Category: Nutrition

Introduction

[00:00:00] Detective Ev: What is going on, my friends? Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show about a 9-year-old son diagnosed with Leukemia, who’s now thriving in his 20’s.

Sara Banta is someone who healed multiple people in her family through the things that she learned. Which is unique in a sense. A lot of times family can be very resistant to this stuff, especially when we’re starting out. Then we win eventually when they see that we healed. They at least respect it, although it might not be for them.

Sara had some of that for sure, but also was able to do so much for her kids. This is interesting in the sense that we’re talking about long-term success here. It’s just as valid to hear from people that might have only been quote/unquote “healed” for a year or two. But I think there’s something particularly interesting to all of us as listeners. Even though I interview, I’m still listening to what the person’s saying and I’m learning things all the time. It’s very interesting from a listener perspective to be able to know you had some really serious stuff going on here. You were able to get it better and maintain that for very long periods of time.

I think you guys are going to enjoy this one very much. This is really cool. I enjoyed this one.

A little bit about Sara, then we will get started. She is the owner of Accelerated Health Products, in addition to the host of the Accelerated Health TV and Radio Show, which reaches a whopping 450,000 listeners a month.

Now Thriving: Detox, Reset, & Rebuild

She helps her clients and listeners reach their optimal state of health through proper frequency-enhanced detox supplements, cutting-edge technologies, and modalities.

Her journey hit rock bottom about 15 years ago when she was suffering from Crohn’s disease, hormonal issues, PCOS, and heavy metal toxicity. After Western Medicine couldn’t give her answers or solutions, she discovered natural ones that actually worked. As she was on her journey, she was also hit with her nine-year-old son’s diagnosis of leukemia. It was at that moment that she knew she had a bigger calling in life, and that was to open people’s eyes to the world of natural healing.

Fast forward to today where she serves her clients and listeners with cutting-edge protocols that combine Scalar frequency-based supplements, Chinese medicine, healing devices, and much more to detox, reset, and rebuild their body, mind, and spirit.

She has a degree from Stanford University in Economics and Psychology, Institute of Integrative Nutrition, and the Invincible Wellness System. We got the full package for you today, folks. She is a strong personality, very well spoken, extremely intelligent, and she healed the heck out of herself and her family. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.

Alright. Hello there Sara, and welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are ya?

[00:02:57] Sara Banta: I’m great. Thank you so much for having me on. I’m excited about today.

[00:03:01] Detective Ev: You jumped up our video quality here and I’ll say it, we definitely look okay. So I’m glad that we did that. Obviously, if you are an audio listener, no worries. We’re not doing anything today that requires video. Most of our audience actually is on audio, but you guys can always catch this stuff on YouTube as well.

Now Thriving: Aiming for Excellency

We always start off with a very similar question on this podcast when it’s relevant to the guest. And being in our space, it’s relevant 99% of the time because very few people get into this space by accident. I always like to ask what were people’s health symptoms? Where did they start? What did they begin dealing with? And then we can talk about other stuff with that. But I’m just curious because I know you dealt with some things. So, what was that like and when did it begin?

[00:03:42] Sara Banta: It began in my childhood. I was raised by two healthy adults who had no health issues. They were slender. So, especially when you have no weight issues, you don’t think about what you’re eating, right? There’s no reason to diet, there’s no reason to be picky about food.

So, I was raised in this household with three other siblings where everyone else just ate whatever. But for me, that didn’t feel good, and I didn’t know why. I was also in the generation where fat was bad. Eat as much sugar as you can or want because there’s no fat in it. And processed foods don’t matter because if there are no fat processed foods, then you’re okay. That was my upbringing.

In the meantime, I was a student, an athlete, a type A personality, so whatever I did, I was going to do my best. Fast forward to when I got into college, things in my gut just were getting worse and they weren’t feeling great. Then fast forward to when I was about 26, pregnant with my first child and those babies steal every little bit of nutrients out of you. So, then my body just got worse and worse.

Now Thriving: Fermenting & Rotting Food

Finally, child number three, I was depleted. My hair was falling out, my skin was breaking out. I looked like I was pregnant when I wasn’t pregnant anymore. Well, I wasn’t fat; I’ve never had a weight issue. That was never the issue. But I would go to a GI doctor who honestly couldn’t remember my name every time I went into the office.

He put tubes down me, up me, around me, and literally at the end of the diagnosis was, take some Metamucil, and you’ve got IBS. I said, no; I’m not going to settle for that. And I went and found this practitioner who uses a machine called the SCIO machine. It’s a biofeedback machine that scans your body for over 10,000 items. He literally was a godsend.

Now he’s my mentor and helps formulate my supplements today. Long story short, it was a marriage at first sight. But at the same time when he first scanned my body, he goes, I’m shocked that you got into this office and got out of bed. You have no energy. Your gut is not moving at all. You’re not digesting food. It’s literally fermenting and rotting in your stomach. Of course, you feel awful, your hair’s falling out, your skin’s breaking out, and you’re anemic. I’m like, oh my gosh. I started crying because finally someone knew how I was feeling.

By the way, I had PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. That is the number one issue for fertility for women. We’ll get into that in a minute, but I had that on top of everything else. I had high heavy metal toxicity, PCOS, acne, on the verge of Crohn’s disease, heavy metals through the roof. My levels of lead and mercury were not even on the charts.

Now Thriving: Against the Traditional Route

All of these things were just this pile of, where do we start? So, we just started peeling the onion one thing at a time. And as I was going along my health journey, my eldest son, who was nine years old at the time, I was just starting to learn about health and supplements and things, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

With that, my world stopped. It was not about me anymore; it was about him. For all of you moms out there, you know exactly what I’m talking about. When we got that diagnosis, he goes, mom, why are you crying? You’re going to fix me. And I go, you’re right; I am. And I’m not going to stop until we find solutions.

It got to the point where, I was smart enough to know that going through the traditional route of how you treat cancer can do a lot of damage. I wasn’t going to do that to my son. That’s where we put together a protocol of natural supplements. And back then I didn’t know all I know about diet. I did as best as I could with what I knew.

But my flagship product still today is the one that turned his life around and that’s the Accelerated Silver. Not only within one year did the blood go from finding cancer cells and very anemic, nutritionally deficient, acidic cells underneath the microscope to the most beautiful blood, no cancer cells in sight. These cells were nice and dark and plump and full of nutrition and there’s no sign of anemia anymore.

That nine-year-old is now a 21-year-old in college who went through the last three years with testing positive a couple times and no symptoms. That’s the same as everyone in my family.

Now Thriving: Doing Double Workouts

So, the three kids, my husband, and I have all tested at least twice positive with no symptoms. This supplement strengthened the immune system, and it has so many more benefits to it. That was back when I didn’t really even know much of anything else.

Well, that was the start and the inspiration of my business to where I am today. Now that’s just my son. My two daughters didn’t have cancer, but my one daughter had anemia, asthma, allergies. I joke in the family, now I can say this out loud because she’s not like this anymore. But when she was four years old, I couldn’t get her out of bed to go on a bike ride with the family around the block.

She had zero energy, and I didn’t like her. I loved her, but she was such a pain in the booty because she wouldn’t do anything. She wouldn’t get dressed for me. You moms out there know what I’m talking about when you’re pulling your hair out because your child’s not going to do what you want. The girl didn’t feel good. She had no energy, no brain power, no body power.

That girl today is a freshman at USC rowing on the rowing team. Now, I don’t know if any of you have been on a rowing machine out there, but it is the hardest workout out there besides maybe cross-country skiing. You’ve got to use your muscles and your endurance, your aerobic, anaerobic all at once. And she’s at a prestigious school on that team.

So, for that little four-year-old, who didn’t have the energy to go run around the block or even get on her bike around the block is now doing double workouts at a prestigious university. It is insane.

Now Thriving: Learning Issues

Also, whenever she used to get the cold or a flu, it would last three to four weeks instead of just one week, like the regular person. To compound that, a year ago, we were actually looking at colleges and had traveled cross country to go look at a college and we had to test.

I’m going to be careful with how I say this because of the topic that we’re talking about. But we both had to test to make sure that we were safe to be around everybody. Everyone’s wearing masks and all of that. We both felt great because otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten on the plane to go on the trip in the first place.

I tested positive, had no idea that I even had it because I felt great. She had been around me, traveled with me, sleeping in my bed with me because we were traveling together and all of that. Well, she still tested negative, never skipped a beat, and her immune system was stronger than ever. This is the girl that would catch anything when she was younger because of a weak immune system. Anything that someone in the room had, she would catch.

My third child, probably my healthiest of all, had issues with learning. She wasn’t dyslexic or ADHD. But in second grade she looked at me and goes, mom, I keep reading the paragraph over and over again and it doesn’t make sense. I just was crying. We would have the two older kids try to read with her, try to make sense of it. What was it? This is where I said, okay, we’re going to look at the diet, we’re going to look at supplements. We’re going to really put together a protocol for you.

Now Thriving: God-Given Challenges

That girl is a junior in high school in all honors classes. Her grades are better than her two older siblings. So, it’s really crazy what the body can do.

I always look back to these experiences as inspiration when any other challenge comes forth in my life. I say, okay, I am so excited about this challenge because I know it’s going to help so many other people out there. This is my muscle that I need to strengthen or to learn about, to help thousands and thousands of people out there.

I always say God gives me a challenge within the five of us in our household to help me learn to help people out there and to grow my business so that I can really be that source of knowledge and solutions for everyone else.

[00:13:36] Detective Ev: Wow. I’m sorry that it happened. But at the same time, I think you’re at this point probably very grateful because of what it’s done for your life and what you can now do for others.

This is the exact reason we do the show, right? Because even when we get to talk about people’s companies and the things that they created, this, to me, is the bread and butter.

Because what’s really interesting about your story is a lot of people come on and it’s a very personal health journey. Sometimes they actually feel quite isolated from their family members because the family is almost watching this from the outside while they’re the ones experiencing it. But you have this case where all three kids at least have something. Obviously, there’s different degrees here, no doubt, but they all have something.

Now Thriving: Direct Natural Approach

And I think you’re proving the point of this whole functional medicine, natural medicine, whatever we want to call it, you have a repeatable process. You’re literally showing that over and over again people can get sick and then they get well with quite serious things.

Anyone that listens regularly knows this (I had no idea about your son), the cancer thing is not actually something we touch on a ton here. We’re not against it, but it is hard to find stories where people took a natural approach, especially an exclusively natural approach.

Many individuals will go through two, three years of chemo. It comes back and then they try some other things. God bless them, man. I’m not discrediting that. If I got a diagnosis of cancer, I think that would rock my world a little bit. I’ve had diagnoses of other severe things, but that’s a different ballpark because you feel like you have a time limit; and quite frankly, you do to a certain degree. It’s just very hard to find people that took a more direct natural approach from day one.

I know I seem like I’m rewinding a little bit, but before we even get into some of the supplemental stuff and all these other things, one thing I have to touch on is honestly the thing I’m most fascinated by. You talked about how you knew you weren’t getting help, felt like the doctor didn’t even remember your name and maybe they literally didn’t. And then you end up at this person who’s doing biofeedback energetic stuff with scans. I could be wrong, but generally speaking, it wouldn’t go from A to B like that. There’s normally some stuff in between.

Now Thriving: Divine Intervention

So, I have to ask if I can, what was the mindset at the time? I’m so fascinated by this because I have individuals in my own life, unfortunately, family members, who have passed away because they were never open to going away from the conventional path. And these are very smart people.

Then I have people in my life of no particular special intellectual talents. They’re very average intelligence people. And they somehow realized, wait, this doesn’t make sense. I gotta go do something else.

Was it so literally from just the Western medicine doctors to getting scans, which that’s something you need to be very open-minded for. Obviously, our audience is, but it takes a while to get there. Or were there some steps in between?

[00:16:07] Sara Banta: I think it was literally divine intervention because it was so blatantly obvious that I was not going to get help with the Western medicine doctor. And believe me, Western medicine is needed. I was in a car accident in 2015. So, I hit the steering wheel at 50 miles an hour, needed stitches down to the bone, was in the emergency room, and thank goodness. Okay? Not taking away from that but I was not gonna get help.

My mom, out of all people, was the one who introduced me to this person. And I thought, what’s there to lose. There was nothing to lose. He was going to scan me. It was a couple hundred dollars. When I was in his office and he described exactly how I was feeling and no one in the world knew that, not my husband, not my parents. Everyone thought I needed antidepressants because, of course, I was depressed. I didn’t feel good, but it wasn’t a mood or a chemical issue.

Now Thriving: Incorporating Traditional & Cutting-Edge

When he described me better than I even knew, I started crying with tears of joy. It was like I’m all in. Everything he told me about diet and supplements and what was going on in my body made sense. I started learning, researching, and learning on podcasts. Google was my best friend. And then I would go to him and ask more questions. He would answer them and tell me what to look up and what to search.

Over the years before I even started my business or before I even got into podcasting, I did so many hours of just work and soaking in all of this information from Ayurvedic supplements and philosophy to Chinese medicine, to the cutting-edge Scalar frequency.

That’s where I come in is my company incorporates all of those all in one – very traditional, thousand old recipes of herbs and plant medicine combined with cutting-edge supplements and devices. And I use biofeedback in my business as well and on my website. They’re different levels of different types of biofeedback that you can have at your home to empower you so you can literally diagnose yourself and treat yourself or your loved one.

Here we are going into the fall with another flu season, and I believe they’re going to be trying to bring back masks and things like that this fall. How great would it be to be able to be in control of your health and to know what’s really going on in your body and not second guess?

Back to your original question, I think it was divine intervention and it was just an aha moment that someone actually understood what was going on in me, day one.

Now Thriving: Societal Stereotypes

[00:19:17] Detective Ev: That makes total sense too knowing that your mom was involved to some degree. Because I can totally get it if someone is doing this, saying all these things, and they fully understand you. That was an amazing connection and jump. There are other people on here that it’s a quick jump as well.

It’s very interesting how many people answer that question with some form of divine intervention – I just knew – a gut feeling. It must be 90% of the people that I’ve interviewed, and I’ve probably interviewed 200 people. Everyone comes back to some answer outside of the practical, and I think that’s really amazing.

Small detail, but something I gotta bring up because, guys, this just goes to show you, I think a lot of our practitioners sometimes worry about their businesses and stuff. They’re like, it’s an oversaturated market. There are still people out there like Sara and myself, I promise you, that have been victims of the whole because-you’re-skinny-it-doesn’t-matter-what-you-eat type of thing. There are literally people today that fully believe this, and that’s what happened to me as a kid.

This is a case of grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side, right? Because I know some people would kill to not gain weight easily, and that’s just something I don’t do. But at the same time, when someone is a hundred pounds overweight, everyone knows that they’re unhealthy. That’s just a societally known thing.

When someone has severe cystic acne, anxiety, depression, GERD, sinusitis, all these things that I had, but is also skinny, no one said or thought maybe it’s your diet. You’re eating like crap; this is what’s leading to these symptoms.

Now Thriving: A Serious One

You can be any weight, that doesn’t give you an excuse to eat a bunch of crappy food. That’s not how that works. There are still chemicals in it; there’s a variety of issues that happen with that.

Something that stuck out to me because I just remember it. I know the narrative’s changing, and I think people are more open to this than ever before. Even going 15 years back for myself, these were profound thoughts. Oh, what I put in my mouth could lead to the stuff on my skin. No one told me that. My dermatologist certainly didn’t tell me that.

So, you’ve been through quite a lot. Your family’s been through quite a lot and it’s amazing to get to hear this other side. And again, just one more thing before we touch on what you’re actively doing now. For the parents out there that might be in the midst of dealing with a severe diagnosis for themselves, let alone their child, that’s gotta be a crazy thing to experience. What would your advice be to them? These are tough decisions.

Sara, you seem like a very confident person, very strong personality. But there’s a lot of individuals out there that if their nine-year-old gets diagnosed with leukemia, they are gonna take a very traditional route, which might not end up being beneficial long term. And I’m not giving medical advice. This is a serious one, guys. You need to make decisions properly. But I think there are many people that would’ve loved to do what you did but didn’t have the courage.

So, what’s your advice to the mom that’s, holy cow, this is my kid and this kid’s nine. What would your advice to them be if they’re in the midst of that?

Now Thriving: A Strong Immune System

[00:22:14] Sara Banta: I’m not a doctor and I’m not telling you not to go seek the professional advice from your medical doctor. I am just speaking as a mom. So, I just knew in my gut the damage that some of those treatments can do.

Unfortunately, my son had one of his best friends, last year at the age of 20, be diagnosed with lymphoma. He did choose to go through radiation and chemo. Watching him go through that process, I literally have the chills right now, thinking back to the last six months of what he went through. They take you to your deathbed – the line of death – and then try to bring you back. Because what they have to do to kill off that “c” word is to literally take you to that line. Then the job is for you to build your body back up.

Now he’s cancer free and he’s doing all of my supplements. And that’s what they chose to do, was to do what their doctor said and then use my supplements to bring him back. That is a place where a lot of people will feel comfortable.

I just know that the reality is diseased and damaged cells are the weak cells in your body. The “c” cells are the weak cells in your body. The goal is for your strong immune system to be able to take care of all that stuff and to sweep it away. So, if you take care of your immune system, these things won’t be an issue.

Evan, you and I both have cancer cells in our body. Everybody does, and that’s normal. It’s when those cells take over the good cells because the immune system is bad.

Now Thriving: Working the Way It’s Meant To

So, in my teaching, I always talk about the gut because, obviously, my gut was where I started, right? And that’s why my issues all started in the gut – IBS, SIBO, and Crohn’s, all of it. I didn’t have GERD though. But still, with that, you can eat something wrong.

I use this example of the gut pathogens and when you eat the wrong foods. Chicken, for instance, the white meat that’s so healthy, chicken has amyloid proteins. Amyloids can trip up the gut pathogens in your gut so that the bad bacteria can overtake the good bacteria. Because we’ve got this microbiome that has the good bacteria, the bad bacteria, the E. coli, salmonella, H. pylori, they’re all in the sandbox playing nice. You throw in the chicken that doesn’t have E. coli in it, but it has amyloid proteins that trip up these gut pathogens. So, the E. coli that’s just sitting in there nicely overtakes the good bacteria.

But if we had enough good bacteria to take care of the bad bacteria, things stay nice in the gut. Same with something more serious like cancer. If your immune system’s strong enough, it should take care of it fine.

So, my goal is to teach people how to boost their immune system through the Acceleradine Iodine, through the Accelerated Silver, the leaky gut bundle, and the gut supplements to keep your gut strong because your gut holds your immune system or 80% of your immune system. When everything is working the way it’s meant to, then the immune system is going to take care of itself.

Now Thriving: Alternative Thinking

So, what advice would I give a mom who gets a diagnosis? I would say, give me a month, doctor. Let me try something natural and see if I see progress. Because most times there is a little time there where you can make that decision in a month, and I’ve had a lot of people do that.

I’ve had many women in their fifties and sixties who may have a breast cancer or they’re ready to go in for surgery or they have something that’s going on and they want to use my supplements to prepare for their surgery. Then after a month or two, they say, Sara, I’m not getting the surgery.

Those are the stories that I will tell you to give you motivation to maybe delay and maybe rethink, maybe get a second opinion. Like I said, I’m not a medical doctor and I am not giving you advice. But these are just ways of thinking in an alternative way and see how much you can do through diet and supplements, exercise, and sleep.

And I’ll give you a short story, Evan. My mom’s 80 years old now. She, like I mentioned, has never had a weight issue. Today, she still loves eating her toast in the morning and she will have her cookie at lunch. She will eat whatever. And she really is proud of me for my business, but she doesn’t listen to me.

So, she at 80 years old, fell off a horse and fractured her pelvis. Now she’s immobile. She’s not paralyzed, but she’s immobile sitting in a chair in her living room. And I said, mom, are you ready to listen to me? And she said, yep, I am. I said, okay, because we’re going to heal you really quickly.

Now Thriving: The Right Direction, Proactively

Number one, I got her a Bemer, which is a PEMF device that helps stimulate circulation and speeds up healing. I said you have to take your Acceleradine Iodine three times a day.

Iodine helps with apoptosis, which is the turning over of damaged and diseased cells and renewing new cells; also helps with your thyroid, which is the master endocrine gland. It helps with brain fog, depression, anxiety, IQ. But it increases metabolism, fat oxidation, increases ATP by at least 18 times in the body. And that ATP is your mitochondrial health and your mitochondrial energy. So, she has to take the silver, which helps the circulation and everything else.

She has to cut down on the carbs and the sugar. I started getting her wild animal protein delivery so that she had good protein to sustain herself. I put her on my Accelerated Keto supplement, which helps increase ATP, helps with sugar cravings, helps with intermittent fasting, helps with repair.

Because when you’re intermittent fasting and your body’s not digesting, it goes, okay, let’s go to repair. Let’s go do that work. Well, we need to repair that pelvic bone and we need to help all the injuries in our body. Put her on the Accelerated Copper, which copper is needed for collagen, bones, hair, and skin of course, but so many other things. It also helps with anemia. And I put her on my collagen supplement.

All of these things, and then took the sugar out, took the processed foods out, and I forced her to do as little exercise as she could sitting in that chair. So, I’m like, you’ve got to move. You’re 80 years old; you can go downhill really quickly if you do not choose to proactively go up in the right direction.

Now Thriving: House Bound & Happy

After two weeks, she goes, Sara it’s really strange. The day after my accident, my brain fog’s gone away. I go, oh, that’s amazing. You’re on supplements that help with brain fog, increase ATP, increase all the brain activity, and you’ve taken out the processed foods, the sugars, and the seed oils that are inflaming your brain. Amazing!

She’s never had to really take supplements or think about diet ever before in her life. And she is seeing this aha moment at the age of 80 because of an unfortunate fall that you never want someone over 65 to do. She had to take things seriously now, and she’s in great spirits. She’s been house bound for over two weeks and you’d think she’d be depressed by now but she is as happy as can be.

[00:30:49] Detective Ev: Man, you’re just healing the whole dang family. I hope our FDN practitioners can either aspire to be this or get someone like Sara in your family. This is what we all need.

I’d love to talk about the entire supplement line next and the other things that you’re doing. But I also wanted to say that was great advice with the moms that might have a serious diagnosis with their kids or even with themselves.

One thing we always need to remember as practitioners, I’m always talking to our practitioners. A lot of them listen to this show. I think we need to be respectful of people too. Like when my aunt took the route of just surgeries and chemo and literally, words, refused to change her diet. That’s what she said – I’m not changing my diet no matter what. And she took that to the grave at 40 something years old with two kids.

Now Thriving: Advise, Then Backoff

As much as I disagree with that, we still have to respect situations that people are in. There is a lot of complexity to this, especially when you start getting those severe diagnoses that are scary as all heck. That does something to you, man. And it does something to the people around you.

So, we don’t have to like everything, we don’t have to say we would do it the same way, but we at least have to respect people. Cause obviously they never asked for stuff like this. We can put our advice in, and we can help out to the degree that someone wants but that’s about it. I found that to work.

When a family member or someone I love gets something like this, I put my 2 cents in the beginning. I say, hey, I will never bug you with this again; I don’t want to be annoying. You obviously know this is a part of my life and at the very least, if I can’t help you, I have the resources to be able to help you. If you’d like to do this, awesome. If not, I know you’re dealing with a lot right now; no worries at all.

That’s the way to do it because you also don’t want to live with regret. If something does happen to this person then you feel like, why didn’t I say something? So, you say something in the beginning, you don’t bother them after that, and you let people make a decision. It is really amazing how many people will come to you eventually.

Now Thriving: Ayurvedic Science & the Best Quality

All of us, most of the time, we need our own little punch in the face, right? And for your mom it’s worked out so far. But then she falls off; that’s the punch. Then, hey, maybe I will try out some of that stuff that you’re doing. And lo and behold, it works.

So, speaking of the stuff that you’re doing, you’ve mentioned a few different things now. The word accelerated has come up a few times. We talked about Accelerated Silver, Accelerated Iron, Accelerated Keto, and the Leaky Gut Bundle. I think I got all of them. And so, I’d love to know what this means?

[00:33:00] Sara Banta: It wasn’t the iron; it was Accelerated Copper that helps with iron in the body. And then Acceleradine Iodine. But yes.

[00:33:07] Detective Ev: Perfect. So, what does this mean? Because obviously if someone hears this and hears the word copper, we know we can get that from other things, but there’s this “accelerated” word here. And obviously, your stuff seems to be working pretty dang well. So, I’m curious what makes yours unique?

[00:33:21] Sara Banta: What we do, as I mentioned before, is we try to take in some of the dry products like the Accelerated Keto or the Cogniblast, which is a brain enhancement supplement for depression, anxiety, ADHD. It’s getting people off their medications; it’s a game changer. And with Accelerated Thyroid, so those three supplements.

