Are butter and other saturated fats bad for you or not?
My video Friday Favorites: Is Butter Really Back? What the Science Says explores the uses and misuses of research on butter consumption and health. Time magazine famously exhorted people to “Eat Butter” and no doubt sold a lot of magazines, but perhaps at the cost of selling the public short. The publication followed up with an article that doubled down, saying that “the case for eating butter just got stronger.” It was based on the study “Is Butter Back? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Butter Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, and Total Mortality” and claimed: “Pooling these studies, each daily serving of butter (14g/d) was associated with a 1% higher risk of death.” Hold on. One percent? That’s the study that’s supposed to make the case to eat butter stronger? Further, the study suggests that swapping just a spoonful or so of oil in place of butter every day might drop the risk of diabetes by 8 percent. “Thus, even with the absence of major health associations in the present investigation, healthier (and less healthy) alternatives may be available.” A 1 percent increase in death is pretty tiny, though. Why didn’t the researchers find a larger effect? Well, butter is just a tiny part of people’s overall diets. It’s illustrative to review the candy literature.
The National Confectioner’s Association is fond of contracting with scientists-for-hire like those at Exponent Inc., a company infamous for shilling for Big Tobacco and chemical companies. As you can see below and at 1:22 in my video, it encourages people to eat candy every day—but “in moderation,” like 15 to 25 jelly beans a day. Parents who restrict foods “in an effort to moderate a child’s intake of calories” are just going to make their kids fat, argue such scientists-for-hire.
See, parents use “coercive practices…to limit children’s access to palatable, energy-dense, or low-nutrient foods, which may include when, how often, or how much can be consumed.” Isn’t it outrageous that parents have the gall to tell their kids when, how often, or how much candy can be consumed? Don’t they know that butter(scotch) is back? “Evidence suggests that it [candy] is not associated with adverse health effects.” Don’t believe me? Ten thousand kids surveyed in one study were asked if they had eaten candy within the last 24 hours, and, after researchers compared those who said yes to those who said no, they concluded: “Current levels of candy consumption were not associated with adverse health parameters in children or adolescents.” And, this was a study in which the authors declared no conflicts of interest—even though it was a study about candy funded by the candy industry. Seems like interests were a bit conflicted.
Do you see how it would be hard to tease out the specific health effects of candy with such a blunt instrument? We don’t need a study, though, because we already know what candy is: It’s candy. It’s mostly pure sugar. We already eat too much sugar and certainly don’t need more. You don’t need to pay off researchers to come up with a study like this about candy or devise one about butter. We already know what butter is: It’s butter. It’s mostly pure saturated fat. We already eat too much saturated fat and certainly don’t need more. Anyway, it gets even wilder. Claimed the scientists-for-hire, “Candy consumers were…less likely to be overweight and obese than non-candy consumers.” Really? Maybe the candy company was right. Pass the Peeps!
“Is candy eating a way to control body weight?” What’s an alternative explanation of why obese children eat less candy? Reverse causation. Perhaps it’s not that cutting down on candy led to obesity, but rather obesity led to cutting down on candy. In other words, the “reported candy consumption…reflects consequences of obesity, not causes,” just like people with heart disease may cut down on butter, clouding the association. And, remember, it was reported candy consumption, which brings up the specter of reporting bias. “In other words, overweight children or adolescents may underreport their intake of confectionery [candy] to a greater extent than do those of normal weight.”
Otherwise, “what would the implications of the finding” be? Do we want to randomize kids to eat more candy to see if it makes them lose weight? “It is doubtful that any ethical committee would be happy about this kind of a proposal,” but you don’t know until you put it to the test. Feed folks extra candy or the same number of extra calories in the form of peanuts, and surprise, surprise: Those who ate all of that extra candy gained more weight.
There was an interventional trial that showed that candy can improve ADHD symptoms, though. What’s the story with that? If you’re the Mars candy bar company and want to fund a study showing that candy bars help kids focus, what would you do? The “parents were sent a formal letter instructing them not to feed their child after 10 p.m. and to send them to school without breakfast,” then the children were given a candy bar or an aspartame beverage, basically nothing. And, what do you know? Feeding kids something rather than nothing “enhanced [their] ability to stay on task.” That reminds me of a Frosted Mini-Wheats ad that you can see at 5:08 in my video that boasted the cereal was “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20 percent” with the really fine print explaining that this was compared to kids who ate no breakfast at all.
Butter has been put to the test, too. As you can see at 5:29 in my video, give people a single meal with butter, and you see a boost of inflammatory gene expression within just hours of consumption, significantly more than you’d see after they ate the same amount of fat in olive oil or walnuts. You can randomize people to foods made with all sorts of different fats, and butter has been shown to be the worst in terms of LDL cholesterol. Those were short-term studies, though. It’s not as if you can randomize people to eat or avoid butter for years—unless they’re patients in a mental hospital, and that was the case for one study where researchers showed that you can raise or lower their cholesterol and cut coronary events by about 40 percent just by switching diets. The study participants also cut down on meat and eggs, however, so it wasn’t only butter.
You can’t get a whole country to cut down on butter, or can you? A 75 percent drop in butter consumption in Finland helped create an 80 percent drop in heart disease mortality, which was driven largely by the countrywide drop in cholesterol levels, which was largely driven by the countrywide dietary changes to lower saturated fat intake, such as moving away from butter.
The bottom line is that researchers have put it to the test in randomized, controlled trials involving more than 50,000 people and found that the more you decrease saturated fat content, the more your cholesterol drops, and the greater the protection. “Lifestyle advice to all those at risk of cardiovascular disease…should continue to include permanent reduction of dietary saturated fat…” The American Heart Association got so fed up with industry attempts to confuse people that it released a Presidential Advisory in 2017 to make it as clear as possible. “The main sources of saturated fat to be decreased” include butter.
[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 health coaching packages.
Well, I am finally back in action here after the wisdom tooth surgery. For those that don’t know the story, basically I have four wisdom teeth and all of them are impacted. I waited super long to get any of them out. Initially, I got the first one out two years ago, which was extremely dumb. It’s just I didn’t want to get all four out, I didn’t feel a need to do that. I thought I could risk it, and it did work for two years, obviously. But then another one started acting up and the pain got bad enough that I went to the surgeon.
He basically just said, listen, you’re going to come in in like a few days. We’re going to get these out and we’re going to be good to go. I trusted them so I said, all right. So, I got the other three out. It was just not fun because it hurts, and the jaw is very sore at this point. But I’m getting to the point where I can kind of talk normally.
Forgive me if something sounds silly on this episode, or I have a lisp or even slurring. That is just because of the words being messed up with the jaw. I could keep trying to rerecord each part, but at some point, it just gets a little ridiculous. So, I should be good for this one. It is mostly just sore and I’m happy to be bringing some interviews back to you guys pretty soon.
A Powerful Mental Health Story Coming Up
What we had to do is skip Monday of this week if you’re listening to this at the time that it dropped, which is a Thursday. But we will be back again with interviews coming up soon.
I actually have some interesting ones. One is going to be a client that has a really powerful mental health story. He got some resolution, or at least some relief after all these years of suffering and going through the Western medicine route. So, listen up for his episode.
We did that actually in response to one of the comments that someone left in our reviews. So, thank you. We do actually read those; we do check those out. Someone said, it’d be great to hear what a client is like, not just someone who’s a practitioner, even if they have an amazing story. It’d still be cool to hear from the client themselves. So, we’re going to do that. We’re bringing one on.
That might not be the only time that we do that, but this one was just low hanging fruit. I knew he’s a good friend and he has spoken professionally, so he is a really great storyteller. You guys are in for a treat with that one.
Dr. Josh Friedman Coming Up Soon
Then on the topic of mental health, we’ll have our friend Dr. Josh Friedman on. I interviewed him almost four or five years ago now for a separate podcast. Dr. Josh Friedman is a psychologist. He obviously turned functional, that’s why we’re having him on. He is very well versed in amino acid therapy. Somehow in 200 something episodes, we’ve never had someone on to talk just about that. I find myself saying that a lot.
I don’t know if I’m actually surprised because 200 something episodes seems like a lot, but then I always forget we are in the world of like medicine here. That’s what we’re talking about and it’s just a massive topic that never ends. So, maybe that’s why it seems like we don’t hit on things sometimes that you’d think we would’ve hit on in 200 something episodes.
But I would look out for him. That guy’s great. I think I am a little better versed at the topic this time, meaning that I will have better questions for him.
KetoCon 2023
Last, but not least, we have two places that you can join us for events that are upcoming in the near future. One, and this is one, if you can make it to, I would highly recommend getting there. Maybe you live locally or just want to come in even for a day. We have a ton of FDN staff coming down and a lot of practitioners will be in attendance in the audience.
It is KetoCon 2023 in beautiful Austin, Texas. That is at the end of this month, Friday, April 21st till Sunday the 23rd. I’m trying to think of how many people are going to be there from the staff. Let’s go through the list.
We got Reed Davis, founder of FDN and his wife. Reed’s going to be key noting. I’ll be there with my girlfriend. Ryan Monahan, clinical advisor, and Lindy Curtis, his significant other are going to be there. Lindy actually works in our affiliate and marketing department nowadays. Brenda is going to be there, and Brenda just came on the team for some marketing stuff. Elizabeth Gaines, she is the course supervisor at this point. So, you guys will see her if you are trainees. You definitely know her very well. Brianne Gates is coming. She was just on, she’s my fellow course enrollment advisor, which leads me to my last announcement.
CellCore Conference 2023
The other event that is going to be less attended by staff, but I’ll be there for whatever that’s worth to you. We will officially be at the CellCore conference May of 2023. That is going to be in Boise, Idaho.
I have only been to Idaho one time for probably a few hours, so I’m excited to get to go to Boise. That’s going to be fun. Yeah, you can see me there. I know a lot of FDN practitioners are going to be there in attendance. It’s not going to be well staffed by us, per se, but there’s going to be a ton in attendance. Super cool event. Very educational, so check out that as well.
Joining the FDN Course Enrollment Team
Final announcement, the reason Brianne Gates made me think about that is because I actually joined FDN in the course enrollment team side. It was a tricky thing. It was tough.
For those of you that have been listening for a while, my job outside of this is I speak professionally in schools, and I would still do that. It is not something I’ve taken away. But historically I’ve done that mostly like majority of the time through a nonprofit, which is wonderful.
I loved being able to serve that organization and they let me speak way more than you ever could really independently. You would have to be famous to be speaking as much as I was through that organization. But it’s a nonprofit. So, it’s getting to a point where even though I love that work and it is one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life, the issue is the amount of time that I’m putting into that for the money that a nonprofit is able to provide.
At 27 years old that’s just no longer sustainable for me. I have a girlfriend that we’re planning a future together. We have other endeavors that we want to be a part of. It just made more sense to be able to make salaried income while being at home. You know what I mean?
Like I can be at home here right now, or I can be traveling with my girlfriend, and we can go do that somewhere else. But I’m adding like 50,000 to 60,000 miles a year to my car. My record year was 70 plus thousand miles, believe it or not. You guys would think I’m stupid if I told you how much I was making doing that.
Call to Talk About the FDN Course
It’s nowhere near justified to be adding that much mileage to my car and the time that I’m spending leaving the house at 5:00 AM to drive two hours, go do six presentations in a day, drive two hours back, and then still need to work other jobs outside of it just to survive. Your heart’s in the right place, but your brain needs to get in the right place as well. So, I’ll still be doing that, doing it independently.
But I did join FDN now. My point in mentioning that is if you are ever interested in talking about the FDN course, maybe you’ve been considering pursuing it, you can now talk to myself or Brianne Gates at the time of recording this. I believe there will be someone else coming on soon, that’s why I say at the time of recording this. But I will have the link below. It is fdntraining.com/call, it will be in the show notes.
With that said, today, if you can’t already tell by my incredibly long intro, I’m flying solo. This is going to be a shorter topic. It’s not going to be a 50-minute episode. But since I haven’t been able to really talk for the last week and a half, I’m feeling chatty despite the pain. I wanted to talk to you guys about something really cool that we just discovered for my in-person business where my girlfriend and other people do FDN type stuff, and we have other practitioners there. It’s about the financing.
Health Coaching Packages: How to Price Them
I did not know FDNs would get approved for this, and we certainly did. I have to shout out my friend Kim Boehm, she’s been on before. Kim was the genius that brought this to me. I think it’s amazing, and I cannot even imagine how much this would help other people’s businesses in the world of FDN. I will break all of the financing stuff down. But first I want to get to the package structure because that’s kind of a two for one today.
We’re going to be talking about how to price your packages as a functional health coach or health coach, or whatever you want to call yourself. Then the financing opportunities with this company that I just learned about. We’re not affiliated, I don’t get any kick or anything from them. Kim Boehm taught me about it. She’s an FDN that does very well for herself, and we are immediately applying this. So, let’s break this down.
In terms of the package pricing and how to structure it, when you go through the FDN course, Reed Davis will teach you that. Ideally, you want to set a three-month program and use all of the FDN labs. Reed is a phenomenal salesperson, he’s very good at this. He was the one who enrolled, I believe it was, the first 2000 FDN graduates or something, trainees were enrolled by Reed Davis himself. That is insane to think about.
Now, of course we have other people that help with this and the course enrollment team, but one guy was out there doing that. You know, he’s good at what he does.
Health Coaching Packages: Three Tiers and a 3.5
He’s good at talking to the right people about this course and getting them to enroll if he believes that they are going to be a good fit and it’s going to benefit them. So, he is the epitome of a good salesperson. Reed has recognized throughout the years based on the feedback from trainees and graduates that not everyone is like him in terms of being able to talk about this and sell it at a high level.
That does not mean you can’t actually sell the same packages as him and charge what you should charge. But it might mean that your way of getting to that level might have to be a little more incremental than just literally selling someone a $3,000, $4,000 package right up front, no exceptions, nothing else to do. You either pay this or you don’t. There’s a way to do that. We can structure the packages in a certain way to make that work.
I am not saying I have all the answers with packages. I am saying that we do this at my own business, there is a way to structure this. Then I learned something from Kim recently that I think she’d be okay with me sharing, not only the financing thing, I learned something else from her. So, I wanted to share that with you guys as well.
Here is how, unless you are already in a very established business or think that you are a phenomenal salesperson, this is how I would personally recommend considering structuring your packages nowadays. We’re probably going to have three tiers and a 3.5. The 0.5 I wouldn’t have said at all, but the 3.5 thing came now from, again, what Kim said to me. You guys will enjoy this one.
Health Coaching Packages: First Package (1 Lab, 1-2 Consults)
The first package, assuming that you’re using lab testing, this is for health coaches and functional lab people who use lab testing cause that’s what FDNs do.
The first package is going to be the lab that you are absolutely in love with. This is the lab that you feel like you have maybe a very personal experience with. I know that sounds funny if you’ve never used labs. But when I say personal experience, maybe you have found something on these labs that was just so life changing for you, or it had such a big clue in your healing journey that you feel especially drawn to it for whatever reason.
We want to take this first package and use that lab and maybe only have one or two consults, three tops. The reason that we’re doing this is so that we can charge a very affordable price and get someone results to show them that this stuff works. Now we want to be ethical about this, right? We always want to be ethical about anything that we’re selling. We want to tell the person that it is very unlikely that just that one lab is going to get them to where they want to go. That’s why we use all these labs.
And if you’re listening to this podcast, and maybe you’re not an FDN or something, we use a set amount of labs. We try to use like five or six with every single client. We don’t make any money off those labs. In fact, it’s a hindrance to us to sell it to people if you think about it, because they now have to pay extra money and we still have to get paid and we haven’t gotten paid anything yet.
Health Coaching Packages: One Lab Versus the Whole FDN System
But the labs need to get paid too. So, we’re not making any money off of this. This is not to push labs. It is because we genuinely believe to get people the results that we get, to get the stories that you get on this show consistently, yeah, you’re going to have to run more than one lab. You’re probably going to have to look at several of them and a specific set of them, mind you, to figure out what is actually going wrong with this person to get them to where they want to go.
With that said, there are certain labs that more often than not that can probably do something for the person. I will say the reason Reed created this system though, and has all these labs together, is because typically speaking, there’s not really one lab that works all the time for everyone versus the FDN system as a whole works all the time for everyone. Like you are going to get the person results for sure.
You take the risk when you do this package set up with only one lab that, okay, you run a food sensitivity test. Maybe that wasn’t their biggest problem, or maybe they’re one of the people who they’ve removed their food sensitivities and they don’t feel the dramatic difference from it. So, you know that you’re doing something positive for them, but they don’t actually feel it.
Well, there you go. That could backfire on you. So, be smart when you do this. Try to think it through in your own practice, think about who you work with.
Health Coaching Packages: Base the One Lab by Your Niche
Is there a specific type of problem that you enjoy serving or is there a niche that you’re in that you find, more often than not, one lab in particular might be beneficial?
For example, if I was, well, and I do this, if I work with acne people like severe cystic acne, this is an easy one, but just something to think about. There is no way that anyone with severe cystic acne has a normal gut microbiome. They are not going to have that. I can run a stool test and I can figure out what’s going on there. I can look at their digestive function, I can look at their overall bacterial profile. I can see if they have any parasites. I can see if they have fungi. Not a perfect test, but at least good enough to find something in someone with severe cystic acne. There you go. That could be smart.
Autoimmune patients, I find very often, I don’t know if I would bank on this a hundred percent of the time, but probably 80 plus percent of the time. Autoimmune patients almost always have like some type of major food sensitivity that they’ve developed, whether it’s like gluten or dairy. For people to see their food sensitivities objectively on a lab test is very motivating for them to remove that food. If you get someone with autoimmunity to remove the gluten or dairy, they’re probably going to feel pretty good in a matter of a month or two. So that’s something that might be useful for autoimmune patients, and the list can go on and on.
Health Coaching Packages: Take Time to Think This Through
I’m asking you to think for your own practice, whether you’re working with people already or you haven’t worked with anyone, but you know who you want to work with. You definitely need to do that before you start structuring package pricing. You need to figure out, with this demographic and their problems that they have, or specific problem that they have, if I could only run one lab on them, if it was me and I had this problem, and knowing what I know now, I could only run one lab on myself, which lab would I choose for them to run?
You can take some time with this. This doesn’t have to be done in the 30-minute podcast. It doesn’t have to be done in even a day. Take some time and think. You know what? I really believe that this lab would be the most beneficial all of the time, because that’s the one I’m best with or that’s the one I had an experience with. Whatever the reason is, is fine, that can be personal to you. But really think that through. Really take some time to think that through, and then that would be your first package.
