The mindbodygreen Podcast

With estimates that around 12,000 million metric tons of plastic will be in landfills or in our environment by 2050, it's easy to feel like this overwhelming issue is out of our control, but the change actually starts with us as the consumers.You may know Bonnie Wright better as Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter films, but she's much more. Bonnie is an environmental activist and advocate for eliminating single-use plastics, a film director, producer, and screenwriter.Colleen Wachob, co-CEO at mindbodygreen, sat down with Bonnie on the mbg podcast to discuss how she became passionate about reducing her impact on the environment and the simple ways she's cut down on plastic in her life.Growing up, Bonnie spent time on the coast of England with her family and came to love the ocean. She gained inspiration from her surroundings and developed an understanding of nature's cycles. Over time she's seen a cultural shift toward convenience and the subsequent negative impact on the environment. As a surfer who spends a lot of time on the water in California, Bonnie sees the amount of plastic pollution floating in the water and on the beaches.With all of this, she's made it a priority to reduce her plastic consumption. Here are some of the strides she's made that you may want to incorporate into your life. Bonnie emphasizes that these changes did not happen overnight and recommends starting with one category such as beauty products or food containers and then moving to the next. "Even if your choice seems so small and insignificant, it does all connect," she explained.If you're feeling stuck with where to begin, she suggests noticing what self-limiting beliefs may be holding you back. Perhaps you feel like you're not good enough to remember to bring your own water bottle? These are normal ways to feel and are merely thought patterns that have been ingrained in us. To break through some of these, acknowledge that they are thoughts you can overcome and you are more than capable of making choices that support you and the environment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his early 20s, Chris Kresser, M.S., LAc, sold everything he owned and took off around the world. He wanted to travel and surf and planned to spend two years doing both. But his path took a turn nine months into the trip when he began experiencing symptoms of tropical illness, including vomiting, nausea, and delirium. After taking antibiotics, he was able to keep traveling, but several months later it was clear that this was serious. It didn't make sense—he was eating well and in the best shape of his life, and yet this seemingly small bout of sickness was evolving into a chronic illness. He decided to go home and seek medical help. Over the next five years, Chris saw upward of 50 doctors and practitioners to try to get better. It turns out he had multiple parasites. He spent most days curled up on the floor in pain and thought he wasn't going to have a future. That's when he began to look beyond modern medicine and discovered functional medicine and the paleo diet. By changing his diet and lifestyle, Chris was able to heal.Through this experience and his studies as a licensed acupuncturist, Chris has learned quite a bit about the power of functional medicine and how to keep your gut as healthy as possible. "To me, functional medicine was a perfect model," Chris says. "It synthesized the holistic approach of functional medicine and the perspective of looking at the body as a collection of interdependent systems, but then it also utilized modern diagnostics like blood testing, stool testing, and saliva testing—things that weren't available in Chinese medicine 2,000 years ago that I think can be helpful in determining the source or cause of the problem."To contact Colleen or Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please email podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please email sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast email newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At mbg, we've long been interested in recovery techniques as part of a well-rounded fitness program and predicted that we’d see an even greater shift toward it in 2019. Lo Roxburgh, best-selling author and expert on fascia and alignment, joins mbg's Chief Content Officer, Olessa Pindak, on the mbgpodcast to talk about how she got started in movement medicine and let us in on the best ways to relieve tension. Growing up, she was an All-American swimmer so understood the importance of taking care of her body. When her mother was diagnosed with Stage 5 breast cancer when she was 16, she took a step back and realized just how important the mind-body connection was. She went on to get degrees in nutrition and physiology and certifications in structural integration, Pilates, and personal training. Now Lo works with clients to help them align their bodies and inner selves. Recovery is a not only a vital part of a fitness routine, it's also become part of our wellness conversation. Join in!To contact Colleen or Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please email podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please email sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast email newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We know lifestyle changes such as better nutrition, more movement, and less stress can make a big difference in our health. No one knows this better than Jason Karp, the chairman, and co-founder of Hu Kitchen and founder and CEO of HumanCo who reversed what was deemed an incurable condition through nutrition. He joined me on the mbgpodcast to talk about his transformative health journey and share what we can do today for better health. At the age of 23, Jason started having double vision, brain fog, and hair loss, and an ophthalmologist told him he would likely go blind from what was diagnosed as a degenerative corneal disease.From there, he went to another doctor that (he credits with saving his life) who tested his blood and found his cortisol levels were some of the highest he’d ever seen. He told Jason he wouldn't live until the age of 40 unless he changed what he was doing.After an elimination diet for three months where he gave up packaged food, caffeine, and alcohol paired with more exercise, much to the doctors surprise they found his degenerative eye disease had reversed.While Jason is much healthier