And I have affiliate programs and wholesale programs for any practitioners out there if this hits home with you. Those three supplements, we take plants and herbs from the Ayurvedic science, and the very best quality. Which a lot of supplements are full of mold and bacteria. You really have to be careful.

Now Thriving: Encoded Bio Frequencies

Then we enhance it. We add in the cutting-edge ingredients. And then we enhance all of the supplements with Scalar field technology. So, what does that mean? It means it’s increasing the efficacy, increasing the absorption. But every supplement is encoded with bio frequencies for that supplement.

So, for instance, the Accelerated Keto, which is meant to put you into fat burning, help with weight loss, but it also is helping, because of the frequencies, to cleanse the liver, to boost the metabolism up, and to take shock out of the systems, out of the brain and the body. All of the supplements take shock out of the brain and the body.

There is a connection between your spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health, right? We are using the Scalar frequencies to take that shock out of the body so that you can move forward emotionally, mentally, physically, all in one.

The Accelerated Silver is enhanced with frequencies to boost the thymus to help devitalize, because I can’t say the word, kill, all foreign pathogens, viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungus. The Accelerated Copper is to help strengthen all of the tissues in the bones and the collagen in the body.

Accelerated Thyroid is really important. The thyroid is your master endocrine gland, and if your thyroid’s out, then everything’s gonna go kaput. But the Accelerated Thyroid is enhanced with frequencies to detox the thyroid of the heavy metals and radiation that are slowing it down and to heal the thyroid. A lot of people that are on thyroid medication are actually weaning themselves off of it once they add in the Acceleradine Iodine and the Accelerated Thyroid together. Acceleradine is enhanced with Scalar frequencies to detox all of the cells of heavy metals and radiation.

Now Thriving: Absorptive, Detoxifying, & Calming Supplements

And iodine, there’s many myths out there about iodine and taking iodine. This iodine is very different than any other iodine. It’s monoatomic, so it has 100% bioavailability. Most iodines only have about a 10% – 20% absorption rate, and they’re coming from sources that are full of radiation.

Most iodine is coming from the Asias, where Fukushima and Chernobyl have completely contaminated this iodine. Ours comes from South America and it is a hundred percent radiation free, toxin-free, and a hundred percent absorbed.

The other misnomer about iodine is that not just your thyroid needs iodine, but all 100 trillion cells in the body need it. It’s feeding those cells, detoxing them all, and waking up the brain. It’s decalcifying the brain. Most people have too much fluoride in the brain. That’s why my mom said, where’s my brain fog? I feel so great now. Because it was actually opening up her brain and detoxing it.

We also have Accelerated Gold. Gold has been known for thousands of years to help with increasing IQ and depression and anxiety. We’re enhancing our gold with frequencies to help calm the mind, relax, and help with sleep. And then there’s a supplement called NucNoMore, which is Scalar enhanced. It literally tastes like water. But it helps zero out your body of all non-ionizing and ionizing radiation.

Evan, as much as you and I are into health, we’re sitting on our computers right now, and I’m sure you’ve got your cell phone to your left just like I do. So, we are being bombarded by all this radiation coming in the smart meters on our house, the 5G towers that are being put up. All of this is just backing up our systems, especially our liver, and slowing down our thyroid.

Now Thriving: Making Better Decisions

The thyroid is the master endocrine gland. If your thyroid’s out, your hormones are gonna be out, your adrenals are going to be out. You’re gonna have brain fog. It affects your pituitary and your pineal. So, you want to make sure your thyroid health is clean. And you need to get rid of the radiation and the heavy metals. The supplements are there to help support and make you feel good, day one, so that you can then go out and make those smart choices with your diet.

Through my coaching, which is free to anybody, I have a lot of practitioners that join my coaching and teach it. They have it as part of their coaching along with my supplements. But then I coach you on what foods to eat and focus on. Because there’s a lot of wrong, healthy foods out there that are making you sick and you think you’re doing the right thing.

Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, paleo, keto, carnivore, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. I go through all of that in my coaching. The nice thing is the supplements give you this foundation so that you can feel good, like you can do this.

Back to your original question of how I made that jump from Western to trusting this guy behind a computer with a scan. Essentially, he said, Sara, we’ve gotta fix you physically so that you, mentally, can move forward. As soon as he started putting me on supplements that made me feel better, I could make better decisions on my food, on my lifestyle, my exercise, and everything else I was doing.

Now Thriving: Something For All Levels

So, my philosophy stems from that. You’ve got to accelerate your body, mind, and spirit. I say it in that order, your body first, then your mind, and then your spirit. You’ve gotta have that strong foundation of your body first. And with the supplements, you feel that foundation of, now I can move forward. Then you have that aha moment in your mind.

And then I have a lot of people that become a lot more spiritual or become more one with their spiritual self, whether it’s God, the universe, whatever that means to them. They become much more in tune with their spirituality as they go along on their healing journey.

Those are the supplements. There are a few others like my Accelerated Detox Powder, which is the gut superhero, and it heals the gut. It’s all organic, helps with inflammation in the gut, works with any gut regimen. I carry a lot of SporeBiotics and supplements to heal the gut.

But the Detox Powder helps soak up all the toxins that you’re kicking out through any of the detox cleanses or just from the toxins of the day. It soaks those up gently, carries them out of your body without burdening your liver and your kidneys. Because the goal is to minimize the burden on your liver. And it works with all of these other supplements that are helping flush out and detoxing the body on a daily gentle basis.

I have a lot of cleanses as well that can be for the person that is like ready to go gung-ho and all in, or the person that’s ready to just put their little pinky toe in and go slow.

Now Thriving: Body, Mind, & Spirit

I’ve got programs and protocols for everyone. And I meet people where they are just like you were saying. Everyone’s going to choose their path, and what their tolerance is, and who they’re gonna trust. I am here to meet you where your tolerance is and where you want to start.

[00:42:17] Detective Ev: I love it.

And I know it’s a podcast in and of itself, but this isn’t something that, I don’t know if I’ve ever even said this directly on this show; I’ve said it somewhere else. But I love what you said about the body, mind, and spirit because I was an atheist my entire life.

Literally there’s a journal entry. It’s a joke in my family. But it’s really not a joke; it’s a thing of my grandma. She wrote it down when I came over to be watched that day with my sister. And she literally put in the journal entry that I was already arguing her about God not existing at five.

I’m just like, this is stupid Grandma. I think she was saying that when thunder was happening, He’s bowling or whatever. I’m like, God doesn’t exist as like a five-year-old kid. I did that though until 20.

But what happened is the exact order that you just described is genuinely the exact order it happened for me. I was sick; I felt like crap. So, I started with the body stuff; I started with the labs, diet, all these things. You’re right, you do start getting your mind back. You start getting your actual self back too. Because when I was in my sickest, it’s not an excuse for the way I acted, but I will say it’s a heck of a lot easier to act a positive way now.

Now Thriving: Start with Health

I was angry, I was mean, I was just pissed off all the time and saying nasty things to people, bringing other people down with me, right? Again, there’s never an excuse for doing that stuff but it’s a lot easier to not do that when you feel good. So, then your mind starts coming back. And you’re right, you almost get looked at by some people as a disciplined person.

I don’t consider myself a disciplined person. Really, I find what I’m doing actually to be fairly easy. The reason I’m able to do it is, one, it’s fulfilling because I know it’s gonna lead me to feeling good. But two, discipline implies that you’re fighting an alternative desire, almost. And if you just don’t have that or your brain’s working properly and you can clearly see, alright, this is obviously the better decision, to me that’s not discipline. That’s just, it was easy to do it.

And then I started having, it’s not important what it is, but feelings that it became obvious to me that there was something more than just my physical body. Which is hilarious because I was the atheist my whole life, arguing other people. And I have a certain level of sympathy for people who are atheist because to be fair, I couldn’t argue this to someone else.

Like, how am I supposed to argue feelings? That’s not what you do on a debate stage. You argue facts and logic. So, when someone says that they don’t believe, I got nothing for him other than a recommendation to get as healthy as possible. Because I’m like, I hope you feel this, because it becomes so obvious, and it’s such an amazing thing because no one wants to be an atheist.

Now Thriving: A Unique Proprietary Process

That’s what they’ll never tell you. You don’t wake up one day and just hope that, oh yeah, I don’t think there’s really any huge point to this. That’s a little more nihilism, but they walk the same line.

You don’t want to feel that way; you want to believe in something more, but you haven’t felt it, it doesn’t logically make sense, and so you ignore it. Man, I wish I could give those feelings to everyone. But I love that you said that. I have never once heard someone else describe it in that exact way and it’s precisely what I experienced.

So, to be clear about your supplement line too, only because we have a lot of supplement providers on. The biggest differences that I heard with yours are, one, I loved your sourcing. I love that you brought up even where you’re getting the iodine from. That’s fantastic.

And then it sounds like the common theme here is what you’re doing with these frequencies, which would be incredibly unique. That’s not something, I don’t think, I’ve ever heard on this show. Is that the main thing that makes yours different versus a lot of other stuff, or am I missing anything?

[00:45:28] Sara Banta: Yes. That’s the biggest part. No one on earth is taking three to four different technologies and applying them to the process that is our proprietary process. And I wish I could tell you more details about it, but it’s mind blowing.

It is taking the cutting-edge Scalar frequency healing. And frequency healing is going to become more normal and more known out there and what you can do with it.

Now Thriving: Cumulative Effects

Anyone interested? Go on my website. Look at the biocharger, look at the AMP coil, look at the Genius Insight app. Those are all based on Scalar frequency healing; those are big machines.

We use water implosion technology, and then embed with the frequencies. Then I have a master herbalist who is in touch with the formulas from ancient times where they’ve been adulterated in a lot of other companies, claiming to have the same formula out there with the plant medicine part.

Then you have the most cutting-edge natural supplements or ingredients that actually have cumulative effects to heal the body. Like in the Cogniblast, it’s meant to heal the brain to prevent Alzheimer’s and dementia, not just take care of your ADHD today. So, incorporating all three of those in one.

And just to let you know, I don’t need to sell supplements. If I don’t have the most cutting-edge, best formula out there, I’m not going to do it. I carry other brands. Magnesium, for instance, Magnesium Breakthrough is a fantastic formula. I don’t need to improve on it, so I will carry that on my store. With the Accelerated Health brand supplements, they are the best of the best because they were needed.

And I wanted to just touch on what you said because it was so important, and it hit home with me as far as you becoming a believer after being an atheist. I’ve instilled in my kids. Because my one child who’s now at USC rowing, suffered severely from depression in high school. It was during Covid. That’s my real passion is for these children today because I believe nine out of 10 of them are suffering from anxiety or depression.

Now Thriving: Life’s A Journey

But I remember at her lowest point, I sat there with her, and I prayed. I said, dear sweetheart, I don’t know what God is doing with this. But this challenge is to strengthen this muscle in you, to make you survive and be ready for something that you need to be ready for later on in life.

And I can look back at that moment, two years ago, I almost want to start crying. Whereas today she’s a freshman, two weeks into her college experience, and she is thriving. She’s taking selfies of herself, smiling, and just on a high.

There are so many stories in my life where I go, I don’t know what you’re doing, God, but I can’t wait to see what comes out of this. With that attitude, you just want to move forward in body, mind, and spirit. It’s just an amazing way to live where you’ve got this energy that comes from somewhere else. I just had to touch on that.

Because there’s so many of you parents out there, could be practitioners, but also have the kids at home or just even in your marriage or your personal life, whatever it is. Look deep at what’s supposed to come out of this. And maybe you don’t know yet, but trust whatever it is because this is a journey. Life is a journey. It’s not about getting from point A to point B, enjoy the ride. You can have goals, yes. But it’s not just about where you’re going to get to; it’s about the ride. So, I just wanted to touch on that as well.

[00:49:44] Detective Ev: I love that.

Now Thriving: It’s For a Reason

So, I got introduced to the personal development side of things, self-help, before any spiritual side. And I remember someone presented the idea of everything happening for a reason. I’m like, I don’t believe that; it’s BS. That was just me at the time. And he said, okay, cool. What if you just acted like that’s true? How would that change your perspectives on things?

So, if nothing else, give yourself the benefit of acting like it’s true. See what happens. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But I think some people out there might be humbled like me and surprised at what happens when we just treat everything like it happens for a reason and how it changes your mindset. Then you realize, oh, maybe that really did happen in that way. So, who knows?

Sara, as we wrap up here, I just know that there’s a lot of other stuff that you offer and do. You’re sharing your information with a ton of people, so where can people find you? Is there anything else that you offer that you want them to know about today? All that good stuff.

And I know our practitioners, they’ll eat this up, so they’ll probably love signing up for some type of thing where they can offer this to their clients. That’s their hobby, just signing up for stuff to offer to their clients.

Yeah, everywhere that they can find you and what they need to know.

Where to Find Sara Banta

[00:50:49] Sara Banta: The easiest place is sarabantahealth.com and you’ll find my free group coaching on Telegram there. There’s links for that. Join me. I post every day, almost to a detriment to my family time. I answer questions, troubleshoot with you.

A lot of practitioners and individuals invite clients there as well. But I post on a daily basis articles and videos and little facts and protocols. I have my podcast, Accelerated Health TV and Radio Show. It’s on over 100 channels. And Evan, you’ll be on soon. It’s everywhere you can look for podcasts.

My store is on sarabantahealth.com as well. Whole bunch of articles and videos as well there, so much information. But if you ever have a question, just email me directly through the website and I’m happy to answer any questions, put together protocol for you. I’m an open book.

[00:51:51] Detective Ev: Obviously, we’ll have the links in the show notes for you guys, so just go check that out.

Sara, we’ll wrap up today with the signature question on the Health Detective Podcast. And you’re an interesting one, so I have no idea which route you’re going to take with this, and that’s why I love the question. It’s simple in a sense, but you can answer it a few different ways.

The question is this, if we gave you a magic wand and you could wave it and get every single person in this world to start doing one thing for their health, or you could get them to stop doing one thing for their health, what is the one thing that Sara would get them to do?

[00:52:24] Sara Banta: Eat real food and get off the processed foods.

[00:52:29] Detective Ev: We love it!

Conclusion

It’s always the people that can rattle off the most information that have the most simple, straightforward answers. Which shows me that the people who’ve studied the most, realize that at the end of the day, if you do the basics really well, that’s probably the thing that’s gonna help you most.

Thank you so much for coming on today. Incredible story. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone on yet, no, I know I haven’t had someone on yet that had so many family members that they’ve also been able to impact and help. That’s a beautiful thing. So, thank you.

Sara Banta: Thank you, Evan.

You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com, on YouTube @FDNtraining, or on Instagram @fdntraining.

For more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one, go to functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/health-detective-podcast/.

To learn more about us, go to functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/about-fdn-functional-testing/.

When I sat down to write a cookbook for pregnant and new moms, I knew one thing for sure: It must have snacks. Lots of snacks.

There’s nothing like pregnancy and life with a newborn that gets you automatically reaching for the cupboard in search of easy-to-grab food when you don’t have the time, energy, or brain power to make a more complete meal.

Snacks are key for dealing with morning sickness (beige food only please!), when we’re hungrier sooner and more regularly between meals, and they’re essential for keeping our blood sugar stable (important for all pregnant people – and very helpful in preventing nausea, headaches, fatigue, and much more).

And in the postpartum stage, regular meals have a way of being replaced with that #snacklife because life with a newborn often means eating whatever you can grab and eat with one hand.

As a doula and mom of two, I can tell you that having ready-to-go nourishing snacks can make the difference between feeling drained and feeling like you can get through the day.

The thing with snacks is there is such a big difference between store-bought packaged snacks and homemade snacks. Although certainly a necessity sometimes, packaged snacks are often high in sugar and devoid of the nutrients we need to keep us feeling good.

On the other hand, snacks made at home can be:

• Packed with protein to keep you energized and feeling good
• Full of great fats to satisfy you and fuel your brain
• A great source of the vitamins and minerals you need to thrive
• Well-balanced to keep your nausea, fatigue, and blood sugar in check

Enter my chocolate almond oat bars. It checks all the nutritional boxes above – it’s easy to make, delicious to eat, and can be doubled and frozen (either by the batch or as individually wrapped bars for easy grab-and-go snacking!).

Along with my chocolate almond oat bars, you can find many more delicious and nourishing snacks and meals in The Food Doula Cookbook.

Print

Why do some experiments show that duct tape is ineffective for treating warts? 

In 1978, a new approach for the treatment of warts was described, complete with compelling before-and-after pictures, as you can see below and at 0:13 in my video Which Type of Duct Tape Is Best for Wart Removal?. What was it? The application of adhesive tape was put to the test in a head-to-head trial of duct tape versus cryotherapy to resounding success. 

Even though it was a randomized, controlled study, it wasn’t a double-blinded one. “Patients in the duct tape group were instructed to remove all tape prior to making a return clinic visit,” so the nurses measuring the wart changes wouldn’t be biased one way or the other. Cryotherapy can cause redness, skin discoloration, crusting, and blisters, though, so the nurses may have had an idea which study participant was in which group, which may have biased them. 

So, ideally, there would be a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, and here we go. Researchers disguised the duct tape so no one knew which study subject was in which group. Transparent duct tape was applied to the underside of moleskin, an opaque adhesive pad, and the control group got the moleskin without the duct tape. On the outside, both treatments looked the same, but half of the warts were exposed to duct tape and the other half were not. So, if there was something special about the duct tape adhesive, the duct tape group would triumph and the moleskin-only group would fail. If there was nothing special about duct tape and the remarkable success of that other study was simply due to covering warts with something sticky, then both groups would triumph. Instead, they both failed. Neither one did any better than placebo. 

The first double-blind, placebo-controlled trial investigating duct tape for the treatment of warts failed—in adults. Was that the problem? The subjects in the original duct tape study were mostly children, average age of 9, whereas in this study, the average age was 54. Warts in younger populations may be more amenable to treatment, so is it possible the reason duct tape worked in the first study but not the second, is that duct tape only works on kids and not adults? To determine that, you’d have to repeat the same kind of study with children as the subjects. 

Researchers randomized about a hundred schoolchildren to either duct tape applied to the wart or a corn pad placed around the wart as a placebo. Each group did something, but only one group had duct tape on their warts. In this case, the researchers used that same transparent duct tape so it wouldn’t be recognized. The result? After six weeks, the duct tape failed. “In this 6-week study, duct tape was no more effective than placebo.” 

And that’s where the medical community left it. If you look at recent reviews on whether it’s better to burn warts, freeze them, or duct tape them, duct tape is dismissed as being totally ineffective, which is totally understandable. No matter how good some original results are, if you duplicate the test in a bigger, better study and can’t replicate the results, then you have to assume the first study was just a fluke. 

But, did the researchers put the same thing to the test? Maybe adults weren’t the critical factor here. Maybe it was the transparent tape. In fact, “clear duct tape is not duct tape.” It turns out that “clear duct tape and moleskin both contain an acrylic-based adhesive, whereas standard silver duct tape contains a rubber-based adhesive,” which is totally different. “It is likely that the success of traditional duct tape is associated with the rubber-based adhesive that comes in direct contact with the wart during treatment.” After the two clear tape studies came out, it appears there is something unique in duct tape beyond just merely covering up a wart. And indeed, the latest addition to the body of evidence found that using actual duct tape was 80 percent effective versus cryotherapy’s 60 percent effectiveness. However, in this case, superglue was used so the duct tape would stick better. 

In conclusion, “odd as it may sound, duct tape is a legitimate and often effective treatment for common warts.” 

Don’t you love it when there are cheap, safe, side-effect-free solutions to common medical problems? One of the reasons I started NutritionFacts.org was to unearth all of the amazing medical knowledge that may languish in the scientific literature because there isn’t a hefty corporate budget driving its promotion. Everything we do here is free. No ads, no corporate sponsorships, no selling you anything. If you’d like to support our nonprofit work and help expand our team of researchers, please consider donating here. 

This video was the conclusion to a three-part series on duct tape and warts. If the missed the first two, see Duct Tape and Wart Removal and Can You Really Remove Warts with Duct Tape?. 

No matter the time of year, it seems like there is always a lunch that needs to be packed for both the kids and adults in the family. It can be tricky to find healthy school lunch ideas that aren’t a) sandwiches and b) filled with allergenic ingredients. Whether you prefer preparing school lunches that are a single main dish or a bunch of snacky things, these healthy school lunch ideas offer you variety and flavour, and are allergen-friendly!

The recipes we’ve shared here are:

• gluten-free
• dairy-free
• egg-free
• nut-free
• peanut-free
• include vegan, vegetarian and Paleo options

21 Healthy School Lunch Ideas

Vegan Burrito Bowl

Vegan Burrito Bowl by Simple Veganista

Packed with rice, fresh veggies and beans, this Mexican-inspired healthy lunch is easy to customize with local vegetables, different beans and your favourite toppings (hello guacamole!).

Easy + Delicious Gluten-Free Pizza (Egg-Free, Yeast-Free, Dairy-Free, Vegan)

Easy + Delicious Gluten-Free Pizza by Meghan Telpner (*ACN Founder + Director)

A fantastic and versatile pizza crust you can load up with toppings galore.

Quinoa Veggie Tots

Quinoa Veggie Tots by Darn Good Veggies

Stuffed with protein- and fibre-rich quinoa and tons of veggies, these tater tots are perfect for little hands and go well with many different condiments, dips and spreads.

Fluffy Chickpea Pancakes With Vegetables

Fluffy Chickpea Pancakes With Vegetables by Emilie Eats

These protein-packed savory pancakes are incredibly filling, setting up your brain and body for post-lunch focus and learning. This recipe is paired with a heavenly avocado sauce, but you could also pack a little container of ghee for a delicious spread!

2-Ingredient Flaxseed Tortillas

2-Ingredient Flaxseed Tortillas by Blooming Nolwenn

This fantastic and easy bread alternative, made from flaxseeds and water, make for a great healthy school lunch because you can fill them with your favourite veggies and protein.

Orange Sesame Three Bean Salad

Orange Sesame Three Bean Salad by Vegan with Gusto

This bean recipe gets a citrus upgrade with orange segments and a quick orange dressing. You can bulk it up with extra veggies, and you can omit the sesame seeds if sesame allergies are an issue.

Easy 7 Layer Hummus

Easy 7 Layer Hummus by Waves in the Kitchen

This healthy school lunch idea is stacked with so many fresh veggies and herbs (plus there are more topping ideas in the post!), you might not even need something to dip in it. Just skip the feta to keep it dairy-free.

Tuna and Kimchi Onigirazu

Tuna and Kimchi Onigirazu by Salt N Pepper Here

Learn the ins and outs of making this Japanese rice sandwich, which is wrapped in nori seaweed and can be altered with your ideal fillings, though we love the inclusion of kimchi as it’s an outstanding fermented food!

Shredded Veggie Healthy Breakfast Muffins

Shredded Veggie Healthy Breakfast Muffins by Pure Ella

They’re called breakfast muffins, but they’re delicious and savory and you’ll love to eat them at any time of the day.

Turmeric Spiced Millet Veggie Burgers

Turmeric Spiced Millet Veggie Burgers by Eating By Elaine

Make the most of anti-inflammatory ingredients like turmeric by packing them into a tasty veggie burger. And yes, veggie burgers are good at room temperature too!

20-Minute Mexican Pasta Salad

20-Minute Mexican Pasta Salad by Glowingly Well

A chilled and refreshing pasta salad recipe that is great for batch cooking so you can eat a healthy school lunch all week long.

Quinoa Pizza Bites

Quinoa Pizza Bites by Jessica In The Kitchen

Another great bite-sized recipe that can be eaten on its own, or paired with a salad or roasted veggies for a complete meal.

Mini Chickpea Flour Frittatas

Mini Chickpea Flour Frittatas by The Simple Veganista

Grab your muffin tin to make these egg-free frittatas that are high in protein and fibre, and absolutely packed with fresh vegetables.

Blueberry Chia Pudding

Blueberry Chia Pudding by Natalie’s Health

Who says you can’t eat breakfast foods all day long? Chia puddings are portable and loaded with anti-inflammatory omega-3s, minerals like calcium and iron, antioxidants and fibre – a great combo for a filling lunch.

Vegan Mushroom Lemon Lentil Salad

Vegan Mushroom Lemon Lentil Salad by Delicious Everyday

Experiment with your favourite mushroom varieties, as they provide loads of nutrition and a meaty, umami flavour to salad recipes.

Fresh Sushi Spring Rolls

Fresh Sushi Spring Rolls by Vibrant Plate

Rice paper wraps form the perfect blanket for all the fresh veggies to snuggle into. Plus this recipe is ready in just 30 minutes!

Sweet Potato Quinoa Patties

Sweet Potato Quinoa Patties by A House In The Hills

A simple pan-fried patty recipe that has a short ingredient list but is tall on flavour!