You would structure this in such a way that you give them the one lab and you maybe do one session with them. Maybe it’s like a food sensitivity test and that’s all that’s required. If it’s a gut test, you’re definitely going to have to do more than one session, I would assume. So, you have to price this and structure this accordingly.
But you want to structure it as a package, and I should have mentioned that before we get into this. The reason we want to always structure as a package is twofold.
Health Coaching Packages: One-Hour Sessions Vs Packages
One, the number of clients you need to work with when you structure things as packages goes way down.
I have a couple of naturopathic doctors near me that charge like $300 or $400, I believe, for a one-hour consult. I’m not saying they aren’t worth that, perhaps they are. But the point is the fact that they allow people to come in into a one-hour consult. Let’s say you work 40 hours a week, think about how many people (grant you, that’s a high paying income. I get that.) but think about how many people these doctors need to work with every single week to make a living versus someone who charges an appropriate amount for a package and then how many clients they need to bring in.
I mean, they’re a doctor. They should be making good money, right? Let’s say they were making $150,000 a year. Well, for $150,000 a year, you’d roughly need like $3000 a week. So, they need to be working with 10 unique clients every single week basically to make that money. Because the 300 times 10 would be $3000. Then of course there’s work on the back end too. Guys, it’s kind of hard to bring in 10 new clients every single week.
We have FDNS that do that, but you gotta be intelligent about how you’re doing this or in business for a while, or very good with the internet. It could be all of those things or one, but that’s not a particularly easy feat.
Let’s say I’m trying to make $150,000 as an FDN and I instead have my $5,000 flagship program that maybe lasts four or five months. Now I need 30 clients in the year to figure that out.
Health Coaching Packages: The Level of Service Goes Up
But if I was doing a new client every time I did that one-hour consult, that would be 500 in the year. That’s a lot of people.
This isn’t to say that some of the people that the naturopathic doctors in my area work with can’t buy more than one session, obviously they could. But you guys all know how this is. If someone is given the option to just buy one or two sessions versus a whole package, they’re probably just going to buy the one or two sessions.
This is not a marketing or sales trick to get them into something more, because that leads me to my second point. The second point is the level of service that you can give to your clients. Let’s take price away from this completely for a second.
If you have someone with autoimmunity sitting in front of you and you want to help that person, like it’s your family member. Take away the money out of it, you’re going to help them for free. Would you want one session with your family member, or would you want 15 sessions with your family member? What option do you think would be more likely to get that client, to get your family member, in this case, the results that you want them to get? One or 15? Obviously, 15.
So, this package thing is not just a gimmick to get people to spend more money, it’s to serve them at a higher level. And you should get money for providing that service. That’s okay too. But that’s why this needs to be structured in this way because you’re actually selling people short when you do this.
Health Coaching Packages: The Energetic Exhange Is Important
Again, I don’t know their particular business. I like both of these naturopathic doctors; I’m not talking crap on them. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t run a business that way because one, I need to take in a bunch of clients to make sure I’m living. And if I’m not living, how is that going to work? Am I showing up for my clients in the way that I need to if I’m constantly worried about money being in the bank or not being there and not having food on the table.
Versus if I know, okay, I have a steady stream of clients, my bills are paid for the next few months in advance. Okay, great. I feel good about myself. I feel confident; I’m not stressed, and I’m not bringing that to the table with an already stressed-out sick person. That’s not going to be a good energetic exchange for them, I don’t think. That’s just not how I want to do business.
Even if we have that number, let’s say the average person comes through those NDs for two sessions or even three, you are still talking about a hundred plus or 200 plus clients a year versus 30 FDN clients for the same exact thing. And you might say, well, Ev, it’s hard to sell a $5,000 package. It’s certainly harder to sell that than it is a $300 session. That would be absolutely correct.
Just to make my math easy, let’s call it a $500 session really quick. This is something to think about and I’ve talked about this in another podcast. This is not my idea, but Russell Brunson, a marketer, talks about this and I thought, it’s brilliant.
Health Coaching Packages: How Much Harder is it?
It is hard, yes, in this case to sell a $500 product. Sure. It is not 10 times harder to sell a $5,000 product though. Just let that sink in for a second, really get that. Cause actually, I sat on that page, and I really thought about this. It is hard to sell a $500 product. That is correct. It is not 10 times harder to sell a $5000 one.
To really put this in perspective, if you’re thinking, well, maybe it is 10 times harder. Okay, how about this. A $5 product, it’s hard to sell that. Any business is hard to start. You might be able to get your mom and dad and your cousin to buy it, but a random person to buy your product when they don’t know about your business, it takes a lot of work. There’s marketing, there’s sales, there’s branding, there’s all this stuff that is required whether your flagship product at your business is $5 or $5,000.
And because of those factors, it is not a thousand times harder to sell a $5,000 product to one person than it is a $5 product to one person. It’s just not. It’s harder overall; it’s not a thousand times harder. But yet you got a thousand times more money. See how that works.
I’m not suggesting that it is the easiest thing in the world to go out and get 30 clients in a year and charge that amount, but we have FDNs doing it every single year. Like a lot of FDNs are doing that every single year. Then there’s also the financing option, which again, I’m going to talk about in a moment here. By the way, we charge $4,500 at my business for a three-month program.
Health Coaching Packages: Second Package (3 Labs, 3-7 Consults)
This does work; this is something that happens. I’m 27 without a college degree. If I can figure it out, I think you can figure it out. You just have to provide that good service, and we do that as FDNs. That’s what we train you to do.
So, that would be your first package there is the entry level one. If you can avoid this, I’d honestly say do it because you’re taking a risk anytime that you only use one lab. But if you want to do that, that’s fine.
The second option here, second tier, is a pretty solid one. I’ll teach you two things cause you’re going to use this in two ways. You’re going to have around three labs that you really love, and I’ll go back to the acne example.
So, for three labs that I love, I’m thinking, okay, cool, if I can run a gut test on these people, that would be amazing. Bam, I got that. They most likely have some food sensitivities and they’re probably exhausted because for those who don’t know, people with severe cystic acne, they’ll start going online and get told that every little food in the world is a problem for them, even when it’s not necessarily an issue. So, it’d be good for them to have objective data about which foods are or aren’t bad for them. So, Okay, I’d probably choose that one.
Then I would guess that their hormonal balance is not so good, even though I don’t necessarily believe in like the whole “hormonal acne” thing, quote/unquote. But it is true to say that someone with a severe case of cystic acne is probably going to have some hormones that are out of whack.
Health Coaching Packages: Base Level Package Option
Most of the people that come to us are women, so that’s already beneficial there too. Okay, cool. I’m going to run this hormone thing. I’m going to have a food sensitivity test and I’m going to have a gut test. This is something that you need to clarify for your specific demographic and the niche or niches that you serve.
Just think about that with as much depth as you would of the first one, except it’s a little easier in a certain way. You don’t have to think of three new labs. I mean, you’re probably thinking of the lab that you had in the first package, and then you’re adding on another two. That would just logically make sense. Why would you be picking three completely different labs? It’s just two new ones that you’re adding on.
Now, this one, of course, as you can already tell, if I have three labs in it, I’m going to, bare minimum, need three sessions. I’m most likely going to need six or seven. So, we have the labs, and then we have any supplement costs afterwards. Of course, this package could be anywhere from, I mean, if you’re really new and really lacking confidence, it could be as low as like $1,300, I guess. But it’s probably going to be upwards of $1500 to $2000. So that’s not particularly cheap either. You’re kind of getting into that range where it’s not like a no-brainer for many people as like a few hundred or several hundred dollars package might be.
So how do we work this one? Well, again, one simple way is just that this could be the base level thing that you offer.
Health Coaching Packages: Dividing the Cost into Payments
And if you offer in-house payment plans, you don’t even have to do the financing thing that I’m talking about in a second at the end of this podcast. If you just break that down in house, I know this is actually off the top of my head.
So, we have the stool test, that would be $434. We have the food sensitivity test $355, and then we have the hormone test, which is like $263 with shipping. I’m at a thousand dollars in labs right now. That’s important to note.
Then let’s say I want to do seven sessions with these people, and I want to make sure I’m making at least a hundred dollars per session because there’s work that goes on outside of it. I obviously have to sit there for the 45, 50 minutes and work with the client. I’m want to be making bare minimum $60 an hour total. So, I would need to charge about a hundred dollars per session to do that. I’m not going to explicitly say that it’s a hundred dollars per session. I’m going to work that into my package.
Now I’m at, we’ll call it $1,750 to be easy. What I can do here is I can say, okay, Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, it’s an upfront cost of a thousand dollars, and then two monthly payments of $375. Two monthly payments of $375, obviously that sounds a lot better than the $1,750. We can’t negate the lab cost, so they’re going to have to pay that upfront. But I can get paid as I’m doing my sessions. Because if I’m doing a stool test, it’s going to be a month before we really get that back anyway.
Health Coaching Packages: Be Sensitive to Financial Ability
So, now they paid the thousand. We haven’t really worked together extensively, and by the time that first session comes up, the $375 would’ve already been due. You see how that works?
You’re actually still getting the payments for the sessions that you would’ve completed and the work that you would’ve done long before you actually got on the phone with them, maybe not long before, but long enough that it’s significant and it allows you to do this work with confidence. I hope that makes sense.
The other way that this package would be used, even though it could be used as just your baseline package, if you don’t want to do single sessions and single labs, is you can do this as the down sell. And 3.5 can also be the down sell as well. This will all make sense and connect by the time we’re done.
When I say it’s the down sell, like I have that $4,500 package at the business, right? It is statistically true that some people, even in America, yes, cannot afford that. They really just cannot afford that. The money does not exist in their bank account. That is not limiting beliefs. It’s not opinion, that is statistics. That actually is true.
What I can say is if I note that they’re super interested, if I believe that I can help them even on this middle package, I can start by informing them of what the $4,500 package is and what it entails. Then if their main objection is money and we figure out that it really is money and we can’t get past that together, then you could drop it down to this other package. They could a la carte the rest of the stuff when they needed it.
Health Coaching Packages: The Principle of Reciprocity
But they could be dropped down to that package. You start there and then work with them through that. Two ways that that can be used, again, it could be your baseline thing. You might not even want to introduce a single lab package to people, which I totally get and actually respect. But sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do.
And then similarly, you could use it as the down sell. There’s an interesting book called Influence by Robert Cialdini, and there’s seven principles in there, if I’m not mistaken. One of the principles was this principle of reciprocity. Reciprocity is something that apparently operates at a very subconscious level.
What they did, and don’t quote me on the numbers precisely, but I actually think I remember this pretty well. Even so the concept and lesson would be there regardless of whether or not my numbers are correct. What they did is they did these studies on Boy Scouts and how well they could sell popcorn.
They sent the Boy Scouts out and they had a $1 product and a $5 product. They tried to go out and have them sell the $1 product. When they tried to sell the $1 product, I think they had about a 63% closing rate. Not terrible. Pretty good, but they’re Boy Scouts. They’re probably cute, right? You want to help them out. So, 63%, eh, great, but not amazing.
Then what they did instead is have the Boy Scouts go out and offer a $5 product. When they offered the $5 product and they were told no, then they offered that $1 product again.
Health Coaching Packages: It’s Your Duty to Sell
Basically this would be me going to your door and I’m like, hi, I’m a boy scout. I have popcorn here. It’s a big bag and it’s $5. Would you like to buy?
And you say, ah, you know what, no, I’m sorry. I’m gluten free and I have a cross reactivity to corn, so I can’t have this young man. Then what I would do is say, oh, okay, no problem. Would you like this $1 bag instead?
They found that the closing rate went from like 63 percent to 80 something percent. Now it’s the same product. It’s the same $1 bag of popcorn. But the reciprocity, again, this is not conscious, they’re not literally feeling like they did them a favor. This is something subconscious where they perceived the reciprocity to be that, oh, you offered me this $5 thing first, and then it was almost a favor to do the $1 thing. Again, this is on a subconscious level, and the closing rate went up that much because of that. It’s amazing.
So, if you know that you can help the person, if you know this, it’s your duty to sell. Selling is not some sleazy bad thing. At least it shouldn’t be, that’s for sure. It’s not selling if you are doing that. Selling is helping someone that has a problem solve that problem. That’s what it is.
Health Coaching Packages: Third Package (All the Labs)
So, if you can’t solve a problem and you have someone buy something, that would be bad. If you know that the person will not be able to use the thing that you’re selling them for whatever reason, that would be bad. But if you know someone has a problem and that they would do what you’re asking them to do and that you can help them, and then they have other objections, it is your duty not to be pushy, but try to be as convincing as possible to let them know hey, we have a solution here. You gotta try this.
These can be cool techniques then to use if and when you know that you can help the person and they might have some kind of barrier for whatever reason, mentally. That’s two ways to use that package.
Third and final one is your flagship package. This is the big boy. This is the one that you want to sell. It’s going to make you the most money. It is going to serve the client at the highest level. You are going to get referrals all the time from these packages because the person’s life is going to be different after working with you for this amount of months, however many it is for you. For us, it’s three minimum.
Their life’s going to be changed. You did a great thing. You helped someone and you get the most referrals from these groups. This is the amazing part. I’m speaking like this because it’s always so hard sometimes when we’re working with trainees or recent graduates, if they haven’t been in business, they have a lot of hesitancy around selling their services.
Health Coaching Packages: There’s No Limit on Getting Healthy
Then yet, the irony of this is the people who get the most referrals as FDNs, this is not even a close comparison, there’s not a close second, the people who get the most referrals are the people who sell the most high-level packages. Oh, but I thought you were so bad for selling people a $4,500, $5,000 package. Well, no, you got them results.
I mean, think about your own health issues. What would you have paid to get those better? When I had seven different diagnosed conditions at 18, if I had the money, I would’ve paid $50,000 to get these things resolved. I don’t know if there actually is a limit monetarily of what I would’ve paid. It probably would’ve been more if I had it.
So, $4,000, $5,000 for what we offer, a precise system that can help people nearly a hundred percent of the time, yeah, you better sell that if you know that you can help them, and they’re qualified for this. The last package flagship won the big boy, $4,500, and that is going to be all the labs.
Now, I can only speak for FDN, maybe you have a slightly different setup, but all the labs is at least five or six. That’s what we do at FDN. We have our core program that we teach you when you go through the course, and we always recommend using all those labs. Likewise, we also recommend that you work with people for the appropriate amount of time to actually go through those labs and implement the protocols. That should be a minimum of three months.
Health Coaching Packages: The 3.5 Package (All Labs, Less Sessions)
Our $4,500 package at my business includes all of that, and we work with the person for three months. It might go over that just because of scheduling or whatever, but technically it’s three months. And you’re going to have more and more sessions and you’re going to get the person great results when you do that.
The 3.5 program is basically that top package, the $4,500 one with less sessions. I thought this was brilliant that Kim did this. Now again, you run into a similar issue, so you gotta be careful with this because you’re going to need to have a method for getting a lot of clients. Kim is a very good businesswoman. She knows what she’s doing, and she gives a lot of talks in person. She’s out there, she’s putting herself out there, and then she’s getting more and more referrals because of this.
But depending on your method for getting clients and what level you’re at in business and how well you feel that you do in terms of marketing and getting these clients and exposing yourself to them, this might be for you, it might not be for you. Maybe it’s on a case-by-case basis, I’m not sure. But she has this package that is between the second one and the third one.
For us, let’s call it $2,500, $2,600 where she does offer all the labs. She’s able to serve the client at this high level, but it’s for basically super type A, highly motivated people. The whole point of it is she doesn’t feel that she needs three months or four months’ worth of sessions to work with people who are willing to do the work and implement immediately what was told to them as a result of the labs.
Health Coaching Packages: Helping Clients Get all the Labs
I thought this was pretty smart. What she does is she says, well, this package is $2,500, and you just get less sessions. Bam, there you go. You save the person like $1,000, $2,000 depending on what your top one was. You work with them less, yes. But they still get all of the labs. If they want additional sessions, then it’s a la carte. They can just buy more. Again, the one downside to this is that you’re going to need more clients.
I think a lot of people from the sales side, they fall in love with the idea of using all the labs. They understand that it’s necessary, but maybe that price is a differentiator for them. So, this can be a great way to do it, is make that 3.5. I only learned about this a couple weeks ago.
I haven’t sold any of those yet, but we are thinking about that for my own business, and we’ll figure out how that goes and what it looks like. I’ll let you guys know once we have worked with a few people that have done that to see if the results were the same and the satisfaction was the same. It’ll be interesting to see.
Health Coaching Packages: Advanced Care Card
But the last thing I have for you today is the financing that I promised, and this program is absolutely wonderful. It is called Advanced Care Card, and you can find it on advancedcarecard.com. I’ll put it in the show notes. We are not affiliated, and the biggest proof of that is you don’t actually pay anything as the practitioner to use this.
I love this aspect of what they’re doing. There is no fee to you as the practitioner. Advanced Care Card is basically a very specific type of credit card that has the 0% for 15 months for good to excellent credit. Then there’s even a few other things on here that we haven’t used yet myself. Apparently, it can help out with even really crappy credit. The point is, if you have someone with good or excellent credit, and now you have a $4,500 package and you divide that by the 15, you’re looking at $300 a month payment.
The crazy part about this is, this is what I couldn’t believe, they give you as the practice, all the money up front. Basically, what will happen is the client will get this credit card, they swipe it with you for the $4,500. So, you got your entire thing in full, all the labs, all the expenses paid, all the sessions.
Now they get to pay for it over 15 months instead of all up front. Let’s say it’s a three-month protocol. So, for $900, they just got all those labs, all those sessions. They feel like a million bucks and it’s probably going to be a lot easier for them to go make money once they feel amazing. I know that was true for me. I’m sure it’s true for you as well.
Health Coaching Packages: Advanced Care Card Limits
So, that’s advancedcarecard.com. I will put a little disclaimer on this. I know Kim was definitely already successful in business prior to applying. We were having some success myself when we applied to this. My point is they asked for the income of the business currently. I do not know what level that played in us getting approved for this, but once you’re in, you’re in.
No one asked for any proof of anything. I just literally wrote something down, kind of like you would on a normal credit card application, except obviously you’re not the one applying for the credit card here. You’re basically applying to be a provider for the business. Yeah, we got approved and I’m so excited for this.
There’s no limit to how many people you can work with. They finance apparently as little as $500, which I thought was weird. I’m sure there’s many interest things on that, but just something to consider. On the higher end, they go as high as $25,000.
You’re like, well what client am I going to be charging that for? Maybe not any client, but I thought about that for families. Just the other day we were talking with my mom who knows a mom and two or three kids. I was like, wow, that’s going to be a lot of money to try to figure out for them. But I’m like, wait a second. No, it’s not, because we can just finance it on the card and get them to a really reasonable monthly payment and give them a discount for like signing three people up at once.
