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  • Build CONFIDENCE in Your Health Coach Sales Process

    Build CONFIDENCE in Your Health Coach Sales Process

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    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 about how to build confidence in your sales process.

    We are having a fan favorite guest on today, and I do mean that quite literally. Her name is Hailey Rowe, and her previous episode is currently a top 10 most downloaded episode on our podcast. It is called Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur. I will put that link in the show notes for you guys, of course, so you can check that out afterwards if you’d like. But we got a ton of cool stuff to talk about today with her. She is coming on to help us focus on the business side, specifically sales today.

    Now, I know this is called the Health Detective Podcast, so if by chance you happen to click on this randomly, that might not fully make sense. The reason that we bring on people like this is because we have a lot of practitioners that listen. Some are our own practitioners, Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioners. Others are health coaches. We’re a little different than them, but we can still help them on the business side.

    We have chiropractors that listen, acupuncturists, a really large amount of people that are in the health space wanting to develop their own business, get their skills down, whatever it might be. That’s why we bring on people like this occasionally.

    Build Confidence: Develop Your Business

    So, Hailey’s going to be talking to us again about sales today. Last time was entrepreneurship from like a 30,000-foot view. And then as an added bonus, if you are listening to this within about the first week of it coming out, you still have an opportunity to catch her next Live event with FDN, which is going to be where she talks about how to grow your health coaching business or your FDN business on LinkedIn. I think this is pretty interesting because I know that there’s power to LinkedIn.

    I actually deleted my account for the longest time and I’m considering getting it back on cause I think there’s probably huge validity there. I just hate how freaking generic it is. I mean, I’m in my twenties so when I go online and I see the posts from some of my friends from college, I love you guys to death, but it is just like, what is going on? It’s all the same stuff. It’s like, I am so proud and happy to announce, yada, yada, yada. I like to thank my friends and family. I just, I’m not cookie cutter like that man. It’s all the same thing, I could plug and play it.

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    But you know, sometimes you gotta just play the game, right? Hailey knows what she’s doing with that, and if you want to play that game to develop your business, that is the person to go with. So, I’m going to get back on LinkedIn, she convinced me.

    FDN Summer Open House

    And we’re doing a full training with her for our Summer Open House event. That’ll be my last little announcement here. If you don’t know what our Summer Open House event is yet, it is the entire month of June 2023. We have over 20 Live events scheduled for health practitioners or people that want to become health practitioners, and that is where Hailey will be talking about the LinkedIn stuff.

    Just go to fdntraining.com/summer to get registered for that, it is a free event. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the location and time for when that event’s going to be occurring. If you’d like the recordings of those events, we do have a paid version; it’s fdntraining.com/vip. That is to get the recordings. But fdntraining.com/summer gets you all of the stuff completely for free. You just have to attend the events Live.

    About Hailey Rowe

    With all that said, here’s a little bit about Hailey before we get started. She is a Marketing & Sales Coach/Consultant & Linkedin Lead Generation Service Provider. She helps health coaches and functional wellness professionals build their client attraction process, develop their no-brainer offers, and grow their impact locally and online. Also, she shares her F.A.S.T. Framework, that’s an acronym which we’ll talk about today, marketing and business tips on her Health Coach Nation Podcast, and in her FREE Marketing Hub Facebook Group.

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    She’s been named as one of the top 25 coaches in Chicago and one of the top six business podcasts for health coaches. Since 2010, Hailey has worked in the coaching industry and in business development/marketing for startups. Hailey’s philosophy is this, you can have an amazing service and impact to make, but without a strong mindset and sales and marketing plan, your business will remain a hobby.

    Ooh, that stings a little bit. But that’s what entrepreneurship has to be sometime. If you can override the sting, on the other side of that is a really great business waiting for you, and we’re going to talk about that today. Without further ado, let’s get to the episode.

    All right. Hello there, Hailey. Welcome back to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you?

    [00:04:22] Hailey Rowe: Thank you. I am doing well. How are you doing?

    [00:04:25] Detective Ev: I can hardly remember a time I was better. Thanks for asking. I think I hit you with that the other day too, but it’s true. I really am always doing well, so I’m very thankful to be able to say that for right now. I hope everyone else, if you’re doing half as well as me, you’re doing pretty good if you’re listening to this.

    Build Confidence: Marketing & Sales Coach/Consultant

    We wanted to bring Hailey back on for a couple of reasons. She will be a part of our Summer Open House event and actually, this will be released in time for that. I’ll make sure it is. Let’s just touch on that topic really quick if you don’t mind. So, it’s fdntraining.com/summer. If you miss her event, it’s fdntraining.com/vip so you can catch the recordings.

    But what will you be talking about there on our Summer Open House event?

    [00:05:08] Hailey Rowe: I will be talking about how to attract profitable partnerships and clients using LinkedIn, the low maintenance platform, I call it.

    [00:05:16] Detective Ev: Cool. Very cool. And today we have an entirely different topic. We’re going to be, I think we call it almost like confidence in sales, right? Is that how we would describe it?

    [00:05:24] Hailey Rowe: Oh yeah. Sales confidence.

    [00:05:26] Detective Ev: Okay. You guys, if you were just someone who actually listens to the intros, you kind of would’ve heard about Hailey a little bit. It is different than our normal person, because we have businesspeople on, but a lot of the people are also health coaches, right? They have these extreme health stories, typically speaking.

    So, just in case these are people who skip my intros, and I don’t know why they would do such a thing, can you give us a brief on your background again? Just what do you do and why do you teach this stuff?

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    [00:05:49] Hailey Rowe: For sure. I am a marketing and sales coach and consultant and a LinkedIn lead gen service provider for wellness professionals. Specifically, I’ve worked with a lot of FDN practitioners.

    Build Confidence: A Sales System

    They are amazing at what they do, but sometimes when it comes to the sales piece, they get a little nervous about how do I put myself out there? How do I not sound pushy? What about everybody’s going to think my pricing is too expensive? These are things that you have to navigate as a new business owner.

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    And sales is definitely a new skill that a lot of times new business owners don’t have quite yet. Sometimes even established business owners don’t have a sales system or have gaps in their sales process. So, I got into working with these wellness professionals because I used to do marketing and be on a business development team for wellness startups. I loved it but I love even more working individually with these wellness-based business owners and how to attract clients, get visibility opportunities, establish their business foundations and messaging, all that kind of stuff as they want to make their impact.

    [00:06:57] Detective Ev: Very cool. This is something, my gosh, if you guys even listen to every other episode, I talk about this all the time. So, I’m so happy to have you back today. I more talk about it conceptually, you’re going to give some tangible things that we can use today.

    I see this coming up so much and it kind of breaks my heart. So, I see a lot of people that get into this space because they had health issues and because their heart took them into the health side. But then they realize, oh, wait. To do this in the most effective way possible, most people are going to have to do this in a business format. That’s probably your quickest route to success.

    Build Confidence: Intimidating Sales

    But in their head, they’re saying, wait a second. I wanted to be a health person; I don’t know anything about business. And then, yeah, I gotta do sales and marketing. I can’t even define those things. So how am I supposed to do this? The truth of the matter is, I have seen so many people take that leap, learn those skills, and actually dedicate themselves to it in the same way they dedicated themselves to figuring out health.

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    Guys, yeah, it’s scary in the beginning. It’s intimidating. There’s no doubt about that. And it never really gets a hundred percent comfortable. At least I’m not there yet and I’ve been doing sales for nine years in some way or another. But it’s a muscle, you get stronger with it. It gets a little easier to activate it over time, and it is something that can be learned. There’s a real skill to it.

    I think what I’m excited for today, as well, is at the middle-end we’ll talk about the sales system’s potential. So, I was always someone that they considered a “salesperson”, quote/unquote. What do people really mean by that? They just mean that you maybe are extroverted and have some level of charisma. That’s not a sales system. That’s a person who is extroverted and has charisma that might be more prone to selling. But that doesn’t mean that you have a consistent system that you can duplicate for someone else.

    This stuff matters. Yes, you can be an introvert; yes, you can be shy. This can all be done. So, let’s break it down simply for people just in case they are new to this stuff, and they’re intimidated.

    Build Confidence: Sales Versus Marketing

    First, we don’t have to do Websters here, but how would you define the difference between marketing and sales? Because I think that’s confusing for people.

    [00:08:45] Hailey Rowe: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, I define sales actually by Dan Sullivan’s definition. I love his definition. And that is, sales is getting somebody emotionally and intellectually encouraged to take an action that they define as good for them.

    When we talk about coaching, which is what you guys do with your students, I really see sales as a partnership conversation with you and the potential client. You are seeing what they want and need, seeing if you can deliver that, seeing if you guys are a good fit, and helping them come to a decision.

    I think a lot of people automatically freak themselves out about sales because they think it means you are asking somebody for money, you’re pushing somebody to make a decision, you’re begging somebody, you’re trying to quote/unquote “convince people”, which it is none of that. It is a conversation with open-ended questions, hearing your potential client or prospect, and seeing what makes sense to solve their problem, helping them come to some kind of decision, whether it’s a yes, no, or a referral to someone else who would do a better job.

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    The point is you’re like a detective and you’re trying to figure out what is the best next move for this person and what do they feel is the best next move for this person. That’s what sales is. But marketing is everything that leads up to that conversation. That’s the part where you’re going to be connecting with new people.

    Build Confidence: Offering the Solution

    That’s the part where you’re going to be nurturing people and telling them your story or helping them understand what you do and why you do it. It’s the part where you are inviting them to get quick wins from you upfront, either through a lead magnet, like a freebie or your free webinar or whatever, or inviting them to that sales phase if they’ve indicated an interest to go to that next phase.

    Marketing is really more so the stuff that has to happen before the sales conversation to help somebody understand what’s possible for them, get an interest, get them to raise their hand that they are interested in the kind of solutions you provide. And then the sales part is helping them come to some kind of decision.

    [00:10:56] Detective Ev: I think this is perfect, especially if someone has never heard about this. It’s like, okay, so sales is this, marketing is everything that leads up to that. That’s actually a great way to put it. I’ve never heard marketing put that way, but now I’m going to start explaining it to people like that.

    Just to be clear then, when we’re talking about these definitions, what I didn’t hear in sales definition is lying, cheating, stealing, manipulating, or anything like that. So, sales is actually an ethical thing where you solve someone’s problem, assuming that you’re qualified to do so. Is that what I’m hearing?

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    [00:11:23] Hailey Rowe: Yeah. Actually, the way I like to think about it is if somebody has a problem or a challenge they’ve been dealing with and they’ve been spending time, money, exhaustion, emotional expense on this issue, searching for an issue, it’s your duty to offer them some kind of solution.

    Build Confidence: Dealing with Objections

    So again, if your solution really isn’t the right solution for them, of course don’t manipulate them and tell them that it is. But at the same time, a lot of times what they need is support, accountability, finding the root cause of their challenge, et cetera. You guys, as wellness professionals, can do that. So yeah, no manipulation needed.

    However, I will say that a lot of times I see people think that somebody has a limiting belief or objection. For example, if somebody says, oh, I want to do this, but I need to wait until my child’s soccer team ends this summer. You know? That is not necessarily them saying they don’t want to do it and that you should just say, oh, okay, well let’s catch up at the end of the summer. We do want to explore objections with people.

    In other words, you’re not forcing them. You’re not saying, well, that’s a wrong assumption. We could get started right now because blah, blah, blah. You’re not dictating something, but you do want to help somebody.

    They might have told you earlier in your discovery call, which we call that call you use to see if somebody’s a fit for your services, they might have said earlier, I need to do this. I’ve been waiting for eight years to solve this problem, blah, blah, blah. And then later they have some comment about, I gotta wait till my kid’s soccer team is over.

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    Well, okay. In that case, you as their coach, you understand that they’ve been dealing with this pain, and they fall into this pattern of delay. So, it is your job to ask a question and inquire about that. You’re not forcing; you’re not pushing.

    Build Confidence: Inquiring with Certain Objections

    If somebody has an objection, a lot of times people close down like, okay, bye. I’ll talk to you later. What we actually want to do is lean in and inquire.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, INQUIRE, OBJECTIONS, OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS

    Be like, interesting. Do you think that the plan we’re going to put together is going to be super time consuming? Because we can adapt it to make sure it fits with your lifestyle and your kid’s soccer games and whatever. That’s more of what I mean. We do want to inquire about certain objections they may have if they’ve already shared that this is what they’re looking for.

    [00:13:52] Detective Ev: I appreciate that perspective of the limiting belief because this is something everyone can relate to. We all walk around with these in many categories and areas of our life.

    Hopefully, if you’re watching something like this, you have engaged in some conscious personal development. By conscious, I mean intentional, you weren’t forced into it. And through that personal development, you probably identified some of those things for yourself.

    I was just having a conversation with my girlfriend and best friend, separate conversation. But I love personality theory and my best friend and girlfriend actually have the same personality type. So, it makes sense why I was friends with him since we were young. And then I found a partner in her. But they have very similar ways of thinking about things.

    One of their things, Hailey, with like money and working that we’ve all been working through together, even as friends, cause we’re all connected, is they are under the impression that to make good money means you have to work 70, 80 hours a week, you have to be bringing the laptop to the beach with the family and all these things.

    Build Confidence: Adding Value Not Hours

    And what you’re talking about here is something that I just do with a friend. I’m like, so what does 70 hours do that 40 hours doesn’t? And then we start working through this and just ask very logical questions. Like, if someone’s making $15 an hour, you can work all the hours in the day that you want. You can work all 24, that’s not going to get you rich. Right? So, then you have to acknowledge, I need to be providing more value in the hours.

    Cause it’s not just about 70 hours, but 70 hours at $15 does nothing. I mean, it does something. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be ignorant, but obviously it’s not getting people rich and financially stable, I don’t think. At some point then we gotta say, oh wait, what else is there?

    So, where did I get that limiting belief from? And it turns out with one of those people I mentioned, their dad was actually someone who literally worked 70, 80 hours a week, still does. Would bring the laptop to the beach and was hyper successful. So, they assumed and got this, rightfully so, as a kid. Oh, they do that? That must be what everyone that has success does.

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    I’m like, we have FDNs that refuse to work more than 40 hours a week simply because they care so much about their health, and they got sick working extensive hours before. So, they say, how can I provide more value in the 40 hours versus just adding hours. Because you get a very limited amount of hours. We can add almost unlimited value to our services and ourselves as we move on through life. I think this would help with the confidence thing in sales.

    Build Confidence: Clients Must Take Responsibility

    Is there a time or a way that the limiting belief is too much and it’s just not your job as the business owner in this case to work them through that? Because some you can work through easily and others it’s like, oh my gosh, you need a therapist with all due respect.

    [00:16:15] Hailey Rowe: Yeah. If you hear from somebody, like, nothing ever works for me, they ripped me off and I have to get a refund, and blah, blah, and a lot of they, they, they, and not a lot of personal responsibility, you, as a coach, can’t always teach that, or it’s not always worth teaching that.

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    So, if somebody’s very blame oriented and you’re hearing a lot of “they” or “the world” or X, Y, Z is against me, sometimes that person may not be the right fit. Cause coaching is all about you partnering with someone and them taking responsibility and you helping them get the results. But I think that’s important.

    I think the other thing that’s important is if somebody has a trauma or something really serious or certain medications you’re not familiar with that you would need to coordinate with their doctor, but it’s way down a rabbit hole of something you’ve never done, like totally disqualified, you need to be the judge on can you really help this person. Yeah, I definitely think there’s things that you need to look out for.

    About sales, if you’re really excited about what you sell, really convicted, really thinking that your offer is an amazing steal and you over-deliver, naturally a lot of the techniques that we teach in sales and sales psychology, your tone, and all of that, just naturally is going to be really good.

    Build Confidence: It Just Comes Naturally

    I teach my clients sales, marketing, all that, and a lot of times I listen to their discovery calls and give them feedback.

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    I have a client who just, I could tell from the moment she gets on the phone, she is so excited and so interested in the person on the other side. She’s not thinking about herself at all, she’s more so like, I have the solve, I have the framework, I know that this is what you’re saying, we can solve this. And she doesn’t even have to memorize anything or dictate anything because it just is coming so naturally. So just a side note there.

    The other thing is use your emotional intelligence. If you get a gut feeling that somebody’s just literally every excuse out of the gates and they’re sounding like they really don’t want it, you could even say, wow, it sounds like maybe this is something you don’t want. And you can even clarify that. Because sometimes you’ll find that when you do that, people are like, wait, no, no, no. Then they’ll say what they’re really thinking.

    But yeah. Just a side note there.

    [00:18:44] Detective Ev: That’s perfect.

    I think one of the things we can do as not only FDNs, probably just coaches and practitioners in general that you work with, is it’s really important to have, in my opinion, a few things that we can offer people. So, I don’t even just mean lower ticket programs. Like I have a personal role.

    This is one of the ways that I feel ethical selling is. I will never, ever get someone on a free discovery call that I said was free and not give them something. Now my something oftentimes is as simple, Hailey, as a book recommendation.

    Build Confidence: Sowing Slowly into Potential Clients

    Thankfully, I’ve done this for nine years and I’m listening to what they’re saying. If it was someone that man, I’m like, they got every excuse in the book, and I feel bad. I say, hey, you know what? I got a book I think you would honestly love, and it might help this current situation. I don’t even explain it cause I don’t want to offend them. They need to come to this conclusion on their own.

    I’ll send them The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. It’s really simple. It was the first personal development book I ever read. And I was like, oh wait. A lot of the problems in my life aren’t my fault, but they’re my responsibility to fix. What a concept. You’d be surprised how many people walk around, no one’s ever told them that, and they’ve never actually thought about it.

    You could change someone’s life in a very positive way if you send them this stuff. Or maybe it’s someone who can’t afford your services, legitimately, which you gotta work through that stuff. That might not be true, but sometimes they just can’t. Then you can say, all right, here’s a book for this, or maybe you have a minicourse or whatever.

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    I think having these different offers helps. Because then, depending on how bad the limiting beliefs are, you have something in your back pocket possibly to even help solve their limiting beliefs. I’ve sent that Compound Effect to a handful of people over time. It’s been amazing to see some people a year later. They come back and they’re like, yeah, things have been going a lot better and now I’m really interested in your services.

    Build Confidence: Building Trust

    And these are the best people to talk to on the call now. They’re locked in, they’re focused, they’ve done that work on themselves, they’re ready to go, and they appreciate you for helping them out and not selling them on something that they weren’t ready for beforehand.

    You’ll thank yourself too cause you don’t want a nightmare client and you don’t want them to be forced to do something they don’t want to do.

    [00:20:33] Hailey Rowe: Yeah. Sometimes there’s kind of like a prerequisite or pre homework or something like that that you can experiment with.

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    In other words, like, I’ve had people who they really want to work together, but it is what you said before, like maybe they truly can’t afford it right now. So, I will give them an exercise they can go do to start making progress towards that if it’s something that they want to do, or coach them on where are the gaps that you can fill in your business to start. It’s not that you’re going to coach them and give them your program for free forever and whatever, but it is really a good point of what you’re saying. Goodwill and just sharing, giving results ahead of time that actually builds trust.

    And I’ve had people come back to me later and be like, oh wow, I solved this problem and now I’m ready to go. Yeah, I think that’s a great tool if somebody’s not ready, give a recommendation or give a next step. That all comes back to the same rule of helping them come to their next move or their next decision that’s going to help them.

    Build Confidence: Having a Structured Call

    [00:21:29] Detective Ev: Sure. Then going a little bit more specifically on the topic of today with confidence in sales. Hailey and I have gotten to interact quite a few times now doing Instagram Lives. Whenever we do these things, you come across as a Go-getter, totally confident, totally secure in yourself. That’s hard enough for people to do. Then we’re adding the selling component on top of it.

    I know how nervous some people get doing the podcast with me even, believe it or not. And yet, now we’re talking about sales, which is even tougher. It’s up there with public speaking for a lot of people. So, how do we develop that confidence then specifically for the sales side? I know we’ve already given some tips, but I’m sure you have some things that are concise.

    [00:22:05] Hailey Rowe: Yeah. Couple things. Number one, I think the first thing that is the most obvious, sometimes you don’t feel confident in sales cause you literally have no idea or structure of how does a discovery call work? Or what are the kinds of things you want to cover with someone to see if they’re a good fit for your offer? So, the first very easy thing to address is having a structure for your calls with potential clients.

    Now, I know not everybody does calls, and I know other people have different offers like courses and maybe they do a webinar and whatever, but for most individuals who offer high-ticket health wellness packages, it makes sense to maybe get on a call, especially if you’re new.

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    So, I would say the first thing that I see that derails people’s confidence is they come on the call and they kind of like, don’t have any structure.

    Build Confidence: How to Structure a Call

    The first thing is you have to set the stage for the call. You don’t jump on the call and just start shooting the breeze. It’s, hey, today we’re going to talk about your goals, what you’re struggling with, what you’ve tried so far, and if it makes sense, we’re going to talk about how we could work together to address those. Does that work for you?

    Then from there, leading the call in finding out their dream outcomes and goals. What are their obstacles; what have they tried so far that hasn’t worked? Where are the gaps? Why did they come to you? Like, what are they looking to solve? What would make it a no-brainer and a home run versus what are their hesitations when it comes to working with you?

    Recapping all of that, then seeing if you guys are on the same page, seeing if they want to hear more about how you work with clients. Going into the benefits of your work with you, not just the features. That’s the other thing I think that kills confidence is when you just focus on, I do sessions and you’re not really feel confident about what you’re promoting. You’re just saying, I’ll do a couple hour sessions with you in a package of 12 sessions. And then the value is not really communicated to that other person.

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    Make sure you’re connecting the dots of what does this program give them in their life and the features just happen to be a side product, meaning however many sessions you do, resources, et cetera. Hearing them out on what are their questions, what is really on their mind, what would hold them back from getting started, things like that, coaching on those things.

    Build Confidence: Listening & Asking Open-Ended Questions

    Then having at the end, either we’re going to schedule a follow call after you think about it, if you’ve already addressed what they need to think about and they still just want to sleep on it, or they are going to sign up and you guys are going to send the onboarding and set up the first session. Or it’s a “no” for right now, and you guys have come to that decision, that’s totally okay. But then you can have the peace of knowing it’s a no and move on, right?

    That’s just the first thing is you need to have a general structure for your calls to feel confident. When you have that, you’re going to feel a lot more comfortable.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, COMFORTABLE, LISTENING, OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS

    The second thing is being comfortable in really listening and asking open-ended questions. A lot of times I think people get intimidated by sales cause they think they need to read it directly from the script. They need to dictate a response to every single objection that has a prepared memorized response. The truth is what you need to know is there’s going to be a couple things that you guys are going to have to align with for them to move forward.

    Product fit. Do they believe that your offer is the best thing that can help them get to the results? A you fit, so, a trust fit. Do they believe you are the best person to help them get there? A price and value match. Meaning they see the value of this as equal to the price. And then do they have any limitations that they think they are not going to follow through, or little things in their mind about themselves that’s causing them to not move forward.

    Build Confidence: Doing Reps

    You have to check. If you want to feel confident in sales, you have to make sure that you’re hitting those, you understand the person, where they’re at in each of those four areas. Do they think the product is a fit, you are a fit, that they’re going to follow through, and the price equals the value or more – the value exceeds the price?

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, BRAND NEW, NEED PRACTICE

    Then the other thing with confidence is just reps. Here’s the deal, none of us are good at things that are brand new. And most of us are not willing to stink a hundred times before we get good at something. But my encouragement to you, because I used to do actually high-ticket sales calls for another coach and also for businesses I worked for when I worked in the startup world. I had to put in so many reps and have so many stumbles and so many times where I was like, why didn’t I ask them this? Or I totally felt just tired by the end of that call cause I could have been better about listening.

    You just have to put in the reps and know you’re going to be bad at something in the beginning. But the only way you get better is by doing these calls. Then after, evaluating, what did I do well, what did I maybe not do well, et cetera.

    The last thing I want to say about confidence with sales is you have to be confident about your offer. It is going to be hard to sell something that you feel really unclear about and/or you feel is overpriced and/or you’re not sold on yourself, or you can’t back it up with that you also understand the importance of investing in yourself, things like that.

    Build Confidence: Taking it Too Personal

    Working on the offer is pretty important cause we’ve all been really good salespeople at some point in our life with something we really believe in. To your spouse, you might have been like, honey, we have to go to this restaurant. It is so good. The service is amazing, the food is amazing, da, da, da. You had no problem selling that to your spouse.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, TRUTH, OFFERING, TRANSFORMATIONAL PROGRAM, PERSONAL

    But when it comes to your own business, your own program, and your own product, we get all caught up in our heads, we get all caught up on us, how we’re sounding, and what other people think of us. That is what makes people really nervous because they have so much skin in the game about, this is me. If they say no to this program, they’re saying no to me, and I take it very personally. But the truth is you are offering a transformational program that’s separate from you and you gotta keep it separate from you.

    And yes, you might love your work; yes, you might be a big part of the package and the program, but someone saying no does not mean you are unworthy, or you did something wrong. It’s just that there is going to be a certain percentage of people who say no and are not a fit, and that is okay. Just keep in mind, you gotta be so sold on your offer so that doesn’t cause you to lose enthusiasm.

    [00:28:42] Detective Ev: There’s so much there. I’m going to pick from a few different parts. Hailey and I actually had a conversation the other day on her Instagram. Definitely check her out there, it’s in the show notes.