Mediterranean Bento

Mediterranan Bento by Theresa Diulus (*Culinary Nutrition Expert + Program Coach)

Snacky lunch lovers rejoice! This bento-style healthy school lunch includes a delicious roasted parsnip hummus and a ton of fresh fruit and veg.

Vegan Gluten-Free Savory Waffles

Vegan Gluten-Free Savory Waffles by Wee Little Vegans

These savory waffles are full of shredded zucchini and there are so many ways to use them! Pile them with dairy-free cheese, dips and spreads, fresh veggies, guacamole, shredded meat or sliced tofu.

Sesame Ginger Soba Noodles

Sesame Ginger Soba Noodles by Cookie and Kate

Who wouldn’t love a bowl of noodles for a healthy school lunch? We love the simplicity of this noodle recipe – and more gluten-free noodle inspiration here.

Meal Prep Black Bean + Sweet Potato Burritos

Meal Prep Black Bean + Sweet Potato Burritos by Liz Moody

This big-batch burrito recipe can be stashed in the freezer so you have them on hand whenever you need a healthy school lunch meal.

Introduction

[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Hello everyone. Welcome to today’s podcast on the ultimate coaching program and the first ever Live streaming Health Detective Podcast. We are super excited to be doing this. It is actually going to be a normal and regular thing from here on out.

I think technically speaking, we did a pseudo–Live Health Detective Podcast with Ryan Monahan, but you had to be part of the Summer Open House. This is something that people can be a part of now just by being on our YouTube or our Facebook page. And in the future, we will be doing LinkedIn as well. I know while you’re scrolling for jobs on LinkedIn, you’re going to be wanting to watch our hour-long podcast. But Facebook and YouTube, I definitely think we’ll get a lot of people listening and downloading there.

How this will work from now on is, let’s say you’re catching this in the middle, or maybe you just watch the first bit of this and you’re like, I don’t want to watch an hour podcast on YouTube, but I’d love to listen to this. What you’re able to do is just subscribe to us on the Health Detective Podcast on Apple, Spotify, anywhere you prefer to listen to podcasts. These episodes that go Live will generally be released a week later. Today it’s just actually coincidental that it’s perfect. We’re recording on a Monday, and it will be released next Monday.

Our guest today is Kurt Stradtman. And if anyone out there has been listening for an embarrassingly long amount of time and you’ve really been that loyal to this podcast, Kurt was actually on episode number 17. He is now on episode 265 today of the Health Detective Podcast.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Doing It for Myself

Just so it’s not confusing then, if you do follow us on the audio version, obviously, the one that got released today is technically a couple behind what will be released next week. That’s just how that’s going to go. We’re saying 265, because it’s 265 in the future.

But he was on episode number 17. It wasn’t even called the Health Detective Podcast back then, it was the FDN Thrive Podcast. So, I’m glad to get you back on when we have more than 10 downloads per episode, I’ll put it that way. Thank you, Kurt, for being here with us.

Kurt Stradtman: Thank you for having me.

Detective Ev: I think one of the first things we need to do today is reintroduce you. I’m not expecting anyone to go back 200 something episodes and listen to that. What’s interesting now is, I think at the time, both of us had different roles at FDN. And you’ve really moved into a lot of different things here.

So, let’s start with the health side. No one gets into the world of FDN or all these other programs, which is a little hint – something we’re going to talk about today are all the other programs Kurt went through as well. Let’s start with the health side. How did you even get into this? Because it’s not something we set out to do at five years old, generally speaking.

[00:02:25] Kurt Stradtman: Well, I have a past life in marketing, and that’s what I’ve always done. I reached a point where I did a great job at helping other people’s livelihood, helping their dreams and their businesses come to fruition; I really wanted to do it for myself.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Wanting More

It was just a happenstance that I got introduced to the functional health world. I was in my twenties at the time, but I couldn’t figure out what it was I needed to do to get into that industry. I had already gone to school for anthropology because I wanted to be Indiana Jones. And then that never happened. So, I was like, what could I do? And somebody had talked to me about becoming a health coach.

I was like, this is a great idea. This is what I need to do. It’s too late to go back to school. I think if I could do it over again, I wanted to be a naturopathic doctor, but I was too late in life at the time or so I thought. So, I had moved to Seattle and had become a health coach, just a basic run-of-the-mill health coach.

And I was like, this is great. There are so many like-minded people in the northwest. They’re all eating Cliff bars and driving Subarus. It’s like natural and healthy. There are naturopaths on every corner. But then when I got there, I realized that there are so many natural people there. People are already aware of how to live life more holistic.

So, I ended up being a little fish in a big pond. Becoming a health coach there, I realized that wasn’t the direction I was going in. I didn’t want to take people on a grocery store tour, tell people how much protein to eat, or eat your vegetables and exercise. I wanted to figure out how to do more.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Medical Gaslighting

I had FDN introduced to me by seeing signs for it. You know, I would be on their email newsletter list, or I would see ads for it and things like that. It just wasn’t the right time for it, at the time. I had gone through so many health coaching programs trying to get a little bit more, trying to find what it was that I was looking for.

And at the time I didn’t really have any health issues. There’s a lot of FDN practitioners out there, they became FDNs because they were trying to help their own health issue, to be their own doctor, to help friends and family. At the time, I didn’t really have too many health issues; I was pretty healthy.

My sister, who is a nurse, she had gotten diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It took so many times for her going to her doctor to finally get them to test her thyroid properly. Something that’s inexpensive and should be done annually, if not twice a year, she had to pull teeth to get her thyroid checked. And the Hashimoto’s diagnosis came secondary. Had they done these screenings before, they would’ve found the Hashimoto’s potentially before the cancer.

Fortunately, it’s nearly seven years cancer free for her. She did a combination of Mayo Clinic and a natural cancer clinic in Tijuana that I became involved with. But I realized in her situation there was so much medical gaslighting, especially for females, especially for females that I was coming in contact with, that, you’re fine, here’s an antidepressant. You’re a new mom; this is why you have anxiety. Lay off the cookies and you won’t have the weight issue.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Getting Both Sides

It’s just, we’re our own best doctor. We know what’s going on in our bodies or can at least have an inkling that something isn’t right much better than our doctors can. So, I became an FDN because I wanted to be that voice. I wanted to be that listening ear for these people coming to me saying they have a problem, and then me acknowledging it and believing them, rather than just gaslighting them and saying, maybe you need an antidepressant or a diet change.

But then what happens, and I think this happens with a lot of healers and people in the functional health world, is we can give great advice, but we fail to take our own. We can tell people the right things to do, but then we don’t really take our own advice.

That being said, I started developing my own health issues especially during when Covid had started, and everything was locked down. We were all at home and I wasn’t doing everything I needed to improve my health. So, then I started having the health issues. But then I was having the resources that I needed to fix myself. So, I got both sides of this journey where I’ve been working on my own health, but then I came into this not because of my health, but because of something that’s affecting a huge other demographic.

[00:06:59] Detective Ev: I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but I’m glad that you got to experience both sides, because I think that makes you that much more of an effective person both in the company but as a practitioner as well.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Delayed Diagnoses

It’s one thing to just empathize because you’re a half decent person, right? You were already doing that. But that genuine empathy that comes from, dang, I’ve been through this in one way or another, directly and indirectly, is powerful.

I also wanted to go back to something that you said with your sister. I’m very glad that everything worked out with the cancer. But not only anecdotally have I heard this a bunch with the issues that happen especially with females when they go in for these conditions and then get told it’s in their head.

I don’t want to misspeak here, so I will try to find the study if I can, and I’ll put the link in the show notes and the comments. But I think there’s actually been studies done showing that women are more likely to be told that something’s in their head for the exact same diagnosis as a guy.

Yes, it does happen to a lot of people, I experienced it myself. But I also watched my mom, for example, for seven years, Kurt, they didn’t diagnose her with an autoimmune disease even though she had the same exact symptoms the entire time. And finally, go figure; it was a thyroid condition.

It was Graves’ disease, which for those who don’t know, is an autoimmune that’s associated with hyperthyroidism. I don’t want to say it’s the opposite because that is totally incorrect clinically, but it’s kind of the opposite of Hashimoto’s or hypothyroidism.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Various Programs

It’s amazing to hear the similarity in these stories with your sister and my mom where, all these years, something that is so basic like a thyroid panel, not even expensive to run even if you didn’t do the insurance, and you can find these things that are going on. Sometimes we just don’t think to do that.

What’s nice about the rest of the story, I realized when I don’t get to talk to someone for 200 plus episodes, this feels like the first time I’m interviewing you. This is great! Because all of this is really genuine where I’m actually relearning all this stuff.

You had been through several other programs. I’m sure you took something from all of them. But I’m curious, we don’t have to list off everything, but what are some of the other programs that you have went through?

And I want to be very careful about how we answer this because I’m asking for this reason. There are people that look at FDN and compare us to other programs. There is never a day where I am on a call or a webinar or whatever, that I say another program is bad. I have never done that; I can’t picture you doing that. But there are certainly programs that are better suited for others than maybe this person over here.

And considering most of these programs out there nowadays are $5,000 to $15,000. If you do five of these, you have a college degree basically in America, at this point. So, you don’t want to do five of them if you don’t have to. What were some of the other ones you went through and what did you like or maybe want to improve about some of those?

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Foundations of Nutrition

[00:09:41] Kurt Stradtman: Yeah. I get this question often talking about other programs out there. And I always like to start by saying it’s just my opinion, right? I went through this program; this is my opinion. I’m not ever speaking bad about these other programs because sometimes it’s the best option for other people.

I’ve done various basic health coach certifications; I can’t even remember all of them. But the other big ones that I did was IIN – the Institute of Integrative Nutrition – and Precision Nutrition. I did Precision Nutrition first, and then IIN after.

What I had found in the Precision Nutrition Program, very thorough, right? They send you a textbook, it’s this thick; it’s very thorough. There wasn’t a lot of mentorship to it. You enroll in the program, get accepted into it, and then it’s self-paced. And you have to have that dedication to get through the program.

I needed that little bit of guidance, those resources to reach out to. And I found that with Precision Nutrition, and again, this is just my opinion, but I feel like it’s more for athletes helping athletes, more of people that are trying to build health to become a better athlete, to build more muscle, to increase endurance, things like that, not so much on the coaching perspective, right?

They did an excellent job talking about the foundations of nutrition. We all have to have that. Every health coach needs to have a strong foundation in nutrition. But I needed something else. I came out of that program, and it took a lot of work.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Diet Theory

And I think I took longer than I needed to get through it because I lacked that accountability. I need somebody, I need a deadline. Yeah, I need somebody to tell me we have to get this done by this certain date.

And I had heard a lot of good things about IIN. So many friends had gone to that program that are in this industry. Then I finally took the plunge. Meanwhile, I guess I need to preface this a little bit, I’d been seeing all these ads for FDN. I was like, I need do FDN. But I didn’t have the finances at the time, the right time for that type of investment, because it is a big investment. All of our education is a big investment for whatever we do, and we want to make sure we’re using our money wisely.

I went through these programs that were a lot less expensive, thinking I was going to get the same outcome and that’s not really what had happened. So, then I went to the IIN program, which has a nice price tag on it. During that program, I really liked the way everything was structured because it dove into health concepts more than just nutrition. It went into it more than just the Precision Nutrition program because it went into diet theory.

That was the big one that I felt like I needed in this field. I would have so many clients come and say, I’m following Mediterranean diet, I’m following Atkins, I’m following Paleo. What does that mean? We need to know what all of these different diet theories are, even though I never recommend one specific diet. I take pieces of each one to match the person that’s in front of me.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: A Little Fish in a Big Pond

But it was a great program, and it had that mentorship that I was looking for, but not until the last three days of the program. Right before graduation, you would get on these coaching calls with a group, and sometimes a group call like that can be intimidating.

Maybe you don’t want to ask a question because you think somebody might think it’s a silly question, right? Or maybe you’re asking a question that just might not be appropriate. So, there was that intimidation factor to those calls where I didn’t feel comfortable really opening up and asking all of these questions. And I needed some of that mentorship earlier into the program.

So, I came out of IIN with great health coaching skills, right? I knew how to talk to clients, to talk to them about diet theories, talk to them about a wide variety of healing modalities that were available to all of us. But I still needed more.

Then I was left with this, like I said earlier, I was a little fish in a big pond. Health coaching is becoming a very oversaturated market, so you have to figure out what sets you apart from the other person. That’s a basic marketing question that you always have to ask yourself in any endeavor you go on. What makes this different than the guy down the street? Also, what makes it different than any other modality out there?

So, I had invested all of this money in these multiple programs and probably four or five years of time into these programs.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Ending Up at FDN

And I kept seeing these ads for FDN. I would see that they were talking about lab testing. That’s what was intriguing me, but I had this epiphany where I was like, that’s it. It’s the lab testing. That’s what I’m missing that all of these other health coaching programs are not offering.

We can tell you how to eat healthy, tell you how to live a healthy life but healthy for me and you are two different concepts, right? What’s going on under the hood? Or what’s going on with this blood work?

Obviously, these labs that the traditional medical community is running isn’t that thorough at explaining everything that’s going on. My sister’s a prime example. Your mom’s a prime example. You’ve gone through all of these tests, but you’ve gotten nowhere. So, the functional lab testing was really that part that I knew was going to set me apart.

Not only are we taught in health coaching to look at the full body, the whole body, that’s the holistic concept, but it was the first time that we’re actually able to look inside the body and see what’s going on. That’s really how I got through all of those programs and ended up here with FDN.

[00:15:16] Detective Ev: I appreciate the thoroughness of those descriptions.

You know, I can’t speak much on Precision Nutrition, but many people know the other health coaching program that I did was Institute for Integrative Nutrition. That’s how I actually started in the industry, and that’s what preceded FDN for me. And I don’t think you could have nailed the description anymore.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Massive FDN Support

It has a decent price tag, especially for what you’re getting. I would assume this is still the same to this day or something similar. So, I went through seven years ago now at this point, but exact same thing as you. The only mentorship, if you’d call it that, was the group calls at the end.

And I like how real you are. I appreciate it because you say something that everyone goes through, but most aren’t going to say. Yes, even as adults, even if you’re a podcast host, it can be intimidating to be on a group call, and you don’t want to sound stupid. You have questions where you’re not sure are these people above me in the knowledge? Do they already know this stuff and I don’t? It is a little intimidating and then you end up not getting what you should have gotten out of that call.

Obviously, you also want to be respectful to everyone and you don’t want to hog up the time. So, there’s many things that go into that and you shouldn’t feel that way if you’re getting the mentorship. That’s why FDN is really cool with the best of both worlds because you have that unlimited group mentorship aspect from day one, but you also have this very personalized one-on-one that is quite in depth. We have over 12 hours of one-on-one mentorship at this point, and it’s going to feel like a lot more than 12 hours with the depth of some of that.

But the bottom line is, I think you highlighted a lot of the strengths of IIN and I’m assuming Precision Nutrition too, because these aren’t bad things.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Know What You Want

You need to decide what it is you want and what you desire to do. You may be someone who wants to focus on dietary theory, just that coaching side and helping people shift their mindset, which by the way, some people only ever want to do that stuff.

I’ve had people get on these sales calls and say they don’t really like the idea of labs – I’m not a science person, that intimidates me. FDN’s not going to be a good fit, man. You’re going to hate this because we’re all about diving into labs and the science and stuff.

So, it really starts with the individual knowing what they want, and then we can help filter all these programs out there to make an informed decision, so again, you don’t end up spending a bunch of money for something that maybe had a part of what you wanted but wasn’t the full thing. You could also argue, did you need to spend five, six grand to get that little part, or could you have gotten it somewhere else for cheaper?

So, when you went through the FDN course, one of the things that we include in the cost of tuition are lab tests for someone to be able to run on themselves. With the lab tests that you were able to run on yourself and all the other things that you were learning, I gotta ask, what was your experience like?

What were you feeling as you went through it? Did you find unique healing opportunities for your body? And did you realize this part here was a huge gap in my health knowledge? I’m curious what your opinion was. Obviously, you enjoyed it, you’re here, but it’d still be nice to hear specifics.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Health Trajectory

[00:18:08] Kurt Stradtman: I learned that I had some broken parts. That’s what I like to joke to people about because I’m an FDN mentor. I work with trainees as they’re going through the program. And one of the things that I do are their own personal R&R sessions. It’s a big thing in life in general. Don’t ask somebody to do what you’re not willing to do yourself.

But having those lab tests is a big key component to that because you get to be the client; you get to listen to what’s going on. And I have this theory that it’s a lot easier for you to understand those concepts when it’s your own health because it’s related to you. You can listen to Reed talk about case studies all day long, but when it’s personal to you, it’s a lot easier to bank that information and absorb it.

I see this with a lot of trainees going through the program, they come to that R&R session to see their lab results, and they think everything is going to be great, because they’re already eating well, they’re following a diet that works for them. They’re exercising, they’re sleeping well, and then they see these little hidden things that show up on there, that shows something’s broken. Something’s not right, and it’s a healing opportunity to be fixed.

I also learned that. I came into it thinking that I was going to have pretty decent labs. And then I saw how my body was responding to stress, or in my case, it was not responding to stress at all. Not only does it show you where you’re at, but it was showing me the trajectory – if you don’t intercept it right now, this is where you’re going to end up.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Anticipatory Learning

That was the big thing for me was realizing, and I’m talking about like cortisol dysregulation and adrenal issues, if I didn’t intercept it, I was going to be in a bad place further down the road. If I was having a few symptoms then, how was it going to be five years down the road if I didn’t fix anything?

[00:20:06] Detective Ev: Yeah. I think it’s interesting because of all the people I’ve interviewed, not that there’s not smart FDNs out there, we’re all pretty decently intelligent, I’d like to believe. But the retention in their ability to remember their own lab results, I think proves what you just said. And I don’t know if the course is this advanced that it’s structured like this.

But I love studying learning and why we memorize things and how we do it. Dopamine’s a huge part of that. It’s one of the reasons that many kids unfortunately are taking like Adderalls and Vyvanse to study better, right? These things flood the brain with dopamine. But dopamine’s also anticipatory. And so, I think as lab nerds and health nerds, what is more exciting to us, as sad as this is, than getting lab results back for ourselves? That’s exciting.

I think there’s this perfect combination of, you’ve gone through a lot of the course material, you have been excited to get your lab results back from the first few weeks into the course, I think that’s why the retention’s so high. Many people do describe those, they’re called R&R sessions, for those watching or listening, that means Results and Recommendation sessions. So, you’re getting your results and then we give you some recommendations.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Healing Opportunities

I think that’s why so many people describe that and clients that are the same way, as oh, this is when this clicked for me. This is when I really started to understand some of these concepts, is when I saw this stuff. Because now, in theory, you got to see lab results in the course, but you’re taking theoretical stuff to very practical, very real – it’s you, you’re the person.

And this is also the beauty of FDN. Unfortunately, most people don’t come to us until they already feel like crap, especially the clients. But FDN is good at finding things that are going wrong in the body or those healing opportunities, as you said, that even if someone that feels really good, runs the foundational FDN labs, you are going to find something if you’re trending in the wrong way.

I had a gentleman recently. He’s a stud of an athlete, 23 years old, been boxing since he was five. His dad is a professional boxing trainer. And so, the kid looks fantastic, super high energy, but he liked what we were talking about. He’s local to me and he wanted to run some of the labs.

So, we started super basic. We actually just did the hormone thing just to get it rolling. Because again, he wasn’t a normal client by any means. And guess what? His hormones looked, overall, pretty good. But we could just start to see that he was trending almost into that compensatory phase just a bit. So, we caught something before it happened.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: A Life-Changer

I’m glad to know that there’s people like you that actually end up going through the course before they’re a total train wreck. They can find things to work on. It’s a lot easier to recover from that than it is when you go through the course banged up like some of us. But hey, don’t worry. We have those people too and we are able to help them out.

So, you already mentioned this. I’m just curious. I’d love for people to get to know what a day in the life of Kurt’s like. You’ve mentioned that you’re an FDN mentor. I know that you do some other things for FDN as well. What do those roles look like? Because you have a position where you really get to connect with the trainees.

[00:23:00] Kurt Stradtman: My favorite part is that I have a lot of hats with FDN, and I love it. I love being involved with it because FDN changed my life, right? It changed my personal life, it changed my career, it changed my family’s life, and being able to be part of the new FDNs coming on the scene, it’s wonderful.

When I had graduated the FDN program, I think it was like four or five years ago now, there was just several hundred FDNs in the world and now there’s over 4,000. So, we’re just constantly growing and being part of that mission to help these practitioners become the next best FDN, it’s really awesome. And my client load, with my personal clients for my own health practice, has gone down because I love taking on these training sessions and working with trainees.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Audience Questions Welcomed

Really, I think I like teaching it so much. I love being an FDN practitioner and working with my clients, but I love teaching. So, I get on a soapbox often when it comes to these health concepts or FDN concepts. Being in a place of being on a soapbox with the audience that’s willing to listen, that’s the great part of doing everything that I do.

[00:24:19] Detective Ev: See. We gotta have you on the podcast more then, because we could just force people to listen to us here. It’s great.

Speaking of which, one thing I should have mentioned in the beginning is that these podcasts, they’re not going to be fully interactive when they’re Live. I, obviously, want to keep the structure that has worked for us for three years now and be able to go through certain set questions. But this is about the time where if you guys are on Live today and you do have any questions for Kurt, this would be a great time to ask. I’d be happy to highlight some of the audience questions the last 10 to 20 minutes of each episode.

And while in the past, we’ve only really recorded for 50 minutes, that’s how long the typical shows are. Kurt, thanks for being our guinea pig with this today, because if we do see that people are hopping on consistently and do want to ask questions, we can make these even longer in the future to allow for that. And then maybe the audio version only has the main podcast. I don’t know. We’re willing to experiment. We always are trying to give you guys what you like. That’s something that’s just a whole part of FDN.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: The Evolving FDN Course

You know this firsthand. We both graduated, like you said, four or five years ago; I’m six. You could just see how much FDN has evolved since then. They’re constantly listening to the feedback of the community and then adding stuff on. So, there’s more lab tests included in the tuition now. There’s more one-on-one mentorship. Correct me if I’m wrong, four or five years ago, I don’t even think they had the Facebook trainee group yet. Was that there?

[00:25:39] Kurt Stradtman: It was fresh. There wasn’t this huge archive of stuff to search through. Because as a trainee you can just type in a keyword of what you’re looking for and find eight years of it. It was a fresh group, so there wasn’t that much to see, to sort through.

Trainees really are in a good place right now. Like you said, they’re getting the extra lab testing included. But they have the Facebook groups, they have so many Live calls that they get to hop on to learn course concepts, to even get a chance to talk to Reed himself once a week – it’s Study Hour. That’s a hugely popular one. They hear Reed talking in these lectures and on these slides in their course modules but then to actually get to talk to him and pick his brain and ask questions, it’s just a great opportunity.

So, the course is evolving. And at the end of the course, you do get the opportunity to have a postgraduate interview where you actually have that one-on-one conversation with the powers that be and say, this is what I’ve loved in this program, and this is where I think it can improve. Then you get to build on that. So, this course is getting better.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: FDN First

[00:26:45] Detective Ev: For those that might not have just understood that, basically there’s these things called PGIs – post-graduate interviews. And it’s actually how the course is able to evolve in the way that it is. There have now been multiple thousands of hours of post-graduate interviews.

It’s funny because I think, as a trainee or a fresh graduate, I remember thinking that I was going to be able to ask them a bunch of questions on the call and they do allow for that. But they are 10 times more interested in asking you questions, the graduate, and figuring out, okay, where can we get better? What did we do wrong? It’s this obsession for greatness and excellence in the industry, which I really appreciate.

We do have a question here. This is great. I will see if I can share that on the screen. See, this is so much fun. I love this platform to be able to do these podcasts. The question is, “if you could do your health coaching journey differently, what would you change, if anything?”

[00:27:37] Kurt Stradtman: That’s easy for me to answer. The biggest thing that I would do differently, and again, this is not negating how great these other programs are and everything.

If you’re interested in lab testing, if you’re interested in making these connections and being that health detective to help people uncover the root cause or close to the root cause of these conditions they’re going through, that they’ve been dealing with for years and been in the cycle of trial and error, as Reed says, FDN is the right program.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: What’s Right for You?

So, if I could do it differently, I would save or figure out the finances to go into FDN first. Then you’d get to come out of FDN a year later and have all of the resources you need to start your career as this health detective.

What happened to me is, I don’t want to say I wasted, but for lack of a better word, I spent five years going through various programs because, at the time, I couldn’t afford the tuition for the big FDN. So, I ended up spending double, maybe even close to triple the cost that the FDN program costs on all of these various programs.

I think to really answer that question, it’s to go to FDN if you are wanting to do these lab testings, if you’re wanting to learn how to be a health detective and how to be so much more than a health coach, this is where you need to go. And like you said earlier, if that’s not your interest, then maybe it’s not a good match. One of those other programs might be great for you.