Yeah, so that’s just something I wanted to share with you guys. This is big for us as practitioners, we can get approved as FDNs is amazing.
Health Coaching Packages: Options to Include Supplements
Because I’m only an FDN, Kim’s a nurse, I thought that maybe was why she got approved. I am an FDN that has an in-person business. I don’t know if that helps, but there are no other credentials that I added on. My understanding is that any FDN can go apply for this and I would get it figured out.
Then the card just has to be used with your business. It’s attached to your business. When the person gets the credit card, they can’t just like go to the store and start buying bananas and stuff. They have to swipe it right then and there.
I haven’t applied this yet, but something that you might want to consider, I’ll just plant the seed for you. Obviously, supplement costs come up for people afterwards. Let’s say you again charge a $4,500 package, no supplements included. It might be smart to just say, hey, it’s a $5,000 package and your first month of supplements is included if you do it this way. Because then they can just swipe at the business. You guys buy the supplements for them and drop ship the order. I don’t know, I’m throwing things out there.
I don’t want to get rambly but I thought this was really cool. I think this is a huge game changer for FDNs and other health practitioners out there.
All right, in summary, thank you for bearing with me. I can’t even believe I made it for 40 minutes. My ibuprofen is kicking in because yes, I do use Western medicine when it’s appropriate and useful. I felt a little slurry though, so I hope I didn’t sound that way on here. I apologize if I did.
Health Coaching Packages: In Summary
But in summary, the packages. You got your one basic one, not necessarily recommended, but use it if you have to, and you’re going to do one lab in one to three sessions. This is your entry level thing, always to give the person good results, to show them why you are worth adding on more labs with and more sessions with. That’s the entire point of that one.
The second tier, you have three labs and maybe six to seven sessions, depending on what you think is right, and it’s going to be a $1,500 to $2,500 package. You can use it as a standalone or you can use it as a down sell from your main package.
Main package is going to have five to six tests, and you are going to have at least probably three months’ worth of sessions, depending on who you are. That can be financed if you want.
Then you have your 3.5, which is higher than the two, less than the three. But the 3.5 can be used in cases where you really know that the person needs all the labs, like there’s not even a chance for them if they don’t use all the labs. They’re super type A and motivated, and maybe they just don’t need all of the sessions.
Then advancedcarecard.com is where you can find that place and apply for it as your business.
Conclusion
I am looking forward to talking to you guys again soon and bringing back another interview and not having to talk solo the entire time. I need to heal up the jaw.
We’ve got some exciting stuff coming up soon. I hope you guys have a great rest of your week and weekend, and we’ll talk to you guys next time. Take care.
After working for many years in publishing, Shannon Mulligan-Mayernik was tired of the nine-to-five grind. She always loved plants, and dabbled in her own garden before taking a plant medicine class – and became unbelievably hooked. In 2015, Shannon decided to start a herbalism business called Mayernik Kitchen alongside her husband Matt.
Shannon and Matt began growing seedlings in their spare bedroom, and as Shannon was searching for more information about plants and nutrition she discovered the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program. She noted that the Academy incorporated a lot of medicinal and culinary herbs into its curriculum, from elixirs to broths and everything in between.
“It was the perfect combination for me,” she says.
Since 2015, Mayernik Kitchen has expanded from Shannon’s spare bedroom into an herb farm (with an apprenticeship) and brick-and-mortar storefront that offers a full product line, cooking classes, and herbal education. Community and sharing are at the heart of what Shannon does.
In this exclusive interview in our online community (join for free here), Shannon shares many gems about starting, growing and maintaining an herbalism business, as well as how to run an intentional business that supports her community.
This conversation focuses on:
What drew Shannon to herbalism and plant medicine-making
What inspired her to create and build a business
How she integrates culinary nutrition into her work
If you are looking for ways you can use culinary nutrition to start a business like Shannon has, or enhance your current career, registration for the 2023 Culinary Nutrition Expert Program opens April 11th. Learn more about how you can take your skills to the next level.
A cyanide-containing compound found in apple seeds, amygdalin is ten times more concentrated in the seeds of peaches, apricots, and bitter almonds. It can be sold as a derivative called laetrile, which has been advertised with the misnomer “vitamin B17.” “Amygdalin gained high popularity among cancer patients in the 1970s” as an alternative treatment, but the reason researchers published a review of amygdalin in 2016 and why I’m doing videos about it is that it has “experienced a renaissance,” thanks to the internet.
Back in the 1970s, the FDA could only send out its Bulletin to a million doctors and other health professionals, warning them that laetrile is not only worthless, but dangerous. About ten thousand copies of the alert were posted in U.S. post offices, and The New York Timeseditorialized that we should be able to choose our own placebo. But laetrile was killing people. Finally, as the New England Journal of Medicinereported it, the “Supreme Court stops the nonsense” with Justice Thurgood Marshall writing the unanimous court opinion that terminally ill patients deserve the same FDA protections against unsafe drugs. At last, laetrile was banned on a federal level.
Rational argument failed to dissuade people, though, so the State stepped in, but that had the opposite effect. “Cancer victims and their families almost universally respond[ed] by accusing organized government and organized medicine of conspiracy.” At an FDA meeting, for example, a physician from M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital rhetorically asked: “‘You surely cannot believe that the quarter of a million of American physicians are sitting on a cancer cure just so they can get rich?’ He was answered with a chorus of yeses from the audience, many of whom had been borne to the hearings on chartered buses.” Some laetrile advocates were getting rich, though, like the head of the “Committee for Freedom of Choice in Cancer Therapy.” More like committed to the freedom of pocketing millions a year in laetrile sales.
“Laetrile’s proponents consider it to be a ‘natural cancer cure’; whereas opponents consider it ‘the slickest, most sophisticated, and certainly the most remunerative [lucrative and profitable] cancer quack promotion in medical history.’” Which is it? You don’t know until you put it to the test.
“The National Cancer Institute, in response to widespread public interest, undertook a retrospective analysis of Laetrile treatment.” In other words, it sent out a letter to every physician in the country and tens of thousands of other health professionals, and contacted all of the pro-laetrile groups, basically saying, send us the best you got. Although at least 70,000 Americans are estimated to have used laetrile, only 93 cases were submitted for evaluation, and, of those, only six appeared to be legitimate, where taking laetrile was associated with at least some partial improvement.
Now, of course, the people sending in those reports may have gotten things wrong or falsified data, but, maybe those six actually did respond to the treatment. If that’s out of 70,000 treated, though, you’d think maybe that’d just be by chance. Regardless, the fact that so many people tried it should count for something. They may have all just been boondoggled, but maybe there’s something to it. Certainly, the fact that it didn’t seem to help with any of the laboratory animal cancers doesn’t mean it couldn’t work in people. The only way to know for sure is to put it to the test: “a tightly controlled clinical trial performed in competent and experienced hands.” The Mayo Clinic accepted the challenge.
One hundred seventy-eight cancer patients were treated with it and all of the patients died rapidly. “No substantive benefit was observed in terms of cure, improvement, or stabilization of cancer, improvement of symptoms related to cancer, or extension of life span.” There were only adverse effects of cyanide toxicity.
The conclusion? “Amygdalin (Laetrile) is a toxic drug that is not effective as a cancer treatment.”
The books have been closed on this for more than 30 years. “Laetrile doesn’t work.” It is unsafe and ineffective. Researchers “found no sound evidence that laetrile is effective as an anticancer agent.” So, the label “unproven” cancer remedy may be too generous at this point; “it is time to vehemently assert that laetrile cancer therapy has been ‘disproven.’”
A cyanide-containing compound found in apple seeds, amygdalin is ten times more concentrated in the seeds of peaches, apricots, and bitter almonds. It can be sold as a derivative called laetrile, which has been advertised with the misnomer “vitamin B17.” “Amygdalin gained high popularity among cancer patients in the 1970s” as an alternative treatment, but the reason researchers published a review of amygdalin in 2016 and why I’m doing videos about it is that it has “experienced a renaissance,” thanks to the internet.
Back in the 1970s, the FDA could only send out its Bulletin to a million doctors and other health professionals, warning them that laetrile is not only worthless, but dangerous. About ten thousand copies of the alert were posted in U.S. post offices, and The New York Timeseditorialized that we should be able to choose our own placebo. But laetrile was killing people. Finally, as the New England Journal of Medicinereported it, the “Supreme Court stops the nonsense” with Justice Thurgood Marshall writing the unanimous court opinion that terminally ill patients deserve the same FDA protections against unsafe drugs. At last, laetrile was banned on a federal level.
Rational argument failed to dissuade people, though, so the State stepped in, but that had the opposite effect. “Cancer victims and their families almost universally respond[ed] by accusing organized government and organized medicine of conspiracy.” At an FDA meeting, for example, a physician from M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital rhetorically asked: “‘You surely cannot believe that the quarter of a million of American physicians are sitting on a cancer cure just so they can get rich?’ He was answered with a chorus of yeses from the audience, many of whom had been borne to the hearings on chartered buses.” Some laetrile advocates were getting rich, though, like the head of the “Committee for Freedom of Choice in Cancer Therapy.” More like committed to the freedom of pocketing millions a year in laetrile sales.
“Laetrile’s proponents consider it to be a ‘natural cancer cure’; whereas opponents consider it ‘the slickest, most sophisticated, and certainly the most remunerative [lucrative and profitable] cancer quack promotion in medical history.’” Which is it? You don’t know until you put it to the test.
“The National Cancer Institute, in response to widespread public interest, undertook a retrospective analysis of Laetrile treatment.” In other words, it sent out a letter to every physician in the country and tens of thousands of other health professionals, and contacted all of the pro-laetrile groups, basically saying, send us the best you got. Although at least 70,000 Americans are estimated to have used laetrile, only 93 cases were submitted for evaluation, and, of those, only six appeared to be legitimate, where taking laetrile was associated with at least some partial improvement.
Now, of course, the people sending in those reports may have gotten things wrong or falsified data, but, maybe those six actually did respond to the treatment. If that’s out of 70,000 treated, though, you’d think maybe that’d just be by chance. Regardless, the fact that so many people tried it should count for something. They may have all just been boondoggled, but maybe there’s something to it. Certainly, the fact that it didn’t seem to help with any of the laboratory animal cancers doesn’t mean it couldn’t work in people. The only way to know for sure is to put it to the test: “a tightly controlled clinical trial performed in competent and experienced hands.” The Mayo Clinic accepted the challenge.
One hundred seventy-eight cancer patients were treated with it and all of the patients died rapidly. “No substantive benefit was observed in terms of cure, improvement, or stabilization of cancer, improvement of symptoms related to cancer, or extension of life span.” There were only adverse effects of cyanide toxicity.
The conclusion? “Amygdalin (Laetrile) is a toxic drug that is not effective as a cancer treatment.”
The books have been closed on this for more than 30 years. “Laetrile doesn’t work.” It is unsafe and ineffective. Researchers “found no sound evidence that laetrile is effective as an anticancer agent.” So, the label “unproven” cancer remedy may be too generous at this point; “it is time to vehemently assert that laetrile cancer therapy has been ‘disproven.’”
As this week’s note falls on Easter Monday, and you might have consumed an 85% cocoa egg yesterday, I thought it might be fun to look at chocolate. More specifically – a study about chocolate, which fooled the world a few years ago.
Dr Johannes Bohannon is a journalist. His PhD is in the molecular biology of bacteria, not diet. In October 2013, Bohannon wrote an article called “Who’s afraid of peer review?” It was published in Science. He had written a fake academic paper, about a fake biologist, at a fake institute. Bohannon expected the article to be rejected, but it wasn’t. In the Science article he confessed that he had submitted 304 versions of the paper to open access journals. More than half of the journals accepted the paper. With open access journals, the authors pay the publication fee, but the readers don’t have to (Ref 1). The fees can be very lucrative, which encourages these journals to accept as many papers as possible.
This article brought Bohannon to the attention of German TV reporter, Peter Onneken, and his collaborator Diana Löbl. Onneken and Löbl were working on a documentary film about the junk-science diet industry. In December 2014, Bohannon was approached by Onneken and Löbl to help demonstrate just how easy it is to turn bad science into the diet headlines that we see daily.
Have you ever found yourself reaching for a bag of chips or a candy bar without even realizing it? Or maybe you’ve eaten an entire meal while distracted by your phone or television? Here’s a mindful eating guided meditation.
It happens to us all! One way to practice mindful eating is through the “raisin” activity, a mindful eating guided meditation that can help you become more mindful of your eating habits.
Remember that food is so much more than just the physical nourishment for our bodies, it’s also about enjoyment, connection, tradition, social experience, cultural experience, creative expression, and joy! It’s normal for us to experience eating alongside emotions or distraction.
Mindful Eating: The Raisin Activity and Guided Meditation
Many of us struggle with mindless eating or eating without being fully aware of what we’re putting in our bodies. But there is a solution: mindful eating. By practicing mindfulness while eating, we can learn to savor and enjoy our food more fully, build a more balanced and peaceful relationship with food, and even improve our overall health.
This exercise is a fantastic way to practice mindful eating and it can be done with any food!
I learned this practice from my recent training in MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction). The raisin activity is a common mindfulness exercise used in the context of mindful eating. While it is not entirely clear who first developed this activity, it is often attributed to Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor of medicine and the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of modern mindfulness practice and has contributed significantly to its integration into mainstream medicine and psychology.
What Is The Raisin Activity?
The raisin activity is a guided meditation that involves using all of your senses to mindfully eat a single raisin. This exercise is designed to help you slow down, pay attention to your food, and savor every bite.
Again, if you don’t enjoy raisins or don’t have them on hand, use any food you like and have.
Here’s how to do the raisin mindful eating meditation:
Start by finding a comfortable and quiet place to sit. If you have a special or dedicated meditation space in your home, use this space. Make sure you won’t be disturbed for the next 10-15 minutes.
Take a few deep breaths and focus your attention on your body. Feel your feet on the ground and your back against the chair. Allow yourself to relax and let go of any tension.
Take a raisin and hold it in the palm of your hand. Examine the raisin with your eyes, paying attention to its shape, color, and texture. Notice any ridges or wrinkles on the surface.
Bring the raisin up to your nose and take a deep breath. Notice any scent or aroma that the raisin gives off.
Slowly place the raisin in your mouth, but don’t chew it yet. Notice the sensation of the raisin on your tongue and the inside of your mouth. Allow it to sit in your mouth for a few seconds.
Begin to chew the raisin slowly and mindfully, paying attention to the sensation of each chew. Notice the texture and flavor of the raisin.
Swallow the raisin and notice the sensation of it going down your throat.
Take a moment to reflect on your experience. How did it feel to eat the raisin mindfully? Did you notice any new sensations or flavors that you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise?
The raisin activity is a powerful tool for practicing mindful eating. By bringing your full attention to the act of eating, you can cultivate a deeper appreciation for your food and develop a healthier relationship with it.
Why Practice Mindful Eating?
There are many benefits to practicing mindful eating. For one, it can help you become more aware of your hunger and fullness cues, allowing you to better regulate your food intake and maintain your unique balanced weight.
Mindful eating can also help you enjoy your food more fully and reduce feelings of guilt or shame around eating. Additionally, practicing mindful eating can help you become more aware of your emotional triggers around food and develop healthier coping mechanisms.
Tips for Practicing Mindful Eating
In addition to the raisin activity, there are many other ways to practice mindful eating. Here are a few tips to get started:
Eat without distractions: Avoid eating while watching TV, using your phone, or working at your computer. Instead, focus all of your attention on your food.
Slow down: Take your time while eating, and chew each bite thoroughly. This will help you savor the flavors and textures of your food.
Pay attention to your body: Check in with your body before, during, and after eating. Notice how those sensations feel in your body with no judgment and a lot of self-compassion.
Find Freedom & Balanced Nourishment.
Embrace a Balanced & Peaceful Relationship with Food.
If you’re looking to develop a healthier relationship with food and transform your eating habits, consider joining our online group coaching program, the Mindful Nutrition Method. Our program is designed to help you cultivate a mindful approach to eating and develop a healthier relationship with food and your body.
Get the 3-part system that will help you discover your balance, enjoy food fully, and nourish your relationship with food to feel confident, balanced, and at peace. You’ll learn the skills and strategies you need to make lasting changes to your health and well-being. Don’t wait to start your journey towards a healthier, happier you.
If you choose alternative cancer treatments, do you live longer?
In addition to conventional therapies, “does the use of alternative medicine predict survival from cancer?” Even if the alternative therapies themselves were useless, one might predict users would live longer because they tend to have more hope and a greater “will to live,” and are nearly three times as likely to believe their cancer is curable even if it isn’t. But, researchers found that death rates were actually higher in alternative medicine users. When they followed up with them years later, they found that 79 percent of the alternative medicine users had died, compared to 65 percent of non-users. If the alternative medicine users started out sicker, though, that could certainly explain why. And, in fact, they did tend to be sicker, but the difference didn’t reach statistical significance. The bottom line is that the association between the use of alternative medicine and shortened survival is not necessarily cause and effect, but it’s possible some of the alternative modalities may have indeed been harmful, as I discuss in my video Do Apricot Seeds Work as an Alternative Cancer Cure?.
Thanks to the internet, there has been a resurgence of older complementary and alternative cancer treatments, such as laetrile, which is a compound derived from amygdalin, a natural cyanide-containing substance concentrated in apricot kernels, the seeds inside the pits. To skirt regulations, it was branded as “vitamin” B17, but it’s not a vitamin at all. What’s more, the “lack of laetrile’s effectiveness [against cancer] and the risk of side effects from cyanide poisoning led the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) in the US and the European Commission to ban its use” decades ago. However, you can still buy it on the internet, just as you can still purchase the apricot kernels themselves. Is there any harm in just giving them a try? Yes, because of cyanide intoxication.
In a typical case report, a woman ate some apricot seeds. She had gotten them from a health food store, so they had to be healthy, right? Twenty minutes later, she had trouble breathing and slipped into a coma. Some calculations were made, and it appears an eight-ounce bag of apricot kernels is enough to kill six people if consumed in one sitting. Therefore, “the continuing sale of apricot kernels as health food is troubling.”
In another case, a person had been consuming a quarter-teaspoon of ground apricot kernels daily and had just switched brands the day before she ended up in the ICU. Thankfully, she survived, but others are not so lucky. For instance, a 17-year-old was dead within a day from severe cyanide poisoning, which can result in coma, convulsions, and cardiovascular collapse. That’s why calling laetrile a vitamin is so insidious. In yet another example, a 32-year-old woman arrived at the emergency room in a coma. Was she on anything? No, she had just taken some “vitamin supplements.” Thankfully, a relative showed up to the ER with them: so-called vitamin B17. The patient was given a cyanide antidote and survived. But, had that relative not brought the B17 or not shown up at all, the case “could have proved fatal.”