    Build Confidence: The Other Side of Predictability

    One of the topics that came up was the entrepreneurial personality and the confidence that comes with that. I think one of the things here that we’re overlapping with is the same type of personality that is willing to engage in entrepreneurship, typically is a little more friendly to the sales side. Because guess what? Entrepreneurs are constantly putting themselves in uncomfortable situations.

    What I have found, especially if we don’t work on ourselves, if we don’t engage in personal development, a lot of us do kind of try to live in our little comfortable bubbles that keep us safe all of our life. Now, safety’s an illusion anyway, but we try to do this. We want to do the routine things, we want to see the same people, we want to go to the same job, we want that predictability. And you can do that, that’s fine.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, PREDICTABILITY, AMAZING LIFE

    But on the other side of that predictability, man, that’s an amazing life waiting for you. There’s something so much more out there waiting for you. It is something that should bleed over into other areas of your life. It’s not just, oh, trying the sales and I’m nervous cause it’s new for the first time. Like, you need to do this with everything, and it helps out.

    I just started Brazilian jiu-jitsu last year. Guess what? That is uncomfortable, man. I’ve never grappled with another person in my life. And I got like man parts in my face now as they’re trying to like choke you, right? It’s not the most comfortable setting.

    Build Confidence: Fear Exposure Therapy

    But guess what? You go one time, it is awful. You’re awkward, you’re red in the face, you’re nervous. Then you show up the second time, and then you show up the third and the fourth. Now, guess what? I’m not saying rolling is my favorite part of the week. Rolling’s like when you do the sparring with these people. It’s not my favorite part of the week, but I know, worst thing that happens is this. And I’m okay. I’ve lived.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, RESEARCH, FEAR EXPOSURE, REPEATED EXPOSURE, TERRORIZED

    [00:30:24] Hailey Rowe: Can I say something about that? Two things. One, they did some research and they found, like with fear exposure therapy, it takes about 25 times of repeated exposure until the person can be exposed to that thing without completely being terrorized. Okay? So, I think everybody here should set the goal of 25. Let’s even make it inevitable that you’re going to rock your sales. Twenty-five to a hundred times, I would say a hundred times being willing to do it scared to really get good.

    And the other thing you just said is what’s the worst-case scenario? The worst-case scenario is you just feel a little awkward. You feel an uncomfortable emotion, which we’re already feeling anyways in your business when you don’t have sales, you’re feeling that lack feeling. You’re going to feel a feeling anyways, so you might as well be moving forward in your business and growing.

    [00:31:17] Detective Ev: I love that. Because listen, that awkwardness is going to come. Either you get it on the sales calls, but you’re going to win some. The flip side of what Hailey said is some people will say no, no matter what. Guess what? Some people say yes, no matter what. There is a percentage of those too.

    Build Confidence: Picking Your Awkward & Embarrassing

    And it’s the wackiest thing in the world. You could have said whatever, it could be your worst sales call you’ve ever had, and they will pay in full. You don’t know why it happened, but they are just those types of people.

    Ironically, I’m not a person who negotiates. People always think that because I’m in the sales. And I do that, I’m the easiest buyer in the world. You tell me what it is, I’ll pay full price. I’m like, oh, whatever. Like, let’s just go do it. Because I’ve done some research normally beforehand too, but that’s just how I am. I’m just going to buy it. I already knew I was interested. I’m not here to try to pick you off $300. You said this is the price, I’m going to buy it.

    So, I mean, I might be screwing myself from people that I buy from in the future. Here they’re like, we’re going to raise this guy a few hundred dollars. But that’s the point. You’re going to get some no’s, some yes’s, so you might as well do the calls.

    Because otherwise you’re going to have to get your awkward feelings and embarrassment from the next family party when they say, how’s that business going? And then for the second or third year in a row, you gotta say, oh yeah, I’m still working on it. Right?

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, GROW, MINDSET

    So, you pick your awkward and embarrassing cause they both suck. One you actually grow with, and the other, you can keep that going indefinitely, right? We gotta get in the mindset. That’s why the personal development side is so big to all of this anyway.

    Build Confidence: Putting Failures into Perspective

    You have to be a person that when they want to do something, is willing to try new things. I want to learn to fight, I want to learn to be able to defend myself. Not to fight for fighting’s sake, but I want to be able to do that. Okay. You’re going to have to go through the uncomfortable process of being bad at something.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, MASTER, FAILED, FAILURES, AMATEURS, TRIED

    I’m always a walking self-help book. There’s a quote that says, the master has failed more times than the amateurs even tried. And how true is that? You know, these people that you look up to, they have failed often more than we have tried. So, I love that.

    Then, I guess my next thing is, you talked about kind of having some structure to the sales calls and this, I guess, indirectly relates to the confidence side. But another reason that we can do that, that I think, again, would build confidence long-term indirectly, is that if you don’t have a structure to each sales call, how do you know if you’re getting better? Right?

    [00:33:18] Hailey Rowe: Right. You don’t have time to evaluate cause every call is so different.

    [00:33:21] Detective Ev: Yeah. And so of course each person’s going to come up uniquely. But when you say a structure, do you mean, like FDN, for example, gives people a base script of like eight questions that we’re supposed to use every single time. So, would it be something like that? Is that what you work with your clients with?

    Build Confidence: A Roadmap

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, ROADMAP, MAKE AN OFFER, BUSINESS TIPS

    [00:33:33] Hailey Rowe: Basically, yeah. I give my clients kind of a roadmap. Obviously, I give them ways to customize it to their own style. But I do think it’s important to have a roadmap to hit on the main parts you need to know about somebody and what’s important to them to be able to make an offer if it makes sense. It’s usually having to hit on the goals, the gaps, what they’re struggling with, et cetera.

    But yeah, you do want to have parts that you could review. Cause maybe you’re really not so good at talking about your program when it comes time to, because you noticed that you don’t even know what your program includes, and you keep messing up on what’s actually included or whatever.

    When you have certain parts you hit, you can look at each one and say, okay, did I hit these points or not? But when you go on the call and there’s no structure, you’re going to keep getting brain picking calls. You’re just going to have people come on the calls and just be like, so what do you think about this? It’s not going to go anywhere.

    [00:34:29] Detective Ev: Yeah, you definitely want structure.

    I’d like to transition a little bit to what you offer, but two, maybe even before that I’d love to hear client testimonials from this.

    To the degree that you’re able to share, do you have any obvious examples of someone that came to you and maybe they were struggling with the business side, or the sales side as is the topic today, and you worked with them and helped them get a great result. What’s something that comes to the top of your head with that?

    Build Confidence: Client Success Stories

    [00:34:51] Hailey Rowe: Definitely. One that comes to mind is she didn’t even know what she wanted to really coach. She had a lot of talents and a lot of different certifications and a background. Together, we became clear on what she truly wanted to do, the impact she wanted to make, what her package looked like, et cetera.

    But she was super afraid of sales because, originally, she said, I have to be asking people for money, I don’t want to do that. And when you think of sales that way, of course you don’t want to do that. Who wants to ask somebody for money and feel like you’re taking?

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, MAKING MONEY, SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS, CORPORATE JOB

    I actually have a screenshot testimonial from her about how she realized that sales is more so coaching and serving. And she was able to have her first $3K high-ticket coaching package sale, her first $5K month. Then she had an $8K month, and then she was making more than what she was making in her corporate job.

    I had another client who also felt like she didn’t know what she was selling at all. We got clear on her package of course, but then we were able to do some recordings of her discovery calls that I was able to listen to and give her feedback. She was able to totally change her conversion rate.

    Before, she had people who would ghost her all the time. People would say they were going to do it, but then when she sent the onboarding email, they wouldn’t do it. Versus now she is booking clients in her private coaching practice and has had high-ticket months and all of that kind of stuff.

    [00:36:17] Detective Ev: Awesome. That’s so cool.

    Build Confidence: The Conversion Rate

    These are life changing numbers; you know what I mean? Because it’s so easy to talk about millions. That’s not what most people are going for. They’re looking to replace those jobs that they don’t like and have a little extra left over. And that’s stories of that. So, that’s pretty sweet.

    This all ties in before we talk about where people can find you and what it is specifically that you offer. I think people get a little caught up in not knowing what to expect in sales. What I mean by that is you have already identified, no matter how many sales or how good you get at this, some people are going to say no. The thing is, people always want to know the expectation, and then if they don’t have one, they’re thinking that any no is bad.

    So, realistically speaking, I don’t know if you have these numbers offhand or can estimate it. Let’s say a hundred people call one of your students or even you, how many people actually end up buying? Because I think the numbers are much lower than people think when they first get into sales.

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    [00:37:12] Hailey Rowe: That’s a great question. I will say about 20% maybe is what you should expect. However, I’ve had clients who their problem will be they’re not getting the calls. But when they do have the calls, it’s such a high conversion rate. So, it depends. And I would say mine’s higher. I would say a lot of my clients’ are higher.

    Also, I think if you have what we call a business model that has like an upsell and a down sell and stuff, you can increase your own conversion rate just by having options. So, it can definitely be higher.

    Build Confidence: Beginners Need Reps

    But in the high-ticket sales world, if we’re talking about general stats, and when I was doing sales calls for these coaches and things like that, the standard and what we always had talked about is 20% is kind of around what to expect.

    Now if you’re pre-qualifying your calls, meaning you are only taking people who fill out your form and say they can afford it, look like they’re a good fit from their form, have to apply and stuff, your conversion rate actually could be really, really high because you’re doing a lot of pre-qualifying upfront.

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    But sometimes I recommend if you’re new to taking these calls, you want to get your reps in first. So, I am actually not a fan, if you’re new, I wouldn’t have an extensive form that someone has to apply for and all that. I think you need to get some practice in and sell some stuff. So, I am more so about it doesn’t matter. You could have a higher conversion rate for sure if you pre-qualified better, but in the beginning, I think you should just take the calls and get reps in.

    [00:38:43] Detective Ev: I have done jobs where the thing was 40% convers rate. I have done some that were 10%. Either way, I want you guys to think about this, 40% or 10%, both of those are less than 50%.

    I think people, they’re used to just a normal job setting or whatever where in your normal job you probably have to be successful more than 80% of the time. Right?

    Build Confidence: Accepting the Averages

    And I’m not saying that you’re failing if you’re not getting these closed people. Some of them you might have referred out to something else, right? That could be considered a form of close, you just didn’t close them on your thing cause you were doing the right thing and giving them somewhere else.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, ACCEPT, CONVERSION RATE, EXPECTATIONS

    My point is though, I think that 20% was a really fair number to list off. Guys, that means four out of five people that you get on a call to talk to will not buy the program. You need to accept that and realize that when you get into sales. I think that actually will build their confidence if they know, oh wait, Evan even only does 1 out of 10 sometimes. Hailey was at a point, one point, when she was only doing 1 out of 5. And they’re maybe looking at us as more confident with the sales side. Yeah, that’s normal. Not everyone’s just going to like flock and do this, otherwise everyone would do it.

    So, you need to know those numbers. And when you start tracking them better, one, you can see if you’re improving over time. But two, you can also just kind of get a feel like, all right, this is just normal. So, if I’ve done a hundred calls and I know 20 people bought it, cool. If I do a hundred more calls, probably 20 are going to buy.

    What’s so funny is, and you’ve probably experienced this a million times, isn’t it hilarious that if you do enough, it always averages out? Sometimes you get 10 dry and then 10 are on, and you’re like, yeah baby, it’s a great week.

    Build Confidence: Entrepreneurship is a Mental Sport

    [00:40:06] Hailey Rowe: It’s very cyclical. And it can be very easy to base your confidence on if people are saying yes or no to you. But the truth is that’s what kicks you in the booty as far as you showing up confidently, consistently in your business and on your calls.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, MENTAL SPORT, ENTREPRENEURSHIP

    Cause I’ve seen people like get a couple no’s and then be like, ugh. They feel this low in their business and then they’re not confident on their calls. Or they have bad energy and then they’re not trying as hard. Then they take a break for three weeks to recover from the rejection. You can’t let that stuff get to you. It’s a mental sport, learning how to be an entrepreneur.

    But I will say, you can have a definitely higher conversion rate than that. I think what you said, you should go in with a low expectation so that you’re like, woohoo, when you close because that keeps your spirits like aligned. And when you’re feeling that way, you naturally are more captivating to people.

    There was one other thing I wanted to say about what you just said. Tracking the numbers, you’re going to find, you’re going to have a certain number of no-shows. You’re going to have certain amount of time from when somebody meets you to when they actually sign up on average. We call that like what’s the sales cycle? So, tracking that kind of stuff can be really awesome.

    And it also gets you out of, as you said, taking things personally and being emotional about it. You’re more so focused on the stats and just say, how can I improve my conversion rate and prevent my ghosting rate, and all that kind of stuff.

    Build Confidence: Getting on a Roll

    [00:41:26] Detective Ev: Right. It’s this ability and skill actually to remove yourself emotionally from the outcomes and stuff. At the very least, involve yourself positively, emotionally. Don’t go onto the call all negative, that’s the worst thing that you could do.

    There was this phenomenon they actually taught me about when I did car sales at 18. The sales managers would say, every time, what’s the best time to sell a car? And it would be after you just sold one.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, ENERGY, CONFIDENCE

    Saturday was always a busy day. If I had a bad week, I didn’t sell anything. The people that sold one usually sold three or four. It was like back-to-back to back. And it was different people every week. It wasn’t just like one or two people were dominating that. You’re like, how does this happen? Well, their energy’s different. Their confidence is different. So, don’t allow a few bad calls to screw you up.

    And also, have faith in those numbers cause there’s laws of averages. Again, if you know that (making up the number), one out of five purchase and you’re 10 calls in for the week and maybe four haven’t purchased, you say, okay, cool. That’s just the four that don’t purchase. No worries. You can actually rejoice and say, my two are coming. They’re coming up really soon. They’re going to be here.

    [00:42:27] Hailey Rowe: And not putting so much weight on every individual you book a call with. I see a lot of people thinking like, this one has to be the one, cause maybe they’re not booking a lot of calls. So, then they’re freaking out. They’re like, this one has to be the one.

    Build Confidence: Pricing Arbitrarily

    But then you’re not doing your job with sales cause you’re so focused on this heavy weight of, I need this client to say yes. So, you want to get out of that place. You want to be having a lot of opportunities, a lot of things going on in your business. Be creating those opportunities so that you’re not just putting so much weight on one or two people.

    [00:43:00] Detective Ev: Yeah. The last thing I’ll say about what you said, cause you talked about pricing and stuff too.

    I still do this to myself to this day, just so I always am staying in the right place mentality wise. Like at our business, we sell packages right now, at the time I’m recording this, between like $3300, $4500, sometimes even a little higher.

    When someone buys that package, it’s one call and they just close out and say they bought it. I’m like, well, would they have paid $4,600? What if I said $4700, maybe $4800? Like, would that really have been the difference? Because this person said yes right away.

    I mean, I’m not the expert like Hailey is, but this is the way that I build confidence with it. I’m saying, okay, they instantly just said yes to $4,500. You’re telling me $4600 would’ve been the make or break. And then you kind of wonder, well, how much of a difference there would there have been?

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    Now I’m not suggesting we just charge needlessly, but I’m also suggesting how arbitrarily sometimes we come up with our pricing and we allow our limiting beliefs to be our price. It’s like, no, they’re happy to pay that man. They want to work with you. You’re the one under charging for what you’re doing.

    Build Confidence: Finding the Sweet Spot

    You know, maybe just start a hundred dollars at a time, go up a hundred dollars each sale until you really start getting no’s. And then you’ve kind of hit your cap of what it’s worth. But I have found that helps.

    You have anything like that? Or do you agree with this?

    [00:44:06] Hailey Rowe: Yeah. I think with pricing, first of all, we don’t even call it pricing. It’s an investment in coaching. Because they’re investing. Right?

    So, the other thing though with pricing is you want to pick a price that allows you to feel like you are overdelivering, but not like you’re going to resent this because you’re so undercharging and you’re just going to be exhausting yourself for this client and whatever. You also want it to feel a little bit out of your comfort zone so that you will be rising to the occasion. You will feel like, Ooh, I really gotta show up for this.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, PRICING, SWEET SPOT

    So, you want to pick that price kind of in that sweet spot. And for everybody starting out, that’s a different number for them.

    And you’re so right that it is totally arbitrary. There are coaches who charge hourly session rates, which I’m not a huge fan of. Or there’s coaches who charge $25,000 for six months coaching, maybe. Right? It’s kind of crazy.

    But the key is you gotta think about your market, about the value of the outcomes of what you offer, about your experience and what you feel confident saying out loud. Cause if you feel super awkward saying it out loud, the person on the other end is going to feel that for sure.

    Build Confidence: Laddering

    So, I kind of like your idea to ladder, meaning pick something, just line up with it and then as you get more confident with that and you know you’re undercharging, increase it.

    I definitely didn’t start at the rates I am at today in my program. Originally, I did a test group that was pretty, it still costed money cause I wanted people to really pay attention in the test group and not just like, not show up and all of that. But it was significantly lower than what I charge today.

    It gave me the confidence to realize, oh wow, I can actually do this. I can close a sale. And my program started to evolve and get more valuable. So, naturally you’ll just raise your price when you feel you’re ready for that.

    [00:45:57] Detective Ev: I like that wording attached to it, laddering. It’s like, okay, cool. Start with the thing that you’re obviously comfortable with that isn’t so undercharging that you’re not delivering a good service now. Cause that’s kind of stupid too.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, CONFIDENCE,

    And then again, what’s a hundred bucks on a $2,000 package? It’s like, okay, well that probably wouldn’t have been the no. You keep doing that and all of a sudden, it builds the confidence slowly and steadily. That can happen.

    Okay. As we’re getting to the end of our time here, we’ll finally work this in. I want to know if one of our practitioners is listening, I mean, you’ve already worked with FDNs. I’m not asking you to give away your secret sauce, but what would be the structure of what it would look like to come and work with you?

    Build Confidence: F.A.S.T.

    And Hailey, I also know that we’re just talking about sales today, but again, you do marketing and sales and some other things, so, I just want to make sure everyone’s clear about what you do and what it would look like to work with you.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, ACRONYM, FOLLOWERS, ACTION, TIME MANAGEMENT, TRANSFORMATION

    [00:46:39] Hailey Rowe: Yeah. So, I customize, but I have a general kind of framework I share that kind of communicates some of the things I help clients with. It is grow your business the F.A.S.T. way. It’s an acronym and it stands for followers, action, sales, time management, and transformation.

    With followers, it’s, who are you looking to attract, where do they hang out, and planning how are you going to reach those people every week and be nurturing them and leading to more discovery calls or whatever you’re trying to lead to with your sales process.

    The action piece is how do you create content, messaging, and an offer that is compelling enough that people want to take action, they want to reach out to you? So, helping you with your content, helping you with your local marketing, pitches if you’re trying to do speaking, things like that.

    Sales is, how do you lead your discovery calls, what we talked about a lot today and your sales process. What’s your upsell and your down sell? How do you price anchor and all that kind of stuff?

    Time management is obviously where do you spend your time? Cause a lot of people feel overwhelmed about what should they be doing as a business owner to be generating clients.

    Where to Find Hailey Rowe

    And then transformation is, two things. The personal transformation required to get to your business goals. I’m the certified behavioral change specialist and a human potential coach. So, some of that life coaching might come into play if you have a huge mindset block. But some of my clients don’t even have that. They’re just like, gimme the strategy and we can do that.

    And the other part of transformation is making sure the point A to point B of your program is very clear. You have something that differentiates yourself, you have testimonials with social proof you can use in your marketing to make it easier. Those are the kinds of things that I work on with clients.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, WHERE TO FIND HAILEY ROWE

    And if anybody’s curious about that, they can go to haileyrowe.com/client-attraction and/or haileyrowe.com/sales-journal cause both of those are free gifts. The first one is going to teach you my four basics of client attraction and kind of help you go do the marketing part before you get the sales calls. And then the sales journal is more prompts to help you generate your next sale.

    So, that’s where I’m at. I have the Health Coach Nation podcast as well, and the Marketing Hub Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/themarketinghubgroup. And thank you for asking that question.

    [00:48:49] Detective Ev: Yeah, of course. We’ll have that all in the show notes for you guys. I can’t recommend Hailey enough. And thank you so much for coming on today.

    Normally, I finish with our signature question, which is, what would the guest get everyone in this world to do for their health? I will change it up today and say, if you can get every business owning FDN out there to do one thing for their business, what’s the one thing you’d get them to do?

    Conclusion/Signature Podcast Question

    [00:49:09] Hailey Rowe: Woo. I love that.

    I would say, more willingness to fail and more willingness to dare yourself. So, give yourself a dare of posting about your business if you haven’t already, or pitching yourself to that podcast opportunity even though you think that’s a stretch or whatever. But I think we need to be more willing to just go put ourselves out there rather than just consuming, consuming, consuming information and not doing anything with it. So, that’d be my answer.

    BUILD CONFIDENCE, HAILEY ROWE, BUSINESS, HEALTH COACH SALES PROCESS, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, SIGNATURE PODCAST QUESTION, WILLINGNESS TO FAIL, TRY, DARE, NATURE WALKS

    And if it was for your health, I just want to say this, nature walks. You know, I love solving all my problems on my walks.

    [00:49:47] Detective Ev: That’s very cool. All right. Thank you so much again for joining us.

    Hailey Rowe: Thank you.

    You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com. Our Instagram handle is @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/.

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  • The new and improved Broc Shot – get your daily dose of sulforaphane!

    The new and improved Broc Shot – get your daily dose of sulforaphane!

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    Jun 14, 2023

    Allow me to introduce to you the new Broc Shot! Introducing the SACHET! Broc Shot’s are now more sustainable + affordable. Each carton comes with 30 individual sachet servings of Broc Shot. I’ve been posting about Broc Shot for months since I take one every single day, and a lot of you have tried it as well and the only negative feedback I ever received was on the packaging, how it used to be too much plastic to throw away each day! Well, that’s gone now! Now we can still take our daily shots, but in a more sustainable way – they found a sustainable solution. 

    To activate just tear, pour the formula into your Broc Shot shaker, add water or juice, and drink! No fussy formula and just one powerful ingredient. There is 15mg of Sulforaphane from 100% whole broccoli sprouts in each shot. No extracts, seeds or stabilized sulforaphane.

    In case you missed the part on the health benefits of drinking broccoli sprout shots daily here it is: 

    – Broccoli sprouts contain sulforaphane. The Broc Shot has one ingredient – high-quality broccoli sprouts. Sulforaphane addresses the 3 Key Pillars of Wellness: 

    1. Gut health

    2. Inflammation

    3. Detoxification 

    Within the first days of regular use, sulforaphane is known for activating specific cellular repair pathways that help your body to heal damage within the gut lining and helps restore the conditions required for the growth of healthy gut bacteria¹. These important changes can contribute to improved regularity and digestive effects occurring within the first week of use.

    Improved bowel regularity is usually the first sign that Broc Shot is beginning to work. You’ll probably notice your regularity improve after only a few days, but as your gut adjusts, there’s a small chance that you may experience some mild gassiness and increased urges to go. These effects are similar to what you’d experience from a pre or probiotic and typically subside within 2-3 days.

    Sulforaphane vs Laxatives

    The most common form of relief for constipation are laxatives and over-the-counter (OTC) medications that are a temporary solution. Sulforaphane works to address the root causes of constipation to get things moving and help keep you regular longer term.

    Sulforaphane helps with collagen production making your hair, nails and skin glow from the inside out! 

    I have also listed broccoli sprouts as the top cancer-fighting and cancer-preventing food on the planet because of it’s rich compound sulforaphane. It’s been studied for over 30 years and has proven to be effective in reducing or destroying all cancer cells. One study showed how Sulforaphane decreased human breast cancer cells, and reduced the size and number of primary mammospheres by 8~125-fold and 45%~75%, respectively. And it’s not just breast cancer cells broccoli sprouts can reduce, it’s all types of cancer cells. 

    image5.jpeg

    The Broc Shot is scientifically superior. Don’t be fooled as not all sulforaphane products are created equal. In fact, most don’t produce sulforaphane at all! Most on the market are extracts without sulforaphane or were synthetic (aka stabilized). Broc Shot takes a number of steps to ensure that each dose provides a consistent yield of no less than 15mg of sulforaphane (SFN).

    Broc Shot ensure quality and proof is in their seed selection. Their process begins at seed selection which is a 20-fold variation in the bioactive in a broccoli sprout. The seeds they use have a higher sulforaphane yield than one could buy at a store or typically grow at home.  Their selection process includes tests done at the seed level to help yield a consistent amount of at least 15mg of sulforaphane from approximately 12-15 grams of our fresh sprouts, being that they are the highest quality/yield seed.  For reference to ingest 15mg of SFN from a grocery store / or homegrown sprouts, you would likely need to eat about 200-400 grams of sprouts. Broc Shot is potent with health benefits! 

    image6.jpeg

    The sprouts are grown to 3 days old and then are dried and milled to make the broccoli sprout powder. Broc Shot sprouts are never freeze-dried. While freeze-drying is considered by many to be the superior drying process for plant materials, for enzyme-based plants, it is destructive and so it is not appropriate for cruciferous plants. They also never use extracts or synthetic sulforaphane. Their sprouts are NON-GMO and grown hydroponically, a process that combines hydroponic + pesticide/herbicide-free cultivation systems. They don’t use any agricultural/environmental chemical pesticides or herbicide residues at any stage of their process.

    To let you in on the manufacturing process Broc Shot use facilities that are HACCP-certified + SQF certified (globally recognized Food Safety + Quality standards). They are compliant with GMP standards and registered with US FDA + TGA (Australian FDA).

    They test at multiple points during growing and manufacturing, including testing at seed level to determine which seeds will yield a strong sulforaphane level as well as third-party test each final batch to confirm it yields no less than (NLT) 15mg of sulforaphane.  They also test for chemical residue + heavy metal contamination, as well as to assess the microbiological profile. No product is released unless it passes their strict standards. 

    More on their new packaging so you can be rest assured you contributing to waste: Broc Shot are excited to be leaders in packaging sustainability. Their sachets are derived from wood pulp, sugarcane and cornstarch. They are proud to be conventional plastic-free* and foil-free as well as certified BPI commercial compostable with 90% degradation in 6 months. Each Broc Shot starter kit includes a reusable, stainless steel shaker for a perfectly dosed shot.

    BPI certification is North America’s leading certifier of compostable products and packaging. 

    *current packaging is commercially compostable and includes an interior lining that is bioplastic from natural sources

    100% Plastic-Free + Foil-Free. By Fall 2023, they will no longer be using bioplastics, therefore their packaging will be 100% plastic-free and foil-free, as well as both commercial and home compostable.

    image4.jpeg

    While they no longer offer their single-use shots, they are proud of our previous efforts to keep those out of landfills and waterways. Broc Shot was launched originally with a single-use patented dosing cap for a convenient, effective freshly mixed shot. With only 9-10% of plastics being recycled in the US, they partnered with Terracycle, to recycle them into long-use things we need like school desks, park benches, and playground equipment. With each order, customers received a pre-paid shipping label to send their empties at no cost to TerraCycle. This program successfully helped keep over 30k bottles out of waterways and landfills.

    I am so excited for you guys to try the new sustainable Broc Shots! Join me every day and cheers with a shot of sulforaphane. 

    Get them at a discounted price with 15% off just make sure to use my code: LIANA at BrocShot.com 

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  • 20 Healthy Kitchen Hacks To Get Dinner on The Table Fast

    20 Healthy Kitchen Hacks To Get Dinner on The Table Fast

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    We believe that whole food, from scratch cooking is one of the best ways to support our health, our family’s health and the health of the environment. Trouble is, cooking from scratch is often considered extravagant or time-consuming when in reality it can be much simpler once you make it a priority. Even so, we all need a little extra help to speed up the process in our busy lives and this is where these 20 healthy kitchen hacks enter the scene.

    If you’re struggling to get dinner on the table and feeling stressed about doing it, try some of our favourite healthy kitchen hacks to help transform mealtimes into a wonderful way to relax and unwind at the end of the day. These tips are simple to implement and while some of them take some advance planning, the results (and your sanity) are well worth the effort.

    20 healthy kitchen hacks to get dinner on the table faster

    1. Stick to simple recipes.

    There are times when it’s joyful to languish in the kitchen while creating an involved, elaborate meal – but not when you’ve arrived home at 7pm after a long workday or a tough commute. Instead, stick to simple recipes (there are a ton of 5-ingredient wonders out there) that are nourishing and filling.

    For example, try pairing your protein of choice (meat, fish, eggs, beans, tofu, etc.) with your favourite roasted or steamed vegetables. Amp up the flavour with lemon and sea salt, or try one of these five ways to add flavour to any meal.

    2. Enlist family members for help.

    Why should you be the one stuck with all of the work and pressure of getting dinner on the table? Enlist your family members, partners, spouses, roommates or friends to help you in the kitchen. Throw on some tunes and make a party of it.

    The group effort will complete the prepping and chopping in a flash, and help teach the youngsters (or cooking-challenged grownups) valuable culinary skills they can use for a lifetime.

    3. Meal plan in advance and save those plans to be re-used.

    Healthy eating is much easier when you’ve got a plan in place to make it happen – and this is one of the kitchen hacks we use most at the Academy of Culinary Nutrition. While a meal plan that includes breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks is helpful, if you’re new to meal planning you can start off with creating a menu for dinners only if that’s easier. Chart your meals for the week (you can even plan to make large batches and have the leftovers for lunch) and include any recipes you’ll need and a shopping list.

    Once you have a sheaf of meal plans at the ready, all you’ll need to do is pull one out, pick up the necessary ingredients and get to work. The more you repeat meal plans in your rotation, the easier it will be to shop, prep and cook for them.

    Healthy Kitchen Hacks to Get Dinner on the Table Fast

    4. Create a prep schedule.

    A detailed prep schedule allows you to actually implement your menu plan successfully. For each recipe, write out the ingredients and how they need to be prepped (sliced, chopped, blended, soaked, etc.). Then assign yourself or someone in your family to complete that prep task and note when they need to do it.

    We recommend integrating prep schedules with your menu plans so you can get into a groove and re-use them later.

    5. Prep on the weekend.

    Let’s face it: the majority of the work involved in cooking is actually chopping, not the cooking itself. Save yourself the time and effort during the week by doing prep on a Saturday or Sunday (or whenever your ‘weekend’ days are). Then, all you’ll need to do is assemble and cook and dinnertime will happen much, much quicker.

    Some prep tasks might include:

    • chopping produce in various sizes (depending on what’s needed for different recipes) and sealing them in jars.
    • cooking large batches of grains, beans or legumes to use throughout the week
    • cutting up crudites for snacks
    • making one or two full recipes to have for dinner on Monday or Tuesday (if you work a Mon-Fri workweek)

    Menu prep can take a couple of hours, but if you throw on some music or a TV show it can be more enjoyable. Plus, if everyone in the household lends a hand your prep time will be quick and easy.

    6. Use up the ingredients in your fridge.

    Don’t stop at the grocery store on the way home to cook dinner – assess what you’ve got in your fridge and use it to create a delicious meal. This not only cuts down on food waste, but also saves you some cash.

    Easy meals like stir-fries, soups, stews and pasta can be thrown together quickly with a variety of veggies and herbs that are lying around in your fridge. Fridge-scrap dinners are easy – the only problem is you may not be able to recreate them in the exact same way again!

    7. Skip recipes altogether and cook what you know.

    Cooking from recipes is enjoyable and exposes us to fresh flavours, new techniques and ingredients, but when dinner needs to happen it’s better to cook what you know rather than taking the extra time to follow something novel. This is especially important when you’re new to menu planning – if you try to cook half a dozen new recipes in a week the learning curve will be much steeper.

    Save yourself some time by cooking what you know at first and adding in new recipes as you feel ready to tackle them, or during the weekend when you have more opportunity to play.

    8. Cook seasonal meals.

    Nature has its own innate kitchen hacks – and that’s local and seasonal ingredients! Using what’s available locally means you’ll spend less time searching for ingredients. Also, when food is in season and local it travels less from farm to plate. This means it will taste fresher and meals will require less adornment because the ingredients themselves will shine, shine, shine.

    Kitchen Hacks

    9. Use high-quality ingredients.

    Buy the best quality ingredients that you can afford. As with the seasonal meal kitchen hack above, when your ingredients are amazing you won’t need to do as much cooking and transformation to make them taste delicious.

    10. Build a well-stocked pantry.

    The secret to creating quick and easy meals is building a well-stocked pantry that you can draw upon when you need dinner, stat. Begin to stock your pantry, fridge and freezer with basic ingredients such as:

    • Gluten-free grains (brown rice, millet, sorghum, quinoa, buckwheat, wild rice)
    • Dried beans and legumes (chickpeas, lentils, split peas, black beans, kidney beans, etc.)
    • Dried spices
    • Oils (check out this guide to healthy oils for which ones to use for high-heat, medium-heat and low-heat cooking)
    • Frozen veggies (peas, greens, carrots, etc.)
    • BPA-free canned goods

    With these basic pantry ingredients, you can easily throw together a meal of beans and rice, and pair it with whatever veggies happen to be around, or create a satisfying dairy-free soup that you can pair with gluten-free bread or biscuits.

    11. Work on your stash of freezer meals.

    It doesn’t get much easier than pulling a tasty meal out of your freezer and popping it in the oven to reheat. When you have some spare time on the weekend, try making a freezer meal.

    Soups, stews, lasagna, enchiladas, shepherd’s pie and veggie burgers are all easily freezable and can be made in large batches. It takes a little bit of extra work up front, but your future self will thank you!

    12. Skip the stocks and broths.

    While we adore homemade vegetable broths and nourishing bone broths, they’re not always quick and convenient unless you’ve made large batches of them and popped them in the freezer. Instead of broth, you can easily substitute water in any recipe – and since many recipes call for onions, garlic, carrots and celery anyway, you’re basically making a broth as the food simmers.

    Sea salt

    13. Skip the sauces.

    Use basic seasonings like a squeeze of lemon or lime, gluten-free tamari, coconut aminos, sea salt, mustard or olive oil to flavour your food. If you feel up to a challenge on the weekend, you could make your own simple condiments. Make one condiment and use it on everything for the next week or two so it doesn’t go to waste.

    14. Pre-make salad dressings.

    Salad dressings are simple to make and can be easily incorporated into your prep schedule. A basic salad dressing will use oil, an acid, herbs and salt. Shake up a dressing on the weekend to use on salads all week.

    If you’d like to learn more about creating flavour profiles for salad dressings, check out this post about How to Make Salad Dressing.

    15. Master the one-pot meals.

    Dinners that involve a main dish and sides are more work than one-pot wonders. Protein-rich soups, stews and chilis are wonderfully filling options and can be easily adjusted based on seasonal offerings and the spices you have on hand. They’re also a great way to use up any produce left in the fridge!

    16. Put your slow cooker or Instant Pot to work.

    Slow cookers, Instant Pots, rice cookers and other low-effort appliances are one of the best lifesaving kitchen hacks in a busy household. All you need is a little bit of prep and chopping, and then six to eight hours later (or minutes to an hour later with the Instant Pot) you’re gifted with a healthy and delicious meal. These 20 Best Slow Cooker Recipes include some of our favourite recipes to get you started!

    Kitchen hacks - dinner bowl

    Image: iStock/nata_vkusidey

    17. Make DIY dinners.

    Transform dinner into a ‘choose your own adventure’ situation and everyone assembles their own plate from an array of prepped ingredients. For example:

    • A build-your-own taco bar with fresh veggies, beans, salsa and other toppings.
    • Bowls that combine protein, grains, greens, healthy fats and seasonal veggies (learn about the 6 Essential Elements of a Recipe-Free Dinner Bowl here)
    • A build-your-own pho bar with fresh veggies, tempeh, herbs and lime
    • A make-your-own healthy pizza with individual corn tortillas for a thin crust and top with sauce and veggie toppings

    It’s a win-win for everyone with these kinds of dinners.

    18. Have breakfast for dinner.

    Most of us don’t spend a lot of time making breakfast, so why not use the brevity of breakfast recipes and have them for an amazingly flavourful and easy dinner? Try:

    The key with breakfast for dinner is aiming for savory flavour profiles and plenty of fresh vegetables, rather than relying on the sweets. Here are 12 vegan breakfast ideas – that aren’t cereal or toast – to offer you plenty of breakfast-for-dinner inspiration.

    19. Make use of good kitchen equipment.

    Dinner will move along much quicker when you’ve got the right tools on hand. Appliances like high-spend blenders and food processors help with blending and grating, but they’re not absolutely essential kitchen hacks for a great meal.

    Ensure that you have a sharp knife that is appropriate for the task at hand. A good chef’s knife is one of our most-used tools, but you may also find you like using a paring knife as well. Find the knife that feels best in your hand and learn some simple knife skills – this will help you chop easily and safely.

    Other simple tools that you may find handy are a solid cutting board, a box grater, a vegetable peeler or a microplane grater.

    20. Go (mostly) raw when seasons allow for it.

    Raw food can be much quicker to prepare than cooked because you don’t need to take the extra time to cook it (obviously). We’re not talking about dehydrated kale chips or dehydrated almond burgers – but fresh, raw food like salads, zucchini noodles or collard wraps that rely on fresh produce and herbs.

    Aim for one or two raw or mostly raw dinners per week when the weather is warm and more fresh produce is in season.

    What are your favourite kitchen hacks? Share away in the comments!

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  • The cleanest spots to eat in Brisbane, Australia (home of Olympics 2032)

    The cleanest spots to eat in Brisbane, Australia (home of Olympics 2032)

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    Yes, that’s right, Brisbane will host the 2032 Olympics. Brisbane city is one of my favorite cities in Australia, home to my family and many friends. It has a special place in my heart. Location wise it’s a portal to the Sunny Coast, Gold Coast, and Byron Bay. Since I’ve been spending more time in Brisbane lately I have been on the hunt for the cleanest most wholesome (and obviously delicious) places in and around the city. Here is what I’ve found! Save this for your visit, or share with your friends and family, especially if they are going to the Olympics. 

    My definition of a “clean restaurant” is in terms of an establishment that prioritizes the use of high-quality, wholesome, and unprocessed food items. It focuses on sourcing fresh produce, grass-fed or pasture meats, wild and sustainable seafood, and other ingredients that are free from artificial additives, preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides. A clean ingredient restaurant may emphasize organic, locally sourced, or responsibly grown ingredients to ensure their nutritional value and minimize environmental impact. Such a restaurant typically avoids processed or heavily packaged foods, opting instead for whole and minimally processed ingredients. The emphasis is on providing meals that are not only delicious but also nourishing and aligned with a health-conscious approach to dining.

     Dining this way you have your cake and eat it too – literally. The taste is so worthy that you may not even realize they are using cleaner ingredients. 

     (Prepare for this list to expand as I explore more food spots!) 

     

    1. Opa Bar & Mezze 

    Located on the Brisbane River with riverside views. 

    Opas.com

    Opa was recognized by Urban List as one of Brisbane’s most beautiful restaurants! Visiting Opa’s Bar in Brisbane promises an unforgettable Greek experience, complete with delicious clean food, a lively vibe, and a warm atmosphere that will transport you straight to Greece. Opa! 

     Here are a few reasons why you would love to visit:

     

    • Mouthwatering Greek cuisine: Indulge in a delectable array of Greek dishes that are bursting with flavor. From classic favorites, Opa’s serves up authentic Greek delicacies that will leave you craving more.

     

    • Clean ingredients: Opa’s is a Mediterranean” style menu of eating that emphasizes wholesome, unprocessed foods commonly found in Mediterranean cuisine. It focuses on fresh, nutrient-rich ingredients, often including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins (such as fish and poultry), legumes, nuts, and olive oil. The term “clean” in this context implies a focus on natural and minimally processed foods, while the “Mediterranean” aspect refers to the traditional eating patterns of countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, such as Greece, Italy, Spain, and others. This style of eating has been associated with various health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease, improved weight management, and overall well-being.

     

    • Authentic Greek atmosphere: Opa’s Bar immerses you in the lively ambiance of Greece. From the traditional decor to the energetic music, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped into a Greek taverna. Situated right on the Brisbane River so you enjoy a gorgeous view while you dine, including the Story Bridge and palm trees. It’s an open-air setting so you can dine while enjoying the fresh air and outdoor ambiance. It’s a combination that provides the best of both worlds, allowing you to enjoy the benefits of being outdoors while still dining inside.

     

    • Warm hospitality: The staff at Opa’s Bar are known for their warm and friendly service, making you feel like part of the family. Their dedication to creating a welcoming environment adds an extra touch of authenticity to your visit.

     

    Opa’s Bar in Brisbane offers a unique and vibrant experience that shouldn’t be missed!

     2. Three Blue Ducks at the Farm

    Located in Byron Bay about two hours south of Brisbane.

    ThreeBlueDucks.com

     It’s true farm-to-table when you visit an actual farm that also has a restaurant on it! The Farm at Byron Bay is a working farm with pasture-fed animals, plant nursery & a sustainable market garden with tours, an onsite restaurant & a bakery. You can easily spend hours here! 

     The farm vegetable dish was outstanding and a highlight for me. Incredibly fresh and beautiful. It’s amazing to know that they had just been picked and are now on the plate. 

     The restaurant on the farm is Three Blue Ducks created by five mates who are passionate about nourishing the community with ethical, authentic, quality food and hospitality. They endeavor to source as much as possible from The Farm and then they venture further afield. 

     They embrace produce that is organic or spray-free and sustainably farmed to make all the meals on their menu. They get almost everything from the local area when it is in season, from southern Queensland to as far down as Port Macquarie. Their dishes are a reflection of their shared ethos for creating honest, seasonal dishes that are packed with nutrients and full of flavor. This is what we call ‘real food’. 

     Their space is purposefully designed to be low-key but comfortable. The undercover outdoor patio offers sweeping views from Byron’s hinterland in the west, north to Mt Warning, and east to Cape Byron Lighthouse. The terrace is home to their very own 12-meter outdoor kitchen, including a double spit, a wood-fire pizza oven, and an Argentinian grill that they love to fire up on weekends and for private events. 

     Their bar offers 56 taps of all Australian craft beers, wines and ciders and a selection of unique cocktails to cater to all tastes. 

     Every Thursday it’s mussels night! A taste of the ocean that will leave you craving more. 

     I have enjoyed many meals at Three Blue Ducks and have taken day trips to enjoy Byron Bay and this delicious food. On mussels night I enjoyed a mussels meal that was paired with garlic bread & v butter, olives with chilli, lemon, and bay leaf, mixed pickles, farm leaves, herb & macadamia dressing, prawn toast with kaffir lime and polenta gnocchi with pumpkin and pepita seeds pesto (gf, df, vg). 

     Every Thursday night for the rest of winter will be mussels night, with natural wine and a fire pit. 

     Overall, Three Blue Ducks in Byron Bay combines delectable cuisine, a captivating ambiance, and a commitment to sustainability, making it a must-visit destination for food lovers and those seeking a memorable dining experience in the area. I’m so excited about their cozy Thursday mussels night.  

     

     3. Felons Brewing Co.

    Located at Howard Smith Wharves on the Brisbane river 

    FelonsBrewingCo.com

     Felons Brewing Co. is a popular brewery and restaurant situated on the picturesque Howard Smith Wharves precinct. Felons is known for its diverse food options and focus on quality ingredients. There is something for the entire family in a fun atmosphere. 

     At Felons, you can expect a range of dishes that cater to various tastes and dietary preferences. Their menu typically includes a selection of appetizers, share plates, burgers, salads, seafood, and more. They often showcase modern Australian cuisine with a focus on fresh, locally sourced ingredients. I always choose the local snapper or coral fish with salad as my meal. It is fresh and refreshing, and that’s all I need to satisfy me, perhaps with a glass of Rose – haha! 

     Some examples of food you might find at Felons could include dishes like fish and chips, gourmet burgers, wood-fired pizzas, grilled meats, fresh salads, and seafood platters. They also offer vegetarian and vegan options to accommodate different dietary needs.

     In addition to the food, Felons Brewing Co. is renowned for its selection of craft beers, brewed on-site. They offer a variety of styles, including pale ales, lagers, IPAs, and seasonal brews, providing visitors with a wide range of beer choices to complement their meals.

     The waterfront location of Felons provides a beautiful setting, allowing guests to enjoy their food and drinks while taking in the scenic views of the Brisbane River and the surrounding area.

    4. Rudy’s Real Food

    Located in Surfers Paradise about one hour south of Brisbane

    Rudy’sRealFood.com

     When you are looking for an organic place to eat in Surfers Paradise, Australia! Rudy’s Real Food is an organic cafe – I went for breakfast which was divine and I can’t wait to go back for lunch and dinner! It’s such a unique cafe, they have everything from an all-day healthy menu, so grass-fed steak, organic cold-pressed juices, organic chicken, vegan power bowls, unsweetened almond flour pancakes, and more! 

     Rudy’s Real Food think there is a lot that could improve with the general diet and they wanted to provide the tools to do it. They noticed so many of us really do put an effort into eating clean and nutritious but sometimes it’s hard to find the food. Eating healthy should be easy and fun! “It’s time for us to wake up. The food we eat and give to our children is the future of the world and the ground for their future health. Much of the food that we put in our bodies today lack of nutrition, it is what we call empty calories pumped with toxins. And the problem isn’t always that we eat too much which many of us may think. The real problem is that we don’t eat enough valuable nutrition. This makes us rather sick than happy and we believe one big reason for this is the lack of education around nutrition. We want to remind you that every action counts and that there is always an opportunity to give your body the best possible opportunity to heal itself. Because Food is our medicine and medicine is our food.”

     Rudy’s Real Food has gathered a team of absolute health nuts containing: nutritionists, chefs, personal trainers, athletes, and more ready to work with us – whether you want a customized program, the answer to a question, or maybe just some inspiration. We put so much time into shaping our bodies from the outside – when the key to optimal health starts from the inside. Make your Health your priority and you will never forget it. Fuel your body with nutritious healthy food and your body will thank you. Let’s stop all dieting and choose a healthy lifestyle for life!

    5. Helen’s Bulk Wholefoods 

    Located in Burleigh Heads about 1 hour and 20 minutes south of Brisbane 

    Helen’sBulkWholefoods.com 

     One of the top 10 açaí bowls I’ve had in the world from here! And I’m telling you I eat açaí bowls for a living! They also have decadent raw and vegan treats. 

     Helen Gibson has been a prominent figure on the well-known James Street in Central Burleigh Heads for 25 years now. Her bustling shop, Helen’s Heavenly Bulk Foods, attracts a wide variety of locals and tourists who peruse through the vast array of nuts and seeds; cereals; baking goods; herbs & spices; teas & powders; delicious chocolate covered nuts & berries, organic and non-organic goodies on display.

     Helen embraced the bulk food store with the philosophy of what she calls the 3 P’s in good business- SAVE PENNIES, SAVE PACKAGING & SAVE THE PLANET. Pop into Helen’s today and peruse the selection of chemical-free and organic skin and beauty products, vitamins & supplements and enjoy the low prices that only a bulk food supplier can offer!

     Right next door is her cafe that is serving up delicious options for all dietary preferences from gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian. 

     Make sure to try an açaí bowl and load it up with all the superfoods! 

    6. Manly Boat House 

    Located in Manly about 20 minutes from the city and right on the boat harbor 

    manlyboathouse.com

     True sea-to-table is at Manly Boathouse. A modern Australian and seafood-focused restaurant with unrivaled wraparound views of Moreton Bay. With a chic beach resort-inspired interior and high ceilings, the atmosphere reminds me of an Aussie version of Ibiza meets Miami. Located in Manly and is well worth visiting when in Brisbane. 

     I enjoyed the catch of the day, a local fish the owner himself caught. Blue-eye trevalla, also known as blue-eye cod, is considered by many people to be one of the finest table fish caught in Australia. The owner has a fishing license and enjoys catching fresh fish for us diners. The local fish in Queensland is fresh and delicious!  

     Other options The Earth Diet style on the menu are oysters, king prawn cocktail, barramundi, slow-cooked lamb shoulder, bbq Tasmanian scallops, obe organic and chopped broccoli salad. 

     Manly Boat House also grow their own herbs which I love. 

     You can sit right on the water and watch the boats come in from a sail. We enjoyed this taste of seaside relaxation. 

    7. Grill’d 

    A burger chain located in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and Sunshine Coast 

    Grill’d.com

     Grill’d is a popular burger chain known for its focus on fresh ingredients, made-to-order burgers, and healthier alternatives compared to traditional fast food options. 

     Grill’d prides itself on using high-quality ingredients, including 100% grass-fed, free-range beef and chicken, along with fresh vegetables and whole grains. These ingredients provide essential nutrients, such as protein, vitamins, and minerals, which are important for a balanced diet.

     At Grill’d, you have the freedom to customize your burger to suit your dietary preferences and needs. They offer a range of options, including vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and low-carb choices. This customization allows you to control the ingredients and portion sizes, making it easier to make healthier choices that align with your specific dietary goals.

    Grill’d emphasizes a balanced approach to eating. They offer a variety of burger options that incorporate lean proteins, fresh produce, and whole grains. Additionally, they provide nutritional information on their menu, helping you make informed choices about the calories, fat, and other nutritional aspects of your meal. This transparency empowers you to select options that align with your health goals and dietary preferences.

    8. Soko Brisbane

    Located on a rooftop in the Fortitude Valley

    Sokobrisbane.com

     Soko Brisbane is a popular Japanese restaurant located in Brisbane, known for its authentic cuisine and dining experience.

     Soko Brisbane offers a wide range of traditional authentic Japanese dishes, prepared with care and attention to detail. From sushi and sashimi to ramen and tempura, you can expect to find a variety of classic Japanese flavors and delicacies. The use of fresh ingredients and traditional cooking techniques helps to ensure an authentic dining experience that showcases the rich and diverse culinary heritage of Japan.

    Soko Brisbane emphasizes the use of high-quality ingredients in their dishes. They source fresh seafood, premium meats, and seasonal produce to create flavorful and nutritious meals. This commitment to quality ingredients not only enhances the taste of the food but also contributes to a healthier dining experience.

     Soko Brisbane provides a warm and inviting atmosphere that reflects the charm and elegance of Japanese culture. The restaurant’s interior design, decor, and attentive service create an ambiance that transports you to Japan, allowing you to immerse yourself in the dining experience. Whether you’re looking for a fancy fancy, casual lunch, or a special dinner, Soko Brisbane offers a unique setting to enjoy Japanese cuisine.