[00:29:08] Detective Ev: One way to figure it out, you guys can go to fdntraining.com/call and talk to one of the course enrollment advisors. I’m actually on that team, so there’s a chance you might get to talk to myself. Whether or not you consider that a good thing is completely subjective, but you could get to talk to me.

What we do on those calls is figure out whether the course is a good fit for you. Yes, by definition it’s a sales position, but at the same time, good and ethical selling is making sure that you’re giving someone a product that they can actually benefit from.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Booking a Call

Kurt, we don’t talk like this, you wouldn’t even know this. I refer out about 15 to 20% of the people that book calls with me for FDN because it’s just not a good fit. They’re looking for something so specific in such a certain way, which is great. You want to come into those calls knowing what you want. And if we can fill that need, we will do that. And if we can’t, we’ll be like, hey, we know a ton of other places and programs, you should go here.

Some people let’s be honest, some people need to work on their health first. Yes, you could do that while at the FDN course. But there is a level of chronic illness, in my opinion, that is not well suited for almost any course. I think you need to really work on yourself first and then get into it.

Many of us naturally work on our health before we start these courses, I think that’s par for the course. But there’s a small percentage that, they’re banged up man. And that’s okay. But work on that first. Get your brain fog down so that you could actually learn what you’re studying, right?

Okay. With that said, let’s check our time here. Oh, we’re still very good on time. Yeah, we have fdntraining.com on the screen and that’s slash call as well. So, fdntraining.com/call to book a call with us.

I want to also ask this, because I’m trying to think. One of the things I do in every interview is I try to think, what would I ask if I was an audience member? And so based on the title of today, we talked about how we were going to compare different health coaching programs.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Learning Opportunities

If someone’s still listening at this point in the show, it would imply to me that they’re probably interested in FDN. So, one really useful thing that we can give them by having an FDN mentor on today is, I’d love to know, Kurt, what do you know are the attributes or characteristics of a person who has success with the FDN course and is able to go through it efficiently? And what are the habits of someone that maybe struggles a little bit? Because our course is a mix.

We do have a huge self-paced aspect. There are other things to help you keep accountable, but it’s mainly on you. And you self-proclaimed that’s something that maybe you struggled with. Yet not only did you get through it, you’re here mentoring. So, I’m curious what some of those characteristics might be for people who go through it effortlessly, and then those who maybe are dragging behind so that they can have more success.

[00:31:49] Kurt Stradtman: What I’ve found, and I’ve been doing this close to two years now on the FDN side for mentoring. What I’ve noticed is trainees who are struggling a little bit, they’re not taking advantage of all the opportunities that they have. They’re not hopping on the Live calls that’s happening a couple times a week, they’re not actively using the Facebook group, right?

You can cultivate these friendships in this FDN group. I’ve been doing this long enough now; I’m seeing friendships blossom, becoming colleagues with each other, in the Facebook group for trainees. And then I’m seeing them on the AFDNP graduate side, and they’re still close and relying on each other and stuff like that. I think that’s the big one.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Willing to Pivot

Take advantage of those learning opportunities you get, the Live calls, the Facebook group. That’s a big one. There’s a lot of people out there that don’t like Facebook, don’t use Facebook; we get it. And we talk about this in the new trainee orientation.

But Facebook, in this case, is really useful for us because, it’s like we just said, there’s several years of discussion in there that you can sort through and search through. A lot of trainees that don’t use Facebook, create a Facebook account just to be part of the Facebook group. That’s a huge thing.

The other component, and this isn’t so much for being successful in the course but being successful as an FDN in general. You have to be okay with change, constantly willing to pivot. What I mean by that is every day, not every day, but labs are changing, right? Lab markers change; labs come into the industry, they come out of the industry. Supplements come into the industry and leave. You have to constantly be okay to pivoting and open to all kinds of feedback, changing the way you do something.

I’m on the Study Hour every Friday. Every Friday I learn something new. I learn something new as an FDN that I did not know before. And at least two out of the four, each month, I learn how to change my own results sessions with clients. Or I change how I go about talking to a client because of something I learned.

So, you can’t be stuck in your way is the point I’m getting at. You have to be willing to change and evolve, and that’s really the key to success for being a great FDN.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Facebook Groups

[00:34:18] Detective Ev: I felt like you read my mind when you talked about some people don’t like using Facebook because some people don’t even like social media. But it’s one of the things I really emphasize when I’m on the calls with people, if I know that they’re going to do the FDN course and they’re signing up a hundred percent. I let them know that it is worth making that account just for that, if nothing else.

Because listen, would we love to be on some private forum on our own website? Yes, we would. And we’ve tried that in the past. Here is the issue. People that do use Facebook and social media are addicted to these things. And so, when you’re going on Facebook and you’re just scrolling aimlessly, your question that you asked in the Facebook group comes up on my feed. It comes up on several hundred other people’s feeds. Versus if we’re on a private forum, you forget to log on. You’re on the major social media platforms, right?

So, we will maintain that as long as we can because it’s a really cool thing in both the trainee group and the graduate group where you have so much engagement. And I can’t help but think some of that engagement is actually because you were really just scrolling on Facebook to begin with and then you happen to see something in FDN. You’re like, oh wait, I want to answer that. Or wait, I can help with this. That’s just what happens.

We do have another question here, also from Jo. Oh, good question, because so many people ask this. “Were you working full-time when you went through the course?”

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Working Full-Time

[00:35:40] Kurt Stradtman: Yes, a hundred percent. The way the course is created, that’s taken into consideration. A lot of us don’t have that luxury of being able to say, we’re devoting an entire year to our education and we’re not going to be working, because we have to pay the bills.

There’s a lot of trainees that are coming into the program just making a lateral shift. They’re already in this functional health world; they just want to add to their expertise or add to the repertoire of functional health tools so they can budget the time a lot easier.

But what happens when you’re working full-time? I was working at a UPS store during that time. It was a full-time job because I was in my mid-twenties at the time. Then I would come home and work on my FDN course.

But it’s structured in a way that most students complete it in about a year because it’s taking into consideration that we all have other jobs most of the time in a field that’s not related to it. That’s the beauty of the FDN program is you don’t have to have experience in that field to come out to have everything you need for a successful career in that field. That’s the big one.

You get to print out all of the notes and slides from the course so you can, in your free time, be reading through those. And you can download the audio. So, if you’re driving down the road, you can have it playing as if it’s a podcast playing. There’re so many different ways for it to work while you’re working full-time to get through the program.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: The Ideal Student

[00:37:18] Detective Ev: That is something that we get all the time because someone might be making that lateral shift, that’s a really good way to describe it. They might be jumping careers completely. I’ve had many stay-at-home moms, which is more than a full-time job, especially if you’ve got a few kids. That’s going to be crazy trying to do any formal type of education. So, the FDN program is always made with a very specific type of person in mind.

I would say the ideal person is the person that really wants to go do this as a career eventually, in some way. You might want to work 10 hours a week. That’s something that you can do and gain supplemental income from FDN. You might want to do it full-time. We have tons of FDNs doing that as well.

But the course was made for that person we know is going to have to transition in some way or another. I’m one of the rare ones where I was actually working at the time, but I was working at my family’s restaurant. And I got lucky, knock on something, because I don’t want to consider this luck all the time. I broke my foot to the point where even the boot that I had, they said you really shouldn’t stand on this at all. You should be using crutches for several weeks.

So, I ended up doing the FDN course in a couple of months. But I got to do it eight hours a day, seven days a week. I loved it man; I was obsessed. You know, I just wanted to go through it and keep studying it. Normally you burn out after studying after 30 minutes in my opinion.

Where to Find Kurt Stradtman

But I could study all day and feel like I still had decent retention because I was so excited about what we were learning. So, whether you can do one hour a day or eight hours a day, if you break your foot or something, we are able to set that up for you.

And the videos are very cool because most of them are only about 20 to 30 minutes each. Reed will actually say, go grab a drink of water, come back, and then we’ll get to the next section. So, you can break it down very easily in your day.

We have about seven minutes left here. What I want to do is just run this how we normally would run any Health Detective Podcast, especially since there’s no other questions. Kurt, where can people find you? I know that in addition to your work at FDN, you do have your own practice where people can work with you. Do you have a specific type of client that you like to work with? And then again, where can they find you?

[00:39:21] Kurt Stradtman: I love to work with clients that are dealing with hormone issues and gut issues. Really, I want any client with a chronic condition to come. Because, almost always, there’s going to be a root to that in hormones or gut issues, right? So, I like to educate them on how that connection really is.

Nourish Integrative Health and Nutrition is my practice. It had been Stradtman Family Wellness for the longest time and then I just recently changed the name because I’ve been evolving and adding to it. I didn’t feel like the name served its purpose anymore. And so now it’s Nourish Integrative Health and Nutrition. Nourishintegrative.com is the website.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Proactive Health-Care

[00:40:05] Detective Ev: Excellent.

Yeah, you’re right. Even though there always ends up being so many “root causes”, quote/unquote, in the world of FDN, it’s a rare day when there’s not a client that comes back who’s chronically ill that something doesn’t show on the hormones and gut.

And that’s going back to what we were talking about before where even if you feel super good when you run the FDN foundational labs, we can catch stuff so much earlier than someone actually really getting sick. We could still help you then, but man if you’re smart, I would be doing some of this stuff proactively.

I’ve started doing that in my own life. I’m like, I feel good. It’s okay. Maybe now I should be occasionally doing these labs, so I don’t get back to a place that I was before. I can’t imagine getting back there. But still, why not do that?

Then, I’ll finish up with the signature question on the podcast because it has been 200-something episodes since you would’ve gotten to answer this. Especially someone like you who’s so involved with the course, obviously learning all the time, at least on Fridays, like you said, when you’re doing the Study Hour. I’m curious if the answer has changed at all. I wouldn’t remember, but who knows?

The question that we always finish with on this podcast is, if you, in this case, Kurt, could wave a magic wand and get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, either get them to start doing one thing or get them to stop doing one thing, what would Kurt Stradtman, multiple course completer, FDN mentor and practitioner get everyone to do?

Signature Podcast Question – Invest in Your Health

[00:41:31] Kurt Stradtman: That’s such a tough question. I remember you asking that question all those episodes back. And I think I told people to go gluten-free because gluten can contribute to so many different things.

But I think the big thing that I would say now is invest in your health. And that’s going to, more than likely, involve a financial investment. Because, unfortunately, we live in a society where self-pay or cash pay for our health, can get expensive.

But we’re not running these tests and labs just for the sake of running them. We have these five foundational labs, or more if we have more to add on, for a purpose. As an FDN, we’re able to find these connections and interconnect all of these labs together.

I’ll have people come to me with hot flashes. They know they have a hormone issue. They’re like, why are you wanting a stool test? I told you I have a hormone problem. Or somebody will come in with stomach cramps and they’re like, why are you wanting to see my testosterone? Well, we’re able to make these connections and find these things, like you said, find these things before they happen. It’s important to invest in your health.

So, if I could wave that magic wand, it’s to convince them that it’s not a waste of money to invest in these lab testings. Because you can eat well, exercise, and sleep great, but if you don’t know what’s going on under the hood, like I said earlier, you’re not going to have as much success as somebody who’s gone through the whole program or an FDN client to have all the proper testing done.

The Ultimate Coaching Program: Multiple ROIs

[00:43:11] Detective Ev: Excellent point. And I would say, by definition, it is an investment.

When we give an investment for anything, we expect a return. The return is on your health. I know firsthand and so many of our practitioners and clients have experienced this.

I mentioned that broken foot, and I was making a joke about it. But the truth of the matter is, I was never very good at one particular sport, but I had done sports my entire life. I’d always been very active, but I had never broken anything. And in one year I broke multiple things. It was also one of the years I felt the worst I ever had. I genuinely believe that’s because I was so sick.

The investment for me was not only just in my health, that’s a beautiful thing to get back, but when you feel healthy, it’s a lot easier to make money. I think you and I would both share the sentiment that we’d love to live in a world where we don’t have to invest in this stuff, just get what is considered basic forms of healthcare, basic rights to be healthy, and not have our food contaminated, insurance pays for labs. But they don’t really work or look for the right thing.

Yes, I’d love to live in a world where we don’t do that, but that is the reality right now. And at the very least, we can feel good in knowing that if we do invest here, whether it’s from a client perspective or a course perspective, this is going to have an ROI that’s not just subjective in your health. It’s objective in your health and probably objective in your bank account.

Conclusion

Because if you’re not falling asleep halfway through the workday every day, chances are you might be a little bit more efficient at work. And you’re competing against a bunch of other people who unfortunately are very unhealthy. It’s easy to stand out when you have energy all day.

You’d think that’s like the baseline but that alone will give you a significant advantage of the workforce today if you could just stay awake for eight freaking hours straight. So, definitely an investment.

Kurt, I’d love to have you on more, especially for these Lives. If you love that teaching aspect, that would be great. But I wanted to thank you for being willing to be our guinea pig today and hop on for the first Live Health Detective Podcast. Thank you very much.

Kurt Stradtman: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Detective Ev: Cool. If you guys want to check the audio versions of our 265 episodes and counting on the Health Detective Podcast, just search for, you guessed it, the Health Detective Podcast on anywhere that you podcast. We release two episodes a week, Monday and Thursday at one in the morning EST, so that all of our time zones can hear it. I’m looking forward to seeing you guys again soon. Thanks.

You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com, on YouTube @FDNtraining, or on Instagram @fdntraining.

For more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one, go to functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/health-detective-podcast/.

To learn more about us, go to functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/about-fdn-functional-testing/.

This week’s note looks at a study called “Association between daily alcohol intake and risk of all-cause mortality: A systematic review and meta-analyses” by Zhao et al. As previously discussed, systematic reviews and meta-analyses hold the highest level of evidence. They aggregate all relevant literature on a topic to draw a conclusion, which avoids cherry-picking. However, the credibility of this process relies on the quality of the original studies.

The study explored the relationship between daily alcohol consumption and all-cause mortality risk. The systematic review found 107 studies published between 1980 and 2021, involving nearly 5,000,000 participants and around 425,000 deaths. Notably, these studies were observational, establishing associations rather than causations.

The paper categorised participants by alcohol consumption, comparing different groups to lifetime non-drinkers. It highlighted the challenge of defining a non-drinker group, which includes a range of individuals, from health-conscious abstainers to former alcoholics. The study handled this challenge well.

Results revealed that occasional, low-volume, and medium-volume drinkers did not show a significantly increased risk of all-cause mortality compared to non-drinkers. However, high and highest-volume drinkers had higher risks. Notably, sex differences surfaced, with women experiencing higher mortality risks at lower consumption levels than men.

Comparing the findings to public health recommendations, the study found that potential risks occured at far higher alcohol consumption levels than those set in government guidelines.

While the discussion section acknowledged the study’s strengths and limitations, it failed to delve into the sex differences observed. Potential explanations, such as physiological differences between men and women, were not explored and should have been.

In conclusion, this study contributed valuable insights into the relationship between alcohol consumption and all-cause mortality risk. It challenged public health recommendations while noting that the impact of alcohol can be quite individual.

You can read the full article below

Duct tape beat out ten other wart treatments for cost and effectiveness, so why isn’t it standard practice? 

One of the “unusual, innovative, and long-forgotten remedies” noted in a dermatology journal article was the use of duct tape to cure warts. It was finally put to the test. There are all sorts of conventional therapies, from acid to cryosurgery to lasers, but most are “expensive, painful, or labor intensive,” whereas the simple application of duct tape is none of those and may even be more effective than trying to freeze off the warts. 

As I discuss in my video Can You Really Remove Warts with Duct Tape?, some doctors lauded the study, noting they had been using duct tape as a “painless, yet effective, therapy for several decades,” instead of “surgery and other destructive therapies.” Said one physician, “Sometimes, when I’ve mentioned this type of therapeutic option to a patient, they will look at me as if I’ve lost my mind! When the treatment works, however, they appreciate the wisdom of my advice and my ‘minimal discomfort and fuss’ philosophy.”

Other doctors were not so amused. After spending money on all sorts of fancy equipment, along comes duct tape? Studies like that “could damage the reputation of cryosurgery,” wrote one physician, who also complained that the ten-second application of liquid nitrogen used in the study was too short, so it was an unfair comparison. And, evidently, you really have to get in there and freeze until there is a blistering reaction. It’s painful, but too bad. The doctor even joked and made light of a poor child who, before each freezing treatment session, vomited out of fear of the pain! 

Did he have a point, though, about the ten seconds? In the trial comparing duct tape to cryotherapy, those ten-second cryotherapy treatments worked 60 percent of the time, which is actually better than the results of most cryotherapy studies that only seemed to cure about 50 percent. In fact, typical cryotherapy for warts works so poorly that, statistically, it didn’t even beat out placebo, so all of that pain may have been for nothing, though aggressive cryotherapy does seem to work better. 

What they should have done, wrote another doctor in response to the duct tape trial, is take a scalpel to the wart and really blister it before going back a week later and trying to cut and crater it out. Maybe even go back a third time. ”If the procedure I detailed had been followed, the resolution rate would have been closer to 90%”—but at what cost? In the duct tape trial, one patient “lost his study wart in a trampoline toe-amputation accident.” (Amputation—a 100 percent effective treatment!) But, at what cost? In this study, 85 percent of the duct tape patients were cured without any pain or tissue damage, whereas aggressive cryotherapy may require lidocaine injection nerve blocks, “taking the cry out of cryotherapy.” It can also cause permanent tissue damage. As you can see below and at 2:48 in my video, you can end up with big, necrotic, frostbite lesions. In one sense, tissue damage is the whole point of freezing warts, but you can end up causing deep burns, rupturing tendons, which can cause permanent disability, or causing extensive scarring in rare cases. Just the psychological stress of having to keep going back for such a painful procedure may ironically impair our ability to fight off the wart viruses in the first place. 

So, “even if the effectiveness of duct tape occlusion is shown to be merely equivalent to that of cryotherapy,” duct tape would be better. And it was shown to be even more effective than cryotherapy; in fact, duct tape may be the most effective treatment. As you can see in the graph below and at 3:25 in my video, compared to ten other wart treatments, duct tape beat them all in terms of effectiveness and cost. It was cheaper than all but the “DN” option, with DN standing for Do Nothing. Compared to the most cost-effective prescription treatments available, over-the-counter duct tape is ten times cheaper. “It is an unusual and welcome event in health care when a common ailment is proven equally amenable to an inexpensive, tolerable, and safe alternative therapy.” 

Hold on. If you look at the latest Cochrane review, which many consider to be the gold standard of evidence-based reviews, it acknowledges that cryotherapy “is less convenient, more painful, and also more expensive,” but despite being excited about the effectiveness of duct tape in an earlier review, in two subsequent studies, duct tape seemed to totally flop. So, should we give up on duct tape for warts, or is there another side of the story? You can find out the thrilling conclusion in Which Type of Duct Tape Is Best for Wart Removal?, the next and final video in this three-part series. 

This is the second video in my three-part series. If you missed the first video, check out Duct Tape and Wart Removal. 

Introduction

[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka, Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show with a biz tip.

We’re wrapping up our Intro series. I know there was a bit of a gap in this last time with Jennifer Woodward’s episode and myself, where we talked about our business workshop, but that was too big not to get out. And we’ve got another thing that we need to announce, but we’ll get to that in just a moment.

Anyway, if you haven’t registered for that yet, you got a little bit of time left. We’re doing that in just a few days here. It’s fdntraining.com/biz. There are a variety of interesting things happening that day, and I’ll give you as much of a hint about all those things as I can.

One, it’s a $6 workshop. And anytime we charge for anything workshop-wise, although $6 seems incredibly small, we’re sitting there as a company thinking, how do we give $6,000 worth of value? Thankfully in business, that’s pretty straightforward, right? If we help you get a few clients in your health coaching business or FDN business, we were able to deliver on that goal of ours to give you a thousand x value for hopping on the workshop. That’s one of the main reasons you’d want to hop on this.

Even if you never plan on becoming an FDN practitioner, that’s not your thing, totally fine with us. We’re going to be giving you principles that have worked extremely well for a large amount of FDN practitioners. And honestly, it could translate almost, I would say, 90% perfectly to any health coaching business out there.

Biz Tip: Sweetening the Pot

This is not fluff, not theoretical stuff. It’s not one of those webinar video things, a 30,000-foot view. The person just tells you the problem but doesn’t actually give you any practical advice or things that you can go do to make a difference in what they promised to help you with, in this case business.

We’re going to give you stuff that you can take that day, walk away with it, and actually go apply it to make a better business for yourself and earn a higher income. Bring a notepad. Do whatever you’ve got to do to get some notes down. It’s fdntraining.com/biz. There will be a Live Q&A afterwards and, of course, a recording, there always is.

But the Q&A would be the main reason to hop on Live with us. Plus, it’s fun. It’s always cool when you’re on with a couple hundred people or whatever it might be with this one, getting to interact with the chat. It’s just a different experience. I definitely like it more as a host and a consumer.

With that said, the business tips are not the only thing that’s going to be going on that day. Obviously, we know that some of the people that attend this business workshop are going to be interested in the FDN course. We will be making good on our promise to give you business advice.

You never need to take the FDN course to take the advice that we have and make a lot of money with it and help a lot of people with it. That’s true. However, again, we know that people on it are probably interested in the FDN course and what we’re doing, so that’s why we’re going to sweeten the pot a little bit.

Biz Tip: Being Transparent

If you guys don’t know, I recently became director of sales at FDN, and I instantly wanted to start shaking some things up. I’m relatively young. It kind of sucks, I’m getting to the point where that’s getting less and less true. But as of right now, I’m only 27 and relative to a lot of corporate America, I’m doing pretty good on the youth side.

My point in mentioning that is my generation sees things a little differently. We don’t like being sold; we don’t like cheesy tactics. I don’t think anyone likes this stuff, but I’m saying we’re very aware of this. We want authenticity, people to be straightforward with us, people to be direct. Actually, we don’t believe that sales is a bad thing. But we believe that if you don’t tell us that you’re trying to sell us something and then you do that, that is a bad thing.

And FDN has never really been that way, which is great, but I wanted to take the transparency to the next level. I want to be as direct as possible so everyone can understand what’s happening so that we can get the right people consuming the right content.

Again, the business workshop, the $6 workshop, fdntraining.com/biz is something that you can watch and apply directly to your business. Technically, you could apply a lot of the stuff even to a non-health coaching business, although you’d be getting a lot less value to be fair if it’s not a health coaching type of thing. But, at the end, we are going to offer a discount on the FDN course. We are also going to remind you that the FDN Business School is going to go up $500 on September 1st.

Biz Tip: A Solid Guarantee

We’ve had to raise the price on it. The amount of content that’s got added in and the feedback that we were getting is a hundred percent of respondents to our survey in business school saying that it was worth multiple thousands of dollars and none of them paid that. So, we figured it’s time to raise the price.

But we’re also going to do something really interesting, and this is something that has never been done before, ever in 14 years of FDN being a course. We think it’s going to work out just fine. And we have it set up in such a way that we can support this now.

Basically, in addition to the discount, in addition to the last opportunity to get into FDN and the Business School before the business school goes up by $500, I’ll put it this way, the overall discount when you account for the Business School thing is going to be over a thousand dollars. Just, I’ll put that out there right now.

In addition, we’re going to be announcing an offer that will be permanent at FDN to be clear. Let’s just say this, it is something that if you have ever been interested in the FDN course and know that you could pay for it, but your only hesitation was, can I actually go be a practitioner? Can I actually earn income with this? I’m trying to beat around the bush because I don’t want to give it all away. But let’s just say this, we’re basically going to guarantee it. We are going to guarantee that you get a return on your investment that matches what you paid for the course, or we will help you until you do. That’s the guarantee.

Biz Tip: Better Than a Refund

And the reason that we’re not going to do a guarantee of giving a refund is because, one, I mean, that would be ridiculous because you never know if someone’s actually doing the stuff that they said that they’re going to do, and they could just get a free course. But number two, people don’t want a refund if they went through the course. They want to have a successful FDN business, right? That’s the whole point.

Better than a refund is showing you a way to make all the money back and then some by actually helping people with what you learned. So, I pitched this to the team, and they were extremely receptive of it. But I think that’s the kind of stuff my generation likes.

And again, this is one of those things, any generation likes this. Who wouldn’t want a guarantee like that? But my generation thinks about it in such a way that if you don’t have these things, we’re really hesitant. We’re really skeptical of what’s going on.

So, I said to the team, we know how well this works. We know that people are making six figures with FDN. Guarantee them that they’re going to get the tuition back if they do what we say they need to do. And they were totally, again, receptive to this.