So, “cancer patients should be informed about the high risk of developing serious adverse effects due to cyanide poisoning after laetrile or amygdalin,” the natural compound in apricot seeds. Especially at risk may be those taking mega-doses of vitamin C or those not getting enough vitamin B12. The body has two major ways to detoxify cyanide. It can attach it to vitamin B12 to form the supplement form cyanocobalamin, which can be harmlessly eliminated when we pee, or it can use the amino acid cysteine, which is also used to metabolize vitamin C. So, if you take too much vitamin C, your levels can drop and you can end up more vulnerable to cyanide toxicity.
Conventional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, can be toxic, too. It’s all about benefits versus risks. Yes, amygdalin can block the growth of certain cancer cells in a petri dish, although it doesn’t appear to have any anti-cancer effects against tumors in laboratory animal. But you don’t know what happens in people until you put it to the test and do a clinical trial of amygdalin in the treatment of human cancer. For those results, see my video Does Amygdalin or Vitamin B17 Work as an Alternative Cancer Cure?.
If you choose alternative cancer treatments, do you live longer?
In addition to conventional therapies, “does the use of alternative medicine predict survival from cancer?” Even if the alternative therapies themselves were useless, one might predict users would live longer because they tend to have more hope and a greater “will to live,” and are nearly three times as likely to believe their cancer is curable even if it isn’t. But, researchers found that death rates were actually higher in alternative medicine users. When they followed up with them years later, they found that 79 percent of the alternative medicine users had died, compared to 65 percent of non-users. If the alternative medicine users started out sicker, though, that could certainly explain why. And, in fact, they did tend to be sicker, but the difference didn’t reach statistical significance. The bottom line is that the association between the use of alternative medicine and shortened survival is not necessarily cause and effect, but it’s possible some of the alternative modalities may have indeed been harmful, as I discuss in my video Do Apricot Seeds Work as an Alternative Cancer Cure?.
Thanks to the internet, there has been a resurgence of older complementary and alternative cancer treatments, such as laetrile, which is a compound derived from amygdalin, a natural cyanide-containing substance concentrated in apricot kernels, the seeds inside the pits. To skirt regulations, it was branded as “vitamin” B17, but it’s not a vitamin at all. What’s more, the “lack of laetrile’s effectiveness [against cancer] and the risk of side effects from cyanide poisoning led the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) in the US and the European Commission to ban its use” decades ago. However, you can still buy it on the internet, just as you can still purchase the apricot kernels themselves. Is there any harm in just giving them a try? Yes, because of cyanide intoxication.
In a typical case report, a woman ate some apricot seeds. She had gotten them from a health food store, so they had to be healthy, right? Twenty minutes later, she had trouble breathing and slipped into a coma. Some calculations were made, and it appears an eight-ounce bag of apricot kernels is enough to kill six people if consumed in one sitting. Therefore, “the continuing sale of apricot kernels as health food is troubling.”
In another case, a person had been consuming a quarter-teaspoon of ground apricot kernels daily and had just switched brands the day before she ended up in the ICU. Thankfully, she survived, but others are not so lucky. For instance, a 17-year-old was dead within a day from severe cyanide poisoning, which can result in coma, convulsions, and cardiovascular collapse. That’s why calling laetrile a vitamin is so insidious. In yet another example, a 32-year-old woman arrived at the emergency room in a coma. Was she on anything? No, she had just taken some “vitamin supplements.” Thankfully, a relative showed up to the ER with them: so-called vitamin B17. The patient was given a cyanide antidote and survived. But, had that relative not brought the B17 or not shown up at all, the case “could have proved fatal.”
So, “cancer patients should be informed about the high risk of developing serious adverse effects due to cyanide poisoning after laetrile or amygdalin,” the natural compound in apricot seeds. Especially at risk may be those taking mega-doses of vitamin C or those not getting enough vitamin B12. The body has two major ways to detoxify cyanide. It can attach it to vitamin B12 to form the supplement form cyanocobalamin, which can be harmlessly eliminated when we pee, or it can use the amino acid cysteine, which is also used to metabolize vitamin C. So, if you take too much vitamin C, your levels can drop and you can end up more vulnerable to cyanide toxicity.
Conventional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, can be toxic, too. It’s all about benefits versus risks. Yes, amygdalin can block the growth of certain cancer cells in a petri dish, although it doesn’t appear to have any anti-cancer effects against tumors in laboratory animal. But you don’t know what happens in people until you put it to the test and do a clinical trial of amygdalin in the treatment of human cancer. For those results, see my video Does Amygdalin or Vitamin B17 Work as an Alternative Cancer Cure?.
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Hello my friends, and 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 becoming an FDN.
This is part two in our special guest episode where we are having my girlfriend on. She is about to finish up the FDN course at the time of us recording this. We had her on a little earlier than we expected, just because I’m about to get a wisdom tooth surgery and I’ll be out of commission. It was not expected, it wasn’t really planned. It was kind of by necessity cause it’s impacted, and they wanted to get it out sooner rather than later. So, I’m going to go do that and then I will be back in business.
But that is why we have these two episodes kind of divided a little shorter than we normally would. It’s just because I needed some help at this time. So, if you haven’t listened to PART ONE, I would definitely recommend going and clicking on that. It would probably make the most sense. And if you are super lazy, we have that in the show notes for you as well. So, you could check out the episode right there and listen to the part one prior to listening to this.
KetoCon 2023: Biohacking Conference
In other news, it’s a little late, but not quite too late to join us at KetoCon. We are going to be down there from April 21st to April 23rd. That is a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There are passes available for as little as one day if you only wanted to come for one specific day. There’s passes for the whole weekend.
This is going to be a great event. I’ve never heard the founder of KetoCon say this, Robin Switzer, but this is my opinion. Ever since the whole Paleo f(X) thing happened, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to be doing that anymore, I think Robin is a very worthy person to kind of take over that. They’re doing it in the same city, Austin; they’re even doing it in the same event center.
She had started KetoCon prior to the whole Paleo f(X) thing, not being a thing anymore. She is a very intelligent person and businesswoman. She saw an opportunity here to go, okay, let’s not just focus solely on keto anymore, but we have this ability to really expand.
So, this year, yes, there’s going to be a lot of food products. Yes, there’s going to be talks on ketosis and carnivore, but there’s also going to be functional medicine, sleep tips, all these different types of things that you would expect at a more biohacking conference.
KetoCon 2023: Come See Us!
Reed Davis himself will be there. He is keynoting actually on Friday the 21st. So, if you’re going to get any day, try to get that. Come say hi to us at the booth. We’ve got a whole crew coming down. Not only will I be there, you have clinical advisor, Ryan Monahan and his significant other, Lindy Curtis. She is someone who works with us at FDN as well. She does a lot of outreach for affiliates and marketing, which is cool. We will also have, again, Reed Davis and his wife Raewyn.
I will have myself and my girlfriend, Maddy, who we’re featuring in this episode today. Then one of my best friends and his girlfriend will be down there as well because they are about to finish up the FDN course too. I know we’ll have some additional volunteers that I’m not aware of offhand right now. I mean, if that crew doesn’t get you excited, I don’t really know what will.
So, check that out. I’ll have a link in the show notes for where you can learn more about KetoCon if you’re like, you know what, it’s early April and I’m looking to make an impulsive trip to Austin. That sounds fun. Or maybe you’re already in the Austin area and you’re free that weekend and you need something to do. This is going to be a good time.
Without further ado, let’s get to part two of Maddy’s episode.
Becoming An FDN: Exhaustion Phase
[00:03:12] Madeleine Junevitch: Absolutely. I think the biggest shock for myself was seeing that I was in exhaustion phase. There was a lot of things, but just seeing that I was exhaustion phase, sometimes people might see that and kind of get a feeling of dread, but for me it was relief.
I had been dealing with just extremely low energy, feeling like I could never complete things to perfection like I loved to do when I was little. So, just having this validation for my lack of follow through with things, it felt so good. Like, oh my gosh, there’s something here that I can work on, that I can fix. I can get back up to fighting speed like I was in the past, just made me feel great, to be honest to find that.
But for the listeners and for perhaps people who are in the FDN course right now, who might know what I’m talking about, my total cortisol level, the cortisol sum was four. That’s extremely low. Most of that was the morning value. The morning was a 3.1. My total was four. Most of it’s in the morning and noon was extremely low. Afternoon was extremely low. Night was extremely low.
So, I’d wake up and I’d have energy, then by like 10:00 AM I would crash for the rest of the day. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t get much stuff done. I could barely get off the couch. Here I am the whole time thinking that I’m just a couch potato and I’m going nowhere in life. That’s just adding to my mental stress because I’m getting depressed and anxious because I’m not being able to do any of these things.
Becoming An FDN: Hormone Assessment & Metabolic Wellness Profile
Not being into the whole mental side and validating that as a real symptom or something, that’s actually going to hold you back. It just made me even more depressed. Then I just don’t even talk about these things to people because you know, it’s not a physical problem, so it’s not real. Right? Yeah, that’s definitely one of them.
I also found that my hormones were completely out of whack. My testosterone was insanely high. My estrogen was extremely low.
Then my metabolic wellness profile, I don’t want to get too technical for someone who’s maybe not going through the course, so they don’t know what I’m talking about. But I just found out my internal environment for my liver, my GI tract, it was a very toxic condition. I had a lot of oxidative stress going on. My liver’s just very congested probably from all the drinking and the stuff I was putting into my body.
But then also my indican was extremely high. That just means that I can’t break down proteins well enough, which is very bad because I’m a fast oxidizer and I need high protein. That’s just contributing more towards my metabolic chaos and the fact that I can’t get what I need to be healthy. It’s just this negative feedback loop of me just feeling worse and worse and worse.
I think that’s how it became so drastic in the past couple of years of just, yeah, I’m doing fine. I’m okay. Then I just plummeted and it’s getting worse. That was a huge thing that I found. Basically, no cortisol, so no energy, stress, and then just the very toxic conditions.
Becoming An FDN: GI MAP Test Results
Another one was my GI MAP, looking at all the bacteria and potential pathogens and stuff I have inside my body. I found this very, very interesting. My keystone bacteria or my commensal bacteria, the bacteria that’s supposed to be in there that helps to keep you healthy, keeps the bad stuff out, most of them were low to non-existent.
It’s almost like my body was so toxic, nothing was able to live inside of me. That was just kind of contributing towards, obviously, just feeling bad and allowing other stuff to kind of manifest in a bad way.
[00:06:46] Detective Ev: I find it interesting how you described it. I actually love when people do describe it this way cause I think it’s important to view the labs. Regardless of what comes up, the labs should always be viewed in this way, in my opinion. This idea that some could perceive what happened with you as almost like frightening or, hey, what’s going on here but you looked at it as validating.
Listen guys, regardless of the labs being ran or not, that is the state that your body’s in. So, you are having it on a lab test in front of you or not having a lab test does not change the fact that that is the state that your body’s in. It would, you would think, be universally considered good to have those results because now there’s something that you can do about it. This isn’t an ultimatum, it’s not a death sentence that you get the labs back and like, oh, this stuff doesn’t look good, so now I’m done. Like, it’s literally the opposite.
Becoming An FDN: Validating & Constructive
That’s why we have FDN and the philosophies that we use is to help people get well and stay well naturally. That is the point. I would also say not only the validation thing, but also this other side of look at it as something to be thankful for. Now there is something to do. There is something to improve, hopefully.
A lot of people have had serious diagnoses like autoimmunity and stuff like that, but hopefully it’s not a cancer. Hopefully, it’s not something that could actually directly kill you. So, you’ve caught this before you got to those extreme levels, and it’s probably largely to your benefit.
So, there’s two ways to look at the labs. I’m not really black and white with stuff like this normally, but I think there is one correct way to look at the labs though. Even though there’s multiple ways, there is only one correct way. The correct way is always the way that you’re talking about Maddy, where it’s validating and constructive.
Let’s actually do something with this. In terms of the FDN course itself, and you know because you’ve listened to the podcast, you know that you can be objective with this. Obviously, you do not have to just say something nice. I’m fine with hearing your feedback no matter what it is. In terms of your expectations of the course versus what it has actually looked like for you, how did those match up? Did it just meet them? Did it exceed them?
I know it didn’t not meet them. Obviously, I talk to you all the time. But I’m curious where you’re at so that this can be something that a listener can take something from if maybe they’re considering the course.
Becoming An FDN: Sneaky Gluten Sensitivity
[00:08:50] Madeleine Junevitch: Absolutely. I will answer that in just a moment. But really quick, I just want to go back to my personal results because I found something when I got my results back that I think a lot of listeners will resonate with.
I grew up my whole life eating bread, pasta, oh my gosh, sourdough bread was my kryptonite. I could eat a whole loaf of that, no problem, probably with a stick of butter and it was just heaven for me. When I got my test results back, I found out that I’m highly reactive to gluten. I had no idea. I think a lot of people would be in the same boat because like I said before, I wasn’t really having a lot of symptoms, at least that I could tell. Sure, I’d get like anxious, depressed, I’d have some acne, but I thought those were all normal.
Come to find out, I’m highly sensitive to gluten, had no idea. So, I cut that out of my life almost for about a year now, maybe a little less, and I feel so much better. That’s one thing I definitely wanted to point out because gluten definitely is a serious thing for a lot of people, and you may not even realize it. I would just point that out to the listener, try to get that on their radar.
But going back to the course, the course was amazing. I loved it. The main thing that I loved about it, one, it’s just offered this whole new paradigm, whole new way of looking at health, a very practical way, to be honest.
Becoming An FDN: A Paradigm Shift
The body is a system of systems, as I like to say; so, everything is connected together. It’s like a car, right? You have multiple different pieces, like for an engine, but you take a bolt out, that’s not just going to affect that one specific area. That’s going to affect the whole engine, maybe not right away.
Maybe you’re going to be able to drive it for a couple miles, maybe a little bit longer than you would’ve anticipated, but eventually things are going to start wobbling, things are going to start putting stress on other areas. That’s just like our body. If one area goes out of whack, well then that starts pulling on everything else. And now the whole thing is rattling to where everything’s kind of in a tricky situation.
That’s what I really loved about FDN course, just getting that paradigm shift. The way that Reed looks at health is just fantastic. I’m not saying it’s easy, but going through this course and finally understanding that paradigm shift of how to look at health, it just clicked. It’s like, duh, why doesn’t anybody get this?
Not to demonize Western medicine, but like, why don’t they get this? Why is this not more mainstream, that hey, everything works together and kind of like a butterfly effect. Mess with one thing that’s going to affect something else in a different area. That to me was really cool.
Becoming An FDN: The FDN Course is a College Master’s Level
But another thing that I absolutely loved is that it’s self-paced. I love that I can just sit down and plug and chug for four hours if I want to, or I can just do an hour at a time. There’s no one telling me, hey, you have an assignment due and a paper due every single Friday. You have to get it done, otherwise, you get a failing mark and that’s going to affect your overall grade. I don’t really like learning like that. So, the way the FDN is set up with a self-paced course is pretty great.
I previously had been in more like science and like health-based college classes, and this is, it’s a little difficult because at the time when you’re a full-time student, you’re taking like 12, 14, 16 credits depending on what it is. It’s definitely challenging because there’s a lot of material. You’re going through it pretty quickly. So yes, it’s pretty challenging.
This course, it’s self-paced, so it’s kind of hard to compare. But quantity wise and quality wise for what you’re getting, I would say it’s about college level to maybe even like master’s level of what you’re learning. But the cool thing is it’s just the FDN system. You’re not forced to take English. You’re not forced to take history. That’s what’s kind of amazing about it.
[00:12:42] Detective Ev: That’s an awesome description, especially at the end with the master’s thing. Cause I don’t even know if I’ve told you this before, but that’s actually how Reed describes it. He compares it to like master’s level.
Becoming An FDN: FDN’s Systematized Approach
I haven’t been to college in that way, but it seems about accurate because I know some of my friends who have graduated with bachelor’s degrees and I’m like, yeah, it can’t be that hard. But then you see the master’s thing and that kind of separates a lot of people it seems. And then the doctorate level’s obviously ridiculous for many people. But I think it’s like a master’s level course.
That’s just what it is. It’s intense. It’s very focused on one specific thing and it’s science. That is a topic that can get a lot of people. Some of us are much more in tune with science and we love it. Others are just, that’s not their thing, right? It’s like when I watch you do art, I mean, that is just not my thing. You could train me for a thousand hours and I still probably won’t come up with something as good as you can already do right now if you never even like did any more training. Versus the science side, for me, it comes a little bit more naturally. I like numbers. I like systems.
I think that’s a very hallmark characteristic of the people that go through the FDN course is they appreciate the systematized approach here and that, I can use this with all clients, and it is going to work every time. It’s predictable. It’s not like random diets where it works sometimes and then another person, it doesn’t work, and you’re like, well, where the heck did we go wrong? We’re actually able to get those predictable results. That’s cool.
Becoming An FDN: Plenty of Support for Even an Introvert
How did you like the mentorship aspect? You even talked about this before, like you’re more of an introverted person. You talked about how even working at the light therapy studio has helped with the social side a lot. I mean, you’re kind of involved with the mentorship, especially the group side of things. I never really talked to you about the group side, only the one-on-one stuff. Did you like that? Do you think that’s a cool aspect for many people? What did you think?
[00:14:21] Madeleine Junevitch: Oh, absolutely.
So yes, I am an introvert. Even in school when you’re a kid, school and college, I never really liked the group settings. I’m going to be honest; I would show up for some of the hot topic Wednesdays. I would never join the Zoom or whatever platform they’re using. I would just watch the live stream on Facebook.
They offer so many group sessions that you can get on and communicate with the wonderful mentors that they have, like Elizabeth Gaines, she’s amazing. But I never tuned into the group settings of that. I was just more on my own studying my own thing. Then I’d watch the videos every now and then.
Every student has to go through practicals and client reviews and onboarding and all that kind of stuff. So, when I actually got there, you work one-on-one with a mentor, and you basically have this assignment/presentation that you have to prepare for. Those were actually really cool.
Becoming An FDN: Learning from Different Experts
So, I am introverted, but then when I have something to talk about, just like this podcast, I can’t stop talking. I found it very interesting and I tried to set my client reviews and then my practicals all with different people. That way I could get more experience working with different people instead of just like saying, oh, I just want one mentor for everything.
I wanted to reach out and see different teaching styles and see different feedback of what their expertise they had to share with me. That was pretty cool that we have the option to work with a bunch of different mentors instead of just one like professor. So yeah, that’s pretty cool.
