if we know what it depends on—whatever it may be—and when it’s good or bad for you, then we need to be able to inform people so that at least they can make more biologically informed choices when it comes to eggs or broccoli. So back to your egg example, what you have are two things why egg yolk may not be good for you, and it’s actually on your avoid list. One of the things is TMA production by your microbiome. So your microbes actually use the choline that they would get from egg yolk, not so much from the egg white. That’s still fine and a source of protein and all, but egg yolk is on your void because it has choline and choline is what serves as a substrate for your microbes in the gut to take it and then convert it to trimethylamine also known as TMA. So when we say convert, it means there are some of these sequences of events that happen, and that’s what we call a pathway. So a biological pathway is a sequence of molecular interactions or biochemical reaction steps that has a beginning, middle, and an end sort of tells you a story and says what is actively happening? What’s coming? What’s going? So in your case, in the egg case, that choline is coming and TMA is being produced and then it’s going. TMA is trimethylamine, so microbes use the substrate as choline converted to TMA. We see those pathways because we see RNA. So it lights up the gene expression values along these pathways that we reconstruct. We build them so we can score them. We can see, okay, you have higher than usual trimethylamine production in your microbiome. So what that means is that now that you have this TMA and it’s made in your gut, it can actually then become available to the circulation. And through the portal vein, it can go to your liver where it gets naturally converted to TMAO. TMA as well to some degree is associated with harmful or no beneficial effects on cardiovascular health. So that could be some of the association. Again, I’m not claiming any causation and it causes multiple factors usually for something to actually go wrong, but it’s a very, very peculiar phenomenon that you’re sharing about your effects that you felt physically after eating eggs. So this could be part of it or the main part of it that you have this TMA, TMAO pathway in which your gut microbiome plays a key role. And that is something that we can measure with our metatranscriptomics technology. That’s how we go from basically gene expression that we get from your stool sample, gene expression from RNA sequencing called metatranscriptomics technology. It tells us how much are those genes expressed, are they up or down. How do they factor into these pathways that we have put together so we can tell you then what? Then it’s like, okay, we get it that TMA is happening and more than what we usually see then it goes and can be converted to TMAO, which we know is not good for cardiovascular health. So what do you do about that? One of the things is you can limit inputs into the TMA production pathway by the microbiome, so that’s why egg yolk is on your avoid, it has a lot of choline in it. Whereas for other people, choline is actually just fine. It can be good for rebuilding your membranes and maintaining them. It can be good for the gut-brain axis and support some of the neuronal-glial health. So for you, it’s good to basically stay away from egg yolk, and that’s one of the reasons. The other reason that could have something to do with cardiovascular health is that you just have another score in your report that involves multiple pathways—hundreds of them actually—that assesses overall gut microbiome induced stress. Stress response, in general, there are many different types and different reasons for it. So one of the things that you have is you have a sub-optimal score on your microbiome induced stress. That’s a functional area score that involves many different pathways, and we’ll cover many of them or at least some of them, which include sulfide production, ammonia production, and those things that can contribute to overall stressors that may come through the gut into your bloodstream. In your results, they’re not enough to actually cause overall inflammation, we’ll talk about that as well, but it could be a slight culprit besides the TMA-TMAO story. And then back to the egg example, another reason why it’s on avoid, it’s not enough to just have one thing necessarily off a little bit. Sometimes it’s more than one, many times it’s more than one factor that places food into your superfood, avoid, or other categories. In this case, there is another factor that placed your egg yolk on avoid, and it’s the fact that it’s high in sulfur. With your profile, sulfur goes into the sulfide production pathways a bit too much—more than we’d like. So sulfide is not necessarily a villain, it’s not necessarily absolutely bad, but when too much sulfide gas is produced in your gut, it can be disruptive to your gut lining and it can be—for apparent reasons—disruptive to your digestive symptoms and your gut health. It can also have a negative impact on your gut motility. So because the egg has sulfur, it’s one of the two main reasons why egg yolk specifically is on your avoid. Because you have too much hydrogen sulfide gas production by your microbiome. So that’s another part of the story, and again, it’s many to many. So the other part of that piece—the sulfide story—is actually your cruciferous vegetables. When you see a score that says sulfide gas production pathways, a lot of times, people will ask well what does it mean? What can I do about it?  In our food recommendations, you can see when a food explanation refers to a specific score. You will see that in your egg yolk as well as broccoli and cabbage, it will tell you that the reason it’s on your avoid has—or at least one of the reasons has to do with—your sulfide gas production pathway score being too high. It means we have too much of that activity lit up with all of the gene expressions along these pathways saying your microbes are making too much sulfide gas. What they use as a substrate is something that comes from these cruciferous vegetables. It actually explains in the paragraph there that a compound class called glucosinolates—part of the organosulfur compounds—is actually what serves as in a way a culprit. It can be good for some people, but for you, it’s a culprit because it can serve as a substrate for the sulfide gas production indirectly. First, it gets converted to sulfate, and then from sulfate, it goes and gets converted to sulfide gas by your microbiome. The thing that converts it to sulfate, Ashley, is myrosinase, and it’s an enzyme that’s in the vegetable and gets activated when you’re chewing it. So raw vegetable chewing actually activates this enzyme and gives you more of the sulfate, which is a direct substrate for more of the sulfide gas production. So do you know what you can do if you still want to have a little bit of those avoid foods but you want to minimize the effect of this sulfate substrate production for your sulfide gas?   [00:26:40] Ashley James: What can I do?   [00:26:41] Ally Perlina: You can steam it just a little bit because it will destroy the enzyme because it’s heat sensitive, so it will destroy or inactivate the enzyme in the food, myrosinase, which is needed to convert glucosinolates into sulfates. So you will diminish that action a little bit. It’s not going to completely get rid of the organosulfur content in the food, and it can still—in one pathway or another—feed your microbes, but it really diminishes these results. Based on what people report, they actually see or feel less of that bloating or gas production. So I would ask you, do you feel any difference or do you feel any gas production effects with cruciferous vegetables versus other vegetables like arugula, kale, or something?   [00:27:33] Ashley James: I would say yes. But up until I got my Viome results 17 days ago, I ate cruciferous vegetables daily. Although gas was always around in certain amounts, it wasn’t smelly, so I didn’t think that there was a big problem with it. I just thought, okay. I also eat beans although I soak them and cook them in the Instant Pot. But I do notice, especially raw broccoli, raw cauliflower, or raw cabbage—I really enjoy raw cabbage in a salad. Especially in kale and raw purple cabbage in a salad would produce gas more so than if I were to eat zucchini, for example.   [00:28:29] Ally Perlina: How about arugula, just because it came to me?   [00:28:32] Ashley James: I don’t often eat arugula on its own.   [00:28:39] Ally Perlina: Spinach.   [00:28:41] Ashley James: Yup, I don’t have a problem with gas in spinach. I do eat raw spinach, I eat cooked spinach. The arugula I do eat is fermented actually in a really delicious fermented arugula pesto.   [00:28:56] Ally Perlina: Mmm.   [00:28:57] Ashley James: Yeah, it’s so good. If I have arugula, it’s usually mixed with other greens, but I don’t seem to notice quite a difference. But then again, like I said, up until 17 days ago, I was eating cruciferous vegetables for almost every meal. So gas was all the time. It wasn’t unbearable though. But then again, most of the time, I would cook those foods. The reason why I wanted Ally to give a little bit of a deep dive into my results, your results are going to be different, everyone’s results are different. But just to hear how much information you get, how much guidance you get from a Viome test, and how unique each person’s experience is going to be is actually quite exciting because, in the last few years, I’ve been the healthiest I have felt in a long time. As much whole food plant-based as I possibly can, and of course gluten-free. Ever since cutting eggs out, I feel great, but I felt like throwing darts in the dark. I’m going to try this, I’m going to try that, and I do love doing that. I do love listening to my body and trying different things. I felt like there was a missing piece, and I really feel like Viome has been, for me, the missing link to pulling it all together for me because I would have never considered lowering my cruciferous vegetable intake. Never ever would have thought that. In the other foods that were recommended I reduce, those are my daily staples as well like coconut. Since I have cut that out—really significantly reduced coconut—and I feel like I’ve come into a new chapter in my health because I also understand why.  Although everything that Ally says sounds quite complicated and science-based, I want her to explain the science behind it. When you get your Viome results, it’s very clear, simple, and easy to understand. And then you click through and there’s more detail. And then if you want to learn more, then you click through and then there’s even more detail when you click through, and there are scientific references. If you want to just stay surface, if you’re one of those people that just need to be told what to eat, what not to eat and that’s all the bandwidth you have, then you get those.  If you’re like me and you want everything, you want the Ph.D. version of your Viome results, then you get that too which is exciting. I really do like how you have set up Viome so that people have to click through and click through and click through to chunk down into more and more detailed information so they don’t get overwhelmed. The results themselves are not overwhelming, but at the first sight, I was disappointed I’m like, oh, this is it? And then I click through I’m like oh there’s more, click through again, oh there’s more. It is quite interesting. In the future, you guys are going to have even more coming out. When I had Naveen on the show in episode 441, I had not taken the Viome test yet. And I have to share that I absolutely adore the test. It’s a home kit. It is in a beautiful little box and the instructions couldn’t be easier. They’re very simple. And when I sat down to draw my blood, it is as easy as just a prick of the finger, and then and then this little tiny plastic thing sucks the drop of blood up into it. It’s so easy to do. It’s not intimidating at all. I commend you on how beautiful and simple the system is. It’s not overwhelming. You just have to read the instructions in advance to know that you want to be fully hydrated, you want to do the blood sample in the morning. Just take some time to read the instructions and know when you’re going to do the stool and the blood when you’re going to do each one. And then you send it in. I really enjoyed the whole process of sending in my kit. I enjoyed the process of receiving all the information. I then ordered your supplements, which we’re going to talk a bit about that as well because you make individualized supplements based on the genetic expression of our microbiome and mitochondria and all the results—the cellular health results that you have. I’m very excited to receive those, so I hope to do a later interview talking about my experience with your supplements because I’m already on supplements, but my supplements are more just for the whole body health—vitamins and minerals—but your supplements are specific to looking at the genetic pathways, like you said, a few hundred thousand pathways, and supporting the body and coming back into balance in such an individual way. That’s very, very exciting.   [00:34:12] Ally Perlina: We’ll talk about some of your supplements as an example, but I think that’s a good idea to actually review your supplements and everything you’ve been taking and the Viome supplements that you’ll get and then see how you’re responding to them. then drill into it a bit more as a follow-up if you’d like.   [00:34:32] Ashley James: I’d love that.   [00:34:33] Ally Perlina: I think we noticed there were some themes or some things that you were already aware of, which is great. So some of your digestive related components like protein fermentation and being able to digest your proteins and keep your stomach acidity levels at the right level and optimal. So all of these things can be adjusted or manipulated, to some degree, with supplements. Some of them are digestive enzymes that you already know about, and some of them can come from foods as well as supplement delivered nutrients. So bromelain, papain come from pineapple and papaya respectively, and then there’s betaine. Originally it got the name because it came from the beet. Those are some of the natural ways to help your digestion, and in your case, the reason it’s specific to your pathways that we see is that we do see some of these a little bit more active than usual. Protein fermentation pathways, which means that the microbes are fermenting aka metabolizing different proteins more than you would expect them to in the gut. That means that you, the host, did not make enough of an effort or enough turns in there in your metabolism to completely process all of the different protein sources that you get.  Again, sometimes it could be the vegetable sources or the nuts and seeds that have a very dense protein that make it hard to process it all. Then it gets to your colon and then microbes go oh my goodness, a lot of unprocessed proteins. So you encourage those microbes called protein fermenters to be very active. So that means you encourage more and more of them to thrive. When there are too many of them, again, it’s not about the microbes themselves. But what they’re doing, they crank up these pathways that yield production of those types of—you could call it—the pharmacy is producing some of the chemicals that are not so good for you. So what you see reflected in your report, not even something that is just behind the scenes that I’m sharing with you. But right in the report, it says you have high ammonia production pathways, you have high sulfide production pathways, you have high putrescine production pathways. All of these different things are byproducts of protein fermentation. So we talked about sulfide already. We actually just covered one type of pathway that came from sulfate or elemental sulfur in your foods, but we didn’t cover the other side which means that actually sulfide in your microbiome can also be produced from sulfur amino acids, which came from your proteins.  So that’s another byproduct of protein fermentation. So you’ll see a theme in what we talk about is that it’s always like many to many, so there are multiple types of pathways and inputs that can feed one microbial metabolite production like sulfide gas. The way to mitigate the sulfide could be from many different foods, and some of them have a high content of a certain nutrient, and some have low content. we have all that part of the knowledge base so that we can tell you from many to many which foods or nutrients supplements are best for you and are most important superfood or to avoid them. For the pathways, you could see that sulfide for instance it’s part of the pro-inflammatory activity because it can have an inflammatory effect on your gut lining and overall, but it is also part of your protein fermentation theme. Those themes are like the functional scores that level in our UI you’ll see that you probably already have, those are the functional score areas. Then there are the pathway scores like ammonia, sulfide, and putrescine that I just mentioned. Those are pathway scores that feed into the functional area scores, and multiple functional area scores ultimately get aggregated into the health level scores. So on the level of a health score, you have gut microbiome health, you have cellular health, immune system health, and stress response health. Those health scores, you have them actually for the most part in an average zone. There’s also mitochondrial health I forgot to mention. But once you start drilling into it, you will actually see how, just like you said, you drill into it if you want to know the details. Why is it not 100%? Why is this score not perfect? Then you see that on a more granular level, aha, it’s the protein fermentation, which is part of digestive efficiency. And then there’s the inflammatory activity, which both have the sulfide gas production and ammonia production pathway score. So as you drill in even further and you say, okay, my food said something about this sulfide thing. I want to learn about that score. Then you learn about that score and you see that actually, even that is many different pathways that can lead to sulfide gas production, which is why even in that pathway score, it’s still plural. It’s called sulfide gas production pathways because there are many, many different routes like hundreds of them that can lead to the ultimate production of sulfide by your microbes. So understanding which ones of those are most lit up and how active those pathways are is what helps us to connect on the molecular level this whole system of many to many from scores on different levels to nutrients in either food and or supplements. Anyway, bringing it back to the whole point is that you have various health areas, You have your digestion, and you have your protein fermentation. So to address the protein fermentation and the other route of sulfide gas production, that’s why you see some of the digestive enzymes, which you’re already getting in your supplements. You will see some of the foods that give you more bioavailable elemental amino acids, so some of the sprouted foods. I think you have the grapefruit and some of these like betaine and papain sources. And then you also have to stay away from cruciferous vegetables for the sulfide reasons and things like that. So that tells you how many different areas of superfood and avoid recommendations, enzymes, and other types of nutrients in your supplements all have to do with various aspects of multiple scores. There’s protein fermentation, there’s sulfide reduction, there’s an inflammatory activity, and all of these different components. Sometimes, when people say, okay, just tell us exactly what is this one thing or how to improve this one score. A lot of times, there is more than one way to improve them, and to different people are different foods that will actually do the trick. So one score can influence many foods, and one food can be influenced by many, many different scores before it’s actually placed into your minimize or avoid. So if you want us to like spell out every single piece of the logic that is taking place for your results, then it’s almost like you have to be careful what you wish for because it could be hundreds of pages of different lines of code that took all these things into consideration and said okay, it’s really avoid for you.   [00:42:20] Ashley James: Just avoid it.   [00:42:21] Ally Perlina: That’s how it goes. Just avoid it, or just get these supplements, it’s good for you. Now, when we can, we highlight that. If you get your report and just even find on page—Control F or Command F—and you say score, then you will see all of the references in your food recommendations pages to any score. Whenever it’s a very obvious one that you can pin it more or less on that one score to focus on, we do tell you that except you’ll see more than one food most likely that alludes to that score when it needs help. That’s just the thing. We try the best we can and thank you for the kind words saying that we’ve done a pretty good job, but we need to do probably even better to strike that balance between giving people all that information because we truly want to empower them with all this knowledge. But at the same time, not overwhelming them and making it very simple and clear. Okay, some of these things, they’re not optimal so you see it in the red. These are the foods you need to focus on, these are your superfoods, these are your avoid foods, and these are your supplements.  So at least, if that’s all they want to get out of this, they don’t want to be burdened with all this extra info, they can get that and take it to action immediately on that day because that’s extremely important. If you overwhelm people, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, it’s not about that. You’re not helping them if it loses them. We need to be very much mindful of this concept of balance.   [00:43:52] Ashley James: It’s interesting talking to you, I think I identified that I have been eating less and less protein from plant sources because it does—in large amounts—give me quite a bit of bloating. Even with too much tofu, it’s upsetting, and just thinking about beans, I think I just have gradually been eating less and less or smaller portions, I should say. That and I’m very satisfied with how many grams of protein I consume. Although now I’m pregnant and my midwife has made it abundantly clear that she wants me eating more protein. But as far as the average female, 40 grams of protein for the average female is quite sufficient, 60 if you’re an athlete, which is easily doable from multiple plant sources. However, if I were to consume a great deal of any kinds of protein powder like pea protein, pumpkin seed protein, or edamame. Any large amount I would get bloated and that is interesting that you say that it’s because you can see it in my microbiome that it is fermenting, it’s not properly digesting, it’s fermenting, and then it’s leading to metabolites. What do these metabolites do to the body?   [00:45:32] Ally Perlina: Great question. So in your case specifically, I mean, I want to put it in the context that there are many things they can do, but there is this aggregate functional score called microbiome induced stress. I know it sounds quite general until you drill into it and you see exactly what it is. It will explain to you that within microbiome induced stress, which you have in the red zone so it’s not optimal. it’s not terrible or anything but it’s in the suboptimal zone. You’ll see that is where you have that ammonia production, uric acid, sulfide production, and even TMA production I believe as well. All these pathway scores are part of the microbiome induced stress. So what does it mean microbiome induced stress? I mean, there are so many different types of stress. So microbiomes can secrete those or produce those metabolites, which are small molecules, and they can cross the gut lining, the intestinal barrier pretty easily even if you have a pretty good gut lining, which according to our test seems like you do. But some of these really, really small molecules like ammonia it’s pretty tiny. It can really cross easily and go into the bloodstream, and in the bloodstream, it can really cause its own pro-inflammatory or stress response type of reaction. In a way, it can be somewhat of a toxin. Again, not to sound scary or anything like that, but it’s all about the relative amounts.  So sulfide, ammonia, putrescine, cadaverine, the byproducts of protein fermentation—that’s one source. The other source of microbiome induced stress or potential pro-inflammatory type stress is your uric acid production, and that’s something that can actually be felt or experienced by some people—to some degree, depends on how much of it you have and how quickly your body gets rid of it, mitigates it, or clears it. All of these different pathway scores actually tell you well why you need to even know about this pathway? Because if it’s not insightful for your health or it’s not actionable, then who would want to log in just to learn biology, right? There are textbooks for that. Of course, we’re learning something new about biology in this new context, but still, we only give you something that is insightful and actionable. You can read about it and there are references, but just to summarize, all of these different small molecules, the microbes make. If they make too much they cross the gut lining, and then they go into the bloodstream. And they can actually inflict a little bit of the damaging response to certain cellular membranes or stress your system to be able to keep up with clearing or detoxing some of these different molecular entities. If you don’t have your entire system up to the task, it’s somewhat of a warning sign to make sure that you mitigate that. That’s why for the overall health level of stress response health, you’re still fine, You’re in the average zone. But when it comes to microbiome induced stress, that’s where you can read more about these pathways like ammonia, sulfide, and the other ones that I just mentioned so you could see what it does to your body. We already talked about some of the foods and digestive strategies that you need to focus on that are part of your recommendations and foods and supplements so you can be prepared and mitigate. So even if nothing really palpable is already happening, the point is to keep you in the wellness space and keep as much illness optional as possible so that you can take action on your biology. Like you said, you don’t want to just throw darts at some fad diets or trendy supplements. You want to be able to make biologically informed choices that are smart for you, that are informed by your own pathways, your own biology with molecular-level precision. That’s basically what we’re all about. I hope that answers your question, or if you want, we could go more specifically.   [00:49:49] Ashley James: Well, I love that you said biologically informed choices. I mean, that’s a writer downer right there. I told you about my history with the ketogenic diet, the paleo diet. I’ve been on at least 25 diets. I’ve read every diet book you could touch because I’m a seeker of health, though. I was trying to figure out what my body best requires. Everyone that writes a diet book says that theirs is the best and they have the science to back it. When I went through the institute for integrative nutrition—it’s a year-long health coach training program—you learn a hundred different dietary theories, and every week we’re trying a new one. Once you learn one you want to try it. Within the first week or so, we’re doing the raw vegan diet. I lasted six days on that. I felt fantastic, but boy was I gassy. I expected the gas to go away because all the raw vegans say that’ll go away, that’ll go away, and now I know why I was gassy, first of all. Luckily, the gas is not smelly, it’s just plentiful. So when I was doing the raw vegan diet, that was just like I could have powered a vehicle. Each experience with different health routines showed me just how wrong it is to listen to one expert and do one diet that’s apparently supposed to be for everyone. Because if I can’t eat cruciferous vegetables because of the genetic expressions of my unique microbiome, then any diet that incorporates cruciferous vegetables is not going to be beneficial to me as an individual. But with the ketogenic diet, which many have touted as being just a miracle for them, left me in such a bad state of health that it took me a few years to recover. And it left my husband in such a bad state of health that he was immediately put on two medications—actually three I believe and then he was down to two—because it damaged his kidneys. We were actually under the supervision of a naturopath while we were doing this ketogenic diet, but it destroyed my husband’s kidneys. It took him a few years, but he was able to completely recover using natural medicine. That’s when we adopted a whole food plant-based diet, that was right around that time. For me, it damaged my liver and I had such bad digestive distress from the ketogenic diet. Again, if we apply what you’re teaching, which is making biologically informed choices based on the unique complexity of the own expression of the bacteria that are in us and part of us, then we can craft the most healing diet for us. If someone leans more towards eating paleo, more towards eating the Mediterranean, more towards eating their native diet—maybe their South American, Central American, or Asian diet. If they lean more towards looking at their ancestors and eating more what their ancestors ate in that way and they feel good, then they take your kit and they get the results back. Your kits give you lots of foods you can eat. You give lots of foods that are superfoods that are incredibly healing for your body, and then you give a dozen or so or two dozen absolutely avoid these, and here are the reasons why. Someone could take that and adapt it to any way of eating that best suits them. But since I have removed all of the do not eat that you have on my list, and since I have increased the superfoods—which I’m so excited about, I’m absolutely loving them—without guilt, I am avidly eating my avocados again, and all the other things in the superfood list. You even give how much of each one to reduce. Here, just have half a cup of this at most. I’ve taken that so seriously and I really feel—in the last 17 days—a huge shift in my digestion, even though I am going through the stages of pregnancy that would actually leave me in worse digestion. I’m feeling the least bloated I have in a very long time. I came to Viome without any real health concerns. I just wanted to take it to the next level, but people come to you who have major health problems, who have MS, have Hashimoto’s, or have major gut dysbiosis. I have several listeners who have expressed concerns that they now can only eat a dozen foods or less because most foods make them sick. They feel very pinned into a corner where they now only have just a small handful of foods that they can eat because they’ve done an elimination diet and they’ve really discovered that almost everything makes them sick. Well, if they had this information at hand it would help them to understand why. Maybe something as simple as the supplements that your results show because you show here is the different digestive enzymes you’re low in. If you were to incorporate those, then maybe they would have been able to then eat a larger variety of foods. Because it’s not always about what we’re allergic to, it’s about what metabolites our microbiome produces, and those metabolites can cause damage. Now just to get back to some very specific examples because this is all wonderful information you’re sharing, but I want people to be able to relate it to their life specifically. Can you give a real-world example of a metabolite or metabolites that are created in the gut, and what symptoms or illness could people have as a result of specific metabolites created by the microbiome?   [00:56:42] Ally Perlina: Yeah, absolutely. So we talked a little bit about a few of them. Just to say that look, if you have microbiome-induced stress or inflammation, then you may have all kinds of feelings of either a toxic burden where you feel a little unwell, tired, queasy; or you may have more brain fog because it can also cross. Those things can cross the blood-brain and gut blood barriers. That could be one of the themes but, I didn’t touch on the other themes. There are really well-known pro-inflammatory molecules that are produced by the microbiome like LPAs—lipopolysaccharide. Specific types of lipids and carbohydrate subunits, that’s why the lipopolysaccharide. Saccharide is for the carbs, and lipo is the lipid part. They get together and in slightly different conformations based on what microbes are there. they can be actually found in the blood especially if you have more of a leaky gut. The reason I didn’t bring it up right away, especially in your context, is because you don’t have an LPS score for LPS biosynthesis. The production of this LPS molecule, you don’t have it in the red, you don’t have it as suboptimal. So you’re more or less fine on that, and you also have a good gut lining health score. In general, we do see quite a few. It’s a pretty common case. I would say 30% of our Viome population, quite a few people have LPS production on the higher side. And if it goes hand in hand with your gut lining score being suboptimal as well, then you’re really at risk of triggering an immune response. The way it happens is this LPS molecule, which is just part of the normal outside coding of some of the microbes, not all. It goes into the bloodstream and it elicits this immune response. The blood cells start to notice it and recruit other blood cells, say hey, come over here. We’ve got an issue. So to do that, they have to secrete certain molecules themselves, and that’s the signaling that happens now on the blood side of things, which we also test with the health intelligence kit. The service gives you this kit to test the blood that you mentioned already. So you collect your blood. We look at gene expression, not only within your microbiome now, but now we look from the blood side to see are those pathways on, and are they really active that tell us that you have immune triggering happening a bit too much? Do you have it really high? Because that’s exactly what can happen if some of the pro-inflammatory metabolites can cross the gut lining and actually instigate some of this reaction. So that the T cells of different kinds will start to get overly active and secrete these proinflammatory molecules in order to combat the foreign type of substance that has entered the blood. And those molecules are called some of the cytokines or pro-inflammatory cytokines. Maybe some of you have heard of interleukins and TNF alpha. It can cause other types of molecules to be elevated. And ultimately, if they don’t come down, so to speak, then some damage can be done to cellular components and membranes. And a lot of the cellular energy can be expanded towards mitigating this inflammation, which really should not even be there in the bloodstream, as opposed to healing and rejuvenating itself. In that sense, we’re waiting to get to the point like okay, well, how do I sense it? How do I feel it aside from testing it? That’s the tricky part because depending on what you’re doing to yourself, what you’re eating, what you’re susceptible to, and what else is going on, inflammation can actually take residents in different parts of a human body. some people, like I said, the inflammation can actually be manifested in the brain, in the mind, in such a way that is just subtle enough that you won’t think of it like aha, I feel inflammation because you just might experience a little bit of irritability, insomnia, brain fog, confusion, or anxiety. Actually, some of the pro-inflammatory pathways that can stem from the gut microbiome have been implicated in lowering dopamine levels, which can make people feel depressed. They have also been implicated in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases because if enough of these molecules or the microbes themselves like the small viruses from the gut can actually go all the way through the blood into the brain, they can activate now inside the central nervous system. They can activate pathways to where the glial cells actually overreact, and then they start to get destroyed and inflammation in the brain can cause neuronal damage, which then contributes to—like you were mentioning—a mess and other things. They can be part of the entire picture of some of the neurodegenerative, cognitive, or mood disorders. So that’s one set. And then another set of inflammation examples that we all probably heard of a lot is the autoimmune joint conditions. There’s the more local, obviously, IBD—inflammatory bowel disease, which is right there in the gut. And then there are a lot of customers that say that following our regimen really helps them who have joint, skin, and other types of inflammatory conditions where you can really see it and feel it. Because inflammation is not created to be equal in any one organ. Whatever you have going on, it depends on the ecosystem and the system’s biology of the entire body of all the systems. Wherever you have the weakest link, that’s where inflammation will take residence and manifest itself first and foremost and then all the other places. Some people may not feel it or may not realize that aha, this could be some low-grade inflammation, and some people may truly feel it. Where you feel it completely depends on you, but some of the top symptoms that seem to have improvement in time within our customer base—and we have over 100,000 customers now—deal with mood and autoimmune inflammatory conditions from psoriasis, to rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel conditions, to mood and sleep, and cognitive and digestive disorders in general. Like I said, it can be different places where it manifests itself. I wanted to ask you, so far, when we talk about any of these pathways. We talked about TMA a little bit, but then there was a set of pathways you had suboptimal like ammonia, sulfide, and uric acid. Would you say that any of them—even just from reviewing the information—ring a bell with something that you know you had before or you could feel before?   [01:04:25] Ashley James: In regards to?   [01:04:32] Ally Perlina: So uric acid, for example, is something that can come from either purines or protein fermentation, but it’s something that people may not feel and other people may feel it if a lot of it accumulates. And that’s what’s causing gout usually, so I’m just curious.   [01:04:42] Ashley James: Got it. Okay. Absolutely, yes. My blood results from the last few years have shown higher levels of uric acid, especially when I ate meat. Especially back when I did a ketogenic diet, my liver was incredibly angry at me. It was actually sticking out. It was quite inflamed. I had to get an ultrasound and they said I didn’t have a fatty liver, I didn’t have a cirrhosis liver. I just had an inflamed liver, very angry from the ketogenic diet, and then a very high uric acid level. I didn’t experience gout like the typical person does where it’s in their big toe. I had this pain at the base of my foot almost like plantar fasciitis. I was like, I wonder is this plantar fasciitis, is this a bone spur? And just on a gut instinct level—and this is long after I had left the ketogenic diet but right before I transitioned into eating no meat at all. I grabbed some tart cherry juice from the health food store, and I started drinking between two and four ounces a day of the concentrate, and I’d add it to water. And very quickly, within a day or two, the pain in my foot was gone. I know that tart cherry juice is also very anti-inflammatory. It helps the body produce more melatonin, so people get great sleep when you take it. It’s a wonderful whole food supplement to take, and it’s quite delicious. But knowing that the pain went away immediately I thought, that must be basically gout in my foot manifesting. At the time, I never really cared for organ meat, so I wasn’t gorging on any kind of meat. But my naturopath did say that based on looking at my diet and looking at my blood work, I tended to lean more towards having a build-up of uric acid. That’s something though that I feel like I’ve gotten under control because I don’t eat any meat so there’s really a low purine diet. And then I avoid the other foods that contain purine. And then if I ever do get that feeling in my foot, I just start drinking the tart cherry juice. Although, I haven’t had it lately, which is quite exciting. But my liver is getting healthier and healthier. It’s interesting because that actually came up in my Viome results, which I never thought that there could be a link to the metabolites produced from the bacteria in my body.   [01:07:36] Ally Perlina: So that is actually very, very interesting because it can actually accumulate to some degree in different tissues, and you may feel a little achy or a little bit of stiffness or limitation of movement, and that could be due to uric acid. Uric acid is something that can be pro-inflammatory, and it’s interesting what it’s made of by the microbiome. The pathways can come from either the urea cycle, which is from the different amino acid inputs, so back to your protein fermentation protein digestion patterns. Or it can come from purines and purines are high in different meats, fish, seafood, and also some of the vegetables as well. You could see in your results the haddock, for instance, is to be avoided because of the purines in it, the uric acid potential to promote those pathways. For you, if you did want to eat some fish maybe once in a while, salmon would be a much better choice. Whereas I think it’s also halibut, haddock, and trout would not be good because they have a lot of purines. It’s not just organ meats and you’ve done yourself a great favor that you avoid that because of the TMA issue that we talked about and the protein fermentation and digestive efficiency issue. But also now because of the purines. Some people feel absolutely great eating all kinds of meats, and they cannot take all of these different vegetables. They get so bloated and they feel awful, right? Just like you said, some people feel absolutely great on a ketogenic diet and it’s like the biggest blessing that happened to them. But it’s not just one type of diet that works for all. Unfortunately, it’s usually some complexity of different mixes of things that work just for you. You are your own personalized menu that you need to work out for yourself, and there’s just no shortcut around that. In your case, you’ve done so great that even before having this information, you’ve avoided all of these different meats, organ meats, and those types of foods because you naturally just don’t have the biology to deal with them in the best way where something beneficial would happen to you. It’s actually on the contrary. Plus they come together with all of the TMA, the lipids, and the fats, which could be also tough for your liver. And we also see some of these bile tolerant organisms in there.  So together with that and the uric acid pathways, it’s really painting this more comprehensive picture now that especially that you’ve shared some of these things with me that you won’t do well on this high protein, high-fat diet. Whereas other people I know personally and based on the stats as well, they do so and they report that they feel great on even a really greasy protein diet. But they cannot take all of these different starchy vegetables. Again, no healthy food is healthy for everybody, and no specific source of protein or whatnot is necessarily a villain either—or good or bad. It all depends on personalization, and that’s the real trick. The key is in that that you have to basically deal with the complexity to do what’s right for you and to be biologically informed about it.   [01:11:30] Ashley James: I feel like the next question that’s on everyone’s mind is, is it forever? Because we’re taught that the microbiome is always changing and that we could take probiotics. Although that’s been disproven that probiotics drastically change the microbiome. But we could eat fermented foods, go gluten-free, eat organic, get a variety of different prebiotics, and nourish a more diverse microbiome. Over time, can we change our microbiome so that it would create different metabolites?   [01:12:17] Ally Perlina: That’s a great question, actually. In terms of changing the microbiome, people are taught to think about microbiome as this list of microbes and seeing how much of who’s there do I have. What we’re doing is a bit of a paradigm shift in that you care less about who is there and how much of them are there. You care about how active they are, but most importantly, you care about what they are actively doing? So that’s the microbiome part. And then you care about the host because in your case, you have a microbiome actively doing some of this pro-inflammatory activity in your gut. That’s why you have a microbiome score called biofilm chemotaxis and virulence pathways are not optimal. That would make somebody worry and think well, they’re making something that signifies that there is some harmful pro-inflammatory activity. But then you also look at the closed part and you see that actually your immune system activation score—which would tell us if you have ultimately a high level of inflammation or not—is actually on the good side. Whatever happens in your gut stays in your gut. So you still need to take care of it, right? But you need to see what is being produced, what is being actually excreted, secreted, and made that I need to worry about. On the level of the gut microbiome, you don’t want to necessarily make it a super task to completely rebuild it because you have to actually get the most out of the hand that you’re dealt. The microbiome that you have, the easiest way to reap rewards from it is to get the microbiome you have to do what’s right for you. You figure out, okay, if I give it so much of this sulfur, cruciferous vegetables, organ meats, or salt, your microbes are stressed out by too much salt or whatever and that’s bad for your probiotic microbes. You want to lower that a little bit. You figure out, based on our recommendations, what are those things you need to optimize in your diet. Even with the microbes you have, you get them to give you the best nutrients. With all of the greens that you eat—and it shows, all of the really beneficial complex carbs that you ingest—turn into really nice butyrate production. Not everybody has that. That’s actually not a given that just because you eat vegetables you have high production of butyrate. It’s a very beneficial short-chain fatty acid, and it may just be one of the main reasons why your gut lining is pretty happy because it’s a very good nourishing component that colonocytes use for energy and it helps the anti-inflammatory effects. Even if you have your microbes secreting these virulence factors and things like that, you have some of the mitigating strategies in place as well. When you ask about how do we take this to action and what does it all mean? You have to see—on the grand scheme of things—first of all, are my microbes really doing something bad? Not so much who is there, but are my microbes doing something bad? Is there something that tells me this is what you need to improve the score? Because if you just do that, you may already have some really beneficial outcome of that, even if who is there—the microbes themselves—have not drastically changed. And then you basically end up with a story that is not about rebuilding the entire microbiome because most of it is neither good nor bad. Most of the microbiome is just that’s your normal at this point. Completely trashing it is not necessarily a good thing, and you’re not going to take antibiotics to do that either. What’s important is to reach a balance, and by balance, I don’t mean just a balance of good versus bad microbes because, again, most of them are neither good nor bad. But the balance of these beneficial versus harmful activities and functions. Balance of good versus bad pathways that give you good versus bad biochemical outputs—these metabolites, these molecules that then go into your bloodstream or can protect or harm your gut lining. That’s a different way of thinking because you’re thinking what is happening, that is what matters. And what’s happening is telling me what I should do to my system. So it becomes less about treating a microbe and looking at the microbiome more as a means to an end, not the end game itself. Microbes tell us something about the host like your digestion, your patterns of what’s happening with your fats and bile acids, and things like that. They can tell us those secrets about you in a way, and so we need this very important readout from microbial activities. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that based on it we’re going to expect to overthrow our entire microbiome. Actually, we should expect to reap the rewards of our microbiome that we have, and then if some changes are needed, the way you go about it is not with some antibiotics or anything like that, but by enhancing your probiotic and prebiotic activities so that you get the right ones. And even for probiotics, yeah, I mean there’s some controversy out there, but the thing is these probiotics do have different actions even down to the strain level. So not all the lactobacilli are the same. Not all acidophilus species are the same. So even strain by strain, they have different benefits and they produce different things. Some can actually have histamine promoting effects. Yeah, and people can get this sensitivity when they get certain probiotics. Whereas other people need more of a boost to their immune system, and they need that very much so they’ll take those probiotic species and they’ll feel great. It’s just that people haven’t figured it all out, and they’re trying to go black and white again to go quickly. Probiotics: good, bad. And doesn’t it remind you back to how we were talking about ketogenic: good, bad? Meat: good, bad? Or paleo: good, bad? We just want to hear that because it’s really easy to act on. What I want to remind people of is that it’s not all good or bad, it depends, and it depends on your personal biology. The key is in personalization, and you can’t personalize if you don’t have the molecular level details to do it with molecular-level precision. We try to do that work for you, and hopefully, that helps.   [01:19:02] Ashley James: I love it. You said earlier before we hit record that your goal is to help people embrace complexity and do something good about it. Health is complex. You just totally threw a few listeners for a loop that some of them could have actually developed further histamine problems, meaning increase their allergy symptoms by taking what they thought was a very healthy probiotic. Everyone knows that we should all be in some form of probiotic. This is the thing that everyone says, be on probiotics. I am quite fascinated because you brought me back to when my son was an infant and he developed food allergies. We were trying to figure out why, but we did have him on a bunch of probiotics and he started to express more of a histamine reaction. And I just wonder if that was one of the things? Of course, it’s never one thing only, like you said, it’s an accumulation of several things. But if we can look at a few hundred thousand pathways of the genetic expressions of our very complex microbiome that creates all of these pharmacy-grade chemicals in our body, some of which masterfully. Some of which help us to feel happy. Some of which help us to have healthy thyroid function.  25% of our T3 is converted in the gut. 90% of our serotonin comes from the gut. We keep hearing these things from health experts, but you take it way deeper by going let’s look at your individual gut microbiome.  Now you have so many clients now that you can see the metadata as they do, and I’ve actually had some listeners reach out to me and say I’ve been doing Viome for the last few years and they shared their experience. And my Naturopath, I came to her for my annual physical after I had submitted my results and I was looking forward to receiving them from Viome. She said, oh, Viome. Obviously, she didn’t mention their names, but she said I have had several patients who couldn’t figure. We did allergy testing, we did everything, and we went through all the tests that naturopaths have, which is so much more complex than most physicians because they’re looking at the body as a whole system.  They couldn’t pinpoint, but Viome—your test—was able to get the person the different cases that she had, was able to help them get exactly the information they needed that they couldn’t get from other tests because you’re not looking at a food allergy or an immune response. You’re taking it to a whole new place that is not looked at from anywhere else. It’s quite exciting. Coming back to the real-world application. If someone is tired, they have brain fog, they have the laundry list of symptoms that they’re not incredibly happy with—weight gain, the stress in the body like high cortisol, and fatigue. How much of that can be corrected by knowing what to feed your microbiome? How much have you seen corrected? Since you can look at the meta-analysis of so many clients, as they retest and as they share their results, what have you seen accomplished in people’s health as they’ve utilized the Viome results in their life?   [01:23:21] Ally Perlina: Well, it could be on a level of these pathways and microbial communities and how active they are, and it can also be in terms of the symptoms. Some of the common responses in terms of improvement that people see—besides the ones I mentioned about just mood, some of the pains and aches, and things like that—are sleep, brain functioning, and just overall energy. That’s another one I did not mention, but it’s energy, performance, stamina, and endurance.  I’m not just talking about athletic endurance because we do have a number of really professional athletes that turn to us and they really like our program, but it’s more about actually just endurance of going through the stresses and burdens of life. Some people have it really tough and some people maybe have it even tougher with all of the COVID times, unfortunately. It just helps the body rejuvenate itself and protect itself, and some of that can come from microbes just simply making more of the short-chain fatty acids. That can help on even the epigenetic level and it can help reduce some of the inflammation. And then other people, it could be more of the immune-boosting effects. Certain microbes can promote immune stimulation but in a way that you need it, not the inflammation to be lingering or anything like that, but the immune-boosting effects. And can promote epithelial cell turnover in the gut, which helps your gut lining be healthy. You seem to have a good gut lining, but certain communities of the microbes start to produce these nutrients that are basically like your B vitamins, vitamin K, and things that you may think you’re getting from your pills or your diet. But at the same time, when it’s made naturally in the gut from something that is already part of your biological ecosystem and it’s in that right place basically at the right time, then there’s nothing like it that you can just like swallow as a pill.  So they can make antioxidants for you, which can then protect your cells, give your cells more energy, and that is something that you can even feel on the overall system level. Even some of the lipids and things that can enhance the functionality of your mitochondria and cellular membranes can also be promoted from the pathways that get turned on by a microbiome. So back to the real world, it’s really just a number of different things that can be responsible for the success that we see. Even B12, we see a lot of that being produced by the microbiome. We see if there are glutathione and selenium pathways activated in the microbiome that can be part of the antioxidant theme. We can see if microbes are helping you detox in a way and help you mitigate any of the reactive oxygen species, which is part of the oxidative stress, and then we measure that in the blood test now with the Health Intelligence Service. That gives you that blood kit and helps you understand your stress levels and your mitochondrial health. Your mitochondrial health is actually pretty good, but it’s not perfect, so maybe you need a bit more of that boost. Back to foods and supplements, you could see that you’re recommended some of the resveratrol, nicotinamide riboside, but it may not be good for everybody. For people who have high senescence, NAD may actually promote that if you also have high inflammatory pathways. But if you don’t, it may be great for you.  Now if you take that and if you take some people to take Metformin just because they read something about it, but you may need to supplement as well with some of these polyphenols that nurture the microbiome and the gut lining and also have the anti-aging and antioxidant effects like quercetin, curcumin, and resveratrol. Because without it, you don’t know when some nutrient that is just like being buzzed about is good for you or it’s actually harmful to you.  If you take things that inhibit some of these pathways, you may need to supplement with CoQ10 so you don’t deplete your energy because having too much NAD in a certain context without supplementing with CoQ10 may not be the most optimal mix for you. So that’s where we get to this whole next chapter which I’m sure we’ll talk about some more that I’m really proud of is the personalized supplements where we take the nutrient level precision even farther and give you your own personal blend with your name on it of exactly what you need and nothing that you don’t. Because there’s so much of the good stuff that can actually cause harmful mixtures for some people—but not others—that we want to actually simplify for you and deliver it so that you just need to stick to these capsules and a stick pack per day with pre- and probiotics.  You will get exactly the dosages that are specific for you, exactly what you need and none of that extra redundant or harmful stuff that you don’t.   [01:28:54] Ashley James: Right. I can imagine that there are supplements that I’ve taken that have choline in it because that’s healthy for some people, but not for me based on my microbiome. You’ve actually cued me to want to go and look at all my supplements and see which ones may have choline in it because I’m going to chuck those, for me. I could give them to my husband, maybe they’re good for him. It’s so interesting. When I got my Viome results, I remember I was sitting on the couch with my family. We were all hanging out. I opened up the app. You can do it in a browser. My husband, he’s all thumbs so he doesn’t like using his phone. He used the website and he quite liked that, and then I used the app. I thought that when I did the kit that I wouldn’t buy the supplements. I thought I’ve got enough supplements, I’m just going to follow the food recommendations.  I think within five minutes of receiving and reading through—I hadn’t even finished, I mean, there’s a lot of information. I remember having been going to read it to me, what does it say? And I’m like, there’s a lot of information here. I’m going to have to digest this in chunks. As I’m going through all my information, of course, it’s so easy because you start off by just giving—here are the foods to eat, avoid, and eat less of, and here are your superfoods, which is simple. But then, of course, I want to know more and want to know more and go deeper and deeper into my results. At each turn, it would explain why my microbiome is expressing in this way which produces this and these pathways are happening. Here are the supplements that can help to mitigate that or help to push it in this direction. I thought, how comprehensive is this? It’s amazing. One of the supplements they’ve wanted me to take was the tart cherry, basically, a cherry extract, which you say comes from tart cherry juice. That’s my exact experience, my body really resonates with that. Your test shows that my unique and individual supplement that you guys would create for me—I looked through and I recognized some of the ingredients as foods, superfoods, or extracts that I have really resonated with. And then there’s a laundry list of different wonderful probiotic strains and explaining why these for me specifically.  You compile them together and ship them off to me as a monthly supply. I thought it was so funny that I opened up the app, sure I would not buy supplements from you, and within five minutes, I’m like, I want to try this. This looks so cool. It’s made just for my body and just for me, and it’s going to help me come back into balance even more. It got really exciting especially because most of it’s from whole food sources that are very specific extracts. Now, you guys give a discount, which thank you so much. The coupon code is LTH as in Learn True Health. When you buy the Viome kit itself, you can use the coupon code LTH to get the listener discount, but you can also use the coupon code LTH when you order the supplements, and that’s nice too. I got a little bit of a wonderful discount, so thank you, and I placed my order and I’m looking forward to them arriving.  It’s only eight capsules. You and I have talked about this because I thought how could you have eight capsules for anyone regardless of their size, but then again, it’s not about all the cells in the body. It’s really about the microbiome and about the metabolites it creates and about supporting cellular health on a different level. Plus these are very refined extracts that are quite concentrated, so you assured me of the potency. Tell me about the results that people are getting from these supplements. Have you had any feedback, or have you performed studies? I know that even gold medalists are part of your program.   [01:33:17] Ally Perlina: Yup. Precision supplements is a completely brand new program. We just started it, and we’re going to do all kinds of studies to report our results, but until this moment in time, for all these years we’ve been recommending off-the-shelf branded supplements before we started making our own, and that’s a completely different type of setup as you can probably imagine. You’re limited to only what is formulated and commercially available to suggest to people. We would still operate on the level of nutrients. Look for any supplement that has the following ingredients, but we have no partnerships or we don’t endorse any brands. We don’t even talk to them. It’s completely unbiased. What that left us with is basically the impetus for this whole precision supplements program. Yes, we’ve heard of some really good feedback and good results that we’ve collected and we have the numbers to show it, but they were so limited and hampered by our inability to choose to just get the nutrients from the available formulations that you need in the amounts that you need so you don’t have to take 200 pills if you don’t need them, and none of the extra stuff that comes with it that you do not need. If you know that these are the only providers of this particular ingredient, and whoever makes the ingredient is selective about who they give it to sell the ingredient, then you’re stuck with whatever those providers formulate. If they formulate it with magnesium stearate, silica dioxide, and all of these different things in high amounts that are not good for you, there’s very little control you have. You basically cannot have the flexibility to just pick out the active ingredients in the best concentrated potent form without all of the extras, without the fillers, with picking the right sources and types of the capsule itself, or what should go in the stick pack. We just wanted that flexibility. Even though we do have some preliminary reports to tell us that yes, we are on the right track with supplements, this program is completely new. We just launched it and are very excited about it, but that doesn’t mean that there is no evidence behind our recommendations. Actually, my team and I spent so much time on all of the different rationales and references so that even to the point that it could be overwhelming to some people because we don’t want to make it look like we just list some ingredients and we just think it’s going to be good for you.  We actually specify exactly which mechanisms of action are being targeted by these ingredients, and which scores are tied to these mechanisms of action. We also give you this bibliography that tells you, okay, it has been shown that this ingredient has antimicrobial effects.  For instance, for you, Ashley, you have some of these oral microbes, which are not necessarily pathogens, but they get into your gut and they are overly active. They’re more than you would like them to be. That means that maybe some of the nutrients that solve your stressors’ types of pathways that also have antimicrobial effects would be great for you. We try to shoot most birds with fewer stones and give you just those nutrients that you need. You have ginger, I believe, in your foods, and you have mastic gum in your supplements—among other things—that have some of the beneficial polyphenols and carbs. But also have the antimicrobial effects that you need to keep these populations of microbes at bay, and the other ones that are also responsible for the biofilm and chemotaxis types of pathways. We try to address all of these different things giving you exactly why this is recommended for you and giving you the references. It’s the summary that you don’t get anywhere just by googling an ingredient. You’ll get some high-level things. But in the actual recommendations for every food and supplement ingredient, you’ll see exactly why it’s recommended for you. Back to the eight capsules topic, it’s actually the dosage that is very custom-tailored to you. Just because everybody gets eight capsules does not mean that everyone gets the same dosage whatsoever. Actually, everybody gets a completely different dosage. So cherries are something that has actually already worked well for you. For you it’s 879 milligrams in your supplement mix of this cherry powder, other people will only have maybe 300 milligrams of cherry powder, and many people won’t have any of the cherry powder. You need the cherries and not just because of the uric acid and other of the pro-inflammatory pathways, but because it also helps to feed some of your microbes associated with beneficial metabolic fitness pathways. That’s one of the scores that you need to improve. In every single one of these nutrient explanations, you will see what scores it helps improve, it also helps with your cellular stress, and then basically why you need to take them and the evidence is there. For our program, we will show in more formal clinical studies what the evidence will be, but for now, the evidence for every single one of them is there. The dosage is there to fit perfectly within eight capsules the things that are most important for you in a dose-dependent way to address your biology.   [01:39:03] Ashley James: I love it. I’m so excited. Ally, do you take the supplements that Viome creates?   [01:39:09] Ally Perlina: Oh, I take everything. I’ll try anything twice.   [01:39:14] Ashley James: I mean, you’re part of this system. You’re the Chief Translational Science Officer. Who came up with your title at Viome? Did you come up with that?   [01:39:29] Ally Perlina: It’s a team effort.   [01:39:32] Ashley James: it’s a team effort, I bet. When you first started taking your own supplements based on your unique Viome results, what did you notice? Did you notice anything different at first when you started taking them?   [01:39:50] Ally Perlina: Yeah, the ways that stress and inflammation manifest in my body are headaches. I’m such a headachy person. I’ve had headaches since 10 years of age, and I have all kinds. The works, basically from migraines and some of the hormone-related ones to things that I think are more because of my protein fermentation issues. I do eat animal products and things like that. I’ve gone through phases in my life when I went completely vegan and vegetarian and somehow I keep going back to having more of a variety including the animal products in the diet. I think that I’m actually not doing well for myself with those things. When I take bromelain and some of the protein proteolytic types of enzymes, I notice that it helps me. It does better for me even with headaches and things like that. Also just in terms of stress, and I do have a little bit of a histamine thing coming and going depending. I had asthma as a kid, so when I take quercetin along with other things, I know that’s one of the ingredients that seems to make me feel better. Without it, it’s not the same. I do notice that some probiotics, I swear they do make me feel—I get itchy eyes. I don’t have it all the time, but I get itchy eyes from some probiotics. I don’t want to give any probiotics bad names, but there are some probiotics that have even been published to cause a bit more of this histamine sensitivity, or even in the gut, they bring about like the Th17 response. Which for some people could be good because with just a little bit of inflammation in the colon environment, you will stimulate the rejuvenation and proliferation replenishment of colon cells, which you need for your gut lining to be young and active. But if too much of that happens, then you don’t want to elicit that response.  I’ve learned a little bit from all kinds of trials and errors, and I try branded supplements too. I try so much, I rotate them, I forget them, I order new ones, and I try our own, and I try all the packets from our suppliers, obviously. I noticed that some of the probiotics just cause a little bit of the itchy or whatever response in me, and some things will illicit headaches. If I have too much B12, I’m done. I can have just excruciating tension headaches, debilitating ones.   [01:42:37] Ashley James: This is when you take over-the-counter supplements, not your unique Viome supplements?   [01:42:44] Ally Perlina: Actually, for me, if I take too much B12 from anywhere, I’m going to be in trouble. But having said that, methylcobalamin is much better for me than cyanocobalamin for B12. And I hear that’s also true for other people. So the type of formulation, the chemical formula that you pick to get your active ingredient in is also very important. The source, where you derive, what is the natural source of the supplement, how is it extracted, how is it prepared, what are the excipients in the formula? Are there any fillers used? Is the capsule vegan or vegetarian? What’s it made of? All of those things actually play a role.  Yes, it’s very important to make sure that all of that is well selected and quality control because not the same B vitamin is the same in all the sources. But just in my example, with B12, I just know that if I take too much B12 some people think that more is better and it clears because it’s water-soluble it’s no problem. But I’m really sensitive to it and I’m sensitive to some of the bifidobacteria. I just am and other people are not.   [01:43:55] Ashley James: That makes a lot of sense considering if you had the MTHFR expression mutation snip. I’ve heard it called different names, but basically if you have MTHFR issues that non-methylated—sorry?   [01:44:16] Ally Perlina: Sorry, just some polymorphisms that can come up that make those issues more or less—the variance in your DNA that can make you a poor metabolizer or not.   [01:44:28] Ashley James: Right, polymorphisms. Thank you. I was reaching for that terminology. Do you know if you have the MTHFR polymorphism?   [01:44:39] Ally Perlina: Not the kind that’s well documented. More like benign, not the kind that’s really debilitating. I get messed up with B12, whether it’s methylcobalamin or cyanocobalamin. Too much B12 messes me up.   [01:45:00] Ashley James: Can you see in your Viome readings? Is it a gut thing? Is it a microbiome issue, or is it something else that has you specifically sensitive to B12 when taken in excess?   [01:45:19] Ally Perlina: I’m not sure, that’s a mystery. But I have read on some, just browsing reviews of commercially available products that have high dosages, there’s always a subset of people who gave one star who say, oh terrible headaches. Of course, it’s a subset so the product can still have high ratings. But if you go to the one-star reviews, especially for products that have 45,000 reviews, you get a really nice sampling. So you get to see those people who really suffered, what did they suffer from? Except my package didn’t, pills were broken, that’s the usual. That happens sometimes.   [01:45:52] Ashley James: Right. What were their symptoms?   [01:45:54] Ally Perlina: Yeah, that’s how I learn. We really try to do our absolute best to do no harm. Even when it’s something that is not a known medically-documented fact, we still all do our research—going to Amazon and other things. We have our PubMed phase, which is the bulk of it. And then with my team, we actually have this thing—we call it like the industry market perspective research. When we’re done doing our sciency, geeky stuff, and then we put it aside, and everybody in the team owns their condition and owns their ingredients and say, for your ingredient, your condition you own. Now go to Amazon and then search all of the reputable brand products where there are tons of reviews and search the one-star reviews and see what people are hurting from when they’re taking this product. Because maybe, it could be related to the active ingredient, maybe not, but it’s good to be aware of that. That’s part of the research that we do. You got to do it. That’s the reality check because you may have PubMed saying how great everything is, but then what if you’re about to give it in a certain default dose for a certain score or biological area, and then you see actually all the bottles that happen to have it above one something milligrams have more reviews reporting like debilitating headaches, your eyes twitching, or insomnia. There’s a lot that talks about palpitations, by the way, that has to do with ginkgo, ginseng, and some hidden caffeine sources and things like that. Some people are sensitive to it, some people are not. The fast metabolizers can be sensitive to just about anything. Just a little bit of that can make somebody feel really wired and not able to sleep. People even have anxiety sometimes. It’s good to see those reviews, and it’s really revealing. Then you go back to PubMed and you search all the different results reports from either case studies or actually broader types of research work, and then you realize, aha, now it makes sense because it puts it more in the sciency geeky way again. But what prompts it sometimes is actually people’s anecdotes and personal reviews. It’s really important to keep that reality check and the perspective of how people actually feel so we don’t do any harm.   [01:48:13] Ashley James: I love that you go and use the reviews as market research to collect data. That’s so smart. I’ve actually done that. I’ve actually looked at one-star reviews of supplements myself. It’s very interesting to collect that information and then wonder why. Why is there a percentage of people that have this issue where the large majority doesn’t, but there’s going to be a small percentage that do? Why is that? And then digging deeper. I love that you did that. You are so in touch with your body. You’ve figured stuff out. So you’ve had headaches, and now the root cause. Have your headaches diminished, or do you feel like you completely have control over them now that you have implemented your Viome results and you take the supplements that are recommended by your Viome results?   [01:49:13] Ally Perlina: Well, yeah I think it really helps, I just don’t always do my best. Sometimes it’s the basic things like I don’t go outside, drink enough water, or something, and that can mess you up no matter what.   [01:49:32] Ashley James: Wait a second, you’re human? You ate a big piece of chocolate cake last night, what?   [01:49:39] Ally Perlina: I don’t have a sweet tooth, thank goodness because then I would be even more in trouble. I mean, I eat anything and I try to be more mindful of what’s good for me. And I know, by the way, for me I cannot do raw broccoli. I mean, not so well or raw cabbage, but I can do the sauerkraut. I’m okay with that, also not too much. But our servings, actually if you see the one you have on superfoods for sauerkraut, it’s not actually a really high amount. That’s why for you, with all the fermented and probiotic type of components, it’s really good. Same for me. I’m actually the same way in that regard.  I cannot do really high amounts of raw cruciferous vegetables, but if it’s sautéed like the brussels sprouts and things like that then they do better. I actually feel better. I feel really great with kale. I can do spinach, you can do spinach too by the way because your oxalate pathways are fine. You have the microbes that help you process your oxalate, which is you’re not as likely to be facing gallstones or kidney stones as some people are who don’t have that extra helping from the microbiome actively processing oxalate. I know what I need to do. I’m just saying it’s a matter of me knowing how to control all this stuff and then me actually taking control on a daily basis and sticking to it. That’s a little bit harder to control, but I do my best. I know exactly and I’m guilty of being my own enemy.   [01:51:14] Ashley James: I love that you brought up the oxalates. So my friend Naomi and I—she went whole food plant-based after I did, but I was easing into it and she went 100% overnight. The two of us have shared wonderful meals together, and we even film ourselves cooking in the kitchen together. We created a membership called Learn True Health Home Kitchen where we teach all kinds of delicious meals that are super wholesome. She got a scare because she realized that she was eating a ton of spinach. We became a little obsessed with a few of these dishes that are so spinach heavy and so delicious. In between the huge amount of spinach and kale she was consuming, there began a concern in her family about how much oxalates she was consuming. I don’t think she’s ever had a stone. She’s never had a scare of a stone—kidney stone or otherwise—but of course, we hear about this. We hear that spinach is healthy but you shouldn’t eat too much of it because it’s high in oxalates and you could get stones from it. She never had any symptoms. I kind of laughed because I’ve gone through phases where I ate pounds and pounds of spinach and I’ve never had any problems. It is interesting that my microbiome processes it for me so that I could manage to eat a lot of spinach on a regular basis.   [01:52:47] Ally Perlina: Not a lot, not a huge amount.   [01:52:49] Ashley James: Okay. Eat a nice bowl of it. I’m lucky to have never had that problem, never had stones—kidney stones or any stones in my body. I’m quite happy that I haven’t had it.   [01:53:05] Ally Perlina: Good, that’s great to hear.   [01:53:07] Ashley James: She hasn’t either, so the two of us who have been heavy on spinach at times in our lives have not had that problem. I wonder if she also has that same aspect in her microbiome where it helps to process oxalates. Whereas other people may not and they may be super sensitive to spinach and just have to avoid high foods with a lot of oxalates in them. It’s interesting that we could look at that and we could see why some people get kidney stones and others don’t. It could actually be their gut biome, which is one of the contributing factors to preventing kidney stones. I mean, that’s fascinating, right?   [01:53:54] Ally Perlina: Absolutely.   [01:53:56] Ashley James: And there’s so much we could talk about, get into, and understand how the body works in relation to the metabolites the microbiome is producing.   [01:54:07] Ally Perlina: Right. Speaking about microbiomes, we didn’t really talk about probiotics. Well, we talked about some of the potential side effects. But some of the probiotics ones you have I believe like lactobacillus rhamnosus gg. There are different strains of it, but some of the strains that you have are actually known to counter the sulfide gas producing activities in your gut. It’s like the microbes that you put in as probiotics can also counter the effects of microbes that are already in your gut.  Instead of always thinking of let’s say just getting that nutrient to manipulate the pathway, to take something away, or to supplement with something, one of the things we supplement with is this specific lactobacillus is just one example. But there are also microbes that actually help counter ammonia production in the gut that happens to be activated by other things you do like protein fermentation that you have. You have ammonia production and sulfide gas production, and these microbes will counter the effects and the activities and suppress the effects of these other microbes that are engaged in these pathways making the sulfide and ammonia. All these things we do explain in those narratives the explanations, but I think that’s very important to be mindful of because it’s slightly a new science. The effects are stemming from that all the way to the hypothalamus-pituitary axis. Also, you brought it up several times in the conversation, but the endocrine balance that’s a whole other story altogether. We see the connections with microbes and then your own cellular health and foods from the endocrine perspective as well. In some cases, you need more of the hormone boosting type of microbes like Tribulus Terrestris, and I think you have that one. There are also other nutrients that we have that boost some of the specific hormone levels or just help you modulate them. In a way, they help the body adapt and tune to its own best levels. Then there are those activities that we see where microbes actually go and recycle some of the estrogen metabolites into more powerful potent forms of estrogen, which could be great for women who are entering menopause or postmenopausal but may not be so good for people who don’t need even more estrogen because that can contribute to some of the sensitivities. It could contribute to weight gain, it can be pro-inflammatory, it could even potentially be carcinogenic. We can see those pathways, and then we can see in the blood side—we’ll come out with those scores really soon in the near future to actually show it to the users as well. We will see if on the blood side we see a lot of this androgen receptor or estrogen receptor ESR1 hormone stimulation of the transcription factor program that then turns on a lot of the different cellular signaling pathways. That is something we can see from this blood test as far as the Health Intelligence Service. Then that can be modulated appropriately with some of the nutrients that we have. Then when it comes to the foods, for instance back to cruciferous vegetables, you might know that you don’t want to have a lot of those if you have an underactive thyroid like hypothyroid function. That is something that traditional regular western medicine has accepted I think for a while because even for those who have hyperthyroid people who need to lower the activity one of the drugs, I think that’s one of the older drugs that used to be given, maybe still is given. Now it’s called PTU, propylthiouracil. It was actually made from an extract of cabbage. It’s one of those components, among others, that makes cruciferous vegetables responsible for lowering the thyroid effects. It’s basically one huge interwoven circle cycle complex system there that we’re deciphering at the moment.   [01:58:29] Ashley James: Right, interesting. Some functional medicine doctors have shared with me on the show that they do not limit cruciferous vegetables for their hypothyroid patients. In fact, they don’t see any difference if they have their patients eat it or not eat it. They think the benefits—for those whose microbiome can handle it—of cruciferous vegetables far outweigh any thyroid diminishing effects. It’s interesting to look at. We have to myth bust at every turn these old beliefs that have been the health system for so long. We have to come back with a fresh look and go, is this true for everyone? Is this true for every hypothyroid case? Especially when we can take our Viome results and look at someone, okay, you have a hypothyroid but it shows that you actually do really well on cabbage or broccoli. It would be very interesting.   [01:59:40] Ally Perlina: Right, benefits outweigh the risks, in which case you may have some. Maybe it’s still not going to be a bucket of broccoli that for some people could be good, but I agree. You could also do it in different ways with steaming, without steaming, and figure out the way that works best for you. The fermented cabbage could be better than raw cabbage and all these things.   [02:00:00] Ashley James: Right, absolutely. There’s a well-detailed questionnaire that we fill out after we mail in our test kit. One of them is asking what supplements or medications we’re on. Do you take into account people’s medications when creating the individual supplements to make sure that they don’t interact with each other in a negative way?   [02:00:28] Ally Perlina: Absolutely. Especially for supplements, we needed to make sure that we work it out absolutely right. We still, of course, put a label that just like with any dietary supplement, if you’re on medications and have certain medical conditions, you need to consult your healthcare professional. We’re not trying to replace the need for medical guidance, but at the same time, we’ve taken care of all of these different interactions.  For people who are let’s say on SSRIs and some MAOIs, they will get tryptophan for instance not on their list or it would be an avoid food equivalent, but for supplements. It’ll be on their to avoid. In terms of nutrient recommendations, they won’t get that. Then for people who take ACE inhibitors, there’s going to be a specific potassium limitation or avoiding potassium in people who take blood thinners, vitamin K, and many other rules. People who are taking metformin and statins, will get extra priority to make sure we get them the CoQ10 or PQQ that they need to make sure that they replenish that mitochondrial energy production activities and all these things. We take all that into account.   [02:01:57] Ashley James: Yes. Over 20 years ago, I was put on Metformin and it made me sick as a dog and I immediately stopped taking it. I had every symptom. Anytime I have a client that’s on medication, I like to go down the list of all the side effects of the medication just to make sure they’re not experiencing it because it’s very concerning. I’m a health coach, I’m not a doctor, and I always tell my clients that you definitely want to work with a holistic doctor like a naturopathic physician that’s licensed to be a physician because they have a deep understanding of how the body works and also how the body interacts with supplements and medication. I’m really concerned that doctors do not sit down with their patients and really scrutinize over every symptom that appears after they get on medication. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve worked with where they tell me they’re on Metformin, for example, and I say, okay, let’s just go through and read the actual list on the Metformin website of the complete list of potential side effects. I had a client in the hospital for eight months with acute appendicitis caused by being on Metformin. That in rare cases, Metformin can cause appendicitis. She lost over 80 pounds because she could not eat. For over a year, she could only con sip tea and bone broth, and this was all stemming from.  Now, this is, of course, a rare event, but medication can, in some cases, have a detrimental effect. I’m really looking forward to the day when like Viome, the pharmaceutical industry could make a unique and realize that based on your DNA and based on all of your body’s biology, that Metformin would be a horrible drug for you because they could tell. Could you imagine the day when they could make a special exactly what you need? Oh, your body just needs this pathway and needs this just to go in this direction. We could incorporate holistic medicine so much smoother just like Viome is doing. But anyway, I’ve had several clients who realize that they’re, after talking to them and going through the list, if you look at what Metformin does—I mean, we’re picking on Metformin as an example but it could be any pharmaceutical, over-the-counter or prescribed drug. That one of the side effects is hypoglycemia and another side effect is hyperglycemia. What they’re taking to treat could actually exacerbate, in some cases. But you’re right, any medication we take can reduce nutrients in the body because it’s something that the body has to metabolize. In the case of cholesterol medication, either cholesterol medication depletes the body of CoQ10, and it is mainstream knowledge that those who are taking—now I do not know why they don’t just put CoQ10 in with the cholesterol medication, but they have to supplement with CoQ10. I think that people should supplement a lot more CoQ10 than they’re told to take. But Metformin depletes the body of certain nutrients. Magnesium is a nutrient that is often depleted by many over-the-counter and prescribed drugs.   [02:05:25] Ally Perlina: Exactly, yeah. And B vitamins.   [02:05:28] Ashley James: B vitamins, exactly. Selenium or glutathione. We’re looking to help bring the body back into balance. We want to go to medicine because we’re sick and we want to feel better. In some cases, it’s a matter of life and death and these meds are going to save our lives, and in other cases, we’re going to the wrong doctor. The doctor that’s not going to actually tell you how to heal or reverse disease, but just going to put you on a med to manage certain things but are going to have a bunch of other symptoms pop up. This is where I get so frustrated because medicine should be personalized like Viome provides. I love that you guys do take into account the medications people might be on, the supplements people might be on when constructing their unique supplements for them. Is there any feedback that you’ve gotten? I know it’s a fairly new program. You guys have really bet-tested it a great deal. Is there any feedback that you’ve gotten from taking the supplements that are specifically designed for people that just pops into your mind that you’d love to share?   [02:06:36] Ally Perlina: You know what, let’s table this for when you have taken yours and we will have more feedback from people just like you who’ve already experienced this. Because I don’t want to stretch it based on one-off internal examples or anecdotes from ourselves, basically. It just won’t be a fair representation of information.   [02:07:00] Ashley James: I’m curious. I want to know what everyone in the lab because I’m sure all of you guys are your own guinea pigs, and I want to know. I know that Naveen has shared his results and his wife’s results and how amazing—they’ve had such a great experience. And of course, everyone in your lab is having fun experiences. Okay, I’m looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to having my own experience with the individualized supplement for me and then coming back and talking more about it. This has been so much fun Ally. We could really talk a long time, and you did touch on several times that the metabolites that come from our microbes—based on what we feed it—can actually stress the body to the point of cancer, could create carcinogens, and could even increase unhealthy estrogen levels, which is absolutely linked to breast cancer and in men is linked to prostate cancer.   [02:08:00] Ally Perlina: Yes, androgen pathways of all different kinds actually. That can come from the microbiome, not just estrogen.   [02:08:08] Ashley James: And they say, statistically, one in three people—the average standard American diet eating person—will have a diagnosis of cancer in our lifetime. My mom died of liver cancer, my dad died of heart disease—two major illnesses that we look to correct with diet and prevent with diet as well. Anything you can share about how Viome can help people to live so healthy or correct certain things in their life that we could prevent cancer?   [02:08:41] Ally Perlina: I guess this is not surprising if it comes as an answer from me, but we really just invest all that we got, not just from our own brains and expertise, but from all of the published clinical trials in literature and from the internal studies that we have to empower you with actionability in your hands. You don’t have to yourself, or your Naturopath or any other doctor read 200,000 pathways because even ourselves—as uniquely positioned as we are—we’re not doing this manually day in and day out. It would be impossible to keep it unbiased and objective. What we do is we pour every single bit of actionable information and insight into our entire infrastructure that gives you these recommendations for foods and supplements. I mean that’s part of a mission. That’s always been the driver in my mind and my heart. What I do is to make sure that we can scientifically power the medicine, and that stems from specific functional areas that we cover today to the overall wellness, and illness prevention, and longevity. It stands to actually revolutionize, not only the wellness space but also how we approach pharmaceuticals, not just nutraceuticals. Because we do collaborate with pharma, and we’re going to do more of that. That is something that brings me back to the eight years that I spent working with various top pharma in the world to help understand these pathway outcomes of drugging different targets. What are some of the off-target effects or opportunities for repositioning from one disease to another? And also, what makes one person respond to Metformin, for instance, quite well, whereas other people have quite detrimental effects. What can be done to ameliorate that? Anything from companion diagnostics to adjuvant therapeutics and new therapeutics can actually come from this platform that we built because it all comes back to the molecules.  If your molecules are telling you that from the microbiome this is what’s happening, from the blood side this is what may impact your hormones, your health. This is what the immune system is stressed. Then you know these intervention points, which can be targeted with not only food or supplement nutraceuticals, but it can be targeted with actual drugs that can be already in development, or it can be a new generation of drugs that are made with this information. I feel like that’s just part of the bigger future vision. As for now, I think that this is for wellness. Taking the holistic approach, which we’re all very passionate about food and supplements. If you get these tests, get familiar with your body, and don’t shy away from grabbing this knowledge and seeing what it can do for you. Being more in tune with the information and with what your body needs. Because the more you get into it, the more prepared you will be to really shield yourself from various conditions and to augment this whole healthspan and lifespan. As you know, we have this aging score, which is a unique thing and a relatively new thing itself that you can also track over time and see if you are getting younger. You’re younger than your chronological age, so congratulations on that.   [02:12:38] Ashley James: Thank you.   [02:12:40] Ally Perlina: But that’s also one of the things. It’s a very important area called longevity. You think it’s one area but actually, to extend longevity—like a healthy lifespan, that means you need to address all possible illnesses and prevent them or reverse them in order to prolong human health. Longevity is not actually just this one area just like any one disease. It’s actually getting all the diseases, plus helping you stay at your best, your optimal, and your youngest feeling and looking. That’s longevity, it’s all the diseases taken care of and then some. So now, we have—more than ever—this mechanistic insight into aging, and we publish that. I will send you actually the links to this publication and our glycemic response prediction, which is part of our recommendations that we discussed before. I’m very excited about it because our machine learning efforts—very proud of our AI—it’s given us something that our data science group actually proposed for us to look at. My group, the translational science, we looked at it and was like, oh my goodness, this is a gold mine. The things that go up with age are those things that are more of the pro-inflammatory microbiome activities. Like methane production, some of these gas production pathways actually happen to be going more and more and more pronounced with aging, so more associated with age. It makes sense because it can be harmful for your digestive system and therefore can contribute to your aging. Therefore, for some people who have really high methane production pathways—it’s not the only thing, but they may also sometimes see a less favorable aging score. But what’s fascinating is that we’ve seen the T cell deterioration and senescence, and all kinds of other types of gut-neuro and not so gut neurofunctional decline signatures as part of both GI—the gut intelligence, and also the blood transcriptome test features that were part of these pathway and functional knowledge nuggets within our aging model. When we looked at what this AI machine learning model produced and we really dug into those features it was like these—sorry for the noise. When we look at all the features, it’s like the mechanisms of this multi-functional, multi-system progressive decline started to just resurface in a new light. I’m quite excited about what we can do and to see how that score—along with all the others that are on a functional level telling you what’s happening—may change when you take not only food recommendations into account now, but also take our precision supplements. I think we should probably have a follow-up because so many new things were just delivered this year. The Health Intelligence Service, this aging score, and now the precision supplements. They’re so new. They’re all built on the foundation of something we did before, but they’re so novel and new that I want to follow up with closing that loop. Maybe in a few months.   [02:16:12] Ashley James: Okay, sounds great. You say new, but it’s by no means not supported by science. You’ve beta-tested it. There’s a lot that’s gone into it. It’s years in the making, and now it’s finally available to the public, which is very exciting. It’s everything you’ve built upon like you said. It’s new that it’s now finally available to us. Because I’ve talked to you guys several times and learned more about Viome. It’s something that’s been built upon for years, and I love that at the core of Viome is just a bunch of really geeky scientists that are very experienced and very excited about this. As am I, I’m very excited about it. I love that you guys do your own studies. You’re going to give me links to some of the studies. But you’re constantly tinkering in the lab with a lot of guinea pig people, which is really exciting. One study I’m particularly excited about—we’ll wrap up the interview by talking about this because I’ve taken up so much of your time. I’m so thankful you’ve been so generous with sharing with us. This is the cutting edge. I don’t fully know if everyone completely has grasped how cutting edge this is. How unbelievably amazing this is.  This would have cost over 10,000 or more even something like six or seven years ago to have these tests done in such a detailed way. This is something that Naveen talked about in our interview—episode 441,  but that because of the AI, it’s something that people can afford. You might have to save up for it, but it’s equivalent to a lot of other lab tests out there. Just the cost of it is something that the majority of the market can do, which is exciting because it’s giving us access to information about ourselves, which is absolutely revolutionary. The fact that then we can take that one step further and look at a list of specific food extracts, of superfoods supplements—based on hundreds of thousands of pathways—understand why our body uniquely will respond in an excellent way to those foods specifically or those supplements specifically. And then why we should avoid others because of the metabolites that are created. Whereas other people could thrive on our do not eat list. It’s so brilliant that this is really going to be the key or the answer, that missing piece of the puzzle for many people who have been seeking health for so long. Now what I love is one of the studies you did was you did a continuous glucose monitor on a group of people, and then you took in a detailed account of the food they ate and how their body uniquely responded based on a glycemic index. I’ve read the book The Glycemic Index Diet. It was created by a cardiologist in Toronto who noticed that he actually had some patients completely reverse heart disease by changing their diet, and that got him really curious. He went through and saw that some foods will metabolize very quickly into sugar. You can eat fruit, it would metabolize quickly, whereas something slow like a complex starch would take longer. But I thought that everyone would react to potatoes the same way. I just thought, okay, it’s on the glycemic index here and everyone reacts to it the same way. You guys found something very different. Share with us.  First of all, how many people were part of the continuous glucose monitor study, how long did you do it for, and what were the results?   [02:20:17] Ally Perlina: Well, the whole study, it took us like a whole year to actually carry it out. That’s also part of the enrollment. For several months, it was several hundred people, and a total of I don’t know how many tens of thousands of meals ended up being tracked. We actually tracked the sleep and all of these things as well. We looked at their glycemic response. Every 15 minutes there would be a reading that gets electronically taken basically by the glucose monitor. In the end, we analyzed all of this data. Our AI team I did all these great analyses and built our own machine learning model so that we can predict if a white potato is good or bad for you, or the yams are actually good or bad for you. Because there’s this never-ending argument. Which ones are more glycemic? Good or bad in terms of glycemic. Being overly glycemic is something that you want to avoid. The more of these spikes you have of sugar spikes the more you’re on the track to insulin resistance. Your insulin sensitivity really starts to diminish with those types of patterns. You want to avoid that. Also, this whole insulin resistance is part of a bigger inflammatory pattern that a lot of times just goes hand in hand. Long story short, as a result of the study, we have our own model. And as features of the model, those things that the model takes as input, we have all the different levels of the data. The gene expression, the microbes that are active, and also some of the scores like scores that assess your metabolic fitness pathways and some of the inflammatory pathways. They can go on with their own outcomes for each individual once we process your sample along with other features to help us tell you if a banana is too glycemic for you or not. Because if it’s not, actually it has some inulin, and it can feed your butyrate producers to produce more of that beneficial short-chain fatty acid for you. But if it’s too glycemic, then you might see bananas on minimize.  And then for potatoes, actually, potatoes can really enhance fecal and bacteria and [inaudible 02:22:47], which is another beneficial microbe that’s a butyrate producer. You don’t have that available as a probiotic, so you can’t just take it. Plus, as you know, probiotics don’t always stick around or colonize well. You want to be able to promote these beneficial microbes and their beneficial functions by having the right type of diet. For some people, white potatoes—I mean, not deep-fried of course—may be quite good. But for those people that have this predicted glycemic response outcome by our model that says it might be too high for you, they won’t see the white potato in their enjoy or superfood list. those are the types of things that help us personalize with much better precision. And it’s very true about the berries. It’s quite interesting. For some people, strawberry, raspberry, or blackberry maybe on the minimized list because of the glycemic response, versus for other people, they have no predicted high glycemic response and they actually feed your akkermansia, which for you is good. That’s part of the reason you have all these berries—the strawberry, the blackberry I believe, and the cherries as well. Akkermansia is good for metabolic fitness and usually is associated with a leaner phenotype. Also, some of the berries—and you have pomegranate—feed some of the ellagic acid metabolizers that take ellagic acid and can turn it to urolithin A, which is a very powerful antioxidant that you would benefit from if you feed them those berries versus others don’t. Plus, we also discuss the uric acid production and mitigating strategies with the sour cherry. For some people, it would be too glycemic so you cannot have it. But we will try to mitigate it with other strategies through food or supplements. Taking all that into account, just to summarize, just another example that came to mind, what if you do need help with overall insulin sensitivity and sugar control issues? For some people, they cannot have some of the berries or they cannot have some of the beneficial prebiotic type foods. But let’s say in supplements, we can suggest that for them, berberine might be good because it has sugar-lowering benefits. If you have these microbial opportunistic activities and some pathogens or the oral microbes, maybe for those people, berberine is especially good because it has antimicrobial properties. Whereas in food, you will get slightly different things recommended for you. And then another example that I think Naveen likes very much but I think it doesn’t even know that it came from my personal anecdote as well is with strawberry—just speaking of berries—may not necessarily be just a glycemic issue. It could be for some people that it’s histamine inducing, because it’s histamine inducing, you may not reap the rewards that strawberry has to offer. But you may get a lot of the anthocyanins and fisetin, which is a senolytic and basically anti-aging compound. Back to the whole longevity topic, you can get that as a supplement in your nutrients. In a way, that’s your super ingredient. You take it and extract it, then you don’t have to deal with either glycemic or histamine promoting properties of strawberry.  That’s just another example of personalization. The supplements are there to literally supplement what you can and cannot have in terms of the foods, and on both supplement levels, it’s really this beauty of this systems biology dynamic interplay that we can see with our RNA data that we address because it’s many-to-many. You could see many reasons why something can be avoided superfood for you, and many reasons why you may need a combination of foods and specific nutrients in your arsenal of this nutrient diet and recommendation plan. You have your own precision food and supplements that are made for your unique biology.  There’s just no simple way to summarize it all or display in like five bullet points because it is years and years of work that’s based upon years and years of knowledge and evidence, and this new data that makes it all possible. I really truly believe in that. As we come up with more studies—we’re constantly working on a lot more than we got a chance to cover—I will be happy to talk about it and then send you links for all of the things that we put out there so far.   [02:27:45] Ashley James: Wonderful, exciting. For those who don’t have blood sugar as a concern, although one-third of those in the United States—and similar for other countries that follow the similar diet and lifestyle of those in the United States—have pre-diabetes or are diabetic type two, meaning more of insulin resistance, more of a problem at the cellular level not at the pancreatic level, which is type one. But the problems at the cellular level utilizing insulin and metabolizing carbohydrates, and there’s a lot that goes into that. There are 16 minerals required to make insulin work correctly with the cell and when they’re missing—chromium being the major one, vanadium being another—that insulin cannot work correctly with the cell. And then there’s evidence showing that eating a high-fat diet from oil or animal products actually promotes insulin resistance. Those that cut out oil, cut out animal products, see almost within a week increase in insulin sensitivity. I mean, all this stuff is coming together. Like you said, it’s not just one thing. And then we have to take into account the metabolites created by our unique microbiome based on what we’re feeding it and those metabolites will have an effect on the blood sugar and on our ability to metabolize the blood sugar.  But looking at, why is it important for people who are not even remotely diabetic or pre-diabetic, and that is that Dr. William Davis, who I interviewed all the way back in episode 167—it feels like a lifetime ago—he’s the author of Wheat Belly and also the author of Undoctored. That was a great interview because he explains that he gets people—in order to heal heart disease and reverse it and even prevent it—he has them monitor their glucose and everything they take in. Let’s say you do not have any diabetes at all. And even what you did with the continuous glucose monitor, if someone could wing that and get their doctor to prescribe them one. But he has them eat a meal, write it down, and then one or two hours later take their glucose and see—even though they’re not diabetic—how does their body react two hours later? Is their blood sugar 140, 130, or is it 97? Where is it at?  If you eat a meal and then you see that two hours later you still have high blood sugar, even though you’re not diabetic, he says you got to look at what happened in that meal. What is in that meal and you need to write that down? Are you able to dial in your meals and eat foods that then you see a beautiful blood sugar, a nice rise up and then down, and the body comes back into balance?  You notice that you can maintain your blood sugar in a very healthy way, then keep eating those meals. He says that has for him has been—and of course, he says everyone should avoid barley, wheat, rye, and in some cases oats. He’s able to help people reverse heart disease and prevent heart disease by making sure that even those without diabetes have healthy blood sugar, and have a healthy glycemic response to all the foods they eat. Your specific, based on your study, when someone gets the Viome kit from you and gets their own results, some of the foods they’re told to avoid or to minimize are because their unique body and their unique metabolism microbiome will have a high glycemic reaction to those specific foods. Thus eliminating so much of that guesswork, and also setting them up. If they follow the Viome results as best they can—because we are human—they could be preventing heart disease and other diseases because they’re keeping their blood sugar in balance as much as possible.  That’s really exciting that these are the biomarkers you’re looking for, and you’re looking to promote as much health as possible. Not looking to replace doctors, but really looking to change the health system by diving deep into the individual’s needs. That was such an eye-opener for me because I thought based on—I loved studying the glycemic index diet—everyone reacts to potatoes this way, and everyone reacts to strawberries this way. Not true. What a wonderful revolutionary study that you have published that you’ve done. That then you can take all that information and put it into the Viome experience as someone goes through. I highly recommend listeners go to viome.com, use coupon code LTH, get the listener discount. Get the test kit, it’s really fun, and it’s such a great experience. The question that I was left with is how many times a year do I do this kit? Should I do it once a year? Should I do it every four months? If I take the supplements that are recommended, eat the diet that’s recommended, how much should I see change, and when would be the best time to then test again? So that, okay, don’t eat bananas, or now you can eat bananas. How many changes when you get the retest and how often should people retest in order to achieve optimal health?   [02:33:45] Ally Perlina: That’s an important question to cover because many people say, okay, well I don’t want to be bothered to do this too often. I also don’t want to miss the changes that my body goes through as I follow the recommendations. We used to say every quarter, so basically three, four times a year. I think that may still be a good idea for the first year, or maybe just two times a year may be enough because we don’t want to make people feel forced or burdened by multiple many, many times a year testing. Although some people like to get all of the digital data on their biology so they retest many, many times a year. Just as a rule of thumb I’ll say for the first year, if you’re especially going through a lot of changes, then at least two times would be good. And then from that point on, unless you just experienced something, you had a surgical procedure, or you had a huge change either huge good or huge bad—hopefully not bad. But when you see that there are some really big changes in the environment, you’re trying a completely new lifestyle or whatnot, then you might want to retest just to get the before and after and see what it’s doing to your body so you don’t miss that moment of changes. But in general, twice a year would probably be a good overall benchmark to aim for. Does that make sense? One more part of the question that I didn’t answer is how much change do you expect? What we’ve noticed from our just internal observations is that when what we recommend for you to do is not that different from what you’ve been doing, so down to specific details like what do you use to target your TNF alpha or whatnot, that may change actually. But if the ultimate outcome is there is this action, this action, this action that you’ve already had covered with your food and supplement before whether you knew it or not, or if your diet is very similar like you did not eat animal protein or almost did not before, and now it’s the same with the Viome diet. You did not eat milk products or dairy altogether, now it’s the same, then your changes will not be maybe huge and drastic right away.  Whereas those people who were eating drastically different diets before, got the recommendations and said, I’m going to change everything about my life. I’m going to follow this and this is a huge difference, then you do see more of the difference in their microbiome and their human blood transcriptome happening because you would always anticipate that. You know that there is a link between molecules in the food and your supplements and the molecular patterns in your body. When the change is drastic, you’re going to see the change reflected in your body as well. You would expect to see more, and that’s what we see.  If you’re more or less the same, then it will just take longer to move that needle, especially on these bigger aggregate scores that cover hundreds of pathways, and it may take a little bit longer. But that’s okay, we still see those changes. Just keep up the good work. Some scores don’t need improvement and they’re not in the red zone, but you want to still get the more perfect score, or you want to maintain a good score that you have. That’s why you should follow these recommendations. Just because you don’t see earth shattering huge changes doesn’t mean that it’s not good or it’s not working. Testing a couple of times a year and expecting some changes because RNAs is dynamic and it helps us to be as dynamic as you are, but expecting them to be basically in a way dependent on how big is the change that you’re implementing with Viome recommendations. That’s how big of a magnitude of a change that you would be likely to see, and that’s how fast it may or may not come.   [02:38:10] Ashley James: Exciting. Well, I’m excited. I’m excited to see this unfold. We’ve already had several listeners share in the Facebook group those who have been working with you and implementing results for a while shared that it has been amazing. They’ve gotten great results, something as simple as removing one food and adding in a few more can be life-changing for some people, but they just didn’t know and they didn’t know the science behind it. And then also, by following your system, by following the unique recommendations, it is going to alter the microbiome in a sense and create a more hospitable environment for the gut, for our hormones, and for everything. It’s exciting. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all this information. I can’t wait to talk with you again in a few months after I have been on your supplements for a while, after I’ve really had a few months to incorporate. I’ve been incorporating the results of the feedback that I got from the Viome test for the last 17 days already. I am not bloated. There were times when I really couldn’t pinpoint what meal it was that I would feel like my belly button’s about to pop off. It would come and go, but I always felt like I had lots of energy. Everything was good, it’s just that was that one last piece.  I haven’t had that problem in the last 17 days, and that’s very exciting. I can’t wait to try the supplements. I’m so excited to hear from more of the listeners who are going to go to viome.com, use coupon code LTH, get the test kit. And then when they get the results, use coupon code LTH again to get the supplements and try it out. Come to the Learn True Health Facebook group and share your experience with Viome and share your experience with following the product, their recommendations, and what happened in your health.  Just the fact that you’re able to now control your headaches that were a lifelong problem and so many people suffer from migraines that aren’t able to just put their finger on it. If they could get this information, what quality of life changer that it could be for so many people. The aches and pains that people have can go away because of the metabolites that the dysbiosis in their gut is producing based on what they’re eating. Their aches and pains can go away. This is so exciting that the quality of life will really go up. It’d be interesting if you could—maybe I’ll just put this in your thinking cap for you to gnaw on. What if we could somehow measure the quality of life index? Some kind of improvement score based on the quality of life—a decrease of pain, a decrease of inflammation, an increase of energy. And there’s some way that you could score to see—over the course of a year, for example, that someone was working with Viome—how much of an improvement in the quality of life that they were experiencing. Have you thought of doing that?   [02:41:20] Ally Perlina: Yes, absolutely. We have these things called progress questionnaires, which you will probably see and you can fill them out every week. Some people fill it out less frequently, and you also have a bigger questionnaire when you re-test. After several months when you want to repeat the testing and you order your new kit you will also tell us about what things changed.  Some of the things that we put into the questionnaire are actually some of those known standard medical questionnaires that are used by different medical systems. Alternative medicine, Naturopathic medicine, and integrated functional medicine are specifically geared at assessing your overall satisfaction with life. It’s just different compilations of different questions that actually make up the core of such known questionnaires that have been validated to do exactly that. It’s just a matter of actually coming out with the final ultimate score, and somehow displaying it or communicating it back to our users. That would probably be great at closing that loop.  I really like that you put that thought in my head because we’re actually reworking our questionnaires right now. I know it’s a lot of questions, we all know that. We’re trying to make it a little bit more smart and savvy on how the user experience goes with that. This could be a great time that you brought it up because we may think of how best to deliver some of the outcomes back to the users of what we learned about their progress and how we see them tracking along. Because for some people, they may not see improvements in scores really fast, but they may start feeling better. For others, it’s fascinating, they may not feel better. Some even feel worse in the beginning. It’s hard to change so much and stick to the new diet. But then we see after several months their scores improve.  It’s very interesting to have the biological metric as well as the overall wellness and lifestyle satisfaction metrics that we want to be able to analyze and meaningfully communicate back. I believe that would be a great way to close the loop.   [02:43:39] Ashley James: Exciting. Awesome, well thank you. I love hearing about all the work that you do. I just geek out on it. It’s just so exciting just imagining where we’re going to be 10 years from now, 50 years from now because of the work that you’re doing. Do you ever think about that? I know you and I could talk forever, this is going to be my last question. But do you ever think about the future of medicine and how you and the work that you do with all of the wonderful co-workers in your lab that you guys are going to help shape medicine?   [02:44:18] Ally Perlina: Yeah, all the time. That’s basically the big mission. We all come from different walks of life, but the same mission that Naveen actually puts out there as our tagline it’s in a way my mission and mission of people in Viome is to make illness optional. It just sounds like it’s too grand and huge, but you got to take some steps on how you’re going to get there. If you don’t have a route even planned out at all, then you’re never going to get there just because you’re going to say it’s too ambitious of a goal. We actually imagine that it will get us from the wellness space to something that gets more accepted by the healthcare systems that hey, this is actually really important. It’s changing people’s lives. We’re going to be showing this in as formal of ways as needed with double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials, which we already have geared up. We’ve launched supplements, now we’re getting into the more formal trials. I’m not going to say disrupt, but at least augment, enhance, and add to the health care system. One is from the health care practice, the other one is back to pharmaceutical industries like I said because you need to understand what drives these different patient cohorts to respond or not respond because that can be a make or breaker for the next big drug that can help people. But what if it only helps 45% of people marvelously, and some of it is actually defined by your microbiome-driven or the human cellular pathways that you can measure? And 45% would do just absolutely great, but the other—more than half the population—may not do so great. If you figure out what are these culprits and what are the different ways from food and supplement to help the future pharmaceutical trials succeed, that would be a huge breakthrough. And then the ultimate breakthrough is to have new engineered probiotics and prebiotics that help us modulate our health and completely new chemical pharmaceutical compounds. Maybe it’s a small molecule, maybe it’s a monoclonal antibody, that is designed having this information in mind that is the ultimate next step. And then doing it in an integrative and again, biologically informed ways because we already know that. The medical system knows that there’s no one drug that fits all perfectly. They almost just don’t exist, or the ones that happened to exist. It was more like a lucky break and still, people have these side effects that we all know about. To actually take control of all that, you have to embrace the complexity you have to actually figure it out. I feel like we’re at the cutting edge of this and we’re as close as anyone has ever come to this point in the world. When it comes to envisioning this life may be a decade from now, I think that first of all, people will be a lot more informed. The medical system will be a lot more equipped with these latest scientifically and technologically powered methodologies to serve you best in your health journey. The pharmaceutical companies will also adjust their ways and embrace these new perspectives to design new drugs and improve the drugs that maybe have failed at some point before. And all of that is to bring the different levels together to give you these ways to extend your healthy lifespan and reverse your already existing conditions with molecular level precision.   [02:48:03] Ashley James: I love it. Ally, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you so much for sharing with all of us. You’ve been so generous with your time. And this is the cutting edge. We’re hearing it first here.   [02:48:21] Ally Perlina: Thank you so much.   [02:48:22] Ashley James: We’re willing to throw the old system out and help reinvent this new system that is more specialized, more personalized, and you guys are working on that. Thank you. This is awesome. Please, listeners, go to viome.com, check it out. Use coupon code LTH and join me in finding out exactly what you should and shouldn’t be eating and supplements specifically for you and just see what happens. You never know. Even if you feel healthy, you never know. You could be taking it to a whole nother level just like Naveen shared in his interview. He and his wife were pretty healthy, and then it was like oh my gosh, that was health? I can’t believe it. This is like a whole new level. It’s quite exciting I am very much looking forward to the coming months and seeing the results that I personally have as well as hearing from all the listeners. You’ve said so much already. Is there anything that you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview or anywhere you want to point us, any directions you want to point us in?   [02:49:28] Ally Perlina: I just want to basically say that you should keep learning and seek the kind of knowledge that will empower you to take control of your health. I think, Ashley, what you’re doing is just absolutely wonderful, you’re brilliant at it, and you’re so curious and you should stay curious. You’re teaching others how to go about this. I actually appreciate that you said, my listeners, they want to know some of the geeky details. Maybe some will want to know even more so don’t hold back, and some may skip through this and that’s okay.  I like that you’re encouraging this, so you have this attitude of why don’t you reveal a little bit more of the interesting facts that really make it what it is. What’s it like to take this approach and then have it make a difference for your health because if you don’t understand it, you don’t seek to, and you don’t make people curious about it, then they’re not going to be as empowered because they won’t know. How does it matter? It’s all the same, or it’s all you never know what’s really right. Tomorrow it’s going to be wrong. But then when you really, really start to understand, it’s like you feel more in control because knowledge is power. I just want to say good luck on your health journey and, thank you so much for sharing this and for encouraging your listeners to be part of this journey of actually improving their knowledge, their health, and really taking true control of it. I’m not going to say just point you to one place and go to viome.com. You already did a great job about that. There’s just so much unbelievably interesting fascinating information, and you can start by even googling something that is related to you, that’s fine. But read the journals, read the news, stay informed, and stay curious. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed and give up. Just little by little, we’re all on this journey together. Every day we’re learning something. None of us have everything figured out. We don’t have all the answers for everything. We’re all learning all at our different levels one step at a time. I just want to say, thank you, Ashley, for doing this. I just want to encourage people to keep at it and go along in your wellness and your learning journey together with you, Ashley. Thank you so much for having me here. I really enjoyed spending this time with you.   [02:52:03] Ashley James: Awesome. Thank you too, Ally. Stay curious.   [02:52:09] Ally Perlina: That’s right.   [02:52:12] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today’s interview. Be sure to use coupon code LTH when you visit viome.com to get the at home test kits. After you get your results with a test kit, then you can order their custom made supplements. I definitely encourage you to just try it for one month and see what changes you notice. I was very surprised at the changes I noticed in such a positive manner. And then all the science behind it and how much information you get about you specifically and how your microbiome and your mitochondria are working and how you can work with them to support your optimal health. It’s just absolutely so fascinating how much unique information you get from this test kit. I highly recommend checking it out. So use coupon code LTH at viome.com and then come to the Facebook group and share your results. We’d love to hear and learn from your experiences and learn from other listeners’ experiences as well. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy the holiday season.   Get Connected With Ally Perlina! Website LinkedIn – Ally Perlina Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn – Viome

Contact Dr. Vienna Lafrenz www.natural-therapeutics.com Christmas Gift Ideas! Energybits.com and the magnesium products at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com use coupon code LTH for both! Visit TakeYourSupplements.com to get on Dr. Wallach's protocol & the supplements that Ashley and her family have been taking for the last ten years. Check out IIN and get a free module: LearnTrueHealth.com/coach   Remote Healing with SCIO Quantum Biofeedback https://www.learntruehealth.com/remote-healing-with-scio-quantum-biofeedback   Highlights: What remote Biofeedback is What therapeutic ultrasound is Self-love and healing Emotion has a huge impact on healing Different modalities for healing How food choices affect our body and mood   Did you know that you can get remote healing? In this episode, Dr. Vienna Lafrenz shares how she helps her clients heal by using different modalities. One amazing tool that she uses is the SCIO machine, which works through remote Biofeedback. She explains what the SCIO does and how it helped her clients. What’s fascinating about Vienna’s healing approach is that she helps her clients heal holistically—emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and energetic. She explains that if we don’t have self-love, it hinders us from healing fully, so having self-love would be the first thing that needs to be worked on to heal.   Intro: Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. You’re in for such a ride today with Dr. Vienna. I can’t wait for you to hear today’s episode. You know, there are 53 days left until Christmas if you’re listening to this the day I publish it. If you’re listening to it later, Christmas is just around the corner. I love giving holistic presents to my friends and family. I’m going to tell you a few that I absolutely love. The Magnesium Soak, you can listen to my interviews. Just type in Magnesium Soak at learntruehealth.com and listen to those interviews. Absolutely amazing. Kristen Bowen, I think she said she was 97 pounds, having 30 seizures a day, in a wheelchair, and unable to talk. Now, she’s in perfect health. One of the biggest things that helped her was her magnesium soak that she sells on her website, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. Be sure to use the coupon code: LTH when you go to her website, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. Coupon code: LTH. I love the Magnesium Creme. I love the Magnesium Soak. You put it in a foot bath or put it in your bathtub for you and your kids. I also love the Magnesium Muscle Creme, which is amazing for aches, pains, and tension headaches. That absolutely must be on your Christmas gift list, your holiday gift list. The other great gift I love giving my holistic friends is ENERGYbits. Go to energybits.com. Grab a few of the bags of ENERGYbits for your sister, your mom, your best friend. They’re fantastic snacks. Kids love them too because they make your tongue turn green or blue, depending on whether you get the chlorella or spirulina. They help to detox the body. They’re filled with readily available protein and tons of vitamins. I think I have seven different interviews about chlorella and spirulina, specifically about the ENERGYbits brand. I’ve interviewed the founder of that company. There are only two companies I know of that do not contain any lead in their chlorella. If you buy some over the counter, go to some health food store and buy chlorella, there’s going to be that little warning on it that says, in the state of California, this causes cancer. That’s because there’s actually lead in those bags of chlorella. But in ENERGYbits, in their chlorella, there’s zero because of their process of how they grow their crop and how they then turn the crop into little edible tablets. So listen to my interviews on the Magnesium Soak with Kristen Bowen. Listen to my interviews about algae, the healing benefits of algae, and how it’s such an awesome superfood snack to carry around with you. Listen to my ENERGYbits interviews and use coupon code LTH at energybits.com and coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. Those are two amazing websites to check out for your Christmas gift ideas. I always use coupon code LTH. I try to get companies who I absolutely love and adore and recommend to always use the same coupon code. Just always try coupon code LTH on all these health websites, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you get a great discount. Awesome. Enjoy today’s interview. Come check us out in our Facebook group if you haven’t already. We have such a supportive and wonderful community. You can ask your health questions there and support the other members as well. Just search Learn True Health on Facebook and come join the excellent community of very supportive holistic community there. Awesome. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy today’s interview.   [00:03:41] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 450. I’m so excited for today’s guest. We have Dr. Vienna Lafrenz on the show, a Ph.D. in Integrative Medicine. Vienna, you and I met through my friend Jennifer Saltzman. You have a beautiful clinic. Oh my gosh, just a gorgeous clinic in one of the most beautiful parts—remote parts—of Washington state. You’re near is it Republic, Washington? Is that where you’re near?   [00:04:21] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes, I’m actually in Republic.   [00:04:25] Ashley James: That was Republic that we drove to, okay. Gosh, it’s so beautiful out there. You’re just in probably the most beautiful part of the world. I just couldn’t believe it. It’s hard to drive the car because you just want to stare at nature, the mountains, and the scenery the whole time. It’s really beautiful. You have this gorgeous clinic and what a gem in the middle of nowhere to stumble upon you and all the work that you do. You gave a Biofeedback treatment to our son. That was amazing, the results we saw. And then I was quite sick back in February—just fever, gasping for air, burning lungs, sore throat—the works. I was just suffering for days. I did telemedicine with my Naturopath. I was on all kinds of supplements, and then you did a remote session with me. This was days into just high fever, sore throat, really burning lungs, and hard to breathe. At the end of the session, it was like the suffering had ended. My fever broke, and I slowly recovered after that.  About a week later, I was back to my normal self, but that was the point where the suffering ended. I thought that was really interesting. I’m always kind of skeptical but open-minded about things we can’t see like oh, energy work. Long-distance energy work. We can’t see it. I don’t think I could say it’s placebo because I didn’t believe in it. I’m like, okay, I’m open to it, but I didn’t have a strong belief like yes, no matter what, I think this is going to work. Because I w as sitting there suffering pretty badly or lying there pretty badly, and it was quite amazing that for a few hours of the session, I felt my body shift into super healing mode. That was my experience with it, but I’ve actually talked to others who have experienced the type of remote feedback that you do, including Eric Thornton, who I’ve had on the show several times. Everyone I talked to that has experienced the SCIO, which is one of the machines that you use, have all told me that they’ve had incredible results.  I’m really excited to learn more from you today about what remote Biofeedback is because I’ve had a personal experience. I’ve seen my son, I’ve talked to others. What a great tool to have in our tool belts especially when we’ve exhausted all the other resources. We’re eating healthy, we’re taking our supplements, we’re getting plenty of fresh air, sunshine, and walking. But if there’s still something not getting better in our health, we should absolutely look to energetic medicine. I’m really excited to dive into this.  Before we dive into what remote Biofeedback is, specifically the SCIO and the work that you do, I want to learn a bit more about what happened in your life that made you want to become a Ph.D. in Integrative Medicine and work with people using these types of therapies?   [00:07:52] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, I’m glad you asked. Prior to that, I was an occupational therapist for 30 years. I was working in nursing homes. I was traveling all over the United States. I was a consultant where I worked for the largest rehab provider in the whole United States. I would go to all these different nursing homes, hospitals, acute care hospitals, long-term care hospitals, all these outpatients, and things like that. I would go to where they needed me, and basically it was where either clients weren’t making progress and they were plateauing, or where business was really short, the therapists were having a hard time identifying clients, or just knowing what to do with them. They would call me in and I would spend the week there. During that time, I would consult on the clients, I would teach the therapist. They’d be sitting right there with me while I’m working with the patient, and then have them do it so there’d be a return demonstration so that the client would get better and they’d be able to go home. I would also spend that time doing some continuing education where I would provide courses that I would teach and things like that, and I loved it. About 10 years into my OT practice was when I first got involved with reiki. I learned reiki from a reiki master. That just opened up the whole new perspective of what energy is and how it works. How you can do distance healing, and how you can change somebody’s energy just either hands-on or remote. That opened up my eyes. Then I went into aromatherapy, then acupressure. So it just started developing, I started going to all these courses, getting certifications, and things like that. I started implementing that into what I was teaching through OT, through all the places that I’ve been going. I really specialized in pain management, so I would bring different modalities from the eastern world of medicine into the western side and started to integrate those two. When I started doing that, I started seeing a huge improvement in the clients’ outcomes and how they were responding in the healing process overall.   [00:10:13] Ashley James: You were using reiki, which is energy work, and you’re using essential oils and acupressure. Acupressure is a form of energy work in a sense that you are stimulating the nervous system, but also, you’re stimulating the meridians, which is more of an energy work. You could even consider aromatherapy, although aromatherapy is herbal medicine. There is an energetic frequency component to it. Along with your many years of experience and rehabilitation as an occupational therapist, you’re bringing in this energy work and herbal medicine to your—is it the senior patients that you were working with already?   [00:11:05] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes. At the same time, I was teaching the therapists how to use this information. See, when it came to the acupressure, I also used ultrasound, electrical stimulation, infrared, and all different types of modalities that we’ve always used in therapy in OTPT. We’ve used those types of types of modalities in our practices. Bringing those into the eastern world as well was really nice because a lot of people have a fear of acupuncture because of the needle. Whereas with ultrasound, you get the same result as if you’re using a needle.   [00:11:48] Ashley James: Now, when you say ultrasound, just to clarify—I apologize for interrupting you. The listener might not know this but because you’re on satellite internet, there’s a delay. When we talk there’s a delay, and sometimes we sound like we’re interrupting each other. We don’t mean to be. When you say ultrasound, could you clarify because a lot of people think ultrasound is imaging and not. That it’s actually using deep heat or a wave of energy that creates heat in deeper tissue.   [00:12:19] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: This is considered therapeutic ultrasound. It does not diagnose like when people go in for an ultrasound to find out if they have a baby or not. This is actually called therapeutic ultrasound, and there are two settings. There’s a heating setting, and there’s a non-thermal setting. The one that I use with the acupuncture points is a non-thermal. Basically what it is is there’s a little sound. There’s like a little crystal within the sound head that vibrates and so it creates a frequency. That frequency then interacts within the person’s energy and it gets the energy to flow through blood, through lymphatics, through the nerve system, through the musculoskeletal system, and through all of those different systems, and it gets it to move. How it works with the acupuncture point is that when you use acupuncture as in a needle, you have to be very precise where the acupuncture point is. With the ultrasound, because there’s this sound wave that is vibrating within the sound head, when you get it over the acupuncture point, it will either flow into the body or release the energy from the point. It’s similar to when you’re using a needle. You either tap it or twist it to get the result you’re looking for. Whether you’re trying to push energy into that point or whether you’re trying to release it. I use the non-thermal, which doesn’t go deep into it because the acupuncture point is so superficial to the skin that you don’t have to go deep.   [00:13:58] Ashley James: Fascinating. Tell us about these results that you started seeing. You’ve got these clients. Have you been working with them for a while? You were traveling, were you always working with new people, or did you come back to the same patients? And then what kind of results did you see when you went from just regular occupational therapy rehab to occupational therapy rehab plus energy work, acupressure with therapeutic ultrasound, non-thermal with essential oils? When you added those three modalities in, what kind of results did you start seeing?   [00:14:39] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, first of all we started seeing results right away, I mean during that session. What I mean by that is and actually, because I was an educator for the company, I was able to go to so many different types of continuing education so I could actually open up my toolbox and have as many tools available to work with clients as I needed. It was wonderful. I got my myofascial release training. I got some craniosacral lymphatic. You name it, I was able to get all these different types of tools in my toolbox. I just started implementing them every time I would learn something and master it. When I would work with a chronic pain patient, for example, I’d be just into the facility for the first time, meeting this person for the first time. The therapist is giving me as much information, I read the medical record, and then I start to work with them with the therapist. Literally, I would say 98% of the clients that I got to see while I was traveling would show an immediate, if not significant improvement, within that first session. Which is why it started becoming so popular for me to come to different locations and help some of the most sick or chronically disabled people. What evolved from that was just an excitement within all the therapists that we have other tools that we can use. We have other theories, we have other philosophies that we can implement. It also stayed within their scope of practice. They were able to expand their scope of practice within their scope and get the best results that they could from their clients.   [00:16:19] Ashley James: Can you remember early on a specific client that had this incredible before and after that you can share with us?   [00:16:31] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes, it actually happens to be one that I reiterated in my book. This was a gentleman, I want to say he was in Indiana. He was there because he’d had a really bad stroke, and he was combative as well. When the caregivers would try to help him, he would just either strike out or just get really angry. Part of it was because his body wasn’t working the way he wanted it to, and he would get really, really frustrated with it.   [00:17:11] Ashley James: It also depends on where the brain damage is because brain damage can cause that kind of erratic behavior, anger, and outburst just depending on where the inflammation or damage is in the brain, right?   [00:17:24] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Absolutely. Within this particular situation though, he was becoming more frustrated with the fact that his body wasn’t doing what he wanted it to do to the point where he didn’t like his body anymore. He wasn’t finding that he could even rely on it to do what he wanted to. As a general, he’s used to commanding things and wanting things to work like they’re supposed to. When his body was giving up on him, he was extremely depressed, frustrated, and took it out on everybody. It was preventing the healing process of where he needed to go, and he wanted to go home. So they called me in. I had the therapist show me exactly what they’ve been working with him. I actually have a certification in what’s called NDT, which is neurodevelopmental treatment. It’s a specialized process for people who’ve had strokes or any kind of neurological deficit. I went to go work with him. While we’re getting him to do certain things and perform certain tasks, he starts getting frustrated and he starts yelling. He starts yelling at his leg and he says, “See, it’s worthless. It doesn’t work. It’s broken. I just don’t need it anymore. Just cut it off.” I’m like, “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Basically we just stopped right there and I just said, “I need you to repeat this phrase for me.” I said, “I want you to repeat, I love my body and my body loves me back.” Well, okay, so imagine this general. He’s looking at me like are you crazy? Seriously? He does this very sarcastic I love my body and my body loves me back. I’m like, “Not good enough. Say it like you mean it. And he goes, “Okay, well I love my body and my body loves me back.” And I went, “Okay, really mean it.” And I leaned into him and I looked him straight in the eye and I said, “Say it like you really mean it.” He literally started to cry and he goes, “I love my body and my body loves me back.” And I said, “Now let’s do it.” We started doing the same exact task we’ve been trying to do over and over and over again and failed and he succeeded. I mean to perfection. He was like, “Oh my gosh, this is crazy. Can we keep going?” I said, “Absolutely.” So we perform that task over and over and over again, which is of course creating muscle memory and also decreasing the neurological exchange that’s going on, that is a deficit. He sits down on the mat completely exhausted, and he’s like, “You’re a miracle worker.” And I said, “No, you are. Once you started to believe in your body and to love your body back it rewarded you back by saying it loves you too.” Why I bring that up is because that’s one of the things I’ve learned throughout the time that I’ve been an integrative medicine doctor as well as a therapist. It’s the mind, it’s the emotions, it’s the psychological, it’s the mental that gets in the way many times, and if we don’t look at that whole person and address all of that, then we’re not going to get complete healing. You wouldn’t learn that until you go through energy work, until you start to learn some of these different modalities and different methods to help people heal. We can’t just heal the physical, we got to address the whole person.   [00:21:19] Ashley James: That is so true. We cannot just address the physical. We can’t just take our bag of symptoms to a doctor and get given drugs. That’s not health care. That’s disease management, that’s sick care. Health care is really holistic care, looking at emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and energetic. Getting that they’re all connected, and there’s not one that’s more important than the other. They all need to be addressed and they all affect each other. Sometimes, when we’ve tried doing physical and we’re not getting results, then we need to look at energetic, spiritual, or mental, and emotional, and come in from that angle as well.   [00:22:08] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yeah, his mind was getting in the way. That’s one of the things that I would say that 85% of the clients that I see currently, truly there’s an emotional and a mental deficit that is preventing them from healing. Part of that is the knowledge and the belief system that they can heal themselves, that they have that potential.   [00:22:36] Ashley James: Especially if they’ve been told by an MD, this is the way it is. This is as good as it’s going to get. You can’t heal. I was told by an endocrinologist when I was 19 that I’d never have kids, never. I was told by MDs that I would have diabetes the rest of my life. I can’t even tell you how many countless times I was told by medical doctors that I would always be sick. This is as good as it’s going to get. We’re going to manage your disease with drugs, and there’s no hope of a cure, no hope of getting healthy. And if you believe that, then all your behavior is going to reinforce that. Luckily, I go against the stream. I’m one of those stubborn people, and I’m going to completely do the opposite. I was like I’m not going to believe you and I’m not going to let my unconscious mind believe you either. But we have to catch ourselves.   [00:23:33] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: I’m going to prove you wrong.   [00:23:34] Ashley James: Right, but we have to catch our belief system and go what is in my belief system that has me sick, that has me staying sick, or has me not looking for answers?   [00:23:47] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Like I was saying, about 85% of the people who come to me, they come to me after they’ve been to every single specialist there is and every single one of them say there’s nothing wrong with you. Here’s a psych eval. Go get a psychological evaluation because there’s nothing wrong with you. We can’t find anything wrong with you. Yet this is a person who is showing up with so many chronic diseases of autoimmune, of thyroid, of lack of appetite, depression, anxiety. I mean you name it, and then of course, hearing that they don’t know what’s wrong with you only adds to the anxiety, only adds to the hopeless despair that is being created. I get a lot of that.   [00:24:33] Ashley James: So people come to you after, it’s kind of like you’re their last hope. Luckily you have a bag of tools to address everything—all the different angles. And you have a lot of experience with working with—I don’t want to say hopeless cases but people who feel like hopeless cases, or people who the medical system has given up on them, or they’ve fallen through the cracks, or they’re sick of being sick and they’re sick of just being drugged and just having their symptoms managed instead of actually getting better, actually getting healthier. There you were working with all these tools, realizing that there was a psychological, spiritual, and energetic component to rehab, to healing, in addition to all the physical manipulations that you can do to support people in their healing. What next? I love that reiki was your gateway into all this because reiki’s awesome. I’ve been doing it since I was like 16 years old, I think. What happened next that had you go fully into becoming a Ph.D. in Integrative Medicine?   [00:25:44] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, the difficult thing for me was as an occupational therapist, you had to always have an order from an MD to do what it was that you wanted to with a patient. When they don’t believe in what you’re doing, then oftentimes, those orders wouldn’t be approved. Therefore, you couldn’t deliver it to that client or to that patient. If you say you want to do essential oils for pain management, they’re like well there’s no science in that so no, we’re not going to do it. Or there’s no science in the acupuncture, acupressure, or anything like that. We’d get turned down a lot of the services that we wanted to provide, and so that was very discouraging because I knew that these modalities would actually help these clients. When I would see that happen a lot, especially with particular physicians or something like that, I would always invite them to come and observe a session or let me teach you. Let me show you exactly what this is about. Or I’d say give me your worst client that you have. The one that you’ve either been struggling with for pain management or something like that and just let me do what I do and then you can tell me whether you find that this is valid or not. In fact, I’d have some of the physicians come and attend some of my classes, and they would stay afterwards and I would show them because they’d say there’s no evidence that these acupuncture points exist. I said, “Yes, there is and let me show you.”   [00:27:19] Ashley James: It’s only a 5000-year-old system of medicine. No evidence—5000-year-old system of medicine.   [00:27:28] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Exactly. I would hook them up with an electrical stim unit and allow them to feel the acupuncture points. When they would be over an actual point, they would feel the intensity move up their finger as they’re tracing the meridian. When they would go over a master point, which is an extremely powerful acupuncture point, the intensity would go up even higher. Then they’d be like, “Oh my gosh.” And I said, “Follow that meridian all the way and they would feel every single point.” And then they’re like, “Okay, okay, okay. I get it, I get it. Who did you want to see?” So they would start giving me the list. That got me to start thinking about what I want to do? It all started with my niece who she was diagnosed with a very bad cancer, a tumor in her brain. It had been misdiagnosed for almost a couple of years. All they kept looking at were the symptoms. She was having pain in her head, she’d have weakness, she’d have some issues with cognition to where she would forget where her classes were, which when you’ve been going to school for a couple of years at the same school you don’t forget where your classes are. She’d have a hard time concentrating. She’d have some visual deficits and things like that that would just show up. They kept treating her as if she had allergies, if she had sinus infections, or things like that, and they would just give her medications. Until the day that one whole side of her body went paralyzed and then of course parents took her in the emergency room, instantly got a CAT scan and they found a tumor about the size of a grapefruit in the back of her brain. She instantly went in for surgery and I loved her surgeon. This neurosurgeon was amazing. He had the best bedside manner. He was really, really good. She went through the surgery, they got about 98% of it out, and then she was a candidate then for chemo and radiation. They got enough of it out but it grew so fast that she never got to have that. I mean, she did take some radiation and stuff like that but the side effects were so horrific.   [00:29:52] Ashley James: Of the chemo and radiation?   [00:29:55] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: The chemo and the radiation. She was basically on every kind of trial there was to try to overcome it. Every single one of them just failed and made her feel worse. She gained over 150 pounds because they put her onto a steroid, that steroid just packed the pounds on her, and she basically became immobile. She basically was stuck in her bed for the last, I’d say, six months of her life. This was a very active, vibrant, vivacious young girl and to see this happen. I would go down to her house every weekend for the whole two years that she was sick, give her mom some relief, and just have fun with her. I would use some of my modalities. I would use some of the reiki. I would use some of the acupressure. I would use some of the aromatherapy with her and found that she was getting some really good relief. She wasn’t having the nightmare. She wasn’t having the painful episodes, the difficulty with cognition, things like that, and it gave her some quality of life. So that in itself told me that this was working. After she had passed, she did pass away when she was 18. She actually passed on her mother’s and my birthday. We consider that her new birth, but that actually got me motivated to want to do more and to use more of the holistic way of healing. I started looking for universities. That’s when I decided to go back to school. I want to say I was 54 or 52 when I went back to school. I thought you’re never too old to go back and get your Ph.D., just do it. So I did, and I’m so glad I did.   [00:31:52] Ashley James: That is so cool. Her death and her suffering, at the hand of the medical system, showed you that you really wanted to explore tools that could have helped her.   [00:32:15] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes, and as a Ph.D., I don’t diagnose and I don’t treat. I know that sounds strange, then how do you work with clients? Well, I don’t treat because when you talk about diagnosing and treating, that’s more of the MD side of things—the medical doctor side of things. When it comes to a Ph.D., I’m allowed to be able to identify energetic imbalances in the body that cause disease, and then train the body, train the person on how to overcome those imbalances or those that lead to the disease state. I always make that really clear with my clients is that they get a little confused with the treatment part, but what I’m doing is training the body to return back to homeostasis. Training sticks, treating doesn’t. Treating is really just treating the side effects and it’s really just, like you said, a maintenance type of program. Whereas I truly feel that the training piece, which includes education of that client; which includes resources; which includes training the brain, training the muscles, and training the neurological system to do what it’s supposed to. As a Ph.D., I’m allowed to do what I want to with my clients. I don’t have to have a physician’s order to do what I want to, and that’s what really drove me into the Ph.D. program was to be able to say what it is that I want to do with this client and not have someone telling me I can’t do this and manage it. That’s where the true empowerment came from.   [00:33:59] Ashley James: In studying integrative medicine, you have many tools now. You gave me the tour of your clinic—and in this room, and in this room, and in this room—you have a lot of tools, and it’s really cool. You can work long distances with people. You can also do work in person, if someone wants to come to Republic, Washington, which is a beautiful place. Do you feel now that you have tools that could have helped your friend? I mean, this is all hypothetical. But had she not chosen chemo and radiation, do you think you have tools that could have helped her?   [00:34:44] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: That’s hard to say because originally, I didn’t even know she was having any symptoms or anything going on with her until the diagnosis came. And at that point, it was so huge and so big at the time that it’s hard to say whether I could have. Now, with the remote Biofeedback, yes, I can work with degeneration, which is a form of the cancer and the use of the modality, but I’m not sure if I can actually say that I would have been able to cure her. I feel sometimes we have to go through a process. I know this is going to sound terrible, but I think we had to go through this process with her so we could learn how to live because that’s the one thing that she taught us was how to live. How to live while you’re dying. She had this wonderful phrase where she said, she would always say that she had a really great sense of tumor versus sense of humor.   [00:35:55] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. That’s really beautiful. My mom passed away of cancer, and she did not do chemo radiation She chose not to. By the time they found it, it was end-stage. I guess she was just so healthy. When you look in Naturopathic medicine there’s an idea that we have a strong vis or the body has a strong will to be healthy. Some people have a weak vis or their constitution is weaker. Those who have a strong constitution, which my mom did, unfortunately, those kind of people will push their body to the point of breaking before they know something’s wrong, and that was my mom. She was healthy, healthy, healthy, dying of cancer. It was just like that—one or the other. It was Easter of 2002, Easter came late that year, it was like late March. Easter 2002, she was having pain in her side, went to her chiropractor because she thought she threw her rib out during yoga. She called me and I was having the same pain. I’ve got that intuition thing where if someone’s injured I feel the pain in the same area. I called my mom and I was telling her about my pain. She’s like, I have the pain in the same area too, which is like the liver radiating and she thought it was a rib. She goes to the chiropractor, the chiropractor immediately sends her—he’s such a good chiropractor—says, “You are going in today for an ultrasound of your liver. Something’s wrong.” She was in Florida. She got an ultrasound. That day flew to Ottawa, Canada, got into an MRI that night, and by that night was diagnosed with liver cancer. She passed away July 26 of that year. She was just doing some natural medicine, which the doctors actually think extended her life by a few months because of the size of the cancer and how it had metastasized to her lungs, her colon, and all these other areas. But watching her go through that emotional process of knowing you’re dying, accepting it, and also—living while dying. Yeah, I can understand that. There was a lot of sadness and regret, and also a lot of love and surprise. She couldn’t believe how supportive my dad was during that time because my dad was always one of those people that’s just like, suck it up. You’re not sick. Stop telling your body you’re sick. Suck it up. He was by her bedside 24/7 and there’s so much love pouring out of him.  My mom never in a million years would have thought that he would be so nurturing, and he’s like of course, this is real. He never wanted to give any mental power to feed into an illness. When you have a fever, just tell your body you’re well. That was his thing, mind over matter. But she thought he would just tell her to suck it up. You have cancer, suck it up. It’s just really funny watching that they actually healed their marriage, and it was really beautiful to watch. There is so much love and healing going on. Yeah, I can look at aspects of her final weeks and months and see the emotional beauty in it. We’re all going to die, and if we can gain those lessons, those learnings, if we can spread that love then, then that’s beautiful.   [00:39:52] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: She also knew where she was going as well. She had a very strong belief system. She was able to share with me what it was like, where she was going. That also gave her some of that comfort as well and that strength. What was so beautiful was just that she maintained her humor through the whole thing. She would make us laugh even when she was hurting. She also helped me understand how I can help others when they’re going through that process as well. Everybody has a to-do list, something that they’ve wanted to accomplish, something that they wanted to get done. That was my job was to help her with the things that she needed to accomplish before she passed. One of those was we wrote letters to every single one of her family members that she wanted to leave information to, her friends and so on. When she was having some of those lucid moments where she could keep some make some really good language and express what she wants to, I wrote so quickly what it was she wanted them to hear and say and kind of her last memories of them. So on the day of the service, I was able to give those letters to each of these individuals, which was one of the greatest gifts that she’s given to any of them because she lived on. We recorded every session that we had together. We videotaped things, just so that we could share the memories. She has two younger sisters that are twins. I interviewed her for all the moments that she was going to be missing like prom, graduation, and things like that that the kids would be involved in. I said, “Okay, so the twins are getting ready for their prom. What’s the day like and what are you guys doing?” I recorded that so that they could have that memory too because I know. It’s not just us that’s losing this wonderful person, it’s the family too. She got to live on, and she still does.   [00:42:06] Ashley James: And really, healing is about not just our body. We’re not just a meat sack. We have to look at the impact we have on others and our family and go beyond that. That’s really beautiful to take into account as part of healing. To take into account those around us that both impact our life and that we impact their lives. I love that idea of recording for future events. That’s really beautiful. What comes to mind is Dr. Hamer’s work with Meta-medicine. Where do you stand on that? I’m sure you’ve studied that as one possible way of understanding cancer. Where do you stand on that now as a perspective with your experience with your friend who passed away of brain cancer?   [00:43:06] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, I truly feel like whatever the body creates the body can heal. When we have a virus such as cancer that invades our body, I truly feel we can heal it, and it’s on the way in which we approach it. With my niece, the way we approached it was the way that she was able to manage some of her pain and also to try to decrease that tumor as it was starting to grow is we started using visualization techniques where I said, “Okay, act like it’s a Pac-man and that Pac-man is eating that tumor.” She’d try it and then she would go, “Yeah, it doesn’t work.” I said, “What would work?” And she goes, “How about Alka-Seltzer? I’m putting this little Alka-Seltzer tablet in a glass of water and it’s just sizzling, and as it’s bubbling away it’s destroying the tumor.” I said, “Go for it.”  She was even using a form of meditation at that point. I feel like when we can actually identify that there is something foreign in our body, because we all know we have cancer that resides in our body. It’s just not active at this point. When we identify and it’s starting to show some symptoms that we do have it, then let’s destroy it through our body. Let’s identify it and use all the means we can. I feel that that’s where this integrative medicine comes in is identifying it, using the body’s potential to heal itself, and to get rid of it. Some medications won’t work. I agree that sometimes we do want to use medications, and that would be in the acute episodes of a distressful situation such as heart attacks, high blood pressure, or something like that. Get people to a point where they’re stable, but now we have to take them off the medication.  I think that’s where we are not really doing what we need to in the medical field right now is getting people off the medications that got them to a point where they’re stable. Get them to a point where they’re able to manage it through their diet and do these drastic changes that need to happen in their lifestyle changes and then let’s get to work. But get them off the medications because we’re not designed to be on them.   [00:45:19] Ashley James: Yeah, no kidding. I know cancer’s a tough one because if we’re looking at everything that led up to it, the terrain of the body and the years it took. There are holistic oncologists and naturopathic oncologists and they say it can take somewhere up to eight years before it actually appears as a tumor right. Some cancers and some forms of cancer take many years to get to the point where the body’s gotten sick enough, worn down enough, or toxic enough to create that cancer.  There are different schools of thought like with Dr. Hamer’s work, the belief that that it’s an emotional event so jarring that the person could not comprehend or overcome it, and the body’s neurological and hormonal response to a major emotional event, which he did over 30,000 case studies on and was able to actually help some of those people reverse the cancers by working on the emotional component of what triggered it.  I’m sorry, I’m having a brain fog. I interviewed him, I’m having a brain fog at the moment. His last name is Dr. Simoncini in Italy. He believes all cancer is a form of candida basically. He’s been able to, with over 70% success rate, kill tumors—even brain tumors—by making a—and this is a great interview to listen to by the way for anyone who wants to listen to something just totally freaky. He creates a port, but he’s a surgeon. He creates a port going into the vasculature that feeds the tumor and then makes a solution of sodium bicarbonate, which he says everyone knows. Everyone knows that’s how you kill candida. You kill yeast with sodium bicarbonate solution.  He would just basically mix these two together in a very specific solution and pour it into the tumor. It’s not going to damage the body. The body just has a buffer system to bring up or down the pH as needed. But he pours this into the tumor and most of the time, that day or within days the tumor is dead—gone. He has over 70% success rate, which means maybe in some cases it’s not candida. But we’re looking at this, for these holistic doctors who have exceptional results with cancer, that on some levels, there’s an emotional component and people’s cancer goes away after that. On some level, we’ve heard of some people who had like skin cancer just completely fall off and go away when they used a concentrated form of cannabis topically. We hear these things.   [00:48:38] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yeah, Rick Simpson.   [00:48:39] Ashley James: Right, Rick Simpson oil. There are some great videos that are like 15 years old on YouTube of Rick Simpson talking about these or about 12 years ago. It’s all fringe because of course with the way our medical system is now, the only acceptable form of medicine in the United States and in many other countries that follow suit is surgery, chemo, radiation. But if we go to Europe, a standard form is also used, in addition to those. They also use hyperbaric chambers, ozone therapy, and hyperthermia. Those treatments are not allowed to be used by oncologists here, but are regularly used by oncologists in Europe with success.  And then we have the more fringe stuff like Dr. Simoncini putting sodium bicarbonate. Can you imagine if all the oncologists in the United States just started off by using sodium bicarbonate solution directly poured into the vasculature of the tumor through a port, just to see if that could kill it first. First of all, how many lives we could save, how much money the pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t make right. Unfortunately, there’s that money component. But looking at this, there’s also a belief that tumors are related to parasites. Just this summer there was some great research that came out where they were able to isolate the microbiome of tumors. They discovered that specific tumors have a different microbiome than the rest of the body, and now they’ve started creating diagnostic tools that they can actually detect—either in blood or saliva—the microbiome of tumors. Specifically identify before the tumor ever gets big enough to show on a scan.  They’ll be able to detect the tumor because the microbiome, which then leads us to think if the body is so out of balance that it has these kinds of bacteria in it. The body’s like a petri dish. It’s going to give this bad bacteria a home. Is that the cause of the cancer, or does the cancer itself then create? What happens? Does the cancer create the microbiome? Does the microbiome create cancer? There’s so much to explore here, and we’re really limited in the holistic space because we’re up against the pharmaceutical industry that really wants to protect its dollars. But we have to be open-minded. You have, at your fingertips, the tools that support the body’s ability to come into balance. You can work with nutrition, you can work with energy, lifestyle changes, detoxification methods. Your whole thing is not treating the disease but actually just supporting the body’s ability to come back into balance. Because if the petri dish of the body is so healthy, it cannot support the candida. It cannot support the parasites. It cannot support that disease from living in it. This is where we are. We have to rise above the pharmaceutical philosophy where they’re just treating symptoms, and come at it from your perspective. Since you graduated and you became a Ph.D. in Integrative Medicine, you’ve been working with all kinds of amazing clients doing this kind of therapy. What have you been really happy to achieve? I know you don’t do the work, the person does the work. I get you’re not treating them, but what are you really happy about? With the results that your clients have received, what are you really, really excited about?   [00:52:34] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, first of all, to go back to what you were talking about, I agree with everything you said about the emotions, about the bioterrain, about parasites, and candida. I have found that candida has been a leading cause of many of the people that I see related to cancer. We started working on getting rid of the candida through diet and through different supplements and stuff like that, as well as through detoxing. Found that they started to show a decrease in those symptoms as well. I agree with everything you said. Louise Hay actually talks about how emotions have a huge impact on our disease process and looking at some of the unresolved emotions that may be leading to those diseases and causing them. That’s one of the things that I always recommend to my clients is that they read that book, for example, because oftentimes, there is an unmet emotion or unresolved emotion that is causing some of this disease in their body. But to get back to your question, yes, I have these resources that are available, and I love it. What I love the most about what I’m able to provide to my clients is giving them their power back. What I mean by that is giving them their power to heal themselves, to know that they can, to love themselves again—that’s a big one, to resolve some of those hurts, and to realize that we don’t have to always look for other people’s approval of who we are, what we’ve become. It’s really only our own approval of what we are doing, who we are, what we want to become. I think because of the advent of social media and how much social media people are involved in and just media in general, we’ve given our power to so many other people that now they own our power. The medical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, they own our power because they basically say, I can’t heal you unless you take this, or I don’t know what’s wrong with you therefore you need to have a psych eval, or all of this. Yet the power is within. We just have to help them find it. That’s what I love when I see my client say, oh, aha. They have an aha moment or they go, so this is why, and then they resolve it and they’re feeling so amazing. All the symptoms that they were having are gone and they’re actually having a joyous life. Then they’re like is this supposed to be what it’s like? Because they’ve been living in this world for so long of lack, of feeling that they’re not worth it. One of the questions I always ask is what do you love about yourself? If it takes 10 minutes to come up with one thing that they love about themselves, we need to work on that self-love first because healing will have a hard time happening if you don’t love yourself. That’s what I like the most is what I’m passing on to most of my clients is that ability to love themselves and knowing that it’s okay to do it. That you don’t have to do this brainwashing, and really work with the children now too. I am working with younger children and helping them realize to love your body, to love your mind, love who you are. Don’t let others turn you into somebody that you aren’t because of getting their approval, wanting them to be liked, or something like that. Just shine bright and live very comfortably in that light.   [00:56:28] Ashley James: Can you share with us some specific results that clients have achieved through working with you?   [00:56:38] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: How long is your show?   [00:56:44] Ashley James: Stories of success. Any that come to mind that you want to share.   [00:56:48] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, I actually have several. One of the first ones is a lady who had come in to see me mainly just because she just wanted to feel better. Really had no real specific illness or anything like that. Just didn’t feel quite herself and just wanted to feel better. As I’m doing my assessment on her and I’m reviewing her symptomology and the things that she wants, one of the first things I always ask is can I look at your tongue? As she’s sticking her tongue out I notice that half of her tongue is paralyzed. I’m like, “Interesting, what happened here?” She goes, “Oh, I had a surgical procedure. It was an endarterectomy and they nicked a nerve. Basically, this half of my tongue has been paralyzed ever since.” I said, “Well, how long was that?” She goes, “About three years ago.” I went, “Really? And it hasn’t regenerated?” She goes, “No, they said basically, there’s nothing they can do.” She’d gone to speech therapy, she went to different things and nothing changed. I went, huh, okay. I’m thinking to myself, I’m going to look at that and see if I can address that with my Biofeedback. So I did, and I worked on her for a total of three sessions. After the first session she came back the next week and she said, “Is it my imagination or is my tongue getting better?” I said, “Well, let me look at it.” So she sticks it out and there is some movement. I’m like, it does look like it’s getting better, but I didn’t want to give her false hope so I said, “Well, I think there is some improvement.” So I worked on her again, and the next time she comes back and she goes, “Oh there’s definitely some improvement.” I said, “Show me,” so she showed me again. The last time I saw her she had full function of her tongue. The one thing that we were working on was the slurring of the speech because as a result of the tongue being paralyzed for so long, she had developed these behaviors or these patterns within her speech where it would come off as slurred speech, so she sounded like she was always drunk. She had called me one day and left me a message and said, “You’re not going to believe it but now I have full function on my tongue. I actually got to eat a hamburger for the first time without having to chop it up into little bites. And I didn’t have to take my finger and sweep the inside of my cheek to get the pocketing of the food out. I was actually able to use my tongue. Now, when I speak, people don’t think I’m drunk all the time because I’m not slurring my words.” When I see her in town I’ll ask her, “Stick out your tongue,” and she’ll stick it out very sassily with a lot of flair because she can because it’s working.  Did I anticipate that that would work, or that I would see an improvement in that? I didn’t, but the belief system you know is a strong thing. Sometimes we’re giving miracles like that, and she was one of those miracles where I really didn’t think—I mean, not that I didn’t think it would work. I was just keeping it open. Letting the universe do the work that it needed to.   [01:00:13] Ashley James: You didn’t have expectations. The way you do the Biofeedback, which you can do in person or remote, which is my experience. The remote worked. It’s helping whatever the body needs to correct. It goes through every system of the body and whatever the body needs to correct it does. It’s so interesting. I’m a master practitioner and trainer of neuro-linguistic programming. My teacher worked with a client who was in a fire and had half of his face scarred. He did emotional work called timeline therapy where he healed from the emotional scarring of those events, and the man’s skin—this is years before. The doctors are like you will always have a disfigured face, you always have these scar burns. What I think is really interesting is how the skin remembers to keep creating scar tissue. I’ve taken anatomy in college. I understand. There are layers of the skin. You damage the layer deep enough, you damage that third layer, and you’re done, you’ve always got a scar. This is what the medical system says. But the body has to keep creating scar tissue because we constantly are shedding skin. The body has to remember to not produce healthy normal skin and instead produce a scar over and over and over and over and over again long after the scar isn’t needed anymore. The scar isn’t needed, but the memory, the body keeps doing it. This is what I think is funny because we’ve learned now in more recent years that even adults have stem cells. If our body has the ability to produce stem cells, we can recreate healthy skin. What’s going on? But there’s a belief to hold on to scars. After he did this emotional work called timeline therapy, which I’m a huge fan of and also a master practitioner and trainer of, his face started having the scar dissipate over time because it takes a few weeks or whatever for new skin to rise to the surface and he no longer had the scars on his face of the fire. That’s just one example. There are so many other examples or stories where the body, whence the emotions are healed, the belief system changed, the body follows suit. For your client, was the nerve actually damaged three years later, or was she holding on to them—the body on an energetic level is holding on to the memory of the injury and continuing to perpetuate the injury into the future? You’ve seen this in occupational therapy because people will hold on to a holding pattern in their gait. You watch them walk in their gait as they walk away towards you, and you’ll see where the body is holding on to an old injury or compensating for an injury that’s no longer there. Z-Health is a great form of medicine designed by a chiropractor where you wipe away mentally by working on the nerves in all the joints. You wipe the slate clean so your brain resets back to normal. I’ve seen people who have been holding on to old injuries after doing even one session of Z-Health walk differently, move their bodies differently like more freely. Again, you cannot separate the unconscious, the mind, or energy or energetic body, from the physical. It’s all connected. But how much of our illness is being perpetuated by our belief system? How much of our illness is being perpetuated by a memory that our body has to continue to hold on to it? I love the work you do because you’re resetting the brain, you’re resetting the belief system, you’re resetting the body back to homeostasis.   [01:04:54] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, it’s also finding out how this disease serves this person. That’s one thing that is a hard question to ask because most people will say what are you trying to say? That I’m coming up with this on my own and that I’m manifesting this? I said, “Well let’s talk about that.” Because some of the really big breakthroughs that I’ve seen as well with clients is when you realize that they have become their diagnosis. Now they associate themselves with it. For example, I learned this in some of the work with Dr. Joe Dispenza. When we keep referring to our diagnosis of let’s say fibromyalgia. He calls this the water cooler conversation when all the people at work get together, they start talking about their weekend, and they’re standing at the water cooler. Everybody will be talking about the fun that they had, and then you have that one person that says, well because of my fibromyalgia I wasn’t able to do this, because of my fibromyalgia I wasn’t able to do this, and because of that, I wasn’t able to do this. So basically, they’re making their fibromyalgia much stronger in their body. It’s wherever you place your focus you place your energy. The more energy they put towards that fibromyalgia, the more symptoms that they would have. So then, you have to ask what do you gain from telling people you have fibromyalgia or even acknowledging that you have it? What’s the gain that you get? Oftentimes, this is where I’ve seen some huge breakthroughs with my clients because that’s a question that’s really hard to ask because then they have to ask themselves that same question about what am I gaining from it? In many cases, what they’re getting is the attention of people. They’re getting the love from, let’s say, a spouse that because you have this pain I’m going to take care of this for you, or not having to do the housework, or not having to do this or what. So internally, there is a return on that investment of fibromyalgia. Once you can actually identify, and I’m not saying this happens with everybody, but in some of the most chronic conditions that I’ve seen where it’s really been debilitating when we can do that level of work and get that acknowledgment or even who hurt you when you’re a child? Or going to the ancestral piece of healing and going back to that child and healing the child from all these traumas that they may have experienced that now is starting to manifest as an adult.  When we can go back and do that, that’s when you get that aha, you see it, and it’s like wow. And then they come back and they say, ”You’re not going to believe what happened. I went a whole week without any pain because I didn’t need it anymore. It wasn’t serving me anymore. I didn’t need it anymore.” And that’s a beautiful thing.   [01:08:03] Ashley James: Fascinating. You’ve worked with people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia?   [01:08:12] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes. I work with all different types of pain.   [01:08:16] Ashley James: Oh, yeah. Absolutely, I bet. But specifically, fibromyalgia is very invasive. I have a friend—this was 10 years ago, 12 years ago. She showed me two drawers in her nightstand, two nightstand drawers full of meds to manage her fibromyalgia. She also had a morphine pump. She had some kind of pump attached to her body that would constantly drip a pain medicine. I think it was morphine. I was talking to her about nutrition and how Dr. Wallach, who’s one of my mentors, says that fibromyalgia is a nutrition deficiency—largely mineral deficiency—and a lot of times, even just incorporating selenium really helps.  I talked to her about wanting to get her on all 90 essential nutrients—vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids. I think she just went out to any old store and bought selenium. I don’t even know if it was good quality selenium or whatever, but she got on it. I was talking to her like, “Okay, please, take some vitamins, take some minerals.” I was showing her the ones that I’ve been using for the last 10 years, and she reported to me that she cut her pain meds in half. Literally, an entire nightstand drawer of meds is gone. That’s just by incorporating one of the 60 minerals that the body needs. That just goes to show. Now, of course, you have to look at the mental and emotional component, the spiritual, and the energetic. You have to look at everything, but man, if you can have just that much leeway—cut your meds in half by incorporating one mineral. That would be the gateway. Okay, I’m all in. Let’s do holistic medicine. Let’s see how better I can get. But when we have a secondary gain from a disease—like if it really is on an unconscious level—giving us something that we’re lacking, then then we’re not really motivated to fully heal it. Because maybe it’s part of our identity at that point, or maybe it’s how we compensate for wanting love or attention.   [01:10:34] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: I actually got to see this with my dissertation that I did for my Ph.D. My topic was on chronic pain, and I was using ultrasound over acupuncture points as my intervention. I was using qEEG, which is qualitative EEG, to map the brain prior to the intervention and after the intervention to see how the brain would change as a result of this intervention. I would do the EEG first and see where the pain manifested itself in the brain based on the brain wave activity. And then I would do the intervention. The intervention was based on whatever their pain was and everything else. I used the same five points with each of my clients, and then I used five different points based on their specific level of pain. That way, I could do a really good analysis of how the points work. Every single person in my study showed a significant reduction in their pain just from one session of the ultrasound over acupuncture points. But what I did find—I was expecting to see this but I wasn’t sure if I would—is that the people who had an emotional attachment to the pain. What I mean by that is whether it was brought on by another person’s accident, an injury, or let’s say a physical abuse of some sort, if there was a huge amount of emotional attachment to it, the pain symptoms went down, but the pain response moved from the sensory-motor cortex of the brain to the emotional part of the brain. That showed me how strongly the emotions hold pain in the body. That also opened up a whole new avenue for me to address pain and really look at the emotional attachment to it. The ones that had no emotional attachment to the pain, their pain completely went away. That showed me, first and foremost, that this intervention works. The second thing that was a wonderful experience was to see how emotions have a huge impact. That’s why when we’re giving pharmaceuticals, why the pharmaceuticals don’t work. When someone who is in so much pain wants to get an increase in their pharmaceutical medication or another one, and they’re being considered a drug seeker or something like that from the pharmacy or from the physician or whomever, it’s because we are not actually getting to the root cause of the pain. We’re just covering it. It’s up to the practitioners to identify that, and we haven’t. That’s where we’re failing our clients. When I saw this study, when I actually saw it with my own eyes, I looked at pain in a whole another way. That in itself has helped so much with my clients getting better. Because one of the things with the Biofeedback—when I am assessing somebody on that—it will always bring emotion to whatever we’re looking at, and it’s a subconscious unconscious emotion. When I see this emotion come up, I’ll ask them, “So this is showing a resistance to change. Let’s talk about that.” They’re like, “Oh, yeah. That’s totally me.” Or there’s some anger, frustration, anxiety, or something associated with it. Let’s talk about that. Let’s resolve that so that this condition has a better potential to heal.   [01:14:27] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. Your Ph.D. dissertation sounds amazing. What an incredible experience to actually see that for those who were holding on an emotional level, the pain was there. Physical pain was there actually because there was emotion around it. That you could actually see it move into the emotional centers of the brain. Were you able to help those people? Did you work on healing emotions? And then did you see in the brain scan that it was gone?   [01:15:07] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, for the time of the study I didn’t get to actually do any additional testing afterward because I was leasing the equipment and it was quite expensive, so I wasn’t able to do that one. But when I was able to share the results with these individuals—as far as the emotional component to it—then that actually started the work of the healing of really identifying that when it came to that. The ones that had the healing from just the points and no emotional component, I just showed them which points to use and how to press on those points and to help relieve their pain if it should ever come back. That gives them their tools as well. That gives them their power back. But yeah, we did address the emotional piece to it.   [01:15:56] Ashley James: Normally I don’t glorify pharmaceuticals, as you can imagine. I did this really interesting interview with a psychologist who works with ketamine for healing emotions. He has a clinic that has an incredible success rate. I think it’s over 70% success rate in helping people with addiction. Whereas I think Betty Ford, for example, is 30% or less than that success rate—in terms of people quitting alcohol or drugs and then never getting back on them. They have an incredibly high success rate, and that’s because of the ketamine—much like LSD but half the half-life in the body. LSD maybe you’re tripping for 12 hours or something, whereas ketamine, they can dose it so you’re only in that state for about four to six hours. And then during that time, they do therapy. But what it does, and these are people who have huge emotional wounds. People who have come back from war, they have post-traumatic stress, they’ve been in abusive relationships. They’re using substances to just numb and cope with the horrors that their brain keeps reliving. The ketamine, like LSD—and they’ve done studies on this for many years, and also microdosing psilocybin—magic mushrooms. Some psychologists do that as well. They all pretty much do the same thing where it has the critical faculty melt away and allow us to gain positive learnings from those experiences without being triggered and traumatized while working through them.  What’s very interesting—so this doctor has a clinic and he’s working with the ketamine basically helping people open up so they can do the therapy, and then they really get to the root cause, and they have incredible results. But he himself had chronic, chronic, chronic shoulder pain for years that was debilitating shoulder pain. He didn’t want to get addicted to pain meds, and it was because he tore a bunch of stuff in his shoulder from martial arts years before. He kept re-injuring it. It was just a really messy deal. He did one dose of ketamine without any therapy—just one dose of ketamine—and the pain went away for six months. One tiny dose, and then he says every six months he takes a microdose. He takes a microdose every six months. It’s interesting because he said some people get emotional healing by themselves. They just do this one dose of ketamine, and of course, this is all in a therapeutic setting. They take away cell phones, they don’t have the TV on, there are no magazines, there are no books because your mind is open now and anything could come in. But some people go through huge healing just by being in that state and working out stuff, working out stuff on their own. That’s what he did.   [01:19:19] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: I love it.   [01:19:20] Ashley James: He has had people who no longer have post-traumatic stress, no longer have major psychological episodes, and no longer have an addiction. The side effect of this treatment is also people who are in chronic pain for years no longer have chronic pain. Again, I don’t love to glorify any kind of medication, but there are tools that we can use when we need it. But looking that it sped up the process so they could actually do the emotional work, and the emotional work was able to then have them no longer have chronic pain, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, fear running their life, and substance abuse, which is fascinating. If we can heal and really acknowledge that our pain and disease can be at the root, in the emotional centers of the brain. When we work on that in conjunction with eating a healthy diet and all those other things to just support the body as a whole, but that acknowledge that mental and emotional health is incredibly important and that we can address it with these amazing technologies like remote Biofeedback, which is really cool.   [01:20:40] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, you know what, Ashley, I learned a lot from this one client pertaining to this particular topic. As we were doing the emotional work when it came to her pain level, she was basically saying, “I have all these friends and family that never come to see me, but the pain is something I can rely on every day that will come.”   [01:21:05] Ashley James: Whoa.   [01:21:07] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: I was like, yeah, exactly. I had the same response. I was like, wow, that really showed a lot of work on her part to acknowledge that, to notice it, and then to say this is why I have it. This is why I keep it because it’s the one thing I can rely on every single day that will show up at my door is pain. I never looked at it that way, but that was quite mind-blowing for me. The pain had actually become her friend. So it made me look at it in a different light, and then we just needed to identify something else. That was really her own sense of self-worth, and that you don’t need outside people to provide you the love and all of that. Let’s work on the love inside and let’s work on that own self-esteem, that self-love to where you don’t care if people call you, want to speak to you, or whatever because you have the joy in your heart. You have that joy. But that was kind of an aha moment for me as well. I love it when I get to learn from my clients because I feel like every opportunity that we are with clients is a learning opportunity as well. As far as how we can help others, as far as how we can help even ourselves in our own personal life. That was pretty profound for me to hear that.   [01:22:27] Ashley James: That’s amazing. I’m still blown away by your work when you did your Ph.D. dissertation. What an incredible experience and also to then turn around and show the client like see, here’s your brain. Look, the chronic pain moved into these emotional centers. I know several people with chronic pain who there’s no medical reason for it. They do scans, oh there’s nothing. There’s nothing there. There’s no medical reason for it. Go for a psych eval, whatever. They just get on stronger and stronger pain meds, which the body adapts to and can basically override. The medical system doesn’t answer for them because they don’t see anything on a scan. When you show someone here’s your pain—in your brain here’s the pain—and look it moved now because of the acupressure. Here, the root of it’s actually over here in the emotional center, and you’re showing them. First of all, you believe them. There’s actual evidence. There’s a reason for it. You’re not crazy. It’s not all in your head. It’s in your brain, but it’s not all made up. It’s very validating. I just remember feeling so sick for so many years and the doctor’s really not having any answers for me until I went to natural medicine. It was very validating 12 years ago when I went to a holistic—she was an MD who actually gave up her MD-ness, gave up her license when she realized she was just a drug dealer. What she really wanted to do was be an integrative functional medicine practitioner and really ahead of her time. She showed me in labs that no other MD had drawn because they all said, okay, there’s nothing really wrong with you. She showed me in labs why I was so sick and that I needed natural medicine to get better. She showed me that path, and that was so validating. Oh, here’s why you can’t get out of bed. Here’s why you are so tired. Here’s why you are like walking dead every day. She showed me on those labs and she could validate it instead of all the other doctors that basically just wanted to put me on drug after drug and said there’s no evidence for it. And then natural medicine got me well so fast that I dedicated my life to wanting to share this information, you have as well. So helping someone who has been suffering for years, to show them that their suffering is valid—it’s real—then help them heal from it, and then help them come back into balance. Can you tell us more about the remote Biofeedback, specifically the SCIO—the work that you do? How does it work? Can you just walk us through or paint the picture so we have a deeper understanding of it?   [01:25:45] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Absolutely. Well, first of all, I have the pleasure and the leisure of being able to have as long of a session with the client as I want. My minimum amount of time that I spend with a client is two hours, and that’s almost unheard of these days. But in those two hours, you get a lot accomplished. What I see is that most of the time, within the first 15, 20, 30 minutes, the client is just getting warmed up. What I mean by that is they’re just getting comfortable with someone actually sitting there actively listening, hearing what they have to say, believing in what they have to say as well, and validating. Like what you just said, that their symptoms are real, that they’re not going crazy, that they know their body better than anybody else, and they know when it’s not right. Intuitively, they know there’s something wrong with their body. For me to be able to spend the two hours that I want to with a client allows me that opportunity to really get to know them, not only the emotional, but like you, I do the neuro-linguistic programming as well, and I look for that non-verbal language that’s telling me things that they’re not ready to tell me yet but their body’s telling me. That helps me identify areas to look into when I go into the Biofeedback. The way that the Biofeedback works, especially remotely, is they send me a sample of hair or saliva and a questionnaire that I sent to them to complete that I can actually then enter that data into the computer. Most of the time, I like to have them on the phone with me on Skype or in other means so that they can also see the same screen that I am using with the Biofeedback because I feel education is so important. Especially educating them as to how their body works and how it responds, and looking at it in a different perspective, not as a computer, but that this is a live being that is full of emotions and psychological issues and so on. The way that the Biofeedback works, with the hair sample, it’s not a cut sample. It is actually hair that is pulled from the scalp that has the root ball. Because anybody who’s ever had a hair analysis, you want to pull the hair and get a root ball because that’s your DNA and so it reads your DNA. Similar to a cell phone, with a cell phone you have a specific phone number. You can be anywhere in the world and you can be located. That’s how this Biofeedback works. When I put that hair sample or the saliva sample on the SCIO box, it has this metal plate on the top that reads things. If somebody wants their water tested, for example, they just bring in a water sample and I place it on the box and it’ll read their water to tell me if there are any pollutants in there that are not working for them. It’s going against their own constitution and things like that if there are any heavy metals things like that in there. The same thing with their hair or their saliva, it reads it. It’s being able to then to find them wherever they are in the world. They can either be on the phone or just be completely laying on their couch with no connection with me whatsoever, it’s still working. Like the phone, it picks up their frequency, their vibration, and then it reads it. On my computer then with the SCIO, it’s reading everything energetically from the lymphatic system to the blood, to hormones, to scanning the spine, the nerves, the cranial nerves, teeth. I can actually do a dental assessment to see five different areas of decay and things like that’s going on, which is absolutely amazing. The chakra systems, the auras, I mean everything. Literally, I don’t know if there’s anything that I can’t touch at this point, and it reads it. As it’s reading it, it does a three-minute assessment, and then it comes up with this record. It’s literally 10,000 options of symptoms as well as training that you can provide to that client. And then it grades it on a scale of the most acute, to the next acute, to the third, and to the fourth, and then what’s considered chronic. Maybe hanging around for a while and undetected. That’s where I find a lot of things that have not been detected by the medical side of things because all the symptomatology is taking all the attention where the root cause is sitting behind the scenes. That’s typically where I’ll find some of the root causes of their disease process, and then we look at it all. It’ll tell me about allergies and sensitivities. It’ll tell me if they’ve got parasites, if they’ve got worms, if they’ve got pathogens of some sort that is causing this disease. And then we start identifying it as a team. What I mean by that is I say, “What is on this screen that you’d like to look at further?” Then I educate them as far as what it’s doing, how this is working. As we identify, I can actually test each particular area even further to see just how reactive their body is to that particular thing. That’s when it actually will show me what it’s linked to. Is it linked to blood, is it linked to the liver, is it linked to organs? And it’ll also give me an emotion that it’s linked to. For example, if it’s a parasite, then I’ll say, “There’s this one particular parasite it’s taking a while to rectify, and what I mean by rectifying is that rectification means that you’ve been able to switch the energetics of that particular thing to where it’s no longer reactive in the body. Once I get it to this rectification, then we move on. But prior to that, that’s when I can actually test it individually to say what else is going on? That’s when the emotions will show up, and I’ll say, okay there’s this emotion showing up. What do you think about this?” And they said, “Well, I thought I resolved that a while ago.” “Well, it’s probably still hanging around a little bit.” It’s absolutely fascinating. Like I said, somebody could have a pain in their body, for example, like sciatic nerve pain. Anybody who’s had it it’s painful. As I’m doing the spinal scan, they could actually see the picture of a spine, and it’ll show a little box where they’re showing the most energetic issues going on within the spine. I’d say a good 95% of the cases that’s exactly where the pain is actually coming from, which part of the spine is it coming from. What most people don’t realize is that a lot of the pain symptoms we have, most of the time either come from the spine or the nerves that are coming through the spine and through the spinal cord. When we can identify that, we can get to the root cause of what that pain is and then, therefore, resolve it. That’s where I think a lot of the aha moments go for the client is to be able to see, oh, so it’s not actually the muscle that’s damaged or hurt, it’s the nerve that feeds the muscle. Absolutely. So we’re going to work on this nerve—give it some good energy, give it some good frequencies and some vibrations because we can actually raise the frequency in each of these different modalities within the SCIO to where we’re raising it to where now the body has the potential to heal. That’s a beautiful thing.  Many people will say, are you working on my eyes right now? I can feel you in my liver, I can feel you in my gallbladder, or I can feel you in the bladder. Wow, I actually feel really good right now. I feel like I’m getting this big jolt of energy. I love it when people can actually feel that energetic exchange that’s going on between the SCIO, myself, and them. That’s how it works.   [01:34:19] Ashley James: Have people had something really overt happen around parasites after working with you doing remote Biofeedback where dead parasites have come out of their stool or something? You’re laughing. Can you share some stories of success with parasites?   [01:34:37] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Oh, yes. I have some pretty horrific stories.   [01:34:42] Ashley James: I can’t wait. Tell me, tell me.   [01:34:45] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Actually, a couple of people, not just one in particular, but this one really stands out. She had come to me because she wanted to lose weight and was very stagnant. Everything was stagnant in her body. Just really didn’t feel like she had any energy and all that. One of the first things I found was parasites and a ton of different types of parasites. It wasn’t just one parasite. It was several that were residing in her body.   [01:35:08] Ashley James: It never is. It’s never just one parasite. It’s so true. All the doctors I talked to that work on parasites, it’s never just one because the body has created this environment where they’re all invited to the party.   [01:35:26] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes, and the more types of food that we feed it that it likes then it’s like yeah, we’re going to stay here because they’re feeding us well. But in this one particular case, I was working on her parasites on the Biofeedback. She’s in the room with me, so she’s got the harness on, she’s got the wristbands on, they’re all connected to the computer, and they’re all reading it. As I’m working on her—okay, this is going to freak you out, but I saw something moving in her eye.   [01:35:59] Ashley James: I knew you were going to say that.   [01:36:03] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: I looked in closely and there’s this parasite coming out of her eye—the eyeball itself, and it was just wiggling around. She could feel it. She’s like, “I feel like I have something in my eye.” That’s what made me look at her eye closer. “Let me see,” because I didn’t see her rub her eye or anything so I didn’t think she could have gotten anything in it. As I get closer, there’s this parasite and it’s wiggling around. I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s so disgusting. What do you say? “You got a parasite hanging out of your eyeball.” That’s pretty much what I told her, and she’s like, “Oh my gosh.” Of course, she wants to look at it, so she’s looking at it through a mirror and she could actually see it. She goes, “That is so gross.” Then the parasite came out and her eye went back to its normal healthy state. Then later she called me because that pretty much freaked her out, and of course, I came home and was a little freaked out myself. She called me and she said, “That didn’t stop.” I said, “What do you mean?” She goes, “I had more.” And I said, “What do you mean?” She goes, “I had one actually come out of my stomach.”   [01:37:13] Ashley James: What? Like her skin?   [01:37:17] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes.   [01:37:18] Ashley James: Her belly button or her skin?   [01:37:21] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes, out of the skin.   [01:37:21] Ashley James: Oh my God.   [01:37:22] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: It was out at the side of her belly button. And then her first bowel movement, she said she just saw a ton of them just writhing in the bowel, in the excrement. She had been eliminating them for quite a couple of days after that. But the whole idea is that we made the environment inhospitable for the parasites and so they decided they wanted to leave.   [01:37:51] Ashley James: Any means necessary, exiting her body in any way they could.   [01:37:58] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes. Where the parasite had exited from her stomach a blister had started. It did leave a little behind. We monitored that for quite a while, but she continued to get rid of the parasites. She had lost eight pounds in one day.   [01:38:24] Ashley James: Oh my gosh.   [01:38:25] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Is that all parasites? Maybe not. Some of that may have also been that she was constipated and there was Ebola stuck in her intestines for some time, and it needed to go. Then all the other toxins that were residing within the gut. That’s one of the things I like to work on a lot with my clients is gut health because I find that gut health is the key to the majority of the autoimmune issues that we have, as well as a lot of the chronic illnesses that we have, is gut health. What are we feeding it?  Also, for people who have Alzheimer’s, dementia, or any kind of cognitive like brain fog, oftentimes it’s what we are feeding the gut because the gut-brain connection is huge. The gut-heart-brain connection is huge as well, so it’s really addressing the gut. When you can address the gut and what we’re feeding it and also getting it cleaned out, then we’re going to get a much better response and a longer-lasting response.   [01:39:24] Ashley James: How many sessions did you do with her, and did you get to the point where the Biofeedback machine was saying that she was parasite-free?   [01:39:33] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yeah. I still work with her because what happens is once you resolve one thing, then it’s like, oh, can I work on this, can I work on that, and can I work on that.   [01:39:49] Ashley James: Once you have worms crawling out like it’s running for the exit doors in every possible way, I’m coming to you every week for the rest of my life, no kidding.   [01:40:02] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Exactly.   [01:40:03] Ashley James: You still work with her, she no longer has parasites, right? The machine said she doesn’t have parasites. She’s accomplished what she wanted with you? Did she get to the point where she’s got her weight loss, and now she’s just working on maintaining optimal health with you?   [01:40:20] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yeah. Now she just comes once a month just for a little pick-me-up or maintenance, not everybody needs that, but I think she also likes the interactions that we have together. I think it’s more of that emotional-spiritual connection that we have. That entangled hierarchy that happens between the clinician and the client. I think that’s the majority of it. While we’re at it, we’re pretty much doing an overall test to see how she’s doing physically, with inside—everything. Emotionally and energetically too. It’s like you’re taking your car into the shop for a tune-up, and that’s what she comes in for.   [01:41:05] Ashley James: You’ve worked with thousands of people, both remotely and locally. How many clients have you had where the machine said this person has parasites, like on a percentage? Do you think most people have parasites or 70% percent? What percentage?   [01:41:22] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: I would say most.   [01:41:24] Ashley James: Really?   [01:41:24] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: I would say a good 89%. It really depends on what they eat.   [01:41:36] Ashley James: Yeah, it’s so huge. Everyone thinks, oh well, I don’t eat sushi so I probably don’t parasites. But I’m telling you, it’s about the environment of the body. They’re in our environment, they’re in our food. But I’m working with a health coaching client for the last six weeks, and she has gotten such great results.  She came to me for—same with you, for weight loss. I’m just helping her like health coaching. I got her on some supplements, changed some things in her diet. She had heartburn so bad that it was constant. Constant heartburn, wake her up in the middle of my heartburn really, really, really bad. I think she said on the sixth day of being on my protocol, her heartburn was gone, and she couldn’t believe it. Then it came back a few times when she went off course, so it’s like the body’s talking to her. She’s like, oh, okay. Feedback. Not going to do that again. She’s changed her diet completely, changed her routine completely. Going to bed earlier, wearing blue-blocking glasses. We went down the whole list, and I’m not really addressing anything specifically with the gut, although she’s eating very healthy, lots of fiber, getting lots of nutrition into her, doing lots of fun little detox things, going for walks, jumping on rebounding for lymphatic—that kind of stuff. Haven’t really gotten into any herbs or anything. Just generally getting the body cleaned up, and now she just started passing dead eight-inch long parasites. I’m not even doing the work like you do the work. Within an hour of the work that you do you’re getting parasites coming out of people. All I was doing was helping her clean up the environment of her body. Detoxify, eat healthily, take some general supplements for overall nutrition, clean up the stress in her life. Just very, very, very basic like foundation building a strong body. That was enough—within the last six weeks—to change the environment of her body where it’s becoming an inhospitable environment for the parasites. That is so cool to see that if we just get the body to the point where it’s an inhospitable environment to parasites, that means it’s a hospitable environment to our cells. It’s like the best environment we can create for our cells on an energetic level, nutrient level, and oxygen level. That is the most inhospitable environment for cancer, candida, parasites—all that kind of stuff. But you get results much faster because you’re using this Biofeedback machine.  Do you want to tell us what it’s like working with you? Let’s say listeners—who are all around the world by the way—decide they want to have a session with you. Can you walk us through step by step what it looks like? So we mail you saliva and our hair pulled from the root, which I did with you, by the way. When we visited you, my husband and I and our son gave you samples, and you keep them. I don’t want to be paranoid, but I’m always cautious that companies don’t sell my DNA. This is in-house, you don’t sell the DNA. You have it, so you put it in the machine, and the machine, like you said, is like a phone number. The machine energetically links to us no matter where we are in the world. This is very quantum physics level stuff.    [01:45:28] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: It is.   [01:45:30] Ashley James: The client—who’s anywhere around the world doesn’t have to be local to you—sends you their stuff— their hair and their saliva—and then what? Can you just walk us through what the experience is working with you?   [01:45:45] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yeah, absolutely. The first thing is they can actually get to my website, which is www.natural-therapeutics.com. There is a contact form where they can actually send me an email saying that they’re interested in wanting to receive some Biofeedback, even reiki, or even just like you said, health coaching. Once I get the email, then I send them a form to complete, which is basically a medical form that tells them what the Biofeedback does. It has the HIPAA information as well as their history so that I can get a good idea. And then I instruct them to either send me a hair sample in a baggie. If they don’t have hair because I’ve had some that say well my husband’s bald and they would want to send me hair from another part of the body and I would say no, saliva would be fine.   [01:46:45] Ashley James: Is it hair or saliva?   [01:46:48] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Hair or saliva. It does not have to be both.   [01:46:51] Ashley James: Got it. It’s not hair and saliva.   [01:46:54] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes. Hair from the head and/or saliva. Some people have really short hair and they can’t get a good hair sample, so they will then send me a saliva sample in a plastic bag.   [01:47:11] Ashley James: Got it.   [01:47:12] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Once I get all of that and I get the form that’s been completed, then I contact them to set up a time where we could get on a remote session. Whether it’s through Skype, whether it’s through Zoom, whether it’s through other means, or in some situations some people will say I just don’t have time. Can you just run it and then let me know. I prefer our first session as always together because there is a lot of interaction and exchange that occurs during that time. But in a situation where that’s not possible, then I could do it without them. Then we set up the session. I say please allow two hours. Drink plenty of fluids before our session because that will enhance the outcome of the session, and try to be as free from any type of distractions as possible. If you can get into a nice comfortable position that would be good, and just plan to be available for two hours while I work on you. And then if they’re on Skype or Zoom where they can actually see my session, then I explain everything to them. Because the more they know and understand their body and how it works, especially how it works energetically, then that makes them more of a steward for their body and gives them that power back. Then the first part is I enter information from them, which is on the form that they complete that has their demographic information, it has post health issues such as how many surgeries, how many amalgams that they have, how many medications are they on if they’ve had any steroids, how much coffee, sugar, or alcohol do they. How much fat is in their diet or processed foods? How much water do they drink, those kinds of things? How much weight would they like to lose if they want to, that kind of thing? Once I get that information, then I start the assessment. That information then will give them a score, and that score is called the SOC, which is suppression and obstruction to a cure. It’s basically all of those things that are preventing them from being their ultimate and allowing them to be healthy. Then I let them know what the score means, and that score is their potential to heal themselves. Then it goes through what is considered the VAR HOPP panel, which is the voltage amperage resistance hydration oxygenation proton pressure, which is your pH balance electrons. And then also some other numbers that make sense as far as their healing potential and what’s preventing them from healing. Then the screen comes up with all of the 10,000 different remedies and symptomatology that is identifying for them, and then I explain what each of those levels means. The acuity levels, what they mean for that particular person. If there are particular ones, this is when I start to ask for feedback from them. Okay, is there anything on this screen that you’d like to investigate further that doesn’t quite make sense to you or what? If they don’t have anything, then I go ahead and pick some that I feel has a lot to do with how they’re feeling, what they’re complaining about, and so on, and then we start the testing. Once we finish the testing on that particular thing, as far as what is the acuity and how much reactivity it’s having to them, then I train. Basically, the system starts to train the body to return it back to its homeostasis and return it back to normal. Then we go down different categories, so I can go into the allergies and sensitivities. We can go into parasites and the blood and look at some of those things as well to see what’s going on. I go into the spine. The computer already picks a couple of programs that it wants to run based on the way in which the assessment was completed. I run those and then we go down particular areas that they’d like. If somebody’s having some pain issues, then I’ll scan the spine and the spine will then tell me where their energetic blockages within the spine, then let’s resolve them, and then what emotion is holding that. We could look at the chakras and all that. If they have teeth issues, which oftentimes if I see there’s a ton of bacteria going on, or if there’s resistance, which means how much energy is flowing through the organs. If I see a really low resistance meaning that it’s probably a lot of the organs are very toxic because they’ve even either had a lot of heavy metal exposure, mold exposure, yeast, fungus, parasites, that’s going to make that number really low. So then I look into that further. The whole idea is let’s evacuate as much of that as possible so that we can get you into a really healthy state. Now, what most people don’t realize is that when we’re talking about detoxification, especially when it comes to heavy metals, candida, or some of those is that oftentimes the organs are already toxic so they can’t filter like they’re supposed to. For example, the liver is what filters all of the prescriptions that people are on. If the liver is already toxic and it’s not able to filter or release all of those toxins, oftentimes, people will see skin eruptions happening to where now they have psoriasis, eczema, or some kind of acne that is occurring because their liver basically can’t filter like it’s supposed to, so it’s going through the skin instead, which is the largest organ we have anyway. There’s usually a correlation between skin, liver, and detoxification. I usually like to get them started on high levels of essential fatty acids so that the detoxification process can happen better. What I mean by that is one of my favorite recipes I like to give people is bulletproof coffee. The reason I like it is because of the MCT oil, which is a medium-chain triglyceride, and the ghee, which is a really wonderful organic clarified butter. When they place it in a regular cup of coffee like a black cup of coffee and they blend it and they drink it, what happens is that those essential fatty acids then allow the organs to—it’s kind of like they grease the organ so that things can flow through it easier. You’ll actually see people showing a huge change in their cognition where they had brain fog before. Now they’re like, oh my gosh, I even remember my locker combination from high school since I started bulletproof or things like that. They have greater energy. Then it’s really looking at dietary changes too to help that process. Once we finish the SCIO and we’ve finished all of the different programming and all that kind of stuff that’s going in there, then I create a customized plan for them. This customized plan is basically every morning do this, every afternoon do this, every evening do this, and then the resources to help them with that. I give them what their allergies or sensitivities are so they’ll know which foods they should avoid for a little bit. Homework, I give them homework because they need to be just as motivated and involved in their healing process as I am, if not more so. I give them homework, and that homework is going to be let’s change your diet. Let’s do some energetic work. If you don’t do meditation, grounding, or something energetically let’s work on that. If I need to have you write a love letter to yourself we’re going to do that so we can actually start to improve some love in you. Identifying some of the stressors, things like that. It’s really a whole body, a whole person type of program. And then we set up the next session. Typically, when I start somebody, it really depends on what their level of chronicity is, how sick they are, and how stagnant their energy is. If it’s really bad, then I would usually recommend that we do a session once a week just for a couple of times just to see how their body is engaged in it and how they’re responding to it. In some situations, it might be once every other week, and in some sessions, it might be once a month. It really depends on the individual person. That’s how that works. Once I finish the first session and they get their customized plan and then we meet the next time, then they get an updated progress report after each session. That’s so that they can track their progress. I’ve had some people who’ll actually put their progress report on their refrigerator because they’re excited because they see the numbers improving, they see fewer things that they’re having to address, they see the pounds going down, or whatever it is. It’s kind of like they’re taking credit for their homework that they’ve been doing. That’s how that works.   [01:56:28] Ashley James: Very cool. I love it. I had a very interesting experience. I remember our son had his session in person, but we didn’t end up hooking him up to the machine because he is…   [01:56:48] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Very active.   [01:56:50] Ashley James: I think he was still four at the time. He’s five and a half now. I think he was about to become five. Yeah, that’s right. He was four turning five. That’s right because it was just after Christmas. He was still four, very active, and wanted to run around. You actually did a remote session in a sense. He was in the building, but you basically were doing a remote session. It took about two hours, give or take. Maybe a bit longer. What’s interesting is I felt it, and it’s because the mom has the energetic cord attached to their children. The second you turned on the program I felt my body vibrating. I’m like, oh boy. By the end of it, I felt drunk. I could feel it. My husband couldn’t feel it. Our son started to talk very clearly. He doesn’t have a speech impediment, but like a four-year-old, they’re not enunciating like an adult. He started to talk incredibly clearly, very sophisticated, and he actually has an incredible vocabulary. I remember at two or two and a half he could say the word avocado, and I’m like that’s a lot of syllables for a young kid. But he says some very sophisticated things. His grandfather, who’s a master’s in linguistics, is constantly surprised by the stuff coming out of our son’s mouth because of how multi-layered the sentences are. Anyway, as the session’s going on, he starts talking much clearer, even more, complicated sentences. He started talking like really deep thought patterns about crystals and healing, and he’s just going off on all these interesting things that are coming to his mind. But then after the session, he went to the bathroom. He eats a pretty clean diet, actually, his bowel movements don’t really make a smell. I’ve never noticed a smell. I mean there’s nothing, it’s not even a smell. He made a smell so putrid, so horrible I thought like there was roadkill in the bathroom. I mean it was the most horrible, but his body was just expelling whatever it was expelling. It was just right after the session, and he actually normally doesn’t have a bowel movement at that time of day. He’s pretty much clockwork. His digestion is really good like clockwork. He expelled whatever it was. Just amazing came out of him, all those toxins, and then he fell asleep. He just went boom, fell asleep in the car. He didn’t have any major health issues other than he was struggling with high histamine and allergies to a lot of foods. Anytime he was exposed to one of his allergens he would have a major asthma attack. Since that time, he has only needed his inhaler twice in the last 10 months. So just looking back, really, he’s only had one session from you, but he was at the point where he was like he was needing his inhaler a lot because he would be exposed to it because he’s allergic to about nine or twelve different things. There’s a ton of fish he’s allergic to so I just kind of say okay, that’s fish. He doesn’t eat any fish, but he also has weird allergies like garlic, which garlic is in everything, so I make everything from scratch for him pretty much because garlic is in everything. But he’s also allergic to dust mites. If he goes over to a friend’s house and they didn’t vacuum every day, basically he comes home with an asthma attack. He did, but after his session with you, he only needed his inhaler while his body was working through a cold or flu, which has been two times in the last 10 months. His reaction to what he’s allergic to has really diminished. I didn’t really think about it, but I saw that there was that turning point in his health after he had one session with you 10 months ago. And then my session with you, my one session, was also remote. I was unconscious at the time. For most of the session, I wasn’t on the phone with you because I was incredibly sick, lying in bed, in and out of consciousness. But I felt you working on me. I kept waking up and then going back to sleep, I felt it. Like I said when I woke up and the session was over, my suffering was gone. All of a sudden I knew that now I’m going to be in recovery. The sickness is over, the suffering is over. Now I’m going to be in recovery. That was really a very interesting experience. Both of those are remote, I mean he was in the vicinity, but still not attached to the machine. We saw results both times—remote. We could talk for hours.   [02:02:17] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: When I have children in my clinic, I tend to do them remotely because it’s very hard. The youngest I worked with is two, so far. The youngest has been two, and they can’t sit still for two hours. I’m sorry, they just can’t. If I need to, then I will have them wear the harness for the first 10 minutes. Let’s keep them occupied and all that for the first 10 minutes. Basically, that first 10 minutes is the device doing the assessment, the calibration, and all that. Then I can release the child and they can just run. I have tons of toys in the clinic so they can have some fun with that. This is the thing that I like to make sure that most people are aware of is that with a remote or even in person, the person that I’m working with has to give permission for the device to work. A lot of people get a fear factor going thinking, oh, she’s just going to work on me no matter when I’m not even thinking about it. No, no, no. The reason I contact people and say can we do this on this date at this time is because then, they’re giving me permission to work on them. This device works so much better when you have permission from the client. I won’t ever work on anybody without them knowing it, plain and simple. That goes against my own ethics, but it also goes against the ethics of the system as well. That’s what I really love about it because a lot of people will think, well, if things go sour with us as a relationship, then she could do some bad things to me. No. First of all, that’s not in my heart. That’s not who I am. But the device also won’t allow me to do that either.   [02:04:13] Ashley James: Right, it’s a healing device.   [02:04:15] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: It’s a comfort, yes.   [02:04:17] Ashley James: It’s a healing device. It can’t be weaponized.   [02:04:23] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Vindictive.   [02:04:28] Ashley James: Unless the person doesn’t want to be healed, right?   [02:04:32] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes, and then that will come up as an emotion, subconsciously, in one of their systems, whichever one it’s impacting. Usually, it’ll show up as resistance to change as an emotion, and then we talk about that and say, okay, the resistance to change is showing up what is this meaning? Or there’ll be another emotion that’ll show up that will identify that they’re wanting to hold on to this for a reason.  Sometimes, this is another piece—it’ll pick up psychic attack information. If there is someone within your energy field who is not wishing you well, who is vindictive or just left their energy on you. For example, you go to someone’s house and you could actually feel the negativity in the house or you can feel something, and then you go home, that psychic attack number could be really high. So then we have to clear that aura. We have to clear that energy out. I do it through the Biofeedback, but then I also give them tools that they can use to also do it as well because if they’ve been attacked once, it’s potentially been attacked again and again and again. So let’s teach you ways in which you can actually resolve that and protect yourself. I also teach people how to do muscle testing on themselves to see what food is good for you and what food is not good for you. When they’re in the grocery store—in my little small town, I could be walking through the grocery store and I see people muscle testing themselves. I’m like yes.   [02:06:09] Ashley James: I love that. I love that. That happened to me. There’s a store near me, it’s a gluten-free store, which is so cool. We’ve been gluten-free for 10 years—no barley, wheat, rye, or oats. This store is celiac gluten-free. Everything is certified for celiac. There is this woman who was like I don’t know if I’m going to react to this or not. I think she was choosing all the different breads. I can’t remember what she was choosing but there were a bunch of different ones that she wasn’t sure which one to go with. It was her and I was the only customer in the store at the time. I was like, “Have you ever heard of muscle testing?” I had her drop her purse and her cart. The owner, who’s the only employee at the time in the store, is staring at us kind of looking at me like I’m crazy. I showed her how to muscle test, and it was very clear about one product. I had her close her eyes so she didn’t know which one it was, but I showed her and then it was really clear which one. It was just a really strong signal. This is the one, the other two were weaker. I showed her and she was just like, “Oh my gosh. That is so cool.” It’s pretty interesting when we listen to our bodies when we check in with ourselves. Even if you just check in yourself after a meal. Do I feel weakened? Do I feel tired? Do I feel energized? Check-in with yourself even emotionally. How do I feel emotionally after a meal? Because my husband and I both noticed that with certain foods we’ll feel angry afterward, or we’ll feel really easily irritated. I’m fine but everyone else is pissing me off. It’s just interesting that we’ve been able to correlate that with certain kinds of food or certain kinds of meals. That it affects our energy, it affects our emotions, it affects our hormones. There are so many things beyond just digestion that are affected by what we bring into our bodies.   [02:08:17] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Not only that but there’s also how we eat with intention. Because sometimes, I would say the majority of our population is very distracted when we eat. We’re either watching TV, we’re reading, we’re having conversations, we’re drinking way too much water, or we’re drinking too much of something while we’re eating. We’re not chewing our food enough, so we’re wolfing it down. We’re eating a meal within 30 minutes and it’s done, or sometimes 15 minutes because that’s how long you have for your break. But that’s a leading reason why people have acid reflux and acid indigestion is because they’re not chewing their food enough. Like I mentioned with you before is that 50% of the digestive process happens in the mouth. That’s where the digestive enzymes start. If people aren’t chewing their food enough, then the stomach then has to produce so much acid to break down that food so that it can actually go through the whole rest of the digestive process. People aren’t chewing their food enough, really tasting it, enjoying it, and loving every moment of it, then they’re not getting the true essence of that food. That also goes for smoothies. We’re into these smoothies of nice, wonderful plant-based smoothies that have wonderful greens, vegetables, fruit, and all that in it, and protein powders, and we’re gulping it down. Well, the same thing happens. The gut still has to process that, it still has to break it down. We need to go through a chewing motion even with smoothies and just activate the digestive enzymes when you’re starting to drink that smoothie and you’ll get more nourishment. You’ll get more nutrients. You won’t have as much acid. As we know, alkaline is the way we want our bodies to be. The more alkaline we can get our body the better. Less disease process, less breakdown, less degeneration. If you eat slowly, eat with intention, eat with love attached to that food. Also, there’s another trick that I learned when I was in nursing homes because oftentimes, appetite would be a big issue for us where we couldn’t get them to eat. Serve food on a red plate. Use red in your utensils on the serving plate because red actually increases appetite. You could tell that through all the advertising. Think of all the fast-food restaurants. What color is very prevalent in their advertising? Red.   [02:10:58] Ashley James: Yeah, red, yellow, and orange. I remember in the ‘90s, any fast food restaurant you went to was all variations of red, yellow, and orange. They’ve kind of come away from that. Well, people aren’t eating in anymore, they’re all drive-thru. But a lot of their logos are that color, and like you said their advertising and their packaging is that color.   [02:11:22] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Look at the size of our plates.   [02:11:27] Ashley James: They’re huge.   [02:11:29] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes. Back in the olden days, the plates were about the size of our butter plates now or our salad plates. When you would fill up that plate you would look like, okay, that’s a lot of food. Well, now, if you look at most of the plates that are in our homes, they’re platters. We feel like we need to fill that platter. So then we fill it up and then we are eating not consciously, so then we eat that whole platter.   [02:11:58] Ashley James: And we’re not chewing. Like you said, we’re not chewing. When we don’t chew enough, we’ll eat twice as much volume until the satiety mechanism is triggered in the brain. But if you don’t chew enough or you eat too fast and not chew—which is what almost everyone does—you’re not triggering the liver, the pancreas, and the stomach. All three of them need to be told to start producing their enzymes, the hydrochloric acid, and the bile—just start producing all of it for release into the stomach and into the small intestines. Chewing is turning on the whole system. It’s like you don’t put your clothing in the washing machine and just leave it. You have to turn it on, program it, and set it, but that’s what turns on digestion. But when we have a huge serving, which like you said, we’ve gone from a 6-inch plate to a 12-inch plate, we’re doubling the amount of food we’re consuming each meal and eating it so fast the satiety mechanism isn’t triggered. That and the food most Americans eat is so low in fiber that it doesn’t bulk up, plus we’re not drinking enough water so we’re chronically dehydrated. All these things lead to digestive disasters and creating that perfect environment for all the worms and parasites to live.   [02:13:31] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Also, when you think about how long does it take for certain things to digest? For example, fruit takes about two to three hours to digest, vegetables three to five hours, meat could take up to three days to digest. And then you add the heat of the digestive process, which is all the acid that’s breaking it down like you said the hydrochloric. If you think about the food choices that you make as well, the longer it sits in the gut the more bacteria it will grow, which is why we get a lot of constipation, why we get a lot of digestive issues. Think about how long it takes for things to go bad if you were to leave it out on your counter. For example, if you were to leave an apple on your counter for two to three hours, do you think it’ll be fine for you to eat?   [02:14:23] Ashley James: Sure.   [02:14:26] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yes. As it’s going through the digestive process, it’s clean food to eat. The vegetables, if you put a piece of broccoli out on your counter for three to five hours, will it be safe to eat? Yes, if it hasn’t started to break down yet. Raw.   [02:14:44] Ashley James: Yeah, raw. Totally raw.   [02:14:45] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Raw, it’s going to be a little limp possibly. It’ll be fine, but it’ll go through the digestive process. Now, put that nice piece of red steak out, and I’m not telling people they have to be vegetarian or vegan. But if you put that red steak out on a counter for three to five days raw, will it still be good?   [02:15:02] Ashley James: No.   [02:15:03] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Okay. So then, as it’s going through the digestive process, why are we assuming that it’s going to be okay and that we’re not going to get any bacteria or, let’s say, parasites and stuff like that coming from that meat? When we make our food choices, we need to keep that in mind as far as how quickly does it dissipate? How quickly does it digest? How quickly does it go through the digestive system? If it doesn’t go through quickly, then we know we’re going to have some digestive issues. So let’s do some things that are going to help the digestive process—mastication. Eat it, chew as much as you can. I remember the first time I heard about this whole thing about chewing your food 30 times per bite. My husband and I were at a seminar, and what was so funny is that night we decided let’s do this. Basically, we made this dinner. He took the first bite and he holds it up and he goes, “This bite is going to improve my eyesight.” And then he chews it and he chews it 30 times. So then I take a bite and I say, “This bite is going to give me the best bowel movement ever.” As we were going, we kept saying with intention what each bite would do, and we had the most fun at that dinner. We basically took almost two hours to eat. We ate half the food, and we were very happy with the amount of food that we got.   [02:16:23] Ashley James: Satiated.   [02:16:24] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Satiated, yeah. We just had so much fun with that meal. If people just did that, they would actually see a huge change in their whole digestive process plus lose a lot of weight as well.   [02:16:36] Ashley James: Yes, I love it. And then eat food with lots of fiber like fruits and vegetables. That’s something I learned when I was about six years old. My mom and I were both very sick from the standard Canadian diet, standard American diet, and my mom took us to see Dr. D’Adamo. He gave us this poster on food combining and it hung in our kitchen until we moved when I was 19 years old. I have it memorized in my brain because I saw it for so many years. This concept really stuck with me early on. I’ve been fascinated with natural medicine since I was six. Just wanting to—like yourself—absorb everything I could possibly get my hands on. Just having an insatiable curiosity. As a child, just that child-like desire to consume knowledge. This idea that an apple—and you said digestion takes two to three days. What you meant was the entire from beginning to end, but in the stomach itself, an apple takes about 20 minutes just give or take. A steak could take about one to three hours just give or take how much you ate, how much you chewed. Dr. D’Adamo’s point was if you ate a steak dinner with an apple pie, the apple only needed to be in your stomach for 20 minutes before it should have been passed on to the next phase of digestion and absorption through the small intestine. But because you also ate steak in the same meal, so it’s food combining, your body is now fermenting the apple for two hours. Beyond digestion, it’s fermenting at this point, which is unhealthy for the body to have any large amount of fermentation of food while it’s trying to digest the apple. Different enzymes are used for apples, and different juices are used for digesting steak, and so they’re combining. And then finally gets passed on to the small intestine, but at this point, it’s just fermenting the entire way down, which can actually and what I’ve learned more recently, feeds the microbiome of our gut—the very complex microbiome—feeds it sort of unhealthy nutrients, which then the microbiome turns around and makes things like ammonia, and makes other chemicals in the body, which then go into our bloodstream and affect our brain. Food combining is a huge thing.   [02:19:14] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: And we become inflamed.   [02:19:16] Ashley James: Right, the whole body. It’s even more so what we eat, when we eat, how we chew all of that, and then what our microbiome will then turn it into. We have to really consider when you eat meat, how long does it stay in your body? That’s rotting flesh that is creating that petri dish for the bacteria. And if you don’t chew, then it really is doing a number, and your microbiome actually then turns it into other things that are unhealthy for the body as well. If someone says, well, meat’s not necessarily unhealthy. The microbiome will turn into chemicals that are unhealthy for the body, especially if you didn’t chew, especially if you don’t have strong digestion. It’s all those things we have to take into consideration. I think you may have answered this question already, but just to be very clear. When you work with people, does the remote Biofeedback look at this specifically? Look at digestion at this level?   [02:20:28] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Not as far as where it is in the digestive process. Part of that is the information that we exchange together. First of all, one of the first questions I ask—well, several questions down the road—is how many bowel movements do you have on a given day? If they say, oh, maybe one every other day. Then I’ll say, that’s not enough. Especially how many meals do you have? If you have three meals a day you should be having three bowel movements a day. And if they’re not, then that’s basically saying that their digestive process is too slow, and so, therefore, it’s growing bacteria, it’s growing all these different things in the microbiome that is not healthy for it.  That could be leading to why they’re so fatigued because that food, basically if you’re not getting the nutrients, you’re not getting the food you need to fuel your muscles, fuel the blood, fuel all that, plus whatever disease process we’re starting because of that rotting flesh or whatever. But then, I also ask, what is the quality of the food you eat? Here where I live, most of the people here grow their own, they have their own cows basically. They’re grass-fed. They love them all the way to the slaughterhouse all that. But when you’re buying the meats from stores that may be having these farms of cows, chickens, or whatever where they are not living in a very good environment, and then the stress hormone is released as soon as they go into the slaughterhouse.  Then if you see a change in your mood like you’re mentioning sometimes you’ll eat certain foods and all of a sudden you’re irritated, irritable, angry, or whatever, oftentimes people who are very energy sensitive meaning that they may be an empath or they may be taking on other people’s energies or other souls. They may be actually feeling or consuming that soul of the cow, the chicken, or whatever was killed. If it wasn’t killed in a kind way or in just the general slaughterhouses, then the stress hormone gets released into the meat. And then when they consume the meat, they are then consuming the stress of that animal. I always say, just be careful and cautious and really think about what it is that you’re eating and what did that part that that animal go through during their life process, and was it healthy? If it was one that was created on those manufactured places where they have no quality of life, they’re just in a stall, then that meat is going to be very stress-related, there’s not going to be a lot of nutrition in it, and therefore there’s probably more hormones and things like that’s been added to it, so you’re not getting good quality. Just be really careful about your food selection, where you get it. If you do eat from farms and stuff like that where they love their animal all the way to the slaughterhouse, then you can pretty much rest assured that there should be less stress-related hormones in the in as well. But that’s a consideration to think of too.   [02:23:47] Ashley James: I’ve heard that from other people who are empaths as well that they’ve had that personal experience. My husband and I had that experience when we lived in Las Vegas long before we became plant-based. We were 100% meat-eaters, carnivore diet all the way. Meat at every meal. Sometimes just meals with only meat.  We went to a place called Roberto’s, which had the best or Mexican food. We got home and we ate the same thing we always eat there. It was a carne asada burrito or something. We had had it 50 times before, but this particular time for, whatever reason, both of us had pounding hearts. We felt like we had done—I haven’t done street drugs but it was kind of like cocaine or something. Our hearts were pounding out of our chest, we’re both sitting there in our chairs just sweating, breathing heavily, feeling incredibly scared. We don’t know what’s going on. If only one of us had had that experience we would have been like take me to the hospital, I’m having a heart attack. But both of us felt terrified and our hearts were pounding. We’re like, this is from the meat. Something happened to this cow. This happened, Duffy and I, 12 years ago, and that really stuck with me, that memory, and it lasted for hours. We’re just sitting there with our hearts pounding and just in total fear, both of us like we had taken some crazy drugs. That was just really clear to us that there was something about that cow that we felt, that was imprinted on us. We just have to think of energy is so powerful that you, Vienna, can do energy work across the world and help someone gain health back, then energy from our food could heal us or harm us. Bring us closer to being in balance or further away from being in balance. We have to take that into consideration. I love that practice you developed with your husband where you chewed each bite 30 times and talked about the intention of what each bite would heal. Now, I’ve met you in person. You look like you’re in your 40s, but how old are you, may I ask?   [02:26:17] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: I’m actually 58. I’m 58.   [02:26:19] Ashley James: Did you notice that as you did all this work with integrative medicine that you got younger, that you looked younger, that you felt younger? Did you notice that?   [02:26:28] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Absolutely. And also, what adds to that is I do a daily practice. Every morning and every night I do my meditation and my yoga first thing every morning, I don’t miss it. And then I also do the same practice in the evening as well, and I don’t miss that either. That’s me loving myself. Since I’ve started that, oh my gosh, the change has been so phenomenally different. First of all, sometimes I could have a lot of people after me, for whatever reason. I don’t feel it, I don’t give it attention. It doesn’t affect me. Minor stresses like things that are happening in your life that could typically be a major stressor, it doesn’t stress me out anymore. I’m just in this wonderful little vortex of love, gratitude, and blessings. One of the things that I do that is really good homework for everybody is to start your morning with at least five minutes of gratitude. Be grateful for whatever it is that you have in your life or what it is that you want in your life and assume that it’s already happened. Let’s say I’m wanting this vacation, for example, and wanting the airways to allow us to fly again and all of that. I’ll just say thank you so much for my trip to Hawaii or whatever. I’m enjoying it so much or whatever, but I’ll spend some time in gratitude in the morning as I’m starting my day and saying what I’m grateful for that’s going to happen that day.  And then in the evening, I spent another five minutes in gratitude for what I was grateful for, what happened that day or what’s going to happen throughout the evening. That I’ll sleep well, the pain that I have in my back will go away, or whatever, and just spend that time and just sharing out the gratitude. Right now, in this world that we’re in right now, there’s so much division, there’s so much anger, there’s so much resentment. I believe that if we just approach each person with love, with understanding, with gratitude, with blessings, with the highest level of energy and frequency that we can, that we can change this world. But right now there’s so much anger, and there’s one word in the vocabulary that I don’t allow in my vocabulary that I don’t even say, but it’s the h-a-t-e word.  I don’t include that because it’s used so frequently in vocabulary these days. You can hear somebody talk and say how much they don’t like this one thing, and you’ll hear them use that word 25 times within the conversation. That is such a strong word, and it’s not only the words that we say outside, it’s the words that we say internally. What is our own internal monologue saying? We’re always comparing ourselves to other people, that we’re in lack, we’re not good enough, or whatever. If you just start your day out with the blessings, the gratitude, the I am powerful, the I am phrases, and things like that, then we can change our own internal bio terrain without medications, without lots of intervention. It’s just what we say to ourselves because our own self-talk can be very toxic in itself, and it will make us toxic. That’s what’s made me younger is that daily process. I’m also plant-based, so I don’t do meat. If I’m at somebody’s house and they’re serving meat, I will just bless it rather than make them feel uncomfortable about serving me that. There’s only one that I typically won’t, and that would be pork. I pretty much will stay away from that just because most people don’t realize that pigs do not have sweat glands. Whatever they eat is in their meat, so I avoid it.   [02:30:35] Ashley James: And the horrible, horrible conditions that the poor pigs are raised in. I’ve said on the show before, I loved eating meat. I was really into it and then I just kept learning over and over and over and over more and more about the benefits of not eating it, and the benefits of eating plants. My husband, actually, was the biggest carnivore in the world. He just woke up and said, “I’m never eating meat again.” And I’m like okay, I guess I’m cooking that way since I’m the one that cooks for everyone in the family.  I was very afraid of not eating meat. I really thought that I would become weak, frail, that I would be sick because I tried being vegan before, I tried being vegetarian before. Doing it all wrong—eating a lot of processed food in the mix and just really feeling sick. I tried to go vegetarian when I was a teenager, and I ate just like vegetarian pizza and subs. Obviously not healthy choices, but in my mind, it’s like oh I’m not eating meat. I should feel great. Oh, I feel worse. Apparently, meat makes me feel good.  In my mind, I had this belief, and I met a lot of people with this belief that meat gives you energy, meat makes you feel healthy. Whole food plant-based is not vegan, it’s not vegetarian in that Oreos are vegan. A whole food plant is I’m choosing to not eat processed food, but also it’s not black and white. I really like that you acknowledge that you’re not 100% never ever ever ever eating any animal product. Because I think that in our minds, it’s like a black or white issue like. I either—for the rest of my life—can’t eat any of that. Oh my gosh, too much restriction, I can’t do it.  You’re just doing your best every day. You’re just making really good choices every day. If once in a while you have an animal product like you said, you bless it, you’re grateful for it, you’re grateful for the life it gave you, and you move on. But you focus on eating as many plants as you can, and nurturing your body as best you can. Because that guilt and shame that comes with feeling like I can’t do it, oh my gosh I failed, or whatever, all of that are toxic.   [02:32:54] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: That’s the self-talk we were talking about.   [02:32:56] Ashley James: Right, yeah. There’s this idea about being vegan is like it’s all or nothing. I’ve met even vegans they’re like no, no, no. There’s vegan shaming out there, so it’s like you start getting shamed by a vegan, and there’s a lot of negative emotions around it. And then people get really turned off by it. It’s not on or off. It’s do as best you can—good, better, best. If everyone just did as best they could. Just how long can you go just eating an amazing variety of plants? Great, you made it two meals without meat, great, you know what I mean? That’s sometimes what it starts with. Sometimes it’s just meatless Mondays, two meals a day, or a whole week of meatless meals. Maybe only at Thanksgiving or whatever. It’s your ability to just choose healthy foods for you. I think as a society, we’re over-consuming meat products and totally under consuming plants. I think we need to switch it up. We need to over-consume plant products in the most balanced and healthy way.   [02:34:06] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: It’s also looking at how we prepare it too. Another thing that we do in our home is when we are preparing our dinner or our meals, we have wonderful music playing in the background. We are putting love into our food. We’re purposefully putting that love of intention into the food. That this food that we are preparing with our own hands is going to provide so many nutrients and so much love to this person who is consuming it, and we surround ourselves with it. We have these nice essential oils going on, we have the music, and therefore we’re influencing it with our own energy as well. And then oh my gosh, the taste is amazing after that because like wow.  Versus if you’re making a meal in anger. Let’s say you’re angry at your husband or you’re angry at your wife and you’re making this meal, then they’re ingesting your anger in that meal as well. It’s similar to that animal going to slaughter. If you’re making a meal in anger, frustration, resentment, or even just sheer fatigue, then how does that influence your food? It influences a great deal, even if it is a plant-based food because plants have energy as well. They actually communicate.  There was actually a lie detector expert who was testing his plants one day on his lie detector equipment. He found that they respond to his thoughts or his words, and he tested them. He was testing them by adding cold water to see how they would respond. The needle would move but they would recover. Then he would add hot water, and the needle would move even further but it would recover. Then he clipped the plant. Yeah, okay. It didn’t like it. The needle would move but the plant still recovered. Then he had this thought, I wonder what would happen if I burned the plant. The needle moved and the plant never recovered from that. The needle stayed where it was.   [02:36:06] Ashley James: Just the thought of burning the plant.   [02:36:08] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Never even burned the plant. Just the thought of burning the plant. Those people out there that say they don’t have a green thumb, change your perspective, love that plant, put a lot of love into it when you water it, when you talk to it, and all that kind of stuff and you will be a green thumb. But the same thing goes with the preparation of your food, put love into it.   [02:36:26] Ashley James: While you’re preparing and loving your food and loving your body, that’s actually turning on digestion even then. Maybe an hour before you sit down to eat, you’re chopping the food, you’re sautéing, your steaming. All of that you’re seeing it with your eyes, you’re smelling it with your nose. Maybe you’re even tasting things as you’re seasoning it with the herbs, and you’re in a state of not stress. You’re in the autonomic nervous system’s parasympathetic response of rest and digest, and not in the state of fight or flight right because you’re listening to the music, you’re in a state of love. So now you’re turning on digestion with the nervous system response, getting out of stress mode. So you’re prepping, you’re spending an hour before you even eat the food. Your body is preparing for and getting ready for and excited to help you digest, and then you sit down, you have gratitude and prayer, and you chew your food slowly and plentifully. The entire time, your body is going to get the most amount of nutrients out of that food because it’s in parasympathetic nervous system response to rest and digest. All your hormones are in alignment with taking that food and turning it into nutrients. It really does come back to the holistic approach that our lifestyle choices matter. That your meditation and gratitude, daily yoga, all of that really does matter. That you intentionally cook, prep, grocery shop, plan, and eat with intention of love and healing your body. That matters and that the amount of stress that we go under. Think about people who are stressed out, go through drive-thrus, wolf down their food, hardly spend any time digesting or prepping the body for digestion, don’t even chew very much, and are choosing foods that sit in their body and rot. No wonder we have the nutrition nutrient deficiencies we do and the state of disease we do when we’re not really taking time to energetically, emotionally, and physically nourish ourselves every day. You’re such a wealth of information. I’d love to have you back on the show. You have a segment where you’re going to teach us how to read our tongues, but I’d like to save that for our next interview.   [02:38:56] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Perfect.   [02:38:57] Ashley James: I’m going to make sure the links to everything that Vienna Lafrenz does is in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. Now you also have a book you wrote a chapter in with many other very famous healers and holistic practitioners. The link to the book is going to be in the show notes as well. The book is called Wakeup: Miracles of Healing From Around the World. Can you tell us a little bit about that book and what people would get out of reading it?   [02:39:27] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Yeah. It’s a compilation of about 40 different authors, and they’re all healers of some form or fashion. Basically, we were asked to write a chapter on the miracles that we have experienced whether in our own lives or through the lives of our clients. It’s really a complication of all of that.  I think it’ll give some people a really nice fresh perspective of the potential of the body to heal, as well as the mind and all of the different stories. There are some really amazing healers out there, different modalities that are being used. I truly feel like it’ll open up a lot of people’s minds and perspectives to just the potential of the body to heal, the number of amazing stories that were shared, and the different types of healers that are out there, and just the sheer love that they have for the healing process.   [02:40:19] Ashley James: Awesome, Vienna, your website is natural-therapeutics.com, and of course, that link and the link to the book is going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learnsharehealth.com. I want to have you back, there’s so much more we have to talk about. After you and I spoke, you got a Platinum Energy System, which I’ve had Kellyann Andrews on the show several times. Many of my listeners, I think at least a hundred of them, have purchased a Platinum Energy System and are using it for themselves and their family, and some of them for their clients. I keep getting some amazing feedback coming back from one of our listeners. I believe she says she’s an ophthalmologist. Her family was diagnosed with COVID actually, all positive tests. When they used the PES, their suffering ended, and that it sped up their healing. It was really cool to see that. I’ve had that experience with the PES before or any time I have a cold or flu, which I don’t often. But when I do, I jump in it and I really feel it sets the body back into healing mode quickly. You’ve had some great experiences with that in your clinic, which would be cool just to hear about because I love hearing stories of healing and success, especially with natural medicine. And then you have all other kinds of therapies. Of course, today, we focused on remote Biofeedback. One of the reasons why I really wanted to focus on that is that obviously, many of my listeners are not near Republic, Washington. How you can help them, and you can, is by working with them remotely. You do that on a holistic level. You’re looking at emotional, mental, spiritual, energetic, and physical while working with people around the world.  And then it’d be really cool to talk more about the other therapies that you have in-house, especially because so many of my listeners are either in the holistic space, in one way or another, or want to become a practitioner. You’re inspiring future generations with what you’ve shared today. I’d love to have you back. I also really am eager to learn from you about the tongue and how to read it, and what we can do with that information. We’ll have you back and you’ll share with us all about that. That’d be really cool. Is there anything you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview?   [02:42:39] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Well, first of all, I love your interviews. They’re very thorough, they’re fun, they’re exciting. Obviously, we could go on for hours, and it’s always nice to be able to talk to a friend like that. I love the fact that they’re also widespread as far as different topics. I feel like we need to have more of this type of stuff going on so that it meets more ears that are open and that are kind of at that desperation stage of what do I do now? I think even more so now with the whole COVID-19, one of the things that really opened things up for me was this remote healing piece because of the lack of potential to go to people in person and the way in which it helps to heal. Also, the other pieces of it with the emotional frustration that people are having of not being able to see their loved ones and stuff like that, so it’s even more so.  But I love what I do. I love giving people their power back and helping them realize that they don’t even need me necessarily to heal. I may be working myself out of a job, but the more empowerment that we could give our clients to where they are able to then see their own potential and their basically limitless potential of healing themselves, then that’s where I feel like I’ve done my job is getting them to that level and not needing me anymore.   [02:44:11] Ashley James: Yes. You work yourself out of a job by helping people get to the point where they don’t need you anymore. But it’s fun to do the check-ins. I know I definitely want to have a few more sessions with you. It’s so cool because it’s layered, you peel the layers away. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been such a pleasure having you, and I can’t wait to have you back.   [02:44:35] Dr. Vienna Lafrenz: Thank you I appreciate it, and I appreciate your listeners as well.   [02:44:42] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today’s interview. You know, there are 53 days left until Christmas if you’re listening to this the day I publish it. If you’re listening to it later, Christmas is just around the corner. I love giving holistic presents to my friends and family. I’m going to tell you a few that I absolutely love. The Magnesium Soak, you can listen to my interviews. Just type in Magnesium Soak at learntruehealth.com and listen to those interviews. Absolutely amazing. Kristen Bowen, I think she said she was 97 pounds, having 30 seizures a day, in a wheelchair, and unable to talk. Now, she’s in perfect health. One of the biggest things that helped her was her magnesium soak that she sells on her website, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. Be sure to use the coupon code: LTH when you go to her website, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. Coupon code: LTH. I love the Magnesium Creme, I love the Magnesium Soak. You put it in a foot bath or put it in your bathtub for you and your kids. I also love the Magnesium Muscle Creme, which is amazing for aches, pains, and tension headaches. That absolutely must be on your Christmas gift list, your holiday gift list. The other great gift I love giving my holistic friends is ENERGYbits. Go to energybits.com. Grab a few of the bags of ENERGYbits for your sister, your mom, your best friend. They’re fantastic snacks. Kids love them too because they make your tongue turn green or blue, depending on whether you get the chlorella or spirulina. They help to detox the body. They’re filled with readily available protein and tons of vitamins. I think I have seven different interviews about chlorella and spirulina, specifically about the ENERGYbits brand. I’ve interviewed the founder of that company. There are only two companies I know of that do not contain any lead in their chlorella. If you buy some over the counter, go to some health food store and buy chlorella, there’s going to be that little warning on it that says, in the state of California, this causes cancer. That’s because there’s actually lead in those bags of chlorella. But in ENERGYbits, in their chlorella, there’s zero because of their process of how they grow their crop and how they then turn the crop into little edible tablets. So listen to my interviews on the Magnesium Soak with Kristen Bowen. Listen to my interviews about algae, the healing benefits of algae, and how it’s such an awesome superfood snack to carry around with you. Listen to my ENERGYbits interviews and use coupon code LTH at energybits.com and coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. Those are two amazing websites to check out for your Christmas gift ideas. I always use coupon code LTH. I try to get companies who I absolutely love and adore and recommend to always use the same coupon code. Just always try coupon code LTH on all these health websites, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you get a great discount. Awesome. Enjoy today’s interview. Come check us out in our Facebook group if you haven’t already. We have such a supportive and wonderful community. You can ask your health questions there and support the other members as well. Just search Learn True Health on Facebook and come join the excellent community of very supportive holistic community there.      Get Connected with Dr. Vienna Lafrenz Website Facebook – Dr. Vienna Lafrenz   Book by Dr. Vienna Lafrenz WakeUp: Miracles of Healing around the World   Recommended Reading by Dr. Vienna Lafrenz Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza

Check out IIN and get a free module: LearnTrueHealth.com/coach Your Body in Balance: The New Science of Food, Hormones, and Health:  https://amzn.to/31G9bfw   Your Body in Balance: The New Science of Food, Hormones, and Health by Dr. Neal Barnard https://www.learntruehealth.com/your-body-in-balance-the-new-science-of-food-hormones-and-health-by-dr-neal-barnard   Highlights: How to lower estrogen levels Impact of decreasing estrogen levels on hormone-related illnesses Soy products affect hormone levels Why does eating animal products disrupt hormones Effects of dairy consumption   Do you have hormone-related issues like PCOS, PMS, endometriosis, or type 2 diabetes? In this episode, Dr. Neal Barnard shares how those can be healed by removing meat and animal products from our diet. He explains the effects of dairy consumption and why we should remove dairy products from our diet.   [00:00:00] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 449. I am so excited for today’s guest. We have back on the show Dr. Neal Barnard. You were in episode 256 so it’s been a while. Now we’re in the 400s of our interviews. We had you on for one of your books, the Cheese Trap, which was amazing. I highly recommend listeners go back and check out episode 256 if you haven’t already. Dr. Barnard, you are on the forefront of the whole food, plant-based movement showing people that we can heal our body with food, and now you’ve come out with a book teaching us—especially women—how we can balance our hormones, gain fertility, breeze through menopause, and even how to manage things like cancer—when it’s hormone-related cancers—all using food as medicine. I’m very happy to have you back on the show.   [00:01:08] Dr. Neal Barnard: Well, thank you. It’s great to be back.   [00:01:10] Ashley James: Absolutely. We did dive a bit into your bio in our last interview and what led you to want to become a doctor that practices whole food, plant-based food as a way of healing people. So I want to jump right in, why did you write your latest book, Your Body In Balance? What compelled you to want to help use food to balance our hormones?   [00:01:34] Dr. Neal Barnard: Up until now, most people have thought of food in rather modest terms. That if you’re eating the wrong kinds of foods, you’ll gain weight. You change your diet and lose weight. Maybe your cholesterol will go down, your blood sugar can improve—that kind of stuff. We can be much more ambitious than that when it comes to tuning up our health. Almost every function of your body is controlled by hormones. Hormones are made in one organ. They go through the bloodstream to reach another organ, and they tell it what to do. If you could control your hormones, let’s say you can control thyroid hormone, which gives energy to your cells, you can control estrogens, which controls sexual function, reproductive function. What if you can control insulin, which deals with your blood sugar levels? There are so many more. If you can control all those, you can control your health in a far more sophisticated way than you might have imagined. Amazingly enough, the key to it is food.   [00:02:36] Ashley James: Why is that? When did you first start seeing that food had such a profound impact on hormones?   [00:02:45] Dr. Neal Barnard: Well, it actually started out sort of by accident. I was sitting at my desk. A young woman called me up, and she had terrible menstrual pain. Many women have some menstrual cramps, but for maybe 1 in 10, it’s just off the scale, I can’t go to work today type pain, and that was her situation. I realized I could give her painkillers for a couple of days, but what would that do for the next month, the month after that, or the month after that? So I said to her, “Let me give you some painkillers for now, but how about if we try and experiment and see if we can prevent this from happening next month?” I have to confess, I just made an educated guess. I said, “For the next four weeks, how about this, no animal products in your diet at all and keep oils to a bare minimum.” She called me up four weeks later and said, “This is the most amazing thing. My period arrived, I don’t have a single cramp—nothing.” And the month after that, the month after that. She was completely fine. I then did a randomized clinical trial with Georgetown University’s department of obstetrics and gynecology where we tested this in a larger group of women, and it was very effective. Different women got different effects. For some, though, it just was like night and day. Anyhow, I can explain to you why that works, why that kind of diet change would affect estrogen levels. But the bottom line was I discovered that by changing the fiber content, the fat content to the food, and a few other things, we could control menstrual cramping. If you can control that, then that, in turn, means you have some control over endometriosis, over fertility, over all the things that estrogens will control.   [00:04:34] Ashley James: This is fascinating. So, you talk about not only fertility but menopause and even the sex hormone-related cancers in your book. Do you also talk about how to reverse type 2 diabetes in your book?   [00:04:50] Dr. Neal Barnard: Oh, yes. In fact, that’s what we’ve been really known for more than anything else. Type 2 diabetes is of course—well, maybe I should just back up. The problems we’ve been discussing so far like menstrual cramps or endometriosis, those are problems of estrogen. Estrogen is made in the ovaries, for the most part. If you have too much of it, it thickens up the uterine lining too much.  Researchers learned a long time ago that a high fiber diet will bring it down, a lower-fat diet will bring it down, and avoiding dairy products, in particular, will help because dairy products have estrogens that come from cows. I put all that together, I thought all right. A vegan diet doesn’t have any animal fat at all, and it’s very high in fiber so that’s what I’ve used. We kept oils low and that was the reason it cured her But with diabetes, it’s a different thing. The hormone now is not estrogens, it’s insulin. It’s made in the pancreas, but I can control it with a remarkably similar diet. In 2003, the NIH gave our team a grant to try to find a better diet for controlling type 2 diabetes. What we have found is that a diet that’s really remarkably similar to the estrogen-controlling diet, using an insulin-controlling diet, you once again get rid of animal products, you keep oils really low, and you can do a couple of other things.  What we started to see was something we had never seen before, which was diabetes going away. I’m talking about diabetes being just gone in people that had it for years. Not to say that that always happens, but it almost always happens that people do improve, and they reduce their blood sugars and their medication requirements. Sometimes they just get rid of the disease, which I have to tell you is the most amazing feeling for the patient, and for their own outside doctors. They have never seen a patient cure themselves of what had been an incurable disease.   [00:06:53] Ashley James: If you can cure yourself of a hormone-related disease by changing your diet, then was it the food they were eating that caused the disease in the first place?   [00:07:05] Dr. Neal Barnard: Yes. Yes, it was. Sometimes in the face of genetic vulnerabilities. In other words, a diet loaded with Velveeta and fried chicken isn’t necessarily going to cause diabetes in everybody, but it does cause it in a lot of people. Right now, about 1/3 of the American population has either diabetes or pre-diabetes. and that is not because of sugar, bread, or rice. It’s not from carbohydrates. It’s because of eating fatty foods. The fat gets into the muscle and liver cells leading to a condition called insulin resistance, and we’ve been studying this, and then we’ve figured out how to make it go away and we’re just controlling the hormones by food.   [00:07:54] Ashley James: I used to have type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I reversed both with a whole food, plant-based diet and taking supplements because I was very deficient in minerals like chromium. That was, for me, a complete game-changer to see that changing my diet had such a profound impact on my life. I know a woman who had such bad endometriosis. She was a friend of mine’s roommate. I saw her once a month for a whole week. She was in bed crying, curled up in a ball, and unable to work.  Then she became a vegetarian. She called it vegetarian but I watched her basically cut out dairy and meat out of her diet. I watched her be able to function now only in bed for two or three days instead of a whole week. She didn’t know to give up oil, she didn’t know to give up eggs, but I just saw an improvement in just that amount of switching. Why is it that eating meat, eating the flesh of an animal disrupts hormones, or making our body increase insulin resistance and also increasing estrogen? Why is it having that effect on our body?   [00:09:16] Dr. Neal Barnard: Yeah, it’s a fascinating thing. These are all the things that they don’t teach in medical school either, I have to tell you. We’ve had to discover them on our own. Maybe I shouldn’t be blaming the medical schools because much of the research just wasn’t done back then, but we do have it now, and it’s important for people to understand it. The means of controlling insulin, it’s almost the same kind of diet, but the mechanism turns out to be completely different. Let’s take endometriosis. That’s what your friend had where she was just terrible, terrible cramps. For people who don’t know what we’re talking about, endometriosis is a really painful condition where cells that are supposed to be lining the uterus—that’s called the endometrial layer, the very inside of the uterus. Those cells, which are supposed to be kind of a little cushion when a baby is developing inside the uterus, some of those little cushiony cells have escaped. And they’ve flown out the fallopian tubes. Now they’re in the abdominal cavity, and they implant around the implant on the intestines, on the fallopian tubes themselves, on the surface of the ovary. And they expand and contract, they bleed, they cause scarring, and they hurt like crazy. However, it’s been clear for a long time that they’re driven by estrogens. They’re driven by sex hormones. So if a woman has less estrogen in her blood, they’re going to regress. The reason that I started jumping into this was I had become aware that as part of cancer research, researchers discovered that estrogen drives the growth of cancer. I mean, this is not surprising. If you have more estrogen it makes cancer cells grow. But I found that some researchers had discovered that if you reduce fatty foods in the diet—whether it’s meat fat, cheese fat, or even donut type fat, any kind of grease—if you reduce grease in the diet, it brings estrogen levels down.  Completely independent of that, if you boost fiber which means fruits, vegetables, and beans, that also brings estrogens down. That was the reason why the young woman with menstrual pain, I said vegan diet then there’s no animal fat at all and everything’s got a lot of fiber. It’s going to be the best of all worlds. Dairy is a particular issue because dairy actually has estrogens in it that come from the cow. You don’t have any dairy at all in your diet. If you do those things, people with endometriosis very often feel dramatically better.  There was a young woman whose story I described in my book, Your Body In Balance. She was in the Air Force. She had terrible endometriosis. She was slated for a hysterectomy because nothing could control her symptoms. She went on the diet that I’m describing and her endometriosis was simply gone. What was particularly amazing was that her doctor was convinced that not only would she be in pain every month because of endometriosis, but also that it had robbed her of her fertility. This disease process was so profound. Well, not only did the diet change cure her endometriosis, but she wasn’t infertile at all. She was fine. She’s got three children now. She still got her uterus. She’s got her kids. She’s got a healthy vegan diet. She’s probably got a new doctor. Anyway, you see my point. How many people go to the doctor and are told your menstrual cramps, your fertility issues, your endometriosis, it’s a sign of your hormones being out of balance. Here’s how you choose your breakfast to get your hormones into a better balance. Here’s how I would choose my lunch. Here are the best snacks for you. It never happens. It’s all some pharmaceutical solution that may work, or it may not work.   [00:13:15] Ashley James: But it really just masks it and it doesn’t address the root cause.   [00:13:18] Dr. Neal Barnard: Or worse, you can go to the doctor and have your uterus and ovaries removed and be told that this is God’s will. When in fact, it might have been the will of Kraft, McDonald’s, KFC, or something. But it had nothing to do with a deity bringing this on. So anyway, you asked me why did I write Your Body In Balance? Because I thought people need to know how to control, not just diabetes, endometriosis, or PCOS, which you were dealing with. PCOS is a hormonal condition, which to a great degree, is responsive to food changes and things like thyroid conditions.  People don’t even know where their thyroid is. All they know is I got out of bed today. I got zero energy. I stepped on the scale, and I’ve gained a pound since last week. I look in the mirror and my hair doesn’t look right. You go to the doctor and these are all non-specific symptoms, but the doctor says to you this is fitting a pattern. Let me do a blood test. And the doctor finds your hypothyroid—you’re low in thyroid. Your thyroid gland is at the base of your neck. It gives your cells energy, and when it’s just not working, you just feel rotten. What does the doctor do? Puts you on thyroid replacement medication, which you will be on for the rest of your life. What we have discovered is that there are—in some cases—dietary causes of it that are really easy to rectify. You may need medical care, you may well. Don’t fire your doctor or cancel your doctor’s appointment, but let’s see if there’s a dietary change that can get you back on track.   [00:15:06] Ashley James: There’s also a list of plant-based doctors. I don’t remember the name of the website. I’ll probably put it in the show notes, but you can google plant-based doctors. There’s a directory of doctors who study your work, study these studies, want to do labs, and help their patients balance their hormones. Maybe using medication at first, but then also help them with their diet. That’s something to look at.  I’ve always gone to naturopathic doctors because they love looking at labs, diet, and nutrition first before entertaining the idea of putting you on a prescription as a last-ditch effort. Whereas many other doctors, like you said, this is how the schooling was—the medical school was at the time. They didn’t have the resources to teach us that food can be medicine, and now we see it plain as day. You’ve talked about really doing your best to reduce or eliminate oil altogether, cut out all dairy products from cows. Of course, you can do plant-based dairy. You could make it in your own home. It’s just made from nuts, soy, rice, or oats, and then looking at eating lots of fiber from plants. But what about specifically the harm that comes to our hormones by eating animal flesh—by eating fish, cows, and chickens? Why does that disrupt hormones?   [00:16:47] Dr. Neal Barnard: Okay. By the way, first, to the point you’re making earlier about finding a doctor who understands this. There are different sites, and the one that I might recommend—if you go to the website pcrm.org, that’s Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, pcrm.org. Just in the little search thing, put find a doctor. You’ll see lots and lots and lots and lots of names that come up. About five years ago, we launched a primary care clinic because we were doing so many research studies that other people could not participate in if they didn’t have exactly that condition. We have a primary care clinic here. It’s called Barnard Medical Center and we do telehealth visits.   [00:17:32] Ashley James: Excellent.   [00:17:33] Dr. Neal Barnard: Yeah. Many, many, many states of the United States, people can do telemedicine if they are able to, and then we’re gradually expanding beyond that. It’s just barnardmedical.org.   [00:17:46] Ashley James: Excellent. I’ll make sure the links to everything you mentioned are in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. That’s exciting that someone could work with you, one of your staff members, or one of your colleagues and look at their specific needs and adjust their diet accordingly. So getting onto them, I’m really excited to understand specifically what it is about eating animal flesh that disrupts our hormones?   [00:18:12] Dr. Neal Barnard: Okay. If we are speaking of insulin, insulin is a hormone that is made in the pancreas, it goes through the bloodstream to the surface of a muscle cell. Let’s say I’m eating animal flesh, I’m eating a hamburger. The hamburger is some protein but a fair amount of fat. Even if it’s “lean meat,” there’s a surprising amount of fat in there. Even if it’s the leanest chicken—you take off the skin, it’s only chicken breast—it’s still about 23% fat. That animal fat is absorbed by the body, enters the muscle cell. And then when insulin tries to get that cell to do what it’s supposed to do, which is to pull glucose out of the blood, the fat stops it from working. The fat in animal products interferes with insulin sensitivity. It causes insulin resistance. That’s also a problem with PCOS. In women who have polycystic ovary syndrome, they are very often insulin resistant as well. So getting the animal products out of the diet means there’s no animal fat to interfere with insulin action.  The other thing about it is that animal products don’t have certain things in them. They don’t have any fiber. They don’t have any complex carbohydrates, and so as a result, fiber normally helps the body to eliminate excess hormones. Your liver removes estrogens from the blood, and it sends them through the bile duct into the intestinal tract and out they go, but it only works if fiber is there to escort them. Fiber is like a broom that sweeps it out. If you ate chicken breast or salmon for lunch, they’re not from plants, they’re from animals so there’s no fiber in them at all. If that’s the case, the estrogens in your intestinal tract that the liver carefully removed don’t go through the intestinal tract anymore. They reabsorb back into the blood. The fiber is essential to making that happen. So what’s wrong with animal products? They got a lot of fat, they don’t have any fiber, and if you want a contaminated product, animal products are always the worst. They are the ones that tend to be filled with chemicals much more than plants.   [00:20:30] Ashley James: Well, that makes sense. We’ve heard that eating a sardine, there’s less mercury in a sardine than in a tuna because the tuna went around eating all the sardines. The cow is consuming tons and tons of grain, soy, or whatever it’s been fed that has pesticides. Pesticides concentrate in its muscles, and then when you eat the cow you’re getting the concentration of all the feed it was ever given with all those pesticides and chemicals. Even organic I have to question. What about the idea that there are hormones in animal meat? If you’re eating a cow and the cow has its own hormones—even though it says no hormones added—the cows were making their own hormones. Is that a factor? I mean, we’re eating the estrogen that was once a cow’s estrogen?   [00:21:24] Dr. Neal Barnard: I think it matters for dairy, I think it matters less for meat. The reason I say that is dairy products—well, on meat just very, very quickly. If you go out to a farm, many of the cows will have hormones injected into a little pellet on their ear that will release either testosterone or synthetic testosterone, or estrogen or synthetic estrogens into their blood. The reason the farmers do it is that they get better growth of the animal per unit feed, so it makes money for them. But with dairy, it’s a bigger issue because every glass of milk you ever had came from a cow who was impregnated annually. Which by the way is not a treat for anyone. If you ever happen to go buy a dairy and say I want to see how you artificially inseminate your cows, it is a creepy process.  The other creepy thing is that after nine months of gestation, their babies are not allowed to stay with them. Their babies are taken away, and they basically go through this annual procedure where they’re artificially inseminated, their babies are taken away just so that we can take their milk, which nature had in mind something else. Apart from the ethical issues of it, they are milked during much of their pregnancy. A pregnant cow makes extra estrogen and extra progesterone, and it gets in the milk. The milk concentrates them as it’s turned into cheese. The average American adult eats 37 pounds of cheese every year, plus milk, plus ice cream, plus yogurt, plus butter, and so you’re getting estrogens and other hormones from the milk and the milk products. Now, people will rightly say it’s only a trace. True. However, in research studies, you can see a clear-cut association between dairy consumption and fertility issues in men, in cancer mortality in women, in breast cancer incidents in women. A brand new study from California just showed a substantially higher risk of breast cancer in milk-drinking women.  How much estrogen do you want to feed to your seven-year-old daughter or your or your eight-year-old son? It is completely unnatural, but you and we all grew up with this idea—milk for strong bones. Nature said, wait a minute, cows don’t make calcium, cows eat calcium. It’s an element in the earth that gets into the grass, and if you’re eating vegetable matter like grass, you get calcium. Hopefully, you’re not eating grass, but you’re eating broccoli, kale, collards, brussels sprouts, or other greens that you like. That’s where calcium comes from. The whole idea that you need dairy for calcium is an invention of the dairy industry.   [00:24:20] Ashley James: I’ve heard—possibly you said it—that there was a study where they looked at a meta-analysis of all the countries that have the lowest rates of osteoporosis. They found that those that drink the least amount of dairy or no dairy actually had the strongest bones in comparison to those countries that drank the most cow dairy had the weakest bones and the highest rates of osteoporosis. Can you speak to that?   [00:24:53] Dr. Neal Barnard: The evidence that dairy products help protect against bone fractures is extremely weak, not that it hasn’t been studied. The dairy industry has been very eager to come up with health rationales for consuming a bowl of ice cream, but the fact of the matter is it really doesn’t work very well. All kinds of problems come along with it. Anyway, to just speak to your point, there are confounding variables here. People who tend to avoid milk have a number of other health benefits. They’re eating other things. That may account for why they have stronger bones. But at a minimum, you just can’t really find robust research showing that dairy helps. I think that’s the most conservative thing to say. It’s just not going to benefit you. But along the way, a researcher at Harvard named Dan Cramer years ago started looking at infertility. As you know, when women are maybe in their mid-20s, that’s sort of peak fertility time. When she’s 10 years older than that, she’s in her mid-30s or late 30s, her fertility is less. She started getting calls from her mother who says, I know your career is important to you, but you better not wait. Your clock is ticking. That kind of stuff.  So Cramer looked at a variety of countries, and he looked at the decline in fertility as women go from their late 20s to their late 30s. He compared it to dairy intake. Thailand, not a big ice cream eating country. Cheese pizza is not their thing. It’s not a lot of dairy in Thailand. And the drop in fertility during that time from the late 20s to late 30s in women is maybe about 25% reduction. Then you look at Brazil. Brazil, a little more dairy, more cheese. About a 50% loss of fertility during that time. You look at the United States where it’s all dairy all the time, and the reduction in fertility is about 80%. If you look at a variety of other countries, it’s not a perfect pattern but it’s quite compelling that high dairy intake appears to interfere with ovarian function. What we are speculating is the issue is that the problem here, in this case, isn’t just the estrogen or progesterone from the cow, but it could be—surprisingly enough—dairy sugar. The sugar in milk is lactose. And in your digestive tract, if you can digest it, it breaks apart to release galactose. Galactose and glucose come out of the lactose sugar. The galactose can be toxic to the ovary. What supports this is that researchers have also shown that galactose is linked to ovarian cancer. What we think is happening is that there’s not free galactose in much of anything that people eat—very little of it. And your body doesn’t take it in.  But dairying countries, dairying regions of the globe—maybe many thousands of years ago—started to spawn genetic mutations so that in some populations—particularly what you might refer to as Caucasian populations—carry this mutation so that they can break down the lactose sugar to release galactose. They think this is a wonderful advantage because I’ve got a new food source, and I don’t get the digestive problems that the rest of the world gets. Most of the world is lactose intolerant. You get diarrhea when you drink milk, but not these white people. For white people, maybe 85% are lactose tolerant. They don’t get digestive symptoms. Well, that’s not so great because what happens is then you are digesting the sugar to release galactose into your blood, which is going to harm your fertility, increase the risk of ovarian cancer—according to the best evidence we have—and create all kinds of havoc that nature never thought in a million years humans would find nutrition in the udder of a cow. But people are creative. I mean, we stumble into all kinds of problems. So there you have it.   [00:29:20] Ashley James: You’ve taught us how to naturally decrease the estrogens to healthy levels. What changes can we make in our diet to helpfully increase progesterone for women who have low progesterone?   [00:29:34] Dr. Neal Barnard: Well, it’s largely a question of balance. If you bring down the estrogen in the right way, progesterone will take care of itself. Now there are people who will say that yams have natural progesterone in them. That’s true, but the bioavailability of it is modest in my view. There are people who will turn it into creams that they will sell you, and you’ll see them online. I am not aware of any toxicity of them. You can certainly try them. You look up natural progesterone creams, they’re typically yam-derived, perfectly fine. Whether they will work for you or not is another issue.   [00:30:10] Ashley James: It’s a matter of eating so healthy the body comes back into balance. Well, the idea that sex hormones and stress hormones are derived from fat, that the body takes—isn’t that a form of cholesterol that it then turns into these hormones?   [00:30:28] Dr. Neal Barnard: Yeah, isn’t that funny? Cholesterol is a bad actor, and it really is, but your body actually does make modest amounts of cholesterol to turn into testosterone, estrogen, and a variety of other compounds. Cholesterol is sort of this raw material. The way we run into trouble is if we start eating cholesterol from eggs or other animal products.  One area that’s been a surprise—and you’re speaking about these hormonal changes—menopause is a time when many women really suffer from hot flashes. Here, it’s not so much the hormones causing it as the hormone roller coaster causing it. Your estrogen levels were high when you were 48, but now you’re 52 and your hormones have changed dramatically, so you get hot flashes that can persist. Back in the 1980s, I believe it was, a researcher from McGill University named Margaret Lock went to Japan. She interviewed about 1200 women, and they just didn’t report hot flashes. The question was, well, maybe Japanese women are kind of reticent. They don’t want to talk about their intimate things. So she did really in-depth interviews. It’s kind of a backache. When I went through menopause. I was a little moody for a little while. Did you have hot flashes? No, I didn’t really have it. There was no Japanese word for it. Same with China, same with parts of rural Mexico. What all these places had in common was that their dietary staples were plant-derived. There might have been some animal products, but not much dairy in particular. When Japan westernized—McDonald’s, KFC, and everybody came in—the rice was discarded in favor of chicken, pizza, and dairy. We started to see hormonal problems come in. Breast cancer rates doubled. Menopausal symptoms became common. Depression became much more common. The other piece is that soy products seem to have an anti-hot flash effect. Anyway, in Your Body In Balance, when I wrote this book, I described all of this. I talked about soy, and I suggested that women who have hot flashes go on a vegan diet and consume soy. A woman called me up about six weeks ago. She said, “Dr. Barnard, I did what you said. I got terrible hot flashes. I did it in a certain way. I didn’t want to just do soy milk. You don’t know what it is in the soybean that’s good for you.” She said, “I took my pressure cooker, and I just took whole soybeans that I got at the co-op. I threw them in there, and I’ve been eating half a cup a day. My hot flashes were gone in three days.” I was like, “Holy cow. That’s amazing.” Whether this will work for a large group of people, I don’t know. There have been quite a number of studies on it, and what intrigued me was that these studies have been done on extracts or soy foods where it’s a part of the soybean. But in her case she said, I’m going to use the whole damn thing. I’m using the whole soybean, half cup a day. If anybody’s listening to this broadcast and hot flashes are driving you crazy and you can’t sleep more than 90 minutes at night without being awakened by night sweats, you might try this approach. No animal products in your diet at all, keep oils low, take out your Instant Pot, boil up a big batch of whole soybeans, which you’ll find online. Have a half a cup of them a day—they’re like pine nuts really—on your salad. It’s really not much. You just eat them, see what happens, and let me know.   [00:34:25] Ashley James: That’s fascinating. I heard that the plant estrogen—the phytoestrogen—actually binds to oxygen receptors and thus blocking our real estrogen from taking hold. So it sort of lowers estrogen dominance in that way. There are so many misconceptions about soy. That it would cause men to have breasts, which is not the case. It actually helps to lower the estrogen to healthy levels, plus you mentioned that it has fiber which helps our body to regulate estrogen. That’s great for women, but is it healthy for men to eat half a cup of cooked soybeans a day?   [00:35:04] Dr. Neal Barnard: Sure. If you happen to go to the gym and mention that you like soy products, some of the guys will say that’ll give you man boobs. That’s what you’re talking about. This concern that soy will make a man effeminate. Go to the beach in August. If you’ll see a chunky guy taking off his shirt and you notice that he’s got a little bit of breast enhancement, go right up to him and ask how much tofu did you eat this week? Tell me about your soy yogurt consumption. He’s going to say, what are you talking about? I don’t eat any of that stuff at all.   [00:35:45] Ashley James: I drink beer and I eat cheeseburgers.   [00:35:49] Dr. Neal Barnard: And wings and so forth. What has happened in his body is that as he’s eaten animal products and the fat they contain, he’s gained weight. Fat cells are not just bags of calories. Fat cells convert testosterone into estrogen. Yes, and they do it even while you’re asleep. This happens in women, and it happens in men. As he’s gained weight, he’s got more estrogen in his blood. So some of what he’s got at the breast area is fat, some of what he’s got is breast tissue.  Now, don’t get me wrong. Gynecomastia, a little bit of breast tissue, is extremely common. Most men have a little nubbit of it here somewhere, and particularly when they’re an adolescent, but they can have it. But the idea that soy is encouraging that is not true. With regard to women, let me be clear. Soy products do affect your cancer risk, and here’s how they do. They reduce it.   [00:36:43] Ashley James: Yes.   [00:36:44] Dr. Neal Barnard: Soy products reduce cancer risk by about 30%. This is really important because you’ll hear people say that soy has phytoestrogens that cause cancer. By about 2004, we had maybe eight really good studies comparing women who consumed zero soy to consuming a really large amount of soy. I’m talking about soy milk, tofu, tempeh, or something like that. The pattern was striking. The women consuming the most so had about 30% less risk of developing breast cancer. And then researchers started looking at women who had had cancer in the past, and all be darned. It did not turn out to be the case that their cancer would progress from soy. It was the opposite. Women consuming the most so they had about a 30% reduction in the likelihood of dying of their cancer. What we now know is that there is more than one estrogen receptor on a breast cell or on other cells too. There are alpha receptors and there are beta receptors. The soy isoflavones are attached to the beta receptor. The way you can think of it is in your car, you got the gas pedal. You step on the gas your car goes. You got the brake. You step on the brake, what happens? It stops. You’ve got more than one estrogenic receptor. If you’re trying to calm things down, a product that attaches specifically to the beta receptor is going to be your friend.   [00:38:13] Ashley James: Fascinating. What about prostate cancer?   [00:38:20] Dr. Neal Barnard: It’s quantitatively similar. Men who consume the most soy, once again, have about a 30% lower risk of developing prostate cancer, but there’s more to it here. If you’re consuming soy milk you are not consuming cow’s milk. Cow’s milk—completely separate from soy—is a driver of prostate cancer.   [00:38:47] Ashley James: Wow.   [00:38:48] Dr. Neal Barnard: At Harvard, this must go back 20 years, the Physicians’ Health Study—huge study—brought in physicians because they’re good reporters of their health and they track what they eat if you ask them to. The men consuming the most cow’s milk had about a 34% increased risk of prostate cancer. They followed it up with a much bigger trial, and they showed that if anything, it was an even higher risk, maybe 60% higher risk. What we now know is that in the same way as a calf suckling from a mother cow—when the dairy products go into the cow’s stomach, it triggers the production of something in the blood of the calf called IGF-1—insulin-like growth factor—that helps the calf to grow. So milk in the calf’s body encourages growth. Well, you might be a 55-year-old man but milk does the same. It increases IGF-1 levels in your blood, and IGF-1 is a potent growth stimulus specifically for cancer cells. You do not want to treat your body as if you are a calf hell-bent on growing. There is a reason why nature does not ever permit adult animals to drink dairy products. Every single mammal drinks milk from their mother. Every single mammal goes through a weaning process where that growth stimulus is shut off. Human beings being so creative and restless, we always figure out ways to defy what nature had in mind for us. This lifelong suckling at Dairy Queen is creating all kinds of problems for us.   [00:40:36] Ashley James: Fascinating. I could talk to you for hours about this. I know that you’re very busy and you have to go. I’d love to have you back on the show any time to continue sharing this information. I urge listeners to get your latest book, Your Body In Balance. Of course, the link to buy your book is going to be the show notes of today’s podcast at Learn True Health. I love that you discuss how men and women can balance every hormone in their body. You have mentioned several times eating a healthy vegan diet. Of course, Oreos are vegan. That would be considered the unhealthy vegan diet. For those who’ve never considered a plant-based diet to balance their hormones and decrease their chances of getting cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, and also balance their weight accordingly, and also increase their longevity. We could go on and on about the benefits of eating a whole food, plant-based diet. Could you just wrap up the interview today by explaining what it looks like to eat a healthy vegan diet that promotes healing and decreasing disease?   [00:41:45] Dr. Neal Barnard: Sure. Let me describe how we walk people through this change. If you ever quit smoking or something like that, this transition is much easier than that, and the payoff is enormous. Here’s how we do it and I’ll tell you what the foods look like.  The patient comes in, they got diabetes, they want to get rid of it. Or they’ve got cramps, they want to get rid of it. They have PCOS, whatever the issue is. Step one is we’re going to take seven days. During the seven days, we’re not going to change any part of the diet, but what we are going to do is take a piece of paper and I’m going to write on the paper the word breakfast, leave a little space and then I’ll write lunch, then I’ll leave a little space I’ll write dinner, and I’ll leave some space and I’ll write snack. I’ll say please take this paper and come back seven days from now, and I want to see a list of foods that have no animal products in them that you actually would like to eat in each category. The patient says that’s it? Okay. They come back and they say, “Well, my first breakfast item is I have corn flakes with cow’s milk normally, but I went to the store and I got some almond milk. It’s pretty cool, so that’s on my list. I have oatmeal but I have to top it with cinnamon and raisins and then I’d like that. I tried this vegan sausage that’s pretty cool.” So they got their list. “For dinner, let’s see, my partner and I went out. We went to an Italian place and they made angel hair pasta with an Arrabbiata sauce. The next week we had a bean burrito without the cheese.” Okay, great. By seven days, they got a pretty good list. So I say, “Now, step two is three weeks. During the three weeks, I want you to eat from your list. No animal products at all for the three weeks. You’re going to be vegan now but it’s easy because it’s only 21 days, and you already picked out the foods you like.” “That’s it?” “Yeah, that’s all I want you to do.” You keep in touch with them because they’ll hit some bump in the road. But after three weeks, two things will have happened. Number one, they’re feeling better, they’re losing weight. Physically, things are changing, but they also discover that their feelings about foods are changing because they haven’t had any animal products for three weeks. That is more than enough time to completely rethink your foods. Now, you say to them, “Well, how do you like it?” “Well, I kind of like where I’m going. Can I do this for another week, doc? And I say, “Yeah, let’s just keep going and see how it goes.” Okay, great. So it’s very easy. As the months go by, if they have diabetes, their medication requirements drop. If they’ve got menstrual pain, they discover it’s changing. All kinds of things will change within their bodies. The foods are in four categories: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans, or legumes. So that turns into foods that are on international scale staples for everybody. I already mentioned pasta with marinara sauce, vegetables. In a Latin American restaurant, beans, rice, and tortillas. In a Chinese restaurant, rice, vegetables, or tofu dishes. You go to the sushi bar, you don’t have the fish sushi but you have the cucumber roll, the sweet potato roll, or the asparagus roll. You can have the seaweed salads, the regular salads, and the miso soup. What I discovered, I grew up in North Dakota. Every day of my life was roast beef, baked potatoes, and corn. Pretty simple diet. When I went vegan, I now live in Washington DC. It’s amazing. The palette of foods available is huge. If somebody said, no, you can’t have any more you know spaghetti Arrabbiata, you can’t have any more bean burritos, you can’t have any more Thai food, Vietnamese food, Ethiopian food, go back to North Dakota and just eat your roast beef. That to me would feel depriving. A vegan diet is extremely vast. It does require thinking things through a little bit, but after two weeks you’re a master. Instead of thinking in simple terms that foods cause me to gain weight or raise my cholesterol, you now have a much more complex view that foods allow me to control my hormones that control every other aspect of my body. I can control them for ill, I control them for good. It’s like driving your car. You can drive recklessly, or you can drive in a really careful way that gets you where you want to go. The reason I wrote Your Body In Balance was to give this owner’s manual to people. And if you don’t mind, I want to brag just really quickly.   [00:46:23] Ashley James: Oh please do.   [00:46:24] Dr. Neal Barnard: Lindsey Nixon is a genius in the kitchen, and she did all the recipes for it. When she sent me the recipes, she said, “Neal, you’re going to really love these recipes. They’re easy, they’re quick, they’re all 100% vegan, but they are so familiar and wonderful.” She’s right, they’re great. But she sent a note with them that said, “Dr. Barnard, this way of eating that you’re describing cured my cramps too.” I thought okay, that’s validation.   [00:46:51] Ashley James: That’s so cool.   [00:46:53] Dr. Neal Barnard: I hope people will give it a try, and more importantly, I hope they’ll share this with somebody else. The work that you do in sharing this information, not just me but the other people that you talk to, you have a real talent for getting life-saving and life-changing information out to people. So I hope people won’t just benefit themselves and keep it to themselves. They got to tell other people about what you’re doing.   [00:47:15] Ashley James: Every woman has a friend with horrible cramps, hot flashes, or endometriosis. It’s like every woman. Some men too think about their sisters, their wives, their moms, or some of their best friends. Listeners, think about it, how many women can you list right now on your fingers, how many women can you count that you know—you’re close to, that you’re friends with, your family, your acquaintances with, or that you work with—that have expressed hormonal problems, concerns about breast cancer, or thyroid? How many women? I mean, most women I know express concerns about their thyroid or are on thyroid medication or diabetes. Like you said, one in three people in the United States is diabetic or pre-diabetic. The entire population would benefit from your book. I know Christmas is a few months away, now’s a great time to buy several copies of Your Body In Balance and gift them. Give them early though. Don’t wait until Christmas. Give them early out of love and care for those for all the women and men in our life who suffer from thyroid-, prostate-, breast cancer-, estrogen-related imbalance. We can help. We can turn this ripple into a tidal wave and help so many of our loved ones. I wish I’d had your book when I was—in high school, I was keeled over suffering from cramps so bad it was so incredibly painful. By the time I was 19 I was told I was infertile and I’d never have kids. Because of nutrition and because of food, we conceived our son naturally who’s 5 ½, and I’m currently pregnant with our second one. That is all due to holistic medicine. It is all due to using nutrition, using food, and a whole food, plant-based diet.  I’m a raving fan. I wish I’d had your book back when I was 16. This is a book we could give to all the young women and all the people in our life we love. I’m thankful that you came to the show. I’m thankful that you’re spreading this information. I’m excited to dive into your book and those recipes sound great. Thank you so much for coming on the show, and please, come back any time. We would just love to have you here.   [00:49:37] Dr. Neal Barnard: Great. Well, thank you, Ashley. It’s been really fun talking with you today, and thanks for spreading the word.     Get Connected With Dr. Neal Barnard! The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine 21-Day Vegan Kickstart Program Facebook – Dr. Neal Barnard Facebook – 21 Day Vegan Kickstart Twitter – Dr. Neal Barnard Instagram – Physicians Committee   Books by Dr. Neal Barnard Your Body in Balance: The New Science of Food, Hormones, and Health The Cheese Trap Power Foods For The Brain Reversing Diabetes  

Link to the Solo Sunlighten Sauna 25% off Sale: Use coupon code: TrueHealthSolo https://primer.plantstrong.comhttps://www.sunlighten.com/cartflows_step/solo-system/?utm_source=AshleyJames_LearnTrueHealth&utm_medium=Partner&leadsource=AshleyJames_LearnTrueHealth&promocode=TrueHealthSolo&utm_campaign=Solo-Prime-Week   Plant Strong Primer Kitchen Event: https://primer.plantstrong.com   Rip Esselstyn of Engine 2: Prevent Obesity, Cancer, and Heart Disease with A Delicious Plant Strong Diet https://www.learntruehealth.com/rip-esselstyn-of-engine-2-prevent-obesity-cancer-and-heart-disease-with-a-delicious-plant-strong-diet   Highlights: What inspired Rip to go whole food, plant-based How Rip started working with the firefighters Impact of eating whole food, plant-based How to stay on whole food plant-based while traveling   In this episode, Rip Esselstyn tells his origin story on how he became a healthy eating advocate. He shares how he started helping firefighters and other people to eat whole food, plant-based. He talks about his different ventures, including his Plant-Strong Podcast, his Engine 2—soon to be Plant-Strong—food products, and the events they’re hosting to help people get started and stay on the whole food, plant-based diet. Intro: Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. I know you’re going to love today’s episode. Before we get to it, I got to tell you about a super awesome deal that’s going on right now. As you may know, if you have listened to several episodes, you might have heard me rave about the Sunlighten Sauna company. It took a long while to research which sauna I wanted to buy. I talked to several Naturopaths that have worked with different companies, interviewed each company, looked at the specs, looked at the wood, the materials they used to build it. Is there any toxic material? Where does it come from? Where is it manufactured? Their track record. The online feedback that I could see that customers had shared, and I finally decided to purchase a Sunlighten Sauna. This is about three years ago, and I decided to use it because I have been working on detoxing heavy metals, and also supporting my immune system, supporting overall health. I kept learning more and more about the power of using an infrared sauna, especially if it’s a non-toxic, low EMF infrared sauna to support the body’s ability to heal itself. I have been so impressed with Sunlighten. Well, their customer service is great, but their products are fantastic. I’ve been very, very happy with the results that I’ve gotten—the detoxification results. It’s a very gentle detox when we sweat out toxins. They have a special going on right now with their Solo System. Now, what I like about the Solo System, it’s ultra-low EMF, it’s made of non-toxic material, and you can store it in your closet. It basically becomes the size of a massage table. You can put it in your closet when you’re not using it or under the bed. That’s fantastic for people who don’t have 6×6 space in their house, their condo, or their apartment to dedicate to housing a giant wooden sauna. This isn’t a wooden sauna. This is a Solo System. They’re having a huge sale right now from now until the 18th, so only the next few days. They’re giving 25% off, and then in addition to that, they’re giving our listeners an additional discount plus free shipping. The link is going to be on the show notes of today’s podcast, so just go to the notes. If you’re using iTunes or wherever you’re listening, go to the notes and you’ll see the link. You can also join the Learn True Health Facebook group because the information is posted there. You want to use the link. The link gives you the 25% off, and then in addition to that, you use this coupon code: TRUEHEALTHSOLO, and that also gives you free shipping and an extra discount on top of it. I’ve had several doctors on the show of holistic medicine and functional medicine swear by the system, including Dr. Mark Hyman, who lives in a condo. And he says it would be impossible to have a big sauna in his condo, and he loves traveling with the Solo System. I also had Ryan and Teddy Sternagel on the show, and they talked about how they helped their son who had two rounds of cancer. He had cancer and then it came back. A very young baby. At about a year old, he was diagnosed with cancer. And now, thank God, he is cancer-free. I think he’s about seven years old now, and they used the Solo System. They traveled with it because he had several surgeries at different hospitals throughout the United States. I think he spent months in a hospital at one point, and they would use this system in the hospital with their young son when he was three, four, or five, helping him to get through the cancer treatments. This is something obviously you’d want to talk to your holistic pediatrician about. But you can use this system with children—responsibly, with adults. It’s a gentle system. It allows you to detox through sweating. If that’s something that interests you, check it out, go to the link, come join the Facebook group and check out the information there, and use the coupon code: TRUEHEALTHSOLO to get the additional discount. This is a quick sale that they’re doing. It is ending on the 18th. But if you’re interested in getting any kind of sauna, check out Sunlighten. And if you choose to buy Sunlighten, make sure you mention the Learn True Health podcast with Ashley James as they give all my listeners a great discount. I made sure of that when I interviewed the founder, Connie Zack, and you can go back and listen to that interview as well. Thank you so much for being a listener of the Learn True Health podcast. If you ever want to reach out to me, please, join the Learn True Health Facebook group. We answer holistic health questions there all the time. There’s a lot of questions. People just want to know what you recommend for this, or I’m looking for a good recipe for that, or how you would handle this situation with cleaning products, or dealing with colds and flu. Not only do I help and answer questions, but there are so many other wonderful community members that are in the holistic space that help as well. You’d really be joining a fantastic community that’s looking to support you in your health success. Just join the Learn True Health Facebook group and definitely check out the Sunlighten Solo System using the coupon code: TRUEHEALTHSOLO, and the link that is provided in the show notes of today’s podcast, or go to the Facebook group. Awesome. Thank you so much for being a listener. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy today’s interview.   [00:05:39] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 448. I am so excited for today’s guest. We have with us Rip Esselstyn. I am such a fan of your work. In fact, you don’t know this but we met a few years ago. Of course, you’ve met thousands of people when you tour around the country giving lectures and talking about your books and your products, but I actually met you with my husband, me, and our son. It was at Whole Foods. Actually, I think our son was napping so my husband’s staying in the car. But I ran in and I absolutely loved it. You signed my book, which I gave to one of my friends who also became plant-based, and I love your recipes. What I love about your recipes is they’re so hearty and they’re so kind of manly. They’re really easy to make for men to show them how delicious eating plants can be. Actually, since then, my husband went 100% vegan. He woke up one day and he said I’m never eating another animal again, and I was shocked because he only ate meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then he woke up one day and said absolutely never again. About five days into eating just plants, he turns to me and he goes, “If I knew this tastes so good, I would have done this years ago.” So there’s a lot to say about this. For those who haven’t tried it yet—haven’t tried a plant-based day or a plant-based week, get Rip Esselstyn’s books and just go to town. Now, you also have wonderful products that are sold at Whole Foods. I love everything you do, and I can’t wait to hear more from you and have the listeners learn from you today. Welcome to the show.   [00:07:34] Rip Esselstyn: Thank you, Ashley. Actually, I’m surprised. So you ran into the store to get your book signed, but your husband stayed in the car and napped?   [00:07:47] Ashley James: No, no, our son. I was just remembering. Our son was a baby at the time. He’s 5 ½ now. It might have been about five years ago, and it was in Redmond, Washington. I ran in. I had ordered the book on Amazon because I heard you were coming, and I think we were all planning on going in, but then the kid fell asleep in the car. You just don’t wake a baby up. You’re like, okay, he’s taking a nap. I ended up staying for the whole lecture while our son napped in the car, but it was fantastic. I mean, the stories you told and what I learned from you. Of course, I went home and binge-watched every YouTube video I could get my hands on—all the documentaries you’ve been in. I had recently had your father on the show. I love telling everyone I’m within about 5’of—I’ll tell them, do you know that there’s a cardiologist that reverses heart disease with food? I think it’s amazing what you and your family do. Of course, I’m like this gushing fan over here. Let’s get to you and learn more from you. Rip, what happened in your life? Obviously, your dad and his work, but what happened to you personally that made you want to, not only go plant-based for yourself but help the world become healthier?   [00:09:07] Rip Esselstyn: For me, it’s been a journey. It all started with my father. I mean, it started with my father’s research at the Cleveland Clinic. You just said something that was a little bit off so I’ll correct you just to get it right. My father has never been a cardiologist, and he often is mistaken as one because he’s done such groundbreaking work in the field of halting, preventing, and reversing heart disease. But he’s a general surgeon, and his specialty was the thyroid, the parathyroid, and the breast.   [00:09:47] Ashley James: Fascinating.   [00:09:48] Rip Esselstyn: Yeah. What I find to be so—and I’ll use your word—fascinating, is the fact that you look at Dr. Dean Ornish, you look at Nathan Pritikin back in the ‘70s, you look at my father. None of these people were, per se, in cardiology. It took somebody from outside the field of cardiology to basically shine a light and say, you know what, this is really a food created disease of our own making. If we can just eliminate all of the building blocks that promote heart disease, you know what, we don’t have to go down that path. My father got there because he wanted to actually try and show in his lifetime that the same thing could be true with breast cancer, and by association prostate cancer, and some of these major cancers. But he knew that he could do it quicker if he tried to do it through heart disease because he’d read some studies where they’d done some research with green monkeys where they were able to actually reverse their heart disease through just the power of a whole food, plant-based diet. And then we dove into the research, looked at the epidemiological studies, and found swaths of people living on the planet that had 1/100 the incidence of heart disease, 150th the rate of breast cancer and prostate cancer. The common denominator of all these cultures was a predominantly whole food, plant-based diet. And then you look at the work that Dan Buettner has done with the Blue Zones, with Loma Linda; with Ikaria, Greece; with Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Sardinia, Italy where you have the longest living populations on the planet—the most centenarians. The common denominator there of course is a predominantly whole food, plant-based diet. I went to the University of Texas at Austin on a swimming scholarship. I ate on the athletic training table with the football players, the basketball players, the tennis players, and the golfers. Every meal was chicken, fried steak, cheese, pepperoni pizzas, and bacon and eggs. We had a soft-serve ice cream machine where we could go to town, but none of us knew any better.   [00:12:39] Ashley James: It sounds like a 12-year-old’s birthday party, not an athletics college.   [00:12:44] Rip Esselstyn: No, you’re right. One of the premier universities in the nation, especially when it comes to the athletic program, right? God, how far we’ve come since I was going to school over 35 years ago now. While I was there at school was when my father was really putting his shoulder up to the grindstone to show what was possible when you initially took this population, this cohort of 22 people that he got from the Cleveland Clinic that was referred to him because they were so bad off that they were not candidates for another bypass, stent, angioplasty, or anything like that. He took these 22—what somebody referred to as the walking dead. Every other week for five years, they came in and they saw him. He went over their food diary. He also weighed them, did their blood pressure, and did a lipid panel, and checked their total cholesterol—LDL, HDL, triglycerides. He went over their food log, and these guys were compliant. They were not messing it up. Again, it just goes to show the power of when you do this and you implement the program correctly, none of these people had any more events. The men that were in wheelchairs were able to get out of the wheelchairs and start walking. The angina, the chest pain basically went away. These people were dancing again. They were golfing. They were walking the malls. They were playing tennis almost like too good to be true like miracles. So I heard the stories while I was at the University of Texas of my father and working with these walking dead and how they were basically coming back to life in more ways than one. And I was just so inspired by his ability to try and find this truth, to go against the grain, and do something as novel and important as this. Also, something about it just felt right. When I graduated, I was off the training table, and I was able to cook on my own and all that, I immediately started eating this way. That was back in January 1987. For the most part, I haven’t looked back. It’s now been 33 years that I really embrace this. It’s just now about finessing it and accumulating more information. One thing has led to another, and the dots have continued to connect. I find myself now, 33 years later, being in a place that I never ever anticipated being in where I’m a healthy eating advocate. I have written four different books. As you mentioned—I’m going to use this word and we can talk about—I had a food line in Whole Foods for almost eight years. We put on seven-day medical immersion programs. We’ve been doing that for 10 years. Because of COVID now we’ve started doing these virtual events with thousands of people. I’ve started my own podcast following in your steps, Ashley, about a year and a half, two years ago. It’s called the Plant-Strong Podcast. It’s become pretty all-encompassing.   [00:16:49] Ashley James: I love it. Watching documentaries, seeing your story in them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen The Game Changers. My friend, my husband, and I went to see it in the theaters for that one-day special. And on the way home, I was calling people non-stop. Oh my gosh, you have to see this. You have to do this right now. And I called a friend who is caring for her friend who was a recent quadriplegic with out-of-control diabetes because they were in the hospital and she was taking care of them as an advocate. I said you’ve got to check this out.  She immediately got the hospital to get him to go plant-based, zero oil. Overnight, his number started to get better. The water retention went away. He actually started gaining muscle. He was fighting bedsores, and he started healing his bedsores so fast they couldn’t believe it. It was a stage four bedsore. They thought he was going to die from it and his healing went through the roof. They could not believe it, and she had to inspect every meal because they kept trying to sneak in things like dairy, oil, and all that. It was just amazing watching people. Their bodies heal so much faster when you remove the foods that are inhibiting the body and you give the body all the nutrients it needs. It’s mind-blowing. Now, can you tell us a bit about your work with firefighters?   [00:18:25] Rip Esselstyn: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this whole thing started because I was a firefighter with the City of Austin. I got on board with the Austin fire department in 1997 after a 10-year career as a professional triathlete where I was swimming, biking, and running for a living fueling myself with the power of a whole food, plant-based diet. It’s funny, for the first five, six years that I was a firefighter in the Austin fire department, I got ridiculed, harassed, and belittled until the cows came home about the way I ate. Then, we had a bet to see who had the lowest cholesterol level and we drove down to the local laboratory the next morning—me and the other guys on the Station 2 C Shift crew—and we found out that one of my brothers had cholesterol at the age of 33 of 344 milligrams per deciliter, which is phenomenally high. We also found out that he had a horrendous family history of men in his family dying from heart disease before the age of 50. So not only did this firefighting brother of mine have a genetic predisposition for a really elevated cholesterol level, but he also ate—and this is his words not mine—like a third-generation redneck. The center of the plate was always some sort of meat, typically or favorably deep-fried. When you have a genetic predisposition and you make deep-fried meat at the center of your plate, that’s not a good combination. And then to boot, the firefighting culture is very masculine. It is the food that these firefighters make is very, very toxic. So everything’s deep-fried. Screw half a stick of butter, let’s do one whole stick of butter. Let’s do Crisco on everything. Let’s use a pound of cheese on top of this casserole. For dessert, we’re going to split a tub, and I mean a tub a gallon of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream. And it just goes on and on—Hamburger Helper, Tuna Helper. The food at the firehouse is abysmal. So the funny thing is you mentioned firefighters. If there’s one culture on this planet that needs us more than anybody else, it’s firefighters. Firefighters, in some ways, they consider themselves superheroes. They are there when we when the sh** hits the fan, and they need saving. They expect a superhero, gold medal decathlete, to come to the rescue. The unfortunate reality is that so many of these firefighters are overweight. They’re pre-diabetic. They’ve had a shot across the bow with cancer.  It’s funny though how many fire departments across the country—at a really slow and steady rate and firefighters—have been reaching out to me for help. Literally, right before I jumped on this interview with you, I got an email from a firefighter who’s telling me he’s battling PTSD. His weight has ballooned back up to almost 300 pounds. The stress of the job, he’s starting to drink again—just all these things—and would I be willing to talk to him once a week? I’ve got fire departments that have reached out to me and asked me to do videos that they can then circulate out throughout their department.  Anyway, the fire service is slowly but surely coming around to this message that the plants really are king when it comes to nutrition. But there’s still a lot of dinosaurs in that firefighting culture, no doubt about it. I’ll give you another example. When I wrote my first book, The Engine 2 Diet, I did a pilot study that was comprised of 62 people for the first round, and we did before and after biometric screenings on everything just like my father did with his patients back in 1984, 1985. I weighed them in, we did blood pressure. I had a relationship with a lab and we did a full biometric screening. I had a medical director. We did a three-minute step test where people did this step test and then we measured their before and after heart rate to see how their heart rate was doing. And then we did all this again four weeks later. But one of the people that took part in this was a guy, a firefighter that I went through the training academy with. His name was Tim, and Tim was probably 220. He was one of the biggest firefighters when we went through the six-month-long academy together in 1997. And then, when I was looking for people that wanted to participate in this pilot study for my book, he happened to call the station for some reason. I said, “Hey, Tim. How are you doing? He said, “I’m doing good. Put on way too much weight.” I said, “Oh, really? Where are you?” He said, “I’m over 300 pounds.” I’m like, “Oh, Tim. Wow. Well, hey. You know what, I’m doing this pilot study. If you’re willing to eat just whole plants for 28 days, I’d love to have you be one of the participants.” He said, “Sure, I’d love to do it. I got nothing to lose.“ Tim lost 33 pounds in 28 days. And surprisingly, his cholesterol was not that high, to begin with. It was 172, and so for a big boy, that’s not very high. But at the end of 28 days, it came down to 88. So he was below 100 on his total cholesterol. His LDL came down below 40, and it was just miraculous what he was able to do. But the reason why I’m telling you this story is that most firefighters, after they graduate from the fire academy, will typically go out into the fire service and they let their guard down. They get pulled into this toxic food environment where they’re eating the same unhealthy food that everybody else is eating. They’re gaining somewhere between three to five pounds, on average, a year. You look at Tim, again, he was doing this in 2008. We went through the academy together in 1997. So almost 11 years later, he had gone from 220 to 303 pounds. He put on over 83 pounds in 11 years. Tim, he was the first to admit. He had become a liability to himself, a liability to his crew. If he was to go down in a building or in a house fire, nobody’s going to be able to pick him up and drag him out because think about it, he’s 303 pounds. You add on to that his bunker gear, his boots, his helmet, his air pack that he’s got on, and now you can add on another almost 65 pounds. Somebody’s got to try and haul out 375 pounds.   [00:27:09] Ashley James: In a fire?   [00:27:11] Rip Esselstyn: In a fire where you can’t see. It’s probably 400, 500 degrees depending upon where you are in the structure. That’s a problem.   [00:27:25] Ashley James: Yeah, he’s putting his own health and life at risk, but he’s also putting his fellow brothers at risk. That’s something to consider. If we know that we’re eating a certain way, we’re gaining weight, or we’re not taking care of ourselves, at what point are we actually putting other people’s lives at risk? We could have a heart attack while driving, we could die and our dependents all of a sudden don’t have us to take care of them. If you’re not willing to make the changes for yourself, you’ve got to think about those you love most to get to start making changes.   [00:28:02] Rip Esselstyn: Completely. And to take it a step farther, I mean, if you want to open up this pandora’s box, look at the predicament that we’re in right now—the United States of America. We’ve got COVID-19 that has struck. I believe, and I may be off here by a percent or two, but 98.5% or 99% of the people that are being hospitalized for COVID-19 and are subsequently dying have some sort of underlying comorbidity. Whether it’s high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, heart disease, cancer, or weakened or suppressed immune system. Unfortunately, if you’re obese, the latest figures that I just saw from the CDC show that 42%. A couple of years ago, we were at 35% obesity. We’re at 42% obesity now. I think that 50% of people over the age of 40 are now on some sort of hypertensive medication because their blood pressure is too high.   [00:29:27] Ashley James: And that comes with a list of side effects including those who are on long term for high blood pressure meds have shorter lifespans. So being put on a med doesn’t solve the problem. It masks the symptoms for now, but it makes things worse in the long run because we’re not addressing the root cause. My head spun so fast watching—so I’ve been a health coach for many years. (I watch the blood pressure, the triglycerides, the cholesterol, and blood sugar, especially, come into healthy ranges so fast when people get off of oil salt, sugar, processed food, and get on whole food, plant-based. I cannot believe how quickly people can heal and come back into normal ranges and go back to their doctor and get taken off of meds. It’s mind-blowing. A friend of mine’s mother, within weeks of going plant-based, said all her arthritis and all arthritis pain was gone. All her pain was gone.   [00:30:32] Rip Esselstyn: Well, it’s such an anti-inflammatory way of eating. Like you just said, the effects happen so quickly. I mean, you look at the seven-day medical immersion programs that we’ve been throwing with Whole Foods’ unhealthiest team members since 2011, and the results that we got were so phenomenal. I was able to track all these different data points literally. It’s now over 2000 people that I had to write a book about, and that’s why my third book is called The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet. And when I say rescue, it’s not me rescuing, it’s you rescuing yourself with the simple power of food. But let’s go back for a second, Ashley because where I was going with this thing with COVID-19 was that somebody asked. I saw this interview with Dr. Fauci where they asked him, “Why don’t we open society back up?” And he said, “We can’t. We have too many sick citizens.” Again, when you look that we have 42% of the population that’s literally considered obese. When you look at all the numbers of people that are diabetic or pre-diabetic, and I think it’s now over 50% and he says that, it’s like wow. COVID-19 is crippling this society because we’re so unhealthy because we have not embraced, of course, there are so many conflicting messages and there’s so much noise out there with paleo, keto, and all this stuff. If we could—as a culture, as a society—embrace something as simple as eating a whole food, plant-based diet, we wouldn’t be in the predicament we’re in now. This thing would probably be able to blow over, herd immunity. Sure, some people that are young and healthy are going to get hit pretty hard, but for the most part, like I said, 99% of people that are affected have some sort of underlying comorbidity and are over the age of 70. If you’re in that subset, you just really need to be super, super careful. But anyway, I’ll throw out one more thing. That is a long time ago Winston Churchill said something very, very profound, and that is, “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country has.” I mean, again, look at where we are right now, 20 cents out of every dollar goes to healthcare costs. Heart disease, the number one killer of Americans right now. 50% of us will have a brush with cancer in our lifetimes. Like I just mentioned, the fact that almost 50% of this country is considered now either pre-diabetic or type 2 diabetic, these are all lifestyle created diseases. I don’t know at what point we’re going to be able to wake up and confront this. The Game Changers did a phenomenal job, and the latest that I’ve heard is that this documentary has been seen by more eyeballs. We’re approaching now close to 100 million views of The Game Changers. It’s the most-watched documentary on the planet.   [00:34:27] Ashley James: I love that.   [00:34:28] Rip Esselstyn: But I still have to wonder, what’s it going to take? What is it going to take? You have this phenomenal documentary, the most-watched documentary in the history of the planet. I mean, it’s moved the needle, but it’s not moving it enough, it’s not. And then you look at everything that’s going on right now with climate change, the environment, and sustainability. It’s like come on people. We all got to be pulling in the same direction, and we got to do it fast.   [00:35:08] Ashley James: I really don’t like the phrase climate change because it so removes—did you watch that George Carlin clip? This is years ago where he said in World War One it was called shell shock, and in shell shock, you can feel the emotional impact. Like oh, he came home with shell shock. Through the years, they kept changing the diagnosis’s name to be so sterile that now we call it PTSD, and there is so much humanity removed from what they actually are experiencing. Climate change feels like something big, out of our control, and not anything that really affects us, but okay, maybe when the weather’s weird. What I like to do is go back to the root, which is pollution. Look at that word. Okay, I don’t want to breathe in pollution. I don’t want to eat pollution. I don’t want it to be in my food. I don’t want it to be in my water. We have to come back to this really strong emotional word. We’re polluting this planet. Our food supply is compromised. Our air is compromised. Our water is compromised with pollution. When we look at the places in the world that help to clean our water and air like these forests, they are being torn down by the hectare every day. Just unspeakable amounts of acres and acres of these rainforests, which we will never get back, in order to feed cattle. That is just one of the many problems. If everyone just ate more plants. If everyone just chose some meals that had plant-based protein and just tried that and then kept going more and more and more towards plants, we could actually start to heal the rainforest. We could start to stop pollution. We have to think about the impact that’s happening right now, which is we’re poisoning our bodies by poisoning the planet, and we are voting with our fork. When you go to the grocery store, go online to buy your groceries, your purchases say where you want your money to go. And if you are buying products that require us to tear down forests in order to feed the cattle because they are growing crops to feed cattle, instead buy just crops and eat them. It’s much more complex than, but it can get as simple as vote with your fork. Do some research on the foods that you buy and vote with your fork where you want the earth to heal, you want your body to heal. That’s my little beef about the word with, and there needs to be a vegan word for beef. That’s my schtick. I have such frustration with the word climate change because it takes the responsibility away from us. Whereas if we can really focus on the fact that—remember in the ‘80s they call it acid rain? It’s like, geez, I don’t want to go outside and get rained on by acid rain. That’s what we’re experiencing now is the pollution in our local environment because of the choices we make, and we can make better choices, which will directly—impact our lifetime—lessening the pollution and reversing it. That’s why it’s so important that your message is for healing our bodies, and it’s for healing the planet because there’s no difference between the two.   [00:38:44] Rip Esselstyn: Bravo, and thank you for bringing that up. I actually like that a lot more. We’re polluting the planet, right?   [00:38:58] Ashley James: Right, and there’s no political like, oh, climate deniers. You can’t deny pollution. It’s right out of your front door. You can test the water, soil, and air. We are polluting this planet. You can’t get political about it. It’s the truth. That way, there’s no denying it, but we can make choices based on all of our consumption. Based on what car we’re going to drive. Based on the clothing we’re going to buy, if it’s used, new, or local, or whether we’re going to buy local groceries or grow our own. Every single choice with our dollar really does go towards making a sustainable and healthier planet for our own health right now. Anyway, that’s my soapbox.   [00:39:45] Rip Esselstyn: No, it’s good.   [00:39:46] Ashley James: Thank you.   [00:39:48] Rip Esselstyn: Let me add to that. You look in the grocery space and what has been growing about 20% year over year? It’s the plant-based meats, it’s the plant-based cheeses, it’s the plant-based milk, it’s the plant-based yogurts. Plant-based is on a tear right now, and people are voting with their dollars, and they’re voting that they want more plants and fewer animals. That’s very, very telling. James Cameron, we were talking about The Game Changers. He was one of the executive producers, but I had the privilege of getting to meet James Cameron several years ago. I also helped get him on board with The Game Changers project. You said you went to the opening night of The Game Changers. Did you see the 20-minute clip afterward?   [00:40:50] Ashley James: Yes.   [00:40:51] Rip Esselstyn: James was basically the star of that bonus footage. And in it, he says the single most important and powerful thing that you can do starting tomorrow is just to start eating plants. As far as starting to heal the planet and not polluting nearly as much. When you look at some of the data that’s out there, and there’s some from the Worldwatch Institute that’s part of the World Bank that has the global greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by livestock. They wrote a paper. I believe it’s called Livestock’s Long Shadow. That 51 of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture between the supply chain and the life cycle of us as a world having this insatiable diet for animal protein. 70 billion animals, it’s incomprehensible. Anyway, I want to add that to the whole conversation we were just having.   [00:42:20] Ashley James: I really like the visuals in the documentary Cowspiracy. I don’t like watching documentaries that lay down the guilt trip or make you feel like you’re hopeless, and there’s a little bit of that in there. But I just like to urge listeners just to watch it because the visuals are really good. For example, for that one hamburger that you eat, how much water actually needed to be used in terms of the crops and also feeding the cow versus if you just had a bean burger. You can see the environmental impact of that, or how much gas was used and how much CO2 emissions. But also how much fecal matter, right?   [00:43:03] Rip Esselstyn: I was just going to say, how much poop is produced by animals. It’s staggering, right?   [00:43:09] Ashley James: Yeah. In our environment, there are parts of the Carolinas, when there are storms, the water and all of the soil is really so unhealthy for the humans that live in those areas. And it’s documented that the humans that live in those areas have incredibly high rates of cancer, but they’re kind of impoverished, they can’t move away, and they just have to suffer because there’s so much fecal matter. All the waste from the big pig farms out there. But just imagine if there are billions of animals that we’re raising for slaughter, how much waste they create that is going to polluting the planet. So, yes, there’s a huge environmental, but we have to keep coming back to environmental equals our health. So a healthy environment equals a healthy body, and we can come back to the science which is just eating plants but a whole food meaning not processed or as little process as possible so that we’re eating the whole plant and getting all the nutrients we require from it. And there’s so much science and you’ve mentioned some of the doctors and scientists that have made the published studies. Listeners can go through your books, through your dad’s information. You can go through learntruehealth.com, search whole food, plant-based. and listen to all the other experts that I’ve had on the show about it. You can collect lots of information and see that science is there and the science is sound and proven. You were in—a while ago—a documentary called the Marshall Plan. It’s on YouTube. I highly recommend listeners watch it. That blew my mind that an entire town took up a challenge to get healthy through the whole food, plant-based diet and that you actually went there. Met with the fire guys there, the firemen there, and that you got all the labs, then you help them with the diet, and then you got the labs afterward. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with the town of Marshall in Texas?   [00:45:22] Rip Esselstyn: Well, yeah. That was almost nine years ago now if I’m not mistaken. What happened is the mayor of the town of Marshall and his wife—two just phenomenal people—got bit by the whole food, plant-based bug. It’s really a testament to what can happen when one person that has a little bit of power, can try and just spread the wealth. When we went there, there were restaurants that were serving these whole food, plant-based options. We put on a whole weekend-long healthy eating symposium for the citizens of Marshall, Texas. Like you mentioned, I spent some time working with some of the firefighters. Again, Ashley, and I apologize, I’ve worked with so many different firefighters and fire departments that I can’t specifically remember.   [00:46:46] Ashley James: Oh, yeah. Nine years ago, I want you to remember all of the numbers.   [00:46:50] Rip Esselstyn: But I can’t specifically remember how it went down.   [00:46:53] Ashley James: But they just have to watch the documentary for that.   [00:46:55] Rip Esselstyn: Yeah, and I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t seen the documentary. To this day the Marshall of Texas, I think they continue to hold a weekend-long event. The restaurants are carrying—and I can’t remember what the term is now that they have. They had some sort of special term for Marshall and the whole food, plant-based options there. For a little while, it was Engine 2 approved, but then they changed it. They’ve done something really phenomenal there in Marshall, Texas. Of all the places in the world, who would have thought Marshall, Texas.   [00:47:40] Ashley James: Right, a town in Texas. Anyway, it’s a great documentary. They show how much everyone loves meat and how incredibly unhealthy everyone was, and then the whole transformation of the town. You’re in it, your dad’s in it, and all the stars of the whole food, plant-based world are in it. My favorite, Chef AJ, who I’ve had on the show is in it. The meals look really delicious, and I think it’s a very authentic documentary. It feels very indie, which I love. I’m going to make sure the link to the Marshall Plan documentary is in the show notes of today’s podcast. Even though it’s nine years old, it’s still incredibly relevant. What I liked is having you walk through it with the firefighters. More time was spent on it even in the Game Changers where you got to walk through with the firefighters and show them what your arteries look like.   [00:48:31] Rip Esselstyn: Really.   [00:48:32] Ashley James: They slowed it down and they interviewed the firefighters. You felt the emotion with them. They don’t want to die, they don’t want to drop dead out of a heart attack. It’s very cool how much their lives changed because of it. But there are so many videos out there that you’re in that are like that, which is just wonderful.  You do a lot of traveling, and this has been a question on my mind. What and how do you eat when you’re traveling? Because you’re in airplanes, you’re at hotels. Sometimes you’re in areas of the world where it’s not like Marshall, Texas where there’s a bunch of whole food, plant-based restaurants. How do you stay true to the whole food, plant-based, no processed, no oil diet?   [00:49:24] Rip Esselstyn: Well, that’s a great question, and it’s been really easy the last six months because I haven’t really traveled at all.   [00:49:33] Ashley James: I fell into that one.   [00:49:35] Rip Esselstyn: But you’re right. Before that, for the last 10 years when I was a healthy eating partner with Whole Food market stores, I was on the road probably somewhere between 80-100 days a year. Basically sharing with people the good news about plants. Let me say, the good news is that typically, whenever I went on the road, I always was going to Whole Foods. Literally, I always had the ability for lunch to pick up something if I did a lunch event. I’d fill up my cart and I’d buy some stuff either something that was prepared for dinner, or I could go and they always have a little rice cooker. I could do rice, I could do beans from the salad bar, and then top it off with all kinds of veggie relish. But, aside from that, I would always go on the airplane with cereal. I always travel everywhere with my commercialized Rip’s Big Bowl cereal. And then at the airport, because you can’t take milk through the detectors with you, I would usually go to a Starbucks and I’d ask them for a plain glass of almond milk. I’d also carry with me typically raisins or bananas, so I make my own bowl because a lot of times, I have to get up early like 4:30 AM, 5:00 AM for some of these early morning flights. I always travel with cereal. I always travel with fruit. Sometimes I’ll travel with a homemade burrito or a sandwich. I can always go out to dinner and make it work. You just got to be a little bit of a pain in the butt and ask for what you want. You can go to Indian, Thai, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. Typically, you always get some sort of rice, lentils, vegetables to that effect. In a pinch, I’ll do Chipotle. Obviously, Chipotle’s got a lot more sodium and a lot more oil than I want, but I’m not so perfect that I don’t sometimes do that. You just figure out a way. I typically get hotels where they’ve got a microwave in it. Sometimes they’ve got a little kitchenette in it. I have the ability to cook a few things. If you really want something bad enough, you’ll figure out a way to make it work. John Mackey who’s become a great and cherished friend, the CEO of Whole Food market stores, travels with a miniature rice cooker and he makes his own steel-cut oatmeal in the morning. He’ll make his own brown rice in the hotel room, and then he’ll add to it the toppings that he wants, the beans, the sliced up vegetables. I have found out that nothing is as important as your health. If it requires you traveling with a rice cooker if it requires you at the restaurant saying, hey, you know what, I want this cooked and I don’t want it cooked in any oil or any butter, then you deserve the right to make that request, no doubt about it.   [00:53:15] Ashley James: There’s a Mexican restaurant near where my parents-in-law live in Seattle or just north of Seattle, and I get them to do veggie fajitas with no oil. They put every vegetable known to man. I love their veggie fajitas. Some places just do bell peppers. This place does everything. There are broccoli, mushrooms, zucchini, and every bell pepper known to man—there’s just everything, and it’s a huge pile of vegetables on a sizzling skillet. They’ll do zero oil for me and then I’ll get their platter with the beans, the corn, tortillas, and the guacamole, and you feel great. You feel full. It’s just wonderful. I love it. And then there’s usually enough to take home.  You just have to ask. You just have to be willing to ask, can you cook that with no oil, or can you steam that? A lot of Thai restaurants will have—in the back of their menu for a few dollars—a side of steamed vegetables and brown rice. You can bring your own sauce. I love the 3-2-1 sauce that Chef AJ teaches, which is three parts balsamic, two parts any kind of mustard, and then one part maple syrup. But that’s too sweet for me so I do half that amount, just put it in a jar, shake it up, and then just bring that wherever you go. You can put it on vegetables. It tastes amazing. It absolutely tastes amazing. You put it on steamed vegetables, put it on rice. You can get creative. I like to do road trips, and Wendy’s has baked potatoes. I don’t eat the skins. They probably pour oil on it anyway, but you can find a way but you have to get creative. I think some people don’t take the first step into trying even a whole food, plant-based meal because they’re like, well, I’m tired. I’m busy. My mind is spinning, I have bills to pay, and this is just another thing I have to learn how to do. It’s kind of learning a new language. But once you do it, once you jump in, learn, and just try it, then it becomes very easy. I travel with my Instant Pot. I learned that from Chef AJ. I will not go to a hotel that doesn’t have at least some form of a fridge. I just check in advance, make sure they have a fridge or mini-fridge, and I bring my Instant Pot always, always, always, and then go to the grocery store once we get there. We just do a little cookout in our room. There are even some hotels that have hot plates that they will provide for you if they don’t have a kitchenette. I found that out when we went to Idaho a few months ago. We just get really creative, but sometimes I’m tired, I’m hungry, I just want to like to do take out. This isn’t one of those opportunities to cheat or eat unhealthily. I don’t want to feel bad the next day. I want to feel better and healthier, so we got to get creative. That’s where probably having some food either do big meal preps. You already have food cooked in the fridge. I can just go grab some cold sweet potatoes and eat them. Or have some meals that you’ve already made that you’ve frozen, so I’ve had to learn because I’m the one that cooks for our family. I’ve had to learn, and what I’m always blown away is how delicious your recipes are. So yummy. No wonder you can convert big firemen that love to eat steak to a whole plant-based diet because your recipes are delicious. I know that you’ve had some of your family members make these recipes as well.   [00:57:04] Rip Esselstyn: Yeah. Well, Ashley, let me say that you have really embraced the lifestyle, and you got it going on between doing the bulk cooking for leftovers, and then freezing, but you get into a routine where you learn how to do it and it’s not that difficult and it’s so worthwhile.   [00:57:29] Ashley James: Absolutely.   [00:57:30] Rip Esselstyn: You mentioned the food being good. I mean, there’s no way that I could have gotten a bunch of Texas male firefighters to do this if they thought they were eating a bunch of rabbit food, twigs, berries, and nonsense like that. Literally, from the beginnings of this, it was always hearty—as one person said—mantastic food that fills you up and sticks to your ribs. That’s why, if you look at the Engine 2 cookbook or Plant-Strong, you’ll see that it’s a lot of pizzas, burritos, casseroles, stews, and chilies. It’s just hearty filling food. And of course, we’ve got our fair share of really big muscular salads as well, but it’s very intentional that the food leans towards being more firefighter man-friendly, and that’s not at all a knock on women.   [00:58:56] Ashley James: No, as a woman, I can say that we as all women—I will speak for all women—would be happy to bring home a cookbook for our male counterparts in our lives that they would embrace because it’s so delicious, and we’re secretly also helping them get super healthy. There are not a lot of whole food, plant-based cookbooks out there that would make a man feel like they could do this if they’ve eaten meat every day of their life. That’s what I love about yours is they are super hearty. I love the chilies. Oh my gosh, don’t get me started. I make them all in the Instant Pot by the way so it’s really easy to make. What’s interesting about the Instant Pot, I don’t know how much you’ve looked into—they call them the anti-nutrients. Some people are really sensitive to—makes them have gas and bloating. But when you cook beans and lentils in the Instant Pot, it destroys the anti-nutrients. People that often go, oh well, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t eat that way because I’d get gassy. Well, if you use the Instant Pot, the pressure and the heat of the Instant Pot destroy the anti-nutrients and make it so much easier to digest and it doesn’t cause that gas problem. That’s why I love using Instant Pot for all the beans and lentils that I make.   [01:00:26] Rip Esselstyn: Isn’t that interesting?   [01:00:27] Ashley James: It is.   [01:00:28] Rip Esselstyn: Well, we have a rice cooker. I don’t have an Instant Pot, and I probably should get one. I know that Chef AJ would be very happy if I decided to get one.   [01:00:40] Ashley James: You really need to get one, and you guys should do like a little video together where she teaches you how to use the Instant Pot. I actually own three Instant Pots. Last Thanksgiving I made the most delicious—I came up with this recipe for like a shepherd’s pie. I got four huge disposable aluminum tins to bake them in because I got one for us for home. I brought one to the in-laws for Thanksgiving, and I gave two away. One to a funeral who were Seventh-Day Adventists, and they just lost their daughter in a car crash. I donated that to their funeral and they really appreciate that. I mean, it’s the least I could do. And then the fourth one was given to my friend’s family. My dear friend Naomi went whole food, plant-based to reverse her heart disease, and then everyone else in the family started to. She has three sons and a husband. Now the husband raves about it, and her parents rave about it. But the three boys, they could never like the same thing. They’re all very picky eaters, and this was the first whole food, plant-based dish that all three boys and the entire family liked. The reason why I got three Instant Pots—because I used to only have one—is that when making it, I did the potatoes on one, the lentils on the other, and the vegetables in the third. I made a layered dish because I was running out of time, so I ended up getting three Instant Pots to make the whole thing. I constantly use three Instant Pots. I’ll make potatoes, rice, sweet potatoes, or yams in one; I’ll make beans or lentils in the other; and then I’ll steam vegetables in the third. I hardly ever use my stove. If I use the Instant Pots, I hardly ever use the stove. It’s actually way quicker to use the Instant Pot, and the food comes out really fresh instead of something that’s been cooked too long. Anyway, I’m a raving fan of the Instant Pot. You should definitely get one and play with it.   [01:02:50] Rip Esselstyn: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting you say all that because do you know who Nina and Randa Nelson are and Jeff Nelson and Sabrina Nelson—a VegSource?   [01:02:59] Ashley James: No, I don’t.   [01:03:01] Rip Esselstyn: Well, Nina and Randa, you should have them on your show. They had this awful cystic acne that was almost debilitating, and these guys were actresses and singers out in LA. They’ve been following a vegan diet their whole life, but what happened is they decided to then go off all the peanut butter, the tofu, and all the processed refined vegan stuff. Literally, within a couple of weeks, their acne cleared up. They wrote a book about it called The Clear Skin Diet, and it is phenomenal. But Jeff and Sabrina have been in the space since 1990. They were the first ones to start throwing some of these live in-person plant-based events. But the reason I bring them up is I stay at their house sometimes when I’m out in LA, and they have three Instant Pots going all at one time. Typically in one, they have one some sort of grain, let’s just call it brown rice. In one they have a bean, so let’s just call it homemade black beans. And then the other one they have steel cut oats or oatmeal. At any point in time during the day, you can go in and take a spoonful of whatever you’re in the mood for and then you put whatever you want on top. It’s brilliant. I’m kicking myself that I still have not bought.   [01:04:30] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. Guess what you’re doing this weekend.   [01:04:32] Rip Esselstyn: I think you might be right.   [01:04:33] Ashley James: You’re going to be playing with your new Instant Pot this weekend. When you call up Chef AJ for some advice, tell her it was me that finally pushed you over the edge.   [01:04:43] Rip Esselstyn: All right, I’ll say that Ashley James—   [01:04:46] Ashley James: Ashley James got you to finally get one. They’re so much fun. I burned a bunch of stuff the first time I used it, and I almost never went back. But then I think it was videos like Chef AJ’s videos that got me to try it again. You have to be willing to experiment and fall on your face in the kitchen. You’ve got to be willing to burn a few things because that’s how we learn, and it’s okay. Some of your meals don’t have to be awesome, but please, learn from those experiences because now I’m like such a passionate chef at home because food is the gateway to our health. You walk into your kitchen, you’re walking into your pharmacy. That’s just one of my favorite tools is the Instant Pot because it saves me so much time, but also it’s actually a health aide because it does break down those anti-nutrients for many of the grains, beans, legumes, and lentils. Awesome. Now, you’ve got a program coming up. I definitely want to make sure we talk about it. You used to do—with thousands of people—these boot camps where you change their lives and then like you said, you documented it and wrote about it in one of your latest books. I got to see that actually because I met several Whole Foods employees who had been through your program. It’s life-changing, absolutely. I love the stories that came out of that, and then with COVID now you’ve gone digital, which is great because now actually more people can have access to this boot camp. So you’ve got a program coming up really soon. Tell us all about it. What would we get by joining it? What is the experience like? And when what kind of people is this meant for?   [01:06:31] Rip Esselstyn: This will be our third virtual event of 2020. The first one we did was called the Plant-Strong Primer, and it was just for anybody that needed a little tune-up on all things plant-based for those who were new to the space. We had great attendance, and it was a whole weekend. The second one that we did was—we’ve had our annual Plant-Stock event for nine years now, and typically, it’s happened either at the backyard at the Esselstyn family farm in Upstate New York. And then recently, we moved it to the Black Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. But when COVID hit, we had to figure out what to do. We moved it actually back to the Esselstyn Farm, and Plant-Stock is just a celebration of all things plant-based, and we have a wide range of really what we call the brock stars in the plant-based movement come and speak. God, we probably had 22 different speakers, but the backdrop of the whole event was the Esselstyn Family. We got to give people a really nice backstage pass to the farm, which was in Forks Over Knives and it’s been in a lot of different documentaries. It’s a very, very special place for the Esselstyns because it’s been in the family for almost 350 years.   [01:08:09] Ashley James: Geez, wow.   [01:08:11] Rip Esselstyn: Yeah. We’re so grateful. As a family, we know how lucky we are to have this in our lives, this special resource. So we wanted to share it with people. That’s on my father’s side of the family, so my father grew up on this farm in Upstate New York. This next event that we’re doing on October 23 and 24, it’s called the Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue, and it’s actually going to take place in Cleveland, which is where I grew up. It’s where my father spent over 40 years at the Cleveland Clinic. But my father met my mother in Cleveland. He was going to Case Western Reserve Medical School. My mother grew up in Cleveland. Her grandfather was the founder of the Cleveland Clinic, believe it or not. In 1921 he founded the Cleveland clinic. My mother’s father—we call him Barney—was just an absolutely revolutionary surgeon. He really single-handedly brought to this country instead of doing the radical mastectomy, he believed in the partial lumpectomy, which is not nearly as disfiguring. At the time it was considered a radical approach to treating breast cancer, but it is now the preferred method for breast cancer. I don’t want to get too far off track. My father was going to medical school. His father and my mother’s father both went to Yale and crossed paths because my dad’s father actually played football at Yale and was one of the coaches after he graduated. So he was one of the coaches for my mother’s father while he was going through Yale and on the football team. It’s a small world, and my dad got invited over to my mother’s place for a meal. They met and they fell in love. This Kitchen Rescue event is going to take place at a place called The Knob. It’s this really phenomenal woodsy location in Northeast Ohio. It’s about 20 miles outside of Cleveland. It’s the second-highest point in Northeast Ohio, and you’ve got all these pine trees. The glaciers came through there and left all these crazy rock formations and white quartz pebbles everywhere.   [01:11:17] Ashley James: The Precambrian shield I think it’s called.   [01:11:19] Rip Esselstyn: Oh, yeah? Say that again. The what?   [01:11:21] Ashley James: I think it’s called the Precambrian shield.   [01:11:24] Rip Esselstyn: Wow.   [01:11:26] Ashley James: Because that’s what created the great lakes and all the terrain in Upstate New York and also Ontario, which is where I’m from, have these beautiful sections of the forest. There’s just exposed rock in granite and just gorgeous rock out of nowhere and these giant rock cliffs. Part of it was these big glaciers kind of scraped away and left behind. I think it’s called the Precambrian shield, but it’s a very unique landscape and just gorgeous, right?   [01:12:03] Rip Esselstyn: Oh, it’s gorgeous. The views, you can see over 7 ½ miles from this point all the way to Lake Erie. You can see the freighters going across on clear days. The cliff where you can get these views, it’s almost a 70-foot drop. There are sandstone formations everywhere, but this is a piece of property that has been in the Crile side of the family—my mother’s side of the family—since 1910. There’s this cool house that my parents built that’s on top of it now that’s made from these huge 5×3 foot sandstone rocks, and these huge Douglas fir beams that came from somewhere in Lake Erie that my father—one of his heart patients was a truck driver. And he got this truck driver to basically load up and go and bring back like 15 of these huge Douglas fir beams that serve as the part of the structure of this house. But we’re going to have this as the backdrop to the Kitchen Rescue. We’re going to be making all kinds of fantastic meals going into the holiday season. Do you know who Dr. Will Bulsiewicz is?   [01:13:33] Ashley James: The name sounds familiar, but no I don’t.   [01:13:36] Rip Esselstyn: Okay. He wrote a book called Fiber Fueled.   [01:13:38] Ashley James: Oh, okay. Right, right.   [01:13:40] Rip Esselstyn: It’s so hot. Will will be joining us. We’re going to have a couple of amazing transformational stories, but mostly, it’s going to be time in the kitchen. We’re going to send out to all of our attendees all the different recipes, grocery lists that people want to cook along with us. We’re going to teach people how to read labels, pantry clean-out, what to put in place of some of the no-no’s that maybe a lot of us have in our freezers, our refrigerators, and in our pantries. It’s going to really be highlighted by my sister Jane, my mother Ann, my father, myself, and my brother-in-law Brian. Everything will be videoed. It’ll be live. This isn’t something that’s pre-recorded—it’s all going to be live. And then afterward, people will have access to the videos for up to a year. Anyway, in a nutshell—a big nutshell—that’s the extent of it.   [01:14:48] Ashley James: This is cool. Who should attend this? Is this for newbies, is this for people with major health problems? Who would get the most out of attending your upcoming event—October 23 and 24.   [01:15:03] Rip Esselstyn: Well, to me, it’s for anyone that is looking to get their head around some new exciting recipes, some mantastic recipes going into the holiday season. It’s for anyone that wants to be inspired, and it’s for anyone that feels alone out there and wants to feel like they’re really part of a very special family and community. What we discovered after our primer event in the spring and our Plant-Stock event in the summer is that the bonding that happens in the chat room over the course of the weekend is really special. And then afterward, we send everybody—that wants to—to a free community group where we continue on with all the relationships and the bonds that were formed over the course of the virtual weekend   [01:16:10] Ashley James: That’s very cool. I know several very happily married couples who have met in chat rooms much like what you’re describing. Also good for singles who would like to meet other singles who are looking to get healthy together. I always believe in divine intervention, just like how your dad met your mom. That feels a lot like there is some divine guidance going on and how I met my husband. It took a lot of divine intervention to bring us together.   [01:16:46] Rip Esselstyn: It’s funny you say that because there were people in the chat room during Plan-Stock that were like I can’t date anybody anymore that’s a meat-eater. I just can’t do it. I have to find somebody that shares the passion and the values that I have around plants. And then there are people that are divorced that are looking for somebody as well. Luckily, I am happily married and we have a Plant-Strong family. The kids are all on board, everybody’s on board with it. It’s really nice when you can have a united front with your partner, your kids, and your family. But I can tell you if I was starting over again—just like I don’t think I could ever marry a smoker—I don’t think I could ever, ever marry a meat-eater. Just the smell of the meat in the kitchen, cheese in the refrigerator, chicken breast, fish—I just find it all to be, frankly, just so revolting now.   [01:18:01] Ashley James: What’s really interesting about that—so again, my husband who ate beef breakfast, lunch, and dinner, maybe he had pork for breakfast. But that’s all he ate when I met him, and I tried to get him to eat something else other than meat. That was just meat, meat, meat every single day, and we’ve been married for 12 years. He just woke up one morning and said never again, never ever, ever again. Within a matter of weeks, he began to become disgusted by the smell of meat, by the sight of meat. He is actually completely turned off by it, and what a 180 degree just transformation. But I noticed it in myself too, and I never ever thought. I saw it in him, I never thought it would happen in me. But I also noticed that the more you stay away from it, the more it actually feels unnatural to consume any animal or animal products, and I was very pro-eating animals before this. But it was my health journey that led me, and this podcast and interviewing because I want to interview everyone on all these different points. I want to bring in all the information that I can and to help people to heal because I suffered from many diseases including diabetes and reversed it with nutrition. Just through my own learning and adapting this way, I noticed that my desires, my cravings changed now. I have a Pavlovian response to kale. I just start salivating when I think about plants. It’s really interesting how our bodies will adapt and change. I think for people who are still primarily meat-eaters, just try a meatless Monday, try just a few meals a week, or just try a seven-day challenge like the one that Rip wrote about in his book and just notice how great you feel. Let that motivate you to use food to heal your body. Now, I’m very excited about your upcoming event on October 23 and 24—Plant-Strong Primer: Kitchen Rescue. It’s going to be delicious, I just know that. By then, you will have bought yourself an Instant Pot. You and hopefully all the listeners will get themselves an Instant Pot, and then we can all cook along with everyone in your live online event. The links to it are going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. It has been such a pleasure having you on the show today, Rip. You are welcome back anytime you want to come and share more stories of success, more information about your future events and books. We would love to have you back on the show.   [01:20:58] Rip Esselstyn: Oh, thank you so much. In closing, let me say one thing because I mentioned it earlier on and we didn’t ever have the opportunity to circle back to it. That is the answer to your food products that have been at Whole Foods for eight years. What’s happened is they have turned the brand back over to me. It was a ten-year contract.   [01:21:23] Ashley James: I didn’t want to ask in case it was really sensitive.   [01:21:28] Rip Esselstyn: No, no, no. It’s really good because now, what we’re doing is we’re revamping the whole look and feel. We’re giving the brand a whole refresh. Instead of being called Engine 2, it’s going to be called Plant-Strong. We are going to have a little Engine 2 in the upper right-hand corner just to give a nod because that’s the whole origin story at a fire station—Engine 2. But the packaging is so beautiful, it’s so colorful, and it’s so wonderful. And we’re going to have a limited variety of products at retail outlets including Whole Foods starting in February 2021. We’re going to start with some veggie broth, then also some chilies, and some soups. And then online, we’ve started an e-commerce store where people can go right now today. We have the cereals and the granolas, and we have the pizza kits with the pizza crust and the sauce packs. And then we’re slowly, every couple of months, going to be adding more and more products to the e-commerce side of things. But in 2020, as we’re dealing with COVID-19, we’re just trying to figure out how to be smarter and more streamlined with our offerings and what makes sense. The D2C play, e-commerce, people are buying more and more food that way. This way, it allows us to get food to people—these premium products—at a better price point.   [01:23:08] Ashley James: Oh, great. Well, I love that. I just started buying all my groceries online because it just freed me up from so much time, and I used to love going grocery shopping. But with COVID, masks, hand sanitizers, and people looking at you worried like, oh, are you six feet away from me? I just don’t want to cause people to stress or live through that stress. I feel very, very blessed and fortunate to live in an area where I can have my groceries delivered, or I can order stuff online. I just ordered some whole food, plant-based cereal just last night. I normally don’t eat cereal, but I’m pregnant right now with our second child. My cravings, luckily, have been healthy ones.   [01:23:56] Rip Esselstyn: Good for you.   [01:23:58] Ashley James: Absolutely. Rip, it has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much. I can’t wait to attend your event coming up on October 23 and 24, Plant-Strong Primer: Kitchen Rescue. And of course, all the listeners are invited to attend as well. See you all in the chat, especially the singles who want to get healthy together. I just think that’d be so cool to hear some love stories.   [01:24:19] Rip Esselstyn: We’re going to do it. Just so you know, there’ll be several thousand people that will be partaking. This is going to be a big party. It will be a pre-holiday kitchen party where we’re going to get in, roll up our sleeves, and make potatoes, lasagnas, and pizzas together. It’s going to be a blast.   [01:24:41] Ashley James: Sounds great. Can’t wait. Thank you so much, Rip. Please, come back to the show at any time. We’d love to have you.   [01:24:46] Rip Esselstyn: Thank you so much, Ashley.     Get Connected with Rip Esselstyn! Website – Plant Strong Plant Strong Podcast Plant-Strong Foods Facebook – Plant Strong by Engine 2 Instagram – engine2diet Instagram – RipEsselstyn Twitter – Plant Strong by Engine 2   Books by Rip Esselstyn The Engine 2 Cookbook: More than 130 Lip-Smacking, Rib-Sticking, Body-Slimming Recipes to Live Plant-Strong  The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet: Eat Plants, Lose Weight, Save Your Health The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter’s 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds Plant-Strong: Discover the World’s Healthiest Diet–with 150 Engine 2 Recipes My Beef With Meat: The Healthiest Argument for Eating a Plant-Strong Diet — Plus 140 New Engine 2 Recipes

Visit TakeYourSupplements.com to get on Dr. Wallach's protocol & the supplements that Ashley and her family have been taking for the last ten years.   Mineral Deficiency: Root Cause of Diseases https://www.learntruehealth.com/mineral-deficiency-root-cause-of-diseases   Highlights: Root cause of mineral deficiency diseases Four categories of health Symptoms of osteoporosis of the skull Why going gluten-free is important   Have you heard about osteoporosis of the skull? In this episode, Dr. Joel Wallach is back on the show, and he talks about different symptoms of osteoporosis of the skull. He shares that osteoporosis of the skull is a nutrient deficiency and can be cured with proper nutrition. He also talks about the root cause of mineral deficiency diseases and how it caused hundreds of diseases that we now have today.   Intro: Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. Today, we have my hero, Dr. Joel Wallach. He’s a Naturopathic physician with so much experience. He’s in his 80s, and he’s the reason why I no longer suffer from all the illnesses that I had. I’ve been mentored by him for the last 10 years, and it’s such an honor to have him back on the show. Go listen to episode 435 to hear my first interview with him. In this episode, we continue our discussion, and then, in the end, he answers some questions for the listeners that posted questions in the Facebook group for him. We didn’t get to all the questions, so he’s agreed to come back on the show and he will continue to answer questions for us. As you’re listening to this episode, if you have questions for Dr. Wallach, come join the Learn True Health Facebook group, and when I announce that I’m going to have him on the show again, please post your questions in that thread and I will get them answered for you. Now, as you’re listening to Dr. Wallach, if you’d like to get on his protocol, he designed a supplement company about 25 years ago. My family and I have actually been taking his supplements for the last 10 years, and I’ve been using them with my clients for the last 10 years having fantastic success. In this interview, I saw nine years and then I realized September was the 10th anniversary of me on his supplements, following his protocol, and reversing the illnesses and diseases I had using his information. As you’re listening, if you want to get on his protocol, go to takeyoursupplements.com and one of our experienced health coaches that are trained on all of Dr. Wallach’s protocols will help you. There’s also a health coach training program that completely trains you in all of Dr. Wallach’s protocols and we can hook you up. It’s very affordable, and it teaches you exactly how to help people—yourself, your friends, and your family. It’s a great adjunct to those who are already in the health field, but also, it’s great for people who just want to learn for themselves. I talk about IIN, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is a year-long health coach training program. That’s a major program to start a career as a health coach or if you are in the health field in some way to really add tools to your tool belt. If you go to takeyoursupplements.com and talk to them about learning specifically Dr. Wallach’s protocol, that training is much shorter, and it’s specifically designed to teach you everything about Dr. Wallach’s protocol. It’s a fantastic adjunct to IIN or to anyone who wants to learn more about holistic health and healing. I have been working with the health coaches at takeyoursupplements.com for years, and we’ve all been trained by Dr. Wallach and all of his information. What I love about his supplements, and the reason why he created these supplements is after all the research he did in discovering the root cause of 900 diseases—diseases that cross-species lines, and he’s published his work. For the last 35 years, he discovered the root cause of major diseases such as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, even down syndrome. He discovered they’re all different mineral deficiencies and element deficiencies in utero, and he’s published these findings. What he found was as he worked as a Naturopath with his clientele, they would get inconsistent results from different supplement companies because of the quality control (or lack thereof). So he was finally driven to produce his own, which have consistently, very high quality, and are third-party lab-tested. We can help you contact the company and get all the labs. They publish them. They’re very open about showing that Dr. Wallach’s supplements are very high quality, bio-available, easily absorbed by the body, and consistently get results, which is very exciting. They also have a 30-day money-back guarantee, which I think is really important because I spent thousands of dollars on supplements before I ever met Dr. Wallach, and felt that it was just a waste until I met him and got on his. Overnight, I started to notice fantastic changes. So if you’re wary about buying another supplement, know that his—when you go to takeyoursupplements.com and work with them—has a money-back guarantee. That is to show you that you can trust them. And if you like it for whatever reason, we want you to be satisfied, and we want to show you that you can feel comfortable and safe trying them and knowing that the company is all about helping you get your health back, which is why I’m so happy to be part of all of this. Awesome. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this show with those you love. Strap yourselves in. This is going to be a great one. Enjoy today’s interview.   [00:05:04] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 447. I am so excited for today’s guest. We have my hero, Dr. Joel Wallach. Dr. Wallach, because of you, I no longer suffer from type 2 diabetes, from chronic adrenal fatigue, which had me bedridden most days. I no longer suffer from the polycystic ovarian syndrome. I actually just got my blood work done with my Naturopath to confirm that I am the healthiest I’ve ever been. But the last nine years I’ve been on your protocol I’ve been able to reverse all these issues. I was told by an endocrinologist I would never ever conceive, that I was completely infertile. And because of your protocol, your guidance, and your advice, we conceived our child naturally. He is a healthy almost 5 ½-year-old boy. You have helped many of my family members, many of my friends, and my clients through your supplements and through your nutritional information. It’s such a pleasure to have you here. The difference you’ve made in millions of lives is so important. Your research has changed the world, but it needs to get mainstream. We have got to get your information out there, and that’s why I’m having you back here today so you can continue to share this information. Thank you so much for being here.   [00:06:37] Dr. Joel Wallach: Well, you’re very, very kind, Ashley. Thank you so much for the testimony and so forth. I get more women pregnant every year than any other man in history because I know the process. The human body has a phenomenal ability to heal itself, but it does need raw materials. You have to absorb and then you have to have the raw materials. You cannot get everything you need from your food. It’s like saying don’t waste your money on oil. Just put dirt from Texas in your car. There’s bound to be some oil in it. That was very, very stupid. Well, it’s very, very stupid to just say, well, I’m going to eat well and I’ll get everything I need. Nutritional minerals occur in veins like chocolate and chocolate ripple ice cream and veins like gold, silver, and coal. That’s why in some places on earth, people live long healthy lives. They say, well, boy they don’t even have doctors. They live 160-200, what’s going on? Well, that’s because they live in a place that has the nutrients there because of the glaciers, grinding up rocks, and all that kind of stuff. That’s why you see cultures, they’re famous and legendary for long lives. James Hilton wrote the book of course and the movie came out of it, Lost Horizon. He was a New York Times reporter. He was told to go to Hunza where people were claiming to be over 200 years of age and so forth. He went there, spent a year, and he said, hey, this is real. He wrote an article for the New York Times, and he made a book out of it, Lost Horizon. It became a movie, Lost Horizon and Shangri-La where people live forever and all that kind of stuff. I think the advantage I have, Ashley, is I’m a veterinarian as well as a physician. We don’t have health insurance for animals. We do have life insurance for expensive racehorses, but when it comes to health insurance, health insurance is the vitamins and minerals they add to their food. We’ve eliminated every disease that still plagues humans. I’m proud that I was able to—through lawsuits in federal courts—forced the baby formulas to put nutrients in there that doctors said were poisonous. The baby formula manufacturers like Enfamil and [inaudible 00:08:54] put it in there. In federal courts, I won because I did 1700 autopsies on kids under the age of 10 published in three languages. We got rid of cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, and crib death. I’m the guy that eliminated those three baby diseases. You don’t hear about them anymore because I’ve eliminated them by putting all these nutrients into the baby formulas and eliminated them because none of them were genetic. And certainly, the mother never laid on the babies to kill them.   [00:09:21] Ashley James: Even more so, prenatal nutrition, and even before we get pregnant, helping the mother become fully nutrified is incredibly important. Now, we talked about your experiences with curing Keshan disease. We didn’t get into talking about your work with the Amish though. Can you tell us the story about how you were invited—I believe it was—in Pennsylvania to go and help the Amish figure out what was going on with infertility and the diseases that were plaguing them?   [00:09:51] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah. They had a lot of birth defects. Amish all over the country were plagued with birth defects. I had been working with the Amish. Started out in Kansas City, Missouri who was the parents of an Amish kid who became a decorated Navy Seal of all things. When he came back he said, look, we got to really spend some time with these Amish communities. They have so many birth defects. The doctors just tell them it’s genetic and there’s nothing to do about it. Well, it turns out that all these birth defects—and I’ll tell you a couple of specific stories—with the exception of getting the measles early in pregnancy and you damage the embryo that way. You’re too young probably, Ashley, to remember thalidomide, which was a pharmaceutical made to deal with morning sickness made in Australia and it was shipped over here. Ob-Gyns actually gave it to mothers early in pregnancy when they were having morning sickness. We had 10,000 babies born in America with no arms and legs because thalidomide interrupted that part of the embryonic development. With the exception of those kinds of things, 99% of all birth defects are caused by nutritional deficiency during the developmental stages of the embryo. There are no genetic diseases transmitted as birth defects. I’ll repeat that. There are no genetic diseases transmitted as birth defects. There’s no genetic disease transmitted like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and that kind of stuff. As a result, my thesis, which is from my 10-year study—20,000 autopsies. It’s kind of like a Ph.D. degree for a post-doctoral fellowship like a Ph.D. degree at Washington University in St. Louis. My thesis is in the Smithsonian Institute as a national treasure. We got a $25 million grant. Did the 20,000 autopsies. Did all the work, tracked everything down. Showed how all the birth defects could be prevented with prenatal nutrition, and how all these diseases that are said to be genetic in families were not genetic. The example I used was sickle cell anemia because every thesis of animals can have sickle cell anemia. Both white guys and black guys get sickle cell anemia, and it’s all caused by the same nutritional deficiency in the early stages of embryonic development when the bone marrow is being developed. This nutrient is missing in central Africa. That’s why so many people in Central Africa—like the Congo and places like that—they have sickle cell anemia. Of course, the medical doctors say, oh, it’s due to a genetic thing in these people in the Congo. No, they’re just missing that nutrient.   [00:12:29] Ashley James: The nutrient is missing from the soil so they’re not getting it when they eat their food?   [00:12:32] Dr. Joel Wallach: That’s correct because plants cannot make this nutrient. I’ll give you a hint, it’s a mineral. The plants cannot make it. Here’s the beautiful part of it. So I’m seeing all these white kids with sickle cell anemia. I’m tracking their families, they don’t have any interactions with black families and there’s no intermarriages or anything like that. So it turns out, it’s the exact same deficiency in white guys as black guys. In white guys, they gave it a different name. In white guys, they call it thalassemia, and in black guys, they call it sickle cell anemia. It’s the same exact birth defect. I’ve done this. Actually, in my presentation, I show people that both the mother and father have either thalassemia or sickle cell anemia, they’ll have 10 normal kids as long as they’re getting all 90 essential nutrients for at least three months before they get pregnant. Nutritional deficiency.   [00:13:35] Ashley James: Because it happened in utero though, can you reverse sickle cell anemia or is it baked into the cake?   [00:13:41] Dr. Joel Wallach: It’s baked into the cake. However, I can take somebody who has maybe 25%-30% percent of their cells will be sickle cell anemia or thalassemia. I can give them a program and I might drop it down to 12%-15% because I’m really feeding the healthy cells in the bone marrow. They just make more healthy hemoglobin. But it is baked into the cake, all right. I can improve them, but you can’t cure them. I can take a mother and a father—both of whom have sickle cell anemia or both of whom have thalassemia—give them all 90 essential nutrients for three to six months prior to pregnancy and guess what, they can have 25 normal babies. This one, my thesis is in the Smithsonian Institute of Natural Treasure. There’s a great little story about arctic foxes at the Brookfield Zoo when I was working there, and it was part of this grant where I did my 20,000 autopsies. They had a big aquarium there so I had to spend a couple of years there dealing with all the tortoises, sea turtles, and things like that. I was covering all the species. Anyway, the keepers came to me and said, “Look, we’re going to bring you 10 baby arctic foxes, and the mother and father are wild-caught arctic foxes. We just had a litter of 10 babies all born with cleft palate. They have a bad gene, we want to get rid of them.” “No, no,” I said, “Oh my gosh. This is perfect. I’ve been looking for something like this and you guys are going to bring me the babies and bring me the foxes. What were you feeding them?” “Well, we gave them horse meat. Gave the two animal foxes horse meat because they’re carnivores. They’re meat-eaters.” “Well, did you give me any vitamins and minerals?” “No.” “Okay. Well, that’s why all the baby foxes were born with cleft palates. It’s a birth defect caused by cleft palates when they go from a flat disc into a tube, at that moment when their palate is forming, they’re missing these nutrients and it doesn’t close completely. Then they get cleft palate, cleft lip, and all kinds of stuff. So what I want you to do is start feeding the mother and father dog food, and then I want you to get infant formula, milk replacer like we’re going to give orphan baby puppies and start feeding those baby foxes.  When baby foxes get to be six months old, they’re going to go through puberty. Then I want you to take one female baby and put it with a father. I want you to put one male baby and put it with the mother, and all the other brothers and sisters you’re going to put together we’ll have five pairs of inbreeding. Actually, we’ll have seven pairs of inbreeding with the mother and father. You tell me when the baby foxes are born.” Well, it took six months for them to get to puberty, and then of course the baby foxes when they started eating solid food, we got them on dog food also. To make a long story short, we had 100 baby foxes born a year and a half later, and guess what? They’re all born perfectly normal, no cleft palates even though we were seriously inbreeding—brother and sister, mother and son, father and daughter. They’re all born perfectly normal because we gave them all the nutrients. This is written up in scientific journals. It’s in the book Rare Earths: Forbidden Cures. It’s in the book Epigenetic. And it’s in my presentation, which I give all the time in the section on pregnancies. Gosh, I have so many horrible pictures. They would do abortions of babies born with a terrible cycloptic eye—one eye in the middle of their forehead—or their brain was sticking out of their skull, and things like that. They would go ahead and do an abortion. They bring me those babies so I have lots of pictures of horrible birth defects all of which are preventable by proper diet—maximize absorption, no gluten, no fried foods, no processed meats, no oils, and then you throw in the 90 essential nutrients and there will never be another birth defect.   [00:17:41] Ashley James: The best place to get the 90 essential nutrients—myself and others who have been mentored by you, working with you, and working with your supplements for the last nine years—is takeyoursupplements.com. If you go to takeyoursupplements.com, you fill out your information, and you actually speak to one of us. We work with you and help you get on Dr. Wallach’s protocol. I want to talk about the four categories of health and healing in terms of nutrient deficiency, and how you easily help people to reverse diseases. But before we do, I just want to wrap up the Amish story. You went with Marvin Rob, and I’ve met Marvin Rob—an amazing, amazing man. I’ve learned so much from him too, and the two of you went to the Amish communities where there was a lot of infertility and birth defects. What happened?   [00:18:36] Dr. Joel Wallach: Well, basically, the Amish, of course, they grow a lot of grain—wheat, barley, rye, and oats. They eat so much of that bread, spaghetti, noodles, pancakes, waffles, pie crusts, cake, and so forth. Well, guess what. They have so much gluten their intestines are all dead. They lost the villi in their intestines, and they couldn’t absorb nutrients even if they had them in their food. Now nutritional minerals do not occur in a uniform blanket around the coast of the earth. They occur in veins like gold, silver, and coal. The only way you’re going to guarantee you’re going to get all 90 essential nutrients is to supplement. Well, even if you supplement, if your villi are all gone, you can’t efficiently absorb them, so they’re still having problems. We took some willing families that had some really serious problems. There was one family, I think it was Idaho. A 31-year-old young man and he was in a wheelchair for 31 years because he was born with severe muscular dystrophy, and they were told there was nothing to be done about it. Just giving care that dealt with the symptoms as opposed to there’s nothing you can do. To make a long story short, his name is Amos Wiki. This got to be 12, 15 years ago. We put Amos on the 90 essential nutrients. We gave him extra of the nutrients we’re missing when you have muscular dystrophy. Of course, they had already published a story about Jerry Lewis and so forth and everybody knew about that. Jerry Lewis, of course, we gave him 50 of these Amish kids who were born with muscular dystrophy. We had cured them. We gave him the charts. He took them to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and before he left the room they fired him. He said, “Well, Wallach’s curing all these people with muscular dystrophy.” They fired him and took him off the telethon route. This is in 2011. And in 2015, they had to stop the telethon because they couldn’t raise a penny without Jerry Lewis being on there. He’d already raised $2 billion on the telethon, but when they took him off the telethon, they couldn’t raise a penny. Anyway, here’s Amos Wiki. We put him on the program and we cured him. About a year later, Marvin and I are going from colony to colony in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Idaho, Utah, Texas, and so on running in all these Amish. They have annual meetings and all the farmers get together and say, okay, this year we’re all going to go grow sweet potatoes. This year we need extra, this, that, and the other. So they make all these plans, and they don’t have computers, telephones, cell phones, iPads, and things. They have to have these big meetings to communicate this stuff with each other. Otherwise, they’re writing letters and so forth, and they don’t like to do that. They rather just get together. I was going to speak to them because they were having this big gathering of 150 Amish families in Idaho, and Marvin took me there. This elder—white hair, typical looking Amish guy, probably in the 60s. Very, very accusing tone, “Before we start, Wallach, I want to know. You’ve been working with Amos Wiki for years. For three years you’ve worked with him and he’s still sitting in his wheelchair.” And Amos wiki was sleeping in his wheelchair. About 180 pounds, 31 years old. So I said to myself, what would Moses do here? What I did, I had to be a little bit of a showman, right? I stuck my right arm out 180 degrees away from Amos. I stuck my index finger out and I slowly, slowly turned through the face of the audience all around until I was pointing at Amos. I screamed his name. I said, “Amos, get up and dance.” And Amos got out of his wheelchair and he started doing a little jig. He runs up the middle aisle, runs around all the outside isles three times, and sits back down in the chair. Everybody, they couldn’t even breathe. It was quiet. They could not breathe. What had happened was Amos, in 90 days, we had cured him of his muscular dystrophy after 31 years of muscular dystrophy. But he had paid for that wheelchair himself. They don’t have health insurance so he paid for the wheelchair himself. He didn’t want to give it away, sell it, or just throw in the barn. So he took it with him wherever he went, and wherever he went he would just sit in his own wheelchair. He didn’t need it anymore. But the elder Amish guy thought Amos was still in the wheelchair because he still had muscular dystrophy. But no, we cured him in three months.   [00:23:45] Ashley James: I love it.   [00:23:47] Dr. Joel Wallach: We deal a lot with every kind of autoimmune disease you can think of. Things like lupus, which Amish used to get a lot of. They have the butterfly rash on their face, and it’s kind of like fibromyalgia with a butterfly rash in your face they call it lupus, an autoimmune disease. It’s really just a manifestation of gluten. They can’t absorb nutrients. One nutritional deficiency causes eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis, and rosacea when you have a deficiency of that nutrient. Also, you get ulcerative colitis, your villi go away, you get diverticulitis, Crohn’s disease, or irritable bowel syndrome. Basically, these diseases are all gone in the Amish community now. They used to eat so much wheat, barley, rye, and oats because that’s what they would grow to feed their livestock and also to sell in the markets. Now they know they need to live like Asians and they eat rice. They can’t have fried rice, but they could eat wild rice, white rice, yellow rice, and red rice. They could eat sweet potatoes. They can eat their dairy. They can have all the vegetables they want. They can have buckwheat, which is not wheat. They can have millet. They can have corn and so forth. All the diseases they used to get, they don’t get anymore because we got them off of gluten, got them on the 90 essential nutrients, 60 minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 aminos, and 3 fatty acids. And 2/3 of the 90 essential nutrients are our minerals. Plants do not make minerals. They can make vitamins, they can make amino acids, they can make fatty acids, but they can’t make minerals. Plants only need three elements from the soil, and farmers, Ashley, get paid by tonnage. They don’t get paid by the nutritional value of the food, they get paid by tonnage. When you look at all commercial fertilizers, they only have three minerals in it. They don’t have 60. They only have three. When they get everything ready to harvest, they harvest it, they sell it, it goes to the market, and we get three minerals in our food.   [00:25:58] Ashley James: Can you imagine what our health would be like as a globe if farmers got paid for the nutritional quality of their crop and if doctors got paid for results?   [00:26:10] Dr. Joel Wallach: Well, yeah. That’d be a totally different story.   [00:26:14] Ashley James: Yeah, exactly. There’d be no disease, and everyone would be listening to you.   [00:26:17] Dr. Joel Wallach: I can tell you when it all happens, 3:00 PM in the afternoon, Monday, September 4, 1882 on Pearl Street in New York City in the bluff overlooking the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Thomas Edison pulled the switch on the first commercial electric generating plant and lit up part of New York City. Within 10 years, 100 new diseases occurred that had never happened before in America. All mineral deficiency diseases and doctors are telling people, oh these are genetic because before 3:00 PM in the afternoon, Monday, September 4, 1882, nobody had electricity. Everybody had wood stoves. They were putting their wood ashes into their gardens, and wood ashes are more than just carbon. Wood ashes are the minerals that are left when you burn the carbon in the wood, the corn stalks, or whatever it is you’re burning, coal. People put their wood ashes in their garden as fertilizer. If you were in a place where there were 15 minerals in the soil, there were 15 minerals that would ashes. If you’re in a place where they had 25 minerals in the soil, there were 25 minerals in the wood ashes. People did much better when they were putting their wood ashes in their gardens. I’m going to give you one more bit of story here and I’ll turn back to you.  That is most people don’t know this, Ashley, but slaves lived longer than plantation owners. There were more 100-year-old slaves than there were 100-year-old white people. Most chief slaves who were actually running the plantation operations outlive three generations of white plantation owners who die in their 40s and 50s. These slaves are 110, 112 still running the show. That’s because the plantation owners want to be like kings and dukes. They just ate the meat—steaks, roasts, and loins, that kind of stuff. They made the slaves eat the chicken feet, pig’s feet, the livers, the brains, the heart, and the lungs, which had all the trace minerals in it plus the sulfur, the calcium, and the magnesium. They would put the bones from what they would eat onto the stove at night and water and just simmer it all night and make bone broth soup.   [00:28:55] Ashley James: And get more minerals.   [00:28:57] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah. The white people didn’t drink that or eat that. That was all the slaves. That’s why there was uncle Thomas. They couldn’t call him Sir Tom or Sir Remus. They call him Uncle Remus because they were giving him some kind of heroic name for living so long and running the plantations. Being an Uncle Tom was a good thing. Being an Uncle Remus was a good thing. Being an Aunt Jemima was a good thing because they were living to be 100 eating the things that the plantation owners thought were not even fit to feed a dog, only slaves could eat them.   [00:29:43] Ashley James: And they were getting more nutrition because of it. That’s fascinating.   [00:29:47] Dr. Joel Wallach: Isn’t that crazy?   [00:29:48] Ashley James: Yeah. I love how you look through history—different cultures, the rate of disease, and how you can link it all back that the people who have the lowest rate of disease and the highest rate of longevity are the people who are getting all their minerals, getting more minerals, and getting more nutrition. That’s very fascinating. I just love it.  Now, it’s been complicated for people to understand how to reverse disease, but you, in the last few years—in working with so many wonderful experts—have devised something to make it really simple. So that the average person or even health coaches who want to jump in and use your protocol, not only for themselves, but also for their clients or for their friends and family, they could understand how to figure out what nutrients their client, their selves, or their friends or families are missing. Can you discuss the four categories of health, and dive into how we can utilize them to help reverse disease?   [00:31:00] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah, well you have to appreciate that all tissue has stem cells. No matter what tissue in the body, every tissue in the body has stem cells. The purpose of the stem cells is to make new cells when the old ones die because none of your body cells live forever so they have a lifespan. They might only live six weeks, six months, two years, or whatever it is. Then the stem cells will replace them with a new cell. Also, if you have an injury like a trauma, an injury where you get a bruise, a cut, a burn, or something like that, your stem cells will repair those injured cells and make new ones when the old ones die. They all require the 90 essential nutrients. This is why people who live in areas that have lots of minerals in the soil and eat food grown there, they actually have much longer lives. They tend to be disease-free, are very strong, and can resist the plague and all that kind of stuff which everybody else gets. People say well where are the longest-lived people on earth? The longest-lived people on earth come from Hunza, which is where the [inaudible 00:32:20] Glacier is which is in China. There’s a place called Pakistan and China, the [inaudible 00:32:30] glacier in Hunza is in between them.  These are the longest-lived people on earth. And again, the Hunzas didn’t know what they were doing. They just drank the water that came out from underneath the glaciers. They irrigated with the water that came out from underneath the glaciers. The glacial water had the minerals in it because the glaciers were grinding up all the rocks. It just so happens all the rocks there have 78 minerals. Also, this is where we get our plant minerals from these types of deposits. There’s half a dozen on earth, and we get our minerals from these types of deposits which come from the ocean. It’s not like rock. These are not rocks. These are plants. I’ll tell you a little bit about that in a second. And then also, we can get these things from the pink Himalayan salt. In the Himalayan mountains, when the oceans dried up, all the salt and minerals that were in the oceans there piled up down there and became the pink Himalayan salt. They have 84 minerals in them. Now, Ashley, before I answer your question, I’m going to tackle it backward a little bit so when I answer the question it’ll make sense.   [00:33:53] Ashley James: Okay.   [00:33:54] Dr. Joel Wallach: You know the carbon dioxide is going up in the air, and all the environmentalists are convinced that it’s due to fossil fuels for gasoline, oil, and all kinds of stuff for cars and things.   [00:34:09] Ashley James: Cow farts.   [00:34:12] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah, things like burning coal, oil, and gasoline and all that kind of stuff. That’s where the carbon dioxide is coming from. They want everybody to drive Tesla cars and have all these hydroelectric plants and everything. Well, going back to the 1920s, they began to put in hydroelectric dams. Today, to make a long story short, we have a million hydroelectric dams. We have two million dams for our irrigation and water conservation. We have 400 million farm ponds that intercept the flow from creeks that would go into tributaries to dump these silts, minerals, and volcanic ash into the big rivers, which would then go feed the ocean and feed the reefs. Millions not thousands, millions of these dams. Well, here’s what happened is they shut off the food supply to the algae that were eating the carbon monoxide. Algae make up more plant life than all the plants on dry land earth. Algae in the ocean have a bigger plant mass than that. Well, algae, the purpose of it is to eat the carbon dioxide in the air, throw out oxygen into the atmosphere, then take the carbon out of the carbon dioxide, and make carbon chains like amino acids, carbohydrates, sugars, fiber, and stuff like that for plants like kelp and that kind of stuff. Well, we dammed up the rivers with 1 million hydroelectric dams, 2 million water conservation dams, and 400 billion farm ponds. We cut off the food. Only man has the power to cut off the food supply to the ocean, cut off the food supply to the reefs. I gave a lecture last year, a little more than a year ago—August of 2019, to Tesla at their annual meeting, and 2/3 of my lecture I had maps of all the places where the reefs have died and showed where they had dammed up all the rivers. I have pictures of the maps and then where the rivers were dammed up. In Queensland in Australia where the Great Barrier Reef is they dammed up all the rivers that were feeding the volcanic ash into the ocean on the western side of the great barrier reef that killed the great barrier reef by making hydroelectric there.  We’re working on getting a grant. We’re going to rebuild Queensland, we’re going to rebuild the Great Barrier Reef. We’re going to leave them to have their electric dams. We’re just going to go around them, through them, or over them with augers, get the silt back to the algae that were feeding the Great Barrier Reefs. And in 90 days’ time, we will have rebuilt the Great Barrier Reef and prove to the environmentalists it was the dams that caused the problems. That’s why anybody dealing with electricity and they want to make more electricity, it’s actually safer to burn coal than it is to dam up the rivers. Just think of all the diseases we’ve gotten since we went away from wood ashes for fertilizing our plants and we’re using electricity now. We got 1000 new diseases that never existed before because of nutritional deficiency.   [00:38:04] Ashley James: To summarize what you said because it is such an important—that moment you said, that exact moment that Edison did that. The exact moment, just a pivotal change happened in our world because until then, we were cooking with fire, basically. We’re cooking with wood.   [00:38:26] Dr. Joel Wallach: Wood and coal.   [00:38:28] Ashley James: But if you look at old like a few hundred-year-old recipes for bread, for example, they’ll call for wood ash. They’ll call for the white ash to be added to the food. Or they used it as a thickening agent in stews. We used to eat minerals, and we used to put them in our garden. Minerals were part of our everyday supplementation. We didn’t know it. We didn’t know that it was, we just did it. It kept us healthy until we traded in our wood stove for the electric stove a few generations later plus everything we’ve done with commercial farming, we’re not getting the 60 essential minerals. I’ve heard you talk about the dams before but it really, really hit me today. What we saw happen with our bodies over the last hundred years in terms of mineral deficiency and the rates of diseases go up. Now we’re doing it to our oceans. Isn’t it 70% of the earth is covered in water, and we’ve starved the minerals. We’ve cut off the mineral supply because of all these dams with the food supply, the mineral supply to the algae. And the algae is the most important plant on our earth to help us breathe oxygen and create homeostasis.   [00:39:55] Dr. Joel Wallach: Something usable from carbon dioxide.   [00:39:57] Ashley James: Right. What we did to our bodies over the last hundred years is what we’re doing to the entire ocean right now. And it all comes back to minerals are the most important thing for our health. Of course, vitamins are, but I’ve heard you say you can accidentally get vitamins if you eat enough vegetables, but you can’t accidentally get enough minerals because of all the things that you’ve talked about.   [00:40:22] Dr. Joel Wallach: Plants don’t make minerals.   [00:40:23] Ashley James: Right. They have to be grown in minerally rich soil, which is very hard to secure especially because of the farming practices of the last hundred years and the fact that we’re not re-mineralizing our soil.   [00:40:35] Dr. Joel Wallach: After a few years, the minerals and salt are gone because the plants suck them out of the soil. Now, grandma, as you point out, used to eat wood ashes and she’d put them in the bread dough, she’d put him in the soup, and that kind of stuff. When she got crazy cravings when she was pregnant, she’d go out in the yard with a spoon and eat dirt, and she’d eat more wood ashes when she was pregnant. It’s called pica. Now, during the Second World War when they came up with baby formulas so mothers could work in the factory so they didn’t have to breastfeed their babies, babies developed what was called cribbing. They would chew on the rails and the cribs because they were minerally deficient. They were looking for minerals and say we put their hands on the crib rails and chew on the rails and they call it cribbing. When horses are minerally deficient, they chew on the top rail of a barn stall, they call it cribbing because the horse looks like they’re doing what the kids are doing in the crib. Now grandma didn’t know why, but she knew that the terrible craving she had would go away when she would eat wood ashes and put them in the food and that kind of stuff. Also, obesity was not a big problem in the world until electricity came along. I mean, if you wanted to see an obese person you had to go to the carnival or the circus, and they would have the fat lady who was 300 pounds. Other than seeing a fat lady in the circus or the carnival, you never see a fat person because they’re eating minerals because they’re putting the wood ashes into their food. When you have pica, you’re driven to want to eat even though you just had a 5000-calorie dinner. If you’re missing minerals, you are going to eat and eat and eat and eat six desserts and all that kind of stuff. That’s when the clever guys came along and said you know grandma’s out there eating dirt. We need to make pretzels, potato chips, corn puffs, and all these desserts and sell them in the stores. She’ll buy those desserts and eat those rather than eating dirt and ashes. That way we can make some money. We’re not making any money with her eating dirt and wood ashes because entrepreneurs noticed that grandma’s eating that stuff because she was craving them.   [00:42:45] Ashley James: Why is it that people will crave salty foods or sweet foods when their body really wants minerals?   [00:42:52] Dr. Joel Wallach: Because they don’t know. They’ve never been taught that craving is telling them to eat minerals. If you’ve ever been around cattle farms, bee farms, they put these red trace mineral salt blocks out in the pasture on the big corrals. The cattle will lick the salt, they’ll lick the salt, they’re getting the trace minerals at the same time because they need the salt. All vertebrates require sodium chloride for digestion to make stomach acid and all that kind of stuff. Now, here’s a funny piece to it. You go back to the years 3600 BC, there was a healer in Egypt who began to give people dried seaweed. He noticed that the ones that had goiter when he gave them dry seaweed their goiter would go away. Well, that went on until 1930. That’s a big long time. Almost 4000 years. About 1930, chemists were doing analyses of seaweed. It was getting rid of goiter in people, and he noticed that one of the biggest things in the seaweed that would cure goiter was iodine. It was in 1875. Then comes along 1920. There was a salt company in New York. They’re selling a lot of salt, but they read about this iodine, which was a big problem all around the world. They put iodine in salt and they called it iodized salt. We eliminated goiter in the world with iodized salt because everybody salted their food because they were deficient in salt, so they would eat salt with iodine. They got iodized salt. Well, just before the Second World War, all these doctors were getting trained in medical schools. Being told that salt is what creates high blood pressure. So they’re running around telling people to get rid of the salt out of your diet, it will lower your blood pressure, so take drugs. But they didn’t say be sure you’re taking a supplement that has iodine in it, so goiter came back with a vengeance. That’s why we have so much stuff going on with our thyroid glands now because even if they do have salt out there with iodine in it, people are told don’t use salt.   [00:45:25] Ashley James: Fascinating. And you pointed out that our body actually needs salt in order to make hydrochloric acid.   [00:45:33] Dr. Joel Wallach: For digestion.   [00:45:35] Ashley James: And if we don’t have enough hydrochloric acid, then we get heartburn, and then a doctor will put someone on antacids which just makes the problem worse. Then they can’t digest, so then they can’t absorb. so now they’re going to become more nutrient deficient quicker and then they can get on more drugs. It’s just a perfect path to make the pharmaceutical company money.   [00:45:58] Dr. Joel Wallach: You’re exactly right. That’s why we have our savory division, our spice division, we have the pink Himalayan salt. I use that on my breakfast food, my lunch, and my dinners. I use our pink Himalayan salt, and I take it with me when I go out on the road, and it has 84 minerals in there. That’s an addition to our sports drink, which has 78 minerals in it. Our plant-derived minerals have 78 minerals in it. We have in capsules, liquids, and powders. Oh my. There are so many diseases, they’re very simply gotten rid of. For instance, diabetes. You don’t need to go to a doctor to see if you have diabetes. You go to a pharmacy without a prescription. You get the test strips for your urine, you get the test scripture blood, and for about $1.50 for each test strip, in three minutes you’ll know if you’re diabetic or not. And you didn’t have to pay $100 for an office call. You didn’t have to pay $200 for a lab fee. It just cost you $3 or $2.50 test strips, and you know if you have diabetes or not. And then of course, if you have diabetes, we have what we call the Healthy Blood Sugar Pack. If you’ve had it for 30 years, in 30 days or less you’ll actually be an ex-diabetic. Of course, the scorecard for how well you’re doing, how well you’re managing your diabetes is the A1C. It’s supposed to be down around 5. I get people, their A1C has been 15-19 for 20, 30 years. We get them on our program, our Healthy Blood Sugar Pack, and get them off of gluten so they can absorb everything. In six weeks, their A1C is now 4 and they don’t have diabetes anymore. They go into their annual or quarterly physical and the doctor says, we’ve got to run your A1C again, it came out 4. That can’t be right because it’s been 19 for 25 years. So they rerun it and she said well I don’t know why but your A1C is 4. It’s a miracle. I’ve never seen that before. And then they just turn and walk out the door. I asked the patient. I said, “Well, did the doctor ask what you were doing?” He says, “No, he just says it’s a miracle and walked out the door.” That’s because he didn’t want to be responsible. He didn’t want to be knowing what you did so he’d have to give it to his other patients.   [00:48:14] Ashley James: Well, that happened to me. I used to have type 2 diabetes, and I got on your protocol for healthy blood sugar and it went away so fast it made my head spin. I was feeling so good. And the pica, I thought it was part of my blood sugar problem. I had constant gnawing hunger. I was hangry. Every 45 minutes I had to eat. And then within the same day, I started taking your plant-derived minerals, my hunger went away. I just burst into tears of joy. I was so excited. My blood sugar started balancing very quickly, my adrenal fatigue subsided very quickly. Within two years, we naturally conceived our child, and my polycystic ovarian syndrome had gone away. It was bam bam bam. Things were resolving. It was great. I got so excited I changed my career and became a complete advocate of your work, of nutrition, and of the fact that we can reverse disease. I’ve traveled with you. I’ve watched you, helped you, or set up lectures, and I’ve met hundreds of people that have worked with your protocols. I have personally seen people reverse adult-onset asthma, arthritis, MS, kidney failure, COPD, infertility. I’ve met people who were supposed to go in for surgeries to have knees replaced, kidneys removed, or heart surgery, and then through your protocols, they got so healthy they no longer needed to have those procedures. Sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes nutrition and diet and then it takes a few more months or it takes adding in some herbal support, but stick with it. I highly recommend listeners go to takeyoursupplements.com and get on Dr. Wallach’s protocol. There are these four categories that you came up with—soft tissue, hard tissue, blood sugar, and healthy nervous system. There are a bunch of different symptoms that someone could look at. There’s a checklist and they could look at and go, oh, my problem is this. An example being is if someone has cracked heels, that they have soft tissue—it’s the nutrients that support soft tissue, specifically like essential fatty acids. They have that deficiency, but they might need further support in terms of digestion if they don’t have a gallbladder in order to fully digest and absorb their EFAs. But could you talk a bit about how you’ve made this very simple so that people can get on the right protocol with all the essential nutrients their body is missing in order to correct their problem?   [00:51:12] Dr. Joel Wallach: Okay, well thank you. Again, my thesis for my post-doctoral fellowship represents 20,000 autopsies. I’ve done over 32,000 autopsies for my thesis in the Smithsonian Institute as a National Treasure. When I would get bodies—whether humans or animals—if they were vertebrate, they would have the same external signs of the internal deficiency disease. If it was diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, thyroid issues, kidney failure, congestive heart failure, if they had irritable bowel syndrome, or they had colitis, all these kinds of things. Of course, then they would have skin pumps, eczema, dermatitis, and psoriasis. I’m saying, well, what causes these things? I would go look up and sure enough, there has been a paper written about it 25 years earlier, 100 years earlier. That they would make the connection between a nutrient deficiency and that particular health issue. I began to write these things up and do handouts and meetings. Usually, after a while, I had enough of those handouts. I just put them together in a book. The first book of course was Let’s Play Herbal Doctor. It goes into 600 different diseases and tells you what signs to look at. For instance, my most recent book now 50 years later is It’s All In Your Head. It talks about the 25 different diseases you get when you have osteoporosis in the skull, and it’s another thing that doctors never talk about is osteoporosis of the skull. They talk about osteoporosis of your legs, your vertebrae, your pelvis, and your shoulders, but that’s it. They never talk about osteoporosis of the skull. Well, there are 12 pairs of cranial nerves. And when you have osteoporosis of the skull because your skull gets thicker and bigger when you have osteoporosis, it fills up those tunnels that those nerves go through and the spinal cord coming out of the back of the skull and squeezes them and you get all these diseases. I ask people questions when they come in and they tell me they’re losing their vision. The doctors can’t figure out why because they don’t have glaucoma, they don’t have pressure in their eye, they don’t have cataracts, they don’t have macular degeneration, but they’re slowly going blind. They have to change their eye prescription every couple of months because it’s getting worse and worse and worse no matter what the eye doctor does. I learned if I ask them, “Do you have ringing in your ears? Do you have tinnitus? It’s called tinnitus, that [ringing] tone.” “Oh, yeah. That’s terrible. I have that all the time.” “And do you ever have dizziness or balance problems?” “Oh, man. If I get up too fast the world will spin. I’ll fall down, so I have to get up very slowly and stand there for a moment before I take a step. I do have vertigo.” “Well, that’s because your skull is squeezing the auditory branch of the atrial nerve to get that tone, and you will gradually get deaf. The skull is also squeezing the vestibular branch of your atrial nerve. The tone is called tinnitus. The dizziness, vertigo or Meniere’s disease now it’s called Wallach’s vertigo because it’s not a genetic thing. It’s a simple nutritional deficiency.” But also, I think what was happening, the skull is squeezing the second cranial nerve which is the optic nerve, and slowly causing the optic nerve and the artery that goes into the back of the eye. Formed in the brain, goes to the skull to the back of the eye. They would slowly lose their vision, and didn’t have any classic eye problems. I learned, by rebuilding the skull, I could get their vision to come back. I actually won a wager. I don’t know if I told you that story.   [00:54:52] Ashley James: I don’t think so.   [00:54:54] Dr. Joel Wallach: Okay, this is a great story. It has to do with these sorts of things. I was in Salt Lake City giving a lecture and about 50 people in the audience. It’s got to be 25, 30 years ago. There are 30, 40 people in the audience. When I was done, the guy in the front row said, “Dr. Wallach, my mother is in her 70s, and she’s been legally blind for eight years. Is there anything you can do for her? She’s got this terrible macular degeneration that caused her blindness. She’s been legally blind 6, 8, 10 years.” “Okay, I can fix that.” This guy jumps up in the back of the room. He says, “Wallach, you’re a liar.” I said, “Who are you?” He says, “Well, I’m an eye surgeon, and I diagnose people who are legally blind because they have really severe advanced aggressive forms of macular degeneration, and they go blind. There’s nothing to do about you. You just got to accept blindness at that point.” I said, “Well, sir, let’s have a wager. Why don’t you bring me 12 of your patients that you have diagnosed? There’s no question about the diagnosis. You have diagnosed with macular degeneration. They’ve been legally blind 6, 8, 10 years.” He says, “You’re on.” The next day, he brings me 27 charts. He says, “Pick your 12.” I said, “Why pick 12? Let’s take all 27.” He says, “You’re on. Well, what’s the wager? I said, “Well if I win, if I can cure these people in 90 days, if I can do it, it’ll happen in 90 days. If I can cure these people in 90 days—they go from being legally blind to be able to read 20-20 in 90 days, now you have to pay for their supplements. You have to apologize in public for calling me a liar. You have to buy me one of the most expensive steaks in Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and you’re going to buy me the most expensive French red wine in America, a bottle of it.” He says, “You’re on.” I said, “I’ll take all 27.” He says, “Well, how are we going to get him the information.” I said, “Well, I’m going to write up a little protocol that’ll be per 100 pounds of body weight, and I’ll call and talk to each one and I’ll mail each one so you need to give me their addresses so I know this is really happening.” He says, “You’re on.” So we went at it. Gave them the 90 essential nutrients, the anti-inflammatories, the MSM, vitamin D3, and so on. We went at it. In 90 days, 25 of the 27 could read 20-20. It took two more weeks for the other two. So he paid off on all counts.   [00:57:37] Ashley James: I love it.   [00:57:41] Dr. Joel Wallach: This is why we came up with a book, It’s All In Your Head. We talk about these 25 different diseases you get. You lose your sense of smell, you lose your sense of taste. You’ve heard of Bell’s Palsy, that’s the squeezing of the seventh cranial nerve, the facial nerve when you have osteoporosis. And then there’s trigeminal neuralgia. You have pain in your face and you can’t make saliva and everything because the fifth cranial nerve is being squeezed. And then people, when they get older, their voice tends to change. That happens because their ninth cranial nerve≤ the glossopharyngeal which controls the vocal cords are being squeezed. Beginning to get the picture?   [00:58:41] Ashley James: Fascinating. It’s all osteoporosis of the skull.   [00:58:43] Dr. Joel Wallach: Of the skull, and that’s why we have the book now, It’s All In Your Head. We’re selling these by the hundreds every day now. It was on the best-selling list, number one bestseller in ebook for the ebook companies—Amazon, Apple, Kindle. It’s going viral this book.   [00:59:13] Ashley James: I love it, and now you have a new DVD that just came out. If we were to watch it, what would we learn?   [00:59:19] Dr. Joel Wallach: Okay, the new DVD, Is Your Doctor Killing You? It goes into these things that are supposed to be genetic, supposed to be autoimmune, and so forth. They’re really just nutritional deficiencies. This was a Zoom video. It started out as a Zoom video. The person who interviewed me—like you’re doing now—was an academic pharmacist. It’s one of those things where Pharmacist Keith Abell, he was really on me when I was saying I can cure this, I can cure this, I can cure this. I always give references to make him satisfied. While we’re doing the Zoom, he goes online—he’s a techie—and he gets that article and he puts the cover page with the abstract and the authors in the title on it right next to my face. When you look at this Zoom, you’re getting the reference right next to my face on this DVD, Is Your Doctor Killing You? Of course, he is. And then, of course, we have the two CDs set—two one-hour CDs, and it was a two-hour lecture. I was lecturing to a big church up in Baltimore, Maryland with Linda. It was such audience participation. There were 1000 people in that church. It was really great. Those are the two new tools, Is Your Doctor Killing You? It goes along with the book Rare Earths: Forbidden Cures, and of course, the new book is It’s All In Your Head.   [01:01:03] Ashley James: Thank you. Very good. Now, recently, it just launched a few months ago, and I’ve already had several of my listeners participate. There’s a health coach program—it’s all online and it’s very, very affordable. Anyone, you don’t have to have any previous knowledge about holistic health. It goes through and teaches them exactly what your protocols are and how to help yourself, your friends, your family, but also, it’s great for health coaches. It’s great for even naturopathic doctors or any kind of doctor could go through this protocol, go through this health course. They can learn exactly your protocols, and you have these four categories. It goes through the list of the different symptoms and then it relates back to the nutrient deficiencies. I love that you saw this, that you saw that when you did all of these autopsies and the millions of histopathologies and blood panels, you’re able to see that nutrient deficiency was the root cause of 900 diseases, and that each disease you could replicate. You could see either in animals. If you starved an animal of a nutrient, you could predict what disease they would get based on the nutrient they were not getting—same with humans. You could see certain symptoms—exterior symptoms. I use the examples of cracked heels because it’s so common, but that there are many symptoms that an MD would not consider relevant, and that these symptoms are actually red flags showing us that we have nutrient deficiency.   [01:03:01] Dr. Joel Wallach: That’s correct.   [01:03:02] Ashley James: In terms of this course, the best way to go about joining it is to go to takeyoursupplements.com because once you communicate with us, then we set you on that path and help you to sign up and learn all of Dr. Wallach’s protocols. Done in a really easy to use way, which I’m very excited about because I have been studying your work. How I learned the protocols is you’ve been doing radio shows for many years answering questions.   [01:03:35] Dr. Joel Wallach: Thirty years.   [01:03:34] Ashley James: Right, I went back and I listened to all the recordings I could find. Every day, eight hours a day, I would put them on. In my first year and a half working with the supplements, I had it playing in my house and I would listen to every single archive I could get my hands on. I’d hear the problem and then I’d try to predict the different course of action that you’d help them take. What’s really cool is that listening to it—because I listened to several episodes in one day—a few months later, someone would call back. They would say, okay, I don’t have MS anymore but I’m calling for my sister. So many people would call back and tell you that they’ve had progress, or they’d come back and they’d say, okay, my migraines are gone but my hands are still shaking. You’d correct their protocol. All this information has been put together in a really easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to learn way. Do you have time to answer a few questions for the listeners?   [01:04:37] Dr. Joel Wallach: Absolutely. I have one thing I need to do first and that is to thank you so much for putting together that training. I just appreciate you, respect you, and look forward to working with you for the next couple hundred years.   [01:04:52] Ashley James: Well, that’s it. When my husband and I learned from you almost 10 years ago, and you said we have the genetic potential to live to be 120, my husband and I are like let’s do this. We’re going to do this. Let’s do this. Let’s live to be 120. We’re right there with you. I’m very, very excited about that.   [01:05:10] Dr. Joel Wallach: Okay, thank you so much.   [01:05:13] Ashley James: Absolutely, you’re very welcome. Mike Park is one of our listeners whose son has an SCI. He got a fever and all of a sudden his legs stopped working. They think it was a viral infection of his nervous system, and he has neuropathy. He would like to know, is there a protocol that you know that can help stimulate the neurogenesis nerve growth factor and help with neuropathy in people with SCI?   [01:05:47] Dr. Joel Wallach: He’s got low back stuff, is that what it is?   [01:05:53] Ashley James: He’s like a five-year-old child who no longer has use of his legs because of this, I believe, a viral infection that happened to his spinal cord.   [01:06:04] Dr. Joel Wallach: It may just be osteoporosis of the skull because newborn babies can have osteoporosis in the skull. When you read this book, it’ll make you weep and cry. He’s five years old. I bet his skull is squeezing his spinal cord is what’s going on here.   [01:06:19] Ashley James: Fascinating.   [01:06:22] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah. It makes you take a deep breath, doesn’t it?   [01:06:24] Ashley James: Really does.   [01:06:27] Dr. Joel Wallach: Do we have any idea how much this little kid weighs?   [01:06:31] Ashley James: Probably about 40 pounds.   [01:08:36] Dr. Joel Wallach: Okay, so let’s get him off all the bad foods. Everybody in the family’s got to get rid of fried food, processed meats, oils, glutens, wheat, barley, rye, oats, and sugar. He’s got to live like an Asian. Live on rice, sweet potatoes, and millets. You can make bread, pancakes, waffles, and all kinds of stuff out of rice, sweet potatoes, or white potatoes. You can have all that, okay. And the vegetables and the fish. I like the smoked Alaska salmon. I have that almost every morning for breakfast. That’s a good thing, plus my three poached eggs, soft yolks, and so on. I do have rice. I have three ice cream scoops full of rice, and then I have all my pills, my liquids, and so forth. Let’s say this kid weighs 40, 50 pounds. Let’s get him one Healthy Brain and Heart Pack that’ll last him two months because it’ll be a half a dose of everything every day, so he’ll get a quarter of a dose of everything at breakfast and dinner. I also want him to have the MSM. I want him to take three MSM a day, one with each meal. That bottle of MSM’s going to last two months. I also want them to get vitamin D3. I want them to take three of those twice a day, so it’ll be two bottles of vitamin D3. I want him to have the Glucogel. He can have liquid Glucogel. It’d be an ounce twice a day, put it into his shake. Or if he wants the capsules, he could take five capsules twice a day. Of course, he needs to be using our pink Himalayan salt. When they go out and eat, he can take what we call the mineral caps. One capsule of mineral caps has the same amount of minerals in it as one ounce of the liquid minerals. And then I want them to have six eggs a day. You can put them in a shake, you can have them soft boiled, soft poached, soft scrambled with butter, or you can whip them up with a blender and put them in one of her protein shakes. Because this kid, he had an infection they said that caused his problem.   [01:08:36] Ashley James: Yes. He is about five years old and the infection happened. I believe it was about a year ago, so he’s now in a wheelchair.   [01:08:43] Dr. Joel Wallach: So it happened when he was already four years old. Let’s see what happens in 90 days by doing all this. He’s got to make sure there’s no gluten in his life. No wheat, barley, rye, and oats. No cheat day. No one cheat meal a month—no gluten. Everybody, all the other brothers and sisters, mom and dad. Everybody’s got to get rid of gluten. You need to ask him did he have any skin problems as well—eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis, rosacea? Does he ever complain about ringing in his ears or tinnitus?   [01:09:19] Ashley James: So if he complains of ringing in his ears that would be one of the symptoms of the osteoporosis of the skull.   [01:09:25] Dr. Joel Wallach: That’s correct.   [01:09:26] Ashley James: And then the skin problem, is that gluten-related?   [01:09:30] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah, the gluten causes damage to the villi in the intestines, so you cannot absorb nutrients. And the nutrient is missing when you get eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis, rosacea. You get things like irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, diverticulitis. All those types of diseases are caused by a deficiency of the same nutrient that causes eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis, and rosacea. Same nutrient deficiency causes all that. And then when you have damaged your intestines—I want to get into it if we have time. I want to get into a little bit of the COVID-19. But this kid has a great possibility of recovering 100%.   [01:10:25] Ashley James: I’m very excited about that.   [01:10:28] Dr. Joel Wallach: You’ll know within six months.   [01:10:32] Ashley James: Excellent. We’ll definitely follow up. Mike has been an active listener and a member of our Learn True Health Facebook group, and he’s been sharing his son’s journey. I’m excited to help Mike get on that protocol. For everyone who’s listening, please go to takeyoursupplements.com to get on these protocols that Dr. Wallach is talking about. The next question is can we fix lazy eye or weak eye muscles? Is there a way to support eye health and reverse lazy eye?   [01:11:03] Dr. Joel Wallach: And how old is this person?   [01:11:05] Ashley James: You know what, I don’t know. They submitted it in the group, and looking at her picture, she looks to be in her 30s.   [01:11:17] Dr. Joel Wallach: Well, the fourth cranial nerves and the sixth cranial nerves are the ones that control the eyes and muscles. If you have osteoporosis of the skull, you get a lazy eye because it’s squeezing those nerves.   [01:11:28] Ashley James: I’m really starting to grasp how prevalent these problems are. The osteoporosis of the skulls is producing so many problems because it’s a nutrient deficiency.    [01:11:44] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah, well it is a mineral deficiency. It is nutrient deficiency. I mean, how many doctors have told their patients, look, you have osteoporosis of the skull that’s why you have Bell’s palsy. No, they just say we’re going to give you steroids. They’ll get some benefit for a while, but it’ll come right back because they haven’t dealt with a basic problem.   [01:12:01] Ashley James: So then the problem isn’t a weak eye muscle, it’s that the nerve is being impinged and it’s sending a weak signal?   [01:12:09] Dr. Joel Wallach: Either sending a weak signal or an overactive signal.   [01:12:14] Ashley James: Very interesting.   [01:12:15] Dr. Joel Wallach: Either one.   [01:12:18] Ashley James: So your approach for her would be to follow a protocol that supports healthy bones and joints?   [01:12:26] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah. You don’t know how much this lady weighs or anything?   [01:12:31] Ashley James: I do not.   [01:12:32] Dr. Joel Wallach: Let’s say for 100 pounds of body weight, one Healthy Brain and Heart pack. Five Glucogel capsules twice a day. MSM, three of those tablets twice a day. Just in case, I would also throw in the Ultimate Daily Classic tablets for circulation in the brain, three of those twice a day.   [01:12:56] Ashley James: Excellent. Thank you. Lauren wants to know about raising estrogen and testosterone in herself naturally. Her doctor says her estrogen and her testosterone is low. What can we do to balance and increase healthy hormone levels?   [01:13:15] Dr. Joel Wallach: How old is she? What does she weigh?   [01:13:17] Ashley James: I do not know what she weighs, but she looks to be in her late 20s.   [01:13:24] Dr. Joel Wallach: Okay, so young person. Well, again, she got to get rid of gluten. Got to get rid of all the fried foods, processed meats, oils, glutens, wheat, barley, rye, and oats, and absolutely no sugar. And then per 100 pounds of body weight, give her one healthy brain and heart pack for a month, three eggs with soft yolks twice a day—hard-boiled eggs won’t count because 95% of estrogen is cholesterol, 95% of testosterone is cholesterol. Avoiding cholesterol and taking statin drugs will make these things happen in people. I’m avoiding cholesterol because my family all had issues with their heart, well your doctor needs to be put in jail. Anyway, then they also need the D-Stress capsule, take those twice a day. Ultimate Niacin Plus, one of those twice a day. Anything going on with the brain and spinal cord needs to have the Ultimate Daily Classic tablets. Now, there’s one other thing that has to be done for the testosterone and the estrogen. We have a product called XeraTest, which is the food for the Sertoli cells and testicles that make the testosterone. They need the cholesterol and all the 90 nutrients to be able to work, don’t waste your money on the XeraTest if you’re not giving them the 90 cents of nutrients and the eggs, the cheese, and so on. And then the same thing is true for the female part for the estrogen and progesterone. They need XeraFem. Let’s see here, I can personally testify. I’m 81 years old, and I look like I’m 50, I sound like I’m 50. And sexually, I act like I’m 25.   [01:15:29] Ashley James: That’s a very important point to make. Many men, in their 30s and 40s, are experiencing erectile dysfunction, and it’s a nutrient deficiency.   [01:15:37] Dr. Joel Wallach: That’s correct. Especially cholesterol. Remember, testosterone is 95%, by weight, cholesterol. So they got to give up the statin drugs. What they need to do is wrap up the statin drugs and give them to their doctor with love.   [01:15:56] Ashley James: Here, you take these if they’re so good for you.   [01:15:59] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah. I was going to give them to somebody else because I’m going in another direction here, but I thought, who do I really think a lot? I’ll give them to you, doc. Please take them.   [01:16:11] Ashley James: So funny. I love it. I love that we could take someone who is struggling with hormones and show them through food and through supplements they can easily balance it. That’s exactly what happened to me. Leslie says she has scleroderma, right heart failure, and pulmonary hypertension. She’s been vegetarian for several years eating not junk food but very healthy food. She’s 117 pounds and 5’7”, and she says her autoimmune disease is progressing. She would love to support her body in no longer having these problems.   [01:16:50] Dr. Joel Wallach: Okay, we can do that. Get rid of all the bad food. No fried food, no processed meats, no oils, no glutens—wheat, barley, rye, and oats, no sugar, and everybody in the household—dog, cat, bird, fish, spouse, renter, roommate, mom, dad, brother, and kids. Everybody’s going to be drop-dead gluten-free because what do vegetarians eat a lot of?   [01:17:13] Ashley James: Gluten, a lot of it.   [01:17:16] Dr. Joel Wallach: Grain. There you go. That’s why she has all these diseases that doctors are telling her are autoimmune because even if she was supplementing, she can’t absorb it because her villi are gone out of her intestines. I’m going to tell you a story here. I don’t think I told you this yet. There’s a guy by the name of Herman Cain. Did I tell you that story?   [01:17:42] Ashley James: Oh, gosh. The name sounds so familiar. Go ahead and tell the listeners.   [01:17:45] Dr. Joel Wallach: Well, Herman Cain, CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. On the last day of June of 2020, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. He’s a billionaire, 74 years old, and he had respiratory symptoms. They put them in a hospital, they’re giving him oxygen, and they’re giving him IVs of antiviral drugs. On the 29th of July, 29 days after they put him in the hospital, he died. He’s a billionaire. CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. He has all the free pizza he can get. Gluten alert, gluten alert, gluten alert—the crust. He also had five pre-existing conditions because of the gluten, he couldn’t absorb nutrients. I don’t know if he was supplementing or not because they didn’t say in the newspaper releases. But when they did the autopsy three days later after he died, they said he didn’t have a respiratory infection, which is what they were treating him for but he did have respiratory distress clinically but he didn’t have respiratory pneumonia from the virus or anything. Well, that’s because the capillaries in his lungs were filled with clusters of a weird plot of red blood cells that didn’t have platelets in them. Well, he didn’t have any platelets because his bone marrow is dead because he couldn’t get nutrition because his intestines are dead because he’s been eating gluten—pizza pie crust for 35 years.   [01:19:37] Ashley James: Just fascinating.   [01:19:40] Dr. Joel Wallach: Yeah. If they’d have gotten him gluten-free, gotten him on the 90. If he still wanted pizza, he could have pizza, but it had to have cauliflower gluten-free crust.   [01:19:55] Ashley James: But people say, oh I tried going gluten-free I didn’t notice anything. It’s not something you feel a difference like a peanut allergy. You’re removing something that’s doing damage to the microvilli of the small intestines, you eliminate it completely, and then your intestines then grow back and become strong, especially if you’re supplementing.   [01:20:19] Dr. Joel Wallach: And you have to have the 90.   [01:20:22] Ashley James: Right. And then, like you said, if you’ve been eating gluten, then over time, your bone marrow can’t produce platelets in a healthy way. Your immune system can’t function in a healthy way, and we end up getting autoimmune conditions and inflammatory conditions, but the root of it is a nutrient deficiency and eating foods that are doing damage to the body and the ability for the body to absorb nutrition.   [01:20:47] Dr. Joel Wallach: Here we go, Ashley, when you have these types of diseases, things like cortisone and prednisone can give you some temporary relief. I just love my doctor. Man I had skin problems all my life and he gave me prednisone and cortisone and the itching went away overnight. Within two weeks’ time, the skin problem was gone. Three months later they die.   [01:21:15] Ashley James: Of course, it would temporarily go away. They’re treating symptoms, not getting to the root cause.   [01:21:20] Dr. Joel Wallach: Exactly.   [01:21:21] Ashley James: Right. Dr. Wallach, thank you so much. We’re going to have you back on the show for sure because more questions have poured in from the listeners. I’d love to have you back on and to continue to share this information. You are a godsend. The work you do is absolutely amazing. There’s so much confusion in the nutrient world. What I love about your message is it’s science-based and you are backed by so many years of results. I’ve met thousands of people, myself personally, who have gotten results with you, and you’ve helped millions of people. We just have to get this information out there that we can prevent disease, we can reverse disease, we can prevent birth defects, and we can help ourselves. But also help the planet through proper mineralization and through making sure we’re avoiding the bad foods and ingesting the 90 essential nutrients. Please, listeners, go to takeyoursupplements.com to get on Dr. Wallach’s protocol, to learn more about how you can actually become certified as a health coach learning everything about Dr. Wallach’s protocols. Thank you so much. Is there anything that you’d like to say, Dr. Wallach, to wrap up today’s interview?   [01:22:33] Dr. Joel Wallach: Well, I just want to thank you so much, Ashley. You’re an angel of God. I’m just so proud of you and your husband, all the things you guys do. I’m just blessed that you would ask me to participate with you. We will do great things together, and it’ll be one of those things where right now people are also looking for things to do because of the COVID and they’re being laid off. We’re looking for help. I’m glad you’re working to get these people going. I’m willing to participate and help you do what you’re doing. Of course, we have all the textbooks, CDs and DVDs, and everything like that. It’ll be one of those things where everybody’s going to get the same answer to the same question. They don’t have to be scared and say, oh my God. I don’t know. I’ve never heard of that disease. Well, look it up in Let’s Play Herbal Doctor, Rare Earths: Forbidden Cures, or Epigenetics. Look it up in those books and you’ll find the answers of what it is and then how to deal with it. It’s one of those things where you cannot fail. We’ve been doing this for 50 years. We’ve been doing this for 50 years. We have literally millions and millions and millions of people all over the world, and that’s why we have to travel so much and do worldwide Zooms and so forth. I can’t thank you enough for all the people you’re helping, Ashley. God bless you and your husband. Thank you.   [01:23:55] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today’s interview with Dr. Joel Wallach. Check out takeyoursupplements.com, talk to us for free. Let us help you get on his protocol, and also join the Learn True Health Facebook group because you can ask Dr. Wallach your questions when I have him back on the show next. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing these episodes with those you care about. There are so many amazing episodes on so many fantastic topics. You can go to learntruehealth.com, use the search function on my website. Most of my episodes now have been transcribed, so you can even read through the transcripts. You can listen to the episodes, you can read through the interviews, and you can search through the content to find what you want to learn about. And also, if you have a friend or family member with an illness, an injury, or disease, or a health question, you can use the search function both in the Facebook group and on my website learntruehealth.com to find information to share with those you care about. I can’t talk highly enough about takeyoursupplements.com, so please, go there if you haven’t already. Try it for 30 days. Just try especially the liquid minerals. Give them a try, or just get on the 90 essential nutrients for a month. It’s fantastic. I’ve even had clients stop drinking coffee and no longer even need coffee because they got so much natural energy because the body—when it’s lacking energy and it says get a coffee, an energy drink, or eat more sugar, it’s really desperate for nutrition. When you start to fill up those nutrient tanks with your vitamins, minerals, and trace minerals, it’s amazing how much energy you will get from that. Just give it a try. It’s pretty fantastic. It has really changed my life and all my clients rave about it. I know you will too. Takeyoursupplements.com. And hey, if you want to hear from those listeners who have been working with takeyoursupplements.com, come join the Facebook group and ask or use the search function. There have been a ton of listeners who have shared that they’ve had a great experience working with takeyoursupplements.com and Dr. Wallach’s supplements. Awesome. Thank you so much. Stay tuned. We have some really exciting episodes coming up in the coming weeks. I can’t wait for you to hear them. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day.   Get Connected with Dr. Joel Wallach! The Wallach Revolution The Wallach Files Wellness Publications Youngevity Facebook Twitter Instagram

Kathleentrotter.com Learn True Health Home Kitchen Membership Course: Learntruehealth.com/homekitchen Check out IIN and get a free module: LearnTrueHealth.com/coach   How To Make Fitness Your Lifelong Habit  https://www.learntruehealth.com/how-to-make-fitness-your-lifelong-habit   Highlights: Using data to set up systems Know what you’re putting in your body Guilt versus shame Polyvagal theory Motion is non-negotiable Four different fitness personalities   Is there something in your life that you need to improve? Do you want to be the best version of you? In this episode, Kathleen Trotter teaches us different ways to become a better version of ourselves. She talks about how journaling can help, listing out past data, and creating systems to help us become a better version of ourselves no matter what our goal is. Intro: Hello, true health seekers and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. Today, we have Kathleen Trotter on the show. I’m very excited for you to learn from her. She is giving away a spot in one of her upcoming courses, and it’s very exciting. So as you’re listening today and you think, I would love to learn from Kathleen, you could actually enter to win a free spot in her upcoming class. It’s an online, interactive group coaching class. Please go to our Facebook group, Learn True Health Facebook group. There you will see a pin to the top. In the next few weeks, you’ll see a post to be able to be one of the winners. I ask that you share some unique insight that you really love learning today in the comments. I’ll have my 5 ½-year-old son pick at random a lucky listener from one of the comments. It would just be a wonderful opportunity. I just love it when guests give some of their work to us. Gift their books or gift a spot in their courses. I think that’s quite wonderful. Now, as you’re listening to Kathleen today and you think, I would love to do the kind of work she’s doing. I’d love to do the kind of work Ashley James is doing. I’d love to be able to help people as a health coach. Help them gain more joy in their life, joy in their body, and joy with their food—consider becoming a holistic health coach. Consider becoming an integrative health coach. You can get a free module by going to learntruehealth.com/coach. That’s learntruehealth.com/coach and sign up for the free module to see if health coaching is right for you. Take the free module and you’ll know if it’s something that you’d love to do either for yourself or to improve the health of yourself, your friends, and your family. To add new tools to your tool belt, or to even start a new career. What I love about IIN is that in the first half of the course, you are taught how to be a fantastic health coach. And then in the second half, in addition to learning how to be a fantastic health coach, you actually begin to already work with clients. So you’re still in the program, still able to be mentored while you’re working with clients, and they teach you how to build a successful coaching business. So if you’ve never even started a business before, and you don’t know if you’re confident enough to have those tools, know that their course teaches you how to do it. And it’s about coming from the heart and wanting to help people and getting such satisfaction from helping people. So visit learntruehealth.com/coach or learntruehealth.com/coaching—either one—and you will get the fee module and check it out. If you have more questions, you can email me, ashley@learntruehealth.com, or just google IIN, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and ask some questions. Most of the time, those who answer the phones there are health coaches themselves that have been through the program and are really great in answering questions and giving you all the right information you need. The course was designed for very busy people, especially busy moms. You know that no matter how busy you are, you’re able to finish their online program to become an integrative health coach. As you talk to IIN know that you’re given fantastic savings by being a Learn True Health listener. That’s something I was really honored that they were able to offer my listeners. Make sure you mention my name, Ashley James, and the Learn True Health podcast for fantastic savings. Once in a while, they have great specials as well. It’s good to plug in if you’re interested in becoming a health coach. It’s good to communicate with them and get all your questions answered.  And If you’re not interested in becoming a health coach but you are interested in gaining more tools for health, of course, Kathleen Trotter, our wonderful guest today, is going to teach you many things. You should absolutely follow her. She has some great information. But also, I recommend joining my membership, the Learn True Health Home Kitchen.  I go into the kitchen with my dear friend Naomi, and we show you how to cook healing foods and beverages that are wonderful for the whole family. You don’t have to be completely vegan to eat this food, although we teach you how to eat more plants, and you can incorporate that into your life. You’re going to get more fiber, you’re going to get more vitamins, you’re going to get more nutrients into your life by joining Learn True Health Home Kitchen and following our delicious, wholesome, and healing recipes. So check that out. You can just go to learntruehealth.com and on the top, on the menu, you’ll see join the home kitchen. Check that out. Also, there’s a discount for listeners. Use the coupon code LTH. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. I look forward to seeing you in the Facebook group. Come join us here. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy today’s interview.   [00:05:36] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 446. I am so excited for today’s guest. We have Kathleen Trotter on the show. Her website is kathleentrotter.com, and of course, links to everything that Kathleen does is going to be on the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. Kathleen has a master’s in exercise science, and she’s a life and nutrition coach, which is really exciting because you encompass behavior, change, and looking at the person’s whole life when it comes to helping them do the best exercise routines for them. Now you also have interesting specialties in fascial work. I mean, I just love it. I look down on your bio, and I love all the different training that you’ve been through. You’ve been doing this for over 20 years, you’ve written two books.   [00:06:34] Kathleen Trotter: I love it, really, and it changed my life—health and wellness—so I want it to change other people’s. I have this thing about the health discourse, and it’s too much framed on making people feel about themselves. It’s about how you should be somebody else, and it’s like no, you should be yourself. Thrive in your lane, but just be the strongest, most energetic, and healthiest version of you that you can be. And I think that’s why I try to look and learn as much as possible because the body is super cool. But it’s really complex and there are so many variables that go into who we are and why we change, right? It’s not enough to just know the information. I mean, most of us know it. It’s like drink more water, exercise more. It’s all these shoulds—well do this, do that. And too often, we should all over ourselves without actually being well, what do I want to do? What would make me happy? What’s realistic? It might not be realistic to run every day for you because of injuries or time. The benefits of the best workout or best nutrition program are moot if you can’t actually make yourself do it. It’s about thriving in your own lane and figuring out what’s right for you. But in order to do that, you kind of have to know yourself enough to know do I like having a shake in the morning, or would I rather have eggs? Or is it too crazy in the morning to have eggs at all and should I be having little egg cups that I make on a Sunday? I mean, that sounds like a silly example, but that in itself can be the difference between making a sustainable change about your healthy breakfast or not. If you say, well, every morning I’m going to have eggs and then every morning you wake up and you’re like oh man. I got five kids to get to school and they need breakfast and they hate eggs. Well, it’s just not going to happen. You got to do you, know you, and just consistency and realistic expectations.   [00:08:22] Ashley James: Before we hit record, we were talking about how the motivation to make healthy changes or the motivation to create a new fitness program is short-lived. We oftentimes will come from a place of emotion, right? Feeling guilty, feeling like we should do this, then all of a sudden feeling inspired. We could maybe watch a TV show about health and all of a sudden feel inspired. I remember so many times watching the Biggest Loser or the finale of the Biggest Loser and seeing these really buff chicks. I’m like, okay, I’m getting to the gym tomorrow. When you look at the statistics of gym memberships, there’s a huge spike in January, and then by March they’re cut in half and the attendance goes down and down and down and down, and then it goes back up right after the holidays. We see that there are difficulties in forming healthy habits as a society around fitness, but also the idea of what is fitness? Is it heavily sweating in the gym on a treadmill, and is that really right for everyone? You understand how the body works and what’s best for unique people, right? We all need different things, and so that’s one of the things you specialize in is teaching people how they can create a fitness routine that brings them joy, that makes them want to want to get up and do it every day, but also would be the healthiest thing for them. I can’t tell you how many times I injured myself pushing myself in the gym because it wasn’t really the right training for my body.   [00:10:08] Kathleen Trotter: Absolutely. Well, let me go back to where you started because there are so many amazing concepts that you just threw out, which are awesome, but let’s unpack it a bit. Motivation has to be thought of as akin to an emotion, which means emotions come and go. You get angry, you get sad. The half-life of an emotion is a couple of seconds and then it’s gone. It’s very fast. So what you want to do is if you are in that motivated state, you watch the Biggest Loser or it’s January 1, that’s great. Use that, but use it to create systems for the future you that is going to be sad, that is going to be frustrated, and that is going to be angry. So then, when you have those moments of low motivation, you don’t fall off your horse. I guess it’s a matter of going back to realistic expectations. You have to know that you are human. You’re not perfect, none of us are perfect. You’re not a robot. Thank God. We don’t want robots. We want human beings, and human beings are messy, we’re emotional, and that’s one of our best qualities, but it also means that it’s easy for us to fall off our horse. Okay, a couple of weeks down the road we’ve got the gym membership after January 1, and then we get angry at our spouse or our kids or our boss and we’re just like screw it. I’m not going to go to the gym. And then you end up going home, you binge on some food, you feel kind of crappy, and then that starts this negative downward spiral. So you have to, on January 1, instead of just thinking oh my goodness, I feel amazing right now. And then assuming you’re always going to feel amazing, you have to say, oh I feel amazing right now. That’s great. Let’s harness that feeling of amazing motivation, and let’s use it to create some systems. I know for the last 10 years in a row, by the third week of January, I’m no longer going to the gym. Okay, great. That’s amazing data. Now, how do I use that data from past years to help future me? I think that’s one really key thing is just using your past history of what you like, what you don’t like, what works, what doesn’t, and then you create some systems. If you know that in the past you’ve always been really successful when you’ve had a gym buddy, then maybe have one. And if you can’t go right now with somebody to a gym because of COVID, then maybe you have an accountability buddy that you do over email, or maybe you go for walk and talks with your buddy in your ear. If you know that you really love Pilates, then find an online Pilates class. If you know you hate yoga, so then maybe don’t do yoga. Use what you know about yourself when you’re successful to set up a plan, but you have to set up the system. Why don’t I give you an example? I love fudge bars, and I use this example all the time because I think it’s really, really common. You’re in the grocery store, and I’ll be standing next to the frozen food aisle. I’ll just be thinking, I can buy the bars. You know Kathleen, you’re a personal trainer. You’re going to get home. You’ll be fine. You’re dedicated, you have willpower. You just won’t eat them. The problem is after years of doing this, what I know is the future me at 11:00 PM at night when I’m really tired, I’ve worked a full day, I can’t resist those fudge bars. So what I have done is a system where I don’t allow them to come into my home because I just love them too much, but I buy them and I always leave a box at my mom’s. If I want one, I can walk over. We can have a visit, I can enjoy one bar but I don’t binge on six bars at a time and then feel frustrated with myself. The systems are what you set up in the future for the future you. If you know you need to work out in the morning because that’s what works for your schedule but you hate working out in the morning, then maybe you have to set out your workout clothes the night before so they’re there. I actually sleep in my workout clothes often if I know that I have to work out really early. This morning, I had to do my workout about 5:000 AM in the morning, so I slept in my workout clothes because it’s one less thing between me and my workout. You take out as much friction as possible, you take it away. You make those healthy habits as convenient as possible. You make your unhealthy habits as inconvenient as possible. Put your alarm clock across the room so you have to get out of bed and turn it off versus just hitting the snooze button. Take all the crap out of your house because if it’s in your house, you or somebody you love will eventually eat it. One of the things that work is understanding this idea of present bias. The brain has many cognitive distortions that normally trick us a little bit. They trick us unconsciously. It’s not that we think, oh, I’m going to trick myself. It’s that we don’t understand until we become mindful of it that the brain feels that however we feel at this moment is how we’re always going to feel. Meaning, January 1 you think, I feel really motivated, without having to consciously think, oh well therefore I will always feel motivated. That’s what your brain thinks, but you have to say to the brain well, no, I’m not going to always feel motivated. What are the systems? But it also goes the other way that when you wake up in the morning, it’s 5:00 AM, and you’re tired, your brain thinks oh my God, I’m always going to be tired. Because you’re tired at that moment. Okay, well I always snooze my alarm too many times in the morning, so my system is to set the alarm across the room. And then, I also have to have the self-talk ready to say okay self, you feel tired at this moment but future you will feel better. That’s something I get my clients to work with all the time. It’s just this taking a pause and realizing that the moment that you’re in is not going to last. Emotions, as we talked about earlier, they dissipate. You feel something else. That’s the key to the emotion and the emotional wave. How you surf that emotional wave is so important because we all have moments of low motivation. There are lots of times I don’t want to work out. There are lots of times I want to eat tons and tons of chocolate, but I don’t have chocolate in my house. I have systems set up that nudge me towards the healthier choices, and I’ve learned a lot. This has been 20 years that I’ve been in the fitness field. I use every experience as data to help my future self. It’s a slow process, right? It’s not just like a pass-fail thing. You don’t automatically become healthy and then it’s easy. It’s always a struggle, and I wasn’t born fit either. I think that’s also really key is I know that for the first half of my life I lived, I felt really ashamed of my body I had a lot of body shame. I did anything to get out of gym class. I never moved. I was overweight. I had to learn these systems. It never came naturally to me. Everybody listening, if you’re thinking, oh my God, Kathleen sounds like she’s got this all figured out. Believe you me, it has taken a long time, and I still struggle. I struggle, struggle, struggle, but it gets a little bit easier every single day as you learn more skills and as you learn to just say future me is going to be happier if I work out. I never regret a workout, and the future me is going to be happier if I have some water and I just take a moment to take a pause and think. What’s going to serve me at this moment? I don’t know. Do you have a trick? Do you have a system? Do you have a favorite system?   [00:17:00] Ashley James: I love what you just said about I never regret a workout. I love that.   [00:17:06] Kathleen Trotter: That’s so true.   [00:17:07] Ashley James: I do the future you feel better. Actually, what I do is when I’m lying in bed, just waking up, I imagine myself an hour later. An hour later I’m going to feel so good. I imagine myself already awake. I have a very comfortable bed. My mattress is the best mattress in the world. I actually interviewed the founder of the company that created this mattress. It has space-age technology. It’s like NASA technology in it, and it makes it so there’s no pressure points—absolutely no pressure points. It doesn’t matter how much you weigh, it doesn’t matter what shape you are in. It actually is used to heal stage four bedsores—this technology—because it takes 100% of the pressure off and evenly distributes your body, so no matter what position you’re in, your spine is perfectly aligned. When I wake up, I’m floating on the cloud.   [00:18:02] Kathleen Trotter: You want to stay in bed. You’re like, I don’t want to move at all.   [00:18:03] Ashley James: If you’ve ever had a mattress where you wake up in the morning and you’re sore because you want to get out of that bed because it’s like, oh I’ve been lying in bed too long. I’m sore. That does not happen with my bed. You could stay in this bed for 24 hours. You’re not going to be sore from staying in this bed. When I wake up, every fiber of my being wants to continue to enjoy the comfort of this bed. I’m still a little tired. I’m groggy. I’m just waking up. But you know what, since I’ve done so many things for my health over the years, I have more and more and more energy in the morning, which really helps to get up. So going to bed early, not eating late at night. Even doing a bit of intermittent fasting where I push supper back to 5:00 PM or 6:00 PM and then no snacking afterward. So you go to bed on an empty stomach. Drink enough water, so drink like 120 ounces of water a day, but finish that 120 ounces by about 6:00 PM so that you have enough time to pee before bed. But go to bed at 10:00 PM because the circadian rhythm gets totally thrown off and we have a huge cortisol spike. Therefore insulin is then affected. Then we have a blood sugar imbalance if we stay up past 10:00 PM. It doesn’t matter what time zone you’re in. Something magical about 10:00 PM has a cortisol spike if we continue to stay up past 10:00 PM. So when I go to bed before 10:00 PM—falling asleep around 10:00 PM—I wake up in the morning with way more energy, way more vitality, no inflammation, and it’s easier to get out of bed. But there’s a little voice in my head that goes oh, this feels so good. Let’s just stay here. Or oh, I’m tired. Maybe I could fall back asleep, hit the snooze button. I have to imagine myself after I’ve gotten up, gone to the bathroom and put clothing on. That future me an hour from now is ready, pumped, and doing the day already. I’m like, yeah, I want to be my future self. Let’s get out of bed.   [00:20:09] Kathleen Trotter: I think you said a number of things that are really important, but I want to highlight the biggest thing is that you have got a lot of data about yourself. I think that with health, the problem is that we listen to people like you and me, and then you think oh my God, they have it all figured out. But we have it figured out because we’ve done a lot of trial and error. And this is really important. If anybody’s listening, if you get one thing from this, it’s that you don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to get great. So all the things you just said like you know you need to be in bed by 10:00 PM. You know intermittent fasting works for you. You know how much waterworks at what time. Well, that’s all great, but that comes from years of figuring it out and what works for you, and everyone’s going to be slightly different. So for me, I definitely do windows of intermittent fasting as well, but I also work out very early in the morning. So 5:00 PM would be too early a cut off for me because then for me, personally, I won’t feel strong in my workout the next morning. So I think the trick with people listening is there’s no right or wrong. I mean, there are definitely principles that are important, but we can really get in our own way when we think that things have to be perfect. When we’re listening to a podcast and we’re like, okay, I got to be done eating by 5:00 PM. I got to be asleep by 10:00 PM. I have to do this much. You have to figure out what works for you, but you can’t figure out what works for you until you actually try stuff. Be okay with your messiness. Again, I go back to we’re human, but more than that, think of life as like this science experiment. Everything you do is data. So if you do a workout that you hate, that’s great. Now you know you don’t like that workout. If you end up staying up and eating a little bit too much food and then you feel kind of gross and you can’t sleep, great. Don’t do that again. That doesn’t work. If you decide to work out every single morning and then listen to your kids get you up and you can’t work out in the morning and you have to do it at lunchtime, great. That’s data. The trick is to have this really fine line of having compassion for your compassion for yourself but also holding yourself accountable. So it’s not like oh, I ate at 11:00 PM at night. Oh, this made me feel crappy. Oh, well, I’ll do it again because Kathleen told me to love myself. No, I ate at 11:00 PM. Oh wow, I can’t sleep. Okay, so interesting. Kathleen told me to love myself. If I love myself, I really need a good night’s sleep. So how do I figure out how to eat a little bit earlier? It’s this really tricky thing of you act, then you analyze the action, and then you implement that action. But you have to act in order to analyze. Don’t get caught up on all the things we’re talking about and then just basically be like oh, screw it. I’ll never be as good as them, or I’ll never get it all figured out. I’m just going to stay in bed. To create an evening routine takes some work. I just started intermittent fasting. I do it more just like I call it the close the kitchen window after a certain time. I never eat after 8:00 PM. Normally, I don’t eat after about 6:30 PM, 7:00 PM. But the thing about it is I didn’t do that until a couple of years ago, and I didn’t realize how great it made me feel until I started doing it. So if I’d done this podcast three years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to say like yeah I completely agree. That feels amazing. But if I had tried it and I hadn’t liked it, guess what, I then wouldn’t do it. So you try something. You try a Zumba class. If it doesn’t work, hey, it’s not for you. Try going out for a jog. You don’t like it, you had a bad route, or bad running shoes—it’s data. And then you have to decide what stays and what you ditch.  James Clear has this really lovely quote that you have to standardize before you can optimize, and that’s really key because we all get into optimization before we get the basics down. Just start drinking some water. It might not be “enough.” It might not be as much as I would drink or Ashley James would drink, but you know what, if it’s more than what you did yesterday, it’s trending positively. And then you can figure out maybe you need a little bit more or a little bit less. Yes, maybe over five servings of vegetables would be great. But if you’re eating zero right now, start with one. Start, standardize, and figure out what works for you. Know that each of the choices that you make can change tomorrow. First of all, as you learn, not only can they change, but they should change as you get older, as your goals change, as you evolve. If I was still making the same choices as I did when I was 20, there’d be a problem. Every decade, things will change, the season that you’re in will change. COVID changed everything. Having kids will change everything. Any time there’s a life change there’s going to be a transition. So you can’t be like Ashley James does this, Kathleen Trotter does that, or I did this last year. I did this five years ago so I have to stay with it. No, it’s about being curious, but also holding yourself accountable because you really care and you respect yourself, your life, and that data. Knowing that each thing that you choose is a vote for the future you that you want to be. Again, I’m quoting James Clear. I absolutely love him. I don’t know if you’ve read the book Atomic Habits, but if you haven’t, if anybody’s listening, such an awesome book. He talks about all this stuff like how do you make habits small enough that they make it different. Small enough that you can do them, but big enough that they make a difference. That they compound, and that you’re creating the future you that you want. Because often, at the moment, things seem like not a big deal. Oh, it’s okay. I can have that hamburger, or I can skip a workout. But imagine if five years from now you skip everyday workouts, or you have hamburgers every single day and fries. That future you is not going to be the healthiest you that you want, but it goes the other way too. You often think, oh well, what does it matter if I have a salad or not? But it’s like, well yeah, but if you have a salad every single day for the next five years, that will matter. The compound interest of everything really does make a difference. I encourage everybody to just listen to what we say and think oh interesting. This is all information that could work for me and maybe won’t work for me. I could try it. It could be part of my science experiment that is my health. Most of the time, there’s really good principles that underlie all the actual information. What’s that Aristotle quote? It’s the mark of an educated man for the person who can entertain an idea without believing it or without taking it for certainty or something. You look it up. It’s a great quote, but basically, what it says is to listen to everything and decide what works for you. Try to figure out the underlying principles behind it. Weight Watchers, for example, you count your points. You might say, well, I’m not somebody who wants to count points. I’d rather count calories, or I’d rather count macros or whatever. All of that is good, but it’s all just an example of doing the same thing, which is becoming aware of what you put in your mouth. So the principle of basically every single way of eating is to know what you’re putting in your body, and then how you do it will depend on what works for you. If you’re somebody who’s really in love with having a community, then maybe you’re like oh, Weight Watchers is for me because that’s what I want. But if you’re somebody who’s not, maybe you do food delivery service, or maybe you’re more into vegan, vegetarianism, or whatever it is. But either way, no matter what you do, whatever food system you do, you have to be aware of what you put in your body. I’m a big believer in starting to just really see the principles behind actions and using everything as data for the recipe of success that will work for you.   [00:27:13] Ashley James: Yes. There’s a lot that I really like about Weight Watchers because they’re not telling you what to eat. You could be vegan, you could be whole food plant-based. You could do keto very well on Weight Watchers, but there are many healthy ways of eating that you could do. I love that there’s a system. I love that they really focus on more fiber. We are not getting enough fiber as a society. On average, North Americans eat 15 grams of fiber. I don’t know about those in Mexico, but I know Canadians, the United States, and other countries that eat very similar sorts of American diets. You get about 15 grams of fiber a day, which is horrible. We want to aim towards closer to 50 grams of fiber. You have to be incredibly intentional to get to 50 grams of fiber. I love this advice—grab a variety of vegetables so you’re always doing different ones.   [00:28:07] Kathleen Trotter: Absolutely. Most colors.   [00:28:08] Ashley James: And as you’re prepping them, so you’re chopping them up, take a handful, put them aside, and eat whatever you’re chopping up. You’re going to eat a few handfuls of raw while you’re cooking, and then steam every day two pounds of vegetables and snack on them. Have them with your meals, have them as a snack while you’re cooking other stuff. Have it on the go. Do it al dente so it’s not like soggy vegetables, and then you can make all kinds of great healthy sauces you can make. I love spicy things so I can put spicy sauces on it. But there are all kinds. You can drizzle different balsamic, which can taste absolutely amazing, or mustard, or whatever. If you can get two pounds of a variety of vegetables—both raw and cooked—into you, it doesn’t have to be a ton of raw, but just munch on some raw while you’re prepping it. Steaming is the easiest thing in the world. Boil water, throw it in the steamer. I have a bamboo steamer you get at the Asian market.   [00:29:05] Kathleen Trotter: Come to your house. You could cook for me.   [00:29:07] Ashley James: Yeah, I love those things. They stack, and I put it on top of a wok or a big pot that it fits on top of. Set a timer. I’ve forgotten that it was cooking something on the stove. Come back half an hour later. I’m like oh my gosh.   [00:29:21] Kathleen Trotter: Oh my gosh. I’ve done that so many times.   [00:29:22] Ashley James: So set a timer on the stove, or use the Instant Pot. You can steam stuff in the Instant Pot super quick as well. But basically, if you can steam, and always choose a variety. You want a nutrient profile that’s a variety, but also you don’t get bored.   [00:29:38] Kathleen Trotter: Each food has a different nutritional profile.   [00:29:41] Ashley James: Yeah, so today’s broccoli and cauliflower. Tomorrow’s a bunch of different colored green beans. The next day is different red peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini. But basically, it takes less than 10 minutes to do it in the kitchen and just carry it with you throughout the day and snack on it. Then maybe bring some hummus with you, some baba ghanoush, or some kind of dip. There are ways to make it really quick and you’re getting way more new nutrition into you. You’re getting nutrient-dense but lower-calorie food by eating two pounds of vegetables. Two pounds of non-starchy vegetables is about 200 calories, and it’s so much fiber that it really makes a difference. Fiber helps the body to eliminate hormones we no longer need in the body, toxins. It helps to balance blood sugar levels, helps with weight loss. I mean, the list goes on and on. It feeds the microbiome.   [00:30:42] Kathleen Trotter: I think that’s a great tip, and I think that the word you used really early on, you said intentional. I remember once being at a talk with Rachel Hollis, and she said, the trick to health is being intentional AF, intentional as fork, right? And I think that’s really, really important. I love that system, and I think that would be, for me, an example of what I would say to a client is a system.  Have a time where you’re prepping food. Prep a bunch of different things. Cut up vegetables, steam some vegetables, and have things ready and prepped because I think that’s a great system. Especially if you know at 3:00 PM you’re always feeling a little bit peckish for sugar. Then it’s like, oh, well but I have these vegetables already prepared. So it’s not like I “had to have this snack” or “it was just right there.” I think intentional is a keyword about your health because a lot of us get swept up by life, and we don’t design our habits. They sort of happen by default, and we often will say, well, I had to do this. My clients would say this all the time. I was out and about and I got really hungry, so I had to have this chocolate bar. If they were taking your advice, they would be carrying some cut up vegetables with them, or they would have an apple and a couple of almonds. They would have a snack, right? So that goes with being intentional, and intentional is connected to having those systems ready. But it’s also connected to knowing yourself because if you know 3:00 PM is the time that you always have a sugary snack, then instead of just being like, oh well, I always have that sugary snack. Boy, I’m a bad person. And then feeling shame, guilt, and frustration. Then be like, oh, interesting. I always have a 3:00 PM sugary snack. What can I do about it? Maybe you’re not having enough vegetables, healthy fats, and protein at lunch. So that’s maybe why you’re craving sugar. Maybe you’re frustrated always at your boss. Maybe you need to go for a walk. Maybe you need to have those vegetables ready and prepped. But if you use that as data, then you can create a system that works for you because you’re being intentional and mindful about your health. I have to use every opportunity as I can to bring in Brené Brown because I love her. I think what she would say at this moment is it’s really important to understand the difference between guilt and shame. We’ll just go with this 3:00 PM snack. If you always have the sugary 3:00 PM snack, then if you go into a shame spiral about it, it’s more often going to lead to further negative habits for your health like skipping a workout, having more sugar at dinner. So shame is connected to you as a person. I have a 3:00 PM sugary snack every day, so I’m a bad person. Versus guilt is connected to the behavior. I have a 3:00 PM snack every day. That’s not a behavior I want to replicate. How can I learn from that? You see the difference between a behavior and thinking it’s you as a human. When you connect behaviors to shame and feelings of lack of worth and that that you’re never going to be good enough, then it just makes your nervous system and your emotional brain want to continue with those negative habits, right? Because we often do those emotionally soothing habits. We’re trying to self-soothe, we’re emotionally distant, or whatever we’re doing is normally because we’re very anxious or we’re stressed. But the problem is then you have that sugary snack and that causes more of that feeling or emotion that made you want to have that sugary snack in the first place. It’s this terrible self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a negative spiral. So again, I go back to using it as data and understanding the guilt versus shame and being like, okay, so I don’t love that behavior. How do I change it? I circle back to that self-talk and the systems that we were talking about earlier because it’s about having self-talk that serves you because you respect yourself. Let’s say your kid came home and they got a bad math grade. You wouldn’t say to this child, you’re a loser. You might as well just quit math. That would be a shame-inducing response because that’s them of them as a person. You would say to them, oh, interesting. You’ve got a bad math grade. Are you stressed right now? Do you need a tutor? How can I support you better? Are you being bullied at school? Are you not getting enough sleep? When you talk to yourself about your health, about your exercise, about your sugary snacks, about what time you’re finishing eating, if you’re having enough fiber. All of those things, you have to talk to yourself like you would talk to your kid who brought home a bad math grade. This is data to be analyzed and then think about the idea of cutting up the vegetables. That’s a great system because you want to make healthy choices as convenient as possible. And then you want to make unhealthy choices as inconvenient as possible. Don’t have the crap in the house that you could snack on. So then you’re like, oh, well there’s nothing really to eat other than these vegetables and this lean protein. Okay, well, I’m going to go for it. I love that.   [00:35:46] Ashley James: But also, I think it’s very easy this day and age to order out. Oh, I don’t feel like cooking. There’s nothing in. Even go as far as to prep food and have meals already cooked in the fridge for sure.   [00:36:00] Kathleen Trotter: Or prep different ingredients. Have a bunch of quinoa, have a bunch of chicken breasts, have a bunch of veggies cut up, so then you can whip up—I call them hot-cold salads with greens on the bottom and then a bunch of hot stuff on the top. Or a quinoa bowl or whatever it is, but you want to make the healthy choices as fast as unhealthy choices or faster, and yummy too, right? You want to make it realistic and something that you find yummy.  I did a BT segment this morning, and we were talking about sort of similar ideas and I was using my mom as an example. I love my mom. She’s amazing, but she hates chocolate. I love chocolate as I said earlier. I was saying, if she was going to make a shake in the morning—because we were talking about shakes being healthy things you could pre-assemble the night before or have things ready and just sort of grab and go.  If I said to her that she had to have a shake with chocolate protein powder, avocado, and almond butter, she would be like that’s disgusting. I’m not going to do it. If I said to her she had to go for a run, she would be like I hate running. I’m not going to do it. Whereas she loves yoga, she loves walking the dog, and she loves vanilla things. If somebody said to me, well, your exercise routine is going to be yoga and vanilla protein shakes. I’d be like, oh gross. I’m not going to do it. So part of it is like knowing what you love and what you will actually do. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be what you love but at least what you don’t despise so that you can do it on a consistent basis. It has to be convenient. What you do once in a while doesn’t matter. It’s what you do most of the time that’s much more important. So figure out what you do consistently.   [00:37:33] Ashley James: Yes, that’s a great point to bring up. In my intake form for my clients, I have a question. What percentage of food do you eat out, or what percentage of food is not home-cooked? What percentage of food is home-cooked, are not home-cooked? Either way. At first, my clients will say, oh 80% of my food is home-cooked or whatever. It’s a high number, and then about a week in they’ll say, you know what, I’ve spent the last week thinking about that question. I realized that it’s closer to 30% of my food is home-cooked. It’s so easy to forget. If you’re not keeping track of the last week, the last month, or the last year, it’s so easy to forget. It’s so easy to eat out, so many food delivery services. It’s just so easy to eat this food. And the thing is, even if you think you ordered something somewhat healthy—some kind of delivery food—restaurants choose the lowest quality ingredients because it saves them money.   [00:38:36] Kathleen Trotter: And big portions too.   [00:38:38] Ashley James: You’re hard-pressed to find a locally-sourced, fresh, organic, no fried food, no oil. You’re hard-pressed to find this super healthy food if it’s takeout. One thing that I get my clients to do is we do these fun routines of stuff that they like so that they’re eating more and more and more food that’s home prepped. You instantly feel better when you’ve cut it out because there’s hidden sugar, there’s excess hidden salt, and there’s a ton of hidden oils that are really bad. They’re horrible. They’re polyunsaturated fatty acids that are absolutely horrible for us, and they disrupt our body’s ability to balance omegas healthfully. There are other kinds there. Just think of what they’re cooking. These restaurants use non-stick, so there are toxins. There are all kinds of toxins in that food. Yeah, it tastes good because it’s excitatory. It’s salt, sugar, and oil, and it’s not the kind of thing that you would have in your food if you cooked at home. It’s just looking at what percentage are you eating out every day as a habit and figuring out how to get most of your food cooked at home where you know exactly what’s going into your body.   [00:40:03] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah. I think all of your points are fantastic, but I think what I was laughing at is you said people say, well, only a little bit do I eat out. And then eventually, they think, oh no, actually it’s more. I think that’s across the board with so many habits. I often joke with my clients that we all underestimate our unhealthy habits and overestimate our healthy habits. I’ll say, how much junk food do you eat, or what do you like to eat? Oh, I like chips. Oh, how often do you have chips? Oh, not very often. It’s a treat, they’ll tell me. I’m like, okay, great. Why don’t you just start to become mindful of how often you have that treat. What’s funny is what most of us learn to appreciate is that what we think are treats are actually much more norms. I’m all for having a treat once in a while. I think that savoring something that you love is really important. I call it my love it rule. You want to make sure that you have moderate amounts of things that you love, but you don’t mindlessly eat a bunch of crap that’s not good for you. But I think the problem is people end up thinking what they’re doing is a once in a while love it rule treat, and really it’s daily. It’s not a treat. It’s actually just a normal thing. Again, it goes back to that understanding the principles of healthy eating. Basically, the key principle is just awareness. I love the quote, with awareness brings choice. You can’t choose healthier habits or to change anything if you don’t know what you’re doing at this moment. Keeping a food journal is great for a couple of weeks just to see what are the things that are actually treats versus what are the things I’m doing on a daily basis that aren’t serving me. And then you can decide. Because as I said, I love these fudge bars. They’re terrible for me. They’re full of absolute crap. But twice a year, in the summer, if I want to go and sit with my mom outside on the porch and have one, I’m fine with that. But I’m not fine with having like six of them a week because they’re both bad for my body. And then when you overeat, they’re also then bad for your soul, your emotional being, or whatever. If you’re going to have something that’s not good for your body, at least you want to savor it and have it only a couple of times a year. It should be something that you absolutely love. That’s something I really talk about with my clients. It’s just this choice value of taking a moment, pausing, and just deciding is this worth it? What nutrition is this getting for me? What is this doing for my body? To circle back to what we started with, how is my future self going to feel if I have this? Because often, at the moment, we want things. But often, the things that we want at the moment are not the things that serve us long term. So much of health is not letting our momentary desires and impulses dictate our behaviors. I think that, unfortunately, a lot of us have learned that skill with other things. We want to skip work, but we still go. You might get really angry with somebody, but you don’t punch them in the face. We’ve learned, okay, well my desire is to not go to work, but I have to go anyway. My desire is to get violent right now, but I’m not going to do that. But for some reason, a lot of us with our health, we haven’t figured out how to not let our impulses and desires dictate our behaviors as much. Some of us have and listen, that’s hard. But I think that’s where the awareness comes in because you can say, oh interesting. Every time I get mad at somebody I want to eat a cookie. Is the cookie worth it? Is it going to make me happy? If I’m angry at that person, should I just have a conversation with the person that I’m angry with? Maybe they shouldn’t be my friend, or maybe we need to set better boundaries. I like to tell my clients, all emotions are data, but they’re not directives. You can feel something. You can use it as data, but that doesn’t mean you have to do the thing that you want to do or act the way that you have always acted. Maybe when you’re sad, as opposed to binging on food that you’re going to feel really crappy about later, you have a bath, you phone a friend, or you meditate. But still honoring the emotion that you’re in and then going from there. I think it all comes back to awareness, being able to figure out what are my norms versus what are my treats, and knowing yourself. I think that what you just said about not ordering in and cooking, part of why it’s so important to cook is that it actually takes a lot more intentionality and a lot more of awareness. It’s really easy in your not aware self to comb the internet and be like okay, well, Uber is going to deliver me this, this, and this. It’s in a haze of emotion. Whereas if you have to cook it at home, you have had to think about what am I going to buy? You have to plan your week. Am I going to cook this salad, or am I going to cook chicken?  There’s a lot more thought that goes into what am I bringing into my house? Is it a good quality olive oil? Is it an avocado oil? What vegetables? Where did I buy it? Is it from a local farm? It’s slightly harder to be super emotional about it if you’re planning in advance all of your food.   [00:45:13] Ashley James: Right. Well, you can’t do some instant gratification too if you’re planning it out.   [00:45:17] Kathleen Trotter: Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. You’re taking away some of that desire. I mean, if you bring crap into the house, you can still at 11:00 PM at night binge on it. That’s where we go back to making as much tension between you and those habits as possible. I just don’t bring crap into the house that I don’t want to eat.   [00:45:40] Ashley James: Right. For me, this started a long time ago. I don’t bring alcohol into the house, and I don’t bring sugar into the house. I really love chocolate, but I find—and this is something I want to bring up—that my taste buds and my cravings have significantly changed in the last 10 years along my health journey.  Ten years ago, I would have identified as a night owl, a chocoholic. You could not keep me away from chocolate. Now, I really can take it or leave it, but I have a brand. It’s called Lily, and I get the vegan dark chocolate sweetened with stevia two bars a month, and I don’t even eat the whole bar. Before, 10 years ago, whatever bar I’d get I’d have to finish. Now, I can have a few pieces, be like, that was yummy, and then I’m done. I’m satisfied. I just noticed that my taste buds, even in the last three years since I’ve been whole food plant-based, eating more and more whole ingredients. A variety of fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and gluten-free greens. I just noticed that my taste buds have changed.   [00:46:54] Kathleen Trotter: Absolutely. You trended differently. You’re just slowly changing into it. I know for sure.   [00:47:01] Ashley James: Recently, I ate something that I used to love 10 years ago. I’m like, this doesn’t even taste good anymore. I don’t know. I used to get all excited about it. Now, I’m like, you know what, I can get really excited about a huge salad with 20 different vegetables. I start salivating. If you say the word kale, I have a Pavlovian response.   [00:47:27] Kathleen Trotter: Like brussels sprouts, roasted, oh my God.   [00:47:30] Ashley James: Right, roasted brussels sprouts are amazing. Any kind of hummus, any kind of hummus and carrots, or anything crunchy. These foods are fantastic and delicious. The past me from 10 years ago is like what are you doing? This is disgusting. And the me now is I love this. I think even if you don’t love-love vegetables now, just try them on and find the ones you do love, and your taste buds will change. There’s evidence to show that your microbiome is what causes us to have cravings because the microbiome hijacks it. It actually makes like neurochemicals that hijack our brain. So when we have an overgrowth of candida, for example, an overgrowth of bacteria that is more negative, that’s more harmful to the body, it will tell us to crave things that are really harmful. And if we choose to eat healthier foods for a long period of time, we end up culturing a microbiome that then tells us we love those foods.   [00:48:37] Kathleen Trotter: I have to tell you a funny story. I grew up, as I said earlier, really unhealthy and really unfit. Do you guys have East Side Mario’s in the states?   [00:48:45] Ashley James: No, they don’t.   [00:48:46] Kathleen Trotter: Okay, it doesn’t matter. But it’s like a pasta place. I grew up, as I said, I was overweight. I was unhealthy. I never exercised, and I used to love East Side Mario’s.   [00:48:55] Ashley James: Me too.   [00:48:56] Kathleen Trotter: Not only did I love East Side Mario’s, but I loved the three-cheese cappelletti. It was pasta with cheese on the inside and then covered in cheese. It was disgusting. Anyway, around 17 I started to get healthier. My life changed. That’s a whole story that we can get into if you want, but around 23, 24, I hadn’t had East Side Mario’s for like six years. I was running a half marathon. I was running with my friend, and I’ll never forget. We went through a hard time in the race, and I was like, oh my God. I’m going to die. She said, if you just get through this, you can have any meal you want. I was like, okay. We’re going to go to East Side Mario’s. She was like, fine, whatever. So that got me through the race, this idea of I’m going to East Side Mario’s. It’s going to be amazing. So we get to East Side Mario’s, and I ordered my food. I’m so excited. The food came and it was so gross. Not only did it taste bad. I literally did not like them. This is just exactly what you’re saying in the taste buds. Not only did I not enjoy eating it, because I hadn’t had pasta or cheese. None of that crap was I eating, but it made me so physically ill. It was so gross. That was when I was about 24. I’m now almost 38, and I haven’t had East Side Mario’s since. But it’s exactly to your point. Our taste buds change, and that’s why it’s really important to be curious about different things because we will, hopefully, evolve. I don’t want to be the same person in 10 years that I am now like. That’s the whole point of living. I know 10 years ago I wouldn’t have told you that I love sauerkraut, but oh boy do I love sauerkraut now. It’s so good.   [00:50:30] Ashley James: Oh yes. Fermented food.   [00:50:32] Kathleen Trotter: But you have to be curious. Yeah, so good, and so good for your gut and all this stuff. At the age of 15, I would have told you that what I liked was Orange Crush, East Side Mario’s, and as much chocolate and sugary penny candy as you could. We’d go to 7-Eleven and you’d get these big feet and all that kind of stuff. Now, if you try to make me do that, just thinking about that stuff makes me vomit. Do you know what I mean?   [00:50:59] Ashley James: Yes.   [00:51:00] Kathleen Trotter: Okay. One more example of this, and this is just to give everybody hope if they’re listening they’re like, what, are you guys crazy? I’m not going to like East Side Mario’s? I, again, love chocolate, but I used to eat a lot more of it. Now, it’s really only a couple times a year, and it’s very good quality chocolate. Well, except for the fudge bars. They’re not good quality, but anyway. That’s beside the point. When I did my first Ironman—I think I was 25—and my partner James, he was like what do you want when you’re done with Ironman. I was like, well, for 10 years, I haven’t had a Blizzard. I used to love Dairy Queen. We’re in Lake Placid and there’s no Dairy Queen. I just say to him you have to make me a homemade Blizzard. He goes to the grocery store and he buys all these ingredients. I finished Ironman and he makes me this thing. It had brownie bits and all these different stuff. I had one bite, and I was like, I want to vomit. Not only did this make me feel sick because I just did an Ironman, but it was terrible quality ice cream, terrible quality chocolate, and it didn’t taste good. I didn’t want it. But again, if you told my 15-year-old self that one day I would turn down a homemade Blizzard, I would literally tell you that you were crazy. I would do anything. I used to lie to get out of gym class. I would say I was sick because I didn’t want to change in front of anybody. I would walk home to school and I would time my walks so that I could stop, get fish and chips, and eat it while I was walking. And then I had mouthwash in my bag that I would wash my mouth out so my mom wouldn’t know that I was eating this type of food. I would go to the grocery store. I would buy a bag of M&M’s. I’d eat the entire bag of M&M’s, and then I’d go back to the grocery store. I was so full of shame that I would lie to the teller and say that I dropped the bag of M&M’s on the floor and therefore I needed to buy another one. These are the types of games I played. I would go to Subway and I want a 12-inch sub. So I would buy a 12-inch sub and I would tell the person I was buying it for me and my friend that we were going to split it, but I just wanted the entire 12-inch sub. I lied, I would say, three times a day at least about my food to my mom, to my dad, to everybody. It was just my taste buds, my self-esteem, and my self-worth. Everything changed, but it changed gradually. It’s not that I woke up one day and is all of a sudden this Kathleen that’s 37. The first time I went to the gym, I walked for 10 minutes. I got off the treadmill, and I thought I was going to vomit. You know when you’ve never been on a treadmill and you’re on that belt, and then you get off and the room is all spinny? That’s what happened to me after 10 minutes. I was like I can’t do this anymore. But then I just kept going, and I went back. The next time I went was 15 minutes, and then 20 minutes. You got to embrace the little wins especially when you’re first starting. Those little wins, that’s what accumulates and eventually makes those big changes.   [00:53:50] Ashley James: I like that you said trending positive. I think that’s going to be my new motto.   [00:53:55] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, it’s great. It’s not a linear journey. Also, that’s another thing that’s really important to understand is it’s a hill and you want a trend, but you’re going to have paradigm shifts. But within each paradigm, you’re going to go up and down. It’s not that every single day is better than the day that was before, but I can definitely tell you that in my 30s, I have healthier habits than in my 20s, and in my 20s I had healthier habits than in my teens.  On a whole, my demons have kind of softened, and on a whole, my habits are much healthier. On a whole, if I fall off my horse, the fall is much less severe. I get back on much faster, and I learn. I love the idea of everyone’s going to fall off the horse, but it’s how quickly do you course correct and how much do you learn from that experience? My falling off the horse now might just be snoozing my alarm five times and missing half of my workout. But 10 years ago, what might have happened is if I’d snoozed my alarm five times, I might have been like, oh well, who cares. I’ll just skip the entire workout. Now I’m like, no. Even if I can only do 20 minutes, 20 minutes is better than nothing. The slips are different. I learn better, and I’m better at not berating myself and being so unbelievably mean to myself about the slips. It’s much more of a growth process. I love the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. I don’t know if you know that book, but it’s all about growth mindset, and it’s so unbelievably important with everything. But particularly, I think about our health because I think we expect perfection and then I think perfection is not possible. And then when we can’t be perfect, most of us just quit. I think it’s so much, much, much, more important to have a growth mindset and to just trend in the right direction.  Know that you’re human and know you’re going to make mistakes. But can you make mistakes at a different level? Can you make mistakes on your jog versus on your walk? Or can you make mistakes on your workout versus making mistakes sitting and not doing anything? As you said, trend in the right direction and know there’s always going to be a struggle. What’s that phrase? It’s like a new level, new devil. Every level you get to, every paradigm shift about your health, there’s always going to be a devil that you’re fighting, but it’s just going to be a different devil.   [00:56:09] Ashley James: That’s really interesting. I don’t know if it’s the Kabbalah, but there’s a belief in the archetypes that the devil archetype is us standing behind ourselves with a pitchfork poking ourselves in the back. So it’s actually like a duplicate of you standing behind you testing your resolve.  Let’s say you’re a smoker and you’re like, today’s the day I’m going to quit. Five minutes from now you see people smoking outside, and there’s that little devil which is actually you. Little voice in your head poking you with the pitchfork in the back going, are you sure? Are you sure? How about this? Here, I’m going to give you people smoking in front of you. Are you sure? Now I’m going to give you a stressful situation because that was your go-to to handle it? Are you sure? Are you sure? I’m not saying that the devil does or doesn’t exist. What I’m saying is that the archetype of any time we put out to the universe, we say this is my new norm now. This is my new goal. This is my new me. There’s an archetype of the devil testing our resolve. We just have to know that’s like, okay, I will not back down. Yes, I’m going to be tested and I’m going to prove to myself, I’m going to prove to that devil hitting me with the pitchfork, yes, I do have resolve. This is the new norm I’m working towards. I wanted to touch on the guilt versus shame again because I think it’s really important. You talked about doing these little habits. Let’s say the person goes for a 10-minute walk and the shame might be there. Guilt is regretting actions or inactions.   [00:58:00] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, so guilt is the behavior. You can feel like, oh, I wish I’d done 20 minutes versus 10. I wish I didn’t go faster. It’s on the behavior. But as soon as you put it to, well, I’m the type of person who’s lazy, or I’m a failure. That’s what’s problematic. It’s one thing to acknowledge behaviors. I’m huge into growth and being—as I said, that balance between compassion and striving. I definitely believe in goals and striving. But you want to make sure that you have compassion, and compassion and shame do not go hand in hand.   [00:58:36] Ashley James: Yes. So shame, which is really interesting. I’ve had this woman on the show a few times. She’s an expert in magnesium. She’s led this group of women through a course. A big group of women through a course on healing their bodies and especially healing adrenal fatigue. What she noticed is every single woman except for about six of them got 100% results. She was like, what’s going on? She said, okay. She took the six women or this handful of women that didn’t. It was like maybe 100 women that did this and maybe six of them didn’t get results. It was a big number of people that got results. So she sat with them and said, we’re going to work through. We’re going to figure out why is it that so many of the women in this group got such great results, but you guys didn’t. She saw it over and over again because she teaches this course often. She finally figured it out that when women have shame present as an almost daily thing, it stops them. No matter how much nutritional supplements, exercise, sleep, and rest, all those things, none of the positive things would allow their adrenals to heal because the shame was keeping them in that fight-or-flight mode. Keeping them and stopping their healing.  I think it’s just really, really important to identify if we do have shame, if we do have that self-talk that’s saying, I’m stupid, I’m fat, I’m ugly, or no one’s going to love me. That negative self-talk is shame. To identify that and to then know that we have to work on that. Is there anything that you can give us to help identify? First, like you said, becoming aware is the first step. Do you have any advice or guidance for healing shame?   [01:00:32] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah. There are a couple of things. So I think often our biggest villain in our health is the voice in our own heads, and we have this evil roommate so often. If it was another human being who lived with us, who talked to us like that, we would say get the freaking out of here. You are not welcome. You can’t be my roommate. But yet it’s okay for us to talk to ourselves like that? I think part of it is just really recognizing that if you had a child that you talked to like that, if you had a parent that you talked to like that, they wouldn’t be your friend. Why do you think that you can talk to yourself like that, right? So I often really just encourage myself that health is really a re-parenting process. It’s learning how to talk to yourself in the way that you would talk to your child or in the way that you would talk to your aging parent. In a way that shows that you love and respect yourself, but again, that awareness piece is really key. Maybe you have to keep a journal about your internal thoughts. Write down some of the loops that you have in your head and work on those. Maybe every night you just take five minutes and just say, okay, what are three things that I did really well today—three positive thought loops, three actions, and how do I reproduce those? What was the emotional space that I was in when I had that thought? Or I went for a walk, what helped me do that? And then what are three things that I would like to eliminate from my thought process, and how can I do that? Step back and just take a little bit more of an objective view of it. Okay, well if this was my child who was having this action like staying up until 11:00 PM at night and not being able to go to bed. Okay, how would I help her have a better evening routine? That can be really helpful. I call that the reproduce versus eliminate journal. It’s again using it all as growth. And even just taking a moment like just having an alarm that goes off once an hour and just take 10 seconds and just think, okay, what was the most recent self-talk that I used on myself? Was it useful? Because often these things are so unconscious we’re not even aware that we are using them. Sometimes just free flow journaling is really useful, again, because we’re not even aware of how we’re talking to ourselves or how we feel. So just getting it out there and then you can look at it and be like, okay, interesting. Is this my critic? Is this like a parent? When you read this is it like, oh interesting. That’s how my dad used to talk to me when I was five. Well, that wasn’t helpful then. It’s not helpful now. I think some type of objective view, however, you’re going to get that whether that is through morning pages journaling, reproduce versus eliminating, or whether that’s going to therapy, and just really, really trying to produce a relationship in your head with somebody like it’s a roommate or somebody that you care about. When those negative thoughts come up, the more you’re aware of the thought loops that you get into, the more you’re able to say, nope, I’m not going there. But the first step is to become aware of the thought loops. Honestly, most people when I start to train them, they will say things and they don’t even realize that they’re shaming themselves or shoulding themselves. I should have done this and I didn’t. They’d go for a walk and instead of being like I’m so proud of myself, I went for a walk. They’ll be like, oh, I only went for a walk. Well, that’s great. It’s better than doing nothing. So now use that walk as a jumping-off point for more positive health habits. Noting the little wins I think is really key. Noting the little wins of when you speak to yourself nicely as well as when you go for a walk, as well as when you have a glass of water. And also just realizing that none of us are perfect. In the example that you gave earlier when you said about the shame about when you did something stupid. I forget the examples that you gave. I think part of it is just recognizing that you are sometimes going to say stupid. I say stupid stuff. In this interview, I probably said some stupid stuff, and that’s okay because guess what, I’m human.  Within the realm of normal, you have to just allow yourself to be human. You’re not always going to speak to yourself perfectly because perfect doesn’t exist. You’re not always going to be the smartest. You’re not always going to have the best run. You’re not always going to be having the healthiest dinner. It’s about the trends, and it’s about when you make a decision and be like, okay, so am I proud of this decision? Am I not? Okay, well, let’s learn from it. You can’t be perfect all the time.  I remember listening to this podcast once. It was actually about parenting and the interviewer was saying, well, I just tell my kids just always do your best. The woman who was being interviewed, her name is Kristin Neff, and she writes a lot about self-compassion. She said I just want to hold you there. She said, I actually think that it’s not about teaching your kids to always do your best because that’s just going to put them in the hospital. They can’t always do their best. It’s about teaching your kids when it’s important to do their best and when it’s important to just go to bed, or when it’s important to just read a book and chill. It sounds like a weird connection to the question about shame and guilt, but I actually think it’s really important. You can’t always do your best because then you will get adrenal fatigue. That’s what causes it. It’s like oh my God. If I’m not perfect I’m going to die. Oh my God. But that’s a thought loop that so many of us women get into. Listen, you can do anything but not everything. You have to choose what are the things, what are the battles that are worth battling, what are the hills that are worth dying on, what are the things you’re going to do your best on, and what are the things that you’re just going to say you know what that’s not that important to me. Goodbye. I’m setting my boundary. I’m going to say no to this because a no to that is a yes to something that I do care about. I think a lot of getting rid of shame is just getting rid of this idea that you have to be perfect and you have to do it all. You can’t do it all. You can’t be perfect, and nobody is perfect. They might pretend to be perfect on social media, but let me tell you, nobody’s perfect because we’re all human. We’re messy humans, and that’s what’s great about being human. We’re just this hot mess.   [01:06:43] Ashley James: I totally celebrate being a hot mess. I’m like, no one has it all together.   [01:06:49] Kathleen Trotter: No, and they would be freaking boring if they did. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t grow and learn. What’s a great example? About a month ago, I did my first Skype media segment for CTV, and I’d never done a Skype one before. I’ve done lots of podcasts, but never a video. Honestly, it wasn’t that great. It wasn’t terrible, but 10 years ago, oh my God, would I have berated myself. Kathleen, you were frenetic. I was a little bit too far away from the camera, so I was yelling. I would have just been so mean to myself. And instead, what I said to myself was you know what, I did do the best I could, but anytime you do anything new, you are never going to be great at it because that’s the nature of doing new things. They’re hard, and now, what can you learn from this? I watched it a number of times. I learned. I realized I needed to be sitting in a chair so I could be closer to Skype and I could get a better camera angle and all this stuff. And then I did the next one a week later and it was 10 million times better. But it wouldn’t have been better if I had berated myself about that first segment and be like oh, Kathleen, you’re a loser. You’re never going to be really good. The second segment would have probably been twice as bad because I would have been so nervous, I would have been shaking in my boots. I would have felt like a loser. And instead, the second one was way better because I learned and I grew. I think the net is just the first time you do anything—and this is circling back to you don’t have to be great to start but you do have to start to get great, standardizing before you can optimize. People listening, Brené Brown has a podcast Unlocking Us, and her first episode ever was on FFTs, Forking First Times. The point of the podcast is that any time you’ve never done anything, you’re going to be bad at it. It’s going to be messy and just embrace it. That’s the only way you get better. If you’ve never gone for a run, the first time you go for a run it’s going to suck. Embrace the suck. If you’ve never cooked a dish, it’s probably going to not be that great. Who cares? Try it. Learn. I’m trying to think of workouts. The first time I went to a CrossFit gym, oh my God, I was scared. I was like, I’ve never been here, but it was kind of fun and everyone was nice to me. I sucked at a bunch of things, but it didn’t matter. The first time I went for a run I was terrible. The first race I ever did was terrible. But now I’m way better, and I’m a better runner. CrossFit’s not really my jam, but I go every once in a while, and when I go, I’m way better than the first time. I don’t know. Persevere, learn, grow, and be kind to yourself. But that doesn’t mean let yourself off the hook. I think people take this advice and they think, oh, well, Kathleen says being nice to myself. That means eating 17 cookies, watching 14 hours of Netflix, and never working out because I love myself. No, if you love yourself, you respect yourself enough to go for a walk, drink some water, and get some sleep. It’s a really fine balance of striving but with compassion.   [01:09:41] Ashley James: What I got from what you just said is when we stay in shame we’re stuck and we can’t grow.   [01:09:50] Kathleen Trotter: Oh, I love that. Oh my God. I need to quote that’s. Okay, I’m going to quote you. When you stay in shame you’re stuck and you can’t grow. Yes because shame keeps you in—I don’t know if you know the polyvagal theory, but it’s a nervous system theory basically. They would say that when you stay in shame you don’t get to go in the ventral vagal system, so you’re not in that creative place where you can be their best self. That you’re stuck in your sympathetic nervous system. Your nervous system is basically teaching your body to stay stuck because it’s that paralyzed, it’s messing with your hormones, and it doesn’t put you in the mental space where you can grow.   [01:10:32] Ashley James: Once you’re in sympathetic nervous system response, you lose access to your frontal cortex. We actually shunt blood away from the logic centers of our brain so we can’t think critically, like you said, create creatively. We can’t do three-dimensional problem solving, and also, it harms our digestion because we shunt blood away from our core.   [01:10:58] Kathleen Trotter: Absolutely. It’s a whole bunch of bad stuff.   [01:10:59] Ashley James: Right. Identifying when there’s a shame. So here’s the thing, I’ve had clients who I’ll say okay. Every week I’ll give them homework to decrease stress. I want to get them out of fight-or-flight mode, or I want to get them out of that sympathetic mode. They won’t do the homework. They’ll eat what I tell them to eat. They’ll do all these health habits, but when it comes to like, okay, I want you to do 15 minutes of watching a comedy that makes you laugh.   [01:11:27] Kathleen Trotter: I love that homework.   [01:11:30] Ashley James: Go find a comedian on YouTube. I love the stuff out of Canada. Just for Laughs is the best. I want you laughing like you’re almost going to pee yourself for 15 minutes a day on your lunch break or whatever. I want you to walk out of the office building and walking around the block out in nature trying to find a park. Those kinds of things. Those are the hardest, so any de-stressor any habit. I’ve told several clients, okay, when you get home the first thing I want you to do is put on amazing music and have a dance party with your kids. What are fun activities that are going to like take you out of stress mode and bring back the feel-good hormones? I want you to hug your husband. Oxytocin. Hug your husband for three minutes straight. Just get into cuddle mode. And the funny thing is, these have been the hardest habits to get people to do. I’m like what’s going on? It’s easier to get someone to eat kale than it is to hug their husband or laugh. What’s going on? You’d think it’d be easy, but then the feedback I’d get is that well, I don’t know why I have to do this. I don’t feel stress. I don’t feel stressed out. I’m like okay, great. Stress is not an emotion. I think that shame, for some people, people are so disconnected that they don’t actually know they’re in shame. That they don’t feel it. How we can identify it is the self-talk. If you’re beating yourself up, if your self-talk is abusive, and your self-talk is akin to I’m not good enough. No one loves me. I’m stupid. That was so dumb of me, wtf. If your self-talk is abrasive and tearing you down like an abusive spouse basically, like an abusive partner, you are in shame.   [01:13:20] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah. It’s interesting, you were talking about the sympathetic nervous system. I think that’s very interesting. But if you look at what the polyvagal theory would say, and I’m not saying this is right or wrong. I just think it’s interesting to noodle on. They said there are three ways that you can be. You can be ventral vagal, so that’s in that creative mode where you make the best choices. You feel very content. Then there’s that sympathetic, which you were talking about. And then they would also say there’s what’s called dorsal vagal, which is almost like comatose, unable to make decisions. I think what they would say is it’s important to understand or start to note the self-talk, but they would also say it’s really important to start noting your somatic experiences. When you are in that dorsal vagal space, and I’m just learning about polyvagal. If anybody’s interested in this, don’t take my word. Go research it yourself. I’m using it for myself. I’ve been in therapy for 20 years. I’ve done a lot of talk therapy, and I’m just starting to look into more of the somatic therapy of starting to understand how different states feel in my tissues. And the idea of that dorsal vagal system is that you actually feel almost like paralyzed. You can’t get that ignition energy to start doing anything. You feel sort of a lack, and you almost feel like a disconnect or disassociation from what you’re doing and your life. Again, all of your suggestions would still be very helpful no matter which of those two systems you’re in, but that’s just another route to get to this idea if you’re feeling shame, if you’re feeling blocked, or if you’re feeling stuck. Start to feel how your body feels. Are you feeling almost away from your body, disconnected? Like that ostrich with the head in the sand. Because that could be showing you that you’re almost so in shame, you’re so in a fear mode that you’ve actually like left your body almost, and that makes it even harder to do any of those things. Because sometimes, when you’re in this sympathetic state—that stressful state—you actually have a lot of energy because you’re like nervous energy. That could be the time where you actually do things. You go for a walk, you go for a run. It’s not necessarily good for your adrenals, because you feel sort of more like I have to do something. Oh my God, if I don’t do something… It’s like that anxious state versus that dorsal vagal, which is almost like comatose. I need to go to bed state. Anyway, I just find that really interesting. There’s a Derek Sivers quote. It’s like, if knowledge was enough, we’d all have six-pack abs and be billionaires. The truth is that everybody listening just needs to get on board with the knowledge of what to do with everything in life but particularly to do with your health. That knowledge is not enough. We know to drink more water, eat less processed foods, and go to bed earlier. But if that was enough, we’d all be healthy and health wouldn’t be this million-dollar, billion-dollar industry.  It’s a billion-dollar industry because it’s really freaking hard to do what we know how to do because our emotions get in the way. Our nervous system gets in the way. Our history with our self-talk gets in the way. Our history of how our parents talk to us gets in the way. How we were bullied in school. If you were bullied over your body, or if you were laughed at playing sports, of course, you don’t want to go out and go for a run. You might not consciously be thinking like, oh my God. I’m going to get bullied, but your nervous system has these memories of like people are not nice to me when I go. I have a shame feeling when I go exercise. Part of exercising is retraining your nervous system. The reason why I hated it for so many years was I was overweight. People teased me. I would try to do things, I’d try to do sports, and I sucked at them. And then I got so embarrassed, and talk about shame— so filled with shame that I then didn’t want to do any of those things. I’ve been exercising for 20 years, but mostly I’ve been doing a lot of independent stuff like biking and running. It’s only been in the last five years that I’ve had enough confidence to go play basketball with my partner James. We play tennis, we play basketball, but for years he played all these different sports. I would go watch him, but I didn’t want to play team sports because even though I was fit and even though I loved exercising, I had such a nervous system memory of the shame that went along with not being able to hit the baseball very well and people teasing me. That I was like, hell no. I’m not doing that. Like what we talked about with food, gradually my palate has changed to do with exercise, and I’m slowly learning to enjoy more team sports. But that goes along with letting go of the shame and realizing if I suck at a sport, who cares. It doesn’t matter. I’m not being paid. I’m not a professional basketball player. I don’t need to be good at it. I just need to be getting some exercise, moving around, and getting slightly better each time. That shame response, it’s not useful, it’s not helpful, it doesn’t make me happy, it doesn’t make me the best version of myself, it keeps me stuck, it keeps me basically on the sidelines, and I don’t want to be on the sidelines. I want to be strong. I want to be empowered. I want to be energized. But it takes a lot of retraining growth mindset for the nervous system, right? A growth mindset for my brain to know that even if somebody does laugh at me, I don’t care. Somebody can go and laugh all they want. The doctors use the quote, those that mind don’t matter and those that matter won’t mind. So, people who love you, they’re not going to mind if you suck at basketball. People who care that you suck at basketball, they don’t matter. They can go jump on a river. But in order to think that way, you have to let go of shame. If you’re filled with shame, you care what everybody thinks. As soon as you let go of shame you can be like, oh right, you don’t think I’m a very good tennis player? Guess what, I don’t care what you think. You are not part of my core five. I care what my partner James thinks. I care what my mom thinks. I care what my dad thinks. My best friend Emily, I care what she thinks. But if you’re not part of the people that I respect, and you don’t like what I’m doing, how I play a sport, or what I’m eating, I don’t care. But that comes with letting go of shame.   [01:19:39] Ashley James: I love it. There was this really interesting quote that changed my husband’s life. It’s none of your business what other people think of you.   [01:19:52] Kathleen Trotter: I love, love, love that quote, and it’s just so true.   [01:19:56] Ashley James: it’s none of your business what other people think of you. My husband almost fell off his chair. This was about 12 years ago, we were listening to this really cool dude. He would just spew Buddhisms and very Zen sayings. We’ve been into listening to alternative media. We shut off our cable TV 12 years ago, and we just streamed stuff on the internet—all kinds of amazing podcasts and stuff. This is a guy we followed like 12 years ago. But my husband really struggled his whole life by worrying about what other people thought. He wouldn’t hold my hand in public. It was just weird stuff. I’m like what’s going on? He’s like I don’t know. I just can’t. I don’t know what I can do.   [01:20:39] Kathleen Trotter: It’s very common.   [01:20:40] Ashley James: We talked a lot about it. Ever since I met him, he’s always been super into personal growth, growing spiritually, and growing as a person. He loves really doing deep dives, he’s a man that wants to talk about his feelings. But he wants to grow. We’re like, okay, what’s going on. He’s like I’m stuck in this area. What’s going on? And then when he heard that, it gave him so much freedom because he really got that he was so worried about what everyone else thought, but it’s none of his business. Just like you walk down the street, let’s say you see someone running funny and you judge them. You’re like haha, that person looks silly. It’s none of their business that you’re thinking that about them.   [01:21:19] Kathleen Trotter: No, it’s all on me. It’s my problem.   [01:21:23] Ashley James: That’s your thoughts. I see someone running down the street, and I have really great thoughts for them. I’m like, good for them, really good. You know what, whatever your thoughts are, they’re your private thoughts. Other people’s private thoughts are none of your business.   [01:21:40] Kathleen Trotter: It says much more about them than it says anything about you. I agree, but I would make a caveat on that though. I do love that quote, and I’ve heard that quote, but I actually do think you need a little asterisk beside it. Because it’s none of your business what other people think, but here’s the thing. I think that it is your business what your core five think. It is my business what my partner James thinks about me.   [01:22:07] Ashley James: Oh, sure.   [01:22:08] Kathleen Trotter: Now that doesn’t mean I have to agree with what he thinks about me. The thing about quotes and the thing about social media, we like these really broad generalizations. There is so much nuance in it. It’s just like the idea of like well, you shouldn’t care about… That book the Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. The whole premise of that book is we as human beings are programmed to care, we’re programmed to problem solve. But the idea is that if you’re going to care and you’re going to problem solve, you have to decide what problems are worth your time. That’s I think the same thing about that quote. We as human beings are programmed. We’re meaning-making genes. We’re tribal. We’re bred for connection. We’re wired for connection as Brené Brown would say. I think you have to appreciate that you are going to care what people think, and the trick is that you should care. You can’t be in a good relationship with somebody if you don’t care what they think about you. But the trick is you need to care about what people think that you respect. I decide on five or ten people in my life, and those are the people that I’m like, I wonder what James will think about this. And again, it’s not that I necessarily think that what he thinks I’m going to be like oh, well he says I shouldn’t wear red. Well, I’m not going to wear red. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is if he says something, because I respect him, I’m going to at least entertain the thought. And then I can say, well, no, you’re wrong. But it’s a very important thing. I think it’s really easy to be, oh well, no one else’s opinion of me matters. I don’t think we live in a vacuum. I don’t actually think that that’s true. I don’t think the key is to care about nothing. I don’t know. I just think it’s trickier, and I think that life is a little bit more complicated than any of that. But then it’s about being intentional. Who am I going to care what they think about me? Who am I going to interact with? And who gets my attention?   [01:24:10] Ashley James: So it’s coming back to shame. One of my teachers, Tad James, of no relation. He’s a master trainer of neurolinguistic programming, and he says if you lived on an on a planet where there’s no one else, that you were the only person in the world ever, you would never experience shame. Shame exists because we live in a society with other people and because it’s our judgments of ourselves in relationship to other people. That quote, it’s none of your business what other people think of you, is directly about shameful thoughts and decisions that you’ve made about yourself. That’s what I mean. If you’re so worried about strangers observing you while you’re exercising, it’s none of your business what they’re thinking. You do you. Go do your exercise. But if you catch yourself worrying what about other people think and that’s part of your shame spiral, then that’s stuff to work on.   [01:25:10] Kathleen Trotter: Oh, absolutely. And I’m not disagreeing with any of that. I completely agree with that. My point only was I just think these things are a little bit nuanced, and I think that part of the intentionality of all this is deciding who do you care what they think about you, and who do you care about? When I’m thinking about life and how to make my decisions in my day and what’s important, what do I say no to, and what do I say yes to? It matters the idea of you do you. Okay. Well, again, that’s great, and I love that quote. But I think that yes, I do me, but I live in a world where I really care about James. I care about my mom. I also have to take those. I don’t have to do anything, but I decide that taking those people’s feelings and emotions into account is really important. I’m never going to do me at the expense of that, or at least I’m going to have a conversation with James.  Again, I just think it’s all about awareness and intention. Nothing that I’m saying is discrediting. I think you’re completely right. Shame is an internalization of the criticism we’ve had as kids from our peers, from our parents. All of that stuff is correct. I just think part of getting to be an adult is taking an inventory of what you care about? What do you want to say yes to? What do you want to say no to? Who do you care about? Who do you care what they think about you? What conversations do you want to have? What do you want to say hell yes to? What do you want to say hell no to? If it’s really important that you get to bed by 10:00 PM, for example going back to you, okay, that means saying no to a bunch of things. That’s great. But every yes is a no. But in order to know what to say yes to, you have to know what to say no to.   [01:26:58] Ashley James: It sounds like really healthy boundaries and figuring it out. And then, like you said, not the expense of others. You use the example of doing team sports or doing exercise and other people are seeing you. You sound like you have very healthy relationships with your partner, with your mom, and your best friend, for example.   [01:27:19] Kathleen Trotter: It took years of therapy.   [01:27:23] Ashley James: Other people don’t have that yet, and they would never exercise in front of their partner, in front of their mom, or have their mom come to see them do team sports because they still have things to work through. That’s where I say, okay, figure out how you can get physically fit in an environment that fills you with joy and not shame or fear. Maybe it’s putting on a Zumba. Amazon Prime, free Zumba classes. There are so many great on Amazon Prime. Just as an example, so many great free fitness classes. Put it on the TV, do it in your bedroom, or do it in the living room when no one’s around. But when you go out to do any kind of fitness and you notice that there are shameful judgments that you’re having about yourself, is it because you’re around people—those are toxic friends or toxic relationships? Is it because of the people you’re around, or is it because it’s you and you’re just worried about what everyone thinks of you? It’s stuff to work through. Like you said, awareness is the first step.   [01:28:36] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah. I just lost my train of thought. Look at me being messily human. My first book was called Finding Your Fit, and I think this is an excellent segue to that. It’s about meeting yourself where you are. Maybe, right now, you need to be what I would call a home bunny. That’s you’re working out at home, and then maybe in 10, 20 years, then maybe you go to Zumba class. If right now you can’t work out in front of other people, that’s fine. Exercise has to be non-negotiable, but the way you move your body is completely your fit.   [01:29:13] Ashley James: And where you move your body.   [01:29:15] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah. Where, how, what you do. I’m going to use my mom because she is an amazing woman, and she’s the one who helped me figure out this concept. Basically, in a nutshell, unhealthy child, unhealthy teenager. I hated my body, was super full of shame. My mom said to me, “Listen, I know you hate gym class. I know you hate team sports, but we have to find a way that you can move.” We lived in a small town, and my mom said, “You’ve always felt better around grown-ups versus peers, so why don’t we go to the YMCA because the Y, the demographic is over 40, under 5. No one in the teen years will be there.” I was like, “Okay, cool.” And she said, “Listen, Kathleen. All you have to do is walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes. You can totally do that.” So she made the win so small that I could do it, and I think that’s the key because then I went once. It wasn’t like you have to go do an hour aerobics class. And in fact, before I even went to the gym, we did Jane Fonda workouts at home in our kitchen. The trick was I started with stuff at home. We did Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons. And then Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda then turned with me going to the Y walking for 10 minutes, and that slowly spiraled—upward spiral. Then I was doing more walking, then weights, then I started taking aerobics classes, and then I started teaching aerobics classes. That’s what made me decide to go to school for kinesiology. But what my mom did for me was she said meet yourself where you are and figure out your fit. You thrive in your own lane. Don’t compare yourself. It doesn’t matter what works for your best friend, your father, your mother, or your favorite celebrity. You figure out what you can do, and what you can do can change in six months, in a year. Again, we go back to the idea that you have to standardize before you can optimize. Just standardize that you move your body every day, and then you can optimize with whatever you want. My mom was really the one. I wrote the book 15 years after that experience, but she was the one who said to me, “You just have to make the motion a non-negotiable, and you figure out what works for you.” In the book, I talk about the four fitness different personalities. You have the gym bunny, you have the home bunny, you have the competitive bunny, and then you have the busy multitasker. You don’t have to be just one of those. You could decide that normally, you are the gym bunny, but when you get really busy at work, you become the competitive multitasker, which is the person who takes a conference call while they walk right. Or they exercise while they’re watching their kids play soccer on the sideline—they’re doing lunges and squats. The idea is that you can mix and match the different personalities depending on the season you are in your life. Maybe in 10 years, you go from doing Zumba at home to doing Zumba at a gym. But no matter what season you’re in and whatever you’re feeling, you always know that some type of motion is non-negotiable.   [01:32:07] Ashley James: I love it. Can you give more examples? I love the example of doing lunges on the sidelines while watching your kids do soccer. Can you give more examples of how we can incorporate movement into our life instead of being sedentary?   [01:32:21] Kathleen Trotter: Oh, yeah. A lot of it is you have to set an alarm to make sure you don’t just what I call tunnel into work. Sometimes I sit down and it’s like eight hours later. I’m like, what just happened? Conference calls as you walk is a great idea. Gamify your fitness. Have a challenge with your family for getting a number of steps per day. Setting an alarm goes off in between Zoom meetings and doing three minutes of a dance class in your living room. If you’re commuting to and from work, walking to and from work, taking your bike. In Toronto, the city bikes are a really big thing now that people don’t really want to take the subway because of COVID. People are doing the city bike rental where you can get a bike at one end and then get a different bike after work. If your kids are going out for a bike ride, you can jog beside them. You could skip outside in the backyard as they’re playing. You can do planks and lunges and stuff as they’re indoors. They’re playing, you can get them involved in a push-up challenge or plank challenge. You could, instead of sitting in your car and doing iPhone stuff while they’re doing their sport, you could go for a jog and then meet them when they’re done practice. You can say, instead of watching television tonight, we’re all going to go to the park and we’re going to play some soccer together as a family. Making sure you get out of your car a couple of blocks away from wherever you’re going to walk there. It’s just peppering exercise into your daily life is that idea of the multitasker.  I’m a really big believer in what I call the plug and play solution. What that is is a list you create in advance of things that you can do in 5 minutes, things you can do in 10 minutes, things you can do in 15 minutes. If you “found time,” you can just look at the list and then know what to do. Because part of the problem is we often will find 5 minutes or 10 minutes in our day. And by the time you realize you have 10 minutes and you think, should I do this, or should I do that? The 10 minutes is gone, and you’ve wasted your opportunity to do some motion. But if you have a list and you just like look at the list, you’re like oh, okay. Well, I know in 10 minutes I can do a set of lunges and jumping jacks or 10 minutes of—I love Yoga by Adriene. It’s free. You know those things in advance, and then you just sort of like blah blah blah just do it. You don’t have to waste cognitive energy thinking I should do this or I should do that. That’s a great plug-and-play solution. That’s like “fitness snacking” with the idea that it all adds up, right? I really want people to ditch this idea of perfection because perfection is tied to shame, and it’s just not helpful. If you think, well, if I can’t do an hour-long workout, then it’s not even worth it, or if I can’t do 10 kilometers… You just end up doing nothing. Whereas if you “snack” on 10 minutes of exercise here and 10 minutes of exercise there, by the end of the day you’ve done an hour, and that’s great.   [01:35:04] Ashley James: I love it. Snack on exercise.   [01:35:08] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, snack on exercise.   [01:35:09] Ashley James: Because sometimes it’s daunting to think about an hour-long workout, 45-minute workout, 90-minute workout. Totally daunting. I get into the dorsal vagal. It’s just too big, can’t do it. Where you’re like, oh, I could snack.   [01:35:23] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, I can snack. It’s doable. And so much of health feels so overwhelming. Listen, life is freaking hard. Life’s hard at the best of times, but it’s particularly hard right now with the pandemic and everything. So much of health is just learning how to struggle well. You have to appreciate that the struggle is not a bug in the system. It’s part of the system. It is there.   [01:35:45] Ashley James: That’s beautiful.   [01:35:46] Kathleen Trotter: It is there. It’s part of the operating system, so you got to just be like okay, I’m going to struggle. I expect it, and how do I struggle well? How do I ride the wave of this? How do I surf really well—surf the wave of this struggle, just do the best I can, and learn from the experience. But you got to go in with realistic expectations. You don’t just find the perfect miracle workout or diet, lose a bunch of weight, then it’s easy peasy, and you never have anything go wrong. It doesn’t work that way.  There’s no perfect day to work out. No perfect week to start the program. You just got to do it. You seize the moment because the moment is the only time you have any direct control over. And if you take advantage of the moment and then the next moment and the next moment, five years from now you’ll be like damn, I feel fit. I feel strong. I’m no longer loving East Side Mario’s. It takes time. It really, really does. It takes finding your version of fit to know your version of fit will change and really being okay, thriving in your own lane. I’ll tell you one more story about my mom. I love my mom. She came with me once when I was teaching a spin class, and she got off the bike. She’s a super supportive woman. I’m sure you can feel that from the podcast. She got off the bike, she looked at me, and she’s like white as a sheet. She goes, “Kathleen, I love you more than anything but if you ever try to make me do a spin class again I will disown you.” I just laugh at that because I have a peloton and I die for Cody classes on the Peloton. Literally, if I’m in bed and I don’t want to get out of bed, I just say, Kathleen, you can do a Peloton. You can do a Cody, and that is motivational for me. If I said to my mom you could do a Cody class, she’d be like, well, that’s terrible. I don’t want to do a Cody class. My point only being is if I said to her the only way that she could be fit is if she did Cody Peloton classes every day, she’d be like well I’d rather be fat and never be fit. That does not interest me. But if she said to me, well, every day, you have to garden and walk the dogs, which is what she does, I’d be like well that doesn’t really interest me. You have to find what works for you. My dad’s another example. He plays hockey four days a week. He loves hockey. If you told me, well, Kathleen, to be fit you have to play hockey four days a week. I’d be like, oh no. But that’s his bliss. The great thing about it is because he loves hockey so much, that inspires him to do the stretching and the strength workout that he needs without falling over and without rolling over an ankle in his skate. It’s similar for me. I love running. I don’t love stretching and strength stuff as much, but I make myself do it because I know that that’s the way that I can do the thing that I love. Part of fitness is finding what you love, and then it’s also using what you love as self-talk to make yourself do the things that you might not necessarily love but that’s really important.   [01:38:26] Ashley James: Fantastic. That’s so great. For those that don’t know what a Peloton is, I know it’s a really cool bike that has a screen on it so you’re like watching these spin classes from home, right?   [01:38:39] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, pretty much. The reason why I love it is because it has so much. Classes go live. There’s a bunch of classes every day and then they get archived. Speaking earlier, we’re talking about finding the ignition energy to get going. I’ve always found an hour long spin feels really daunting, but what’s great about the Peloton is you can filter things. So you can filter by the instructor you like, the type of music you like. I like pop music or country music. There are two or three people I like, but I really like Cody, but you can also filter by time. You can say 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour, and I often find that in order to get myself on the bike, I actually just start with the 20-minute class, and then as soon as I’m done the 20-minute, I’m warmed up and then I’ll do a half an hour. So then it ends up being 50 minutes or I’ll do 45 minutes. It’s easier for me to put together a couple of smaller classes. The thing that I like the most about the Peloton is that first of all, you don’t have to leave your house to go do a class somewhere else. If a class you’re doing 45 minutes of spin, you’re actually doing 45 minutes of spin. But mostly, what I really like is that you can trick yourself into exercising. I often end up doing a full hour, but I start with just saying, you know what Kathleen, 20 minutes is better than nothing. Just get your ass on that bike do the 20 minutes. And then I enjoy myself. I’m smiling and laughing and I just keep going. This morning, I started with a 30-minute class, and then I finished the 30 and I was like I’ll do 10 more minutes. I ended up doing 40 minutes. The lesson for everybody out there if they’re like, well, I don’t have a Peloton. Why is that useful? What I would just say is it’s all about the mind games. It’s about self-talk. If you can’t bring yourself to do an hour-long workout, you just say to yourself, Kathleen would say do 10 minutes. Because once you’ve done 10 minutes, most likely you’ll just keep going. It’s easier to find the ignition energy to do 10 minutes, but if you do stop after 10 minutes, at least you’ve done 10 minutes. And 10 minutes a day is 70 minutes over the week. It’s better than nothing. But honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever done 10 minutes and just stopped at 10 minutes. By the time you’ve done 10 minutes, you’re like, oh well. I’ve already started. I might as well do at least 15. And then you do 15, you’re like, I might as well do at least 20. It’s all about mind games.   [01:40:49] Ashley James: That’s what I do with hikes. There are wonderful trails near our house. I’m like, okay, I’m just going to make it down to where the trail forks. By the time the trail forks, I’m like I’m doing the long trail. The thing is you’re lost in the woods and then you have to come all the way back. The last hike I did was like two hours long, and it’s up and down and through the woods. It’s beautiful. I am always surprised when two hours goes because I’m like it feels like 15 minutes. I mean, my body definitely got a great workout, but it’s fun so time really flies. The getting going it’s like, okay, I’m just going to make it down to that one point where the trail forks and then I’ll totally turn around. And then by the time I’m there I’m like, okay, blood flowing. I can keep going.   [01:41:36] Kathleen Trotter: Exactly. I think with the people who are listening, if they get anything from this story, it’s just like blah blah blah go work out. Just start. The hardest part is starting, and you just have to realize that your future self is going to be happier. Remember what we talked about before, the present bias, and knowing that just because you feel crappy at this moment doesn’t mean that you’re going to always feel crappy. Your future self is going to be so happy that you moved.   [01:42:00] Ashley James: Do you have any techniques for getting us out of that dorsal vagal mode where we are stuck, disassociated, unable to start? What ways can we break through and switch so we’re no longer in that dorsal vagal?   [01:42:15] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah. I think part of it is this idea of changing your state requires a physiological change. Even just some deep breathing, some meditation, or just talking to yourself nicely or phoning a friend that helps you bring into that ventral vagal state. Those are all things that can be really, really helpful. Journaling, any of those things would be great. Even just going for a 10-minute walk, which can feel very hard to do when you’re feeling very unmotivated. But just really being kind to yourself and just saying I will be happier if I even do two minutes. Even playing music and not dancing around but just having that energy out there in the universe. It really is that sort of first 30 seconds of anything that you can do. I think the key is just understanding that that dorsal vagal is a nervous system response based on feeling unsafe, insecure, unhappy, and it could be based on childhood unsafe, insecure, unhappy. If I go play baseball, my first instinct would be to go dorsal vagal because of being bullied as a kid, so I have to realize that I’m dorsal vagal. I feel it in my system and then I just say to myself, okay Kathleen, it’s okay. You’re okay. That’s a triggered state. At this moment, you’re actually okay. I think the most important thing is to take a pause and say is this real in this moment? Because it could be that you are unsafe. If you’re in an unsafe relationship or if somebody is bullying you, sometimes retreating is actually a really good coping mechanism. First, say, is this serving me? And if it is serving you, then it’s telling you something about the environment that you’re in, and then you can use that as data. Maybe you’re with friends that are really, really evil and then they should no longer be your friends because they’re putting you in that. But most of the time for us, the idea is that it’s actually not serving us. It is somehow triggered by childhood. Maybe your boss triggered a sense of shame in the way that your mother or father used to talk to you or the shame in the way that a teacher used to talk to you. Part of it is just sort of saying to yourself, I’m an adult, and I was treated purely as a child, but I’m not a child anymore. I have the resources in my current me to deal with this. Once you figure out that it’s not a current lack of safety, then you can proceed with the meditation, with the breathing, the walking, or phoning a friend. You just have to make yourself feel safe basically when they’re in that space and realize that a lot of procrastination is a feeling of shame or lack of safety. Because you’re worried, well, if I exercise and I don’t exercise perfectly, I’m going to be shamed. If you just say to me, it’s okay to not be perfect. I’m a human mess. I’m a messy mess, and that is okay. Talk nicely to yourself, basically. As long as you are actually safe. If you’re in an unsafe environment, get rid of that. Then you have to use that differently, but once you’ve figured out that you’re safe, then you just have to be kind to yourself.   [01:45:36] Ashley James: Yeah, and a lot of procrastination is focusing on what you don’t want to have happened instead of focusing on what you do want to have happened. When we’re visualizing all the things that could go wrong when we’re exercising—people laughing at us or whatever. Just these thoughts come into our heads. Oh, it’s going to be so difficult. I’m going to get an injury. I’m going to have a leg cramp. We just are imagining all these bad things are happening. We’re putting ourselves in a state of stress, and then that triggers our procrastination because we’re feeling unsafe. But if we focus on and visualize the successful completion of that workout and how great it was, just like you said, your future self, imagine yourself after the workout. You’re like, okay, I want to get there. Let’s go.   [01:46:17] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, but also say to yourself, those bad things, they might happen. But guess what, that’s okay too because I’m an adult and I can handle it. Part of it is that we procrastinate because let’s say you tried a sport when you were a kid and then you were bullied, then you felt like a failure, and then you stopped. But you were a child. You didn’t have the resources you have now. Part of it is also saying to yourself like, probably I will succeed. The data shows I’m very successful. I’m very perseverant. I’m probably going to get through this workout. But guess what, if I don’t, I will be able to deal with it because I’m an adult. Life isn’t perfect. There will be times that I go out, my run sucks. It’s terrible. There are probably times where I’m going to go out and somebody might snicker at me when I throw the basket and I’m bad. But guess what, I can handle it because I’m almost 40. My 10-year-old self couldn’t handle it, but I can handle it. That’s also part of it.   [01:47:10] Ashley James: Yeah. I love Tim Ferriss’s method for dealing with this.   [01:47:16] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, the fear setting.   [01:47:18] Ashley James: The fear, right? At first, when I was listening to him, oh this isn’t good. And then I was like whoa, this is really good. You write down everything you’re afraid will happen, but then you write down what’ll actually realistically happen? Because our mind is making up these big monsters, and they’re probably not going to happen. The entire gym is not going to turn and laugh at us, right? Or if we fall off of equipment, it’s not like everyone’s going to turn and laugh. A lot of people will actually be concerned and come up and help us.   [01:47:41] Kathleen Trotter: Yes, are you okay?   [01:47:43] Ashley James: Are you okay, and genuinely want to help. But he has us write down. Everything you’re worried about will happen and then what’ll actually happen? Realistically, what would happen? And then how would you handle it? When you do that you realize that it’s just a paper tiger that you’ve been worried about. That you, as an adult, have resources and you would be able to handle real situations as they arose. So instead of obsessing and fixating on all the perceived threats that you’ve made up, fixate on the solutions and how you would best handle those situations and then you feel a bit of confidence. But we’re starting out. We’re newbies. Like you said, 10 minutes on the treadmill. We’re complete newbies. I love, for example, I think it’s Hulu. I have all these different Hulu, Netflix, those kinds of things. But I think Hulu has this subscription where you can subscribe to exercise videos. My favorite is the kickboxing ones, and they have a total beginner—like beginner-beginner-beginner 10-minute kickboxing, and you don’t even have to use weights. They have that option. They usually have three different levels, three different people standing there.  It’s like, okay, follow this guy if you’re the beginner-beginner-beginner. This is your first-ever time exercising, or if you have mobility issues. After 10 minutes, I feel amazing and then I go and do another one, and I pick another one, another one, but I love that you can find beginner-beginner-beginner stuff. I can’t believe how just punching and kicking in the air while listening to some music is so soothing and so confidence building.   [01:49:24] Kathleen Trotter: It’s very empowering. I actually did boxing when I was in high school, and it was the best feeling. That’s what I love about health and wellness—when it can be empowering and energizing versus discouraging and oppressive. It can just make you feel like I can do anything. I’m powerful. The data shows that I’m strong, and then you take that data from your exercise and you go off your daily life. You’re like I can do this and it becomes a model. When your exercise becomes a model for how you just interface with the world, right? It’s like, oh yeah, this is scary. My bike ride today was hard, but guess what, I did it anyway. Work today is going to be hard, but guess what, I’m going to do it anyway. I felt a little bit of niggly shame, but guess what, I persevered and now I showed my shame to take this backseat that I don’t need it anymore. I really love this idea of exercise just being a model for how you can live your life and build your relationships intentionally, purposefully, and with mindfulness and attention.   [01:50:26] Ashley James: Beautiful. I love that you talked about how to find things that you love, find things that are fun. Of course, try new things.   [01:50:32] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, you never know what you’re going to love.   [01:50:35] Ashley James: You never know what you’re going to like, but try new things. Exercise does not have to look like sweating in the gym. It doesn’t have to look like what Hollywood shows us or what Jillian Michaels does. It doesn’t have to look like any TV show. It can be cleaning your house like vacuuming. Dude, you can work up a sweat. You can work up a sweat cleaning your house. Your mom does gardening. Dude, I do squats when I garden, and the next day I feel it. You can really get a workout doing anything. It’s about moving the body in a way that brings you joy. Then one thing I wanted to say is about your fudge bars. Something that’s really, really, really helped me the last 10 years on my health journey is figuring out the healthiest versions of something. I’m sure you’ve done this where you’re like what could I eat that’s like a fudge bar but more like an avocado and a sweet potato? What can you eat?   [01:51:27] Kathleen Trotter: I agree with that, and I think for most people and most times and 97% of my things in my life I have replaced with healthier versions. But guess what, I don’t want to replace my fudge bars with something healthy. I think that is okay too. Again it goes back to sometimes—   [01:51:42] Ashley James: Not being perfect.   [01:51:43] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, it’s not perfect. And it’s living the life I want to live. I don’t want to be on my deathbed and be like I loved these fudge bars and yet I didn’t ever have them. I don’t want to have them every day, but I buy one box a summer, and so over a four-month period, my mom has a beautiful backyard. We sit. That’s fine with me. There are tons of things I’m happy to do a healthier replacement, but if that’s my one sin, I’m okay with that. Part of being an adult is just deciding what you’re okay with and not living by anybody else’s rules, right? That’s what I’ve decided so I’m cool with that. But I do think you’re right in a lot of other things. I make lots and lots of wonderful frozen things that are avocado and fruit. I put them into bars. I do lots of other things as well to complement the fudge bars, but we got to live the life that we’re going to be happy with on our deathbed as well, right?   [01:52:42] Ashley James: You know what, looking at my life, I’m not going to regret the junk food I didn’t eat. Me 10 years ago wouldn’t have agreed with that. If I died right now, I’d regret all the living I didn’t get to live. I want to live the healthiest. I would regret letting my shame hold me back from new experiences.   [01:53:08] Kathleen Trotter: Yes. A beautiful, beautiful way to put it. Yes, I agree.   [01:53:13] Ashley James: Thank you so much. This has been such a wonderful conversation.   [01:53:16] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah, you’re amazing.   [01:53:17] Ashley James: Thank you, you too. I’m going to make sure the links to everything that Kathleen Trotter does are in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com including the links to her two books. Your website, kathleentrotter.com. Pretty easy to remember. And of course, we could follow you on social media. Can people work with you around the world? You’re located in Toronto, you have a studio in Toronto, but can people telecommute with you? Can they work with you over Skype around the world? How does that work?   [01:53:44] Kathleen Trotter: I don’t have any open spots for one-on-one spots. I have clients who’ve been with me for basically 20 years, and they have my one-on-one spots. But I do group coaching. It’s a five-week group coaching course. It’s called Kick Your Ass with Compassion, and you can find out about that on my website. That is group coaching. It’s usually between 8 and 12 people for five weeks. We do once a week on Zoom, and there’s a lecture group coaching, and then you get unlimited emailing with me over the five-week period about your goal. Everybody has different goals. Some people quitting smoking, some people are trying to eat more vegetables, and some people are trying to do more exercise. The course is really about how you set goals and the principles of goal setting and having a growth mindset. A lot of the stuff we talked about today, but we break it down. I give you resources. We use my two books as textbooks. That would be the way that people from all over the world work with me. You can find information about that on my website.   [01:54:45] Ashley James: Awesome, very cool. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything you’d like to say or homework you’d like to give to wrap up today’s interview?   [01:54:51] Kathleen Trotter: The piece of homework I would give that ties everything we’ve done together is try some type of journaling, and it doesn’t have to be the way that you think. Journaling about your time spent, for example. If you are trying to find time to exercise and you’re like, I don’t have enough time. I bet if you journaled how much time you spent on TV or social media you’d be surprised at the frittering away of time that you do. Either journaling your time, journaling your food, journaling your exercise, or journaling your mood. One of the things my therapist got me to do many, many years ago is do a journal of pre- and post-exercise what my mood was on a scale of 1-10. That data just showed me that I was always in a better mood post-exercise. You could also journal your emotions connected to food. I call it the X versus O journal. You put three circles on the page, and if you eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full, eat unprocessed foods, then you just put an X through the circle. You don’t have to write anything. But if you eat, overeat, eat when you’re not hungry, or eat a lot of sugar processed foods, then you would write down what you ate. But you then write down the emotions that were connected to why you ate those things with the idea of trying to learn to connect emotions to your food. If you look on my website or you google Kathleen Trotter journaling, I have done lots of articles on different types of journals. But they all just come back to building your awareness of the type of choices you make, why you make those choices, and how they’re connected to your emotions. You could journal sleep, you could journal anything. I think homework would just be work on knowing yourself.   [01:56:28] Ashley James: Yes, I love it. Michael Weinberger, I’ve had him on the show several times. He is bipolar—very severe. He’s got himself under control now, but he’s been suicidal many times and has been out of control many times. Been in manic mode many times, and he’s been in therapy his whole life. He’s a motivational personal growth speaker now because he shares his experience about mental health, spreading awareness, and how we can become healthier with wherever we are, whatever state we are in our mental health. He created an app actually based on all the habits that he used to go from wanting to kill himself to leading a healthy life. It’s like a journaling app. It’s very quick. You wake up first thing in the morning and it asks you on a scale of 1-10, where are you at? Happy, sad—where are you at basically, 1-10. He might say three. Three is like I don’t want to get out of bed. I’m depressed. I don’t want to get out of bed. And then it has you journal in the app three things you’re grateful for.   [01:57:39] Kathleen Trotter: I love that. This is great.   [01:57:40] Ashley James: And it’s very quick. What does that take, a minute? And then after that, it immediately asks the same question, on a scale of 1-10, how are you doing? He doesn’t see individual people’s information. It’s all private. He can’t go see what you said, but he collects the data. Statistically, everyone feels better after one minute of focusing on gratitude. Many of the people that have this app have mental health issues they’re working through. Just imagine, regardless of where you are in your mental health, whether you consider yourself incredibly mentally healthy or you’re working on some challenges, one minute of focusing on what you’re grateful for makes us so that some people go from not wanting to get out of bed—that’s how depressed they are—to being able to get out of bed.   [01:58:26] Kathleen Trotter: That’s fantastic.   [01:58:27] Ashley James: And that’s one minute of journaling. So I love your idea of journaling because not only does it give you awareness, but sometimes if your focus can be on positive things like things you’re grateful for, that can make a big difference.   [01:58:40] Kathleen Trotter: Yeah. Well, I think that’s a great place to end and just have gratitude that we can move our body and eat healthy food. It is a hugely positive thing that we are able to do for ourselves, and I think often we think about health as something that we have to do, something that’s forced upon us. I love closing on this idea of gratitude. It’s something that we get to do. It’s a privilege.   [01:59:02] Ashley James: Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much, Kathleen. It was a pleasure having you on the show today.   [01:59:06] Kathleen Trotter: My pleasure.   [01:59:07] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today’s interview with Kathleen Trotter. Please join the Learn True Health Facebook group so you can enter to win a spot in Kathleen’s upcoming live and interactive group health coach program. It’s very exciting. Please visit learntruehealth.com/coach to get a free module from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition if you’re considering becoming a health coach. And join the Learn True Health Home Kitchen. Go to learntruehealth.com/homekitchen and check it out. Use the coupon code LTH and learn how to make delicious, nutritious, and healing recipes. We also have some wonderful recipes for Thanksgiving and the holidays as well. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day.   Get Connected with Kathleen Trotter! Website Kick Your Ass With Compassion (Online Course) Learn To Spot ‘Unhealthy Healthy Foods’ Facebook Instagram YouTube Twitter Books by Kathleen Trotter Finding Your Fit Your Fittest Future Self