I kind of just gave away all of it, basically, but there’s still a little more to it, so it’s worth hopping on Live. fdntraining.com/biz is the place to go. Now, today obviously is supposed to be an Intro to FDN series, but what I just mentioned is all relevant to this part of the Intro series.

Biz Tip: Letting us Show You

Because as you could tell by the title, it was an intro to the business side. How do you set yourself up for success to go do this as work while you’re going through the FDN course? And does this really have any place in an Intro series? Well, I guess you could debate that, but I think so.

I think the vast majority of the people that come through FDN do have aspirations to go do this as a career. They just might not know how. And the small percentage that say they don’t have aspirations to do this, I think unfortunately, the limiting beliefs that they have around this kind of work are so strong that they can’t even consciously acknowledge that they would love to do stuff like this. So, the majority know and maybe just are a little nervous.

But then there’s a fraction that I think don’t even realize they would love to do this because they’re so scared. It’s unconventional to them. And grant you as the world continues to move online, I think this stuff’s being more and more accepted.

If you go back eight years ago, ten years ago, FDN was already working online. We were already teaching practitioners how to work with clients all over the world, in the country, the United States that is, and have success. To people back then, eight, ten years ago, that was a new concept that seemed like maybe works for some people, but how could that work for me. If it’s not obvious that it can work for anyone by now, well, again, let us show you how it works in the Business Workshop. Outside of that, I can also set you up for some success today.

Biz Tip: Anyone Can Do It

So, here’s a couple things you need to know. There are people in FDN as practitioners that make full-time incomes doing this. Also, there are many people that make over six figures doing this. And although it is much less than a handful of people, it’s a very small amount, there are even a few that make seven figures doing an FDN business.

Now, how the heck can that be possible? How is it that some people could go through an online course and never make a dang dollar, and then others can take the exact same system and make six figures, let alone seven figures? How could that be?

Well, we could spend an eternity doing a podcast just talking about the business side: marketing, sales, every little thing that comes up with that. Because similar to the health space, believe it or not, business is ever evolving. There are certain health principles that remain true. Those are things that we teach in FDN. And there are certain business principles that remain true, but there’s new technologies.

There are new studies, believe it or not. You can actually study certain things in business if you didn’t know, see that people respond a certain way if you do X, Y, Z thing versus A, B, C thing. The bottom line is business is a skill, business is something that can be learned. Your results might vary from someone else’s. But if you do certain things, the idea that you’re not going to be able to win in a way that’s meaningful to you and actually gets you excited, that’s just ridiculous. You absolutely can do this. A hundred percent of people can do this in a way that’s actually meaningful to them and makes them a decent income.

Biz Tip: You and Your Product/Service

Are you going to be a seven-figure superstar? I don’t know. There are many things that go into that, I suppose, even in addition to the business stuff. Maybe there are additional talents, additional gifts that the person might have. But I will die on the hill saying that you should absolutely be able to replace any normal or even above average job doing FDN, applying certain principles.

So, today is an Intro though, right? We’re not going to get into all the crazy things that you can get into in business. That’s for the business school; that’s for the business workshop. But in today’s Intro, here are just some things that can set you up for success.

While you are going through the FDN course, what you need to start doing is showing off your knowledge to people, your newfound knowledge to people. And what that looks like is going online; maybe it is social media, writing a blog, at the family party, or a local talk. Some aren’t even online, right? Maybe it’s doing something on YouTube. You have to let people know that you exist.

I know this is a wild concept I’m getting into here. But to do business, people have to know that you exist. Crazy, right? Absolutely insane how that works. But people have to know what you do. And when you start to offer a service or sell a product, you need to start having people associate you with that thing.

The reason that you want them to associate you with that thing is because the way to do business is you create a product or service that solves something. It solves a problem. And sometimes that problem is seemingly minor, but every good product or service solves a problem.

Biz Tip: Solving a Problem

You might be thinking, well, Ev, what about like a fiction writer? They don’t solve a problem. Yes, they do. They solve boredom. They give you entertainment. That’s something that human beings want. This isn’t a life-or-death problem; I’m not saying that. You don’t need to be entertained to have a healthy life, but it does solve a problem.

When you have a gym that you open, you solve a variety of problems, I guess you could say community and stuff like that. But the main problem that you solve, obviously, is that someone will buy very expensive equipment for you, maintain it for you, and replace it for you for a low monthly fee instead of you having to buy the stuff. They’ll also house it for you in a sense, right? They’ll have it at that gym rather than you having to bring the squat rack home.

And maybe you use the elliptical or maybe you play basketball there. That’s not very practical for you to have at your house most of the time. And again, it’s expensive. If you wanted to buy a good squat rack with all the weights, the elliptical, whatever, you might spend a few thousand dollars versus you can go to a gym and maybe spend 50 bucks a month.

Eventually, if you go to the gym for many, many years as an adult, will the gym eventually win? I mean, yes, probably. But that’s the thing. In the meantime, they’re getting a nice monthly payment that seems okay to you. Because you’re like, well, this $50 a month is better than spending three grand upfront.

Biz Tip: All Businesses Solve a Problem

But if I live in the same area for 10 years and I go to the gym every single month, well now I’ve spent what, probably like $6,000 to $7,000 or $8,000 in that time period. Then realistically speaking, it can be a lot more than that.

We have a local YMCA here that’s extremely popular. It’s a very well-built and well-maintained one. And I moved back to the local town, so I started going there again. I very quickly left because I realized it was the high school reunion I never asked for. But I couldn’t believe that 10 years later, some of the same kids I was going there with at like 15, 16 years old are still going to the same gym.

Imagine how many families have been paying for memberships and going there for 10, 20, or even 30 years. Some people have really been going there that long. So, that solves a problem, a huge problem, right?

A restaurant solves a problem of you having to cook your own food. FDN, we help solve your health issues. We help you help others solve their health issues as well. And then you take the business school side, we help you take a very tough skill to learn, which is business, and we can condense it into something small so that you don’t have to go do all the research.

I could be a clothing store and solve the problem of you not having to build and stitch together your own clothing to wear. You get the point. And maybe you haven’t thought about it like that before. All business is solving a problem. Every single business is solving a problem, otherwise, it’s not going to stay in business very long, I promise you that.

Biz Tip: The Ring Doorbell

The biggest businesses in the world either solve a massive problem or solve a problem that’s maybe moderate for a lot of people. And the biggest of the biggest solve a massive problem for a large amount of people.

Take the Ring Doorbell, for example. That guy pitched it on Shark Tank in the United States, and actually got rejected. I think some were interested, but maybe he didn’t take the offer. Really, I can’t remember exactly. Nonetheless, they didn’t make a deal on Shark Tank. He ended up selling the business for I think a billion dollars. He’s a billionaire now, which is nuts.

But what did that actually do? It was one of the first things in home security that allowed you to easily look at what was going on instead of having to install a video camera in the corner, set up something super complex that most people might not want to do.

You could go to the store, or I guess you could go on Amazon or whatever it was sold on, and still sold on, buy something, easily put it on your door. The video goes onto the phone, there’s a whole cloud with it. And now you actually can hear a lot of notifications on people’s phones. If you’re in like a store, some people will leave the notification on, and you can hear that sound that comes when something or someone passes their Ring video camera. It is hilarious.

My mom checks this thing all the time. She has one at her house now. People can see what’s going on with packages. You can see if someone was trying to intrude in your house. I always make a joke with my friends that our childhood would’ve been absolutely ruined.

Biz Tip: Sharing Your FDN Journey

Full transparency, you guys know I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. This is probably, admittedly, some of the less profound mistakes I made. We were avid Dingdong Ditchers, absolute menaces. Our childhood would’ve been ruined because the neighborhood we dingdong ditched in every other dang house has a camera now. They all have the Ring or something similar. It would’ve absolutely ruined our childhood.

So, you have someone like that that solved a pretty serious problem – home security for the masses. Everyone in a perfect world would want home security. There’s a billion-dollar company. This is how you need to think about business, anytime you have a business.

But specifically, for FDN, let’s talk about how this can be applied here. You want to be sharing your FDN journey online or with people that you know, without selling anything, mind you. I don’t think I mentioned that in the beginning. You want to be mentioning it at first without selling anything, without offering anything. And frankly, I guess if you haven’t done the course yet, you might not even have anything to sell.

But the reason you want to do that is because you want people to start associating you (You’re the service, in this case.) as the solution to their problem. You want people to start associating you as the solution to their problem.

If someone is talking to their family member at a holiday party or at a birthday party and someone comes up, you know you’re catching up with everyone. And they say, ah, dang, man. Yeah, I had this weird stuff going on. I recently got diagnosed with, let’s say, some autoimmune disease or some gut issue or some skin issue. I haven’t been able to figure it out.

Biz Tip: Known as the Solution

What you want is for the person to receive that message. Let’s say I’m at my family party and Susie comes up to me. Aunt Susie comes up and says she just got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Instantly, I think of FDNs who work in that space. I know multiple FDNs right away who work specifically with people who have Hashimoto’s. They love to specialize in that. Not because FDN treats any one thing specifically, but because it’s just useful to have a business niche.

What do I say then? We’ve all had conversations like this, right? Think about this. You say, oh, you gotta talk to my friend Ryan. Man, he is fantastic with this. He helps people all the time. You gotta call him right away. I can give you his contact information.

Haven’t you done this before? Have you ever been at a party where they’re talking about, oh my gosh, my landscaper never shows up? And you say, oh, you gotta call X, Y, Z. Man, we just had the craziest leak in the house; We have no idea what to do. Oh, you gotta call this person. We do this all the time.

You need to start being the person that is associated with solving a certain problem. For the longest time, you might’ve been an employee. Nothing wrong with that. But no one’s really maybe associating you with any one thing. You’re working your job, doing your thing, and that’s fine. But no one necessarily looks at your job as you. In business, you kind of want those integrated together. You want to be the person that’s known as the solution to a certain problem.

Biz Tip: Referral-Based Clients

At my business, Bucks County Light Therapy and Functional Medicine Center, we do a lot of different things. And yes, a variety of people come in. But the one thing that we’re known for is skin issues, acne.

We just had someone the other day come in off a referral of someone who’s been in before. And this is where it gets really cool by the way. Because when people start associating you with a certain problem, the conversations become a lot easier.

This person got referred. Within one interaction with us of in person, and I say in person interaction because they did go back and forth with us on text a little bit. But the second that they came in, they’re interested in the membership.

They bought lab testing with us, which is not cheap, and bought a few very baseline generic supplement recommendations. Obviously, we wouldn’t normally recommend any supplements until we have the labs back, but there were some things that were pretty obvious for this person. So, in one time of meeting us, they spent just under a thousand dollars. That’s crazy, right? But that’s what happens when you’re known as the person that solves a problem.

This is literally what happened in that conversation. This poor woman, unfortunately, is dealing with a very severe case of eczema and she was talking to a friend about it. The friend said, oh, you gotta go to so-and-so, Bucks County Light Therapy.

So, she sends them to us. Think about how warm of a lead this is. Her friend tells her, you gotta go here. So, now it’s like the friend is the one recommending it versus you just trying to randomly sell the person. They’re doing the marketing for you.

Biz Tip: Proclaiming Your Existence

Do you know how expensive marketing can be? You didn’t have to do any. That was just a person having a conversation. This is the biggest thing that you could do in your FDN business while you’re getting started. That’s why this is just the intro today.

And I really want to nail this one point, really bring it home. I don’t want you worrying about anything else. Just worry about exposing what you’re going to be doing to as many people as possible. And you don’t want to do it in an obnoxious way. How do you avoid being obnoxious? You don’t push people to buy anything, give them information that can solve their problems.

If I’m on Facebook, you’re like, oh, maybe I only have 50 friends. Perfect. More than enough. You got over 50, you’re doing great. What I would be doing on Facebook or Instagram, Pinterest or YouTube, if you’re feeling confident, I would be going through the FDN course.

On average, it takes people 9.3 months to go through the course. I know that sounds very specific, but we track all this stuff. I would be going through every week. That’s a lot of weeks. What is that? Somewhere around, I don’t know, 40-something weeks, I believe. High thirties, maybe. Thirty-something weeks of giving value on social media without ever asking for anything.

I would go through my week of studying. Maybe you’re studying on average one and a half to two hours a day. Just take some extra notes on the side. Maybe have a whole separate notebook for it if it works for you, or a little notepad. And you’re trying to think of what would look really good on a social media post.

Biz Tip: Social Media Posts

What would you be excited to talk about; what would apply to a lot of people? Something that they don’t know that would be brand new for them to read or see. I would just jot that down. Okay, I got another one tomorrow, another one tomorrow, another one. Then at the end of the week, I would see, okay, one, can all this stuff be combined? If not, no problem.

What’s the best of this stuff then, the juiciest content that’s actually here? And then I would take that and create an interesting post about it. Not asking for a sale, or saying, hey, book a call, get on a wait list for me to sell you lab tests and other things when I’ve completed this course. Just giving value.

Do that for 30-something weeks, which by the way some people actually have, and it works extremely well. If you did that for 30-something weeks, the better majority of a year, how many people do you think would start to, in your life, associate you as being a functional health person, a functional medicine person, someone that has unique answers to very common problems? Maybe it’s autoimmune, like I said, or skin issues or gut issues, whatever. Do you see how that works?

Then there’s two things that you can do with this strategy. Now, we’re getting a little bit ahead, but there’s two things that you can end up doing with the strategy. One is direct, one is indirect.

The direct one is after 30 weeks of providing nonstop value, never asking for a thing, let people know you’re about to graduate.

Biz Tip: The Direct Way of Offering Free Consults

You just let people know, hey, guess what guys? You know that I’ve been posting about this for almost the last year now. I’ve been super excited to learn about this holistic health stuff and I’m about to graduate. It means I can take clients, help people with this. I’m really interested in helping some people in our local area or some of my friends that I have online.

Here’s the best part. I’m just looking for some testimonials starting off. So, if you’d like to work with me, this is what we can do. I don’t sell lab tests directly, they’re just tools that I use. So, if you pay for the labs, I won’t charge you anything for the consults. This is something though, that people are charging several thousand dollars for to work with people. I’m not going to charge you any of that. I’ll just charge you for the labs. You pay for that stuff, and I’ll be able to help you with some of the things that you’re dealing with.

I can only do about five to ten people. It’s going to be overwhelming otherwise to do that many people for free. So, if you want to get involved with this, shoot me a message, drop a comment, whatever it might be. Let’s go. Maybe you only get two people from that. Fantastic. That is totally worth it. You did a great job and now you’re going to get some testimonials.

That’s the direct one. You finally ask for something, for the free discovery call or for people to sign up. You might want to start with the discovery call. That would be a better way to do it.

Biz Tip: The Indirect Way of a Free Discovery Call

And a discovery call, for those that don’t know, is a free call, no obligations, no pushing. You just talk to the person and see if they are qualified in terms of you being able to help them. We actually guide you through how to run a discovery call in FDN. That’s not even just in Business School. That’s actually in the main FDN course, just so you know.

Then if I deemed I could help them, cool, let’s get it rolling. Let’s get some labs done. And then the tradeoff is they will be a testimonial for you. That’s the direct way.

The indirect way that this is going to help your business is now you are getting in people’s heads. And I don’t mean that in a bad way or a weird way. You’re known as this person that helps individuals by you continuously sharing this stuff and letting people know about the problems that you can solve, especially when you’re talking about health issues.

Do you know how common health issues are? Obviously, you know that doesn’t make them normal, but they’re extremely common. If I just do posts about severe cystic acne, I am going to get clients from that eventually. Because people are going to realize, hey, someone I care about, or love has cystic acne. This person always talks about it. Hey, you should talk to so-and-so. This is normal.

You guys already know this is how business works. But you might not have ever thought about it like this before because maybe you haven’t had your business hat on. This is not rocket science. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, some special, crazy software to make all this work.

Biz Tip: A Small Review

Reed Davis always jokes. He says this to the staff all the time about how he did FDN with a fax machine and a pager. And quite frankly, he could have done it with even less than that. You do not need all this fancy stuff to make it work. There’s a very good way to use that fancy stuff and we teach you that kind of thing in Business School. But you can do this with much less than that. It’s how any business would work.

One, people need to know that you exist. Shocker. They need to know that you actually exist. You do this by, drum roll please, sharing information, letting people know what’s going on. And of course, marketing and advertising is great, but just sharing information is one of the advantages of today’s world.

You actually really couldn’t do this 40, 50 years ago. You would’ve had to do some more direct marketing or ad campaigns or be in local groups. Now you can just go on social media and constantly and talk to hundreds of people at any given time. If you really get a following, you can talk to thousands for free and share information. Let people associate you with that. So, that’s number one.

Number two, you’re going to need to have some confidence at a certain point, maybe 30 weeks in, roughly speaking. Say, hey, I’d love to help you, person reading this or listening to this. Would you like to have a conversation with me? It’s a free discovery call. No worries. I’ll leave you with some tips no matter what outside of the call. Just come on, let’s talk, see what we can do. That’s it. Not rocket science. Nothing crazy, or unheard of. Just go do those things.

Biz Tip: Getting Ahead

I wanted to take a few different routes with this Intro episode today. Of course, you know me if you listen to any of my other episodes, I like to have a list of different things and just give you a ton of action steps to do normally. But today I figured less is more.

If this is the only thing I give you to do, then it’s on you. You have to make the decision as to whether or not you’re going to do it. And it’s very obvious whether or not you did because there’s only one thing to do. Share information. It could start with social media, no matter how many people that you have on it, it could start with a blog.

If you don’t have social media, you could, I know, very scary, get on YouTube. Record videos until you like them, and then put it online. But you gotta let people know that you exist. I hope this helps.

And for those of you that actually do it, you’re going to see early success in your business. For those that don’t do it, you will be finishing up the course and then realizing the exact things that I told you today. You’re going to just have to start doing that at that point. Except you’re going to be 30-something weeks behind the person who is willing to start today.

So, would you like to be 30 weeks behind? Or would you like to be way ahead of it so that when you graduate you could actually start living out your goal faster, which is probably to do this as a career, part-time income, or a replace of income for a job you don’t like?

Biz Tip: A Good Life

I wouldn’t want to be 30 weeks behind on that. That’s a lot of your life, man. There are only so many 30-week periods in life. I don’t want to be wasting that. The choice is yours.

Of course, if you want more in-depth business advice, if you’re loving this episode in particular, and you really like the business stuff, come join us on the business workshop. fdntraining.com/biz. This is going to be amazing.

I’ll be hosting it with a woman named Jennifer Woodward. She is just a firecracker, man, the exact type of person you’d want to learn from because she’s so relatable. So, she came from an employee mindset, she was a pharmaceutical person. And then she came over to our side in functional medicine, had to learn all the ins and outs of entrepreneurship, didn’t know anything like that, and now has a multi six figure FDN business where she helps a ton of people. They’re happy to pay her and they refer people to her.

That is a really, really, really good way to live your life where you can make excellent money. People are happy to pay you because of the service that you’re providing them. And in fact, they love it so much that they’re willing to tell other people about it. What a great way to live your life. We all gotta work. I think that’s a dang good way to do it. fdntraining.com/biz.

And then finally, I think I really teased this in the beginning and then I never even shared it. I’m so sorry. I hope you listened to the entire thing. I’ll mention it in the next episode as well. We are doing Live FDN podcasts for the first time ever.

Biz Tip: Live Podcasts

If you are a regular audio listener, there’s no punishment there. We’re not going to take that away from you. You’re just basically going to have a week delay from when the Live podcast was done to when it’s submitted to the audio version. No big deal there. I mean, you would never really know the difference.

But if you want to start catching Live versions of these podcasts, asking us questions, or asking the guest questions, we are going to allow for that at the end of each show. Make sure you are following us on one or all of the following platforms. We are going to be streaming on YouTube and LinkedIn, believe it or not. And we’re going to be streaming on our Facebook page as well.

There actually might even be some more stuff than that, but those are the three I know of for now. I’ll make sure that those are in the show notes, so you know where to subscribe to us or follow us depending on what the platform is. But how fun is that? Live podcasts.

And then if you do miss them, they will be on the audio version a week later. So, you can either come see us on video and interact with us or wait a week and they will be out on audio. Kind of the best of both worlds.

I am looking forward to getting back to the interview side of things. The next podcast that you listen to on this audio version is actually going to be our first Live interview just repurposed for the audio.

Conclusion

That will be inherently obvious with what I say on that show. I’ll be like, Hey, it’s our first Live podcast. Hope you didn’t miss it, and all that good stuff. I will talk to you guys then.

Thank you for working with me during our Intro to FDN series. I’m amazed again by how many people stuck around with us. It’s been really fun to be able to do this. Now I have very short and sweet, this wasn’t so short, but sweet, they’re definitely sweet and concise episodes, that I can use in the future for someone just getting exposed to FDN. Then we can stick to the interviews and higher-level content on this show. Talk to you guys soon.

You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com, on YouTube @FDNtraining, or on Instagram @fdntraining.

For more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one, go to functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/health-detective-podcast/.

To learn more about us, go to functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/about-fdn-functional-testing/.

When Janet Chong-Lee began specializing in geriatrics in her career as a pharmacist, she immediately wondered why some seniors thrived in vibrancy and good health, whereas others were incredibly frail and ill.

Janet soon recognized that everyday prevention is key: more could be done at an earlier age to increase the chance of health throughout life, and that nutrition and cooking play an essential role in the process.

“I realized a lot of health starts more upstream,” she says. “We need to be teaching people now in school about it. We’re spending more and more money on treating these conditions that are mostly very much preventable.”

Starting a pharmacy career

Janet completed her pharmacy degree at the University of Toronto in 2008 and immediately started working at a large drugstore chain as a pharmacist. She then moved on to a rehabilitation hospital and long-term care before shifting in 2015 to her current position as the clinical pharmacist for a geriatric outreach team with her Board Certified Geriatric Pharmacist and Certified Diabetes Educator designation.

Along with her colleagues, she completes at-home assessments and offers support for seniors, along with developing education modules for the Ontario Pharmacists’ Association (OPA) Canada’s Board Certified Geriatric Pharmacist certification and delivering educational talks to her colleagues. She also writes monthly blog posts, covering a wide range of health and nutrition topics.

Janet has always been physically active and enjoys playing sports. In 2017, she registered for a local Toronto boot camp that soon led to two new certifications: one in fitness and nutrition, and the other in holistic weight loss. The more Janet learned about health, exercise, weight loss and wellness, the more she discovered the crucial role of quality nutrition and wanted to hone in on food.

After seeing the varied successes of other graduates, she knew the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program could help her expand her nutrition knowledge and integrate it into both her personal life and in her career as a pharmacist.

“I don’t like to operate in silos, so I wanted to equip myself with the skills on a more holistic level and learn how I could marry everything together,” she says. “I thought the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program would be a useful tool to add to my toolbox to provide better care and interventions to patients, clients, and to myself and my family members.”

And so in September 2019, while on maternity leave, Janet joined the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program.

Developing brand-new skills in the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program

Janet ate a primarily standard American diet growing up and while she knew some cooking basics, she describes herself as far from a masterful cook. Janet loved many aspects of her time in the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program – but especially the food and learning how to prepare it.

She enjoyed discovering ingredients and trying new recipes, understanding how to make healthier swaps and intentional food choices, deciphering ingredient labels, and learning to adapt recipe ingredients to align with her health goals. She also treasured the meal prep and menu planning instruction in the program, which are practical skills she uses daily at home and teaches to her colleagues and clients.

“Completing the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program has boosted my confidence with cooking,” she says. “I now have the skills and the ability to discern which recipes are good for me and my family.”

Although she found the program challenging and intense as well, after 14 weeks Janet acquired a host of new skills that inspired and motivated the next stage of her career.

“They teach us about non-pharmacological interventions in pharmacy school, but sometimes that falls by the wayside and the focus is more on medication,” Janet explains. “While medications are useful and I’m very grateful for lifesaving medications for people who need it, the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program really opened my eyes and reminded me about all the things I can do in addition to medications.”

“Completing the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program has boosted my confidence with cooking. I now have the skills and the ability to discern which recipes are good for me and my family.”

Integrating Culinary Nutrition into Pharmacology and Health Care

Photo: Janet’s Paleo Japchae 

Of course, there are many medicines that are necessary, yet nearly 80% of older adults are on at least two medications in the United States and Canada – and 36% are taking five or more.

Janet works with seniors and their families, many of whom are burnt out and have had negative experiences in the health care system. A lot of her patients are dealing with some form of dementia.

On the nutrition side, Janet’s patients are primarily subsisting on ultra-processed foods, sweets and refined carbohydrates. Others are low-income seniors relying on meal programs or food banks, where they don’t receive a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables or adequate protein.

In the face of these challenges, Janet aims to educate her patients within her scope of practice as a pharmacist, meeting them where they are at and offering solutions based on what they are capable of tackling. She’s adapted intake forms to include questions about sleep, stress and lifestyle in addition to collecting information about medications.