And they do offer a lot of support with fellow trainees as well as mentors. Then, you can even on Fridays, get on a call with Reed himself and ask questions if you want to. That’s all really cool that they offer that. I’m just a very introverted person and I like to stay away from groups. I just like working on my puzzles, aka the FDN practicals that they give us.
[00:16:14] Detective Ev: Nice. Well, I’m glad you liked it. I’m almost so jealous of you guys because, and you know this, I love talking to people. I’m back and forth cause I am predominantly extroverted; no one would argue that. But it’s very specific to certain goals or objectives that I have.
Becoming An FDN: The FDN Course Support Has Expanded
It’s amazing to me how many people, I won’t say if it’s family or friends, but there’s certain groups of people in my life that actually do consider me an introvert because I just don’t talk when I’m in those group settings cause I don’t feel like I have anything to share. I don’t really relate. And it’s usually when the topic is like sports or movies or something like that. I’m not condemning this, I’m just saying that I don’t relate to that at all. So, I have a very hard time talking about it.
But when you get me going on the topics that I love, then, I mean, forget about it, right? You’re lucky to get a word in or two. That’s why I do the podcast. It preps me to have more conversational conversations with people.
I’m always jealous because when I went through six years ago, we had like five or six one-on-one mentorship sessions if I’m not mistaken. It was always with the same mentor who, I got lucky with that cause I had Brandon Molle. Most people wouldn’t even know the name nowadays unless you’re already in AFDNP or you’ve been here for a while. But Brandon’s awesome. He’s been doing this for about 10 years. He was great, but I would’ve loved to be able to go into a group from day one and talk to, I mean, what is the group right now, like 600 people that are training right, something like that?
[00:17:36] Madeleine Junevitch: Yes, the training group right now is probably multiple hundreds for sure. I would say like either, five or six hundred.
Becoming An FDN: An Amazing Client Testimonial
[00:17:42] Detective Ev: Just, yeah, that would’ve been amazing to do. And hey, that’s not going anywhere obviously. So, definitely something to look forward to if you’re considering the FDN course.
One thing I wanted to shout out for you is you actually already have an amazing client testimonial. Just so people understand how this works, you’re like, well, how can she have a client testimonial, she didn’t graduate? Okay, FDN does not allow you to do anything legally. There’s just nothing legal behind it. You are basically allowed to facilitate the lab orders through FDN, that’s something of course. But outside of that, I mean, there’s nothing that an FDN does per se, other than our training, that can’t be done without FDN in terms of legal stuff. I hope that makes sense.
As you guys know, I always say this, and this is the truth. I don’t really take on clients. It’s very rare that I do that. I don’t shout it out on this show. I’m not just doing that to be nice to FDN and like, not focused just on myself, I really do not take on clients one-on-one. It’s not my thing overall, and I’m doing a bunch of other stuff.
So, what we do have though is this in-person business, and we figured this would be the perfect way for Maddy to take on some clients. Once she got to a certain point in the course, we’re like, all right, you definitely can take on comfortably and ethically, because we want to provide a good value to the client. We said, all right, we can definitely take this client on, on a smaller package.
Becoming An FDN: A Skeptical Client
We have something in our business that we call our Jumpstart package, where we do the MRT Food sensitivity test and the Metabolic Typing diet. These are two tests taught in the FDN course. Then we give three consults with that.
I’m still amazed because this could not have been a better thing for you to get experience with because every FDN will get stories like this. There’s no doubt about it. But for you to get this from day one, fairly easily, I guess, compared to most clients, I thought this was amazing.
Can you talk to us about the client, how you worked with him, what happened? Just, I mean, feel free to go into it. I think this is such a beautiful story.
[00:19:29] Madeleine Junevitch: Yeah, absolutely. So, I started working with this client. He’s actually been a friend of yours for a long time. He’s highly skeptical. Obviously, he could see that it’s worked for you, it’s worked for your mom, and you’ve had great testimonials from other people that you’ve worked with. But just as like a naturally skeptical person, he was kind of like, all right, I guess I’ll give it a chance. We’ll see how this goes.
So, we did the Metabolic Typing test to see what kind of diet he would naturally do better on. Then also he wanted to run the mediator release test. That is like one of the most accurate food sensitivity tests. We got the results back and found out that he was like highly reactive to eggs and that’s something that he’s been eating every day for years.
Becoming An FDN: Diet Shifting Alone Success
But just to go into his backstory a little bit, he’s been struggling with depression, anxiety, concentration issues. Really struggled with a lot of the same symptoms that I was working on, struggled with being able to stay energized throughout the day. He would have a lot of crashes, sometimes he’d have anger outbursts, high irritability, all those kinds of things. It kept getting worse for him.
He had a beautiful baby girl, born recently. I think that was his aha moment. Like, okay, I need to change something. He wanted to be a better father to her, and that’s really commendable. So, he finally agreed to work with us.
We ran some tests, found some things that came back. This is just diet shifting alone, we didn’t look at anything else. Honestly, I would love to do a full workup and have him agree to that. I would love to see what’s going on further, like under the surface. But just from diet alone, I get on the consultation with him.
So, first consult we have, cause there’s three total in this program, the first consult, we kind of went over results. It’s a lot to take in, that’s about an hour long. He kind of was just writing things down. It’s like, okay, yeah, yeah, I understand, these sorts of things. He needs to take these foods out, implement this. He was following that pretty well.
Then by the second consult, about two weeks later, he gets on the phone and is like, Maddy, I haven’t felt this good since I was 14. I am not having crashes anymore, not struggling with the symptoms that I’ve had for so long. I can’t believe it’s only been a week and a half, and I feel this good already.
Becoming An FDN: The Moment That Sealed the Deal
To be honest, he was following a lot of like the protocols that we had outlined, but then also, he was cheating every now and then. Like sure, he’d still have some gluten, he would occasionally have some salmon that he was reactive to.
You know, we don’t expect you to cut out everything overnight and do it perfectly. We want it to be realistic for people because this is like a lifestyle change. So, we don’t want you to be discouraged if you can’t get it perfectly the first time. He was doing the best he could and honestly, he did a great job. Obviously, the results are speaking for themselves.
But going from consult one hearing how slow he was talking, how low tone it was, just, you could feel through the phone just how tired and defeated and deflated he felt, you could feel that. To go into the second phone call where he’s high energy, he’s happy. You can just feel this uplifted spirit.
That moment right there, that’s what told me, like, I made the right choice. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is what’s going to fulfill my longing to help people. Just hearing him speak so highly of it, like his words, I haven’t felt this good in like 13 years. I wanted to just dance on the moon right there because that just made me feel so happy for him that this system, it does work.
[00:23:20] Detective Ev: Yeah. I remember being in the other room when the consult was happening, not that he cares if I listened in, again, it’s my friend. It’s someone that, you know, I’m just letting them do their thing or whatever.
Becoming An FDN: Up from a Very Low Point
And I remember being in the other room and overhearing this. I’m like, there is no way, this is what he’s saying this early on. I remember opening the door and we just, all three of us, had this powerful moment.
Cause I’m like, dude, I’m not eavesdropping, just so you know. But this is incredible. Like I’ve known this guy for several years at this point. To see him go through this and have the courage to do that and then see the results that he got, it was amazing.
So just to be clear, I mean, I love FDN just as much as the next FDN, but I wouldn’t even expect this to happen this fast most of the time. I think this is a result of someone who, they were not doing really anything health-wise prior to coming to us, where most people usually are. So, here you have someone take very accurate actions from day one of their health journey and they’ve never really done anything else.
Cause normally you’re in that cycle of trial and error that we’ve talked about on this show before, you’re kind of just like, all right, what works? Maybe I’ll take this supplement or that one or try this diet or this diet. He’s never really tried much of anything else. So, for him to take these very accurate actions from day one, it just led to exceptional results so quickly.
This is a guy; he shares his story publicly. He’s actually going to come on the podcast cause he has spoken professionally in the mental health space. You guys will love his episode once he comes around here, and it will be sometime in April. This is a guy who was suicidal at one point.
Becoming An FDN: A Waiting List Before Graduation
It makes you think how many people out there by the way are suicidal and don’t realize that this can be dietary, which is just both sad as it is encouraging. It’s encouraging in the sense that, okay, we can do a lot for these people. It’s sad because obviously we know not all of them are going to know about this unfortunately. So, it’s kind of our duty to spread this around to as many people as possible, I would say.
With all that said, I just think that’s amazing, Maddy. I think it’s so cool that that was basically your first experience with this. Then you are literally not even graduated yet and already have your next client coming up, right?
[00:25:17] Madeleine Junevitch: Correct. Yes. I am currently in the process of working with her.
[00:25:20] Detective Ev: Awesome. Listen, I get that we have the in-person business, and I would not deny that that helps a little bit, but this just shows that you can set clients up prior to you even graduating, guys. We have people that go through the course all the time that have like a four or five person wait list waiting for them to graduate because they want to utilize the lab testing on them. It’s just amazing. It’s exciting to see what you’re going to do with this.
What is your vision of the future with FDN? Cause I know it’s not like necessarily forever for you, but I think it’d be cool for the people to get to hear like what’s next on your list and plate.
Becoming An FDN: Maddy’s Vision for the Future
[00:25:56] Madeleine Junevitch: Honestly, what’s next is I just want to keep helping people and changing lives. Like just the education process is huge. When I went through FDN, my paradigm shifted. I got a whole new way of thinking. Like you said, there’s so many people out there who just don’t even realize that a lot of their issues, whether it’s mental health, physical health, or a mix of both, can be, I guess, reversed and the healing process can happen. We just have to have the right education for it.
Honestly, I just want to help spread the word. I want to work with as many people as I can. I want to help change as many people as I can, like get them back on their healing journey and just tell them like, you have the power to change. You have the power to heal. It’s not hopeless. You don’t have to be on medications for the rest of your life if you don’t want to.
Now, there’s a sidebar for some people, of course, like medications are lifesaving, they might actually really be necessary in some cases. But in a lot of scenarios, we don’t need them.
I just want to really try to help as many people as I can and live in some pretty cool places while I do it. Cause we can do this from all at home on our computer.
[00:27:03] Detective Ev: Yeah, I swear that was just as much of a sell for you as the health side is this idea that you could go kind of wherever you want, whenever you want. That’s like your dream, I feel like.
Madeleine Junevitch: 100%, yes.
Becoming An FDN: Madeleine’s Ideal Client
Detective Ev: Awesome. I know that right now we kind of all actually technically work together in a certain sense in terms of website and things, but whether it’s Instagram, email, wherever you want people to contact you, I’m sure there’s going to be someone out there that wants to work with you.
Prior to that, I should get to, I know that we have our little side projects that we’re working on, but outside of those, who is Maddy’s ideal client? Like if someone’s listening to this right now and they’re thinking, okay, I like Maddy, she’s awesome. Would she want to work with me? Who’s your ideal client when you envision them?
[00:27:46] Madeleine Junevitch: Absolutely. My ideal client is someone who’s going to be a lot like myself, like younger, middle-aged area, and just thinking that they’ve had enough. They know they can heal, but they don’t know where to start. I really want to just help people take back the power of their health. I will work with just about anybody, but who I prefer is probably like younger adults for sure. Just because I can relate to them a little bit more, kind of talk the lingo.
Where to Find Madeleine Junevitch
[00:28:14] Detective Ev: Yeah, that’s totally fine. And where can people find you, Instagram wise, Facebook wise, whatever, if they are wanting to do that.
[00:28:21] Madeleine Junevitch: Sure. I’m actually still getting all my social media set up, kind of transferring my personal accounts to this more FDN focused account. But you guys can find me on instagram @madeleine.emiko. That’s on Instagram or search for me, Madeline Junevitch on Facebook.
You guys could also find me on our business website, buckscountylighttherapy.com. Just fill out the information to contact one of our FDN practitioners, and I will most likely be the person answering the phone call, texting back, email, whatever have you.
[00:28:53] Detective Ev: And just to be clear, guys, I’ve said this a million times before, obviously, Maddy and the other people I’ll bring on, my friends that are going through the course, like that is their business. So, they’re more than welcome to shout this out. This is not work with Ev. That’s not how that’s going to go. This is for people who are looking to work with Maddy because you resonated with her story in one way or another.
All right, Madeline, you know already, because you’ve listened to so many of these, that I have to ask you the signature question on the Health Detective Podcast. I actually don’t know how you’re going to answer this, so this is interesting to me.
The question that I will ask you is, if we could give you a magic wand and you could get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, whether that is literally do one thing or stop doing one thing, what is the one thing that Maddy would get them to do?
Signature Podcast Question
[00:29:41] Madeleine Junevitch: You know, I’ve listened to so many of these episodes and like a couple of other people have been on, it’s not going to be just one thing. So, here is my list.
Number one, get sunrise, get outside in the morning, get sunrise every day if you can. It’s extremely important for setting your circadian rhythm. Number two, really, really, really, really try to cut out alcohol, gluten, and excess sugar. That is really just creating a toxic environment. Long term it can do a lot of damage. Then number three, do not work night shift. I know someone’s gotta do it, but I have done it personally for half a year and that’s when things really started taking a turn for the worse. So, if you’re on night shift, try everything in your power, get back to that normal circadian rhythm. We need sunlight, guys. Light is a nutrient for our bodies.
[00:30:33] Detective Ev: Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Especially the night shift thing. I don’t comment on these normally, but yeah, if you’re going to do anything, don’t do that, please.
Maddy, thank you so much for coming on. This is amazing. I’m sure this is not the only time that we will get to hear you on here.
You guys, I’m telling you, if you even remotely enjoyed this, just wait till you get our goofball couple friends on, because that’s a circus. It’s entertaining to watch from the outside. But Maddy, today, I appreciate you very much coming on and saving me for this wisdom tooth thing, sharing your story, and hopefully just inspiring some people.
[00:31:03] Madeleine Junevitch: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on.
In many places around the world, asparagus is an ingredient that signals springtime. When asparagus crops up at grocery stores and markets, we know the cold, wintry days are likely behind us and we’re in store for warmth and sunshine. Asparagus has a robust, earthy flavour and it’s very versatile in recipes. If you’ve only eaten overcooked, limp asparagus, it may not be a vegetable that’s top on your to-cook list. But trust us – when prepped and cooked the right way, it’s delicious!
Culinary Nutrition Benefits of Asparagus
Asparagus is loaded with nutritional benefits to support overall health and wellbeing. It contains:
Choosing Asparagus
The first step to enjoying asparagus is buying fresh asparagus when it is in season, and asparagus that grows close to where you live. As asparagus ages and takes longer to get from farm to plate, it will become woody, tough and stringy.
Look for asparagus that is:
firm and smooth to the touch
standing up straight (not wilting over)
bright green, with some white at the very bottom of the spear
Storing Asparagus
For optimal and longer-lasting freshness, store your asparagus similar to flowers.
Cut off the bottom of each spear, then tie the bunch together and place them in a mason jar (or another container) filled with 2 inches of water.
Place a bag over the top of the asparagus and secure the bag with an elastic band.
Unless you plan to use your asparagus within a day or two, don’t wash it before storing.
Prepping Asparagus
The easiest way to trim your asparagus is to snap the white, woody end off the bottom of the spear with your hands. The asparagus should break naturally, leaving you with the tender part and the woody end to discard. Alternatively, you could trim an inch or so off the bottom of the asparagus spear with a knife.
Thinner asparagus will be more tender than thick stalks. If your asparagus spears are thick, especially closer to the bottom, you can peel off the outer layer with a vegetable peeler.
There are a few options for prepping asparagus after you’ve removed the ends:
Leave them in one long piece
Chop the spears into one-inch pieces
Cut the spears into thin slices
Peel the spears into ribbons or ‘noodles’
Shred them in your food processor or with a grater
Ready to get started cooking with asparagus? These 22 Best Asparagus Recipes show you how to use asparagus to its full flavour advantage – and reap its health benefits.
Soup asparagus recipes are a fantastic way to introduce more asparagus into your diet! This version is loaded with spring veggies and herbs, and also includes white beans for extra protein and fibre.
Sweet Potato Toast with Asparagus and Poached Eggs
We’re firm believers that you can pickle almost anything! If you’re tired of all of your go-to asparagus recipes, try making lacto-fermented asparagus pickles for a delicious change.
When you’re short on time, this simple pasta dish can help you make the most of asparagus season. We like to use gluten-free penne or chickpea pasta for this one.
This is one of those next-level asparagus recipes with the complement of tofu ricotta and seasoned breadcrumbs. Any gluten-free bread would work beautifully here, or you could try almond flour for a grain-free option.
Oxidized cholesterol, which is concentrated in products containing eggs, processed meat, and parmesan cheese, has cancer-fueling estrogenic effects on human breast cancer.
In 1908, the presence of cholesterol crystals was noted “in the proliferating areas of cancers,” suggesting that cholesterol “may, in some way or other, be associated with the regulation of proliferation.” A century later, we now recognize that the “accumulation of cholesterol is a general feature of cancer tissue, and recent evidence suggests that cholesterol plays critical roles in the progression of cancers, including breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers.” I discuss this in my video Oxidized Cholesterol 27HC May Explain Three Breast Cancer Mysteries.
Might this explain why egg consumption is associated with increased risk of breast cancer? Indeed, a systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence “suggest that dietary cholesterol intake increases risk of breast cancer,” and the more cholesterol you eat, the higher the risk appears to rise, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:52 in my video. Why is that?
One thought is the “prolonged ingestion of a cholesterol-enriched diet induces chronic, auto-inflammatory responses resulting in significant health problems including colorectal cancer,” and we know that “chronic nonresolving inflammation leads to the initiation, promotion, and progression of tumor development.” As you can see in the graph below and at 1:12 in my video, sprinkling some cholesterol on white blood cells in a test tube can trigger the release of inflammatory compounds, and LDL cholesterol can induce breast cancer proliferation and invasion, but that’s in vitro. In a petri dish, you can show that breast cancer cells can migrate nearly twice as far within a day in the presence of LDL cholesterol, but what happens in people?
The level of LDL cholesterol in the blood of women diagnosed with breast cancer does appear to be a predictive factor of tumor progression. About two years after surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, not a single one of the women in the lowest third of LDL cholesterol levels had a cancer recurrence. The same could not be said for women with higher cholesterol. We know cholesterol can cause inflammation in our artery walls. Might it also have an effect on breast cancer initiation and progression? Researchers speculate that high cholesterol levels may have a “cancer-fuelling effect,” and, indeed, women with breast cancer who happen to be taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs appear to live about 40 percent longer before the cancer comes back. The data aren’t good enough to ensure the drug benefits outweigh their risks, though. Lowering cholesterol with diet may be able to give us the best of both worlds.