    9. Suburban West End 

    Located in West End

    SuburbanWestEnd.com

     Suburban West End is a popular restaurant located in the vibrant neighborhood of West End in Brisbane.

     Suburban West End offers a creative and eclectic menu that showcases a fusion of global flavors and culinary influences. From small plates to hearty mains, their menu features a range of dishes that cater to various tastes and dietary preferences. You can expect innovative flavor combinations, fresh ingredients, and carefully crafted dishes that bring together diverse culinary traditions. This variety allows you to explore different flavors and try new culinary experiences.

    Suburban West End places a strong emphasis on sourcing local and sustainable ingredients. They prioritize using seasonal produce, organic products, and ethically sourced meats and seafood whenever possible. This commitment to supporting local producers and practicing sustainable sourcing ensures the freshness and quality of the ingredients used in their dishes. It also promotes the sustainability of local food systems and reduces the carbon footprint associated with food production.

     Suburban West End are popular for their epic breakfast and brunch menu including their Smashed Avocado toast, Breakfast Nachos, and West End Stack (they also have vegan nachos). I love their green smoothie and açaí bowl! 

    10. Ambrosia & Co 

    Located in Bulimba 

    Ambrosia&Co.com

     Ambrosias’ main menu is designed to provide beautiful Mediterranean cuisine in a casual and relaxed setting. Its inspiration comes from the distinctive flavors of the Mediterranean offering our diners an assortment of tapas and main dishes from counties including Greece, Turkey, Morrocco and France.

     The all-day and night food and drinks menu suits whatever mood you are in.  Light meals, small plates or main meals are available from 12pm and are complimented by our boutique roasted coffee,  cocktails and wine. 

     Ambrosia and Co is also a popular cafe, known for its delightful desserts and specialty coffee offerings. The cafe prides itself on using high-quality ingredients to create delicious treats that satisfy the sweet tooth. From decadent cakes to artisan chocolates, Ambrosia and Co offer a wide range of indulgent options that are crafted with care and attention to detail.

     While Ambrosia and Co’s offerings may be on the indulgent side, it’s worth noting that the healthiness of Ambrosia and Co’s offerings can be attributed to a few factors. First, they prioritize using quality ingredients, which can enhance the overall nutritional value of their desserts. By using fresh fruits, natural sweeteners, and premium chocolates, Ambrosia and Co ensure that their treats contain higher quality components.

    Furthermore, Ambrosia and Co recognize the importance of balance and variety in a healthy diet. While their menu includes indulgent desserts, they also offer options that cater to different dietary preferences and restrictions. This can include gluten-free, dairy-free, or vegan options, allowing individuals with specific dietary needs to enjoy their treats without compromising their health goals. I enjoyed the gluten-free toast with avocado and eggs, with the Mermaid Latte. 

     More about Brisbane… 

     Brisbane is the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Located on the eastern coast of Australia, it is known for its vibrant and relaxed atmosphere. Brisbane is bisected by the Brisbane River, which adds to the city’s charm. The river serves as a focal point for recreational activities, waterfront dining, and cultural events. Queensland enjoys a subtropical climate with warm to hot summers and mild winters. The city’s pleasant weather makes outdoor activities and exploring its numerous parks and gardens enjoyable year-round. The cityscape of Brisbane features a mix of modern skyscrapers and historic buildings. The modern skyline is dominated by iconic structures like the Story Bridge and the Wheel of Brisbane. Queensland is known as a city of parks, with abundant green spaces that provide opportunities for recreation and relaxation.

     Brisbane’s culinary scene is diverse and evolving, with numerous restaurants, cafes, and food markets offering a variety of cuisines. From trendy eateries to casual riverside dining, there is something to suit every taste.

     Brisbane is often described as a friendly and welcoming city. Its residents, known as “Brisbanites,” are known for their laid-back nature and hospitality. It’s one of the friendliest atmospheres you will find in Australia. 

     These are just a few highlights of Brisbane, a city that combines natural beauty, quality dining experiences, and a relaxed lifestyle.

     I am so excited for you to visit, as the Brisbane and surrounding area food scene is ready to impress! 

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  • The Benefits of Sweet Potatoes Infographic | NutritionFacts.org

    The Benefits of Sweet Potatoes Infographic | NutritionFacts.org

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    Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite vegetables and a delicious way for me to tick off the “other vegetables” boxes on my Daily Dozen checklist.

    What has the latest research on their benefits found? What is the best way to cook them? This infographic summarizes the main takeaways and features some simple recipes. 

    benefits of sweet potato infographic

    Get this infographic as a PDF here.

    For more details about these studies, watch the free videos on the NutritionFacts.org’s YouTube channel or on the website’s sweet potato topic page.

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • 78. Learning How To Nourish Your Body, Understand Your Hormones, And Empowering Yourself Through Perimenopause with Jennifer Woodward of Jennifer Woodward Nutrition – Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

    78. Learning How To Nourish Your Body, Understand Your Hormones, And Empowering Yourself Through Perimenopause with Jennifer Woodward of Jennifer Woodward Nutrition – Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

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    Jennifer Woodward holds a Master’s of Science in Integrative Nutrition and is a certified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner and a Board Certified Functional Wellness Coach.

    She is also the Executive Director of the Association of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Professionals where she is mentored by course creator Reed Davis. Jennifer is also the creator of the acclaimed FDN Business School, and she loves getting to help new FDNs thrive professionally.

    Jennifer was recently a quarter-long guest lecturer in graduate Endocrinology at Parker University and also completed a three-month-long internship with Dr. Kyrin Dunston, getting hands-on training in women’s hormones.

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    FDN

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  • Biocanic – The BEST Software for Streamlining Your Biz?

    Biocanic – The BEST Software for Streamlining Your Biz?

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    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 all about Biocanic.

    We have a pretty interesting guest on. His name is Jeremy Malecha, and his wife is the entire reason that I’m on this podcast right now. What I mean by that is it is his wife that I heard talking in a coffee shop over six years ago now. She was an FDN practitioner talking to, I don’t know, 20 or 30 people about what she offered.

    I went up and talked to her and she was nice enough to take me out to lunch, talk to me about FDN, got me on the phone with Reed Davis, the founder of FDN, and we just chatted, man. I ended up signing up like less than a month later and getting involved. It’s been a crazy journey ever since. So many things have aligned to work this out and it’s hilarious to me that I’m doing the podcast now. I just think that’s full circle.

    The reason we’re having Jeremy on is not because he is a health coach or anything like that. It is actually because he has a very specific service that he offers to both FDNs, yes, but also every other type of health professional can benefit from this. Here’s his background and then I’ll explain a little bit more of what we’re talking about.

    Jeremy’s Background

    Jeremy Malecha is CEO and co-founder of Biocanic with over 20 years of healthcare and software-related experience. Prior to Biocanic, he was the Vice President of Strategy and ResMed’s SaaS Business. Across his 10 year plus career at ResMed, he also held senior leadership roles overseeing global product management across the product portfolio and was the lead person behind the conceptualization and launch of the ResMed digital health ecosystem.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE MARKETPLACE, HEALTH INTELLIGENCE, CONSUMER ADVOCACY, CONTROL OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS, POST-PANDEMIC WORLD

    Today, Jeremy is a catalyst for building a new integrative medicine marketplace rooted in the power of health intelligence and consumer advocacy so society can take back control of their health and wellness in a post-pandemic world. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University in addition to multiple patents in signal processing for medical applications.

    I gotta be honest, I didn’t know Jeremy as well before doing this podcast and getting to see him recently at a conference, they’re just, Jeremy and Jenn that is, two really impressive people. They are two peas in a pod, I will also say that, but fascinating folks, very successful in what they’re doing.

    What we’re talking about today, I already kind of mentioned this in the beginning of his bio, is Biocanic. Biocanic is a platform that would be similar, definitely, in my opinion, better, but similar to things like GetHealthy or Practice Better.

    Now, what’s really interesting about Biocanic is, remember, Jenn Malecha is a long-term FDN, been doing it for I think almost 10 years, if not over 10 years at this point, and she has worked at high levels in FDN as well. So, she no longer does that, but she’s been a strategic business partner at times, she’s been head of sales at times. So, she knows FDN in and out.

    Biocanic: Customized Client Management System

    One of the reasons Jeremy created Biocanic was because he saw a need that Jenn was exposing as she was working with more and more health coaches. It’s really, really cool to see all of this come together.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, SERVICE, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL, CUSTOMIZED, DEALING WITH CLIENTS

    Basically, Biocanic is a completely customized way of managing and dealing with your clients. It’s a lot more than that. I think this is one of those times where I could talk about every little feature and benefit, I’d be doing you a disservice. It’s better to hear about it in the podcast.

    And another thing to note is this is one of those ones where we do actually have a YouTube video to go along with this just so you can get a visual. It’s not for the entire time. In fact, it doesn’t even start until I think 14 minutes into the recording itself, and it only goes for like 10- or 15-minutes tops. So, if you want to see the platform and get more of a tour with it, that’s how you could do it. But this is still totally a podcast that could be digested solely through your ears.

    I know at my business we’re really excited to get to use this stuff. I had never really looked into these softwares before because I had only been doing, as you guys know, if you’re regular listeners, I had been only taking clients here and there because I was mostly doing public speaking in schools.

    Biocanic: Time Saver

    And now as I am expanding Bucks County Light Therapy and I have a few FDNs under me that are relying on me to get them clients, I’m realizing I want to make their lives as easy as possible so that they can be in their zone of genius, which is working with the people and helping them get better. And all these tools, all these systems that we have access to, something like Biocanic, we should be using that stuff so that we can focus on being in our zone of genius.

    In fact, this is crazy to me. Jeremy even said that he believes this system, once you get this down and once you learn how to use this software, can actually save about 60% of the time that you would normally spend with a client. Now, this doesn’t mean the client’s getting less of a service. In fact, they’re actually probably getting a better one, that’s the best part.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, ACTIVE CLIENTS, TIME BACK, TIME SAVER

    But imagine what you could do if you had 20 active clients and all of a sudden, I could say, okay, I’ll give you 60% of your time back that you spend working with them. Well, wouldn’t that mean that you could then effectively double to 40 clients and really not spend any extra energy? I would say so.

    When I said they’re two peas in a pod, it’s so cool to see Jenn and Jeremy come together. Because I’ve always thought of Jenn as this highly systematic, very efficient person. Then you meet Jeremy, and you’re like, oh my goodness. Like these two, where the heck did you find each other? Because they’re perfect for each other. With all that said, I want you guys to enjoy today’s episode. I hope you like this one.

    Biocanic: A Different Approach to Practitioner Support

    And if you have any questions about Biocanic, we will have where you can reach out to them below. Alternatively, if you have a question for us specifically at FDN, you can always reach out to us at fdntraining on Instagram. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.

    All right. Hello there, Jeremy. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you?

    [00:05:45] Jeremy Malecha: Great. Thanks for having me on. I’m really looking forward to this.

    [00:05:48] Detective Ev: Yeah. It’s only fair. I mean, it’s kind of funny. So, just to connect this for people really quick, it is Jeremy’s wife, Jenn Malecha, who was on twice with this show so far. She was like episode five. Jenn is the exact person that actually got me into FDN.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, SERVICE, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL, CUSTOMIZED, PRACTITIONERS, DIFFERENT WAY

    If it wasn’t for her giving a talk that day, I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever heard of FDN organically. I would’ve always heard it from someone in the community. So, I don’t think I would’ve known about this had it not been for Jenn, which is kind of crazy looking at all the stuff I’m doing with them now and just how much it’s helped my life and my family’s life. And you are also doing a lot for practitioners just in a completely different way, very inner role, but completely different way.

    Then I found out all of 30 seconds before recording that you actually have a health story, which I did not realize. Guys, what we’re about to do is totally authentic, totally organic. I did not know Jeremy actually dealt with health stuff. So, before we talk about Biocanic and the thing that you created, let’s just start there. What did the health symptoms look like and what were you going through?

    Biocanic: Lots of Testing, Lots of Data

    [00:06:42] Jeremy Malecha: Yeah, I mean, look, I was Jenn’s first client, right? So, any typical FDN graduate does start on themselves in the course and then they start with their friends and family.

    Detective Ev: Yes.

    Jeremy Malecha: So, I was obviously the first guinea pig. But background, biomedical engineering, have been in traditional healthcare my whole career. I wanted to be MD, PhD, got into medical school, decided I couldn’t get into the research program, so I ended up in the industry.

    I’ve worked for acute care EMRs, GE Medical Systems, done cardiovascular AI, machine learning, practice management, telemonitoring, really technology based in the healthcare industry. As Jenn was graduating from FDN and starting into her practice, I was a late thirties male going through everything that they go through.

    Oh, I’m dealing with weight gain, brain fog, afternoon headaches. Everybody who’s listening to this knows that that’s not normal. But what else is going on? And I was trying to do all the right things, gluten-free, organic, sober months, working out all the time, taking all these random supplements. But all of my objective markers were going in the wrong direction.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, ACTIVE CLIENTS, STRUGGLES, DATA

    I always say, I got to the worst day of my life when the scale hit 240. And that was November of 2016, I think. That really was kind of like the turnover point for me, cause I felt like I was doing the right things. But as Reed says, I was stuck in a cycle of trial and error. And so, with Jenn, we went through a lot of the different testings, a lot of different approaches. But as any client of this particular approach struggles with, I have data everywhere, right?

    Biocanic: Resolving from Force Fitting

    I had multiple PDF documents in my lab results. I’m doing intake forms in Excel. I jokingly say for those that are still using the Excel spreadsheets, that Excel spreadsheet for the adrenal stress causes, adrenal stress indicators, almost caused a divorce from the pain it was doing to fill it out. Right?

    And I’m getting my supplement recommendations. The Word document looks great, but I have a Word document and an intake form, and I’m tracking my health, I had a spreadsheet of all of my different markers that I was entering; and that’s really why we created Biocanic.

    It was my experience in the traditional healthcare world is in practice management or EHR EMR systems, they’re built for the care delivery model. And if you think about it, if you have a chiropractor, they’re probably using ChiroTouch. That software system is built for chiropractors. You can’t take a chiropractic system and go drop it into a podiatry clinic or a pulmonology clinic, or skilled nursing.

    What we saw was that people were taking what is the traditional practice management model and trying to apply it for what is a longer-term care program. Right? And when you think about a typical practice management, that is a primary care physician who’s charting and documenting for the purposes of billing, referring, or writing a prescription.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, SERVICE, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL, CUSTOMIZED, PRACTITIONERS, FORCE FITTING, STAY ORGANIZED, STREAMLINE, STAY ENGAGED, HEALTH JOURNEY

    So, when you have practitioners that are taking something that’s not built for that and force fitting it, it ends up, yes, you can stay organized, but it doesn’t really help people streamline and also stay engaged in their health journey. And so, as somebody who’s going through an FDN program, you know, they’re making changes along the way.

    Biocanic: A Beautiful Merging

    It’s not D.R.E.S.S. all the time, right? It’s diet one week and then it’s stress, and it’s management. So, what we wanted to solve for is how do we create a streamlined system that helps practitioners understand the data faster and more efficiently. But also, really focus on my experience as a client, which is help me see where I’m at in my journey, where I’m going, and the value that I’ve been given as a part of my investment in my health.

    [00:10:21] Detective Ev: Right.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, MERGING, TWO WORLDS, BACKGROUND, LEARN

    Well, I’m sorry that you dealt with this stuff, but at the same time, that is kind of cool. It gives you such a real-life experience as to what was happening. And it’s kind of a beautiful merging of two worlds cause you have a background that’s totally qualified for this and then you learn so much from Jenn, you see what’s happening there.

    But then you also have the client experience to a degree where you get what it’s like to just be in that cycle of trial and error, thinking that things are normal. Even once you realize that they’re not, it doesn’t mean that it gets fixed overnight. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done and it’s almost kind of better when you’re ignorant with it.

    You’re just like, oh, okay, this is fine. This is because I’m getting old or something. But then you realize, late thirties, especially for a guy is not old at all. I mean, there are some studies now saying that the thirties to forties should be primetime for males in terms of physical fitness. Now that’s not what we always see, but that’s what it’s supposed to be if we take care of ourselves and choose to do so.

    Biocanic: Opportunity to Scale Practitioner Practices

    I think one thing that we can just get started with right away, because Jeremy, we have plenty of people that are listening to this show that are considering FDN. So, the business side to them is like the next step. They kind of know that it’s going to be something, but they might not fully understand what that’s going to entail. They know it’s overwhelming, it’s not something that they’ve done before. So, we have that part of our audience.

    Then we have FDNs that are in AFDNP, they’re in the professionals’ group that we offer to people post-graduation, and they’re very experienced in business. So, to the degree that we’re able to break it down for both of these people, what is Biocanic and when did you decide, like, you kind of already have alluded to it, but when did you decide, all right, I’m going to go create this specific thing for the practitioners and the clients, really?

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, SERVICE, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL, CUSTOMIZED, PRACTITIONERS, FORCE FITTING, STAY ORGANIZED, STREAMLINE, OPPORTUNITY, PRACTITIONERS, SCALE THEIR PRACTICE

    [00:11:53] Jeremy Malecha: I mean, so we founded it really based upon kind of seeing the opportunity to help practitioners scale their practices. And that really became apparent as my wife was starting to scale her business. When I talk about the features, and I even did this on sales calls today, I call it dog-walk complaints that turned into product features in our system, right?

    We would be walking the dog after dinner, as we do pretty much every single night, and she’d be complaining about a client for X, Y, or Z reason. Right?

    Biocanic: Connecting the Dots

    Hey, I asked them two weeks ago as a part of the sleep program, did you get to bed before 10:00 pm? And of course, they would show up two weeks later and they’d be like, yeah, I think so. Right? But you know, 80%, okay, probably did. But they don’t remember back last Wednesday when they stayed up till midnight, had too much alcohol, had a fight at work or anything, and they didn’t connect the dots between that particular day and the impact it had on their health. They lost the insight.

    And everything about FDN is so critical because it is so data driven that when you start to connect the dots, that becomes the teaching moment. So, when we think about not only the metabolic side, but also the emotional and the connection and the behavioral side. That’s what’s so critical, right?

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DECISION, HABIT, IS IT WORTH IT?

    Because now I can say, okay, look, I’m going to stay up till midnight. I’m going to have too much to drink and I’m going to feel like heck in the morning. But I’m consciously making that decision. You know, I’ve broken the habit and now because I know what it means, is it worth it to me?

    We always joke, you know, Jenn and I were talking about like, is the bread worth it? I know how bad I feel when I eat really bad, US-based, gluten enriched bread. I get zits, feel horrible, bloated, brain foggy; it’s not worth it. But then there are times where you’re at the artisanal bakery or in France, and you’re like, yes, it’s absolutely worth it.

    Biocanic: Systematic Approach

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, SERVICE, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL, CUSTOMIZED, PRACTITIONERS, FORCE FITTING, STAY ORGANIZED, STREAMLINE, OPPORTUNITY, PRACTITIONERS, SYSTEM APPROACH

    But the ability to have the accountability and the understanding to connect the dots, to really become that health detective and help your client become their own detective and understand it, is what’s so critical. So, when we think about kind of the system approach, that’s what makes us so much different than the other options.

    [00:14:10] Detective Ev: This is why I wanted to do this, right? I keep learning more as I talk to you. Just to give a background, Jeremy and I, I guess we had met briefly in person at a conference a couple of years ago, but it was very fast. There’s a lot of people there. Then we were both at CellCore, their conference in Boise, Idaho basically last week.

    We both had a lot of downtime cause people would actually go listen to the speakers. What a concept. And I got to really explore Biocanic. It went from something that I’ve just heard about. I’ve heard about all these softwares. I wasn’t using any, cause I’m not someone that takes on 10, 20 clients at a time. It’s just family, friends here and there. Even as my own business is developing, I’m more the sales and marketing person and then I give it to the other practitioners. But I was excited for this stuff for them.

    Then what you just said, I didn’t realize it was so client focused in this sense. Because you’re right, like as an FDN, you almost take this for granted. I am so aware and so are all of the graduates, I would imagine. I’m so aware that if I do X, Y, Z things on this day, it’s going to have a consequence the next day. Sometimes we know this by the hour.

    Biocanic: Enlightening Clients

    I know if I stay up till 11:00 pm versus 10:00 pm, even if I got the eight hours, seriously, still to this day, my neck gets kind of tight, I get kind of stuffy. It’s not the end of the world, goes away in like an hour. But it’s an hour of sleep. I didn’t even lose sleep overall, I just shifted the hours around and I noticed, wow, that does affect me. Like, that doesn’t feel good.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, AWARENESS, MAJOR THINGS, SUBTLE, SLEEP

    I also beat the heck out of my body when I was younger with the health issues and staying up till four in the morning every single day, like even on school days. So, maybe I’ve tapped out my returns a little bit in that sense. But it’s crazy how I can feel like Superman one day. And now I feel like I have the kryptonite on the next day just by doing something for an hour. I mean, most people don’t have any awareness on this stuff with like major things, let alone something as subtle as an hour difference in sleep. So, I kind of like how this can do this for them.

    Now, I think it might be a good way just to even describe Biocanic in full. I think what people compare this to, if I’m missing anything, let me know. The two software seem like Practice Better and GetHealthy. Is there any other quote/unquote “competitors” or similar services on the market?

    [00:16:08] Jeremy Malecha: Yeah. I mean, there’s quite a few of them that are all similar. So, when we kind of differentiate on what we do, we always like to talk about what we do better, not to talk about the other models.

    Detective Ev: Fair enough. I appreciate that.

    Biocanic: A Simpler Way to Correlate

    Jeremy Malecha: The other models, again, are really built around the traditional healthcare system approach. It’s a great way to stay organized. They have a pretty interface, but it doesn’t connect the dots for the individual client. And one of the other examples, again, from my particular health experience is this was actually back before GI MAP when FDN was teaching on BioHealth, which doesn’t exist anymore, right?

    So, I had the BioHealth Microbiome test, and was buying Thorne, Dipan-9. I remember the conversation going, why am I buying this $80 bottle of supplements? Jenn would say, don’t you remember on page three of the BioHealth 401H report, you have, I don’t know, C-diff or something, right? And this is to help support your digestive process. I was like, I don’t even know what report that is cause I have five, and I don’t know what that means.

    So, when we kind of talk about the other options, that’s still the experience, right? Yes, it’s organized. I can have a PDF and a lab result. But I, as an individual, don’t connect the dots. Because when we process all of the lab data, we’re going to say, we’re going to look at an MRT next to a GI MAP, next to a DUTCH test, next to a stress hormone panel or whatever you’re running, or the blood chemistry as well, and we surface the out-of-range markers.

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    Now we can, as a practitioner, one, we don’t have to open up all those files. We don’t have multiple monitors where we’re trying to correlate.

    Biocanic: Coming Together in One Single View

    I think it’s module eight, where Reed has all the different lab tests on the PowerPoint slide and stuff. It’s all right in front of you so you can see it right away. But for a client, now, I can actually see, look, I have gut dysbiosis, I have a litany of food sensitivities, and my hormones are out of whack.

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    Therefore, I have my adrenal protocol. I have my gut support protocol, and this is why. Because this correlation between these issues, my complaints, and my recommendations now come together in a single view. It’s not trapped in different file folders. And that’s where we try to create a different experiential approach for practitioners and their clients.

    [00:18:30] Detective Ev: Well, I think at this point, the best thing to do, and I’m sorry, because I know our audience is mostly audio based. But you guys know I refer you to our YouTube every now and then. So, I will have the link in the show notes for you where you can check this out.

    But I’m going to have Jeremy pull up a screen so that we can actually see this. Because I feel like there’s just so much to look at and it will make a lot more sense for people if they can see it in the same way I got to when I was at the conference. So, we’ll do our best to talk about it in such a way that you could still enjoy this if you’re in the kitchen or you’re driving in the car.

    But I think it’d be best for you guys to head over to our YouTube, cause Jeremy’s about to share his screen. We’ll see the interface here and how it’s a little different from other things.

    Biocanic: The Client’s View

    [00:19:05] Jeremy Malecha: Yeah. This is my particular dashboard. Most dashboards aren’t as busy as mine, so I do have all the connected wearables and everything.

    But one of the big differences, especially around the FDN approach, is when we look at what we call the functional summary. This is where we combine all of the different information. I have a ton of lab testing, including stuff that most FDNs wouldn’t run. But we do it cause we support a lot of different practitioners.

    But what we see here, think about the correlation. So, we have our client reported, you know, what are our goals? What are our complaints? Our Metabolic Chaos Scorecard, so obviously, this is the older version. But we can see the scores side by side, how that self-reported data is improving.

    And then I’m just going to zip over here. Here I have my Oxford MRT. I’ve actually done a genetic test, a GI MAP, and a DUTCH test. What that means is instead of having to go to a file folder, lab results, and open this PDF that I think is 20 pages long with the actual recommendations on one page without the MRT report. Great report, comes in a binder. But the data that you really need is what am I really reactive to?

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    My GI MAP five-page report, my DUTCH test, which is a 15-page report, I can see, as a practitioner; I can see everything that’s going on with this individual. I don’t have to go back and reopen it; I can see as it’s going. But now, I, as a client, see everything that’s going on.

    And then when you’re retesting, this is where the value comes in. You’re going to do a pre and posttest.