“It’s never just one thing – everything ties in together to contribute to their medical conditions,” she says. “It’s recognizing that health isn’t just your medical health, it’s your spiritual health and it’s your physical health – and health really starts in the kitchen.”

Bridging the gap between Pharmacology and Nutrition

Where possible and when relevant, Janet offers nutrition education and information to her patients. She explains what macronutrients and micronutrients are and why they’re important, gives examples of healthy foods to eat, and encourages seniors to consume as many nutrients as they can through food rather than supplements.

“They teach us about non-pharmacological interventions in pharmacy school, but sometimes that falls by the wayside and the focus is more on medication. While medications are useful and I’m very grateful for lifesaving medications for people who need it, the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program really opened my eyes and reminded me about all the things I can do in addition to medications.”

Plenty of seniors are on multiple medications, and on medications to treat the side effects of their drugs (this is called a ‘prescribing cascade’), so it can be a challenge to de-prescribe when holistic lifestyle practices aren’t established first. To seniors that have the capacity to approach conditions using food, Janet offers information and guidance on how dietary changes may affect their medications and whether dosages need to be adjusted.

“My job is rewarding. I’m not just a medication expert – certainly you can ask me about medications, but you can also ask me about sleep, blood sugar management, meal planning, meal prepping, recipes, stress management and lifestyle,” Janet says. “I’m looking at a person as a whole.”

The last several years of working in geriatrics have shown Janet that seniors need more help when they first begin to slow down, not years or decades later when they are tired, spent and extremely sick. Her career has also made Janet passionate about nutrition education and how important it is to teach core skills at a young age.

The need to focus on prevention

“More money needs to be put into prevention and preventative care. We need to be teaching children now in school about it in addition to all the other subjects,” Janet says. “We are losing that access to life skills. It’s important to know how to feed yourself and cook for yourself. People don’t have the skillset and it’s contributing to all the conditions we’re currently seeing.”

Massive shifts in health care certainly don’t happen overnight. With experts like Janet at the forefront, along with an increasing patient-driven desire to learn about the power of food, we’re well on the way.

If you are looking for ways you can use culinary nutrition to enhance your current career or business like Janet has, registration is currently open for the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program.

Duct tape beat out cryotherapy (freezing) for treating warts in a randomized, controlled, head-to-head trial. 

When I was reviewing “The Science Behind Common Over-the-Counter Remedies Used in Dermatology,” such as tea tree oil for acne or nail fungus, I was surprised to see a section on duct tape on the same page. Duct tape? The only time I remember seeing duct tape used in a medical study was for identifying the gases responsible for the odor of human farts. That study involved a “collection system” comprised of “gas tight pantaloons” sealed to the skin with duct tape to assess the wind-breaking ability of a cushion called the Toot Trapper. 

In this case, the dermatology journal was talking about warts. As I discuss in my video Duct Tape and Wart Removal, “Duct tape brings out our inventive, slightly kooky side…Given this versatility, it wasn’t so surprising a few years ago when a group of doctors…reported that duct tape could get rid of warts.” As I noted in my previous video on warts, Benefits of Tea Tree Oil for Warts and Cold Sores, all sorts of strange things are purported to cure warts—because most warts go away on their own. Researchers followed a thousand kids for two years, and two-thirds of their warts disappeared without doing a thing. So, maybe we should just leave them alone, “although…there are cases which may warrant treatment…” Otherwise, we can just let our own body take care of them. 

Warts are caused by wart viruses, so spontaneous wart disappearance is thought to be an immune response where our body finally wakes up and takes notice. This assumption is based on studies where foreign proteins were injected into the wart itself. In one such study, researchers injected a measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine directly into the wart, which, compared to placebo, appeared to accelerate the immune clearance process. The problem is that injections hurt, of course, and 30 percent of the kids who got their warts injected with the vaccine suffered a flu-like syndrome. Yikes. Okay, scratch that. What else can we do? 

Within a few months, any placebo treatment will work in about a quarter of the cases, so it wouldn’t mean much if you put duct tape on 100 warts and 23 went away. The traditional medical therapies of acid treatments and freezing treatments bump up the cure rate to about 50 percent, so, if you were really serious about testing the efficacy of duct tape, you would pit it head-to-head against one of those two treatments, which is exactly what researchers did in “The Efficacy of Duct Tape vs Cryotherapy in the Treatment of Verruca Vulgaris (the Common Wart).” (Cryotherapy is one of the current treatments of choice for many pediatricians.) 

“Objective: To determine if application of duct tape is as effective as cryotherapy in the treatment of common warts.” Patients were randomized to receive either liquid nitrogen applied to each wart or “duct tape occlusion (applied directly to the wart).” When I heard about treating warts with duct tape, I had an image where duct tape was used to try to rip off the warts, but that wasn’t the case. A little circle of duct tape was applied to the wart every week or so.  

Although there had been a few anecdotal reports of using tape, no prospective, randomized, controlled trial had been performed until this study. Researchers found that the duct tape “is not only equal to but exceeds the efficacy of cryotherapy in the treatment of the common wart.” Cryotherapy worked in 60 percent of the cases, but 85 percent of the duct-taped patients were cured. The researchers concluded: “Duct tape occlusion therapy was significantly more effective than cryotherapy for treatment of the common wart.” More effective and with fewer side effects. “The only adverse effect observed in the duct tape group during our study was a minimal amount of local irritation and erythema,” or redness, whereas cryotherapy hurts. 

Do you want to hear the saddest thing? One young child actually vomited in fear of pain before each cryotherapy session. It was as though the poor kid was being tortured. Cryotherapy can not only cause pain, but bloody blisters that can get infected, and it can mess up your nail bed, too. 

So, duct tape: more effective, fewer side effects, and more convenient. Compare applying a little duct tape at home to making multiple clinic visits every two weeks or so. With duct tape, it’s win-win-win. 

Duct tape “can now be offered as a nonthreatening, painless, and inexpensive technique for the treatment of warts in children.” How much does a little piece of duct tape even cost? Win-win-win-win! Of course, the money you save is the money the doctor loses, and there’s no way the medical profession is going to let this go unchallenged. Further studies were performed and failed to show an effect. So, we end up with conclusions like this in the medical literature: “Is duct tape effective for treating warts?… No.” What? Is duct tape really ineffective after all, or was there some kind of critical design flaw in the follow-up studies? You can find out in my follow-up video Can You Really Remove Warts with Duct Tape?. 

This video is the first in a three-part series on duct tape for wart removal. The others are Can You Really Remove Warts with Duct Tape? and Which Type of Duct Tape Is Best for Wart Removal?. 

Whether you’re a kid or a grown-up, deciding what to pack for lunch can be a challenge. During the last couple of decades, the difficulty has magnified for some parents as schools and other institutions have implemented nut-free policies and restricted other common allergens. We’re happy to do our part to keep allergy sufferers safe and have discovered a ton of nut-free lunch ideas that are tasty and portable.

Here are some of our favourite nut-free lunch ideas to inspire you. From snacks to mains to beverages, we’ve got it all – you’ll be a lunch-packing pro in no time.

If you’re looking for more ideas, you can also check out these posts:

25 Nut-Free Lunch Ideas

Sesame-Free Turmeric Hummus

Sesame-Free Turmeric Hummus by Chelsea Amer Nutrition

This allergen-friendly hummus recipe is high in protein with the added benefit of anti-inflammatory turmeric. It’s great when paired with veg or gluten-free crackers, or it can be used as a flavourful salad dressing.

Dynamite Plant Power Sushi Bowls

Dynamite Plant Power Sushi Bowls by Pinch of Yum

Don’t feel like rolling sushi? Try these deconstructed sushi bowls that feature amazingly crisp tofu and fresh veggies. One of our favourite nut-free lunch ideas!

Quick + Easy Chicken Spring Roll Jars

Quick + Easy Chicken Spring Roll Jars by The Girl on Bloor

We love food in jars! Prep a few of these spring roll jars in the evening and they’ll be ready to grab for lunch. No need for takeout when you have recipes like this.

Tempeh Miso Chili

Tempeh Miso Chili by Ellie Likes Cooking

A hearty and protein-rich stew that features a few of our favourite tangy and savory fermented foods. Pack it away in your favourite thermos and you’ll be ready for a warm lunch.

Quick + Easy Chocolate Trail Mix

Quick + Easy Chocolate Trail Mix by Whole Food Simply

Chocolate, puffed cereal, seeds and dried fruit: it doesn’t get tastier than this! All you need to do is melt, mix and spread onto parchment, then break into snack-sized bars. Even the kiddos can help you make them.

Grilled Green Goddess Wraps

Grilled Green Goddess Wraps by Strength and Sunshine

This ain’t a boring sandwich! Packed with a flavourful bean spread and fresh veggies, this vegan and gluten-free recipe just might become one of your go-to nut-free lunch ideas.

Roasted Sweet Potato + Brussels Sprouts Salad

Roasted Sweet Potato + Brussels Sprouts Salad  by Abigail Hopkins (*Culinary Nutrition Expert)

This substantial salad has plenty of cooked elements and a kick-butt dressing that make for a filling meal.

Red Pepper + Carrot Soup

Red Pepper + Carrot Soup by Berry Sweet Life

A luxurious and velvety vegan soup that is perfect for those cold, wintry days. Pair it with some gluten-free bread, savory biscuits or crackers for some extra heft.

‘Chickpea of the Sea’ Tuna Salad

‘Chickpea of the Sea’ Tuna Salad by The Simple Veganista

A simple, make-ahead lunch that you can serve on bread, crackers, lettuce wraps, nori sheets, or your bread alternative of choice.

Avocado Veggie Rainbow Rolls + Tangy Tahini Dipping Sauce

Avocado Veggie Rainbow Rolls + Tangy Tahini Dipping Sauce by Salt N Pepper Here

We adore the flexibility of rice wraps because they allow you to use up whatever’s in your fridge. Here’s a trick when making them for lunch: dollop the sauce in the rolls instead of taking it in a separate jar. Saves you a container and makes them easy to transport.

Sesame + Carrot Falafel

Sesame + Carrot Falafel by Keto Diet Blog

These Paleo + vegan tasty falafels are perfect for little snacking hands! Eat them on their own, or pile them onto a salad or steamed greens.

Apple Protein Muffins

Apple Protein Muffins by One Clever Chef

These simple, 8-ingredient muffins are packed with protein and can be easily veganized by using a flax egg. Have ’em for a nutritious snack or pack an extra one to have for a light breakfast.

Fiesta Mason Jar Salad

Fiesta Mason Jar Salad by Eating Bird Food

These salad jars are loaded with nutrition and if you’re looking for the secrets to mason jar salads, this post has got you covered.

Chickpea Flour Mini Veggie Frittatas

Chickpea Flour Mini Veggie Frittatas by The Mostly Vegan

These mini veggie frittatas are living proof that chickpea flour is an amazing substitute for eggs. We love that you can make these with whatever veggies you have lying around in the fridge, and they’re easily portable in your lunch box.

Turkey Asparagus Roll Ups

Turkey Asparagus Roll Ups by Meme Inge

A two-ingredient recipe that is an absolute breeze to make. This is a good one for snacky-style lunches, and virtually any veggie can be wrapped – steamed carrots, parsnips, squash wedges, cucumber, celery, or whatever your heart desires.

Kid-Friendly Energy Bites 3 Ways

Kid-Friendly Energy Bites 3 Ways by My Kitchen Love

Sam has three school-age daughters and is an absolute pro at making healthy, lunchbox-ready and kid-friendly food. These delectable energy bites have three flavour options – we highly recommend making all of them and freezing in batches for quick snacks.

Raspberry Cream Pie Smoothie

Raspberry Cream Pie Smoothie by My Fresh Perspective  (*Culinary Nutrition Expert)

This tastes like a decadent milkshake, but it’s packed with greens, fruit and protein that will boost your energy levels and keep you going all afternoon long. Smoothies are so wonderful as nut-free lunch ideas!

Spiced Cauliflower Fritters

Spiced Cauliflower Fritters by Quite Good Food

A grain-free cauliflower fritter recipe that’s mildly spiced for young (or sensitive) palates. Eat them as a snack, or have them as a vegan meal. Your choice!

Gluten-Free Vegan Banana Bread

Gluten-Free Vegan Banana Bread by Ceara’s Kitchen

Everyone needs a good banana bread recipe in their back pocket. So why not make this nut-free version yours? Pack it in your lunchbox for easy and sweet snacking.

School Safe Energy Bites

School Safe Energy Bites by Suzy Larsen (*Culinary Nutrition Expert)

Pumpkin pie and carrot cake are the inspiration behind these energy balls full of brain-building omega-3s and muscle-calming magnesium. Figs round out the flavour and texture sensation while adding soluble fibre for great digestion.

Chickpea Sweet Potato Buddha Bowl

Chickpea Sweet Potato Buddha Bowl by Okonomi Kitchen

We love a good lunch/dinner bowl and this recipe hits all of our criteria for an awesome one-bowl meal. Toss everything together and lunch is served! If you’re looking for all the tricks to cooking no-mushy beans and grains, you can grab our full guide here.

Quinoa Black Bean Burgers

Quinoa Black Bean Burgers by Jessica Mitton (*Culinary Nutrition Expert + Program Coach)

Have 10 minutes? That’s all you need to prepare these nut-free burgers, and then they only take 15 minutes in the oven. These are still delicious at room temperature for lunch, or you can make them into smaller patties for snack-size eats.

Sprouted Lentil Chipotle Chili

Sprouted Lentil Chipotle Chili by Choosing Chia

Boost the health benefits of chili by using sprouted lentils, which make nutrients more available for our bodies to use. If you’re sensitive to spicy foods, simply omit the chipotle chilies – you’ll still love it!

Baked Parsnip Salmon Cakes

Baked Parsnip Salmon Cakes by Meatified

Special dieters rejoice: this recipe is nut-free, gluten-free and grain-free, as well as Whole 30 and AIP compliant.

Simple Sweet Potato Chips

Simple Sweet Potato Chips by Jaclyn Desforges (*Culinary Nutrition Expert)

Move over, kale chips. Sweet potato chips are taking over and this simple recipe is divine. You will not want to trade these from your lunch box!

Vegan Brown Rice Sushi

Vegan Brown Rice Sushi by Lazy Cat Kitchen

Discover the tricks to making the perfect rolled sushi, along with a ton of ideas for what you can put in it. Let your family members choose their own fillings and make kitchen time fun!

Nut-Free Chewy Granola Bars

Nut-Free Chewy Granola Bars by Super Healthy Kids 

Learn how to make the best nut-free, naturally sweetened and nutritious granola bars. A lunchbox classic!

We hope you are inspired to try one of these nut-free lunch ideas the next time you get packing!

A comparison of top online health coaching programs (plus 3 important questions to ask yourself before deciding)

Have you noticed that we’re becoming increasingly health-conscious, collectively? 

Healthy foods, products, and habits are all on the rise compared to years past. [1]

Which means greater demand for health coaches as people begin prioritizing their health. In fact, the global field of health coaching has grown to be worth over 7 billion in recent years, and it shows no sign of slowing down!

There really couldn’t be a better time to start a career as a health coach. Especially as people move away from conventional medicine & embrace cash-pay models in record numbers, making it easier to grow your own online health coaching business.

But, how do you figure out which health coaching program is right for you?

It’s a common question we get from potential students!

So today we’re going to look at 7 top health coaching certification programs, and how they compare to our functional practitioner certification course. 

Because when it comes down to it…we want you to choose the program that’s best for YOU. 

If that’s us, great! But if not, we want to help steer you in the right direction. 

All of the programs we’ll review today are 100% virtual (no in-person requirements), making them accessible & convenient to almost anyone! 

There are many health coaching programs on the market, but today we’re going to focus on:

• Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN)
• Functional Medicine Coaching Academy (FMCA)
• Health Coach Institute (HCI)
• Nutrition Therapy Association (NTA)
• Kresser Institute 
• Health Coach Institute (HCI)
• Functional Nutrition Alliance (FNA)

But first, allow us to introduce ourselves in case we haven’t met before!

We’re Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN)

We offer a 6-12-month practitioner certification course that provides students with everything they need to transform people’s lives using the power of functional lab testing + highly personalized diet & lifestyle protocols. 

As pioneers in the field of functional lab testing, we give you the expertise you need to determine which lab tests to order, and how to interpret the results so you can create highly-effective protocols to help your clients overcome chronic health problems. 

And, equally as important, we provide you access to order these functional tests upon graduation, even without a license. Yes, anybody (including you!) can order functional testing through our Medical Director Program upon graduating.

Last, but certainly not least, we teach you how to build a thriving online wellness practice so you can make a living doing what you love. 

Here is the FDN Practitioner Certification Course, at-a-glance. 

• Program Duration: 6-12 Months 
• Estimated Time Commitment: 3-6 Hours / Week (depending on pace)
• Investment: $8,997 
• Access to Functional Labs for Clients: Yes, anyone (even unlicensed graduates) can order functional tests for their clients through the Medical Director Program. 
• Certificate Awarded / Title: Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDNP)
• Mentorship: Yes, 3 Personal Results and Recommendation Sessions, 6 Sessions With a Program Mentor to Practice What You’ve Learned.
• Other Support: 8-10 Live Calls / Month (optional); Private Facebook Group; Access to Founder, Reed Davis, on 1 Call / Week & Post-Grad Community; Direct Access to Course Supervisor & Lead Mentor, Elizabeth Gaines. 
• Functional Labs: Receive (4) Functional Lab Test Kits for yourself which is included in the cost of the program: Stress & Hormones Profile, Mucosal Barrier Assessment, Metabolic Wellness Profile, GI Map (Value $1k+)
• Business Mentorship

Now that we’ve laid out the details of our program, you’re probably wondering:

 “What makes this different from other health coaching programs?”

Health Coach Certification Programs vs. FDN Practitioner Certification.

While we don’t refer to our practitioner certification course as a “health coaching program”, we do see it as a strong alternative to other health coaching programs on the market!

Why?

Simple – it provides you with the expertise you need to effectively address virtually any chronic health conditions out there. 

The overall goal is the same across all health certification programs: to provide you with the expertise & skills you need to help people live healthier lives. 

But we teach you to do that by performing a deep-dive investigation of all the causal factors of dysfunction using functional testing, whereas most health coaching programs focus more heavily on coaching strategies such as positive psychology, for example. 

To decide which is a better fit for you, you’ll want to think about whether you prefer operating your own independent practice & running your health investigations, or if you’d prefer partnering with another clinician who handles lab testing & analysis. 

Both paths are available to you, at similar price points! 

Let’s have a look at seven well-known health coaching programs and see how they stack up.

Health Coaching Certifications | Program Comparisons

The IIN program covers a variety of subjects including nutrition, lifestyle medicine and functional medicine. Similar to FDN, they embrace bio-individuality, teaching that everyone’s needs are different and what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. Throughout the program, they help you “develop your personal approach to life and health coaching that honors your unique body, and how to apply this approach with others to spark their own transformation.”

IIN health coaching program, at-a-glance:

• Program Duration: 6-12 Months (two tracks to choose from)
• Estimated Time Commitment: 5-6 Hours / Week (depending on pace)
• Investment: $6,995
• Access to Functional Labs for Clients: No
• Certificate Awarded / Title: Integrative Nutrition Coach (INC)
• Mentorship: No, role playing sessions with peers only

Fun fact: More than 50% of our graduates completed the IIN health coaching program before coming to FDN. 

Here’s what Kristin Thomas, FDN-P, had to say: 

“I had already completed the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) health coach certification, but it was clear to me that FDN had another layer of knowledge that would benefit my clients.”

Another well-respected health coaching program is the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy (FMCA). FMCA “prepares you to connect meaningfully with clients and partner effectively with practitioners.” 

If you’re not looking to get into the nitty-gritty of testing & lab analysis yourself, this program may be the perfect fit for you. They teach you specifically how to partner with doctors & practitioners who are trained in functional medicine. 

The program covers topics such as: the art & science of coaching, mind-body medicine, functional nutrition & positive psychology. 

FMCA health coaching program, at-a-glance:

• Program Duration: 12 Months 
• Estimated Time Commitment: 8-10 Hours / Week (depending on pace)
• Investment: ​​Early Bird $7,779; Standard $9,779
• Access to Functional Labs for Clients: No
• Certificate Awarded / Title: Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach (FMCHC)
• Mentorship: No mentoring sessions advertised 

HCI prepares you to “become a Health and Life Coach”. It’s one of the only schools to offer Health and Life Coach training together in one comprehensive certification program. 

The dual certification prepares you to help others thrive on a holistic level across five key areas of life: health, money, love & relationships, career, and spirituality. 

HCI health coaching program, at-a-glance:

• Program Duration: 6 Months
• Estimated Time Commitment: 5-6 Hours / Week (depending on pace)
• Investment: ​​$5,950
• Access to Functional Labs for Clients: No
• Certificate Awarded / Title: Dual Health and Life Coach Certification – HCI Certified Health Coach (HCI-CHC) and HCI Certified Life Coach (HCI-CLC)
• Mentorship: Students are assigned an “Empowerment Coach” that can help answer questions & address roadblocks.

NTA equips its students to “support the body’s innate ability to heal by addressing the importance of nutrient-dense food, lifestyle choices, culinary wellness, client coaching, and how social and personal components influence health.”

Like FDN, NTA takes a bio-individual approach that’s backed by science, focusing on each individual’s unique nutritional needs.

NTA health coaching program, at-a-glance:

• Program Duration: 12 Months
• Estimated Time Commitment: 20 Hours / Week (depending on pace)
• Investment: $6,900
• Access to Functional Labs for Clients: No
• Certificate Awarded / Title: Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP)
• Mentorship: Access to Instructors

The Kresser Institute’s flagship program, ADAPT Functional Medicine Practitioner Training & Certification Program, “provides practitioners with the training to integrate and apply real-time clinical insights, new diagnostic labs, Functional Medicine panels with interpretation, and up-to-date treatment protocols with ongoing faculty support and guidance.” 

This advanced program combines training in functional medicine, ancestral nutrition and lifestyle, and practice management, and is for licensed healthcare practitioners only. 

ADAPT Training & Certification program, at-a-glance:

• Program Duration: 6-12 Months
• Estimated Time Commitment: 2-4 Hours / Week (depending on pace)
• Investment: $11,000
• Access to Functional Labs for Clients: Yes, for licensed practitioners only
• Certificate Awarded / Title: ADAPT Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (A-CFMP) – awarded at an additional cost
• Mentorship: Not mentioned

IIM provides two tracks to receive your health coaching certification; one basic, one advanced. Depending on which track you take, you will move through 6 or 12 modules on various holistic health topics, including GI systems, mitochondrial function, and detoxification. 

• Program Duration: Not mentioned
• Estimated Time Commitment: Each module has 2-3 hours of video content 
• Investment: $3,096 for Starter Package (6 modules); $5,463 for Fellowship Package (12 modules)
• Access to Functional Labs for Clients: Yes, for licensed practitioners only
• Certificates Awarded / Titles: Advanced Certification (IHP) – for fellowship package only
• Mentorship: Not mentioned

FNA “teaches you a systems-based approach to nutrition and how to get to the root causes of your clients’ issues, no matter their signs, symptoms, or diagnoses.”

Similar to FDN, you’ll learn how to address health problems using proven systems that you can then apply to a personalized approach.

• Program Duration: 10 Months
• Estimated Time Commitment: Not mentioned
• Investment: $5,950
• Access to Functional Labs for Clients: No
• Certificates Awarded / Titles: Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor
• Mentorship: (9) 2-Hour Sessions with FNA Founder, Andrea Nakayama, Where You’ll Receive Mentorship on Client Cases and the Art of Counseling

Three Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before Deciding on a Health Coaching Certification Program.

1. Do you have a desire to run your own wellness business?

If you’d prefer to run your own business (as opposed to working for a clinic or doctor), having access to functional testing is a major benefit! 

It allows you to offer more comprehensive services & higher value to your clients, so be sure to factor this in when making your decision. 

And take note about how much business development support is available to you as a graduate. It’s a lot of work to start & grow a wellness practice, so having someone to show you the ropes is a major game-changing benefit. 

FDN offers ongoing business development support to graduates for only $99/mo.

2. Which do you enjoy more? The investigative nature of running functional lab tests & analyzing the results, or supporting clients through accountability, encouragement & positive psychology? 

If you prefer the investigative nature of running labs & cracking the case for your clients, you should definitely consider looking for a program that trains you in how to interpret functional labs, and provides you access to order the labs upon graduation. 

That’s our specialty at FDN! 

3. What are your income goals as a health coach / practitioner? 

If you’re interested in a particular program, look up some of the graduates online. If they’re running their own businesses now, what are they charging? Also, don’t hesitate to ask program advisors what the income range is for graduates of their program. It’s going to vary by location, but they should be able to provide a general range for you. 

Keep in mind that the ability to offer functional testing to your future clients is going to massively increase the amount you can charge for your services. Most of our graduates offer high-ticket transformational programs, many that equate to $150-$200+/hr. 

Still Have Questions About Choosing The Right Health Coaching Certification Program?

We’re here to help you make the right choice! 

We invite you to: 

1. Book a no-pressure call with one of our program advisors 
2. Receive the first FDN Module for free and get an exclusive taste of the program
3. Download our free guide to get better health results

Resources:

1. https://www.renolon.com/health-conscious-consumer-statistics/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20recent%20study,in%20the%20past%20five%20years. 
2. https://www.integrativenutrition.com/curriculum-guide-thank-you 
3. https://learn.functionalmedicinecoaching.org/hubfs/FMCA_INFOPACKET.pdf 
4. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/healthcoachinstitute.com/catalog.pdf 

Introduction

[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka, Detective Ev. I won’t really be your host for today’s show on our business workshop, but I will be prefacing what we’re going to be doing today.

We are finally getting back to some normally scheduled podcasts. I probably have one more in the Intro series. And I don’t want it to be disconnected from the rest of the series, but we had to get this out first because this is a super, super cool thing that we’re doing. We are doing our first ever business workshop for FDN.

Whether you are a trainee, a recent graduate, or someone that has never taken the FDN course, this is something that works for you. It is for pretty much anyone that needs help in their business or wants to have a business one day in the world of FDN.

I’ll also say this, and I hinted this on the Live itself, which we are replaying for this podcast. If you are someone who’s looking into the course, yes, we’re doing a business workshop, but I will also say that there might be a certain incentive offered if you are to join us on the workshop and listen till the end.

And then, better than that is, what if FDN was going to start doing something where we would basically guarantee that you got your initial investment back for the course? Otherwise, we would coach you until you did. For many people, I think that would be a no brainer.

Business Workshop: By Someone Who’s Done It

There are so many people that want to do the course, but they’re just nervous because they’re like, I don’t know if I can get my money back. Well, what if we guaranteed that because we were so sure that it would work for you, that we were willing to put our money and our time on the line? If you believe that that would change something for you, then I would definitely be getting on this workshop. What you want to do is go to fdntraining.com/biz.

Today I am talking with the person who created FDN Business School and who is going to be hosting the FDN Business Workshop with me; her name is Jennifer Woodward. You guys might have heard her on this podcast before. We’re normally talking about the health stuff with her.

What’s really cool about Jennifer is she went from being in the pharmaceutical industry for many years, then she joined us on the functional side. But she was in an employee role before that, came into this world as an entrepreneur, had to put on that hat, and had to learn a whole bunch of new stuff.

Over the last four years has had a six-figure income in her FDN business and now has achieved multiple six figures a year in her FDN business. So, this is something that can be done. It’s not theory. This is something being taught by an individual who has actually done it. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.

Business Workshop: Enthusiastically Awaiting

Hello everyone and welcome. We’re going to be talking about our business workshop today. I’m very excited for this one. If you ever watch any of the stuff that we do, you know it’s not hard to excite me. I do admit that. But this is next level stuff here.

Let’s see if we can get her in here. She is advanced with technology, so I’m sure we’ll be good to go. Look at that – beautiful. Best and easiest Instagram Live already. Hello. How are you?

Jennifer Woodward: Hey Evan, how’s it going?

Detective Ev: Good, good. I promise I’m not living in a dark cave here. I’m at my parents watching the dog and I got an interesting lighting set up. So, I try to do that cool thing where the podcast people have the light in the back and it’s not working very well.

I’m curious if anyone that’s watching today watched the Stress and Hormones workshop. I had this circle for this thing, and I realized no one has touched this board since the last time I was here.

Jennifer Woodward: What’s going on with that circle?

Detective Ev: Yeah. If anyone remembers the stress and hormones workshop, let us know.

But today we’re talking about a business workshop. I was telling them right before we got to Live, Jennifer, that I’m extremely excited for this one. I’m not a liar. I am obviously very easy to get excited. That’s not anything new, these people already know that. But this is like next level for me.

Business Workshop: Plenty of Business Information

One, I get to work with you; and you and I always just have a super fun time together. Everyone has always given very nice feedback to the podcasts that we’ve done, you and me. I think we just have good energy. We’re excited to be here, and we love FDN. But then on top of this, we get to discuss one of my favorite things and one of your favorite things, which is the business side of all of this.

One thing I want to say right off the bat, because it was interesting feedback that we got from our Summer Open House event in June. Some people that were just getting exposed to us were almost surprised by how much business stuff we had and we’re talking as much about the health stuff.

So, one thing we need to say right off the bat, business does not work unless you deliver a great product or great service. That should be assumed, but I shouldn’t have assumed that myself. This is always with the premise that FDN is a kick butt program that gets results for people. We have 260 plus FDN podcast interviews proving that, thousands of testimonials out there in the ether between people that we’ve worked with directly or that our practitioners have worked with. So, that’s a said and done.

There are a lot of people out there that are actually great at delivering products and services, but they don’t understand how to do it consistently. They’re missing the business side. Just know that you can’t make money, you can’t have a good business unless you nail down the products and services, or you’re a complete liar.

Business Workshop: FDN Business School’s Evolution

And I think you guys trust us by now. I mean, I’m just saying every now and then there’s some bad people.

[00:05:09] Jennifer Woodward: Evan is way too honest to be a bad person.

[00:05:10] Detective Ev: Yeah, I was about to say.

Cool. So, I don’t want to talk the whole time. Obviously, this is, in my opinion, kind of your show. I know that we’re doing it together, but we want to talk about the business workshop, obviously, and Business School is kind of a huge reason we’re talking about the workshop.

Let’s just discuss what is Business School for FDN? Why did you end up being the person to create that? Because it’s been one of the coolest things ever.

I’m not sure if you can hear the little puppy barking in the background, but I’m going to close the door just to be doubly safe. So, I’m here with you. Just gimme a second. But what’s Business School?

[00:05:42] Jennifer Woodward: On my end, it’s usually a kid. On your end, it’s usually a dog. No worries at all.

Hello everyone. So happy to see you. I see a lot of my friends on here. Welcome, welcome. I am Jennifer Woodward. And as Evan said, I am executive director of FDN Business School, former executive director of our graduate association.

So, Ev, you asked how did this even evolve? Honestly, going through our professional association, I was getting these questions all the time from our grads who’d gone through the FDN course. They’re so confident in the labs, they know exactly what they’re doing, they’re an expert on the clinical side. So many of them were just like, well, what do I do now on the business side?

Business Workshop: FDN Business School’s Objectives

I have all this expertise. I’m ready to start helping people. I have no idea how to set up my business. Heck, some people didn’t even know, do I need an LLC or an S-Corp. Or do I need a sole proprietorship? What documents do I need to file with my local business entity, my state business entity? There are just these kinds of foundational things that need to happen in order to start a business before you can even do the more fun and creative things.

So, I took every single question that had ever been asked, put it into a spreadsheet, this is just what I do. And we started creating business school. I went through systematically and answered all those questions, wrote modules, wrote lessons, put together slides, and really put together a lot of actionable steps, PDFs, documents, and spreadsheets so that at the end of Business School our FDN practitioners are fully competent and fully confident in starting their FDN business.

Because they went through this course, number one, to help themselves or their family members, they’re passionate for some reason about health. But a lot of our FDNs are also going into this as a career, a second career, a hobby career. Whatever it is we want to make back the money we spent on the course, and then we want to bring in that income that we know so many health professionals are bringing in.

That’s the other objective for FDN Business School is to really equip our practitioners to make the income that they really deserve as this next level functional health coach.

Business Workshop: Sucked into this Space

[00:07:36] Detective Ev: Just so everyone knows, I have it minimized right now, but I see some comments coming in. As always, any Live that we do, ask questions, we encourage it. We will get to those as we move along here. It’s not like we’re going to take up a whole hour. We’ll just take up some time to introduce it and then we’re happy to get to any questions as we further the discussion.

This is something that, like the business school, business idea has been something that when I graduated over six years ago now, I already saw the need for. I never thought it was going to be this. But there were people like me when I was just a consumer and a practitioner of the FDN program already talking about this. They wanted to know like, how can I get that experience? How can I do this?

Because what happens for most of us, not everyone, but for most of us that get into this space, you get into this because it chose you. You have health issues, or you saw someone in your family or a loved one deal with these things, and so you might be on another career path, then kind of get sucked into this.

The first logical step is, I want to learn about it. And that’s why you take a program like FDN or maybe you’ve learned some other things in different health coaching programs, totally fine. But then you kind of have this thing where a lot of us, not all of us, but a lot of us then realize, what if I did this as work instead of this nine to five that I don’t really like, to be dead honest?

Business Workshop: Everything’s Risky

So, now we have to figure out not only the health side, but for many of us, the business side is a brand-new thing. Every now and then you get someone who is entrepreneurial from day one and they’re selling 10 different lemonade stands at once as a kid.

But that’s not really the normal person who comes through FDN. Most of the people have never really worked in their own business. They might be high level employees, or we have stay at home moms sometimes that aren’t working at all, at least in a traditional sense, getting a paycheck. They’re certainly working; they’re just not getting the paycheck for it, unfortunately. And so, this transition can be scary.

I think business is something that’s perceived by people as not having a guarantee. Although the irony is, if you guys don’t realize this, the companies that you work for are owned by businesspeople. So, if there’s no guarantee for you as a businessperson, there was never a guarantee for anything that you did. But that’s just a mindset thing we can work on in the workshop and you know I’m going to bring that stuff there. But there’s no guarantees to any of this stuff. So, you might as well take a shot at doing something that you actually want to do.

And many of us have the passion. If you can bring the passion, that’s really something that can’t be taught. We can teach you just about everything else.

So, these people are not necessarily going to go all the way through business school right now. Some of them might not even be FDN practitioners, although FDN practitioners can watch this business workshop and get valuable advice from it.

Business Workshop: Successful Survey Results

Let’s talk about now, business school’s been out for just about a year. Is that correct?

Jennifer Woodward: Since last June, yeah.

Detective Ev: Okay, so it’s been out for a little over a year. And we’re seeing great success with it. Jennifer actually recently ran a survey and the numbers that came back were phenomenal.

I know we don’t want to sit here and list off a bunch of stats. But off the top of your head, I’d hate to put you on the spot with the numbers, is there any stat that came back that was particularly impressive to you where you’re just like, wow, this is really cool that people responded this way?

[00:10:34] Jennifer Woodward: Yeah, for sure.

My favorite stat is my hundred percent stat, and that is definitely something that’s important. So, 100% of our survey respondents booked a paying client, at least one paying client, as a direct result of going through business school. That means that almost all of our students are making back their investment in the course within three to six months.

And that’s what we’re looking for. We want to equip our practitioners to go out and do the work that they’ve been trained to do. There are so many people that need help, who are just ill, and suffering, and they don’t feel well. If the impediment to you helping other people feel well is a lack of business expertise, that’s where we want to come in and equip you and help you.

So, a hundred percent of people booking a paid client, I am all about that. That really gave me the shivers when I saw it.

Business Workshop: Intimidation of Beginnings

[00:11:19] Detective Ev: Right. Because that’s the hardest part is always the beginning stuff, man, when you’re on your first sales call and you feel weird about it, or you’re saying a certain amount of money that you charge for the first time. It’s more natural for us to conform to someone else’s business and sell someone else’s product and just be kind of told what to do. It is a little weird for the first time when we come up with stuff.

We also have to have the common sense, and this is something that’s actually talked about not only in the business school, but I believe the business workshop as well, we have to have the common sense of like, how do we structure pricing? It can feel weird when we’re the ones that have to dictate the price.

We’ll never think twice about Ford telling us that the car is $40,000, $50,000, and how they came up with that. But the second we say that we’re worth a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars, then we, all of a sudden, get weird and nervous about it. We’ll touch on all that stuff in the workshop.

But how did this go from business school a year ago now being released and you working on it for over a year to, hey, let’s do a workshop. I can obviously touch on what I believe the purpose is of that, but I’d love to hear from you as well.

Business Workshop: Questioning Confidence

I really just see this as a way to not only get FDN trainees excited about the business side, but really to get people that aren’t into FDN solely because they are scared that they can’t do this as a job, under the impression that not only is this pretty straightforward, but this is also a duplicatable thing. This is something that many FDNs have done. We can guide you through this just as readily as we can guide you through a health journey. So, I see this as a great way to expose people to the opportunities here.

I can’t tell you how many calls I get, Jennifer, where the people are locked in on the health side. They love this. But they’re like, oh, I don’t know if I want to make a $9,000 investment. They never say that the course isn’t worth it, they just don’t think that they can get that back.

If I told them that they could get a million dollars back and it was $90,000, they wouldn’t care. But in their head yet, they can’t get to that next level. That’s what I see being the main part of this business workshop in addition to the practical tips.

What’s your opinion on this? How did this come to be from the business school to this?

[00:13:16] Jennifer Woodward: Yeah, a hundred percent. The word that comes up a lot when I’m talking to new practitioners is this word confidence. People just are not confident in starting their business. And I know this from personal experience. It takes a lot of, like, at the beginning, kind of cultivated or forced confidence in order to go out there and promote your business.

Business Workshop: Foundational Confidence

You’re like, who the heck am I? I’m just one person; I’m not a doctor. I don’t know if anyone’s going to trust what I’m saying.

But I will tell you, this is where the confidence starts to happen. When you are doing FDN as Reed teaches in the course, FDN works, and we’ve seen this so many times. We have thousands of practitioners across the globe, and we have, what you said, a repeatable process. The FDN DRESS protocol, the labs, these are things that get people results.

So, I tell my new students, man, you can’t go out there and get results for people unless you’ve got a business under your belt, right? You have to have those actionable steps in place. So, you need a place to send clients who want to book a call with you, some sort of terms and conditions, know what you’re going to do in a session when you get there with the client. It was really, again, those foundational tactics, those building steps of really giving people just that confidence to start.

And here’s where we differ, and what this workshop is going to do for a lot of people. We are not trying to make you a million dollars, all right? I’m not trying to get you a million clients or a thousand clients. What we are trying to do is get you that foundational confidence to go out there and be like, heck yeah, I got a business. I can do this; I’m ready to rock. Like I know I’ve checked all of my boxes, crossed my T’s, dotted my i’s. I know I’m good with my legal ramifications, my signature program. I’ve got a landing page, can work Canva. Like I am jamming with my business.

Business Workshop: Lots of Content

These are the things that we’re teaching you and really that’s what’s transpiring with this workshop, you guys. We are taking the best stuff in business school that, I think, we undercharge for business school, honestly. But we’re charging an investment for you because it’s a very, very robust course and continuing to get more robust.

We took some of those things that really impacted our students the most and kind of distilled it down. They told me to do 60 minutes. There’s no way I’m getting through this in 60 minutes, all right? There’s so much content in this business workshop, you are going to leave it and be very confident in having the foundation built for your health coaching business, be it FDN, or others.

So, if you are one of those people who’s like, shoot, I’m not sure if I am confident, I’ll say it again, confident enough to get out there and show my face on camera and talk to my community members, even tell my aunt and uncle what it is I’m doing without faltering, we are going to give you that confidence. And I’ve got four PDFs, a workbook, digital documents, so many practical resources for you in this workshop that you are just going to leave and be like, let’s rock. I’m ready, let’s go.

[00:15:53] Detective Ev: Yeah. Confidence is an interesting word to keep using because I do think this happens to people; it’s unfortunate. But we’re way moving in the realm of online learning. I think that’s not going anywhere, right? And it’s much more accepted now.

Business Workshop: Resulting Confidence

But it is always a tough thing when you get these certifications online as great as FDN might be. You know, you go to the Thanksgiving dinner or whatever it might be with family and then you’re discussing with them.

They’re like, oh, what do you do? You’re like, I’m an FDN practitioner, I’m a health coach, whatever it might fall under, depending on your certification or certifications. And if your business isn’t going the way that you wanted it to go, there can almost be a lack of confidence with that and some embarrassment. You shouldn’t have to feel that way.

We have people like Jennifer and tons of other FDN practitioners out there that, I think, it’s a different way of saying it. They’ll be like, all right, well, what do you do? Hey, I’m an FDN practitioner. I help women do this, that, and the next thing. Or I help men do this, that, and the next thing. And you have confidence with that because of what you’re able to do. You know that you’re doing this as an actual career.

I experienced that myself because I told everyone I was going to be a public speaker at 18 years old. And yet I was too scared to public speak even at my community college. So, you are almost ashamed to say that at first. But then after you’re like 400 or 500 speeches in, you’re like, yeah, I’m a public speaker. I talk to kids. Like that’s what I’m do.

And so, we want to get you to that next level of feeling confident in what you’re saying through actual results, not theory, actual results.

Business Workshop: Never Pigeonholed

And the business school, we have a podcast that you and I did on that. All you guys have to do is search for FDN Business School, the Health Detective Podcast. It’ll come right up. You said in there, Jennifer, that business school is A-to-Z. It is for someone that, like you said, doesn’t even understand the taxes, but also for someone to learn the email marketing basics. You can take these topics so high, it’s not even even funny.

We’re not saying it’s everything you’ll ever need, but certainly to get a good business it is. The email marketing, the sales calls, the landing pages, the automation, some softwares to use, it really is everything. We can’t do that all in the business workshop because the business schools like a multi, multi-month program.

So, what are the main topics specifically that we’ll learn in the workshop? I know finding your niche is one of them, I believe.

[00:17:59] Jennifer Woodward: Yep. We’re definitely going to teach you, if that’s something you desire, how to find your niche, and how to really work down.

And here’s the other thing about the business workshop, this is what I teach my students, this is what I’ve learned in my own business, you are never pigeonholed into any part of your business. In fact, you’re encouraged as an entrepreneur to continue to grow and learn and expand. And we want that to be very natural for you. So, while we’re giving you all these techniques and tips in the workshop, you just need to know you are not stuck in any of those things.

Business Workshop: Teaching Points

We are teaching you how to define a profitable niche, not just any niche. I’m teaching you how do you find a niche that will, if you should so desire, earn you an income. This is your business, so we want to teach you how to do that. We are walking through a marketing strategy, teaching you how to get online.

Now, this is something I hear a lot too. You guys, I’m talking to you on Instagram, so obviously you’re on Instagram. But not everyone wants to use social media for their business. So, we are teaching you how to utilize social media in your business if you should so desire. But we’re also teaching you how to expand into your community and become an expert in your community in this little niche that you’ve cultivated or maybe a grander niche that you cultivated. We’re giving you these actionable tools.

We’re also teaching you how to put together a business plan – dialing in what are you doing on the daily. People ask me that all the time too. What do you do as an FDN, as an entrepreneur? How does that look different from someone who sits at someone else’s desk all day instead of your desk all day? So, we’re going to walk through what that looks like, a sample schedule of what you could or should be doing as an entrepreneur, health coach, FDN practitioner.

We’re going through some of the cool new stuff happening right now out there on the interweb. We are giving you resources on how to use AI, artificial intelligence. It’s something that I’ve been using in my own business. It’s been really galvanizing for me, actually more creative, I think, than less creative by using some of these new technologies.

Business Workshop: The Day After

So, we’re going to walk through how to use ChatGPT for your health coaching business. We are going to talk about with Ev, how do you get on a podcast? How do you get published in the media, not social media, but print media? You know, we are really going to teach you how to get your name out there.

And then one of the things that we’re doing together, kind of a cornerstone, is building out your signature program. We’re going to walk you through your niche; we’re going to go through building out like a full document of signature programs. So, when you, my friend, leave the workshop, you are going to know exactly who you’re talking to and what your program’s going to look like if you want to implement that.

Come to our workshop. The day after you’ll be ready to go with your business. That’s not everything. I’m leaving something secret. But you can definitely find it on our webpage. We’re at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/sp/businessworkshop. We are going to drop that in the chat, so you guys have a really easy way to access that.

But, like I said, that’s just kind of scratching the tip of the surface. I would love to have five hours with you guys. I’m trying to put five hours of material into an hour. However, you will definitely feel like you are getting your money’s worth by going through this workshop with us.

Business Workshop: A Couple Incentives

[00:20:52] Detective Ev: Yeah. I mean, the workshop’s like $6, so you should be getting your money’s worth, for sure. It’d be pretty hard for us not to deliver on that. And what’s cool about our workshops, I would just block off a little extra time in your calendar because they kind of go over. It’s always fun, and people hang out and ask questions.

We should probably tell them it is on August 29th. Drop the words “Biz Workshop” below and we’ll get you the details so you can figure out where it is in your specific time zone.

I’ll also say this, there’s two cool things that are going to be happening that day. One is a bit of common sense. If we’re going to do a workshop about FDN, we’re going to teach you a bunch of stuff. But if we’re an intelligent business and we know that you’re on there because you want to learn about FDN and possibly do FDN, perhaps we would want to incentivize you with some type of flash discount. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

The other thing is, I don’t want to say it fully because I’m so excited about it. I can’t believe it got approved. So, I will word it this way. What if FDN became a place where we were so confident in what we did that we guarantee you make enough money to get your tuition back? If we could guarantee that you’d make enough money to get your tuition back, how would that look for you? Would that help you be able to start something like this a lot sooner than you otherwise would have? And if so, I would just say it would be very wise to be on that workshop.

Business Workshop: Course Business Content

Alright, going to go to some comments here. This is from before. “Just jumped on and wanted to wish Evan congrats.” Thank you so much. That’s very nice.

“I’m from Afghanistan. I want to start a business from Afghanistan, dry fruit with best quality.” Awesome. Good luck with that. That’s great.

Okay. What else we got? Someone asked, “how does the business school partner with the FDN course? Are there any business teachings in the FDN course?” I’ll start with this just so I’m not throwing everything at you.

The FDN Business School is technically separate from the course. The reason we do that, still to this day, is because we do have a smaller percentage of practitioners that come in that already have some type of health coaching business or a personal training business, or even they’re a doctor. They already have the clients.

To me, if you’ve already done enough that you have a consistent stream of clients and then you add in FDN, you’d have to really try to screw that up. That’s pretty hard. Like, you’re going to be okay. However, if you have no clients though so far, and you’re just ready to invest, want to do all of this, really want to go do this as a job, that’s how the business school kind of goes in.

The business teaching in the course is fairly simple. We have something that we’re working on called, I think, it’s Health Entrepreneur 101. The name might change. It’s not important. We’re going to give you some basic tips on how to get started. We’re also showing you; how do you onboard the client. We’ve always taught that in the main course, but there’s so much more to business.

Business Workshop: By An FDN For FDN

That’s always why I’ve seen that there’s a difference and we don’t just add it on altogether. Because there are some people that come into FDN that have an established business. I’m not sure if you have any different reasons for that or want to emphasize the big differences between the FDN course and Business School.

[00:23:53] Jennifer Woodward: Yeah, those are great reasons. One other thing is a lot of our FDNs actually go through the course because they’re dealing with personal or family health issues too. So, some of our FDNs will go through and they know they’re not going to practice as a business. They just want the information. That’s one of the other reasons that we are keeping FDN Business School separate from the course itself.

Plus, we want people to be very intentional about the course. We want you to be an expert in the labs. And we want that process that we teach you in FDN – the certification course – to be powerful and repeatable like we know it is. So, we don’t want to divert your attention in an important time that you’re learning the course.

Now, on the business school side, when you do receive access to that, I actually have students in business school right now who have gone through INN, IIN, ITN. They’ve gone through other business trainings, some really expensive business trainings. And we are, my friends, a fraction of the cost of some of these expensive business trainings at FDN Business School. They said they learned so much more in FDN Business School because, and this is what’s important, it is created by an FDN for FDN.

Business Workshop: Directly Applicable Information

There’s a lot of theoretical business training out there. To be perfectly frank and honest, we are doing more theoretical business training here in our business workshop because we know not everyone’s an FDN.

But by the time you go through the FDN certification course, you are ready for FDN Business School because you’re a freaking FDN. We want to make sure that you are doing everything you need to do on the business side and on the professional side to be able to launch that FDN practice. And that’s one of the differences with Business School, and again, one of the reasons why they’re separate.

[00:25:16] Detective Ev: That’s something, I think, that’s fair to be pretty blunt about, honestly, when you talk about theoretical. People go to college sometimes for entrepreneurship class and are learning from someone that does $60,000 a year and has never owned a business.

I am not condemning someone if they love doing that. God bless them, right? I’ve done many things that I’ve made almost no money with, but I chose to do it because I loved it. Especially speaking in schools for a nonprofit was not the most lucrative part of my career. Right?

My point in saying that is though, I’m not condemning the money, I’m not making fun of that person, but there’s a certain time and place when we’re, especially when we’re talking business, that’s not for the theoretical, in my opinion. You’ve got to learn from people who have actually done it.

And so yes, if you’re not an FDN, of course it could be theoretical if you’re in this workshop. But if you’re considering FDN or you’re an FDN trainee, this is directly applicable stuff from someone who’s actually done it.

Business Workshop: Paving the Way

Jennifer, I think it’s worth mentioning, because I know you’ve shared this publicly before, and to the degree that you’re comfortable with doing it, that’s always fine. You came from the pharmaceutical industry, then you came over to the good side or a different side, and now you’re with us at FDN, helping heal people in that way. I’m just kidding. Just kidding. Don’t sue me, Pfizer, or whoever.

So, you’re doing this now, you had to learn the entrepreneurial stuff, and you’re the creator of business school. This is something worth mentioning, and you’re the main creator of the business workshop. How much money have you personally spent on mentorship for your own business and that you can now apply to these workshops and Business School? And if you don’t mind, even if it’s just a general thing, how much income is your business doing nowadays?

[00:26:45] Jennifer Woodward: Sure. So, all fair questions.

I do want to be really transparent with you guys. You’ll see this in our workshop and in Business School. I am vulnerable because I want to help you. Like, I went through, just as I graduated the course, there were no resources. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing.

And so, one of my main motivations with the workshop and with Business School is to help people not have to go through those years of agony and the, not wasting honestly, but the extreme spending of money I might not necessarily had to have spent on business training and coaching just because I didn’t have a clear path.

Business Workshop: Working the Business

So, to answer your first question, I think last time I looked it was over $16,000 that I spent. My husband’s a financial advisor, so he always tells me these are post tax dollars. So, $16,000 out of the pocket for business coaching.

And like I said, it’s not a waste. Those were all good years. They were good teachers I had. It helped me in my business, helped me professionally and personally. But it wasn’t specifically formulated to help me grow my FDN practice. Right?

Now that I have been in practice for the better part of a decade, the last four years, my business has generated over six figures of income. That’s by God’s grace. I’m so thankful for that. I work hard, hustle my butt off in my business. This stuff does not come naturally. It doesn’t come easily. I don’t sit back in my chair and wait for it to come to me. Like I am working.

And so those are the things that I’m teaching you also in our business accelerator workshop, in our FDN Business School. How do you appropriately kind of meter out the resources that you have? We’re finite people, I’m one person in my business. I have a VA and I love her. Aside from that, it’s just me. And so, how do I be a wife and a mom of four children? How do I own a business and also work for FDN?

You know, how do I do what I love to do just as a person who values my health, do my workouts, my strength training? It’s important to practice what we preach. And so those are things we teach you too on both sides here, the workshop and then FDN Business School.

Business Workshop: Shiny Social Media Feed

These are the things that kind of keep me healthy enough, and resilient enough to be able to do the things I love and continue to grow my business.

So, I say all of that just because I think, a lot of times, like on Instagram, we look at people with a shiny feed and we’re like, dang. She’s got to be making like $500,000 a year. And look at that. Everything just looks perfect on her feed. That is not true. You guys already know that because you’re thinking people.

But I am here to tell you, you want to start a business, you got to do the work. And we are here to help equip you to do that work and give you the community that you need, the teaching that you need, those valued resources that you need to not give up when it gets hard.

[00:29:05] Detective Ev: Yeah. Well, the only good thing about taxes and having to track all your income and stuff is that there’s statistics backing this stuff up. So, you’re absolutely correct.

If you’re ever feeling bad about yourself, all you guys need to know, ask anyone in America, what does the top 1% make? I guarantee nine out of ten people will be like oh, well, millions of dollars, right? No, no, no. It’s like $423,000 last time I checked; that gets you into the 1% of income in America. So, in America, the United States, one of the most lucrative countries in the world, top 1% is $420,000 a year. And that is a ton of money, I’m not denying that.

Business Workshop: High-Level Key Components

But the point is, yeah, there’s a lot of shiny stuff on Instagram. People aren’t always doing what they might seem to be doing. Now, that’s not to discourage you. It’s actually the exact opposite. Because if you continue to look at the stats, you’ll find that there’s about the top 10% making $270,000 a year.

And there’s a significant portion, I believe it’s like 15% or 20% doing like six figures and above. So, it’s much easier for you to tap in to that six-figure thing than it would be a $500,000 a year thing. Okay? It can be done. And believe it or not, there’s actually FDNs who do that. But there’s some exceptional qualities to those people and their work ethic and what they’re willing to do.

But can you make an income out of this that is respectable, that you’re proud to say at the Thanksgiving dinner, even if you don’t say the income, and be like, yeah, dang right, I do FDN and I’m doing okay? Yes, and we can help you with that. We have many people doing it.

Drop the words “Biz Workshop” below, and we’ll get you the information. Someone said, “is the workshop different from the business program that you can sign up for after completing the FDN cert?” This question was from a little bit ago.

Correct me if I’m wrong, I would say the business workshop probably has some high-level key components of the business school. And then the business school just has way more. I mean, again, that’s an A-to-Z program on how to do business as an FDN, more or less.

Business Workshop: Approximately a Three-Month Program

[00:30:45] Jennifer Woodward: Yep. Correct. Yeah, the business school takes some of the wonderful things that are working really, really well for FDNs inside of FDN Business School and distills it down into what we can give you in an hour, an hour and a half, right? But Business School is way more robust.

In fact, I just finished my spreadsheet. There’s another spreadsheet on course completion. And if you work your booty off for three months straight, I have it Monday through Friday, all of the modules to watch, all of the action steps to take, you can complete FDN Business School in about three months, then we give you six months to complete that course. Some of our students have done it a little quicker.

But there’s so many hands-on action items that we want to walk you through as you start your business, you really would consider about three months of time to devote to going through that program. So, a lot more than what we could do in 90 minutes or 60 minutes.

[00:31:29] Detective Ev: Oh, this is terrible. I just scrolled down to the bottom, and I realize no one’s dropped “Biz Workshop” yet and we’re already near the end. All right, so I got a sweeten it for you guys.

I mean, I know $6 is very tough, right? You can get a dozen eggs, basically, maybe like two thirds of a dozen eggs. Or you can do our business workshop.

How about this? How about you DM us and we’ll give you a code so that you can get it a hundred percent for free. So, DM us “Biz Workshop” and we’ll make sure that you can get in for free. We will save your $6.

Business Workshop: Live Q&A

Someone said, “I mean, business school…” I’m in suspense as well. I’m not sure what they’re wanting there.

Okay. So, then we can go through a few more things. If anyone has questions, by the way, this is definitely the time to ask about the business workshop, Business School. You can get some free advice out of us if you really like. That’s fine.

We will also have time on the workshop for Q&A as well. That’s going to be a good time because we’ll talk a bunch, we have a ton of content. But how these workshops at FDN always go is they always go over, everyone’s always excited, and then we end up doing a super long Q&A that we have to cut out. Something tells me that with this type of Q&A, especially a business workshop, that’s going to go pretty long.

That’s on August 29th. DM us “Biz Workshop” to get the link or drop it below. If you want to pay, drop it below; if you want to get it for free, DM us. We’ll make sure that you get it. If you are watching this after it has already been Live, the Instagram Live that is, then of course you can still DM us or drop it below. We do check those. I think it’d be wiser just to DM us so we can see it quicker and get you hooked up.

If no one has questions right now, assuming that no others come through, what would you say your favorite piece of content that you’re excited to share in this business workshop is?

Business Workshop: Signature Program Building

Because again, there’s a lot of stuff. You’re really trying to do five hours in one hour, you said. I got some content that I have in there as well. But what is the thing that you’re most excited for that you believe it’d be awesome if health coaches and FDNs alike kind of knew and understood?

[00:33:09] Jennifer Woodward: Yes. Okay. I’m so excited about helping our health practitioners build out their signature program. And this is why, because people have no idea what to do with their clients once they get them.

They don’t know what a session’s going to look like; they don’t know what their client is going to achieve in 12 weeks. They have high hopes as to what their client might achieve at like the month, three months, six-month mark, but they don’t really have an actionable way to get there with these quantifiable, repeatable results.

We’re not going like super, super deep. But I can guarantee you that if you come to this workshop, we will work through together with me leading you. And this is a Zoom workshop, so you can ask me questions. If you have questions about your niche, if you have questions about your personal program, we get to go over all of those in the Q&A. So, you do have access to me.

And not like I’m the authority, but I’ve done it myself and now have run 200 other students through it. I could say, I think I know what I’m talking about, and I’d love to answer your questions on this. Because it’s one of my favorite things to kind of help people tweak.

Business Workshop: Working Together

I like to get in there and say like, is this really going to work for you? You know, is this a niche that people will pay for? Is this something that’s going to light you up and going to keep you going for a long time? And again, how can we do those very practical things?

That is the other thing that I’m so excited about this workshop. Like I said, it’s not just theory, like, hey, go out and do this in your business; maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. I’m like, here’s your PDF, here’s your resource. Open up your computer; get a pen out. We are doing this together right now so that by the time these 90 minutes are up, you are going to know exactly what you are getting out of this workshop and how to implement it today or tomorrow in your business.

So, that’s what I love doing. That’s like my passion, and that’s what I’m so excited about for this workshop.

[00:34:41] Detective Ev: Nice. Yeah, Jennifer over delivers, I’ll put it that way.

This is the perk of doing the podcast, they want you to talk about stuff. So, she let me have access to the business school and I was going through this. I was like, holy cow.

Like, I know a lot of the business stuff, but I was learning so much as I went through and just the technical things that you have in there. So, it’s really cool. And yeah, if you did that with the business school, it’ll be fun to see what the Biz Workshop is going to be like.

I don’t think we have too much more today; it’s nice and easy for us. We did move the times and stuff.

Business Workshop: August 29th, 2023

Last thing is this. If you’re just tuning in and didn’t hear it in the beginning, the Biz Workshop’s going to be on August 29th. Drop the words “Biz Workshop” below, or DM us “Biz Workshop” so that you can figure out which place it’s in timewise.

I always say the times and then I constantly get feedback for this because there’s like a million different time zones that people come into FDN with. So, if you want to know the time, you have to drop the word “Biz Workshop” or put it in the DM.

If you are someone interested in the course and pursuing an FDN business, I will just say, common sense will tell you something to learn about business is that if we have people that are on the business workshop that we know are interested, we would probably be very wise as a company to incentivize you to purchase it quickly if we gave you some type of discount, hypothetically speaking.

And then, this is probably selfishly the thing I’m most excited for, because I think it’s going to just separate FDN completely from the rest of the industry, not that we weren’t already, but in a way that’s so obvious and objective because no one else is going to do this. If you guys knew that you could go through the FDN program and we would guarantee that you get your tuition back, otherwise we’ll help you, would that allow you to make a quicker decision in terms of going through the FDN course?

So, if you’d be interested in a guarantee like that, we just might be offering that on the workshop and in the future.

Business Workshop: Looking Back

There are so many fun things happening. It’s like a workshop on steroids because there’s all these other things that are going to go on and come from this. So, Jennifer, I’m super excited.

Thank you for hopping on with me today. As always, I’m looking forward to doing our practice sessions with you. And I’m looking forward to going Live. August 29th at 9:00 AM PST for the Business Workshop. So, it’s 9:00 AM PST/12:00 PM EST. You got to hop on.

If you have the time to hop on, on that date, that shows that you need a business, I think. Because it’s like, what are you doing? You just hanging out at 9:00 AM on August 29th? So, we’ll teach you how to make that time profitable.

Any last final words, words of wisdom, positive thoughts?

[00:37:07] Jennifer Woodward: I just saw that some of you have already DMed. Thank you so much for your interest. We cannot wait to get back to you; we cannot wait to see you on this workshop.

Again, at my heart, I’m a mom and I just love teaching people. I want to see you succeed in your business. So, that is my motivation in being here. We are very FDN and health coach focused. Like, we are really wanting to see you succeed.

Because as Ev and I both said, we came from a place of not having the tools and resources that we now have available at FDN. How much more quickly, and how much more exponentially could our businesses have grown if we would’ve had these steps in place to begin with?

Conclusion

So, we really want to set you up with that foundation. We want to start you in this workshop. And of course, we want to have you part of the FDN family. That’s our motivation too.

The more FDNs we can get out there in the world, the better this world is going to be. I see it in my own practice; I see it with the other FDNs that are practicing. And I even see some of my friends and clients here on this thread. You know how powerful getting access to those labs and really implementing your DRESS protocol can be. So, that’s our heart in wanting to share this information with you guys, to really go make the world a better place. It’s not trite, that’s what we want to do.

So, pop them in; DM us. Let us know if you can join. And then we’ve got some really great resources for you on August 29th. I will see you there.

[00:38:19] Detective Ev: Awesome. I can’t wait. And I’ll definitely see you personally before that because we’ve got a ton of work to do, don’t we?

Jennifer Woodward: Yep.

Detective Ev: Thank you guys for tuning in. Again, if you’re catching it afterwards, just DM us “Biz Workshop”. And then, since I opened my big mouth again, you guys will get it for free. I will get the flak from that later. So, congratulations. Alright, we’ll see you guys on the workshop. Take care.

Jennifer Woodward: Bye, guys.

You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com, on YouTube @FDNtraining, or on Instagram @fdntraining.

For more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one, go to functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/health-detective-podcast/.

To learn more about us, go to functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/about-fdn-functional-testing/.

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are a rarity in nutrition research, making the study we are reviewing this week particularly intriguing. This unique trial challenges the commonly accepted notion of the healthiest diet, leading to surprising findings: essentially, nothing significant.

In 1980, the inaugural Dietary Guidelines for Americans advocated for a varied diet. This recommendation emphasised selecting foods from major groups, including fruits, vegetables, cereals, meats, eggs, and dairy. The 2005 guidelines brought about two key changes: the introduction of Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges (AMDRs) and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, incorporating whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and low-fat dairy, while limiting sugar.

Over nearly two decades, countless institutions worldwide have incorporated this diet into their menus, and medical professionals are compelled to endorse it. Given the global impact of this specific diet on health, one would expect substantial evidence backing its claims. Surprisingly, the evidence is far from robust, mainly stemming from observational studies that infer associations between diet and health without rigorous trials.

A recent exception to this trend is the study by Barnes et al. (2023), published on July 18th, examining the MIND diet’s impact on preventing cognitive decline in older individuals. The MIND diet, or Mediterranean–DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, is a hybrid of the Mediterranean and DASH diets. Gary Taubes noted that the acronym’s presumption that the diet successfully delays neurodegenerative decline is rather biased.

This study aimed to address the limited clinical trial data on dietary patterns and cognitive decline prevention. Conducting an RCT in nutrition is resource-intensive and complex, as seen in this large three-year study recruiting participants from Chicago and Boston. Individuals aged 65 and above, with a family history of dementia but without cognitive impairment, were included. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment was employed to assess cognitive status.

Method:

1. Preheat Oven to 180C 

2. Mix wet ingredients in a bowl  (olive oil, egg, vanilla, lemon zest)

3. Mix dry ingredients in another bowl (almond meal, caster sugar, basking power, desiccated coconut) 

4. Combine dry ingredients into wet ingredients and whisk well 

5. Pour into a lined round springform pan

6. Sprinkle with flaked almonds 

7. Bake for 40 minutes

8. Cool on a rack before slicing 

Enjoy with a cup of tea 🙂   

By Liana Werner-Gray

Gout is a type of inflammatory arthritis caused by an accumulation of uric acid crystals in the joints. This condition typically leads to sudden and severe episodes of pain, swelling, and redness, often affecting the joints of the big toe. Uric acid forms when the body breaks down purines, substances found in certain foods and naturally in the body. 

Causes of gout include: a diet high in hydrogenated fats, alcohol, poor circulation, lymphatic system not working properly, conventional meat and refined carbohydrates. Flares of gout are also often caused by large meals. 

Managing gout involves lifestyle changes, usually medication, and dietary adjustments to reduce uric acid levels and prevent flare-ups.

If your goal is to conquer gout, focusing on your diet is essential. Embrace this gout-specific dietary approach for swift relief and effectively tackle the underlying cause of gout, paving the way to its permanent elimination.

This is a highly anti-inflammatory diet plan! 

The Natural Gout Healing Diet 

• Foods rich in dietary fiber – Incorporate high-fiber options like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds into your diet. These choices are abundant in fiber content and can assist in lowering uric acid levels.
• Fish caught from the wild – The presence of Omega-3s aids in inflammation reduction and contributes to alleviating the discomfort of gout.
• Hydration – Ensure ample water intake, aiming for a minimum of 8 oz every 2 hours to effectively eliminate uric acid from your body.
• Berries and fresh cherries – Berries, particularly cherries, possess the ability to counteract uric acid. Consider consuming organic cherry juice without added sugar or preservatives to benefit from their effects.
• Foods abundant in potassium – Incorporating potassium-rich options such as avocado, coconut water, salmon, squash, bananas, and apricots can aid in restoring intracellular fluid balance, providing relief from gout.

It’s important to steer clear of the following food choices:

• Alcohol – Consumption of alcohol can elevate uric acid levels and liver toxicity. Definitely no beer. If drinking stick to vodka or tequila.
• Conventional meats including deli meats. The preservatives in these meats that are banned in other countries other than the USA can contribute to uric acid build up. 
• Refined carbohydrates and refined sugar – Sugar and other refined carbohydrates can worsen insulin resistance and exacerbate gout symptoms.
• Foods rich in purines – Purines, amino acids that contribute to uric acid formation, are found in items like fatty red meat, shellfish, small fish, mushrooms, organ meats, peas, lentils, and spinach.
• Fried foods and hydrogenated oils – The consumption of fried foods and hydrogenated oils, such as soybean, vegetable, corn, and canola oil, can exacerbate gout.
• Sodium – A diet high in sodium has the potential to lead to tissue swelling and intensify gout symptoms.

12 Steps to Healing GOUT Protocol: 

1. No alcohol if possible. Only drink on special occasions. Stick to tequila and vodka, not beer or wine. 
2. Need daily GREENS. Lots of vegetables. Fill up on vegetables. Ideally lunch and dinner would be a protein with vegetables / salad. Breakfast can be eggs with vegetables. 
3. Meat & vegetables is the ideal diet. Cutting out gluten and refined sugar. Gluten on special occasions is fine. Just can’t be a regular thing for a while. And high quality gluten only! None of the stuff that has banned ingredients. Eat pure protein like wild caught fish, grass fed & finished beef, organic chicken, turkey and pasture raised eggs. 
4. Ginger tea EVERYDAY! Ginger will be your best friend. Make it with fresh ginger or buy ginger tea bags. 
5. And cayenne pepper!! Drink it in water everyday! For circulation! 
6. Turmeric daily. Supplements are easiest. 
7. Take a probiotic daily 
8. Drink chlorophyll daily. This should be the very first thing you do every single day before having coffee or any food! Just add chlorophyll drops to water.
9. A beet juice or green juice (with celery) daily. Alternate between the two. Beet juice recipe for one is: one small beet, 2 carrots, 3 celery stalks, one small red apple, 1/2 lemon peeled and one thumb size piece of ginger. The recipe for green juice for one is: 1 cucumber, 3 celery stalks, one small apple, 1/2 lemon peeled, 1 thumb size piece of ginger. 
10. Drink black cherry juice. 
11. Take a fish oil supplement for omega 3 
12. Take magnesium. Magnesium is an alkaline mineral. That alkaline mineral can also decrease uric acid formation in the body, and studies show magnesium is an effective treatment for gout, particularly acute cases of gout. 

In addition, jump on a rebounder for 5 minutes after rising. 

Josh Axe talks about getting rid of gout in 24 hours here!

Resources:

https://www.niams.nih.gov/health-topics/gout

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9175343/#:~:text=Therefore%20regular%20use%20of%20anti,compared%20to%20other%20prophylactic%20medications.

https://draxe.com/health/gout-remedies/

By Liana Werner-Gray

Hello Gorgeous Souls,

Today, let’s dive into a topic close to many hearts: achieving clear, radiant skin. Acne can be frustrating, but fear not! I’m here to share three natural remedies that address the root causes of acne and help you unlock the beauty that shines from within. I used to have acne and acne scars and now they are all gone! These 3 things are what I focused on most for healing it. Are you ready to embrace a journey of self-care and transformation? Let’s get started!

1. Nourishing from Within: Detoxing Your Gut for Glowing Skin:

Your gut health and skin are deeply interconnected. Healing your gut can lead to a noticeable improvement in your skin’s appearance. Start by incorporating gut-friendly foods like probiotics, prebiotics, and fiber-rich vegetables into your diet. Reduce processed foods, refined sugars, and dairy that trigger inflammation. Just cutting these things out alone your acne can clear up! A gut detox involves supporting your digestive system through nurturing, nutrient-dense foods and staying hydrated. Remember, a healthy gut is the foundation for radiant skin!

3. Love Your Liver: Detoxify and Rejuvenate with Liver-Cleansing Juices:

A sluggish liver can contribute to skin issues like acne. Give your liver some love by embarking on a rejuvenating liver cleanse. Incorporate liver-supportive foods into your diet, such as leafy greens, beets, and lemon water. Embrace the power of juicing with concoctions like beet-carrot-ginger juice or a refreshing green cleanse. 

For beet juice for one person:

Juice 3 carrots, 1 small beet, and one thumb size piece of ginger. 

For green juice for one person:

Juice one small green apple, 1 cucumber, 2 celery stalks, 1/2 lemon peeled and 1 thumb size piece of ginger. 

These juices are rich in antioxidants and nutrients that aid detoxification, helping your liver function optimally and revealing clearer, more radiant skin.

A Journey of Self-Care and Transformation:

Remember, achieving healthy, vibrant skin is a holistic journey that encompasses both inner and outer care. By focusing on gut health, incorporating Sovereign Silver Natural Healing Gel, and revitalizing your liver through juicing, you’re embracing a path of self-care and transformation. As you nurture your body, your skin will naturally respond with a radiant glow that reflects your inner vitality.

Embrace the Beauty Within:

The journey to healing acne is a beautiful opportunity to reconnect with your body’s wisdom. By nourishing yourself from the inside out and embracing natural remedies, you’re taking a powerful step toward achieving the skin you deserve. Let your inner beauty shine, and may your journey be filled with self-love, radiant skin, and a renewed sense of well-being.

Wishing you boundless beauty and vitality,

Liana Werner-Gray

By Liana Werner-Gray

Hello Health Enthusiasts!

Embracing Natural Preservation: Celery Powder’s Magic:

The Pinnacle of Animal Welfare: Grass-Fed, Grass-Finished Goodness:

Pure Protein: A Snack Above the Rest:

Unlocking the Power of B Vitamins: Fuel for Your Brain and Body:

Why You’ll Want to Stock Up on Nick’s Sticks:

Wishing you health, happiness, and delicious snacking,

Liana Werner-Gray

Is Dried Fruit as Healthy as Fresh Fruit?

I prefer you eat fresh whole fruit over dried fruit. BUT, dried fruit over other processed snacks.

One piece of dried fruit contains about the same amount of nutrients as fresh, with the exception of less vitamin C. The downside of dried fruit (as far as nutrient density) is that they contain 38–66% more concentrated sugars. So, a little dried fruit is great—but, please, don’t over do it. Also, some dried fruit contains sulfites, which are added to preserve color, and can upset digestion.

The Lowdown on Rocky Ford Melons

It’s melon season in Colorado, so we decided to dig into the why and how of cantaloupe nutrition. Cantaloupe seems a little under the radar to me. It’s delicious, but not talked about or served that much. Good cantaloupe — and it’s so good right now — has a greenish-white exterior and is gently firm to the touch. The inside of the melon is bright orange, juicy and sweet.

Cantaloupe is high in beta-carotene and Vitamin A

Cantaloupe is a BIG source of beta-carotene — even bigger than other yellow-orange fruits including apricots, oranges, nectarines and mangos. Beta-carotene is what gives fruits and veggies their bright colors and is the precursor to Vitamin A, a powerful antioxidant and immune booster. Vitamin A is important for eye health, healthy red blood cells and a healthy immune system.

Vitamin C: 1 cup of balled cantaloupe contains over 100 percent of the recommended daily value (DV) of vitamin C (USDA). Eating vitamin C-rich foods may help reduce the duration of your next cold.

Water: Cantaloupe has high water content, at almost 90 percent. Eating cantaloupe helps you stay hydrated throughout the day.

Potassium: One wedge of a medium-sized cantaloupe gives us approximately 4% DV. Potassium is an essential electrolyte mineral. That helps keep a good water balance in the body. Eating cantaloupe after exercise helps to replenish depleted electrolytes.

Other: Cantaloupe also has folate, vitamin K, niacin, choline, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, and lots of good fiber. EAT cantaloupe!

Our Favorite Ways to Enjoy Cantaloupe
–Chunks in a smoothie
–Include in a salad
–Serve in cubes or slices as dessert
–Serve as an app as part of a charcuterie plate (or girl dinner!)

Enjoy your summer fruit bounty!
Robin