Animal studies show that if you feed cholesterol to mice, you can accelerate their cancers, “but extrapolation to humans is difficult as dietary cholesterol has limited effect on blood cholesterol levels in humans.” Thus, dietary cholesterol might just be “indicative of a lifestyle prone to health-related problems, including cancer”—that is, maybe people are just more likely to have an after-meal cigarette if that meal is bacon and eggs compared to oatmeal. It was difficult to imagine how dietary cholesterol alone could promote cancer development, but that changed recently with the discovery that 27-hydroxycholesterol, “27HC, a metabolite of cholesterol, can function as an estrogen and increase the proliferation of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells.”
So, it’s not the cholesterol itself, but what the cholesterol turns into inside our body. “Scientists have long struggled to understand why women with heart disease risk factors are more likely to develop breast cancer.” Now, perhaps, we know. “The discovery that the most abundant cholesterol oxidized metabolite in the plasma,” in our bloodstream, can have estrogenic effects may explain the link between high cholesterol and the development and progression of breast cancer and prostate cancer. And, 27-hydroxycholesterol also stimulates the proliferation of prostate cancer cells, boosting growth by about 50 percent, as you can see in the graph below and at 3:58 in my video.
I’ve previously explored the “role for oxysterols in mediating pro-oxidative and pro-inflammatory processes in age-related degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and atherosclerosis,” heart disease, but it now looks like oxidized cholesterol can play a role in all three stages of tumor development, as well: initiation, promotion, and then the progression of the cancer, as you can see below and at 4:14 in my video. It doesn’t just promote the growth of breast cancer cells, but also “induces invasion and migration of breast cancer cells,” potentially facilitating breast cancer metastasis through suppressing anti-cancer immunity and then inducing angiogenesis, helping breast tumors hook up their blood supply.
“Several lines of evidence support a pathologic role” for this cholesterol metabolite. We know that when you feed cholesterol to mice, their oxysterol levels go up and their tumors accelerate, but it “also appears to dramatically hasten the spread, or metastasis, of breast tumors to other organs.” But, when researchers “turned to human breast tissue samples, they found that more aggressive tumors had higher levels of an enzyme…which converts cholesterol into 27HC.” In breast cancer patients with estrogen receptor-positive tumors, the 27-hydroxycholesterol content in their breast tissue is increased overall and especially within the tumor itself—so much so that circulating oxysterol levels in the blood may one day be used as a prognostic factor. And “breast cancer patients with low tumor levels of…[the] enzyme that breaks down 27HC…did not live as long as women with the highest levels” who can detoxify it better. “The bottom line…is that some estrogen-driven breast tumors may rely on 27HC to grow when estrogen isn’t available.” And that may explain a second breast cancer mystery.
More than 80 percent of breast cancers start out responding to estrogen, so we use hormone blockers—either aromatase inhibitors to stop the formation of estrogen in the first place or the drug tamoxifen to block its action. Despite the efficacy of these drugs, many patients relapse with resistant tumors, and that’s where oxidized cholesterol can come in. 27HC can fuel breast cancer growth without estrogen, which could explain why these estrogen blockers sometimes don’t work.
And, finally, 27HC may explain why breast cancer patients with higher vitamin D levels appear to live longer. Vitamin D supplementation decreases 27HC levels in the blood.
The best way to reduce our risk of getting breast cancer—and surviving it if we do get the diagnosis—may be to just lower our overall cholesterol. If you lower your cholesterol, you lower your oxidized cholesterol. So, discovering this role of cholesterol is actually really good news, since “cholesterol is a highly amenable risk factor, either by lifestyle, dietary, or pharmacologic interventions.” One of the implications of these findings, according to the principal investigator, is that “lowering cholesterol with dietary changes or statins [drugs] could reduce a women’s breast cancer risk or slow tumor growth.”
Oxidized cholesterol, which is concentrated in products containing eggs, processed meat, and parmesan cheese, has cancer-fueling estrogenic effects on human breast cancer.
In 1908, the presence of cholesterol crystals was noted “in the proliferating areas of cancers,” suggesting that cholesterol “may, in some way or other, be associated with the regulation of proliferation.” A century later, we now recognize that the “accumulation of cholesterol is a general feature of cancer tissue, and recent evidence suggests that cholesterol plays critical roles in the progression of cancers, including breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers.” I discuss this in my video Oxidized Cholesterol 27HC May Explain Three Breast Cancer Mysteries.
Might this explain why egg consumption is associated with increased risk of breast cancer? Indeed, a systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence “suggest that dietary cholesterol intake increases risk of breast cancer,” and the more cholesterol you eat, the higher the risk appears to rise, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:52 in my video. Why is that?
One thought is the “prolonged ingestion of a cholesterol-enriched diet induces chronic, auto-inflammatory responses resulting in significant health problems including colorectal cancer,” and we know that “chronic nonresolving inflammation leads to the initiation, promotion, and progression of tumor development.” As you can see in the graph below and at 1:12 in my video, sprinkling some cholesterol on white blood cells in a test tube can trigger the release of inflammatory compounds, and LDL cholesterol can induce breast cancer proliferation and invasion, but that’s in vitro. In a petri dish, you can show that breast cancer cells can migrate nearly twice as far within a day in the presence of LDL cholesterol, but what happens in people?
The level of LDL cholesterol in the blood of women diagnosed with breast cancer does appear to be a predictive factor of tumor progression. About two years after surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, not a single one of the women in the lowest third of LDL cholesterol levels had a cancer recurrence. The same could not be said for women with higher cholesterol. We know cholesterol can cause inflammation in our artery walls. Might it also have an effect on breast cancer initiation and progression? Researchers speculate that high cholesterol levels may have a “cancer-fuelling effect,” and, indeed, women with breast cancer who happen to be taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs appear to live about 40 percent longer before the cancer comes back. The data aren’t good enough to ensure the drug benefits outweigh their risks, though. Lowering cholesterol with diet may be able to give us the best of both worlds.
Animal studies show that if you feed cholesterol to mice, you can accelerate their cancers, “but extrapolation to humans is difficult as dietary cholesterol has limited effect on blood cholesterol levels in humans.” Thus, dietary cholesterol might just be “indicative of a lifestyle prone to health-related problems, including cancer”—that is, maybe people are just more likely to have an after-meal cigarette if that meal is bacon and eggs compared to oatmeal. It was difficult to imagine how dietary cholesterol alone could promote cancer development, but that changed recently with the discovery that 27-hydroxycholesterol, “27HC, a metabolite of cholesterol, can function as an estrogen and increase the proliferation of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells.”
So, it’s not the cholesterol itself, but what the cholesterol turns into inside our body. “Scientists have long struggled to understand why women with heart disease risk factors are more likely to develop breast cancer.” Now, perhaps, we know. “The discovery that the most abundant cholesterol oxidized metabolite in the plasma,” in our bloodstream, can have estrogenic effects may explain the link between high cholesterol and the development and progression of breast cancer and prostate cancer. And, 27-hydroxycholesterol also stimulates the proliferation of prostate cancer cells, boosting growth by about 50 percent, as you can see in the graph below and at 3:58 in my video.
I’ve previously explored the “role for oxysterols in mediating pro-oxidative and pro-inflammatory processes in age-related degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and atherosclerosis,” heart disease, but it now looks like oxidized cholesterol can play a role in all three stages of tumor development, as well: initiation, promotion, and then the progression of the cancer, as you can see below and at 4:14 in my video. It doesn’t just promote the growth of breast cancer cells, but also “induces invasion and migration of breast cancer cells,” potentially facilitating breast cancer metastasis through suppressing anti-cancer immunity and then inducing angiogenesis, helping breast tumors hook up their blood supply.
“Several lines of evidence support a pathologic role” for this cholesterol metabolite. We know that when you feed cholesterol to mice, their oxysterol levels go up and their tumors accelerate, but it “also appears to dramatically hasten the spread, or metastasis, of breast tumors to other organs.” But, when researchers “turned to human breast tissue samples, they found that more aggressive tumors had higher levels of an enzyme…which converts cholesterol into 27HC.” In breast cancer patients with estrogen receptor-positive tumors, the 27-hydroxycholesterol content in their breast tissue is increased overall and especially within the tumor itself—so much so that circulating oxysterol levels in the blood may one day be used as a prognostic factor. And “breast cancer patients with low tumor levels of…[the] enzyme that breaks down 27HC…did not live as long as women with the highest levels” who can detoxify it better. “The bottom line…is that some estrogen-driven breast tumors may rely on 27HC to grow when estrogen isn’t available.” And that may explain a second breast cancer mystery.
More than 80 percent of breast cancers start out responding to estrogen, so we use hormone blockers—either aromatase inhibitors to stop the formation of estrogen in the first place or the drug tamoxifen to block its action. Despite the efficacy of these drugs, many patients relapse with resistant tumors, and that’s where oxidized cholesterol can come in. 27HC can fuel breast cancer growth without estrogen, which could explain why these estrogen blockers sometimes don’t work.
And, finally, 27HC may explain why breast cancer patients with higher vitamin D levels appear to live longer. Vitamin D supplementation decreases 27HC levels in the blood.
The best way to reduce our risk of getting breast cancer—and surviving it if we do get the diagnosis—may be to just lower our overall cholesterol. If you lower your cholesterol, you lower your oxidized cholesterol. So, discovering this role of cholesterol is actually really good news, since “cholesterol is a highly amenable risk factor, either by lifestyle, dietary, or pharmacologic interventions.” One of the implications of these findings, according to the principal investigator, is that “lowering cholesterol with dietary changes or statins [drugs] could reduce a women’s breast cancer risk or slow tumor growth.”
Harissa baked eggplant with spiced Low GI White Rice Pilaf
Moving into these cooler months means it’s time to start cooking really delicious dishes that warm your body, sustain your energy by including ingredients with quality nutrition. I’m going to help you tick that box with my Harissa Baked Eggplant with a Spiced White Rice Pilaf. It’s impressive without fuss and full of flavour.
The beauty of a pilaf is that it essentially cooks itself (win!). I’ve used a SunRice Low GI White Rice in mine because I love how it picks up the flavour of the herbs and spices. It tastes light, warming but wholesome all in one and being a Low GI, long grain, white rice keeps your tummy fuller and your energy charging for longer than a standard grain.
Topped with a simple yoghurt, dressing, pinenuts, lemon and herbs I’ve no doubt this one is going to surprise you and be on your menu pretty frequently in no time at all.
HARISSA BAKED EGGPLANT WITH SPICED LOW GI WHITE PILAF
Serves 4
Gluten free : Dairy free (opt) : Veg
Harissa eggplant:
¼ cup (65ml) extra virgin olive oil
2 large (500-600g) eggplant, sliced into 8ths
½ tbsp dried harissa spice
2 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Pilaf:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium (180g) red onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
½ bunch parsley or coriander finely chopped, stalks included
1 ½ tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp sumac
½ tsp ground cumin
1 ½ cups (300g) SunRice Low GI White Rice
900ml vegetable stock, salt reduced
2 cups (340g) cooked chickpeas
¼ cup (30g) dried cranberries
2 tbsp toasted pinenuts / cashews / pistachios (whichever you have on hand)
3 tbsp finely sliced mint leaves
½ lemon
Yoghurt dressing:
½ cup natural / greek yoghurt
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
Bake the eggplant: Heat oven to 220C (fan forced) and line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper. Pour olive oil over the paper, add eggplant slices. Mix harissa, cumin, cinnamon together in a small bowl and season with sea salt and pepper, then sprinkle over the eggplant and toss all ingredients to coat well. Lay the eggplant cut side down and bake for 15 minutes.
Cook the pilaf: Whilst the eggplant cooks, rinse and drain SunRice Low GI White Rice. Heat a large heavy based frypan or casserole dish on medium heat and add extra virgin olive oil, onion, garlic and parsley / coriander and cook 3-4 minutes. Add turmeric, sumac, cumin and cook stirring 1 minute so the spices become fragrant. Add SunRice Low GI White Rice, salt reduced vegetable stock, cranberries, and chickpeas, cover and cook for 15 minutes or until rice is soft and fluffy/ Don’t mix the dish throughout cooking.
To serve: Lay cooked harissa eggplant on top of the pilaf. Whisk together ingredients for yoghurt dressing and dollop around the pilaf. Sprinkle pinenuts (or your choice) over the top followed by sliced mint. Give the pilaf a big squeeze of lemon and tuck in.
*This is a partnered post with SunRice. Jacqueline is a proud nutrition ambassador for SunRice. All thoughts and opinions expressed are the authors own.
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: What is going on everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show about someone becoming an FDN.
We’re still talking FDN and all things health. But I have an interesting guest for you today. Some would call it a special guest, I certainly do. It’s actually my girlfriend. She is currently going through the FDN course. She actually, at the time that we recorded this, submitted her written final so all that would be left is her oral exam. Then once she has done that, she is graduated in that moment and will be going out and doing this work immediately afterwards. So she’s basically done.
We were going to wait until she finished the course completely to have her on, but she kind of saved me here. I mentioned this in the previous episode, if you happened to listen. I had a bit of an unexpected wisdom tooth surgery coming up. If you’re listening to this, I definitely am in the midst of my recovery.
We had her come on, again, it’s not really that early. I mean, she would’ve been graduated almost within the next week or two of this being recorded, which is really cool. It’s a fun story because we talk about how we got together and even got her interested in FDN cause that was never the original intention. That was never what I thought was going to happen when we first started out together. It’s pretty cool to see this come full circle.
Becoming An FDN: About to Graduate
Maddy discovered quite a bit about herself from the FDN course when she ran the labs. I think you guys will appreciate that. We have a good back and forth here. We would probably make good co-hosts together on some other type of show. I think you guys will really enjoy this one.
I divided it into two parts that are slightly shorter than normal. The reason is just to help me out a little bit here while I’m having to delay some recordings with people. I just wanted this to be a little smoother and easier. You guys will still get the same great value, great content that you always do. You’ll have to listen to us bore you with our love story for the first 10 minutes or so. But outside of that it is going to be a normal FDN episode two-part series.
Then I should be back to normal with our regularly scheduled stuff. If it’s taking me a little longer to heal than expected, you might have one day that there might be an episode skipped but we will not do it for longer than one day. If you do see that skip, you will know why that is. Wish me luck with the surgery. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.
All right. Well, if it isn’t Madeleine Junevitch herself. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. This is a long-awaited episode, not for anyone else probably, but at least for me is. I think this is so cool to be able to do this. For those that do not know, I mean the title of this episode will probably show this pretty clearly. This is my girlfriend, and she is currently about to graduate from the FDN course.
Becoming An FDN: The Myers Briggs Dating App
We were going to wait until she graduated fully to do the course, but you just submitted your written final tonight. She’s got her oral exam sometime next week or the week following, depending on when she can schedule for. We brought her on early, quite frankly, because I have my wisdom tooth surgery and we needed someone that could hop on with me last minute notice.
This is going to be a fun episode. Maddy doesn’t have like some crazy insane health story, but she’s got health symptoms, learned a lot from the labs, in fact, quite a bit was surprising, and is now going to be doing this as a job amongst other things. We’ll get into all of that.
But first things first, one thing we have to address is for the longtime listeners, we have like one of the wackiest ways of meeting ever. I’ll be pretty impressed if someone remembers this from back at either the late nineties in terms of episodes or maybe early 100s. I actually think it was late nineties, which is nuts to think about. We had my friend Anna, come on, and I was talking about Maddy because we were relatively early on into our relationship at the time. But I was talking about how Maddy and I met, and we met through a very special app.
Would we like to tell the fine people that listen to this show what app that would be and what that entails exactly, Madeline?
[00:03:54] Madeleine Junevitch: Absolutely. It was one of your favorite types of dating apps, Myers Briggs. For people who don’t know, that is a personality typing system. So, the little icon was a little ghost, and the app was called Boo, nonetheless than a ghost.
Becoming An FDN: The App Worked Beautifully
So yeah, we just put on our profiles and had to take a little personality typing test to get matched up. We ended up being like the ideal pair as the app would call it.
[00:04:21] Detective Ev: Absolutely. I swear we won’t do a whole episode here on our dating story, but I promise the first little bit of this is actually very entertaining, even if you’re not us.
What I thought was so cool is, yeah, I’m not a huge dating app person. In fact, I’m not a dating app person at all. I just can’t even imagine using that. I don’t like any of the traditional ones. I do think there is an application for it, obviously, it worked for us.
But the application that I always saw was, okay, I don’t like the idea of swiping through a bunch of people based solely off looks, but I do like the idea that I’m a fairly, some would say kind of eccentric person. So, the idea that I can now look at a lot of different people, or rather have them look at me and just give this bio, tell them what it is. Hey, I’m a little crazy here, but crazy fun. There’s going to be some good stuff. You can decide if this is your type of crazy or not. You can just go through hundreds if not thousands of people very easily to see who combines with you.
So, I was all for the Meyers-Briggs thing right away. I think it’s so amazing about how we got connected, cause obviously we’re extremely close, things have worked out beautifully.
Becoming An FDN: Looking for Quality Conversations
Can you talk about how you even ended up on the app, because you didn’t even know what Myers-Briggs was before this?
[00:05:31] Madeleine Junevitch: Yeah. I mean, I’ve heard about it in college. When I was taking my psychology class, I heard about the personality typing system. There was a couple, but they made us take like a typing test. I don’t remember what I scored back then, but that’s about my base knowledge with personality typing in Myers Briggs.
I was just kind of looking to make some friends and start talking to some new people. I had just moved back home and came across this app. I didn’t want to do Hinge or Tinder, nothing against those, just not for me. I am more of a quality over quantity type of person. So, when I came across the reviews for this it got 4.8 or 4.9 outta five stars. I’m like, nothing gets this good of reviews.
So, I was going through the reviews that people were putting on. Everything was like, I met my soulmate, the quality here is great. I’m like, okay, well now I gotta try. I just gotta see what this is about. The second that you download it, make an account, it makes you take a test to even get on.
I’m like, okay, this is the place for me. Because like you said, I’m not just trying to swipe for the fun of it. I am actually looking for quality conversations, someone I can actually vibe with on a more spiritual and mental level, not about looks or anything like that.
Becoming An FDN: Quite a Distance Apart
What’s actually really funny is there’s a lot of people on there, relatively speaking, and when I came across your profile, you had a whole page full of stuff that you were looking for, what you’re about. Many other people, they just had a paragraph or like something that said, DM me to learn more. That’s not my vibe at all. It’s like, I’m not here to waste time. I’m not looking for something like that. Tell me what you’re about and then we’ll talk and see if this works. So, that’s what I liked about it.
Yeah, it was mostly just looking for friendships, possibly talking to someone. I wasn’t really looking for a long-term relationship or anything like that at the time. It was mostly just to connect with people since I moved back to the area and ended up meeting you. You know, things obviously worked out beautifully. So, here we are.
[00:07:28] Detective Ev: Yeah, and this is where the story gets particularly interesting for people. Because what we have failed to mention is that Boo, if it’s not inherently obvious, is just slightly niche. The issue when you get a niche service in general, let alone a dating app, is sometimes there’s not an abundance of people in your local area. Apps like these might take you a little farther than the five-mile radius. I’m not sure what the exact mileage is, Maddy, but roughly speaking here, what would you say the distance was for us?
[00:08:02] Madeleine Junevitch: I was Washington State, so West coast. You’re Pennsylvania, East coast. So, it’s pretty far.
Becoming An FDN: This Takes a Different Kind of Person
I’m not even going to lie; I was talking to someone in England and there were definitely options even further than that. Would I travel to England? Probably not. PAs about as far East as I’ll go.
[00:08:18] Detective Ev: Well, I think if I was in England, you would’ve went there.
[00:08:23] Madeleine Junevitch: I guess we’ll never know.
[00:08:23] Detective Ev: We will never know.
How this ended up working out, it’s kind of hilarious cause FDN does play into this. This is a true story, 100% as wild as it is. We started talking in October of 2021, hit it off immediately. I’m like, okay, I love this person. This is awesome.
We of course, recognized the idea that this is a little insane. I’m in Pennsylvania, you’re in Washington. You gotta understand on an app like this, you’re having actually a very high amount of quality conversations. It doesn’t mean that you’re actually planning on doing anything per se, but it’s like you really do get connected with very compatible people. At the very least you just find them interesting.
The type of person that would choose to go on an app like that is generally speaking maybe not interesting to the people listening, but interesting to you because it’s a different type of person that’s going to do that, is what I’m trying to say. So, we hit it off though exceptionally well.
Here’s the thing, so again, started talking mid-October. I was actually finishing up the biohacking Congress in Miami, Florida. FDN applies to this in so many ways. I got sick from traveling, which is so stupid cause I was at a biohacking Congress, so that sucked.
Becoming An FDN: Enjoying Quality Conversations
I ended up, I booked an extra day so I can be in Miami. I spent my extra day being sick in the Airbnb and it was awful. So, I’m like, all right, at least I can get my cheap dopamine hit by swiping. Lo and behold, I found Madeleine here, which is awesome. We start talking, totally hit it off. It was like, okay, this is exciting.
Now, just the day before, Reed and Raewyn, Raewyn is Reed’s wife, for those that don’t know, they were at the Biohacking Congress as well. That was the first time I had ever met Reed Davis in person. Reed and Raewyn invited me to come out to do the hundredth episode special for the podcast. The only issue was it was all the way in San Diego, and I was in Pennsylvania.
Now, obviously we were not going to go out just for the podcast per se. He was also having a Christmas party with a bunch of FDNs and other people. I’m like, dude, I’ll go to San Diego. This sounds awesome. I was totally in for this. Just the day before this gets planned, Maddy and I start talking and it was planned for early December.
There’s just enough time here that you can kind of figure out whether or not this is going to be a thing between you and the individual. What’s so special with Maddy and I, man, is we literally started talking on, again, October 17th, 2021, and we just haven’t stopped since. Like we literally do not stop. There is always something to say. There is always something that we’re learning and wanting to share. It’s kind of ridiculous, so it’s cool.
Becoming An FDN: Meeting for the First Time
What happened is I was definitely the one who pushed this, just to be clear. Maddy was the first one to reach out, but I was the one to push this. I said, well, listen, I’m going to San Diego. Spokane, Washington’s West coast. It’s only a minor detour, some would say. I said, well, what if I just stopped in first and then I went back down to San Diego.
It was like, okay, yeah, that should be fine. And we agreed to that. Then it was, well, hey, maybe you come down with me to San Diego. It was like, all right, well we’ll see about that. Let’s meet this guy in person first. Then it became, okay, sure. I’ll come down to San Diego, all before meeting in person to be clear.
So, my crazy self is on a plane by 6:00 AM flying to Minneapolis, St. Paul because there is no direct flights to Spokane, Washington from the East coast, other than Atlanta and Chicago. I fly out to there, meet this girl. It was awesome. We had a wonderful time. And again, we’ll spare you guys of all our dating stories here in its entirety. But this is about the final part, I’ll share. It’s just cool. It’s insane what happened.
We meet up, it was great. We did not stay together in the same Airbnb the first night. We wanted to be respectful, one to her parents, but two, we just met each other. It’s like there’s no need to even do that. Right? So, we skipped on that night and then the next morning, what was it, babe, like 5:45 in the morning, I think, or something. We met up pretty early, right?
Becoming An FDN: Trip to Reed & Rae’s
[00:12:05] Madeleine Junevitch: Yeah. We wanted to catch sunrise in the Idaho Mountains, so it was about 5:45AM.
[00:12:09] Detective Ev: Yeah. We got together in the rental car, and we drove into Idaho. By like 10:00 AM we are 3,000 feet up, 20 minutes into a road that was not favorable. What do they call that?
[00:12:26] Detective Ev: Okay. So, we’re 20 minutes into that, taking my rental car on this, and I don’t have any insurance on this thing.
We’re like 20 minutes in and are now elk tracking 3,000 feet up in the middle of nowhere in Idaho. If I didn’t know I love this person before, I’m like, this will do it. This solidifies it just fine. I am seven total hours into knowing this person in person and we’re tracking elk. We did see some, so that was cool.
The very next day we’re flying down to San Diego. I asked Reed if I can bring my girlfriend. Now, I didn’t tell him how I met this girl, or that I just recruited her from the state of Washington like yesterday. But I brought her down to the San Diego thing and we had a great time at Reed’s. Reed and Rae were amazing. It was so cool to see everyone. They let us stay there and the rest is history.
We’ve been living together now for like a year. It’s just a really special thing. Alright, these people are probably done with hearing all of that. Did I miss anything? Is there anything else in those first few days that’s really eccentric and cool?
Becoming An FDN: The Particulars of a Healthy Lifestyle
[00:13:20] Madeleine Junevitch: I think you hit the nail on the head. There’s plenty of details, we could go on for hours. So, we’ll spare the listeners.
[00:13:26] Detective Ev: Oh, you did get stung by a stingray on the beaches of San Diego. That’s worth mentioning.
[00:13:33] Madeleine Junevitch: I guess that’s noteworthy. Yes. I thought it was a great idea to frolic in the oceans when apparently there was a stingray warning. I learned my lesson, that’s for sure.
[00:13:42] Detective Ev: Yeah. We gotta take those seriously. We were too high on life. We didn’t even read the dang signs. They were everywhere.
Anyway, thank you guys for listening. I’m guessing a lot of you skipped this, so we’ll get to the actual show.
Here we are and Maddy’s about to graduate FDN. It’s been an awesome thing. Not that you weren’t health conscious before, but I think for a lot of people that are in the functional health space, Biohacking space, one of the biggest issues is actually dating and marriage and stuff.
Because you’re wearing blue light blocking glasses, you’re waking up super early, you’re eating very particularly, it does kind of create some barriers in dating and stuff. So, even though you weren’t totally into this, it’s not like you were not healthy or at least wanting to be. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be healthy? You were reasonable. But you were always very respectful to the things I brought up and I always really appreciated that.
What were you dealing with health-wise overall, because there was some stuff that you went through and then we’ll connect this to FDN a little bit later.
KetoCon 2023: A Bunch of Friendly FDN Faces
Hey there, friends. It is Detective Ev popping in here really quick. I just wanted to give you one of our final announcements for KetoCon 2023.
It is an awesome event. Very well ran. I always say this, the best ran conference that I have been to so far in the health space. That is my personal opinion, but I will always give credit where credit’s due. Robin runs a really tight ship, and she knows what she is doing in terms of event planning and running. So, if you want an event that’s actually going to have a lot of people at it and is well organized and on time, then KetoCon is the place to go.
Reed Davis will be actually key noting on Friday the 21st. He is the founder of FDN, if you don’t know. I will be there. My girlfriend will be there. My best friend will be there, his girlfriend will be there. It’s going to be great. They’re all coming by the way, because they are all in FDN. We didn’t just randomly recruit these people.
Reed’s wife will be there. Clinical advisor, Ryan Monahan will be there. His significant other, Lindy Curtis will be. We’ve got a bunch of wonderful friendly FDN faces. If you want to meet the team or just come hang out, we’d love to see you. Definitely check out our booth if you are there.
KetoCon 2023: Reed is Speaking
I will have a link in the show notes to where you can learn more about KetoCon.
You can see the speakers and see if any of the vendors or speakers resonate with you. Then if it does, you can buy a pass for only one day. Definitely come Friday by the way cause that’s when Reed is speaking. But you can also come for the entire weekend.
I will be down there all Friday, all Saturday, and half the day Sunday before we gotta fly our butts back to not so fun, Pennsylvania. With that said, I will get you back to today’s episode, but if you’re looking for an event to go to, KetoCon 2023 is the place to be. The link is in the show notes below, just go check it out.
Okay, here we go. Back to the episode with Maddy.
Becoming An FDN: Maddy’s Health Journey
[00:16:30] Madeleine Junevitch: That is a great question, and I am still trying to get all the details of this answer together myself.
For the longest time I always thought I was healthy, you know. Like I always thought oh, I have no diseases, I have no conditions that I know of. Yeah, I’m relatively healthy. I never thought these constant headaches that I’m dealing with, or this acne that I’ve had since I was little and it just won’t seem to go away, that’s normal, right? People get acne, it’s common. You look around and you’re definitely not the only one.
So, you think that, okay, I’m still a healthy human when I’m suffering with this, fine. But then I started getting, I guess a little bit foggy headed, I wasn’t able to think clearly. Talking, in general, just trying to find the right words were never a strong suit of mine.
But even when I was a kid, I had developed this weird rash on my leg, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Over time, probably about the span of a couple of days, I started getting white pustules coming and stuff out of it. Then that rash started spreading to my upper thigh area. I was really concerned about this. At the time I was like 16, possibly 17. I told my mom about it.
She’s a nurse. She’s been a nurse for, at that point, probably almost 20 years, maybe a little bit less than that, but that’s beside the point. She knew what to do. She’s like, okay, we’ll draw a little circle around it, see if it keeps spreading. It kept spreading, so we went into the doctors, and they took a biopsy of it.
Becoming An FDN: Young & Invincible
Doctors didn’t know what it was. They ran multiple tests, couldn’t figure it out, and so they just put me on some hydrocortisone cream and all that. I don’t know if it was the cream or just my body just pushing it away, but thank goodness, after about like a month, it just kind of went away on its own. I always thought that was weird, but again, I’m healthy, right?
I have no diseases, nothing that I really knew about. Sure, I struggled with anxiety, with depression since being a kid, but that’s not something that I really ever talked about with anybody. So besides like the mental health issues, I was normal. So, yeah.
I mean, the past couple of years specifically though, that’s when it really started getting kind of bad. In my past, I just recently publicly shared this, so it’s a little bit easier for me to say now. But I did struggle with like my school, my college was kind of a party college, so I definitely got into the drinking scene. I did drink a lot of alcohol.
I would party with friends on the weekends and sometimes it would be like, you go out, have a bunch of drinks, you go party, have fun. Then the next morning you do it all over again because hey, it’s the weekend and it’s syllabus week. Like why not?
Then that kind of also, started turning towards like substance abuse. Which I mean, I was in Washington, THC was legal, so I would do some of that. I just thought I was young and invincible. I just didn’t put two and two together. Like, hey, your actions have consequences, and these things were starting to catch up to me.
Becoming An FDN: Climbing Out of the Exhaustion Phase
I never really put it together until about two, three years ago. Just the decline got really bad. Like my mental health issues were just getting worse and worse. My mental clarity was getting worse. I wasn’t able to like hold conversations with people just because mentally it wasn’t clear for me at all to form sentences.
I just kind of got to this point where I’m like, okay, enough is enough. I need to basically put all that behind me. I need to look towards my health and start putting that as a priority. The funniest thing is, at the time in college I was a nursing student. You always hear this quote that like, doctors make the worst patients.
Now I know I’m not a doctor. But going into the nursing thing, I’m like, I know what I’m doing, right? I’ve studied health. I know physiology. I know anatomy. I know microbiology, I know nutrition. I’m fine. I’m totally fine. Like, obviously, I’m not having any signs or symptoms. Yeah, I definitely was and it was catching up to me.
That’s kind of when I had my aha moment where I’m just like, what I’m doing is not working for me. That’s when I started climbing out of this, I guess, exhaustion phase. Doing FDN and like getting my test results back and seeing that, hey, I was in exhaustion phase, and I’ve probably been in it for a while. That was just kind of like startling to me.
Becoming An FDN: Gluten, Pollution, Smog, and Tap Water
One, it’s just kind of validating what I’ve been feeling for the past years, thinking, oh no, I just need to work harder. I just need to keep pushing. I just need to get past this. I’m healthy, I’ll be fine. But no, the older you get, the harder it gets and the more these actions have consequences. They catch up to you.
I started getting healthier, started trying to eat healthier, at least what I thought was healthier. I was eating brown rice, organic vegetables, and try to get organic meats. I would still eat a lot of pasta. At the time, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with gluten.
Also, I was drinking tap water. I lived in a big city at the time, so pollution and smog were definitely an issue. So, all of these things were just contributing to it, and I had no idea until I went through FDN. FDN has kind of saved me. It’s been kind of great with that, but I’m just rambling.
[00:21:37] Detective Ev: No, that’s okay. This is awesome. I’m excited to kind of dissect some of those labs and the results that you got overall.
Okay, rewinding a little bit. We talked about how you’re one of those people that is really relatable to so many out there. You kind of have these baseline symptoms almost your entire life that got progressively worse, especially the college thing. That is almost par for the course. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten calls from people, because we’re both 27, people that went to college, that’s like the final straw for their body.
Becoming An FDN: The Last Unhealthy Straw
Their body is like, what the heck are we doing? We were already not doing that great. You’ve been eating like crap your entire life, and then you go to college, binge drink, eat even crappier somehow and now you’re staying up late on top of it. I mean, it really is the straw that breaks the camel’s back for a lot of people. I have seen this. I’ve seen women walk out with Hashimoto’s diagnoses after college, it stinks.
So, you were kind of going through this, again, being a nursing major and not necessarily understanding the irony of it at the time. I think that’s really, really common. When we met, one of the ways that we were able to get Maddy out here, because it wasn’t one way or the other. It wasn’t like someone was trying to get anyone else to move. It was more like we originally planned like, hey, we enjoy each other a lot, so no matter how long we have to wait, we will figure this out. But it turned into this thing of we don’t even want to wait, so how can we figure this out even quicker?
For myself, for those that listen regularly, it’s like I’m speaking in this area that I’m in, I have an in-person business. It was a tough situation cause it’s like, I’ll wait for you as long as we have to and Maddy was in the same boat. But it was kind of hard to say, like, what will this actually look like? How does this work?
Thankfully, Maddy had just gotten this job. Well, we didn’t even mention this. You served in our military. I mean, that’s worth mentioning.
Becoming An FDN: Almost a VA Surgical Supply Technician
What job were you about to get before you came out here? There’s a lot of people that have come on that have been in the military or have family in it. I think they would just respect what you did.
[00:23:33] Madeleine Junevitch: Absolutely. I appreciate you bringing that up.
I honestly, totally forget that I was in the military for a little bit. I was in the Army National Guard for five years, just to clarify that. But I was actually applying, and I had been offered the position at the VA, the veterans’ hospital for surgical supply tech. I’d be working with sterilization of the equipment that they would use for surgeries. They were offering great pay; they were offering great benefits. It would’ve been a good, comfortable job, I guess. But still something was kind of missing. You know, I didn’t really have that passion for it, but that was about to be my route.
The process to get hired for any government job is extremely long. I think this took like two or three months. By the end of it I had been offered the job and literally, they offered me the job that week. They sent me a call and said, okay, here’s the hiring process. Now I had to jump through all these other hoops, get fingerprinted, again, and do all these other types of things. At the very last moment, I just decided it wasn’t for me because that would’ve kept me stationary in Washington.
By this point, we’ve been going back and forth seeing each other for the past like six months, like once a month. There’s a bunch more stuff that goes into it. But, yeah, I almost had a position there as a surgical supply tech.
Becoming An FDN: A Blessing in Disguise
[00:24:56] Detective Ev: Obviously, it wouldn’t be a job that you would’ve hated, but it wasn’t your passion. You know what I mean? You’re kind of just saying, this is a smart thing to do, pay the bills, whatever. It’s kind of exciting what the health side of things can do to people in terms of inspiration.
Anyway, if anyone else doesn’t believe that this is fate, the story just gets better and better. The in-person light therapy studio that I’ve talked about on here, we were not open yet, but we had a young woman who was basically guaranteed a position there for many months prior to us actually opening. What was nuts is two or three days before we were supposed to open, she hits me up and lets me know, I’m so sorry I can’t do this. I needed another job; I got another position. I couldn’t wait any longer.
She’s a great person, so this is not any dis to her. In fact, it worked out beautifully. I was like oh my gosh, on one end, but then on the other side, wait a second. If Maddy wants to do this, this is the ticket out here. It’s one thing to come out here, it’s another thing to get a whole crappy job that you don’t really want to do out here that has no flexibility and wouldn’t allow her to travel back as much. This was just a blessing in disguise.
You came into Bucks County Light Therapy, not even knowing what red-light therapy was at the time. Now, you have completely done so much for that place and made it so awesome. How has it been like working there? I feel like you’ve learned so much about health just from even being there.
Becoming An FDN: Learning and Applying
[00:26:20] Madeleine Junevitch: Oh my gosh. Not only did I learn about health, and I guess the science behind red light therapy and how it really helps produce energy and reduce inflammation, but I also learned a lot about social skills and talking with people, talking with clients, getting their stories of what they’re dealing with and being able to apply my newly found FDN skills.
It really just developed me more as a person. It’s been great working for Bucks County Light Therapy. Honestly, I’ve kind of just started making that place my baby, and we’re just trying to make it grow as much as possible. I’ve learned a lot, love this opportunity. Honestly, things are just working out for the best, that’s for sure.
[00:26:59] Detective Ev: Funny how that works. So yeah, Maddy’s done an awesome job there. It’s been a blessing to have her. It’s a risk, you know what I mean? Like I think anyone listening is like, holy cow, like these guys put a lot on the table up front.