today, he still struggles with autoimmune issues and discovered he’s sensitive to stress and doesn’t detoxify environmental toxins and chemicals in products well. “I find stress to be much more potent of an inflammatory agent than anything else, including sleep and food.” Here are four of the ways that Jason supports his mind and body and recommends to anyone struggling with health conditions or hoping to boost their health.To contact Colleen or Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please email podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please email sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast email newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The CDC reports that more than a third of adults in the U.S. are getting less than 7 hours of sleep which, according to their research, is not enough (getting less than 7 hours of sleep has been linked to issues like high blood pressure, diabetes, and weight gain). While these stats may be enough to keep you up at night, there’s actually a lot we can do to get some better quality sleep. Chris Masterjohn, Ph.D., wellness entrepreneur and researcher, joined co-CEO Jason Wachob on the mbgpodcast to talk about what we can do for better sleep.It comes down to understanding what our bodies need and then putting the right things in. Chris has seen the immense impact nutrition has had on his mental, physical, and emotional health as well as his mother’s. Growing up, he watched his mother heal from fibromyalgia through eating more macrobiotics and doing practices like Tai Chi, and Qigong, and yoga. “I got a very early example to see how powerful diet and lifestyle could be in addressing chronic disease, said Chris.” This philosophy has influenced how he thinks about many common issues humans struggle with, including sleep deprivation. Chris shares his thoughts on how nutrition and small lifestyle tweaks can contribute to better sleep.Chris points out that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, and it’s worth trying out a variety of these tips to see what works for you. He recommends starting with basic sleep hygiene but said if you’re still struggling to find a solution or are interested, you could consider getting a comprehensive nutritional screening through your doctor. This could direct you toward which supplements will be best for you so you can get on your way to better sleep.To contact Colleen or Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please email podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please email sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast email newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Consumers are demanding more from brands—authenticity, transparency, and functionality are just a few traits that people are looking for. It often comes down to the values of which the brand is built on and Veronica and Miguel Garza co-founders of Siete Family Foods are an example of a brand created on a strong foundation. The brother and sister team, joined me on the mbgpodcast to talk about how they started a “better-for-you Mexican-American food brand” and why remaining true to their core values is critical as they grow.After Veronica was diagnosed with her first auto-immune condition at the age of 17, which then developed into lupus and Hashimoto’s years later, her brother suggested she try the paleo diet. Eating a healthier diet was just one component of her health puzzle that helped improve her symptoms, but she missed eating the foods she grew up eating like tortillas and chips. This led to her experiment with different grain-free flours. In her childhood, she learned how to make tortillas from her grandmother and decided to give it a try, this time with almond flour.She started sharing these delicious tortillas with her family and found more and more people around her were interested in a grain-free tortillas. “We saw how much it could help people, and realized that the best way to provide this product to people, make it more convenient for them, and have it change their lives the way it changed ours, was to put it out on shelves.”While building this brand, the seven siblings, who all work at Siete, have centered their growth around a list of core values which influence every product they launch and represent their roots as a Mexican-American family from South Texas. These are three that Miguel and Veronica spoke to as integral in creating an iconic brand.Enjoy this episode! Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher, and sign up for our podcast newsletter! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all want to find ways to heal our ailments, but conventional medicine doesn’t always have the answers. No one knows this better than Kelly Turner, Ph.D., New York Times best-selling author, who has been studying what she calls “radical remissions,” for years. She joined mbg founder and co-CEO Jason Wachob on the mbgpodcast and described this term as “the remission from cancer that occurs in the absence of conventional medicine, or after conventional medicine has failed.”In her book Radical Remission, she describes her interviews with people who were told they had days to live but ended up surviving and thriving some 25 years later. Kelly pioneered this research and traveled the world for a year to 10 different countries to find the radical remission survivors and their healers. During her experience, she found nine common healing factors among the survivors, which she explains in her book.The process of healing does not have a set prescription or a list of steps. Each of us will have a different path that includes things we put into our body and the things we take away. These nine healing keys that Kelly discovered as significant themes in the healing journeys of the radical remission survivors. She emphasized that you don’t need to have cancer to benefit from these ways of living.While she does not have research to show whether or not these factors are preventative, her colleagues and researchers have done multimodal longitudinal, randomized studies to show that these factors individually can help your immune system. These nine keys were not things the survivors did for a day and found they were healed, they made a commitment to the keys for life and saw incredible results. Wherever you are in your healing journey or the state of your health, supporting your immune system through these physical, emotional, and spiritual