    Biocanic: Tracking Multiple Test Results

    So, part of my health journey was estrogen dominance, and so here we have eight DUTCH tests. I know that sounds gross, I think I’m in the top 10 at Precision Analytical for running the test. But why it’s so critical and why I run it so regularly is if you’re familiar with the DUTCH test and the estrogen pathways, if we go back to 2017, and I’m not trying to train everybody on a DUTCH test, I would present as if I was low T, weight gain, andro weight gain, afternoon headaches, low libido. My issue, if you look at kind of the testosterone metabolite, was relatively normal; my issue was estrogen dominance.

    Had I walked into an MD and gotten on testosterone therapy, it would’ve been an absolute disaster for me because my estrogen pathways were so clogged up. So, I’m generating a ton of estrogen. You see, everything’s out of range. My 4-OH is almost off the chart. Family history of estrogen dominance. I’m a poor methylator and you can actually see that over here as well.

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    This is why I’m kind of going to this, is when we actually look at my individual health journeys from the last six years and we go look at those estrogen markers over time, we can actually see that this is where I started. Again, this is that cancer-causing pathway and this is where I’ve been. This is the reason why I take this test over and over is because I want to make sure that I’m continuing to adhere to my particular dietary lifestyle in maintaining that good estrogen detoxification. This wasn’t like one time; this was having to follow along.

    Biocanic: Motivating Clients

    And you can see I had some aberrations along the way. So, for me it was about how do I stop filling the tank? How do I empty the tank faster and get back to estrogen balance? This process court was absolutely parallel to me losing 40 pounds. And so, this is where it all comes together for individual practitioners.

    [00:22:25] Detective Ev: This is so cool cause I feel like, especially for the client, one of the problems always is retesting, like, encouraging them to do so. But I feel like this is just so rewarding. If I was working with a client, I would show them someone else or myself, just like you have, and show them, hey, look at this graph over time.

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    And I don’t know, I think that’s actually very motivating for people to want to do these things continuously themselves. It’s so odd what motivates us as human beings. I haven’t figured that out perfectly yet myself. But I know it’s amazing when I just post labs online, that gets so many people asking questions. We’re very driven by the data, even if we wouldn’t consider ourselves like a normal data-driven person.

    So, what I want to know then for my client, if they are looking at their dashboard and I gave like a bunch of recommendations this past week, is there an easy way to pull up what that might look like if you’re the client or I’m the client, like what did they get last week?

    Biocanic: Efficient and Streamlined

    [00:23:14] Jeremy Malecha: Yeah. One of the things that we do that’s, again, different, is when you think about kind of the report of findings, or this follow up report. You want to create that report and recommendation. Because we have all the data, we have what’s called the summary report generator.

    So, if you think about taking your practicals and you’re having to summarize everything, we can actually pull in all of that information. We have our supplements, our scored self-assessment. Let’s say we’ve run that metabolic scorecard. I’m just going to include, let’s say, the GI MAP just for simplicity. Then this is kind of our typical interpretations.

    So, let’s say we have our estrogen dominance kind of lab results assessment, and then we’re going to set up our D.R.E.S.S. plan, whatever step that they’re in. In that five-step process, you’ve basically created a follow up professional report, once it loads, in a second.

    We can see that we’ve pulled everything together. Sorry, I’ve taken the GI MAP about as much as I’ve taken the DUTCH test. You can see here’s the metabolic scorecard scores, the out-of-range markers. You don’t have to copy and paste from the PDF documents.

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    Then we auto fill in whatever that interpretation assessment is, then our plan, and our supplement recommendations here at the bottom. And we’ve completed that follow-up report in 30 seconds. So again, thinking about efficiency around this particular use case, this is how we really streamline our individual practitioners. Yes, you can do this without our system, but it takes a lot more work.

    Biocanic: It’s About Optimization

    And so, when you think about the goal and aspiration of a new graduate who wants to be serving 10 or 20 or 50 active patients or clients, those kind of 15, 30, 45 minutes start to multiply up. And without the right system in place, you get stuck.

    That’s really where we found so much success in the industry is busy practitioners are buried in, yes, the files are really organized, but they can’t get to the data. Then it’s five minutes here, 10 minutes there, 15 minutes here, and they can’t take on any more patients. Then they can’t really achieve kind of the business model that they’re looking for.

    [00:25:25] Detective Ev: Right.

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    This is hilarious to me knowing Jenn, because I’ve always admired her. I look at her as like the queen of optimization. I’m like, oh, okay. Here’s the king too. Because you guys just get everything that you could possibly get. And it is always about optimization instead of just adding hours to the day.

    That’s one thing I think a lot of us, including myself, could learn from someone like Jenn. Her philosophy is her health comes first. Right? She’s never going back to the things that she dealt with. And so, what she’s going to do is say, okay, I’m going to figure out in these, let’s say 40 hours a week that I want to work, how do I get more efficient in the 40 hours? How do I get more useful? Not, how do I just keep adding on hours?

    Because the one end is very limited. This other end where you just optimize and get more efficient, that’s pretty much infinite. You can continue to grow as an individual.

    Biocanic: Which is Best for FDN Practitioners?

    I’m sure there’s a limit on how many clients someone could realistically have. But Jenn has pretty much maxed that out, has gone as high as you can. And she even has programs like PBMS, I went through that briefly, that were all about efficiency and optimization. And this is basically the software for that.

    Again, I really appreciated what you said about not ever talking about what another program’s doing badly. I like to do the same thing with FDN, right? People call all the time for the sales calls and ask about this course and that course. I don’t need to be a course basher. And quite frankly, a lot of these places are trying to do the best they can too, and we know that.

    The thing is though, I want you to be able to have your minute here and explain to people what the true advantages would be. Because if I don’t know anything else, like if I don’t have anything to compare to cause I’m a trainee right now and I don’t even know about Practice Better or GetHealthy, I mean, you might just trust the podcast and say, okay, I’m going to go do this.

    But Practice Better probably has their fancy marketing and they’re going to come in on a Google ad or something. Or I think you said they, ironically, don’t do marketing.

    Jeremy Malecha: Yeah.

    Detective Ev: Okay. Bad example then. You’re going to hear about these other things.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS

    So, is there ever a case where a regular FDN practitioner would be better off using a software like that? Or was this just so good for the FDN that they don’t really have to even think about those other programs?

    Biocanic: A Very Different Work Style

    [00:27:24] Jeremy Malecha: Look, the other programs are a great way to be organized. So, if you’re becoming an FDN, it’s a part-time thing and you’re going to manage a couple clients here and there, some friends and family, and it’s not really where you want to take your career, it’s just something you like to do, it’s all about the same, right? Because the time efficiency doesn’t really matter.

    If your goal as a practitioner is to have a busy practice where you’re seeing lots of people, maybe you’re bringing on other FDNs to help support your business, you have to think about how do I make the investments today to be able to 10x my business tomorrow. To do that, you can’t have this kind of death by five-minute cuts. Right?

    The fact of having to go in, open a pdf, open a pdf, shift it, zoom it, move it so you can actually see it and get your focus, if you’re busy, when do you have time to focus? In the evenings or in the morning? And that comes at the expense of your family or your ideal lifestyle. Right?

    So, when you think about that, you really need to put the investment upfront. If you want to truly scale your business, scale yourself, scale your approach, you have to have the systems in place to be able to do that. And those systems have to enable your workflow to do it as fast as possible so that it’s not cutting into your personal lifestyle.

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    And one of the things that’s interesting, cause we’re kind of a startup, but we’re five years old now, we have a very different work style because we’re in the functional and integrative space.

    Biocanic: Plan Ahead, Invest Now

    The importance of balance, the importance of getting away from computer, not working 90 hours a week, not grinding it out all day, every day, because you end up getting adrenal stressed, you end up burning out. So, even philosophically as a company, we’re like, turn off your electronics, get off your computer at times, find your work-life balance. Because if you’re out of balance, that’s going to affect your work.

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    That’s why it’s so critical to have the right systems in place. And we want to plan ahead. If this is your goal, if this is your big business vision, invest now.

    Oftentimes we hear a lot of graduates and they’re like, well, I need to get my first client before I start to invest. Think about it the other way. I should invest in my infrastructure before I get my first client. Because when they come through and everything’s streamlined, they have a professional experience, they get everything as they need it, they become your marketing engine, and that’s how you truly scale. If you think about it the other way around, you’re only hurting yourself by not doing it upfront.

    [00:29:51] Detective Ev: True. You actually want to deliver as high a level to the first person as the hundredth person. Of course, you’d be improving over time, you’d think, but as high as you’re capable of doing with the first person.

    Because at the end of the day, social media is awesome. Giving talks and lectures is great. The best way to do this business and most businesses is word of mouth. People that love you and had a great experience with you saying, you need to go talk to this person. It also makes the conversations around the higher ticket packages a lot easier.

    Biocanic: Starting Out Successfully

    I can tell you from personal experience that saying, hey, it’s $4,500 on a call, goes much more smoothly when the person, like their wife or husband went through your program and loves you to death, knows you and has had success versus when it was a cold lead from some random Facebook ad or whatever it might be. So, trust me on that one.

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    And that’s why I was excited for Maddy, my girlfriend, and Brian, my friend, because I’m like, all right, they’re brand new, literally just onboarding the first clients. And I’m thinking also as like a business owner too, like how do I invest in the employee in a sense, right? They’re more 1099, but how do I invest in the company? How do I make these people get set up for success from day one? That’s why I’m excited to start working with you guys.

    We probably won’t get to the full 50 minutes, which is cool. Like I said, it doesn’t necessarily need to be that today. But one thing I think we have to mention towards the end here is the pricing tiers and what they’re going to get. Because I know at the time of recording this, it is currently $35 for FDN practitioners. Is that correct?

    Jeremy Malecha: That’s correct.

    Detective Ev: Okay. And now I know that you can add things on. Like one thing, I believe, I was talking to Connie about, she was telling me that I can do these pre-recorded things basically, and then include them in my programs. I’m like, dude, duh.

    Biocanic: The Core System

    I can go with basic D.R.E.S.S. stuff now. I know you wouldn’t know this about me, but I’m huge on circadian biology and light. And I do feel sometimes like it’s not that it’s not worth a client consult, but it’s so routine. There’s no way I’m not going to tell someone this because it really is one of the few things that can be applied to everyone, right? It has to do with sleep and getting morning light.

    I’m like, oh, I can just put that into a video format now and include that in everyone’s program and use the sessions for what they actually should be used for, which is maintaining what they need to be doing or going over any current problems they have versus just educating them on something I’m going to teach the other 20 clients anyway.

    So alright, the $35 will get me what? What would the next tiers look like and what would they include?

    [00:32:07] Jeremy Malecha: I certainly understand pricing can be confusing in our industry cause everybody has their different matrix of stuff.

    So, one, the FDN pricing is special cause we were actually built around FDNs, and Reed’s been a very good partner for us as we’ve kind of grown the system. We are a flat monthly fee; we don’t have any like utilization tiers.

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    So, sometimes if you are looking at other systems, you’ll see up to a hundred clients or up to X amount of text messages or up to two gigs. We don’t do any of that. It is just the one monthly fee that starts at $35, and that includes intake assessments, the lab processing, supplement recommendations, scheduling. You can do invoicing through your billing account. That’s what we call our core system.

    Biocanic: Cheaper Than Any Other Platform

    Then we have two additional add-ons. One is the program builder or evergreen content delivery system. So, if you think about a Kajabi or a Thinkific, that’s a $10 add-on. And then we have our precision eating platform, which is, we’ll make recommendations and generate a meal plan for you, for your individual client. That’s a $20 add-on.

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    So, if you did all three, it would be $65 a month, which is still cheaper than any other platform out there. And you don’t have the complexity of worrying about your business getting too big and your pricing changing.

    [00:33:26] Detective Ev: Well, that’s fantastic. So, you’re saying even just for the $35, if all I ever wanted was the stuff that you mentioned in that tier, I could have a thousand clients and you guys don’t care.

    Jeremy Malecha: Correct.

    Detective Ev: It’s just, do your thing. That’s amazing.

    Then also, just for the video hosting, like evergreen videos and courses and stuff might be a little different, I guess. I guess it’s not, because I think Connie told me you can actually have quizzes in there too, right?

    Jeremy Malecha: Yes.

    Detective Ev: That’s so cool. Cause I think that’s one of the reasons the FDN course works. Yes, we have the more intensive testing at the end, but those little quizzes that you take after each video, that’s actually what helps you get ingrained.

    I went back to that and used some of those to study for those final exams. I’m like, I’m just going to go back through the quizzes cause that’s probably the important stuff. That’s really useful for clients.

    But yeah, video, those programs that host that type of stuff are definitely more than $10 a month. I know that for a fact.

    Biocanic: Integrated Task Management & Self-Booking

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    [00:34:12] Jeremy Malecha: We do other things. So, we have integrated task management, so you don’t have to pay for a Trello or Asana. That’s built into the system as well; I forgot to mention. And then we also do self-booking, so you don’t have to have a Calendly or a ScheduleOnce subscription as well. So, we can really simplify everything into a single experience for practitioners.

    [00:34:30] Detective Ev: I was actually going to say the Calendly thing specifically because I was like, all right, $35 and I get the calendar software while I’m already paying, whatever I’m paying, I couldn’t even tell you, $12, $15 a month definitely for Calendly, just that alone, it’s like $20 extra, unlimited clients and I get all that other stuff. It’s kind of, in my opinion, a no-brainer.

    I have two final questions for you. One is, it’s kind of a fun one, and you might have already mentioned these things, but again, God only knows how much like secret cool stuff you guys actually have in these softwares, knowing you and Jenn and probably how you guys work together.

    So, what are your top two or three favorite features that Biocanic offers? It could be at any tier, but I’m just curious what your favorite ones are.

    [00:35:09] Jeremy Malecha: Yeah, I mean as a data junkie biohacker, it’s the automatic lab data processing. That’s kind of our big bread and butter differentiation. We support over 150 different specialty labs.

    People ask us how we did it. We’re like one at a time. And we’ve done it one at a time for the last four years since we started doing lab data processing. That is the most fun thing.

    Biocanic: Implementing Customer Requests

    It’s also really kind of delightful when somebody says, hey, I use this lab that’s not in there. Can you do it? Then we implement it in a couple days. That’s been a lot of fun to see the growth of all of the different specialty labs in all of the different approaches that we use.

    The other side is, then being able to trend that in the summary report, being able to create that kind of professional follow up report in 30 seconds is like earth shattering, especially for a lot of the MDs that we’re used to working with now. They’re used to doing like charting in a hospital EMR, and they’re like, this is so much faster.

    If anybody’s followed the EMR industry, everybody hates their EMR. And they’re like, oh my God, this is so much easier. So, that’s been a huge delight and an affirmation.

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    But you know, it’s those types of features that we develop because we were listening to our customer. That summary report that I showed you was based upon a physician talking about how every night she had to do her charting. She had her Google templates that she would copy and paste. And then she would have to go to the metabolic scorecard and copy and paste the scores or hand enter the scores, right? It was very time consuming. And just to turn that on its head so quickly was just so much fun.

    [00:36:45] Detective Ev: I know that this is off the top of your head, but you’ve seen both sides, I guess for someone like Jenn. And she just, again, will continue to squeeze the optimization side.

    Biocanic: For More than FDNs

    So, let’s say I’m an FDN practitioner that has 10 clients and I’m not using any of these softwares. Like, I don’t do Biocanic, Practice Better or anything like that. I’ve just been doing maybe the Excel spreadsheets and kind of my own version of it. How much time do you think someone is saving by using something like Biocanic versus just working with those 10 clients and not using a software like this?

    [00:37:13] Jeremy Malecha: I mean, we estimated that they’re saving about 60% of the time.

    We actually have a slide where we actually add stuff up. The challenge is when you actually sum up all the time it takes, we estimate it takes about six to eight hours to get started with somebody after you’ve received the lab. So, call it their initial, follow up results review, that’s six to eight hours per individual, right? And we think we can shave at least 60% off of that. People are like, wait, six to eight hours.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, FUNCTIONAL AND INTEGRATIVE

    But then you’re like, okay, wait. I had to assign the intake forms, go order the labs, get the labs, upload the labs, look at the labs, and then I wasn’t ready. When you actually sum it up, it does end up actually pretty consistent. It’s not just the FDN approach, this is most of functional and integrative, it’s always around that.

    Being able to save that on boarding time, just through being able to order the labs through us, being able to make the recommendations through us, that is a huge time savings. And if you think about six to eight hours, five new clients a week would be 40 hours a week. But you also have all of your clients that you’re working with.

    Biocanic: Avoid Getting Bogged Down

    So, as I was kind of alluding to earlier, you can’t scale if you’re spending that much time getting started with new clients because you still have to service your existing clients on whatever package they’re on. That’s why we’re so hyper-focused on efficiency and simplifying and bringing things to light, so that people can scale and see more people and ultimately make more money, but also help more people overall.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, SERVICE, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL, CUSTOMIZED, PRACTITIONERS, FORCE FITTING, STAY ORGANIZED, STREAMLINE, OPPORTUNITY, PRACTITIONERS, BOGGED DOWN, AUTOMATED

    [00:38:40] Detective Ev: Right. What you just said at the end, get to help more people. They also just get to do what they actually love a lot more. Cause most of the people that go through something like FDN and think about it from a career side, their main interest is doing what we’re doing right now. They want to work with someone one-on-one, help them through their problems and things like that. And yeah, if you’re getting bogged down with all these things that could be automated, it’s a little crazy.

    It’s not my business of course, to share like Jenn’s numbers, but I will just say, guys, Jenn does some insanely impressive numbers with clients and revenue. I guess you guys have to be right about the 60% in terms of time saving. You can’t be wrong. There’s no way that you could do the volume of clients that she’s done if it wasn’t optimizing everything else. And there’s more that goes into that cause Jenn, again, has programs that helps with some other sides of things.

    But I think Biocanic would be a great place to start for people. I am a liar too cause I had two main questions, but now I have like my rapid-fire ones.

    Where to Find Biocanic

    [00:39:31] Jeremy Malecha: It’s one thing to bring it to life for any trainee or graduate. How long does it take you to fill out the FDN case notes report form?

    [00:39:39] Detective Ev: Well, even from a medical director program standpoint, that sucks. That’s why I think they did away with it because people weren’t doing it cause it took so much time. So yeah, a good chunk.

    [00:39:47] Jeremy Malecha: Right. And if you could do that in five clicks instead of going to each section and copying and opening the document, that is exactly the pain point that we solve. That’s where the efficiency comes in and usually helps people really understand it.

    [00:40:00] Detective Ev: Nice. All right. So, my rapid-fire questions, just thinking like from the audience perspective and now they’re interested in this, maybe having these questions go through their head.

    One they’re going to be wondering is, where can I find this? Can I try it? Do they have to buy it right away? What would that look like for them?

    HORIZONTAL HEADSHOT, JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, WHERE TO FIND BIOCANIC

    [00:40:14] Jeremy Malecha: So, we’re Biocanic.com. There’s a button that says FREE TRIAL. So, we have a two week trial and we do onboarding training. We have a community site, very open book about our features and functionality. We’re always happy to get on a demo, answer any questions, walk you through everything. So, going to our site is the best starting point.

    If you want to see kind of how the features and everything and the content we deliver, we have our community site, which is hix.biocanic.com. You can see how we’ve kind of evolved the system over time.

    Biocanic: Customer Service Support

    And also, there’s additional educational content. We highlight other practitioners’ approaches. So, if you’re thinking beyond FDN, hey, I want to niche into integrative dermatology, we do a lot of interviews like Dr. Julie Greenberg, who’s a really well-known integrative derm as an example.

    But yeah, two-week trial, and you can stop and start. There are no long-term contracts. Hey, you want to try it out? You’re not ready. You know, you’re going on vacation, you’re going to restart. We’re very flexible when it comes to working with us.

    [00:41:11] Detective Ev: That’s totally fair. Awesome!

    You actually answered one of my next questions, which was about the training. Actually, it’s a good problem to have, but there’s so much stuff that I can imagine it’s a little overwhelming in the beginning. So, you mentioned a demo, like are they actually talking to someone from the company?

    [00:41:27] Jeremy Malecha: Yeah. We do one-on-one training, and our employees are FDNs. It’s not often that we promote that, but obviously they speak the language, they know the approach, and they’re very helpful cause they both worked with individual practitioners and their own clients as well.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, PHILOSOPHY, SUCCESSFUL, UP AND RUNNING, WINNING

    We are hands on with our practitioners. The worst thing about learning a new technology system is being directed to a blog link or a tech support site on a website and reading four pages when you just need an answer to a question. For us, philosophically, if we get you up and running and successful as soon as possible, you’re winning and we’re helping you along the way. It saves any back and forth and, you know, we didn’t answer the right question with the right link and everything.

    Biocanic: Walking Customers Through

    We also encourage people to reach out as they’re going. So, oftentimes, hey, I finally found time to sit down and get in this, and now I’m stuck somewhere and have a question. Send it right away. Don’t let things stack up. While you’re in the framework, in the learning framework, it’s best to get your questions answered at that time. That’s why we’re so hyper responsive to our questions that come in.

    [00:42:29] Detective Ev: Very cool. I cannot agree with that more. I think that’s very wise of you guys.

    I’m a young dude, man. You think I would know about computers and stuff. I spent so long recently, just in the last three weeks, we started using Kartra for my own personal stuff. And I really like the program. It’s amazing how easy it is to build the templates for your funnels and stuff.

    But beside the point, I could not for the life of me easily figure out how to get the domain on there from GoDaddy. There was just like this whole extra process, it was a pain in the butt. I’m like, I’m young and I like to believe I’m half intelligent. And I’m having trouble figuring this out. I’m like, what about like the 60-year-old person that wants to build their first funnel or something? It just wasn’t user friendly at all.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, SERVICE, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL, CUSTOMIZED, PRACTITIONERS, FORCE FITTING, STAY ORGANIZED, STREAMLINE, OPPORTUNITY, PRACTITIONERS, BOGGED DOWN, AUTOMATED, CUSTOMER SUPPORT, FEATURES

    And then, my gosh, getting our leads in from our previous place to there has been a nightmare too. So, I love the fact that you guys are helping out with that because I do think all of us need it regardless of whether we’re older or younger. Having someone to walk us through all the features is really cool.

    Biocanic: White Label Set Up

    We talked about the educational side. That’s great. If I have custom intake forms, could I upload those to Biocanic?

    [00:43:27] Jeremy Malecha: Yeah. It’s a form builder. That’s all created in there. If you’ve ever created a Google document, you can make it in our system.

    We serve a wide range of functional and integrative, there is not an intake form I’ve seen that can’t be implemented in our system now. So, we have to do things like timeline tables, supplement medication tables for the intake process, skip logic scoring system. And we can also help you do that too, as a part of our onboarding process. It’s really easy once you get going.

    [00:43:55] Detective Ev: Okay. And my real last rapid-fire question, I understand that some of these things, I could be wrong, but like there’s an ability to pay for a personalization of it, like, it can be on your own website. I don’t actually fully know how that works, so forgive my ignorance. But is there a way to personalize it with Biocanic or will people know that they’re using the third-party software? Not that that really matters, but I’m just curious.

    JEREMY MALECHA, BIOCANIC, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, FDN PRACTITIONER, SOFTWARE, PROGRAMS, FDN APPROACH, PHILOSOPHY, DOMAIN, CUSTOMIZED, BRANDING, COLOR SCHEME, SINGLE EXPERIENCE

    [00:44:18] Jeremy Malecha: Yeah. We do have what’s called a white label set up. You can pay to basically have your domain set up, have it customized to your branding, your color scheme, so it feels like a single experience. It basically removes all the Biocanic branding.

    That is just a one-time, $1,000 setup fee. And once it’s set up, you actually have administrator controls. So, if you do change your brand over time, you can fully change that at a later date as well. It’s just the initiation and creation of the individual website.

    Conclusion

    [00:44:46] Detective Ev: That’s awesome. You guys got everything. Is there anything that I missed today that you wanted to make sure we got out because I’ll still talk about some of the things I loved when I record the intro. But anything we missed?

    [00:44:56] Jeremy Malecha: No. I mean, we’re always looking for our features and functionality come from our practitioners, so if there isn’t something that we’re doing today that you’d like to see us do, let us know.

    I know that there’s quite a few FDNs that knew us all the way back in the 2018 first FDN conference where we demoed a prototype, and we didn’t even have software. It’s been evolving and we continuously bring out new features of functionality every couple weeks. So, just cause you don’t see it in there today doesn’t mean we can’t get it out tomorrow. And that’s how we really grow and continue to iterate, really bring value to this particular industry. That’s our focus.

    [00:45:31] Detective Ev: Cool. Hey Jeremy, man, it’s really nice getting to actually talk to you for once. Thank you for creating this. And I will let the audience know how it goes on our end because I’m about to get Maddy signed up for the free two-week trial.

    [00:45:41] Jeremy Malecha: Awesome. Sounds great.

    You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com. Our Instagram handle is @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/.

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  • Healthy low carb & low fat diets – Diet and Health Today

    Healthy low carb & low fat diets – Diet and Health Today

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    A recent study on mortality and healthy eating, focused on low-carb and low-fat diets, has been making headlines. The study was a large and long one, with 45% of participants dying during its duration. The headline claims implied that low-carb diets, particularly unhealthy ones, were associated with higher mortality rates, while healthy low-carb diets were linked to lower mortality. On the other hand, all low-fat diets, both healthy and unhealthy, were associated with lower mortality rates.

    The study, however, had many flaws. The first flaw of population studies such as these is the use of Food Frequency Questionnaires. The study used a single questionnaire dating back to the mid-1990s, while the participants were followed up for an average of 23.5 years. It is highly likely that diets changed during the follow-up years.

    The study’s definition of low-carb was an issue, as it often us. Low-carb diets were defined as up to 42% of calorie intake, which is still high carb in the low-carb world. Additionally, the judgment for what constituted healthy vs. unhealthy was arbitrary and subjective, causing discrepancies in the interpretation of data.

    Large differences between people in different intake groups were also noticed. Exercise, smoking, and alcohol intake could affect mortality rates, and while the study adjusted for these factors, we can’t adjust for an entirely different person – as participants were.

    Another issue with the study is the lack of explanation for its findings. The paper failed to explain convincingly why low-carb diets (except plant-based ones) were associated with higher mortality rates. The paper only suggested associations, not causation, yet it inferred causation in several passages in the discussion section.

    Given the coverage that this paper received, many people might think that low-fat diets are good (even unhealthy ones) and low-carb diets are bad (unless plant-based and quite high carb). Several issues with the study make its claims invalid, and people should not put much stock in such findings.

    The full version of this article can be read below

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    Zoe

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  • Episode 154: Using Functional Lab Testing with Reed Davis – Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

    Episode 154: Using Functional Lab Testing with Reed Davis – Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

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    Welcome to Protecting Your Nest with Dr. Tony Hampton. Reed Davis, Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner (HHP) and Certified Nutritional Therapist (CNT), is an expert in functional lab testing and holistic lifestyle medicine. Over 20 years ago, Reed Davis recognized people were caught in a “cycle of trial and error” and he committed to being the last person they needed to see. While working with top leaders in alternative medicine, he ran thousands of labs on thousands of people and learned to identify “healing opportunities.” Using all-natural, drug-free protocols, Reed made observations about who got better and who didn’t, codifying which “general principles of health building” would outperform “specific treatments” being provided by standard and even alternative medicine. And through this work, he then developed the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® Certification Course and D.R.E.S.S. for Health Success Protocol® to educate and empower as many people as possible about how to get well and stay well naturally, so they, in turn, may empower others to do the same.

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    FDN

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  • Tips for packing a nutritious and delicious Lunch Box. – Diet and Health Today

    Tips for packing a nutritious and delicious Lunch Box. – Diet and Health Today

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    With so many great foods that you can pack into a lunchbox, there’s no need to grab a panini at Pret or a burger and fries at a motorway service station. A fantastically nutritious lunchbox takes very little time to prepare and is a great way to nourish your body and maintain energy levels throughout the day. Here are some things to keep in mind and some recipes to inspire you.

    Aim for a well-rounded lunchbox that includes a mix of macronutrients with a good amount of fat-protein with minimal carbohydrate – you don’t want to be sleepy in the afternoon due to carb overload, especially if you’re driving.

    Include a good source of fat-protein in your lunchbox, such as eggs, chicken, tuna, sardines, beef, lamb, cheese, or left-over recipes like curries, stews, cold-meats etc.

    Keep away from beans, pulses and starches and fill up on vegetables, both raw and cooked. They offer an array of vitamins and minerals while adding texture and flavour to your meals.

    Homemade is best: Prepare your lunchbox at home. This allows you to have control over the ingredients, ensuring quality, freshness, and avoiding additives or preservatives.

    Keep your lunchbox interesting by incorporating a range of flavours, textures, and cuisines. Explore different recipes and rotate your options to keep boredom at bay and to ensure you’re getting a wide range of nutrients.

    Here are a few simple options to experiment with:

    1 – Chicken Salad:
    Chicken, grilled or roast, as the main fat-protein source.
    A bed of mixed greens.
    Extras like cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumber, pepper and sliced red onion.
    Optional: Top with crumbled feta or grated cheddar.

    2 – Turkey Lettuce Wraps:
    Large lettuce leaves (such as romaine or butter lettuce) for wrapping.
    Sliced turkey breast or leftover roasted turkey, chopped up and mixed with Greek yoghurt.
    Add some operational extra fillings like sliced avocado, crispy bacon, and tomato.

    3 – Beef and Vegetable Stir-Fry:
    Sliced beef as the main fat-protein.
    Assorted stir-fried vegetables like broccoli, bell peppers, and snap peas. These are delicious chilled.
    Optional: Add a drizzle of olive oil, mixed with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

    4 – Tuna Stuffed Peppers:
    Tinned tuna, mixed with mayo or Greek yogurt, as the fat-protein filling.
    Halved peppers (red, yellow, or green) with seeds removed .
    Optional extras like diced celery, red onion for crunch and flavour.
    Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake until melted and golden. Chill overnight.

    5 – Pate loaded celery (main pic):
    Chop some celery sticks into convenient lengths and load with home made pate.
    Serve with a Greek yoghurt dip.

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    Andy

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  • Can Reflux in Babies Be Treated with Diet?  | NutritionFacts.org

    Can Reflux in Babies Be Treated with Diet?  | NutritionFacts.org

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    Can we treat the cause of infant reflux with maternal milk elimination?

    There has been a longstanding problem among zookeepers: The gorillas were throwing up all of the time. “The practice of regurgitation has never been reported in wild Gorillas but it has unfortunately been accepted as normal by many keepers of captive animals.” What were they feeding them? Gorillas are big, strong animals, so they made sure to feed them a lot of protein—cottage cheese, meat, eggs, and milk—until a zoo in Germany got the radical idea of feeding them their natural diet of “leaves and vegetables.” And, the “change…following the alterations to the diet was astonishing.” Before the change, a silverback had been regurgitating and vomiting during most of the day. But, by the third day of eating what they were supposed to eat, he and the rest of the troop were miraculously cured. Even just removing milk from the diets of the captive gorillas led to significant improvements. Cow’s milk was “historically considered an essential item in the captive gorilla diet,” but researchers showed that eliminating it may reduce such “undesirable behaviors…and may be a step toward better approximating the natural diet for captive gorillas.” The zookeepers were giving them animal milk after weaning—that is, giving animal milk to adults. Milk is for babies. What’s more, they were giving milk from a bovine to a primate. What were these zookeepers thinking?  

    I’m reminded of a landmark study I discuss in my video Treating Reflux in Babies with Diet. Eighty-one children presenting with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) were given drugs, and two-thirds got better, but 27 kids did not. So, the researchers eliminated cow’s milk from their diets. Within one month, all 27 were cured. 

    “Symptoms of acid regurgitation, heartburn or both occur at least once a week in 10–20% of adults belonging to the western world” and up to about 25 percent of all infants. It’s normal for babies to spit up occasionally—that’s not what we’re talking about. It can actually get quite serious. Up to a quarter of “infants present with regurgitation severe enough for parents to seek medical help,” and it may just be that they’re sensitive to cow’s milk. The symptoms of cow’s milk protein allergy “overlap with many symptoms of GERD, or may coexist or complicate GERD,” or reflux. Even if there’s no formal dairy allergy per se, there appears to be some kind of cow’s milk “hypersensitivity” among many infants and children with severe reflux.  

    There are all sorts of invasive tests, such as sticking pH probes down the baby’s throat, but probably the most practical test in routine pediatric practice is just a trial of a cow’s milk protein elimination diet for two to four weeks in infants with reflux. 

    The gold standard is what’s called an elimination and rechallenge protocol, where there is a “full resolution of symptoms via strict elimination followed by recurrence [of symptoms] on reintroduction of cow’s milk protein.” Two hundred or so infants diagnosed with reflux were put on a cow’s milk–free diet, then were given the challenge tests. Eighty-five of the 204 infants with reflux were actually suffering from a cow’s milk allergy or hypersensitivity. 

    So what’s happening? We think our immune system understandably considers the bovine proteins as foreign and attacks, triggering an inflammatory response, which irritates the nerves lining the digestive tract. That then results in abnormalities in the rhythmic contractions of the stomach, triggering the regurgitation. We’re not just talking about formula-fed infants either. Cow’s milk protein allergy “can occur in exclusively breastfed infants,” too, “as intact cow’s milk proteins can be secreted in breast milk.” If the mom drinks milk or eats eggs, the proteins can get into her baby. Cow’s milk protein and other foreign proteins can pass into human breastmilk. So, “breast-fed infants with regurgitation and vomiting may therefore benefit from a trial of withdrawal of cow’s milk and eggs from the maternal diet.” 

    Indeed, that is now the consensus recommendation of both the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition and the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition. Anytime you see reflux, the first thing to try is a therapeutic trial of either a cow’s milk protein–free formula or, for infants who are breastfed, a strict maternal cow’s milk protein elimination diet. Then we can potentially treat the cause without using unnecessary medications and certainly before considering anti-reflux surgery. 

    Maternal diets can have a direct effect on breastfed babies. To learn more, check out Treating Infant Colic by Changing Mom’s Diet and Infant Seizures Linked to Mother’s Spirulina Use. 

    For mothers who are able, breast is still always best. See The Best Baby Formula and Formula for Childhood Obesity.  

    For older children with reflux, see my video How to Treat Reflux in Children with Diet. 

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Got IBS? No Problem! w/ Kim Del Castillo, FDNP

    Got IBS? No Problem! w/ Kim Del Castillo, FDNP

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    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 IBS. Before we get into the story, I just want to inform you we …

    Episode 246: Got IBS? No Problem! w/ Kim Del Castillo, FDNP Read More »

    The post Episode 246: Got IBS? No Problem! w/ Kim Del Castillo, FDNP appeared first on Functional Diagnostic Nutrition.

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    Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

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  • How to Make Tinctures and Tonics, Guide To Homemade Medicine

    How to Make Tinctures and Tonics, Guide To Homemade Medicine

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    The world of plants is a powerful one. There are a wealth of components in plants that serve to protect them at various stages of development, as there are so many forces at play including weather, predators (including us) and soil quality. When we consume these plant constituents in various forms, we can also reap the benefits – but learning how to prepare these plants properly is crucial. This is where homemade tinctures and tonics come in.

    Our students at the Academy of Culinary Nutrition love food and recipes, but as they begin to dive into culinary nutrition they also become inspired to create their own herbal medicine. Homemade tinctures and tonics are actually not as complicated as you might think and when you learn the common methods to formulate them, the possibilities become endless.

    How to Make Your Own Tinctures and Tonics

    There are several ways you can extract the benefits from herbs and other plants. These are:

    1. Infusion: An infusion is when you steep plants in water or oil to glean their beneficial properties. One of the most common infusions is tea, which most of us are accustomed to drinking.
    2. Decoction: This is boiling an herb or vegetable in water, so the water then contains the soluble constituents of the plant being boiled. This is a great method for hardier plants that won’t ‘give up the goods’ with gentler methods – a good example would be chaga or reishi mushrooms.
    3. Tincture: A solution of alcohol or alcohol and water, along with the plant that you’re using for medicinal benefits. Tinctures usually take longer to make, anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months to fully saturate the liquid with the plant medicine (think of vanilla extract, for example).
    4. Maceration: Softening by soaking in a liquid.  Maceration is generally used for very delicate plants and the liquid is usually cold or barely heated. Often, macerations use oil as the liquid.

    Choosing Herbs + Vegetables

    The type of herb you use will depend on what your herbal medicine is for – it may be to support the immune system, calm the nervous system, ease digestion or reduce inflammation. For a few recommended herbs for healing, you can check out our Guide to Culinary Adaptogens or our DIY Elixir Guide.



    How To Make Infusions

    A good general rule of thumb is 1 teaspoon of herb to 1 cup of water – of course, this may vary depending on your personal tastes, and how strong or weak you prefer your infusion to be.

    Some great herbs for infusions are:

    • Chamomile: Calming and great for digestion.
    • Peppermint: Helps to relax the muscles of the digestive tract and reduce spasms.
    • Cinnamon: Great for balancing blood sugar.
    • Ginger: Anti-inflammatory, immune-boosting and great for nausea.
    • Licorice: A great digestive aid, and it’s anti-microbial and anti-bacterial.
    • Turmeric:  Strongly anti-inflammatory and rich in anti-cancer properties.

    Learn more about tea blends here. And don’t forget – you can also use tea infusions in cooking and baking!

    How To Make Decoctions

    Use about 1 teaspoon of herbs and one cup of cold water. Put your herbs and water into a pot, then bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and let it simmer from 20 to 45 minutes, depending on how hardy the plant is. Strain the liquid, then drink or use it in your culinary recipes.

    How To Make Tinctures

    Tinctures are surprisingly easy to make! We have a free class where we demonstrate how to make a tinctures – check it out here.

    What you need:

    • Herb of choice
    • 40% vodka (in glass bottle)
    • 1 glass jar
    • Parchment paper
    • Masking tape for labelling
    • Cheesecloth or nut milk bag

    How to Make Tinctures:

    1. Fill up glass jar with herb halfway.
    2. Add vodka so that level of the liquid is at least two inches above the herb. Note: If you are using dried herbs, you might have to add more vodka at a later time.
    3. Place parchment paper between the lid and jar. (This is done to prevent the rubber seal from dissolving.)
    4. Seal jar tightly.
    5. Label jar with date, percentage alcohol, herbs, and method used.
    6. Shake two times per day for one month.
    7. After a month squeeze out the menstrum (the resulting liquid) using cheesecloth or a nut milk bag.

    How To Make Macerations

    Many macerations are made using oils to gently extract the plant power. Put your herbs and oil into a small jar. You can let them infuse anywhere from an hour to a few weeks. For an example of how you can macerate for beauty care, check out this skin-soothing salve.

    More Herbal Medicine Tips

    • Use the fresh herbs. This will produce the most powerful tincture and tonics. If your herbs don’t have a scent, that’s not going to change once you make your herbal medicine.
    • Cut the herbs into small pieces. This allows for a greater surface area so the plant compounds can infuse into the liquid.
    • Label your jars. Label your herbal medicines with the date and what’s inside them. That way there will be no confusion! (You may think you’ll remember what everything is. You won’t. Trust us!)
    • Start slowly. This is powerful plant medicine. These tinctures and tonics are meant to be taken in small amounts. With a tincture, you may only need a few drops.

    Interesting in Learning More About Homemade Medicine?

    Herbal medicine has a lot more function in everyday use than most of us realize. Start creating your own herbal remedies with our self-paced online course, Everyday Herbal.


    Tinctures and Tonics Culinary Nutrition Guide To Homemade Medicine

    Image: ChamilleWhite

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    Academy of Culinary Nutrition

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  • The Holistic Healing Experience #43 – Going Beyond Diet, Supplements, & Exercise – Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

    The Holistic Healing Experience #43 – Going Beyond Diet, Supplements, & Exercise – Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

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    Today on The Holistic Healing Experience Nicole and guest Reed Davis, discuss, “Going Beyond Diet, Supplements, & Exercise”.

    The post The Holistic Healing Experience #43 – Going Beyond Diet, Supplements, & Exercise appeared first on Functional Diagnostic Nutrition.

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    FDN

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  • Does Everyone Get Health Benefits from Coffee?  | NutritionFacts.org

    Does Everyone Get Health Benefits from Coffee?  | NutritionFacts.org

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    Genetic differences in caffeine metabolism may explain the Jekyll and Hyde effects of coffee.

    Three-quarters of American adults drink coffee and about half do so on a daily basis. That comes out to a million tons of coffee every year. Might there be “grounds for concern?” I look at the differential benefits of coffee consumption in my video Friday Favorites: Do the Health Benefits of Coffee Apply to Everyone?.

    Population studies have found that coffee drinkers tend to have a lower risk of Parkinson’s; less prostate cancer, liver cancer, diabetes, liver cirrhosis, and depression among women; and a reduction in mortality overall, such that coffee drinkers tend to live longer than non-coffee drinkers, with mortality bottoming out at about four cups a day, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:42 in my video. But these are all just associations. You don’t know if it’s cause and effect until you put it to the test. 

    Coffee seems to protect the liver, for example. In a study, individuals with chronic hepatitis drank coffee for a month—or didn’t—and then switched. The researchers found that the coffee really did seem to help. Similarly, Parkinson’s patients were randomized to get two cups of coffee’s worth of caffeine and showed significant improvement in movement symptoms within three weeks, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:14 in my video. Runners randomized to drink coffee shaved off about six seconds from their mile. Weightlifters randomized to drink coffee can squat more weight, about 600 more pounds’ worth of reps. This doesn’t only apply to athletic performance either: A cup of coffee’s worth of caffeine can significantly improve IELT, which stands for “intravaginal ejaculation latency time,” from two minutes all the way up to five. 

    Unfortunately, those effectively randomized at birth to genetically have a higher predilection for drinking coffee do not appear to be protected from diabetes, depression, Alzheimer’s, obesity, or metabolic syndrome, so it seems the protective associations may be due to confounding factors. Maybe those who drink coffee happen to exercise more, for instance. The same with prostate cancer: There was no apparent cause-and-effect relationship, and even the mortality benefit seemed to disappear 

    Even if a study did show that drinking coffee could extend lifespan by reducing inflammation or improving lung function or insulin sensitivity, that would mean on average. There is “interindividual variability” after the consumption of “major plant-food compounds,” meaning that people may respond differently to them. For example, in some rare individuals, heavy caffeine use provokes sleepiness. That’s an extreme example. Most of the time, it’s just that some individuals may benefit more than others from the health effects of different foods. Because of differences in gut bacteria, for instance, only a minority of Westerners may derive extra benefits from soy, as I’ve described before in my video How to Convert Into an Equol Producer. The most common difference in caffeine effects is that, while most people metabolize caffeine rapidly, certain gene variants in liver detox enzymes make some people slow metabolizers. Might that make a difference? 

    Habitual coffee consumption of at least three cups a day has been associated with uncontrolled blood pressure among older individuals diagnosed with hypertension, suggesting that moderating coffee intake may be a good idea for some people. But even if it were cause-and-effect, it would be on average. What would happen if you divided by how fast they metabolize caffeine? As you can see in the graph below and at 3:54 in my video, compared with coffee abstainers, those who have impaired caffeine metabolism genes have an elevated risk of becoming hypertensive at one to three cups a day and especially at four or more. For the rapid metabolizers, not only was there no excess risk at one to three cups, but heavy coffee drinkers were protected, meaning that the more coffee they drank, the lower their risk. How do we explain that? 

    “Coffee is a complex blend of a vast number of different bioactive chemicals,” and there are protective polyphenol antioxidants that are beneficial. Coffee beans are, after all, beans. (They’re actually seeds, but seeds are healthful, too!) However, caffeine can spike adrenaline levels in the blood, but only if you’re a slow metabolizer. Rapid metabolizers can clear caffeine so fast that there’s no increase in adrenaline even at four or more cups a day, so then all that’s left are the beneficial polyphenols that lower blood pressure—hence, the benefit overall. “Thus, there seems to be a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to coffee whose overall action on the cardiovascular system appears to be regulated by the CYP1A2 gene,” that gene for the enzyme that metabolizes caffeine. 

    Researchers asked: Does it give women larger breasts? Young women who drink a lot of coffee and are rapid caffeine metabolizers have larger breast volume, about a half a baseball’s worth, which may be a bad thing because breast volume is associated with breast cancer risk. What about heart attack risk? As you can see in the graph below and at 5:42 in my video, in slow metabolizers, daily coffee consumption appeared to double the odds of a heart attack or even quadruple the odds at four cups a day, whereas in the rapid caffeine metabolizers, daily coffee consumption was protective, cutting the odds of heart attack by more than half—at least until you get up to four or more cups a day. “The protective effects observed among rapid metabolizers suggest that the efficient elimination of caffeine might have unmasked the protective effects of other chemicals in coffee.” We think it may be the adrenaline again, because if you’re a slow metabolizer of adrenaline, high coffee consumption may put you at risk as well, as you can see in the graph below and at 6:17 in my video. 

    So, is coffee a “friend or foe?” “Together, these studies suggest the possibility that slow caffeine metabolizers who consume caffeinated coffee may have an increased risk of CVD [cardiovascular disease], whereas fast caffeine metabolizers may be protected from this risk by the antioxidants and other beneficial compounds present.” 

    This is one of the rare instances where “personalized nutrition” isn’t just a marketing catchphrase. Soy is another, but in that case, it’s about who benefits the most. See How to Convert Into an Equol Producer.

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Episode 218: Functional Diagnostic Nutrition – Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

    Episode 218: Functional Diagnostic Nutrition – Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

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    Reed Davis is here today to discuss Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. He talks about how important it is to run multiple blood work to find the root cause. If you run one test and find a problem, you could simply say that is the issue. However, there could be so much more going on. By looking at the whole picture, there are multiple healing opportunities where you can apply diet, rest, exercise and stress reduction around the blood work. By realizing how it is all connected, you can treat it all at once to enhance your overall life.

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    FDN

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  • Mast Cell Activation and Mental Health Connection

    Mast Cell Activation and Mental Health Connection

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    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 on the connection between mast cell activation and mental health.

    Before we get into anything today, really quick announcement. If you are listening to this, then you are in the very early stages of our June Summer Open House event. This is where we have over 21 free Live events in the month of June, focusing on both health and business, but mostly the business side. So, whether you are a health coach, an aspiring health coach, you’re an FDN practitioner, or an aspiring FDN practitioner, we have something for you this month. And it is free.

    What you want to do is go to fdntraining.com/summer if you’re still listening to this in the month of June in 2023. We will get you hooked up with some of the content. You’ll actually be able to see the speakers and the topics on that screen at fdntraining.com/summer so you can figure out if one or more of those talks will be worth it for you.

    I will be hosting the vast majority of them; I think there’s only one that I am not hosting. So, hopefully you like me at least somewhat, cause you’ll be seeing a lot of me. But we have other guests that we’ll be talking to throughout the month.

    About Jen Donovan

    Now with that said, we have a great guest today. This was someone that I wasn’t really expecting. Because a lot of the times how the booking process goes for this is, I end up talking to the person first, we get connected, and then we do the podcast. This was a connection made for us by one of our other staff members here at FDN. So, when she popped on my invite, I’m like, okay. This seems like a cool story.

    I checked out her stuff, seemed really interesting. But man, the more I got to listen to her in this podcast, the more connections I was making, the more revelations I was having. It’s pretty rare at this point for my own personal health journey that I find stuff that changes my perspective or adds to it. And our guest, Jen Donovan, was just doing that the entire time. So, I think you guys are really going to enjoy this one, especially if you listen often and you know some of the stuff that I’ve dealt with. Cause we made a lot of connections there. But this is still a podcast for everyone for sure.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, JEN DONOVAN, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, POLYVAGAL THEORY, NERVOUSE SYSTEM REGULATION, ANCESTRAL NUTRITION, GUT MICROBIOME, SIX SUPPORT PROTOCOLS, THRIVING LIFE, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST

    A little bit about her, she completely rebuilt her life and career as a result of her experience with severe chronic illness. After finding no answers from conventional medical approaches (You know, when does that happen?), she took matters into her own hands, and with the help of key mentors found a path to healing. With her diverse training and mental health systems theory, polyvagal theory, nervous system regulation, ancestral nutrition, and the gut microbiome, Jen has developed Six Support Protocols to provide a clear structured, all-encompassing approach to finding a thriving life again.

    Mast Cell Activation: What Jen Has Learned

    When she’s not working with clients, she spends her time traveling with her husband, Mike, seeking out regenerative farms, natural hot springs, and wondrous natural places. That does not sound too dissimilar from what I do with my lovely Madeleine. We definitely are always trying to explore nature. How cool is that? That something that we were supposed to do naturally can actually be considered recreational and just a break from the day-to-day?

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME

    Anyway, we’re not here to talk about that; we’re here to talk about mast cell and the other things that Jen learned. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.

    Alright. Hello there Jen. Thanks for being with us today on the Health Detective Podcast. How are you?

    [00:03:23] Jen Donovan: I’m doing great. Thanks so much for having me.

    [00:03:25] Detective Ev: Yeah, I’m happy to have you.

    I’m actually disappointed. I don’t think we got to fully chat at KetoCon. But Jen and I were just talking off air, and she was there with us. It was such a great event. Robin does an amazing job putting that all together. You get to literally talk to such cool people. Everyone has a story there, I feel like, and everyone was surprising me.

    I saw some before-and-after pictures of people. You would just never know that these people dealt with the illnesses that they had. They’re like vibrant, super healthy, super happy now. It’s cool. That’s a really cool conference. And we get to meet and attract great people there like yourself.

    I’m excited to talk today because there’s a variety of things that you do and that you offer that I wasn’t even fully aware of. So, this is exciting.

    Mast Cell Activation: Mental Health & Physical Health Connects

    But I told you, we always kind of start off this show in the exact same way because I’m a big believer that the facts tell, but the stories sell. It’s not that we’re selling anyone anything in particular, but we’re always trying to sell this idea of owning your own health and really taking it seriously. We have one life to live; we don’t want to waste any of this sick if we don’t have to be. And if we’ve already been sick, we don’t want to waste any more minutes doing that. I think the stories are always the most powerful part.

    So, Jen, if I can ask, when did your health symptoms start and what did they look like for you?

    [00:04:38] Jen Donovan: Yeah. I was always one of those people that thought I was healthy until things crashed. But then, of course, looking back, you can really see how things built up through my whole life.

    I actually always identified as a person who had more mental health issues than physical health issues. But now looking back, like I had allergies my whole life, I had some digestive issues, I would get random skin issues and rashes and things like that. And I just thought that was normal. I think a lot of people do.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST

    But I always had a lot of really significant anxiety, some depression, really obsessive-compulsive behaviors, intrusive thoughts. Honestly, I always thought that mental health was really my issue. I was really kind of indoctrinated into that conventional idea of medicine where we divide the body into all these separate parts. So, I didn’t even think about the fact that my mental health would be connected to my physical health.

    Mast Cell Activation: Bizarre Symptoms

    But then I had a series of events where I had a series of chronic infections, really got loaded up with antibiotics. I was about 24 or 25 when that happened. From there things went bad pretty quickly.

    You know, I was in the mental health field at that point. I had my master’s degree in mental health therapy and was starting my career as a therapist at a community mental health clinic. My first really significant symptoms were an increase, actually, in mental health issues. I started having these panic attacks and I’d always been anxious, but I had never had actual panic attacks. You know, I started feeling like I was having this wave of just doom and dread come over me. I almost call them dread attacks. At first, I thought my mental health is really crashing, I need to figure this out.

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    And this is my career, so I should be able to figure this out, but I couldn’t. Everything I knew coming from the conventional mental health world, nothing was working, and it felt very physiological. Like, it felt very in my body. Then of course, along with it, I started getting these really bizarre symptoms in every system of my body.

    I started getting hives all over my body, getting rashes, my lips would swell up. I started having really intense sensations of air thirst where I just felt like I couldn’t breathe properly. Also, I was getting a lot of autonomic nervous system issues. My heart rate was really irregular, my blood pressure was really low. I started having just crushing chronic fatigue. And I thought I was having a mental breakdown. It got to the point where I was like, I actually can’t work anymore.

    Mast Cell Activation: A Diagnostic Label

    I was 25, 26, in my prime, just starting my career but everything was crashing down around me. And it got to the point where literally every day I felt like I was dying. I really had this visceral sensation of my body shutting down. It’s amazing how quickly things crashed for me.

    I kept going to doctors and I would just sit in the office and cry because I was like, something is really, really wrong, but I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know what to do. They were, basically, like, we don’t know either. It was terrifying and devastating. I really thought my life was over for a while. It got very, very dark.

    But I happened to stumble upon an allergist, and this was back in 2016. You know, these issues are still pretty rare in terms of not a lot of people know about them. But unfortunately, I think in the last few years a lot of these complex chronic health issues have gotten a lot more common.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME

    Back in 2016, it was still really unusual to know about this kind of stuff. So, I happened to stumble on an allergist who said, you know what? You fit the diagnostic criteria perfectly for mast cell activation syndrome. I had never heard of this before and none of my doctors had ever mentioned it. And I was just so lucky that I stumbled upon someone that at least gave me a name for it, you know?

    But she basically said, this is just something that happens sometimes. People sometimes just develop this. We don’t know why, there’s no treatment. You’ll just have to be on high dose antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers the rest of your life.

    Mast Cell Activation: Not Buying It

    You know, I was very grateful to get a name for what I was going through because it helped me realize that all these bizarre symptoms I was having, they all were under an umbrella of a specific thing that was happening in my body. But even with my conventional medical knowledge and background, I said, I come from a very conventional mental health background and western medicine focused background, even with that, I just did not buy it.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME, BIZARRE SYMPTOMS, DON'T BELIEVE IT

    I just said, that cannot be right. This cannot just be like a spontaneous thing that breaks in your body randomly without cause. I just didn’t believe it. Somewhere in my heart, I knew there had to be other answers. So, I really struck out on my own. I just said, you know what, okay, if Western Medicine does not have answers for me, if they’re just going to say that I’m going to be sick the rest of my life, I don’t buy it and I am going to figure this out on my own. That was the start of my journey.

    [00:10:01] Detective Ev: Wow! A lot to unpack there.

    First thing I gotta start with is just the fact that I totally understand this validation aspect. Because in one sense, since you’re going through all of this, it is kind of, I guess quoteunquote “nice” to get a label. It’s like, okay, this isn’t just I’m crazy or something. Because that’s unfortunately what many of us end up thinking because of this stuff. But no, oh no, there is something here. But then you get to this other end where you’re saying, okay, well there’s something here they don’t have many answers for.

    Mast Cell Activation: Taking Matters into Your Own Hands

    I used to emphasize this point all the time on the podcast, Jen. You saying this actually made me realize I need to do this more and extract it out of people more. So, you talked about how even with the Western Medicine background, you just knew this didn’t make sense. Obviously, you weren’t buying it.

    I, again, always try to emphasize this part as well. I am not saying to people or our audience that you just blatantly shouldn’t trust your doctors or make your own decisions because these people are professionals, and Jen’s not saying that either. What she’s saying makes sense. She gets a quoteunquote “diagnosis” that really is not a formal diagnosis in a certain sense, because there’s no treatment, there’s nothing to really do with it. In a certain way, they’re kind of giving you an idiopathic label. It’s like the IBS thing where it’s like, okay, we can’t do much, but here’s a name for this that we’re starting to figure out.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME, MATTERS IN YOUR OWN HANDS

    At a certain point, it is appropriate to not buy certain things or not stop at those conclusions. Because quite frankly, what’s your other option? I mean, you’re not going to get better with what they’re offering because there isn’t anything at that time. So, I don’t think it’s inappropriate at all. I think it’s very appropriate to take some matters into your own hands.

    And what we see on a similar, it’s a little bit different, but it’s a similar concept, is we’ll also see people, Jen, and I’m sure you’ve worked with many people like this, they are dealing with this stuff for 10, 15 years trying to get a diagnosis. No one can ever figure it out, or they got seven of them and the treatment is not working.

    Mast Cell Activation: Mislabeling

    That’s another really common place where I think it’s appropriate to trust your gut and say, wait, I am doing everything these people have been talking about. This still isn’t working.

    If you don’t mind, I actually want to go back a little bit earlier in the story too. Like I said, there’s a lot to unpack there. I know Lindy might not have told you this. Lindy is the person that got us connected, for those listening. We really relate here quite a bit with the symptoms that you’re talking about. Mine started a bit earlier in life, but conceptually similar to the symptoms.

    I was dealing with panic attacks; it was actually one of my first mental health symptoms. Which knowing what I know now is kind of odd because, normally, it does start with a more generalized anxiety. The generalized anxiety came years later for me. I went from totally fine most of the day, most of the week, to full out panic attacks and then would be fine again for another week. It was very strange how that happened.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME, BIZARRE SYMPTOMS, MISLABELING, MISLABEL, ANXIETY ATTACKS, TOO STRESSED

    But I want to bring this up again just to help some people out there listening, or maybe they share this with someone, or whatever. You said specifically how I had always been anxious, but I never had a full panic attack. And I think nowadays as anxiety and mental health is getting more awareness, which is a beautiful thing, by the way, I’m in that space. That’s one of the things I try to do outside of FDN. But the downside of it is we get a lot of mislabeling of things that are not anxiety attacks, or sometimes people have anxiety attacks, and they think they’re just too stressed. There’s a lot of mislabeling.

    Mast Cell Activation: An Intelligent Immune System

    So, when you brought up that idea of a panic attack, it really feels like you’re going to die. It feels like there’s an urgent emergency. If I don’t do something, something bad is going to happen. That’s pretty scary, right? Like, you meant that literally when you called them dread attacks, correct?

    [00:13:36] Jen Donovan: Yes. And this is actually such a common symptom of mast cell activation that a lot of people don’t recognize. I mean, your immune system is in a complete crisis state by the time you develop something like that. It’s kind of an extreme end of like, something’s probably been imbalanced in your immune system for a very long time. Right? But when it gets to this critical point, that’s when you develop these conditions or these constellations of symptoms that end up becoming something like mast cell activation.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME, IMMUNE SYSTEM, INTELLIGENT

    Your body is kind of in this constant low grade, like almost anaphylaxis. And if you look at the symptoms of going into anaphylactic shock, It’s a very psychiatric experience. You get this overwhelming sense of dread in your body, that is like one of the primary signs of going into anaphylaxis. And it’s because your immune system is intelligent. It is telling you, hey, something is very, very wrong here that needs to be addressed immediately.

    So, if you have a very serious imbalance in your immune system and your body is reaching a critical state, it’s going to give you those sensations, right? It’s going to communicate to you through that mental experience, and it’s going to make you feel like you are in this crisis state of panic and dread. Because it’s trying so hard to get your attention and it hasn’t been able to any other way.

    Mast Cell Activation: Physical Symptoms Leading to Panic

    [00:15:06] Detective Ev: Listen, I’m not an expert and everyone knows that. I think, hopefully, the listeners actually appreciate this. I’m not an expert in a lot of things in the health space. I’m good at the functional medicine side, but I’m always learning.

    And we’ve really only had one other person on named Nicole, she’s a clinical advisor for FDN, that has come on and actually talked about mast cell in depth. It was actually the main point of that podcast. But I didn’t hear her talk about all this because her story is just different.

    What you’re saying is kind of fascinating to me cause it’s very rare that I feel like at this point in my own personal journey, I’m getting enlightened for my own symptoms. I’m always getting enlightened in other areas, but I’m like, for my own journey even, I’m thinking about what you’re saying. I’m like, well, wait a second. That was one of the biggest issues I had as a kid is I’d walk around and what they called generalized anxiety was because I felt like I was having trouble breathing, I mean, constantly. This wasn’t just a panic attack thing.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME, BIZARRE SYMPTOMS, PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS, PANIC

    There were multiple years where this was just occurring on a daily basis. It took me out of sports. If I had to wear a helmet for when it was super-hot outside, I always felt like I was choking and something was happening. And these almost felt like very real physical symptoms that led to panic, not really the other way around. So, I honestly had no idea that this was so correlated with the anxiety side or what seems like anxiety. And I’m not saying that that isn’t an element here.

    Mast Cell Activation: Our Bodies Are Talking to Us

    But just to be clear, you are saying that a lot of the symptoms of maybe a generalized anxiety or a panic type thing could actually be this mast cell thing. And then of course it actually causes anxiety because it’s so scary. Is that correct?

    [00:16:36] Jen Donovan: Oh, absolutely. I actually think that it can even get as extreme as like a lot of people who have really intense mast cell flares, for example, they’ll actually feel a little bit psychotic, you know? And I actually really think that a lot of our mental hospitals, a lot of our people who have treatment resistant, so-called, mental illness, are actually having mast cell activation. Sometimes it is very, very psychiatric.

    I mentioned that I thought like, oh, I just have mental health issues my whole life. Now that I look back, symptoms like being very obsessive or compulsive in your behaviors, whether you fit the official criteria or not, but just kind of those type of behaviors, having very dark, intrusive thoughts that just kind of come out of nowhere, sometimes they’re accompanied by suicidal ideation, sometimes they’re just very disturbing or violent or negative to yourself, kind of thoughts, these also can be symptoms of elevated histamine levels in your brain.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME, BODY IS TALKING TO US

    It really completely changed my life to understand the body in this more holistic and systemic way. You know, I was a mental health therapist. Everything I had learned about mental health suddenly came crashing down of like, oh my gosh, this is actually our body talking to us in a lot of cases.

    Mast Cell Activation: Looking Back on a Baseline of Weird Symptoms

    [00:17:58] Detective Ev: Yeah. You really got me thinking. This is actually kind of fun.

    I don’t want to get too ahead, but I know that there’s something that Lindy was going to team up with you for our practitioners, which we’ll mention at the end. Now I’m like, darn it, another thing, I’m going to go through.

    I’ve never studied the mast cell thing in depth, and I’ve never heard anyone connect this in this way for me. And I’ve been studying this for nine years. Again, maybe it’s just, there’s so many stones to overturn in the functional medicine space. Right? You get one condition; you could study that for 10 years and you’re still not halfway an expert into it.

    But I’ve never heard someone describe what I felt so well where it’s like a lot of this did seem like these almost allergy type symptoms. I felt like I was just reacting to everything. The physical symptoms seemed real, and they caused the anxiety. Now, eventually my conclusion was, well, mental health issues can cause physical symptoms, which is also true. So, it gets confusing cause it’s kind of a chicken or the egg thing.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME, BIZARRE SYMPTOMS, BASELINE, WEIRD PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS

    But looking back, especially in those teenage years, I know what I felt at that time, and it felt like I had this constant baseline of weird physical symptoms. The breathing thing was huge. When you said that, that’s really what got my brain lighting up. I’m like, I always felt like I was having labored breathing. What did you call it? Air what?

    [00:19:12] Jen Donovan: Air thirst. Yeah, it’s very specific.

    [00:19:14] Detective Ev: Air thirst. I know exactly what you mean and it’s scary as heck.

    Mast Cell Activation: Defending Against Invaders

    [00:19:18] Jen Donovan: Yeah. It’s really like hypoxia, on a cellular level. I mean, it can also be accompanied by wheezing and more classic asthma symptoms.

    And I had my lungs tested. I was like, I’m suffocating; I can’t breathe. When I had my lungs tested, they were like, well, you seem a little tense, but your lungs are working fine. I’m like, that cannot be right. But it’s really happening on a cellular level a lot of times with this.

    [00:19:41] Detective Ev: Okay. Well then let’s dive into this more. And thank you again for sharing your story with this stuff and connecting this for people.

    Jen Donovan: Yeah.

    Detective Ev: With the mast cell thing, I understand that if I ask you what is the cause of this, it’s probably, we’re going to continue to research this. It’s going to go deeper and deeper and deeper as time goes on. So, maybe the best way to ask this is from your understanding now and your expertise, like, what does seem to be causing this in people? Because it’s a pretty serious thing from my understanding.

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    [00:20:06] Jen Donovan: Yeah. And like I mentioned before, I really see this as kind of like the last-ditch effort of your immune system to save your life in the face of extreme toxicity. Because even if you think about allergies, even as extreme as anaphylaxis is, I mean, obviously anaphylaxis can be fatal, it’s a serious thing. But your body is actually trying to defend you against some kind of invader that it is perceiving as being very dangerous. And your body is always going to have your short-term survival in the forefront of its mind.

    Mast Cell Activation: The Perfect Storm

    Like, long-term thriving is not necessarily your body’s goal. It’s great if we can get there and I think we all should be able to get there. But really your body is focused on how are you going to survive this moment, this next minute, this next hour. The body will make you chronically ill if it thinks that is going to save your life in the short term.

    So, when we have something like mast cell activation, when things get that serious in the immune system, usually it’s because there has been an onslaught. This is something that tends to develop after things have been going wrong for a while. You know what I mean?

    It’s like, usually, in my experience, people, and this was my story too, they kind of have everything. They have bacterial overgrowth, they have parasites, they may have like a chronic viral infection, they probably have heavy metal toxicity. And then on top of that, usually, some kind of history of trauma or chronic stress.

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    There is definitely a personality type that I’ve found. I mean, I’ve worked with hundreds of clients with mast cell now and there’s definitely a personality type that I relate to very much of people who tend to be very extreme, very all or nothing, who really will go all the way with something, you know? And their bodies tend to have extreme reactions. Their nervous system kind of gets stuck in this pattern of doing all these very intense things and then crashing and doing all these very intense things and then crashing. There is this perfect storm of this high toxicity and this chronic nervous system dysregulation that really feeds into itself.

    Mast Cell Activation: A Place of Despair

    Because once your body starts seeing the world is threatening, it’s going to react that much stronger to things that should objectively be innocuous. That’s why people can get stuck in a corner with this kind of condition. I was like this too. You know, at my worst I had less than ten safe foods, I could barely leave my house cause I was just reacting to everything. I was wearing a mask outside before it was the thing to do because I was just reacting to everything I smelled or came in contact to.

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    People can get really trapped, and clients are like this too, where it’s like, okay, I can eat these five foods and stay in my house and not use any products. It can be a place where you get a lot of despair. Cause you’re like, how can I possibly get out of this bind at this point?

    [00:22:58] Detective Ev: Nicole had talked about this as well. You guys are both describing this. And maybe I was and don’t know, but you’re talking about this reaction to the environment as well.

    I always hated the strong chemicals and stuff. My mom, God bless her, loves cleaning, like literally loves it. So, she would use those strong things. It bothered the heck out of me. She was being nice, she was trying to make sure the bathroom is spotless for my sister and I, cause we shared one as kids. But the chemical smell would get into my room, and it would bother the crap out of me. I never, to be clear, contributed that directly to a reaction. But those things always bothered me or the scented candles or whatever. That’s kind of interesting.

    Mast Cell Activation: Skin Issues

    Where I can relate to this though, cause now I’m quite frankly dissecting this, is the foods thing. I’m like, you know what? I did the same thing with the foods; it became so extreme. It actually took a while.

    I don’t know if this is something that your clients or yourself relate to, but almost psychologically it took me a while to get out of this. Like, oh wait, no, I can expand my foods here. Because you almost become so safe with it, or you feel so safe with it. It’s about as safe as like a zoo, right? Like, you have everything that you need, but you’re still trapped in a certain sense. So, it’s like a pseudo safety. You don’t really want to be there, but it’s the best that you know.

    I just remember realizing, dude, we can try other things now, man. I don’t know that it was extreme reactions in terms of like the breathing stuff even, but it was like acne and skin issues. Is that something that would typically happen to someone with this, or is that not the case always?

    [00:24:20] Jen Donovan: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was actually one of my first major physical symptoms I noticed and one of the last to resolve is these big welty rashes and hives. That is very common.

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    Basically, your skin will often get very red and swollen. Sometimes it’s a lot of really little itchy hives. I personally usually had the bigger, really painful swollen welts all over my skin. Yeah, it can manifest in a lot of different ways, but it’s very common to have those kind of skin symptoms as well.

    Mast Cell Activation: The Holistic Route

    I would also say, just what you were saying about the food, how it becomes like this comfort zone, right? And I think that it’s important to remember like, again, some of the symptoms of this are being pretty obsessive, compulsive, and being very anxious and fearful. This is a symptom that happens with high histamine levels because your body is on alert trying to be aware of any potential threats in your environment.

    But then that makes it very hard to try anything new, or kind of veer off what you feel like is your little, tiny safe zone you’ve created for yourself. So, you can see how this illness can really perpetuate itself without a whole body, holistic intervention.

    [00:25:36] Detective Ev: Okay. You obviously, I know this now, have completely shifted the career in a certain sense. You’re still supporting these people just in a very unique and different way. And I noticed like multiple certifications, clearly well versed and studied in this stuff.

    So, I guess the bigger question is how did you decide that this is what you want to go do as work? And then we’ll talk about what that actually looks like for clients and patients. But I’m more curious, like, when did you decide, hey, I’m going to go from, Jen, the therapist to Jen, the holistic person? Like, this is cool.

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    [00:26:06] Jen Donovan: Well, I’ll bring it back to mental health. I decided to go a holistic route in terms of trying to find treatment for myself. And I knew nothing about alternative medicine at that time. So, I was really just like Googling things and reading blogs really at that point. You know, it’s just how a lot of people start.

    Mast Cell Activation: A Doorway to Deep Transformation

    At first, I was still kind of using an allopathic approach where I was like, well, let me try different supplements, or let me try this magical superfood that’s supposed to help my immune system. But honestly, I just kept reacting to things. I was still looking for the magic pill at that point, just through a more natural, so-called, lens.

    But I hadn’t really shifted my whole mindset yet. I knew that I obviously was experiencing a lot of anxiety and trauma and stress from this whole experience. Because I am a trauma specialist in terms of my mental health work and I do a lot of nervous system regulation practices, I really launched into doing that work for myself. And so, I started really delving into a lot of these somatic nervous system practices just to try to get myself a little more calm and grounded through this massive life crisis I was going through.

    I actually had this really profound experience that happened when I was really lying still, when I was engaged in some of this somatic nervous system work. I don’t know what we want to call it, but I just had this message basically come through to me that was like, look, this is an opportunity.

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    Like, this illness is your doorway to really deep transformation that you have actually needed to do your whole life and you’ve resisted. Basically, like, if you do not take this opportunity, you will just keep getting sicker because this is the universe extending a hand, being like, hey, there’s another way to be, there’s another way to live. You have to go through this illness kind of as the initiation to that. That just completely changed my entire approach.

    Mast Cell Activation: Dissipating Mental Health Symptoms

    I started seeing this as like a way to actually become a better and healthier person than I had ever been before in my life. And at that point, it didn’t even really matter if I got better or not. I just realized that things really needed to change for me no matter what the outcome was.

    So, I just was like, okay, I’m going to start from scratch. I’m going to start from the beginning, start rebuilding my diet, rebuilding my lifestyle. I cut out all the processed foods I was eating, stopped drinking alcohol. You know, I’ve been sober for like seven years now, so it doesn’t seem like a big deal. But at the time it was like a really big deal to just do those basic things, cut out sugar, cut out alcohol, cut out the processed foods, all these high inflammatory foods. I started doing a low histamine diet just to try to get my symptoms under control.

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    The most bizarre thing happened, even though I was still incredibly reactive and severely, chronically fatigued, and all these dysautonomia symptoms, my mental health completely changed. That was the first thing I really noticed. Suddenly the anxiety and the obsessions and the compulsions that I had had my entire life, and it just made me identify as just, oh, I’m just a mentally ill person, they just started dissipating.

    That was just an astounding experience for me, and it made me rethink my entire career. Cause here I had been doing all this talk therapy and nervous system regulation work with my clients, and I still think that’s really beneficial.

    Mast Cell Activation: A Beacon of Hope

    I’m not saying that therapy isn’t important; it is. But suddenly I was like, wow. I was a mental health therapist who could not fix my own mental health issues. And I start going back to the foundations and just making some basic changes in my diet and my daily lifestyle, and suddenly everything shifted in a way it hadn’t before. So, I was like, all right, that’s it. I bought in. Like, there is a world of knowledge here that I need to just completely delve into.

    I was so sick at that point that I really wasn’t working hardly at all. And I was really lucky that I had some support where I could really dedicate myself to healing for about two years. So, I really put my career on hold and just dedicated myself to getting better for about two years. And once I got into remission, it was kind of one of these things where it’s like, well, I could go back to my career as it was, but now I kind of know too much. You know what I mean?

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    And I saw that people don’t understand this condition, you know, people really don’t. There’s not a lot of recovery stories cause this condition is so debilitating and so severe. So, I just vowed to myself like I have to be that beacon of hope for other people who are out there suffering without answers. I just reoriented my entire career towards helping other people on the path.

    [00:31:02] Detective Ev: This is beautiful. I love this. This is probably my favorite part of doing these interviews with people because we have some crazy stories on here, right?

    Mast Cell Activation: The Gift of Passion

    Like, you can talk about this now, but I hope people truly understand what you’re saying. This isn’t a short timeline. This was like the bulk of your life you’ve had some symptoms. Then went through hell with this at one point, turned it around, and still are positive enough to say, oh, you know what? Now I’m actually going to go use this to serve other people. I think that’s the gift that us, as practitioners, are actually given throughout all of this.

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    Yes, we will go through a crazy part of our life. But if we are willing to do this work and the investigation, then come out on the other side, the gift that we are given is that most people wake up every day, unfortunately, and go to work that they are not passionate about and not excited about. I have the gift, you have the gift, of being able to wake up every day, and I do not know what it’s like, in seven, eight years, to say what it is like to go to quoteunquote “work”. I wake up and I’m excited. I’m on a mission, I’m on a journey. It’s clear with every word that you say that you’re in the same boat.

    And so, okay, you decide that this is what we want to go do. You talked about two years, and fair enough, there’s a lot going on. How does this look now for people that you are working with or people that go through your stuff?

    Mast Cell Activation: Long-Term Work

    Because I’m sure you were kind of like me and many other people that hop on this podcast, we’re kind of fumbling around in the beginning. We’re seeing what sticks here and what sticks there. Like, okay, this didn’t work; this made me worse; and this actually works phenomenally. I’ll keep doing this.

    So, how do we apply this now for people that are dealing with these conditions? How do you help them so it’s more concise and structured as opposed to just seeing what sticks?

    [00:32:47] Jen Donovan: Oh yeah. I learned a lot along the way for sure. And I was lucky. I did end up finding some really key mentors that did help point me in the right direction.

    I started learning about the gut microbiome, which is huge. That is like the foundation of a lot of the nutritional work I do, is helping people rebalance the gut microbiome just to get their immune system rebalanced. So, yeah, I really found some good pointers along the way. But yeah, it was a ton of trial and error.

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    But also, like I said, I mean this, once you get mast cell activation, like your immune system’s kind of on its last legs. And the body does not work on the timeline of the modern world. This stuff takes time to rebalance, to settle, and then to actually start healing and repairing. This is long-term work.

    And I think that people who approach this with like, I just need to get better. You know what I mean? Like, I just need to fix this and get better. Honestly, in my experience, those are the people that don’t heal.

    Mast Cell Activation: Effective Interventions

    But people who come to this and say, okay, this is a long-term, full, mind, body, spirit shift that I have the privilege of doing for myself, it doesn’t actually matter what happens to me in the long term, I am going to self- actualize into the person that I always had the potential to be but never really was given the opportunity to become before, those are the people that heal. And that’s really how I had to take it.

    I knew I had really deep faith, but I don’t even totally know where it came from. You know, I just had this innate sense of like, I know I’m going to recover. Like, I don’t care how long it takes, I know that my body is capable of healing. It was the only thing that made sense to me. But I really tried to approach it as like, this is just my journey in life. This is just my journey that I’ve been given, and I am going to completely rebuild my mind, body, and spirit, and will see what happens.

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    So, obviously, in all my experience now, I’ve been working with clients for almost five years now.  And with my own journey, I do know the most effective interventions through all that trial and error, research and learning. So, I have put together some very concrete protocols that I take my clients through. But I really try to have them approach it as, again, this is really just a transformational journey that they are making for themselves as a whole people.

    Mast Cell Activation: Personal Development Journey

    [00:35:16] Detective Ev: It’s amazing. Okay, it’s worded differently, but it’s identical to what I believe at this point, especially hearing so many stories, right? I get the privilege of talking to all these people and it’s always the same thing, at least from the 30,000-foot view. This is as much a personal development journey, if not more, than it is a health journey.

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    If you think that someone like Jen can go from where she was at to where you’re at now without completely transforming the mind, body, and spirit, like you said, that’s just not going to happen. This isn’t, oh, I added a few foods to the diet and then took a few out and now I’m cured. That’s ridiculous.

    This is severe, and that’s why I was trying to restate this a little earlier, you know, basically the last question that I had asked. We talk about these stories now, almost matter of fact, like, oh yeah, this happened in my life. It’s like, no, dude, this is serious. So, the transformation to get to the next place, is it possible? Yes. And is it worth it? Also, yes.

    You used the word privilege. I think it is a privilege. Because again, we get that there’s many aspects. You could say the career side, if you choose to do this as a career, not every client will, of course, but if you choose to do it as a career, that’s a privilege.

    Mast Cell Activation: An Embodied Gratitude

    I think one of the real places that the privilege comes as well, and it applies to clients and practitioners alike, is we all kind of know, and I don’t mean to get too dark, but let’s just call it what it is. If you’ve dealt with the stuff that you’ve dealt with and you had the mental health side on top of it, I’m sure you and I both relate in that we’ve probably had some unfavorable thoughts about our lives at one point.

    You know, do I even want to be here anymore? I’ll put it that way. When you get to the other side, and now again you’re waking up every day excited, there’s a gratitude for life and just the simple things that, again, I don’t think most people get to understand just because they don’t have the contrast.

    I’m like, I know what it is like to wake up every day and, one, feel like hell. But two, just think, what’s the point of me being here? Now I wake up, man, going and playing something like pickleball. I’m like the happiest dude in the world. And most people are when they play pickleball; it’s amazing. Shout out.

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    But it’s just the simple things in life, just being able to wake up and, wow, I can breathe. Wake up. Wow. I’m not in chronic pain. I’m not freaking out cause I wasn’t able to sleep more than two hours last night. There is an embodied gratitude that you can’t fake from that. And it just makes your experience for the rest of your time here all the more better.

    Mast Cell Activation: Start with the Foundations

    So, I know that we can’t give away all the secret sauce, and this is, again, very complicated. If we had to give any advice though to someone that maybe is dealing with the things that we’re talking about today, Jen, and they’re listening and they’re like, you know what, I want to work with her, I just gotta get this figured out first. I need maybe some basic tips cause maybe they spent a bunch of money, I don’t know. Where would be the best place for them to start?

    [00:37:55] Jen Donovan: It is really the foundations. I mean, I’ll just go a little more into my story to explain how I developed my own Six Support Protocols that I use with clients.

    You know, I did eventually find a naturopath that I worked with that was one of the first clinicians that didn’t just want to give me antihistamines and call it good. You know, it was really like, no, you’re right. There is a reason that your body is doing this and we’re going to figure out the root cause.

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    And so, I spent a ton of money on testing, you know, as you do. Basically, everything came back positive like I said before. It’s like, oh, you have parasites, you have bacterial overgrowth. Oh, you have a chronic viral infection. You have heavy metal toxicity too. It was just so daunting. Like, it did help me be like, okay, wow! My immune system really is in crisis with everything that is going on inside my body.

    Mast Cell Activation: Rebalancing the Microbiome

    Suddenly, I have so much compassion for my immune system now. It really is doing its best to fight for me, you know? And it’s just, I have these extreme side effects from my immune system really trying to save my life against all these really devastating threats.

    But you know, I think that a lot of times, even when it comes to natural medicine, the answer is, well here, take these two pages of supplements. Right? And like I said before, when you have something like mast cell activation, you are so reactive that that’s just not real for you. That’s just not something you can do. It’s going to make you so much worse.

    And these heavy detox protocols that are often recommended as well, when you have this kind of toxicity, like way too hard on the body. When you have mast cell activation, you are so depleted, your body is so weak, your detox pathways are so weak and congested, like, that will often send people into an even deeper crash. I tried to do these things and it just never took. If anything, it would make things worse. So, it really was about getting down to the minute nuance of foundational practices. I had to really pair down. Nutrition is huge.

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    Like I said, a huge amount of this is about rebalancing the microbiome. I am a GAPS practitioner and I use the specific carbohydrate diet principles to help people rebalance their microbiome and therefore rebalance their immune system. But it’s really tough. I was eating like chicken and a couple vegetables and then like rice and oatmeal. Then it’s like, okay, well you have to cut out the rice and oatmeal. Then it’s like, great. That’s really so classic.

    Mast Cell Activation: Nitpicky Nutrition

    People out there listening who have mast cell activation, this will sound very familiar. It’s like, oh, I can eat carrots, bok choy, lamb, and then oatmeal, and I’m telling them to cut out the oatmeal. You know, that’s so, so scary. But it really is about getting into those minute details of really being specific with the exact foods that you’re eating.

    I always say like with nutrition, you should only restrict as much as you have to get better. Like, you don’t have to do unnecessary restriction. But when it comes to something as extreme as mast cell activation, your gut microbiome is so imbalanced that you do have to be incredibly nitpicky with every single thing you eat because it is going to make a difference when you are at that level of illness.

    So, I do have very intensive dietary protocols I do with people. Some people I take all the way carnivore. You know, I think that’s a really useful therapeutic tool for a short period of time just to get people stabilized. But I have other versions of a GAPS-like, or a specific carbohydrate-like diet that I will do with people within the parameters of their tolerance.

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    And I think that’s the biggest thing is meeting people where they’re at and not being obsessed with just trying to add diversity in the diet just for the sake of adding diversity. Sometimes you do have to really pair down to rebalance things, but it has to be done in a very strategic way that is going to allow you to expand in the long term.

    So, I did this and my clients tend to eat very, very simple diets just to get that rebalancing happening. That’s the nutrition piece.

    Mast Cell Activation: Nervous System Regulation Work

    But like I said, this is really a mind, body, spirit thing. So, I do a lot of nervous system regulation work with people. Usually, people with mast cell activation feel like their body is trying to kill them, and understandably. I mean, especially if anaphylaxis is a part of your picture, it’s like, wow, why is my body doing this to me? So, you get into this very antagonistic relationship with your own body.

    That is just going to make you sicker and sicker and sicker because now you have an enemy that is you, ultimately, right? And that is a state of distress that cannot be resolved. So, there has to be this huge reframing that happens where you start to recognize your symptoms as your immune system trying to save your life. It just sucks that it is so debilitating, and it causes all these debilitating symptoms as a side effect.

    But if you can learn to collaborate with your immune system and see your symptoms as just messages, as communication devices, and start to work with your body, everything changes. Suddenly, all the really difficult, deep, hard work you have to do, again, it seems like you’re going into battle with a buddy as opposed to just fighting something that you can’t escape.

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    So, I do a huge amount of mindset work, nervous system regulation work. I mean, I could go on, but I have Six Support Protocols that I implement with people.

    Where to Find Jen Donovan

    [00:43:38] Detective Ev: Thank you. Okay. I want to kinda almost separate these two things. So, I know that obviously you take on clients directly and offer things for them. But we were talking about, off air, this thing with Lindy and this partnership, where it seems like you’ll almost be able to serve our practitioner base. I’m highly interested in this. So, let’s almost make the cutoff there because we have both people listening in our audience; I know that for a fact.

    If someone is interested in working with you, they’re a client, they clicked on this because they searched for this on Google, our podcast came up and they’re blessed enough to hear this today, where can they find you for that? And then my next question will be, can we talk about what this partnership might look like with FDN and what you have to offer practitioners afterwards?

    WHERE TO FIND JEN DONOVAN, MAST CELL ACTIVATION, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST

    [00:44:18] Jen Donovan: Absolutely. So, my website’s wholebodyhealingwithjen.com and I have all of my different services.

    I actually have a book out on Amazon that if people just want to get a little more of a feel for me and an overview of my Six Support Protocols, they can get that. It’s called Rebuild Yourself: Whole Body Practices to Heal Your Brain and Nervous System.

    It is not specifically written for mast cell activation, although it will benefit you if that’s what you have. It’s written for a little bit more of a broader audience though, of just anyone that’s having issues with the gut-brain access. So, it’s more focused on mental health and nervous system health and all of that stuff, but still very, all-encompassing.

    Jen’s Program

    Then I do, like you mentioned, small group intensive coaching programs; they’re six-month programs. They’re long and they’re very intensive cause the work I’m asking people to do, it’s a lot. And I find that people do better when they have really, really comprehensive support along the way.

    WORKING WITH PEOPLE, HELPING PEOPLE, CLOSELY, SUPPORT, POTENTIAL, STICK WITH IT

    So, you have a lot of access to me during that six months to make sure we get you through the tough times that come along with truly healing yourself. It really can be a hero’s journey in terms of like kind of going through the underworld to be able to see the light on the other side. I want to make sure that I’m really there working with people closely to get them through that and to really see the potential that is going to be there if they stick with it.

    But yeah. You want me to talk about my course as well right now?

    [00:45:46] Detective Ev: Please. I’m asking just for myself if nothing else.

    [00:45:49] Jen Donovan: Yeah. So, honestly, I feel like, unfortunately, I wish it didn’t have to happen this way, but with Covid and everything that happened in the last few years, I’m really starting to see my purpose. Because I was in pretty much full remission by 2019 and starting to start my health coaching business.

    Then what happened in 2020, right? So, what was once something that no one had heard of, mast cell activation, both from the virus itself and from the vaccines, now this is becoming a condition that a lot of doctors have at least heard of.

    Jen’s Course & Community Forum

    Honestly, I’ve seen it being like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing. Half the people coming to me with mast cell activation now got it from the virus and half got it from the vaccine. It’s all across the board. People are really struggling with this now.

    Suddenly, I see my purpose where it’s like, I recovered from this just in time to be able to help the massive amount of people who are now developing this condition in the face of what’s happened over the last few years. I have just had my business exploding because I’m one of the few practitioners that not only has recovered from this condition, but really knows how to work with it.

    So, I made my pre-recorded course called Rebuild Your Histamine Response, just to help get this information out there more quickly so I don’t have to meet with everyone personally to teach them how to heal that. You can just get on my course and get started. It has my Six Support Protocols on there that you can start walking through on your own.

    MAST CELL ACTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH CONNECTION, PHYSCIAL HEALTH, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST, DIAGNOSTIC, MAST CELL ACTIVATION SYNDROME, HOLISTIC ROUTE, MINDSET, PERSONAL GROWTH, INCREDIBLE PEOPLE

    It also has a community forum. It’s a really beautiful group of people that I’ve gathered on there. I think because I focus so much on mindset and personal growth as a part of the process, it attracts just really incredible people. So, it’s not your average chronic illness Facebook group. It’s a really lovely forum, very positive, very helpful. So, yeah, that’s out there just for people to get started on.

    [00:48:00] Detective Ev: We’ll make sure all this is in the show notes. And if you are an FDN practitioner or trainee, stay tuned because there definitely seems like there’s going to be something here, I’m fully convinced.

    Signature Podcast Question – More Exposure to Nature

    To whatever degree I can push things along, I’m going to support that fully. And man, you nailed the timing even.

    So, Jen, people know where they can find you. Incredible story today. Thank you so much for that. I want to finish up today with a more general question. It could be about the mast cell stuff, but it could also just be general, like I said, it doesn’t really matter. It’s our signature question on the show and we always finish with it.

    So, the question I want to ask you, with all of the knowledge you have, all of this experience, all this research, if you could get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, (so you could either get them to start doing one thing or you can get every one of us to stop doing one thing), what is the one thing that Jen would get them to do?

    PODCAST SIGNATURE QUESTION, EXPOSURE TO NATURE, BASIC, ALL-ENCOMPASSING, FDN, FDNTRAINING, HEALTH DETECTIVE PODCAST

    [00:48:53] Jen Donovan: I would want everyone to just have more exposure to nature. That’s really, really basic and all encompassing. But I really believe a huge part of our health crisis that we’re seeing today is because we are seeing ourselves as separate from nature. And truly like no matter how you look at it, whether it’s like the makeup of minerals that’s like in our cellular fluid, or whether it’s our microbiome,

    we are an ecosystem, and we are connected to the ecosystem around us. I really think true healing is coming back into balance with our environment and with nature. And so if I could get everyone access to just a natural space, where they could put their feet in the dirt and get exposed to sunlight, I just think that would be transformative.

    Conclusion

    [00:49:45] Detective Ev: Perfect, I could not agree more. We could spend a whole podcast and a few probably, on that. So, Jen, thank you so much for coming on with us today.

    [00:49:53] Jen Donovan: Thank you so much. This was a lovely conversation.

    You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com. Our Instagram handle is @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/.

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    Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

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  • Finland, diet, cholesterol & heart disease – Diet and Health Today

    Finland, diet, cholesterol & heart disease – Diet and Health Today

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    This article is a continuation of last week’s review of the North Karelia study, which linked reducing saturated fat to a decrease in deaths from heart disease. In the previous note, we explored counterarguments to this claim. This article goes further to provide additional points based on my original research.

    First, it’s worth noting that the Seven Countries Study (SCS) featured two cohorts in Finland: west Finland and North Karelia. Both cohorts had similar diets and cholesterol levels, but deaths from coronary heart disease were substantially different. Last week’s note explained that war and displacement likely accounted for this discrepancy, not fat or cholesterol.

    Secondly, the North Karelia study replaced butter with rapeseed oil, which contains plant sterols that lower cholesterol. However, plant sterols have been found to worsen heart disease. Therefore, the use of rapeseed oil in the study doesn’t necessarily support the notion that reducing saturated fat intake is beneficial for heart health.

    My PhD reviewed evidence from all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that reduced dietary fat or saturated fat in favour of unsaturated fat. The RCTs that successfully lowered cholesterol levels, primarily through the plant sterol mechanism, failed to make any significant impact on mortality, whether from heart disease or other causes.

    Finally, both Finland cohorts had the highest recorded average cholesterol levels of all 16 cohorts in the SCS. I suggest that this is because they are located furthest away from the equator – Natural sunlight hitting cholesterol in our skin cell membranes turns the cholesterol into vitamin D. With reduced sunlight, in countries further away from the equator, there is reduced sunlight to turn cholesterol into vitamin D.

    The full version of this article can be read below

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    Zoe

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  • Breakfast Cereals and Tooth Decay | NutritionFacts.org

    Breakfast Cereals and Tooth Decay | NutritionFacts.org

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    Which foods have the greatest cavity-causing potential? 

    Nearly half a century ago at a Senate hearing on nutrition, a Dr. Nizel from Tufts suggested that sugary breakfast cereals “should be banned in the best interest for all concerned, particularly children,” perhaps not surprisingly, since he was a professor of dental medicine. 

    As I discuss in my video Flashback Friday: The Worst Food for Tooth Decay, a dozen different foods and beverages were tested in a study and ranked for their “cariogenic potential”—their cavity-causing potential—by implanting electrodes in the mouths of study participants to measure the amount of acid produced in the plaque between their teeth after eating a variety of different foods. The two breakfast cereals tested topped the charts, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:42 in my video. 

    If you drink sugar water, the pH on your teeth plunges within minutes into the acidic danger zone and stays there for an hour, eating away at your teeth. Caramel is worse. It sticks to your teeth, so it stays longer, and your pH goes down even deeper into the acid zone. However, with the two breakfast cereals (corn flake and wheat flake), it went down and stayed down even two hours later. 

    We’ve known about the cavity-causing potential of presweetened breakfast cereals for decades. As you can see below and at 1:16 in my video, a dozen such cereals—Cookie Crisp, Cocoa Krispies, Froot Loops, Sugar Corn Pops, Sugar Frosted Flakes, Cap’n Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Powdered Donutz, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Grape-Nuts, Rice Krispies, and Cheerios—were put to the test to measure the level of tooth-dissolving acid produced by the strain of bacteria that causes cavities. As one might expect, the cavity-generating potential was “found to be related directly to the sugar content of each cereal,” though Frosted Mini-Wheats was an exception. Despite having 40 percent less sugar than cereals like Froot Loops or Frosted Flakes, Frosted Mini-Wheats caused the greatest calcium demineralization, ranking second only to the now defunct “Powdered Donutz” in cavity-causing potential. A study of 28 different cereals concluded, “Unquestionably, the sugar concentrations in these twenty-eight cereals are sufficiently high to qualify them as dentally dangerous from that aspect.” 

    Wanting to be good corporate citizens, General Mills took its Super Sugar Crisp, which was 44 percent sugar, and reduced the sugar—well, it reduced the font size of the word “sugar” on the product box. Then, since it cares about children’s health so much, it removed sugar altogether—from the product name. Super Sugar Crisp was renamed Super Golden Crisp. 

    Kellogg’s cares, too. Though Sugar Smacks is where space energy comes from, at least according to a classic box of the product featuring an image of Spock from Star Trek, it doesn’t sound as wholesome as Honey Smacks, which it was later renamed. Same cereal, healthier-sounding name. Kellogg’s did remove sugar from Corn Pops and Frosted Flakes—from the front of the boxes. 

    And Cookie Crisp? I think the fact that it’s made by a dog food company, says it all. 

    But General Mills protests. A study it did in which teens were randomized to either receive free cereal delivered to their homes or not found that those who got the cereal didn’t seem to get any more cavities, supposedly proving that breakfast cereal is harmless for your teeth. Care to take a guess at the study’s fatal flaw? The kids in the control group were free to just have their parents buy them sugary cereals from the store, so both the experimental group and the control group may have been eating the same cereal “with the only difference being that the experimental group received its cereal free and the control group children paid for their cereal.” 

    What did the General Mills researchers have to say for themselves? “Dietary controls so rigid as to exclude the ingestion of cereals by children would be difficult, if not impossible, in a long-term study.” Then that’s not a control group! 

    This is similar to a certain Kellogg’s-funded paper that maintained if we didn’t feed kids sugar, we could virtually eliminate cavities, but “this ideal is impractical.” So, Kellogg’s took the middle-ground and come up with Froot Loops with marshmallows. At least they’re fruit-shaped or at least “fruity shaped”! 

    Observational studies have also failed to link breakfast cereal consumption with cavity prevalence or incidence, though. This is presumed to be because eating cereal with milk helps clear food particles from the mouth. Though Frosted Mini-Wheats did lead to the same sugar retention in the saliva ten minutes after intake with or without milk, the other cereals were cleared out faster. However, “sugared cereals are often eaten as snacks by kids without milk, which makes the sugar more likely to stick to the teeth…” 

    Ten minutes after the ingestion of dry sugary cereals, you’re left with nearly 50 times the sugar residue in your mouth, compared to swishing down the sugar in liquid form. The researchers concluded that “it is inconceivable to contest the fact that frequent between-meal ingestion of high-sugar, physically retentive products, cereal or otherwise, is dentally hazardous. Whether or not meal-time eating of sugared cereals induce caries [cavities] is not the point…because considerable amounts of them are eaten between meals, they have a marked potential for dental danger.”  

    Flashback Friday: Which Is a Better Breakfast—Cereal or Oatmeal? Stay tuned for the video coming out in a few weeks and, in the meantime, check out how to make A Better Breakfast.

    Studies like the one from General Mills are the reason it’s so important to look beyond the headlines and why I dedicate so much time to pointing out research flaws and red flags. The lesson is to always check the primary source—or just let me do it for you! 

    Citrus can also have an acidifying effect on teeth, so always rinse after consuming it. See Plant-Based Diets: Dental Health to learn more. 

    When it comes to caring for your teeth, Don’t Use Antiseptic Mouthwash. Watch Flashback Friday: What’s the Best Mouthwash? for a better option. Find out How to Stop Tooth Decay. 

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Breakfast Cereals and Tooth Decay | NutritionFacts.org

    Breakfast Cereals and Tooth Decay | NutritionFacts.org

    [ad_1]

    Which foods have the greatest cavity-causing potential? 

    Nearly half a century ago at a Senate hearing on nutrition, a Dr. Nizel from Tufts suggested that sugary breakfast cereals “should be banned in the best interest for all concerned, particularly children,” perhaps not surprisingly, since he was a professor of dental medicine. 

    As I discuss in my video Flashback Friday: The Worst Food for Tooth Decay, a dozen different foods and beverages were tested in a study and ranked for their “cariogenic potential”—their cavity-causing potential—by implanting electrodes in the mouths of study participants to measure the amount of acid produced in the plaque between their teeth after eating a variety of different foods. The two breakfast cereals tested topped the charts, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:42 in my video. 

    If you drink sugar water, the pH on your teeth plunges within minutes into the acidic danger zone and stays there for an hour, eating away at your teeth. Caramel is worse. It sticks to your teeth, so it stays longer, and your pH goes down even deeper into the acid zone. However, with the two breakfast cereals (corn flake and wheat flake), it went down and stayed down even two hours later. 

    We’ve known about the cavity-causing potential of presweetened breakfast cereals for decades. As you can see below and at 1:16 in my video, a dozen such cereals—Cookie Crisp, Cocoa Krispies, Froot Loops, Sugar Corn Pops, Sugar Frosted Flakes, Cap’n Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Powdered Donutz, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Grape-Nuts, Rice Krispies, and Cheerios—were put to the test to measure the level of tooth-dissolving acid produced by the strain of bacteria that causes cavities. As one might expect, the cavity-generating potential was “found to be related directly to the sugar content of each cereal,” though Frosted Mini-Wheats was an exception. Despite having 40 percent less sugar than cereals like Froot Loops or Frosted Flakes, Frosted Mini-Wheats caused the greatest calcium demineralization, ranking second only to the now defunct “Powdered Donutz” in cavity-causing potential. A study of 28 different cereals concluded, “Unquestionably, the sugar concentrations in these twenty-eight cereals are sufficiently high to qualify them as dentally dangerous from that aspect.” 

    Wanting to be good corporate citizens, General Mills took its Super Sugar Crisp, which was 44 percent sugar, and reduced the sugar—well, it reduced the font size of the word “sugar” on the product box. Then, since it cares about children’s health so much, it removed sugar altogether—from the product name. Super Sugar Crisp was renamed Super Golden Crisp. 

    Kellogg’s cares, too. Though Sugar Smacks is where space energy comes from, at least according to a classic box of the product featuring an image of Spock from Star Trek, it doesn’t sound as wholesome as Honey Smacks, which it was later renamed. Same cereal, healthier-sounding name. Kellogg’s did remove sugar from Corn Pops and Frosted Flakes—from the front of the boxes. 

    And Cookie Crisp? I think the fact that it’s made by a dog food company, says it all. 

    But General Mills protests. A study it did in which teens were randomized to either receive free cereal delivered to their homes or not found that those who got the cereal didn’t seem to get any more cavities, supposedly proving that breakfast cereal is harmless for your teeth. Care to take a guess at the study’s fatal flaw? The kids in the control group were free to just have their parents buy them sugary cereals from the store, so both the experimental group and the control group may have been eating the same cereal “with the only difference being that the experimental group received its cereal free and the control group children paid for their cereal.” 

    What did the General Mills researchers have to say for themselves? “Dietary controls so rigid as to exclude the ingestion of cereals by children would be difficult, if not impossible, in a long-term study.” Then that’s not a control group! 

    This is similar to a certain Kellogg’s-funded paper that maintained if we didn’t feed kids sugar, we could virtually eliminate cavities, but “this ideal is impractical.” So, Kellogg’s took the middle-ground and come up with Froot Loops with marshmallows. At least they’re fruit-shaped or at least “fruity shaped”! 

    Observational studies have also failed to link breakfast cereal consumption with cavity prevalence or incidence, though. This is presumed to be because eating cereal with milk helps clear food particles from the mouth. Though Frosted Mini-Wheats did lead to the same sugar retention in the saliva ten minutes after intake with or without milk, the other cereals were cleared out faster. However, “sugared cereals are often eaten as snacks by kids without milk, which makes the sugar more likely to stick to the teeth…” 

    Ten minutes after the ingestion of dry sugary cereals, you’re left with nearly 50 times the sugar residue in your mouth, compared to swishing down the sugar in liquid form. The researchers concluded that “it is inconceivable to contest the fact that frequent between-meal ingestion of high-sugar, physically retentive products, cereal or otherwise, is dentally hazardous. Whether or not meal-time eating of sugared cereals induce caries [cavities] is not the point…because considerable amounts of them are eaten between meals, they have a marked potential for dental danger.”  

    Flashback Friday: Which Is a Better Breakfast—Cereal or Oatmeal? Stay tuned for the video coming out in a few weeks and, in the meantime, check out how to make A Better Breakfast.

    Studies like the one from General Mills are the reason it’s so important to look beyond the headlines and why I dedicate so much time to pointing out research flaws and red flags. The lesson is to always check the primary source—or just let me do it for you! 

    Citrus can also have an acidifying effect on teeth, so always rinse after consuming it. See Plant-Based Diets: Dental Health to learn more. 

    When it comes to caring for your teeth, Don’t Use Antiseptic Mouthwash. Watch Flashback Friday: What’s the Best Mouthwash? for a better option. Find out How to Stop Tooth Decay. 

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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