But you know what, to both of us, I think we have a similar philosophy on this. It’s like, when you’re looking for something serious and you’re not just looking to engage in the hookup culture, you might as well go all in, man. Because if you go all in and it doesn’t work, it’s like you figured it out quick. I don’t want to sit around and wait for years to figure out whether or not it’s going to work. Tell me yes or tell me no. I want to know in two months if this is going to work.
Becoming An FDN: Wanting to Do FDN
I’m not so ignorant as to say that people can’t work on each other, work on themselves, and develop the relationship. That’s ridiculous, of course you can. I’d rather just know right now. Just tell me what this is going to be. Let’s figure this out and if it’s going to work. I think, we will know pretty quickly. It was really cool how that happened.
But then this transition into FDN, I think is what we really need to get to. What was nuts about the transition to FDN is that Maddy was working at Bucks County Light Therapy, again, mostly by necessity. That’s just how this was in the beginning. It wasn’t anything other than that. She found it very interesting, but it’s not like, again, you came with this as your passion.
In fact, Maddy is like a super, super gifted artist and paints people’s pets too. So, that was another thing that she was working on, on the side and still does that. But you came to me one day, I remember I was shocked. This wasn’t even until September of 2022. I remember, we’d been talking for a year now. We’d been dating for like 10 months at the time. There was nowhere on my radar that I was thinking that Maddy would ever go through something like FDN. Then you literally hit me with this one day.
You’re someone that I know that you’re not going to say that unless you mean it. So, I was like taken aback in such a good way. Can you explain to people, where did this come from? How did this all come to be where you’re like, I want to go do FDN?
Becoming An FDN: Too Little Time with Patients
[00:28:45] Madeleine Junevitch: You’re talking about all in or nothing. That’s how I am too.
So, when we met, of course I’m going to do some research on you, find the podcast, see what you’re all about. I joke you not, I have listened to probably 97% of the podcasts that you’ve put out. I just fell in love with it. Stories. I fell in love with just how people really let their passions come through and shine. I just fell in love with the whole philosophy that FDN had to bring.
I fought it for the longest time because I was a nursing student. I loved the medical side of it. But then when it got to the practical side, I just, I wasn’t in love with how little time we spent with patients. I know as a nurse, I’m not the one with patients. But still like how doctors only have 10 to 15 minutes with each person. There’s not enough time to hear the stories, to hear the individuality of what the client’s going through. That kind of put me off, I’m not going to lie.
So, I kind of went and pursued art, but then something always felt missing. Painting, drawing animals have always been a passion of mine since I was very little. I remember I started drawing like in pre-kindergarten. My teachers were like, oh my gosh, that’s really good. That’s always been a part of my identity. It was never enough for me to just do that on my own. So, there was always something like missing.
Becoming An FDN: Getting Both Passions
Listening to this podcast for a little over a year and a half, I just started falling in love with it. After probably listening to about 70 episodes, something switched off in me and I’m like, I need to do FDN. Like, this is how I’m going to be able to help people. I love that I can do this from home. I love that it’s all remote.
I can still paint at the same time. Look at that, best of both worlds. Now I’m getting my painting and I’m helping people with something that’s very fulfilling, and it helps them. That’s kind of what just sealed the deal for me with this and taking on the FDN course.
[00:30:43] Detective Ev: It’s just so cool.
I could be wrong cause I know everyone’s not like this necessarily, but I do believe a lot of us have this, I don’t know if it’s a dream, but like this vision of how cool would it be to work with your significant other in one way or another. It is special; and it’s really special when they come to it on their own accord. You don’t necessarily want to force someone one way or another. Again, this was just never on my radar as something that you would do.
So, when you came to me with this and were like, hey, I’m gonna be doing FDN. I’m like, what? Like, I know you’re serious. I’m like, wow, this is awesome. I’m more, I’ll get excited about the idea and I’m ready to go. You know, you’ve thought through the thing before you are going to say something like that, and it was just exciting. It’s really cool.
Conclusion
Now we can kind of get back to where we were originally going with this before, where you did get your labs back and you found a lot of different stuff. This was someone that by traditional standards was not super sick guys, but you did have stuff going on. Let’s just jump to that part where you actually do the labs on yourself.
What were you finding? Were there surprises? I mean, I kind of know there was surprises, but what was your interpretation when you did get the labs back when you went through the course?
All right, guys, I’m going to leave you on a bit of a cliff hanger there. That’ll do it for part one with Maddy.
I’m looking forward to talking to you guys in part two where we kind of dive into the labs and what Maddy learned and what she’s planning on doing next. So, tune in Thursday the sixth. We will have part two out then. But until that time, please take care.
Many thanks to Jon Furniss for spotting the paper for this week. It features some authors known to us – Professors Tim Noakes, Jeff Volek, and Dominic Agostino. The paper was called “Low and high carbohydrate isocaloric diets on performance, fat oxidation, glucose and cardiometabolic health in middle age males” and it was by Prins et al (Ref 1).
Jon has been a keen and competitive athlete for most of his life, fuelling endurance exercise with large amounts of highly processed sugars and starchy carbs, as most people do. But after developing Type 1 Diabetes at 39, he removed carbs from his diet to help bring his blood glucose back into the normal range. He wondered if he could still perform and compete. He discovered endurance exercise could be mostly fuelled using stored fat, and the way to access this massive energy store was by reducing carb intake to below 50g/day for a few weeks. He did not notice any performance impairment.
This strategy was tested in the ZeroFive100 experiment, where Jon and 7 others ran 100 miles over 5 days without consuming any calories (Ref 2). All eight felt great throughout – both physically and mentally – and they didn’t suffer hunger or any soreness. Jon now does all exercise in the fasted state and reports numerous benefits. He had also read that the wider health benefits of exercise could be offset by an increased cardiovascular risk, such that overall mortality was about the same in serious athletes compared to non-athletes. This caused him to wonder whether the health benefits of exercise might be maintained when fuelling with fat rather than being potentially offset by a carb fuelling strategy. This recent paper appeared to provide evidence for this.
Here, Dietitian Tatiana shares her four intuitive eating practices to refrain from feelings of guilt and shame and help you have an Eggcellent Easter with your family and friends.
1. Reject the diet mindset
Why make this beautiful time with family and friends depressing with obsessing over not being able to eat the yummy pasta dish or mouth-watering dessert on the table? As our philosophy at Body Fusion is ‘the best diet is the one you don’t know you are on’, we encourage you to take this Easter weekend as a time to embrace healthy meals and foods that give you satisfaction and enjoyment.
2. Challenge the internal food police
We all have an internal voice that plays a role in what we choose to eat or not to eat. Saying no to something you want to enjoy over Easter sets a negative tone that you are doing something wrong if you give in. This Easter, try saying yes but with an informed choice!
3. Take nutrition gently
This Easter, try to focus on making food choices that honour your taste buds and make you feel good. You will not suddenly become unhealthy or gain 1kg from one snack, meal, or day of participating in Easter traditions. Remember it is not about being perfect but seeing progress over a period of time.
4. Discover the satisfaction factor
We often find ourselves eating just because we have to so that we can get through the day. We are overlooking the pleasure and satisfaction that can be experienced during every meal occasion. There might be various reasons for this, but if you eat what you really want to and in a welcoming environment, you should be pleasantly satisfied. Think about this over Easter!
If you struggle with intuitive eating, consider working with a dietitian who can provide personalized guidance and support. With their help, you can learn to enjoy your Easter and every meal healthy and balanced.
In summary, practising intuitive eating over Easter can help you enjoy the holiday without compromising your health or feeling guilty. By listening to your body’s hunger cues, enjoying your food mindfully, and respecting your fullness, you can maintain a healthy lifestyle while still indulging in holiday treats.
As a mindfulness-based Registered Dietitian and coach, I often talk about “mindful eating” and “mindless eating.” While the two concepts may seem similar, they actually have very different impacts on our health and relationship with food.
In this article, we’ll explore the differences between mindful and mindless eating, and why it’s important to pay attention to how we eat.
Mindful Eating vs. Mindless Eating: Understanding the Difference and Its Impact on Your Health
What is Mindful Eating?
Mindful eating is the practice of paying attention to the present moment and being fully present while eating. This includes paying attention to the sensory experiences of food, such as taste, texture, and smell. It also involves being aware of our physical and emotional states while eating, including hunger and fullness cues, as well as any emotional triggers that may influence our eating behaviors.
One of the key principles of mindful eating is the practice of “eating with intention.” This means that we make conscious choices about what we eat, why we eat, and how we eat. We eat when we’re hungry, and we stop when we’re full. We also choose foods that nourish our bodies and provide us with energy and nutrients.
Mindful eating also supports a positive relationship with food where it’s a balance between eating foods we need for physical body nourishment and also eating foods we enjoy without guilt or stress.
Some other key principles of mindful eating include:
Eating slowly and savoring each bite
Paying attention to the colors, smells, and textures of our food
Avoiding distractions while eating, such as phones or television
Listening to our bodies and being aware of our hunger and fullness cues
Being kind and compassionate towards ourselves and our bodies.
The Benefits of Mindful Eating
There are many benefits to practicing mindful eating. For one, it can help us develop a healthier and more positive relationship with food and our bodies. By being more attuned to our hunger and fullness cues, we can avoid overeating and better regulate our food intake for our unique needs and portions.
In addition, mindful eating can help us enjoy our food more. By savoring each bite and paying attention to the sensory experiences of food, we can cultivate a deeper appreciation for the foods we eat. This can also help us make more informed food choices, as we learn to recognize which foods truly satisfy us and which don’t.
Enjoyment is so important to our food experience!
Research has also shown that mindful eating can have positive impacts on our mental health. By being present and aware while eating, we can reduce stress and anxiety related to food and eating.
What is Mindless Eating?
In contrast to mindful eating, mindless eating is the practice of eating without paying attention to our present-moment experiences. This can take many forms, including eating while distracted (such as watching television or using a phone), eating quickly, or eating in response to emotional triggers rather than physical hunger.
This is a very common experience with food, especially when you’re starting out on your journey to eating more balanced and more mindfully so give yourself some extra self-compassion at this stage.
Mindless eating can lead to overeating or bingeing, as well as other negative health consequences. When we eat without paying attention to our bodies hunger and fullness cues, we’re more likely to eat past the point of fullness and may consume more calories than we need.
When we eat in response to emotions rather than physical hunger, we may be using food as a coping mechanism to deal with stress, anxiety, or other difficult emotions. While emotional eating isn’t a “bad” experience, when we’re only using food as a coping tool for our emotions over time, this brings more challenges for us to deal with said emotions in a more supportive long-term way.
Kim, one of our Mindful Nutrition Method students overcame this very challenge of mindless eating during her time in the program. She utilized all the education, tools, strategies, and support inside our program, she said:
“So much has changed. I feel like it’s night and day. I don’t have a lockbox anymore. My binges happen super-less frequently, and when they do, I have tools now that I can use, and I’m still working on using them all of the time, but tools that I can use to work through them. I just feel like, in general, I have a lot less anxiety around food choices.”
The Impact of Mindless Eating on Health
The most negative impact of mindless eating on our well-being is our relationship with food. When we are disconnected from our bodies and eat out of disconnection or distraction, we’re ignoring our body’s true nourishment needs.
Additionally, research has shown that people who eat while distracted, such as watching television or using a phone, consume more calories than those who eat without distractions. In addition, people who eat quickly tend to consume more calories overall than those who eat slowly.
Furthermore, mindless eating has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and other chronic health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. When we eat without paying attention to our hunger and fullness cues, we’re more likely to consume excess calories and gain weight over time.
In addition, using food as a coping mechanism for emotional distress can also lead to disordered eating behaviors, such as binge eating or emotional eating and undereating, which can have a negative impact on our mental health and well-being.
How to Practice Mindful Eating
Practicing mindful eating can take some practice, but it’s a skill that anyone can learn. Here are some tips for getting started:
Slow down and savor each bite. Take the time to chew your food slowly and really savor the flavors and textures.
Eat without distractions. Try to avoid eating while watching TV or using your phone, as these distractions can take your focus away from your food.
Pay attention to your hunger and fullness cues. Take a moment to check in with your body before and during meals to see how hungry or full you are. Here’s a great “mindful eating hunger scale” I created for you to learn your hunger cues.
Choose foods that nourish your body. Opt for nutrient-dense foods that provide your body with the energy and nutrients it needs to function at its best.
Be kind and compassionate towards yourself. Remember that no one is perfect and that it’s okay to have moments of mindless eating. Practice self-compassion and forgiveness when these moments occur.
Takeaway
Mindful eating and mindless eating are two very different approaches to eating that have a significant impact on our health and well-being. By practicing mindful eating, we can learn to pay attention to our present-moment experiences and develop a healthier relationship with food and our bodies. On the other hand, mindless eating can lead to overeating, disordered eating behaviors, and negative health outcomes. By becoming more aware of our eating habits and making conscious choices about what, why, and how we eat, we can cultivate a healthier relationship with food and improve our overall health and well-being.
Find Freedom & Balanced Nourishment.
Embrace a Balanced & Peaceful Relationship with Food.
If you’re looking to develop a healthier relationship with food and transform your eating habits, consider joining our online group coaching program, the Mindful Nutrition Method. Our program is designed to help you cultivate a mindful approach to eating and develop a healthier relationship with food and your body.
Get the 3-part system that will help you discover your balance, enjoy food fully, and nourish your relationship with food to feel confident, balanced, and at peace. You’ll learn the skills and strategies you need to make lasting changes to your health and well-being. Don’t wait to start your journey towards a healthier, happier you.
Join the Mindful Nutrition Method today and discover the transformative power of mindful eating.
If you’re thinking about becoming a Health Coach, chances are you’ve been told you need to get accredited, right?
And that’s not bad advice!
In a booming industry valued at around $7 billion, and increasing numbers of people being drawn to health coaching careers, it’s becoming pretty darn important to stand out among the crowd. [1]
However, while becoming accredited may be a good first step,it isn’t the only way to set yourself apart in the sea of other health coaches & practitioners…
Because the truth is, accreditation alone isn’t the end-all-be-all when it comes tobuilding a successful and sustainable health coaching business.
That’s right – we said it!
As leaders in the Functional Health space, we’ve helped thousands of people build profitable health coaching careers, and we’ve learned a thing or two about what you need to succeed.
Which is exactly why we’re sharing our wisdom on what it *really* takes to build a thriving business as a health coach or functional health practitioner… including one critical factor that will have potential clients knocking at your virtual door.
So, let’s jump right in!
What Does it Mean to Become Accredited as a Health Coach?
When we talk about being accredited, we’re referring to the National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) credential.
In a crowded industry, with over 128,000 health coaches in the U.S. alone, only a little more than 8,400 individuals hold this credential. [2]
And it’s easy to see why…
Just to sit for the exam, you’re required to complete these prerequisites:
Take an NBHWC-approved program
Complete 50 health coaching sessions that align with the board’s criteria
Have an associate’s degree OR at least 4,000 hours of work experience
Once you pass, you earn the title of becoming a National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HBW). And after that, you’ll then need to complete30+ hours of continuing education that’s required every 2 years to keep your credential.
The Key Benefits of Being an Accredited Health Coach.
Becoming an accredited Health Coach is a lot of work, but we understand wanting to have an edge up as more & more practitioners and health coaches enter the market.
Three possible benefits include:
#1. It May Help You Stand Out in a Competitive Market.
As we mentioned earlier, while there’s incredible opportunity within the booming health coaching industry, there’s also a high level of competition. Anything that sets you apart, or makes you more qualified is generally going to work to your benefit.
#2. It May Open Up Career Opportunities.
If you’re interested in institutional health coaching, for example, where you work in a traditional medicine clinic or hospital, you need the board certification. This credential lets employers know that you’ve already gone through hours of health coach training.
#3. It May Build Trust with Potential Clients.
Being an accredited Health Coach tells clients you’re a professional who has undergone training for your craft. However, we’ve found that clients rarely (if at all) ask about credentials, so there’s really no saying just how much the certification can help in this area.
So, here’s the deal about getting accredited as a health coach…
It’s more of an administrative box to check than a hot strategy to grow your wellness business. In other words, it helps you show your legitimacy, but it doesn’t actually help you build raving clients or that sought-after waitlist.
So what’s the REAL ticket to growing your business, you ask?
Moving Beyond Becoming an Accredited Health Coach.
You see, there’s a common trend with health coaches, which is to become a little too caught up in collecting certifications.
If this is you – no shame. You’re not alone!
But the truth is, your future clients are really only interested in one thing:
GETTING RESULTS
Think about it…
If you were going to eat at a top-rated restaurant, what would you care about *most*?
What cooking school(s) the chef attended? Or…
How delicious the food tastes?
My guess is the latter!
That’s because education only takes a person so far.
At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding.AKA – prospective clients can look at your results and easily decide whether or not you can help them, and if they’d like to work with you.
So, what makes client results so powerful to your success?
#1. They Speak For Themselves.
More than any title or certification laid out on a piece of paper, your results don’t need questioning or explaining. They answer the most important question a prospective client has, which is, “What can this person do for me?”
#2. They Generate Customers
When your client experiences amazing results after working with you, they’re more likely to run and tell their friends (hellooo referrals!). Plus, incredible results also allow you to collect glowing testimonials and reviews from your clients, which you can then use to market your services!
#3. They Give You Confidence
As a new health coach, you might feel nervous about not being able to help your clients in the way you hope to. But imagine feeling confident in the results you help people achieve. This allows you to create a career that’s truly rewarding for not only your clients, but for you, too.
Have we convinced you about the importance of focusing on client results yet?
Good!
Then at this point, you’re probably wondering…
How Do You Actually Get Excellent Client Results?
Great question!
The answer lies in choosing a health coach training program and/or certification course that prioritizes data-driven results.
We’re talking about education that teaches you science-backed methods you need to know, so you understand how to identify the contributors to any health problem and help solve them.
For example, inside the FDN Certification Program, we teach:
The FDN method of intake and investigation
How to confidently use functional lab testing in your business
The DRESS for Health Success™ Framework
How to create customized data-driven diet & lifestyle protocols
It’s this type of investigative work that’s the key to unlocking:
Consistent results, rather than hoping or guessing your way forward Confidence in your ability to *actually* change people’s lives A wildly successful health coaching business that runs on referrals
Sound like something you’re ready for?
Watch Your Health Coaching Business Skyrocket.
At the end of the day, you’re in the business of helping your clients achieve their wellness goals.
When you learn how to transform people’s lives in this way, you can thrive as a Health Coach.
Ready to sharpen your skills?
Take the Course Tour to get a behind the scenes look at the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN) Certification Program.