ways of being will be helpful.To contact Colleen or Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please email podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please email sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast email newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are so many exciting things happening in wellness from personalized testing to plant-based burgers popping up at fast-food chain burger restaurants. We invited entrepreneur, investor, and shark on ABC's Shark Tank Rohan Oza to join us on the mbg podcast to talk about the exciting wellness trends he expects will stick around and how he sees them evolving over time.As a consumer packaged good expert, Rohan is versed in the products and trends that have the potential to make it into stores across the country rather than just the coasts (where wellness fads traditionally start). Rohan pointed out that he believes fads are more fleeting and draw attention on the coasts and eventually fizzle out, while trends are indicative of more significant conversations in wellness and are followed in the middle of the country. Rohan breaks down the seven trends he sees as major players in wellness now and in the future.With all of these trends, Rohan said to expect bigger brands and companies to take a large share of the space by expanding their product offerings to include even more products with functional benefits. He said these larger players will likely scale to meet the growing demands of consumers. It's promising to see that many of these trends fulfill people's growing interest in making wellness work for them. It means that more companies are responding to the need for personalized and accessible wellness. There's a long way to go in making wellness more accessible to all, but it's encouraging to hear that many of these trends are expected to find their way across the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Michael Chernow got his first restaurant job at the ripe age of 13 he felt like he arrived. Now, with many successful restaurants under his belt plus two kids, the founder of the NYC sustainable seafood restaurant Seamore’s, co-owner of The Meatball Shop, and Executive Culture Officer of WellWell, a functional beverage brand offering sports and wellness drinks is taking his love of fitness and nutrition to every endeavor. It was that first gig that led to him becoming a dishwasher, then bartender, and eventually landed him a job as a bartender and server at Frank Prisinzano’s restaurant Frank. It was then that he got into alcohol and drugs, which wasn’t uncommon in the restaurant lifestyle.One day Frank took him aside and said “I love you, but I can’t watch you do this,” and said if he committed to getting sober, he could have his job back. This was a big enough incentive for Michael to get to the restaurant at eight in the morning sober and work.Since then fitness and wellness have become paramount in both his personal and professional life. When he opened his first restaurant at 28, he didn’t have much time to go to the gym so instead would run to work and do pushups in the bathroom. Now he’s waking up early in the morning, sometimes at 4:30 am to get to the gym so he can spend time with his family later on–whether it’s morning or night he doesn’t miss a day. Michael is also a big fan of functional nutrition and follows a mostly plant-based diet incorporating some protein and a little carbohydrates into his meals.Michael is so passionate about how fitness and wellness can impact our mental health that he’s extended his philosophy beyond his personal life. When he opened Seamore’s, he wanted to put an end to the idea that “the restaurant industry is all sex, drugs, rock, and roll, and smoking cigarettes.” For the employee orientation, Michael brought in yoga and mindfulness teachers and did a two-day self-development program.From that orientation, “fit squad” was created where once a quarter Seamore’s employees in all locations can come together to take a fitness class or bring a trainer into one of the restaurants. Michael credits the fact that 90 percent of the staff is original to this orientation where people got to know each other on a deeper level and participate in something that improved their health.This restauranteur is working to change the industry from the inside out through an emphasis on health and wellness. He’s seen how transformative it’s been in his own life and can’t wait to continue to share it in his restaurants and businesses. Michael’s inspiring story will encourage you to think about how wellness has already and could continue to propel your life forward in a positive direction. You’ll be left with tangible ways to incorporate more healthy eating and accessible movement into your life and will be excited to share with your community.To contact Colleen or Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please email podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please email sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast email newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all want to optimize our time on this planet and live the healthiest, longest lives possible. Joel Dudley, Ph.D., and Chris Mason, Ph.D., the founders of Onegevity, an AI-driven healthcare service, are committed to empowering people to better understand and take charge of their health through data-driven and customized solutions.Dudley and Mason joined me on the mbgpodcast to talk about what they believe doctors should be testing for, what we should be doing daily for our microbiome, and why prevention is critical for the future of healthcare.A big topic here at mbg is longevity, and with advancements in genetic, microbiome, and blood testing we know more than ever before. In this episode, we delve deeper into all that, but here, they offer four things we can all be doing right now, today.Whether it’s longevity, cardiovascular, gut, or immune health, it’s important to remember that every part of our health story is connected. Mason and Dudley explain that it takes the whole picture to understand what’s going on inside, and they have us excited about what the future of health looks like.To contact Colleen or Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please email podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please email sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast email newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices