Randomized controlled trials put plant-based eating to the test for athletic performance.
Historical examples of successful plant-based athletes range from the gladiators in ancient Rome to the Tarahumara Indians who run 160-mile races for the fun of it. That’s six back-to-back marathons. But, they weren’t put to the test until the last century or so in a study purporting to show “without reasonable doubt that the flesh-eating group of athletes was very far inferior in endurance to the abstainers, even the sedentary group” of vegetarians—meaning it isn’t that the veg athletes won simply because they had trained harder or something. Indeed, there certainly are advantages to plant-based eating, like more antioxidants to combat exercise-induced oxidative stress and the anti-inflammatory nature of many plant foods that may accelerate muscle repair and strength recovery. But, do you have to eat this way for years, decades, or even your whole life to get these apparent benefits? I discuss this in my video Vegetarian Muscle Power, Strength, and Endurance.
What if you took some Texas men, eating their regular Texan diet, put them through a maximal exercise test, and then asked them to cut out meat for four days. Then, after those four days without meat, you tested them again to measure time to exhaustion, ramping up the treadmill to see how many minutes could they go without collapsing? A researcher did this and found a significant difference favoring the vegetarian diet, which boosted the time to exhaustion by about 13 percent, as you can see at 1:28 in my video. Of the five participants, “each subject had a higher time to exhaustion after following a vegetarian diet.” But there was a fatal flaw to the study. Did you catch it? They were all in the same sequence—meat first, then veg—and any time you take a test a second time, you may do better just because you’re more familiar with it. If the Texans went back to eating meat after being on the vegetarian diet and their performance tanked during a third test, then you might be onto something, but this isn’t very convincing. And, even if the effect is real, it may not be the meat reduction per se, but a function of improved glycogen stores from eating more carbohydrates or something.
What about putting athletes on a vegetarian versus omnivorous diet before a 621-mile race? (You’ve heard of a 5K? This is a 1,000K!) And, what if you made sure to design the two diets so all of the athletes got about the same percentage of carbs? As you can see at 2:16 in my video, researchers did this and found that the finishing rates of the athletes were identical and their total times were within just a few hours of each other whether on the vegetarian diet or the omnivorous one.
Same with sprinting. As you can see at 2:44 in my video, a study randomized people into vegetarian or mixed diet groups, and there was no significant difference in sprint power between the two groups. The researchers concluded that “acute vegetarianism has no acute adverse effects on adaptations to sprint exercise,” but no apparent performance benefits either.
Same with strength training, too. A study measured maximum voluntary contraction of both biceps and quadriceps before and after each dietary period, and no significant difference was seen either way. When you put together all of the studies that compare physical performance in these kinds of randomized, controlled trials, where you have folks eat more plant-based for just a few days or weeks, “there appeared to be no differences at least acutely between a vegetarian-based diet and an omnivorous diet in muscular power, muscular strength, anaerobic or aerobic performance.” Long-term, though, a plant-based diet can be conducive to both endurance performance and health. “Whereas athletes are most often concerned with performance, vegetarian diets also provide long-term health benefits and a reduction in risk of chronic disease” and are “associated with a reduced risk of developing coronary heart disease”—the number one killer of men and women—“breast cancer, colorectal cancers, prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, hypertension, cataracts, and dementia.” Doesn’t matter how you shred if you’re dead.
I was honored to be a scientific consultant for the amazing documentary about diet and athleticism called The Gamechangers. Check it out at http://gamechangersmovie.com/.
Randomized controlled trials put plant-based eating to the test for athletic performance.
Historical examples of successful plant-based athletes range from the gladiators in ancient Rome to the Tarahumara Indians who run 160-mile races for the fun of it. That’s six back-to-back marathons. But, they weren’t put to the test until the last century or so in a study purporting to show “without reasonable doubt that the flesh-eating group of athletes was very far inferior in endurance to the abstainers, even the sedentary group” of vegetarians—meaning it isn’t that the veg athletes won simply because they had trained harder or something. Indeed, there certainly are advantages to plant-based eating, like more antioxidants to combat exercise-induced oxidative stress and the anti-inflammatory nature of many plant foods that may accelerate muscle repair and strength recovery. But, do you have to eat this way for years, decades, or even your whole life to get these apparent benefits? I discuss this in my video Vegetarian Muscle Power, Strength, and Endurance.
What if you took some Texas men, eating their regular Texan diet, put them through a maximal exercise test, and then asked them to cut out meat for four days. Then, after those four days without meat, you tested them again to measure time to exhaustion, ramping up the treadmill to see how many minutes could they go without collapsing? A researcher did this and found a significant difference favoring the vegetarian diet, which boosted the time to exhaustion by about 13 percent, as you can see at 1:28 in my video. Of the five participants, “each subject had a higher time to exhaustion after following a vegetarian diet.” But there was a fatal flaw to the study. Did you catch it? They were all in the same sequence—meat first, then veg—and any time you take a test a second time, you may do better just because you’re more familiar with it. If the Texans went back to eating meat after being on the vegetarian diet and their performance tanked during a third test, then you might be onto something, but this isn’t very convincing. And, even if the effect is real, it may not be the meat reduction per se, but a function of improved glycogen stores from eating more carbohydrates or something.
What about putting athletes on a vegetarian versus omnivorous diet before a 621-mile race? (You’ve heard of a 5K? This is a 1,000K!) And, what if you made sure to design the two diets so all of the athletes got about the same percentage of carbs? As you can see at 2:16 in my video, researchers did this and found that the finishing rates of the athletes were identical and their total times were within just a few hours of each other whether on the vegetarian diet or the omnivorous one.
Same with sprinting. As you can see at 2:44 in my video, a study randomized people into vegetarian or mixed diet groups, and there was no significant difference in sprint power between the two groups. The researchers concluded that “acute vegetarianism has no acute adverse effects on adaptations to sprint exercise,” but no apparent performance benefits either.
Same with strength training, too. A study measured maximum voluntary contraction of both biceps and quadriceps before and after each dietary period, and no significant difference was seen either way. When you put together all of the studies that compare physical performance in these kinds of randomized, controlled trials, where you have folks eat more plant-based for just a few days or weeks, “there appeared to be no differences at least acutely between a vegetarian-based diet and an omnivorous diet in muscular power, muscular strength, anaerobic or aerobic performance.” Long-term, though, a plant-based diet can be conducive to both endurance performance and health. “Whereas athletes are most often concerned with performance, vegetarian diets also provide long-term health benefits and a reduction in risk of chronic disease” and are “associated with a reduced risk of developing coronary heart disease”—the number one killer of men and women—“breast cancer, colorectal cancers, prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, hypertension, cataracts, and dementia.” Doesn’t matter how you shred if you’re dead.
I was honored to be a scientific consultant for the amazing documentary about diet and athleticism called The Gamechangers. Check it out at http://gamechangersmovie.com/.
This week’s paper was sent to me by two people, which does bump a topic up the ‘possible-to-do’ list. Many thanks to Isabel Hemmings, a nutritional therapist, and Caroline Walker for spotting this one. It was called “Plant‑based dietary patterns defined by a priori indices and colorectal cancer risk by sex and race/ethnicity: the Multiethnic Cohort Study” and it was by Kim et al (Ref 1).
When I first looked at the paper I thought, haven’t I just done that one? The method reported “quintiles of three plant-based diet scores: overall plant-based diet index (PDI), healthful plant-based diet index (hPDI), and unhealthful plant-based diet index (uPDI).” I recalled having done a Monday note on healthy and unhealthy plants recently. I did and it was this one (Ref 2).
This looks like a new approach, therefore. Researchers are not just looking at plant-based foods vs animal-based foods; they are adding a subjective healthy vs unhealthy dimension on top. The findings of the previous note were that the healthy vs unhealthy complicated things rather than clarifying them. Higher plant intake was associated with lower mortality and higher healthy plant intake was associated with lower mortality, but higher UNhealthy plant intake was associated with higher mortality. Hence it could be concluded that any benefit comes from healthy food rather than plant food.
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, 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 on thyroid problems. And boy do we have a show for you.
But something I want to touch on really quick first is, if you are not signed up for March 2023’s Health Space Unmasked event, then you gotta get signed up for this. This is something that you guys have been waiting for a while. Everyone always talks about FDN and functional medicine for your pets, and we are finally bringing it to you. We have special guest, Dr. Ruth Roberts, and then Reed Davis, of course will be on.
If you do not know what our Health Space Unmasked Events are, it is basically something that we only do once a month. It is completely live. You can actually interact with us, and easily a hundred plus practitioners, trainees, and just people who are interested in health hop on. So, you’re part of a like-minded community. They usually run about an hour and a half to even three hours from my understanding, because I’m not on all of them, but I’ve been on a lot. There’s some really cool stuff here.
Just go to fdntraining.com/unmasked, get signed up there. Learning about pets and how functional medicine can help them, pretty cool.
Our Stories are Personal
Today we are not going to be talking about pets. We are going to be talking to a woman named Sarah Loman. She is an impressive individual. This is one of my favorite podcasts that we’ve ever done on this show. I do not say that in terms of making this a competition.
A lot of what we talk about on here is very story-based. We mix in some cool science and business stuff in also, but a lot of it’s story based. Stories are, they’re personal things. They’re things that we resonate with or don’t resonate with. If I go share my story on this podcast or in person, some people will think it is the best thing ever and others don’t relate to it at all. So, it’s not a competition. It’s just there’s a few factors in it that really resonated with me for certain things that my family members have gone through. We’ll talk about that in the show itself. But this was powerful, man.
Just know we will be talking about thyroid today. I am going to be having Sarah Loman back on because we spent so much time on the story, and rightfully so, that I wanted to pick her brain for even more of the things that she’s learned healing wise. We really only get to that at about the 30 minute mark.
I hope that you guys enjoy this one even half as much as I did, because that means you will absolutely love it. Without further ado, let us get to today’s episode. All right. Hello Sarah and welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you?
[00:02:48] Sarah Lohman: Hi, I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:02:52] Detective Ev: Thanks for coming on.
Thursday Thyroid Talks Podcast
One thing I actually want to jump into right away and shout out is you just had Reed Davis on your podcast, founder of FDN. I feel like Reed has a bunch of knowledge, but on podcasts he seems to say similar things and yet these people love going and listening to him. I’ll obviously shout out your business at the end too. But where can people find the podcast at least.
[00:03:09] Sarah Lohman: Yeah, thank you for saying that. I had a wonderful interview with him. He is such a cool guy. So, my podcast is Thursday Thyroid Talks. I just posted a new episode this week, so it’s actually the second episode back. Definitely go check it out, because I talked to him about what he felt like were the root causes of thyroid illness. It was really cool to hear his feedback from all his years of practicing.
[00:03:36] Detective Ev: Thank you. We were talking about this off air, the amount of people that listen to us or that go through the FDN course. Thyroid issues are almost par for the course. I don’t know anyone almost that hasn’t had this. Even if they don’t consider it their main issue, this is still a problem overall.
I’ve had experiences, too, personally that we’ll talk about later. But the indirect personal ones, the reason I’m particularly passionate about this is because my mom was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease. Before we found out about any of this stuff, she ended up getting her thyroid removed.
Thyroid Problems: Graves’ Disease
Looking back, it is clear as day, to her and I, that this never needed to happen. But I really appreciate that you talk about that and include that in your media kit. That’s something that you add in because it’s not as common. Of course, more people are going to talk about Hashimoto’s, but you can find Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism all day.
I talk to people all the time in our space that don’t even know what Graves’ Disease is. I’m like, all right guys, we gotta get on top of this cause there’s a lot of people struggling with that. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So, how I would like to start is pretty much the same way we always start on this show. I’m curious, and I try not to look this up beforehand, so I actually don’t know this about you because I want it to be genuine. Did you have health symptoms before that led you into this space or was there something else that led you here?
[00:04:46] Sarah Lohman: Oh my gosh, I was a health train wreck.
[00:04:49] Detective Ev: Let’s explore that then. What did that look like?
[00:04:53] Sarah Lohman: Let’s, okay, get some popcorn. My train wreck started actually September 29th, 2008, also known as the infamous economic crash, the 2008 economic crash. So pretty much anything that could happen to a person during that crash that you heard on the news and everything I went through, it was brutal.
Sarah’s Health Train Wreck
My husband lost his job. My landlord just decided to not let us know that he was letting the house go, even though we were still paying rent. We woke up to like an auction notice taped to our door. My husband also didn’t let me know his plans after he got laid off, while he was on unemployment, was to party and start to sleep around with the majority of the girls in the neighborhood.
I was working as a full-time receiving manager for a big retail company. It was like a thing that all of a sudden these companies were doing. After the economic crash, it was like they were forcing people from full-time to part-time and then taking away all of their benefits. That happened to me. It was basically like either accept this part-time position with no benefits or forfeit your position. It was like, holy crap.
So, all of these things just like boom, boom, boom, boom, just took me down. I ended up packing my whole house up into storage one weekend and moving in with my in-laws just with me and my son. My husband decided that he needed to go explore some other avenues with other people. As you could imagine, going through so much trauma and loss in such a short amount of time, I just lost it.
From all the stress, my appetite was suppressed. I had no desire to eat. I’m just naturally tall and thin to begin with so, me dropping 35 pounds, I was like scary, skinny, like skeletal. I couldn’t sleep because of all the stress from my husband. I was a walking zombie. I was still trying to keep up with being a mom, working, and it just took a toll on me.
Thyroid Problems: Hypothyroidism
One day, things started happening to my body. I’m straightening my hair and I’m like, why are clumps of my hair falling out? Why do I have these weird pains in my arms and my knees and my legs? These mystery things started happening.
I truly thought it was from my work, cause I lifted a lot of heavy things. I did a lot of data entry on the computer. I’m like, well maybe I have carpal tunnel trying to justify it in my mind. Because I just lost my benefits, I was like, hey, to the manager, I think I need to go to the doctor. Do you think you could workman’s comp me?
And she’s like, sure. So, I go to urgent care and I’m rambling everything off all my symptoms, like we do. This doctor came off just very arrogant. He was like, hmm, let’s check your thyroid. I was like, okay.
Oh, I forgot one huge piece of this. In the middle of all of that fallout in my life too, my brother, who was two years older than me, did some stupid things and got sentenced to 12 years in prison. I suddenly became like his prison advocate and lifeline, which was crazy all within itself cause that system is just crazy.
So, I’m sitting with a doctor, and he is like, let’s test your thyroid. They have a lab in the urgent care. And I’m like, okay. The results come back 30 minutes later, and he is like, your TSH is at like a seven point something. I had no idea what that meant at the time. He’s like you have low thyroid, you have hypo. Follow up with your primary care doctor in the morning, get some medications.
Thyroid Problems: The Vague Doctor Shuffle
Then he pretty much just walked out of the room. I’m sitting on the crunchy paper, that’s what I like to call it. I’m sitting on the crunchy paper, just kind of in shock. You know that moment of diagnosis for anyone is very, very scary. You go into almost like slow-mo. I was like, what just happened?
It was just like a whirlwind. Naturally I go out in my truck and cry. I drive home and I start googling everything, you know, good old Doctor Google.
Things started progressing really just strangely after that because I had no insurance. It was like, well, what do I do? He said meds and all these things are going through my head. By this time, like a severe level of fatigue had set in that I didn’t even know existed. I was so weak I couldn’t even shower. I couldn’t stand up in the shower. I didn’t have the strength barely to wash my hair. I didn’t care about shaving my legs. It was really scary, you know?
So, I called the urgent care back in the morning and I’m like, well, I don’t have a primary. I talked to the new doctor on duty, and he was like, sure. He sent over some Armour Thyroid, 60 milligrams, to the pharmacy. I’m like, okay, so I gotta take a pill the rest of my life is basically what I was just told. Right?
This is like the number one thing that most women go through. It’s like, okay, so I just gotta take this pill and I’ll be okay. Right? There’s no information given to you. It’s just such a vague thing that we all go through.
Thyroid Problems: Battling Self
I’m like, okay, well now I have a medication that I need a doctor to manage, so I guess I need to find a doctor. Since I was already into the organic scene and would go to my local health food store, sit, and eat lunch, I was looking through their magazine one day. I found like an alternative doctor that did cash patient stuff, like for hormones on Wednesday nights.
So I started there. That really was the beginning of 10 years of just trial and error of all systems. Every year I was trying to find the path to help myself, whether it was a new functional medicine doctor, a new alternative medicine doctor. I’ve been through them all, all the titles.
I remember the day where I found out what an endo (endocrinologist) was. I was like, oh. I was thinking the heavens were like parting. I was like, finally someone that’s going to fix me. You know, because they have that term specialist behind their name. You’re just like, oh my gosh and have all this hope, right?
My introduction to my endo was, she came in the room, slammed the door, said if you don’t switch to synthetic, I refused to work with you and stared at me. I was like, holy crap. So, I walked out on her.
It was just like all these kinds of situations. Like, oh, let’s put you on this compounded medicine that put me into hyper. I thought I was going to have a heart attack; you know? Every year I kept getting sicker and sicker and sicker. No matter how much I tried to get myself better by eating better, green smoothies, like tons and tons of supplements. It was like I was battling myself.
Thyroid Problems: Being Put on Disability
I cut gluten out, cut dairy, corn, soy. It was just like the food scarcity. I was cutting so much out of my diet thinking it would help that I was putting myself into this food fear, almost like a place of, what am I going to eat? I would stand in front of the fridge crying because I didn’t know what I could eat.
2015 rolls around and I was so sick. At this point, I pretty much had about 25 symptoms. I was so weak I couldn’t turn the steering wheel. The low energy gave me such bad panic attacks that I couldn’t function at work anymore. I was having multiple panic attacks on the floor as a customer service representative. With my account reps and stuff, I couldn’t function.
I was so scared for myself. I’m like, okay, something is seriously wrong with me. So, I go back to my primary and I’m like, I need to get taken out on disability. I’m not okay. They love sending you through tons of hoops because they just want to always say it’s mental, stress, or depression, or something.
I feel like he tried to deter me from it by saying, you need to go see the shrink, talk to the therapist, and all these things. I was so determined to have him take me out, that I did everything he asked. I passed and he kind of was like, okay, fine, I’ll take you out. I was so relieved.
I turned around and took all my disability money and dumped it into another doctor. I was thinking, oh, this is going to be it. I researched and I was like, I’m going to just find that one amazing doctor that’s going to help me.
Thyroid Problems: Hashimoto’s
I started working as a cash patient with this younger doctor. I loved her because she had all the drive that you want. Like, let’s pull every test under the sun, you know, and find out what’s going on with you. I was like, yes. So, she starts doing that. It’s all blood work.
She’s like, oh my gosh, you’re Hashimoto’s. Oh my gosh, do you even eat protein? You have no protein on your labs. Oh my gosh, you’re so deficient in your nutrients. It was just kind of like this bomb after bomb. It was exciting and it was like, yay, I’m finding things out. At the same time, you almost go through this head trip of, oh my gosh, I’m so faulty and defective. Look at all these things wrong with me.
And like, well, no wonder. You almost get the validation, but then you almost feel like crappier about yourself at the same time, you know? Does that make sense?
[00:13:34] Detective Ev: Well, and it’s in that order too, right? Because initially when you’ve been going through something like you’ve been through, it is initially validating. Then it’s usually like that drive home, or when the doctor leaves the room, wait a second, this sucks, you know. Not that you didn’t know it sucks before. But yeah, that’s tough. Wow.
[00:13:51] Sarah Lohman: Yeah, especially when you get the autoimmune label dropped on you. You’re just like, oh no, my body’s attacking me. That’s what puts you into the like, faulty genes, defective, I’m screwed for life.
Thyroid Problems: Succumbing to Illness
I think that particular diagnosis of the Hashimoto’s really plays a number on women’s mindset and starts really robbing them of their hope. We can talk more about that later.
But so, I worked with her for six months. She was doing all kinds of IV pushes and all these things, but really nothing got me over the edge. I ran out of money, and I wasn’t better.
I’ll never forget this day, I consciously said to myself, well, I’ve done everything I can do. I’m at the end of the road, you know. I guess I’m just screwed. I made the decision in my mind that whatever this thing is, I’m just going to let it kill me because obviously I’ve tried to fight against it as much as I can, but it’s not working. So, okay, fine. You win. It was this really depressing moment of succumbing to illness.
I just sort of fell into this depression. I did my best to cope day in and day out. No one around you, when you’ve been chronically sick for a long time, they don’t want to know. They don’t want to hear about it. They’re tired of hearing about it. You really do start suffering alone, you know. And that is really, really hard for women as well. That isolation is terrible.
So, while all of these years have passed, my brother serves 10 years in prison and gets released. It was a very obviously exciting moment for me and my brother, I’m very relieved. And he was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s.
Thyroid Problems and Family Problems
So, while I was going through my situation on the outside, I was advocating for him on the inside to get him desiccated medication and doctor’s appointments and labs. It was crazy how much between the two of us, I was doing. Still, I was so relieved, and it was nice to have someone to talk to.
But then he had everything on his plate with reacclimating to society and all these really hard things he had to go through. Long story short, it didn’t work out for him in the long run. I’ll never forget one of our last conversations, he was like, Sis, I don’t know how I’m going to continue my job. He did HVAC. He is like, I have to work 14-hour days installing air conditioners in a hundred degrees on roofs. He was like, I don’t have the energy to do this. I was like, oh my gosh, I so understand.
It was shortly, like within weeks of him telling me that, his friend calls me and tells me that my brother’s on drugs and there was some drama going down. I was like, oh my gosh. I call his girlfriend and I’m like, what’s going on? She’s like, yeah, he’s been acting really weird.
We kind of pieced things together and tried to do an intervention to get him clean and okay. It didn’t work, he just more or less got mad at both of us. We got in a big fight that night and the next day I woke up super worried about him.
Thyroid Problems: Learning How Precious and Short Life Is
I couldn’t get ahold of him all day long. So, I just go about my day. Next thing I know, it’s six o’clock at night. I get a call from a gal he was renting a room out from. She said, Honey, I have to tell you something. I’m like, what’s wrong? She’s like, your brother’s dead. She’s like, it’s all over the news too. Go look at the news. I was like, what? You know, like next level slow motion, altered reality.
Sure enough, he was high on meth, he was working on his truck cause it was broken down. He was trying to fix it in the middle of the night. He went to some mechanic shop looking for a part and someone called the cops on him. It turned into this chase, they shot him 14 times in his vehicle, and he went off into the ravine and died. So, that now fell on my plate.
I had to take care of everything. I was being investigated by the detectives. It was insane. That was six months long. But I want you to know that this was the most miraculous thing that ever happened to me because his death ended up saving me. Even though I miss him, obviously, in my life, I don’t regret this for a minute.
What happened was, losing him so tragically, it showed me how short and precious life truly is, and how I was wasting my life away, just miserable. I had a miserable outlook. I was in a miserable marriage. I didn’t like anything about my life, and I was just going through the motions, trying to do whatever to keep my family together so my son could have a stable home. In the meantime, it was killing me.
Thyroid Problems: Rediscovering Self
It was like a veil was lifted off of my eyes and I could see life for the first time. What I saw I was not okay with. I was like, this is, nope, nope. The way I describe it is I dropped a nuclear bomb on my life. It was like the funnest thing I’ve ever done. I still had no job, no money.
My first plan was, I’m going to start selling everything so I can make some money and move out. I decided I was going to divorce my husband. I was going to change every aspect of my life and I was going to find me again. So, I started selling my blender, my juicer, my beach cruiser, and I saved up $500 bucks.
I started texting anyone and everyone I knew and I was like, can I move in? Can I rent a room? My neighbor across the street, two houses down was like, sure, you can move in. So, once I had a place to go, I told my husband, I was like, we’re done. I don’t want to be with you anymore.
I moved out. And the first thing I did is I enrolled in college. I was so excited. I was like, yes! I knew I want to do something in the health and nutrition aspect, but I wasn’t sure. I just knew. That is my degree is health and fitness. Then I just started re-exploring what I liked and what made me happy.
Thyroid Problems: Spiritually Sick
You know, like I love riding bikes and I hadn’t ridden a bike in 20 years. Why? You know? I was doing cartwheels with my daughter, and I was just blasting music and dancing and just trying to find happiness in everything. It was incredible how just these changes, just the change of knowing I was going to divorce my husband and move out and start a new life, my energy levels started coming back. I had more energy.
Throughout all of this, one of the terms that I’ve coined as one of the root cause factors, cause I’ve narrowed it down to 10 Root Cause Factors of Thyroid Illness, this one right here that I’m talking about, I call it spiritually sick. I was spiritually sick.
All of these things that I did when I started rediscovering who I was and not around the identity of a sick girl, right? Because we get so stuck in that chronic illness that that’s who we become. And it’s sad. So, I had to find myself again and I did.
I moved back home to San Diego. I thought I was going to be a registered dietician. Then I took one look at the food guide pyramid, and I was like, no. Heck no. Not going that route. So, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Then through divine guidance, I heard the Model Health Show in Cynthia Pasquala Garcia one day talking with Sean Stevenson. I heard about the Institute of Transformational Nutrition and that it was accredited.
I got so excited, I called my counselor and was like, I found it. I found my next path. So, I actually enrolled in that school. I was doing two schools at the same time. Couldn’t have been happier.
Thyroid Problems: Setting Up Personal Protocols
I had a dual graduation. So, I got my certification as a transformational nutrition coach and my degree in health and fitness. But while I was also studying and going through all of these, I was hell-bent on fixing myself. So, my divorce was underway, I moved back home.
This was like probably a year, a year and a half later, I started dating a boy I had a crush on in high school. I was doing all these things for me, and I was already feeling a lot better spiritually and emotionally, but I realized I was still having a significant amount of physical symptoms. So, it was like, okay, well why? Right?
I ended up buying this program where I had access to a practitioner’s labs, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I was all by myself. I was so tired of the doctors. I was so tired of wasting money. I was just like; I’m going to figure this out myself.
So, with my grant money that I would get each semester, I was buying tests. I went test crazy on myself and it was so fun. But you know what? There were some monumental moments where I would get back a piece of my puzzle from the test results and I would set up my table and just weep because I knew that I was figuring out my whys.
Before I had any training or anything, I didn’t realize I was setting up protocols for myself. I was figuring out, I was taking these answers, and then I would research, herbs, foods, and supplements and all these different things that I could do to counter what I just found out.
Thyroid Problems: Just Hitting the Top of the Healing Iceberg
I did my gut, adrenals. I was doing everything, infection panels, and it was just absolutely incredible. I was able to actually reverse all 25 of my symptoms really quickly. It was actually shocking to me how fast I was able to get rid of these things. But then what I realized was left over after that, was all of the mental and emotional and spiritual healing that I needed to go into.
I had the grief from my dad’s death, which I realized I didn’t process the grief from my brother’s death, all of the abuse from my narcissist husband. And then you kind of go, whoa. I just hit the tip of the iceberg; you know? That’s basically what led me into starting my own company, Coach Sarah Joy.
I’ve been coaching other thyroid warriors now for three years. I love it. I absolutely love it. Like Reed and what you do, I am a root cause coach. I don’t believe in not providing answers, you know, because I know what no answers do for women.
[00:24:10] Detective Ev: Wow. All right. Do you speak on this subject professionally?
Sarah Lohman: I don’t.
Detective Ev: We should talk about that afterwards, but that’s beside the point.
This is incredible because there’s so many different aspects here. Obviously, when you’re going through these labs and learning this stuff, I’m sure there was plenty dietary changes that occurred and all those types of things.
But initially, when this all started, I mean, this truly is a result. At least it was the final straw result. Maybe your body was already building to this, who knows? But it was a final straw result of serious crap going on then leading to this type of stuff.
Thyroid Problems: Women with Autoimmune Conditions
This is a perfect example of what Reed talks about in FDN. You might have heard his perspective the other day. He believes very few thyroid cases are what he calls quote/unquote “primary thyroid cases”. Most of them are secondary in tertiary.
When I hear your story, I’m like, okay, stress overload through the roof. Then an oversimplification, but we have this hypothalamic pituitary thyroid axis and yours is just getting bam, bam, bam. There’s just punch after punch. Of course, you’re going to have these symptoms. There are so many things to touch on.
But I have to acknowledge this cause this is so validating for the people out there. I really in particular appreciate your sharing of the doctor’s experience because we’re not against doctors here. We have doctors that go through the FDN course. I always have to reiterate that in case it’s the first time someone’s listening.
But what you experienced isn’t uncommon, unfortunately, in terms of like, hey, it’s in your head. There is no population I see get screwed worse than women with autoimmune conditions. Unless you literally have something, I suppose I could be wrong, but I’m going to guess something like vitiligo, psoriasis or whatever, clearly, we can see this now, right? The second that you take away the visual aspect of the autoimmune condition, they are the most screwed group with this.
Similarly, timeframe wise, my mom was actually probably going through the early stages of this at the exact same time as you.
Thyroid Problems: Final Stage of Healing is Helping Others
It took seven years to get a diagnosis of Graves’ Disease from the professionals. She had no affiliation with a natural side of things. Whatever, didn’t care, just wanted to get help for this. So, she is going to doctors, is going to actually relatively good ones, and no one could even tell her what the diagnosis is.
This is what happens to people like yourself, like my mom and many other women out there. I think it’s getting better, but it’s still not anywhere where we need it to be because it’s happening all the time and it’s scary. Look at what you did with all those years of dealing with it. What could we do in the holistic space if we found this two weeks in with the person? Right? Okay, yeah, this is what it is. Let’s do this cause we can focus on this naturally.
Seven years or years of this without like proper diagnoses and proper understandings, the person can’t even begin to start, half the time, what they’re needing to do because no one’s ever told them what the problem is. I find it so cool how you have turned this around.
One of my favorite quotes is, the final stage of healing is using what happened to us to help others. You’re the embodiment of that. I suppose with what you’ve went through, it’s almost like there’s no other choice. It’s like, I can’t even picture you. Are you going to go back do a customer service stuff? No, you have to do this. This is your purpose here, clearly.
What did this look like in the initial stages of business? Had you run any businesses before or was that a new concept for you?
Thyroid Problems: Sarah’s Mission was Born
[00:27:09] Sarah Lohman: So, I cannot tell you. I am pure passion. I can’t tell you how hard it’s been. I have no business experience, entrepreneurial experience, nothing. Like you said, I sat there and got all those test results, facts back, and I saw with my own eyes why I was sick.
It made me angry that it took me this long. I wasted so much of my life. I begged so many doctors, I did so many things to get these answers. I just wept, because like you said, this is happening to so many women. My mission was born in that moment. I’m like, I have to do something about this.
I love everything you said. I literally cannot picture myself doing anything else because this is so bad. You know, everyone thinks COVID, COVID’S been terrible, but this is an absolutely crazy silent pandemic that is happening day in and day out. No one is talking about it. Nothing is being done.
I’m not going to lie, like I see myself as a leader that’s emerging in this community as a spokesperson. I would love to get bills passed. I would love to get testing changed. In fact, even though I was going to save this for the end, I’ll just tell you guys now. I just started, because this is so bad and I am hell-bent on fixing it, that I just launched a worldwide community called The Butterfly Gang. Right now, that’s my main focus.
Yes, I have clients. Yes, I work one-on-one. But it’s interesting how this year my passion has been turned to education. There’s so much gaslighting, misinformation online.
Thyroid Problems: The Aloneness Has to Stop
The number one thing that I see with my clients is like, while I educate them, there are so many aha moments that they’re forever changed on how they take care of themselves and how they are going to move forward with doctors and labs and maintaining the health that I help them regain. The empowerment, I have to provide this empowerment through education and support.
Because like I said earlier, the number one thing, women DM me every day on Instagram and they say, thank you so much for what you’re doing because I have no one else to talk to. No one understands their pain and their suffering, and they feel so alone. Yet there’s millions of women that are going through this, but they feel so alone. I’m like, this stops. I’m like, this aloneness is not okay. Because that’s how I felt. I was so alone and sad and I just wanted someone to talk to.
So yeah, I’ve started my community. I’ve already got wonderful women from all over the world to join. It’s going really great. I’m really excited for where this is going to go and how I can help empower and change women’s lives.
[00:30:14] Detective Ev: How can people join that? Because I have one person for you at the very least. My mom’s going to love this. There’s a lot of people that I know that go through this and then do the work one-on-one. There’s very few that I know that go and turn this into almost advocacy work.
It’s uncanny the similarities in the stories. Well, it’s not my place to share. It’s not the same traumas, but you’d be shocked like the overlaps here.
Where to Find Sarah Lohman
I know her whole thing is like wanting to start an autoimmune nonprofit eventually. She’s got a lot before that. But I already know that she would join this. So where can people go to be a part of that?
I actually am in the middle of setting up a new website, so I don’t have that. Otherwise, for people that hear this in the future, you could try coachsarahjoy.com.
[00:31:06] Detective Ev: Perfect. Thank you. I can adjust the show notes accordingly or just put both. Our listeners are, thankfully, pretty intelligent people. They should be able to figure it out.
You’ve probably learned so much in terms of how to address this stuff. So, you’re more than welcome to take any route that we want cause we got about 16 minutes left. We’ve went through this story and, clearly, as you talked about the spiritual side to it, that’s obvious. I believe that wholeheartedly.
But we all know that there are people that go through certain things that never get Hashimoto’s, that never get Graves’ Disease, they never get cancer. There are other aspects, biochemical, genetic, whatever, that go into this. So, what are some of the things now? You talked about like the spiritual is one. I don’t know what you listed it as. I apologize. What did you call it?
[00:31:48] Sarah Lohman: The 10 Root Cause Factors.
[00:31:48] Detective Ev: 10 Root Cause Factors.
Perhaps we don’t have time to get through all of them, but let’s talk about some of your favorites. What are some of the other ones that people should look out for?
Thyroid Problems: Mineral Depletions and Heavy Metal Toxicities
[00:31:56] Sarah Lohman: Well, my favorite that was the most life-changing for me and my health that I still keep up on consistently has been the mineral depletions and heavy metal toxicities.
When I discovered the hair tissue mineral analysis, do you guys do that in the FDN program?
[00:32:16] Detective Ev: Not in the main course, but we do have access to it as graduates, yes.
[00:32:19] Sarah Lohman: It’s incredible. I stumbled across that, as with everything. Stumble is the wrong word. I was divinely guided to this particular test.
It was when I pulled this on myself that it doesn’t go any deeper root cause than your hair in what you get back on that. But you have to use the right lab because some labs will wash or bleach your hair and skew your results. What I have found is, a very important factor is the mineral deficiencies.
There are so many reasons why the mineral deficiencies are occurring. We could have a show just on that, you know. It goes into the crappy soil and the poor food that’s malnourished in itself, right? But then the stress factor that you were talking about, when we’re under stress. We burn through our minerals, well, nutrients in general, five times faster than we do when we’re not stressed.
So, like what you said with all of those, stress, stress, I got hit, hit, hit, hit. Now looking back, I’m like, well, no wonder I started having symptoms because I was burning through all my nutrients, and I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t eating properly, so I wasn’t replenishing from all of the stress.
Thyroid Problems: History of Infections
What I’m seeing is the majority of women are deficient in the main minerals, just magnesium, sodium, and potassium. Sodium is a core mineral that we need for adrenal function. A lot of people, they want to say that it’s the thyroid going slow first. But really what I have found is the adrenals kind of tanking out first and then bringing the thyroid down with it.
Then I’m also seeing, with my people that have the nodules, their calcium displacement because of the low magnesium and other minerals is really severe. As our minerals deplete, our body will put metals to fill in the deficiencies and we accumulate metals as well.
As I bring the mineral to metal imbalance back into place with my clients, it’s incredible how I can start getting the organs and granular systems to start operating properly just by bringing those together. Because what people don’t realize is minerals really are the foundation to health. It really does start in the minerals. They’re the catalyst. So, that’s my first favorite root cause.
My second one is infections. So, with your mom, when you said your mom, it took her seven years, the gap that I’m seeing in all medical fields with thyroid warriors, this is where one of the things that I do with every single one of my clients is I run strep. A lot of my clients will show up and say, I had strep throat my whole life to the point where my tonsils were removed. They have a history of infection.
Thyroid Problems: Infection Within the Thyroid Gland
The majority of them, they’ll have herpes or Epstein-Barr, and they don’t even know it. They will have a bad infection going on. Their white blood cells will be elevated. I mean, all markers are maxed. The doctors will see like your VCA, EBV, like was out of 600 and they’re not really even putting them on like a basic antiviral. They’re just ignoring it.
So, one of the things that I started testing after I figured it out for myself, I was like, well, I want to see. I started testing all my clients for infections. Sure enough, I find the majority of them highly infected in their blood and in their organs and glands.
I think right there that, that’s one of the key factors to actual thyroid illness is there is a true infection happening within the gland that’s causing damage. Then you add on the stress, then you add on the mineral deficiencies, then you add on the gut imbalances, then you add on the gut infections and it’s just like this pile.
That’s why they can’t uncover it cause they don’t even use the testing to uncover it.
[00:36:21] Detective Ev: Do you find, is parasites ever involved in this as well?
[00:36:25] Sarah Lohman: I don’t know if you know who Kiran, I would say his last name wrong. Kiran Krishnan.
Detective Ev: Yeah, he’s been on the show.
Sarah Lohman: Oh, I love him. I am a big, big fan.
The gut test that I use is his BiomeFx. It’s sad to say, but right now he doesn’t have parasites within it. I really hope he will. But I don’t ever discount mold or parasites. I just do the minerals and the gut and the infection.
Thyroid Problems: Hydrochloric Acid
I focus on those right now and I have a lot of success with restoring my client’s health and stabilizing all of their labs just by focusing on those.
You know, one of the things, when we start restoring the stomach, rebuilding the hydrochloric acid, getting the liver detoxed, proper bile flow, we open up the detox pathways and people are going number two more than once a day or once every other day, a lot of things naturally start resolving.
Your first line of defense to protect yourself is your hydrochloric acid and the majority of people don’t even have enough of that. So, they’re suffering with a severe heartburn, reflex, and then that just goes into the poor absorption.
So, yes, I would love to pick up those tests and get even more geekier with my clients. But so far, I haven’t needed to.
[00:37:41] Detective Ev: Gotcha. I only ask cause, and it’s completely anecdotal, it’s like one case really. But the one guy, Ryan Monahan, he is a huge FDN practitioner and one of our clinical advisors, this is crazy. His TSH when he originally got tested was a 150 and it stopped at 150 because the test didn’t go any higher. That was the highest that the doctor had ever seen.
It’s pretty cool because he’s like you, he’s turned this all around and now really helps people that are struggling with this and not getting any resolution. He was a young man at the time too. He went to a Yale Clinical Grand Rounds with 40 doctors, and no one tested the thyroid. He ended up going to this naturopathic guy that finally did it.
Thyroid Problems: It’s About Lessing All the Stressors
I know I’m biased because I’ve learned from people like you and my mom, but this is 101 to me. Like, why would you not? This is a blood test for God’s sake. This is not hard to do. It is simple and I can include a bunch of other markers on there if I really want to. But again, we’ll spend another hour on that. It’s just amazing cause it’s really simple to test for.
I only ask cause he genuinely believes that when he got rid of Blastocystis Hominis, that was like the final thing for him. However, I love what you just brought up because it’s like, okay, the virus, the parasite, whatever, it’s never just one thing anyway. So, if you start nailing down all of this other stuff, you are going to have a client in front of you that starts feeling a lot better because the body, our human selves wouldn’t be here today if we couldn’t handle some level of stress or if we couldn’t handle parasites.
I’m not saying it’s ideal, I’m not saying I would wish for one. But to act like we can’t handle this stuff, to some degree, that’s asinine, right? We obviously can, that’s how we got to this place today. It’s just more about lessening the stress to the best of our ability instead of having a parasite, a virus, gluten in the diet, traumatic stress that hasn’t been dealt with. There’s so many different things.
And if I may ask, I’m just curious cause I know so many people in the thyroid space are pretty adamant about the gluten-free thing. Have you found that to be something that is pretty much required in these clients or are you not as big on that?
Thyroid Problems: Food Addiction Stressors
[00:39:29] Sarah Lohman: You know, one of the first things I do with every single one of my clients is what I developed .It’s called food and symptom tracking system. Because a lot of people are eating gluten and don’t realize that it’s causing unnecessary symptoms. So, I will go through the tracking system with them, and I’ll see what’s harming them basically and what’s not.
To answer your question, yes, I do find that majority of my clients feel better off of gluten and off of dairy, especially dairy. I know ladies, I know. They all say to me, Sarah, don’t take my cheese. I love my cheese. So, if you just said that in your head, then please go listen to my episode called Cheese Crack on my podcast and understand why you’re addicted to cheese.
[00:40:19] Detective Ev: Most people do not know. I’m not an expert but I do know that cheese does a certain thing to a certain part of the brain, very much associated with addiction in many people. So, there’s probably some good things to learn over there if you guys don’t know that.
Anything that we love obsessively and don’t want to give up for our own health, you can probably guess that there’s going to be some type of addictive nature there. It’s so weird, right? Because we say it out loud and it’s such a common thing that we don’t think twice. But how silly is that? And I’ve been there myself. Oh, I won’t give up a food, but the promise is, your chronic disease could get really better or even be gone. And I’m sitting here debating a food. It’s really not logical, but there’s gotta be clearly then something deeper if we can’t give it up.
Thyroid Problems: Alternative Food Industry
[00:40:53] Sarah Lohman: But you know what, okay, let me speak to that really fast. Those 10 years that I was sick, and I was doing all of my food elimination, I got to a place, like I told you, I would just cry. I missed pizza and I missed ice cream. I just wanted to have a regular latte that wasn’t with soy milk, you know, and all these things.
As the years have gone on and now, we have this fabulous alternative food industry that has saved us all gluten-free, dairy-free folks. I wholeheartedly believe in not ever putting my clients into food lack. So, if I’m like, okay, I see this food is causing you unnecessary symptoms, let’s replace it. A part of everything I provide is like, check out this brand and ooh, look at this bread and you know, look at this cheese. It’s like everything in moderation, obviously. But I’m like, yes, let’s make some nachos. I’ll show you how, you know, gluten-free, dairy free.
But just to speak to that gentleman that you mentioned, the Blastocystis Hominis, that actually is a gram-negative bacterium that is covered on the gut test. There are 35. The test goes into protis bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Even though parasites per se aren’t listed on there, there is everything else.
I see C Diff infections all the time and these really bad gram-negative infections or overgrowth, which is really easy to repair because you just have to start shifting the diet and bringing up the good bacteria.
Thyroid Problems: Functional Lab Testing
But one of the other things that really has bothered me about sort of the alternative spaces, they’re using outdated tests, too. So, I had a PCR test done on myself, on my gut, and it’s seven pages long and it did provide some answers, but really not a lot. Where this new test, this breakthrough state-of-the-art gut test by Biome called BiomeFX, is a game changer.
[00:42:48] Detective Ev: Cool. For whatever it’s worth for FDNs listening, because I think they get confused sometimes, especially if they’re new and we have a lot of new ones that listen. So yes guys, we have our main stuff in the FDN course. But what’s cool about what Sarah’s saying is that you actually can get access to this as an FDN practitioner because we can create accounts directly with Microbiome Labs, like many health professionals. You can actually do that there if you’re interested.
And we always say too, just make sure you get the proper training on whatever you’re doing. Because any test is useless if it’s in the eyes of someone who doesn’t know how to analyze it.
But clearly, absolutely at the highest levels, there are just objectively better tests. Like there are objectively better food sensitivity tests for certain things if the person knows what they’re looking at and how to do it. Better hormone tests, if the person knows what they’re looking at.
I love that you use that one. Admittedly I don’t hear about that one as much, but now I’m starting to see a lot more spread in a variety of places. We got people repping Vibrant Wellness a lot. GI MAP is still a standard, of course. I know some people that still do the classic stool culture.
Thyroid Problems: Personal Experience Based Programs
I don’t know necessarily what the advantage of that would be in today’s world with all the other stuff that we have. Like, I don’t know how that would be a good standalone, but I get it. Some people like doing their thing. Whatever we can do to find the most things for the client is great. And what’s kind of nice, I guess, in a sense about gut testing is we’re still at a point where even though we’re getting so much more advanced, we’re never going to find everything, most likely.
There are core principles that are most important to focus on, that you probably can do with just about anyone regardless of the test or not. Never get too overwhelmed about it if you’re a new practitioner.
You’re clearly, extremely well versed in this. Something I wanted to ask you. Basically, I know that you have certifications, but you kind of came up with your own system though, is that correct?
[00:44:22] Sarah Lohman: I did, yeah. I have created everything based on what I did to myself. And then there’s been some developments along the way. But I have an OG whole program and system. I didn’t know cool people like you existed out there in all these programs. I really just was like, I am going to figure this out myself, and I pioneered everything. So, yeah, I’m really proud of what I’ve built and it’s very effective.
[00:44:49] Detective Ev: Yeah, you should be. This is impressive.
Thyroid Problems: Sickness Can Be Debilitating
Reed, basically, did a similar thing, right? I know plenty of people who have certifications. You would now be the second person that I know that has come up with, okay, I’m going to actually figure out an intelligent system here myself. Reed’s the only other person I know. I don’t know, you guys are both impressive in different ways.
On one end I’m impressed with Reed since one, he did it a while ago, and two, he did it in the sense that like he didn’t even have the motivation of his own health issues. So that’s cool. But then on the opposite end, we have someone like you who was super sick and trying to figure this out.
I don’t care how passionate someone is when you’re sick. I’m a motivated guy. It’s hard to get stuff done when you’re sick. It’s very motivating in moments, like you get the lab results back, awesome. The new supplements come in, great. But then there’s a day to day. There’s 24 hours in that day and it can be near debilitating sometimes, depending on what the person’s dealt with.
So, just props to you. I think it goes without saying, cause somehow we have gotten 50 minutes. I’d love to have you back on. We have had part twos with people. It’s only been a few times, but sometimes the story’s just phenomenal and it’s like we have to have you back on to go through the rest of these 10 pillars. So we’ll talk about that when we’re off here.
Who Would Like to Work With Sarah?
Two quick things then. One, I think we kind of already have the answer, but just to be clear, where can they find the rest of your business stuff? You still will actively take clients right now despite your new project, right? Like they could still work with you?
[00:46:01] Sarah Lohman: Yes. I only have two spots open before I’m maxed out. I don’t want to overwhelm myself because I pour everything into my clients. I’m sure you know the feeling. They are just, they’re like my sisters.
Thank you for all of your kind words. I really appreciate that. It’s so nice to hear your compliments. You know, it wasn’t easy. So, yeah, like I said before, I mainly live on Instagram. I’ve tried to switch to other platforms, but I just have an amazing, beautiful community there that I’ve built. And I talk with my thyroid warriors constantly.
So, that’s just @coach.sarah.joy. I do post on TikTok and sometimes go live. But it’s my secondary, so you could also find me there just coachsarahjoy. I do have my podcast Thursday Thyroid Talks. You can watch all of the replays on my YouTube channel, again, which is just coachsarahjoy.
My podcast is really cool because I started it to actually touch on thyroid warriors’ stories, but then it was really hard to always get a thyroid warrior to come on with me every other week and share their stories. So, then I started inviting other coaches on, and now I have a lot of different guests.
The Butterfly Gang
But that’s one of the core things of my podcast is I invite women, everyday women just like me, to come on and just share what they’re going through because we need to hear these things. We need to know that there’s other people out there that are going through similar things like this and that we’re not alone. So, you can go check that out, all major platforms.
Then my community, the Butterfly Gang, it’s very beautiful place. I know it’s just going to grow and be so incredible over the years. I have my five-year vision for it already, and I can see myself doing meditation, leading meditations, and cooking classes, and juicing, and smoothies.
Right now, I’m just focusing on the core education of my 10 Root Cause Factors. I just posted my first lesson, which was just Thyroid 101. Next week I’m posting Thyroid Malfunction 101, then I’m going to go into the 10 Root Cause Factors. The rest of the year I’m going to really pinpoint in on the education of each 10 Root Cause Factor. It’s a really incredible place. It’s only $40 a month.
Right now, they can try it for free for seven days, like a seven-day free trial. Come in, check it out, decide if we want to stay. Then there’s going to be the video vault. So, no matter when they join, they can have access to all the replays and, of course, the community.
Signature Podcast Question
[00:48:27] Detective Ev: This is awesome. Alright, well even though we will have you back on, I will still ask you our signature question for today and it’s my favorite question on the podcast. This is a tough one too, cause you’ve learned a lot, so it’ll be interesting to hear what you say.
The signature question is this, if I could give you, in this case, a magic wand and you could wave it and get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, so you can choose literally getting them to do one thing or you can get them to stop doing one thing, what is the one thing that Sarah would get them to do?
[00:48:55] Sarah Lohman: That is such a good question. Oh my gosh. I could wave a magic wand and get everyone to do one thing, what would I have them do? Oh, there’s so many avenues to tolerate illness.
[00:49:11] Detective Ev: And it can be health in general too if it makes it simpler for you.
[00:49:15] Sarah Lohman: You know, I would definitely have everyone start requesting when they go in and they’re so adamant over their thyroid panels, I would have them start requesting infection panels too. I would have them start taking these herpes, cold sores, all these different viral infections more serious.
I would have them look at those as in, okay, this is something seriously going on in my body. What can I do about it? Regardless of if they aren’t going to take it serious with you, you can still research of like, okay, this is what I see. What can I do to help myself?
[00:49:51] Detective Ev: Got it. Sarah, this was excellent.
Conclusion
Thank you so much for coming on today.
[00:49:56] Sarah Lohman: You’re welcome. Thank you so much.
Do your current eating habits make you want to change your relationship with food? If so, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to learn 5 steps you can take to heal your relationship with food.
Our life experiences shape our current relationships with food. Maybe you picked up some habits from your parents, guardians, or siblings. Or, maybe you developed some of your own tendencies as a result of dieting or even trauma. Over time, our relationships with food evolve and develop into what they are today.
Sometimes, the relationship we’re left with isn’t necessarily beneficial. Thankfully, this can be changed. By learning about your habits and tendencies, breaking them down, and implementing new ones that embody balance, you can change your relationship with food for good.
I Want to Change my Relationship With Food
First of all, pat yourself on the back for simply having this revelation and seeking out support. Change is never easy, and the hardest part is simply accepting that it’s necessary. So you’re already off to a great start!
When embarking on a journey like this, it’s important to set yourself up for success by utilizing self-compassion from the start. Essentially, cut yourself some slack. Just as we previously discussed, our current relationships with food are developed over years, not days. With this in mind, does it make sense to expect to change your relationship with food overnight? Of course not. Go easy on yourself, expect speedbumps, and remember, change takes time.
5 Steps to Change Your Relationship With Food
Below are the best 5 tips I can give you to heal your relationship with food. They’ll take you through the many facets of your relationship and teach you how to rebuild each and every one of them. Don’t forget to take this slowly. I don’t recommend trying to take all 5 steps at once! Start with one or two, then move on to another when you’re feeling confident.
Let’s get into it!
Practice Mindful Eating
Here at Nutrition Stripped, we believe there are two important aspects of eating well every day: what you eat and how you eat. The concept of mindful eating is more about how to eat rather than what or how much you are eating. It’s all about putting the focus back on your experience at mealtimes.
Start to experience your food and be present when eating your meals and snacks. Remind yourself that food isn’t a chore, it’s not a job and it’s not a means of exerting control. It’s a way to nourish your physical body, experience or share culture, and so much more. You can learn more about the specific principles of mindful eating here. If you simply follow this one step, before you know it you’ll change your relationship with food.
Stop Following Trending Diets and Detoxes
This is a big one. Just don’t do it. I promise it’s not doing you any good. Diets are meant to keep you coming back, they put you into something I call the diet cycle. It’s the, “on the bandwagon”, “off the bandwagon” cycle.
As soon as you stop jumping into these trends, you’ll be able to develop consistency. You’ll be able to nourish yourself in a way that works for your unique body, rather than someone else’s. Remember, diet trends are a means of marketing, they’re a business. In order to change your relationship with food, you have to ditch the diet cycle.
Remove The Food Rules
Next up, kick the food rules to the curb. No more eat this and not that, or this is right and this is wrong. Food doesn’t work that way, especially when you want a balanced, positive relationship with food. Food rules are restrictive and controlling. They leave you feeling deprived, stressed, and even ashamed.
If you’re looking to change your relationship with food, you’ll need to leave the food rules behind. If and when you hear yourself abiding by or even reciting a food rule, take a moment to pause. Ask yourself, “Is this a food rule? How can I maintain balance with food without following this rule?”. Over time, you won’t have to pause. You’ll have changed your relationship with food and those rules will no longer serve you.
Prioritize Both Nourishment and Enjoyment Consistently
We absolutely need both. In order to nurture our physical, mental, and emotional health, both enjoyment and nourishment need to be prioritized. When we say nourishment, we mean foods that physically nourish your body. When we say enjoyment, we mean foods that bring you joy, regardless of their nutritional content.
If you can ensure the vast majority of your meals and snacks prioritize both of these factors, you’ll be on your way to changing your relationship with food. You won’t feel deprived, and food won’t feel like a chore. Food will become an enjoyable, easeful part of your life!
Stop Thinking About Food as Either Good or Bad
In order to prioritize both nourishment and enjoyment regularly, this one’s pretty important. If you constantly feel like you’re eating, “bad” food whenever you eat enjoyment-based foods, you’ll constantly be riddled with guilt and ashamed. Additionally, if you always feel like you, “should” be eating nourishment-based foods, you’re going to feel like food is a chore.
Take morality out of the equation to change your relationship with food. Start thinking about food as simple nourishment, enjoyment, or a combination of the two. That’s it! At first, this may require you to correct yourself or remind yourself on occasion, but before you know it, this will become your reality.
The Takeaway
Changing your relationship with food is possible. It just takes a few simple steps and some dedication. Anyone can have a positive balanced relationship with food. Sometimes, it just takes a little support!
Do You Want to Experience More Balance with your Food Choices?
Then find your balanced eating type!
Take this 45-second free quiz to find out which balanced eating archetype you are, and what your unique type needs to maintain balance with the way you nourish yourself. That way, you can finally be free from food and diet obsession, maintain a balanced weight, and cultivate a positive relationship with food and your body.
Reed is one of the authors of The Gap: Simple Steps to Reclaim Your Health and Reverse Most Chronic Diseases. He shares so much with us on autoimmunity root causes. A few things we chat about
Did you know adrenal health and the function of our adrenal glands affect the rest of our overall health? Join me and my guest, Reed Davis, to learn more about why our adrenal glands’ health is important and what is wrong with the expression of adrenal fatigue.
In this episode you’ll learn:
⏰ 6:48 The adrenal glands and how they help us with stress ⏰ 14:18 How the body reacts when we’re in fight or flight ⏰ 21:00 Understanding ‘metabolic chaos’ is the first step in recovery ⏰ 25:27 The solution is not to treat one thing at a time ⏰ 28:23 How to D.R.E.S.S. for health success ⏰ 30:57 Awareness is key ⏰ 37:43 The ONE thing you can do today to help your body heal
Meat-eating athletes are put to the test against vegetarian athletes and even sedentary plant-eaters in feats of endurance.
“In 1896, the aptly named James Parsley led the Vegetarian Cycling Club to easy victory over two regular clubs. A week later, he won the most prestigious hill-climbing race in England….Other members of the club also turned in remarkable performances. Their competitors were having to eat crow with their beef.” Then, a Belgian researcher put it to the test in 1904 and found that those eating more plant-based reportedly lifted a weight 80 percent more times. (I couldn’t find the primary source in English, though.) I did find a famous series of experiments at Yale, published more than a century ago, on “the influence of flesh eating on endurance,” which I discuss in my video The First Studies on Vegetarian Athletes.
The Yale study compared 49 people: meat-eating athletes (mostly Yale students), vegetarian athletes, and sedentary vegetarians. “The experiment furnished a severe test of the claims of the flesh-abstainers.” And, “much to my surprise,” wrote the researcher, the results seemed to vindicate the vegetarians, suggesting that those eschewing meat “have far greater endurance than those who are accustomed to the ordinary American diet.”
As you can see at 1:12 in my video, the first endurance test measured how many continuous minutes the participants could hold out their arms horizontally: “flesh-eaters” versus “flesh-abstainers.” The meat-eating Yale athletes were able to keep their arms extended for about ten minutes on average. (It’s harder than it sounds. Give it a try!) The vegetarians did about five times better. The meat-eater maximum time was only half the vegetarian average. Only two meat-eaters hit 15 minutes, while more than two-thirds of the meat-avoiders did. None of the meat-eating athletes hit half an hour, while nearly half of the plant-eaters did. This included nine who exceeded an hour, four who exceeded two hours, and one participant who kept going for more than three hours.
How many deep knee bends can you do? One meat-eating athlete did more than 1,000, with the group as a whole averaging 383, but the plant-eating athletes creamed them, averaging 927. Even the sedentary vegetarians performed better than the meat-eating athletes; they averaged 535 deep knee bends. That’s wild! “Even the sedentary [meat] abstainers surpassed the exercising flesh-eaters” in performance. In most cases, the sedentary plant-eaters were physicians who sat on their butts all day. I want a doctor who can do a thousand deep knee bends! As you can see at 2:15 in my video.
Then, in terms of recovery, all of those deep knee bends left everyone sore, but much more so among those eating meat. Among the vegetarians, of the two who did about 2,000 knee bends each, one went straight off to the track to run and the other went on to their nursing duties. Among the meat-eaters, one athlete “reached his absolute limit at 254 times, and was unable to rise from a stooping posture the 255th time. He had to be carried downstairs after the test, and was incapacitated for several days.” Another meat-eating athlete was impaired for weeks after fainting.
“It may be inferred without reasonable doubt,” concluded the once skeptical Yale researcher, “that the flesh-eating group of athletes was very far inferior in endurance to the abstainers,” the vegetarians, “even the sedentary group.” What could account for this remarkable difference? Some claimed that flesh foods contained some kind of “fatigue poisons,” but one German researcher who detailed his own experiments with athletes offered a more prosaic answer. In his book, Physiologische Studien über Vegetarismus—looks like Physiological Studies of Uber-Driving Vegetarians, doesn’t it? (I told you I only know English)—he conjectured that the apparent vegetarian superiority was due to their tremendous determination “to prove the correctness of their principles and to spread their propaganda.” If we believe him, vegetarians apparently just make a greater effort in any contest than do their meat-eating rivals. The Yale researchers were worried about this, so “special pains were taken to stimulate the flesh-eaters to the utmost,” appealing to their college pride. Don’t let those lousy vegetarians beat the “Yale spirit”!
The Yale experiments made it into The New York Times. “Yale’s Flesh-Eating Athletes”—sounds like the title of a zombie movie so far, doesn’t it?—“Beaten in Severe Endurance Tests.” “Prof. Irving Fisher of Yale believes that he has shown definitely the inferiority in strength and endurance tests of meat eaters to those who do not eat meat…Some of Yale’s most successful athletes took part in the strength tests for meat eaters, and Prof. Fisher declares they were obliged to admit their inferiority in strength.” How has the truth of this result been so long obscured? One reason, Professor Fisher suggested, is that vegetarians are their own worst enemy. In their “vegetarian fanaticism,” they jump from the premise that meat-eating is wrong—“often bolstered up by theological dogma”—to meat-eating is unhealthy. That’s not how science works. Such leaps in logic get people dismissed as zealots, “preventing any genuine scientific investigation.” A lot of science, even back then, was pointing to “a distinct trend toward a fleshless dietary,” towards more plant-based eating, yet the word vegetarian, even 110 years ago, had such a bad, preachy rap “that many were loath” to concede the science in its favor. “The proper scientific attitude is to study the question of meat-eating in precisely the same manner as one would study the question of bread-eating” or anything else.
[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 why to sell programs and not one-off sessions.
First of all, I just wanted to thank you guys. I do this occasionally but should do it more often. Thank you for leaving reviews and sharing such positive feedback with us on Apple and Spotify. The comments that we get are so appreciated. It looks good to people who are searching for alternative health information.
Maybe they haven’t heard of us, or they are like so many of us when we first get into this world of alternative health. You kind of feel like you’re going underground. You have never seen this before, but there’s a whole world down there, right? Like if you dug underground, you would realize there’s these ecosystems. There are tons of stuff to see.
I feel like that is at least somewhat similar to what happens in the world of alternative health. You are operating in the day-to-day world, totally normally, totally unbothered, and you finally learn about this stuff or get a hint of this stuff. Then you start talking to all of these random people who seem to know so much about this or have different theories or different experiences. You’re left wondering where the heck was this all of my life.
It’s not like it’s just a few people that are into it. There are tens of millions in America alone that are highly interested in this. There are hundreds of millions of us all around the world. So, thank you guys so much for leaving those reviews.
FDN Educates on Ways to Heal
If you’re someone who listens regularly and has never done that, I hate to be one of those hosts that asks for it directly, but we would greatly appreciate it. And that’s only if you’ve listened regularly and truly actually like it. We want as many people hearing this information as possible, getting these stories into their ears.
Yes, we do include business stuff on here as we’ll kind of be talking about today. Yes, we include stuff that is mostly just for FDN practitioners, sometimes, in certain episodes that is. The bulk of what we do and what we will probably continue to do as long as this podcast is around, is teach people ways that they can really heal themselves. And we’re helping them hear that through stories in addition to actual science.
Because for some people, and many of those people listening, you guys are like me and like many FDN practitioners out there. We love the science, we love the studies, we love digging deep into that. That is wonderful. Other people really need to learn almost exclusively through stories. And although this is not how my mind works, some of them really don’t care about the science behind it.
They just want to know, has it worked for someone else and they want to listen to that. They’re inspired by it and they will go do what that person did, regardless of whether or not they have the full understanding of the science behind it. Fair enough. Totally fine with me. That might not be the most ideal option to do with everything, but in this world, it’ll work well enough in terms of FDN.
FDN Facebook Trainee Group
However, with all that said, what we’re going to be diving into today is an FDN trainee inspired post. I posted in our FDN training group. Because if you don’t know, if you join FDN, one of the things that you get now, and this was not always the case, this was actually not available when I went through the course even six years ago. One of the things that happens is you get added to our Facebook trainee group, and so you get to communicate directly with mentors.
You get to communicate with staff, such as myself. You get to communicate with people like Reed Davis, the founder of FDN. He’s in there and goes live once a week. A mentor also goes live once a week at a separate time. Pretty cool.
We have all kinds of stuff going on in there. If nothing else, you can just maybe form a study group with some of your fellow trainees. But I posted in there what would they like to learn. What I was trying to do with this is figure out ways that we can listen to what they were asking for and then take that content and apply it in such a way that it’s interesting for everyone. So, this is more for the practitioner today.
If you’re someone who is just listening, because you normally listen to the stories, I do admit this might not be as relevant for you. But if you are some type of health coach, if you are any type of medical professional that’s offering holistic services, even if you’re not an FDN or never plan on becoming an FDN, totally fine. This could still be something that helps you today.
Sell Programs: Sales Script
We’re going to be talking about how and why we sell packages in our coaching. We really do not recommend one-off sessions with FDN. There might be a small disclaimer on that. I even admittedly do something, but again, it has a disclaimer on it, that would be away from the package deal. But we’ll explain why that is the core of what we do and how not only does it help you as the practitioner, but it helps your client. So, everyone wins with this. Anyway, let’s get started.
One of the first things that you will learn when you start talking about the coaching side in the world of FDN and you’ve gone through the lab part of the course, you’ve gone through the diet part, rest, exercise, all that stuff, you’ll start getting to how to actually onboard a client, how to talk to them and what to do.
We do provide you with a quote/unquote “sales script”. I say sales script, listen, I’ve been in sales. I’ve done car sales in my life; I’ve done door to door. It was something that helped me get comfortable with people cause I used to be very awkward and very nervous with people. Maybe some would still say I’m awkward, but I feel okay. That’s what matters, right?
But one of the things that you realize in those types of sales settings, not always, but a lot of the times it could start bordering on manipulation and not in a positive way, right? Because a chiropractor could do a manipulation, that’s not anything bad. But this is kind of a negative manipulation where we are using tactics or half-truths to get into these people’s heads and do things that we don’t really agree with.
Sell Programs: Qualify the Client
Admittedly, not that I’m perfect, I have many flaws. I’m a human being just like you. But it was actually one of the reasons I got out of car sales, originally. It was because they asked me to tell someone that a used car was there that was not there, and we knew that. But they were looking at one that was fairly similar.
And it was similar to be clear, but it was not the car that they wanted. It was not the same mileage; it wasn’t the same year. A lot of things were different about it. Enough that I didn’t feel, it’s not identical, that’s the bottom line. They wanted me to say on the phone, tell him we do have that car because this guy’s driving from like two hours away.
I mean, it’s already not really a great thing morally to do if they’re 10 minutes away. But I’m like, two hours away, you’re going to pull them all the way here. And then I’m supposed to tell them, oh, the car just got sold. Which was true, except I knew that before we got on the phone. It’s not like I just found it out after when he was driving there.
That’s not the type of sales script we’re talking about. Sales script for us is something that actually qualifies the person to make sure that this is someone who can get through a program like this and someone who wants to get through a program like this. Because the other side of the world of like FDN and health coaching, and if you’ve done this for a while, or even six months, you probably already know this, the client has to be willing to do the work.
Sell Programs: Telling People “No”
There is nothing worse if you are owning a business and working in a business where you are working with clients directly, than a client who has spent a significant amount of money that does not want to be there. You lose and they lose.
The problem is, the farther that goes along, now it’s kind of hard to refund them, right? Because you’ve already done some work and you’ve put in effort and money’s gotten spent that maybe can’t come back. But now they’re pissed off, so they’re terrible to work with. They’re not doing the things that they need to do to get healthy. It’s a mess.
So, when I say sales script for FDN, I mean, yes, of course it is trying to lead someone to a sale. But what is nice about our sales script, which was never included in anything I did in car sales or door to door by the way, is that a person could be told, no, we don’t want to work with you. As an FDN, we will say, no, we don’t want to work with you.
Okay, well, is that just a reverse psychology thing? It is not. When we are going through this sales script, we are qualifying the person, we teach you how to do that, to make sure, again, they are actually able to get through something like this. We teach you how to look out for red flags that might imply, indirectly, or just be very obvious, that this person cannot get through this and doesn’t want to do this, not actually. At which time we will tell them, hey, you know, I don’t think this is for you. I don’t think this is going to work out.
Sell Programs: Give Them Some Direction
Not that you have to do this, but one thing I would recommend, I’ve always done this, I think it’s just the right and good thing to do, and if nothing else, it’ll send out some positive karma for yourself. You could do it for selfish reasons if you really wanted to. But I do not get off a free call with someone without giving them direction. I will never, ever, ever do that.
Yes, we maybe got on a free call. Maybe it wasn’t for you. I don’t know how to work with you at this time. But unless that person was somehow rude or bad to me, which has never happened yet, not on an initial call, at least, I will make sure that they are set in the right direction.
Maybe it’s a book recommendation, a course that’s only like $200, $300 and I know that they can afford that. It could be another practitioner that just vibes with them better. So, it wasn’t really a money thing, it’s just that we didn’t connect. I will never leave someone who is struggling with their health hanging. Again, that’s just me.
I can’t do that because I know what it’s like to feel helpless with this. It’s scary and it’s unfair. Our life is too short to not have any hope when it comes to chronic health issues. I will always give them something. But you can choose to do that or not do that, that’s up to you.
Assuming that the person is good to go, and we are ready to work with them and they’re able to work with us, congratulations, you just got a client. You onboarded them; you got them sold. You got the credit card information, and the money has been sent.
Sell Programs: Limiting Beliefs
Now we talk about why we do these package deals and why we are not going to do one-off sessions with someone. When you are trying to help someone who has had chronic health issues over a very long period of time, which might be many of you listening, just think about this for a second. How well does that go when you try one simple diet or you try one simple supplement or you go to the acupuncturist one time or the chiropractor one time, or get a massage one time? It doesn’t really work, does it? We know this.
What’s funny is I could sit down with 99.99% of practitioners and ask them that exact same question and they would answer me and say, no, I know I can’t get them better in that way. And yet, for some reason, once they get on the phone with someone, or if they’re talking to someone in person and about to onboard them in that way and sell them on their program that way, for some reason, we will diminish ourselves enough to only sell them one or two sessions with one or two labs. How does that work?
I think what we do is, one, we have maybe limited beliefs. We don’t think that we can actually charge the amount that we are worth or the amount that we need to properly serve the client. On the other side of this is, and I don’t recommend this, but I think some people get into this work in maybe a desperation state. This is actually not many people, it’s a minority, but it’s just large enough that it’s worth mentioning and something to just watch out for in yourself.
Sell Programs: Avoid Selling from a Place of Scarcity
Do not jump ship at your job or maybe another business or whatever career you might be in when you’re going into something like health coaching or FDN. This could apply to many different industries that have nothing to do with health, but it’s basically the thing of working with people one-on-one. When you’re working with someone one-on-one, the last thing you want to be doing is selling from a place of scarcity.
First of all, I 100% believe that energetically that will show. Whether it’s explicitly obvious or not, someone’s going to be able to pick up on that. Whether they pick up on that by directly seeing, wow, this person is not confident at all, I’m really nervous about it, or whether they make another objection or another excuse and don’t ever realize it was because of your energy, it doesn’t really matter, that’s not going to work.
The other problem is though, we start making deals with people that we really shouldn’t have made because we have bills, have a family, and need to put food on the table. It’s never a good idea to approach this work or any work really, that requires working one-on-one with someone, from a scarcity mindset. You’re going to take on clients you shouldn’t have taken on, and you’re going to work with them in a way that they don’t deserve, and you don’t deserve.
So, let’s assume that we can get you to the place where you are taking on clients who are reasonable people, we already know that, and you are not coming from a place of complete scarcity. Maybe you don’t like your job or current career, but it at least pays the bills.
Sell Programs: How Long Does It Take to Make Huge Progress?
You are smart enough and aware enough to only take clients in a way that you know that you can serve them. This is when we get into the programs and packages. Again, I can ask any practitioner if they can help someone in one or two sessions. They might say yes to that to a degree, but they’re never going to get the client to where they want to go. Chances are it’s going to take more.
Well, let’s just use a hypothetical person. Let’s talk about hypothetical Sally. How long would it take Sally to really make some huge progress in her health? What do you think that would take? Two weeks, a day, 90 days? Well, the FDN program is unofficially a 90-day program.
How it started out at 90 days is because back in the day when Reed was doing this with clients almost 15, 20 years ago, even over 20 years ago at this point, he was working one-on-one with clients. I think what he was finding to be the most successful is, we signed people up for a 90-day program, we run them through all these labs, you really get some stuff done, and it makes tremendous progress in their health. That was pretty much his staple thing back then.
Nowadays, the world has gotten more and more toxic and more and more off the trail of health, right? We are completely off that trail. So, what’s interesting is FDN becomes more relevant as time goes on, somewhat, unfortunately.
Sell Programs: The Modern World Has Created a Health Nightmare
Not that I want our FDN to not do well financially, but there is a certain irony in it because the better that we do, the worse it implies the world is doing. Because naturally we shouldn’t really have to have FDN practitioners and all these fancy labs and these protocols and stuff. It comes from our modern world.
The good news for you, even though we wouldn’t wish this on people, is that because the modern world has gotten worse and worse and worse since Reed Davis started this stuff, you’re probably going to need a little more time than the 90 days. What a lot of people do now and what I would recommend doing to be smart is, your bare minimum should be 90 days. And again, there’s going to be a disclaimer on this, which I will explain soon.
There’s a certain thing that can work out here, but the bare minimum should really be 90 days. And then a lot of practitioners now are offering six, nine-month programs. You might be sitting there wondering, well, who the heck would do that? Do people actually work with people that long? The answer is absolutely. It’s actually even better for you because there’s something to be said with online marketing.
I don’t know if it’s a figure of speech, I don’t think it would qualify as that. But it’s something that I’ve heard thrown around a lot with internet marketers. They talk about how it is already pretty hard, it’s not the hardest thing in the world, but it’s tough to sell a $7 product online. Okay? Not impossible, there’s ways to do it. But it’s tough to sell a $7 product on online.
Sell Programs: Consider Dollar for Dollar
It is also tough to sell a $7,000 product online. But it is not a thousand times harder to sell a $7,000 product online than it is to sell a $7 product. Does that make sense? Because if you think about it, a $7,000 product, what this means is of course, a thousand times more expensive than a $7 product.
So, it’s already tough to sell the $7 product. The only way that you would not just shoot for the $7,000 product is if it was more than a thousand times harder. But if it was only 500 times harder, why would you not go for that? You get more money, and it was actually technically easier in the grand scheme of things, when you consider dollar for dollar.
The point being is yes, there are people to pay this out there. And in a certain sense, the more you scale this, the easier it gets. Because it’s a very specific group of people who will pay $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000, $10,000 for these types of programs.
Do they exist? Oh, yes, they do. There are a lot of FDNs doing this. My mom went through this. My mom paid an FDN practitioner. I was pretty fresh to graduating overall. I don’t necessarily recommend working with family members when they’re in the midst of a pretty serious health thing, and it’s going to take a ton of work. You can help them with the base stuff, and I did do that with my mom. But if you really gotta do some coaching there, it’s probably going to get a little messy even if you have a great family.
Sell Programs: There Are So Many That Need This
So, she ended up working with an FDN practitioner for nine months and it was like a $5,000, $6,000 program. I think it actually might have been more than that. When you count supplements and stuff, it probably was more like $7,000, $8,000, and she paid that.
My mom is the type of person who will do that and who needed it. She had been suffering for years with autoimmune conditions. Her and my dad spent a hundred thousand dollars that they did not have over a decade plus of trying to figure out what on earth was actually wrong with her.
So yes, these people are out there. Is it a high percentage of the population? No, but it’s a large number. Because remember, 1% of the population of the United States, for example, is a small percentage, but that’s 3.3 million people. That’s a lot of people, especially when you compare that to the fact that there’s only like 4,000 FDN graduates out there, which is a good number. I don’t want to discredit that, but that’s not that many when we’re talking about millions and millions and millions of people who actually need this.
Cause I don’t believe it for a second that it’s only 1% that will do programs like this. I don’t know what the exact number is, less than 25% and I believe it’s more than one. Also, I believe it’s less than 15%, but more than one. So, let’s call it seven and a half percent. I mean, we’re talking about well over 30 million people out there who would do something like this, even 40 million people who would do something like this.
Sell Programs: Charge What You’re Worth
You are better off then structuring your stuff in such a way where, yes, maybe you get on 10 phone calls, 10 sales calls, and you don’t close nine of them, but you close one. And that one was a high ticket offer because they’re doing a program. They are committed to their health, they’re serious about this. And they spent $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 with you.
Now, as a new FDN or maybe even a new health coach, if you’re listening to this, if you’re clicking on something like this, regardless of whether or not you’re an FDN, you’re probably new to the industry or you’re just an avid learner and always want to get new information to which I give you props for that. But most likely it’s the former option.
Five, six, seven thousand dollars can be intimidating to people. Fine. Do $3,000, $4,000 for 90 days. If that still sounds intimidating, again, we’ll talk about that in a second. But you need to charge what you’re worth because if you’re going to work with someone for 3, 4, 5, 6 months, that’s a lot of time. Okay?
There are people out there doing FDN businesses right now that only take on 10 to 20 clients a year, but they charge $10,000 a client. So, these people are bringing in six figure income and they get to work very intimately and very closely for long periods of time with these clients. I mean, their clients become their friends. This is awesome.
Their clients become people that when the practitioner’s traveling to the city they live in, they’re going out and grabbing dinner. They’re having fun together. That’s cool. That’s the type of relationships you can have if you choose to work this way.
Sell Programs: The FDN System Works
Technically with the FDN system, there are no rules here, do whatever you like so long as you are being ethical in how you’re using the labs and stuff. You can go run your programs any way that you want.
But there’s a reason that so many graduates have gone through this program. There’s a reason people spend $9,000 to go through the FDN program at the time of recording this, and only going to be more in the future. And there’s a reason that we’re having so much success working with people.
So, my humble advice would be to, especially if you’re listening to something like this because you’re not making the amount of money that you want to make, utilize advice from something that we know already works and has worked for tons of people still to this day, and has for the last 20 years, as opposed to reinventing the wheel.
Do I think someone out there does have a better wheel somewhere? Yes, I do. I think Reed would acknowledge that himself. There’s no way he is the best of the best. There’s always room for improvement with stuff, but this is pretty darn good. It’s good enough for you to make a full-time living if you follow it this way and help a lot of people. So maybe try this first.
When you are working long-term with someone on a program, there’s a lot that gets involved. Like I said, you’re going to develop pretty decent relationships with these people. And if you’re working with them for nine months to a year, that’s a friend at that point, right? You might be talking to this person more than you are talking to certain friends. That’s amazing. You need to charge accordingly for this.
Sell Programs: Include Your Specialties
This is where this all circles in together, because obviously the whole point of this podcast based on the title is, why do we do it this way? Well, one, we do it to serve the client at the highest level. Because all of you know that we cannot get someone with severe chronic health issues to the place that they want to be in two sessions. You can help them, you can give them advice, but it’s not going to work out the way that they want it to work out by just two or three sessions.
So most likely you’re going to have to work with them for a while. We’re going to have to correct a lot of stuff. We’re going to have to educate them on dietary stuff and sleep and supplements, and go over the lab test results, help them through protocols. Depending on what other certifications or qualifications you have, you might be someone that does more mindset work. I don’t do a lot of that, I refer out for that.
Recently, I just had someone come through, she was so freaking cool and mature and understanding. But we were getting to the point where it really wasn’t working, and it was a huge disconnect and it wasn’t something that I was used to in clients that I have taken on in the past. I kind of realized the missing link was something mindset wise. Now this is not one of those people who says, oh, it’s all in your head and you’re making it up. No, I don’t think it’s making it up. But I did believe that her stress was the main thing holding her back, and she agreed with that.
Sell Programs: Taking Care of You is Taking Care of Others
You could be helping someone with that if you have different qualifications or certifications. Maybe you’re coming in as a personal trainer, maybe you’re also an acupuncturist, maybe you have a nursing background or some other type of healthcare thing, right?
Usually, it’s not required by any means, but usually people have some other type of interest or passion outside of just the core FDN thing. Because unfortunately people typically don’t find us first, right? They go through something else or many other things and then find FDN and they’re like, darn, I wish I did this first. But you might have to work on them with all that stuff.
You need to commit to this person for a good period of time. Three months is like the bare minimum in my opinion. Now at the same time, for you to deliver for that person at the level that they need you to deliver at, even if they’re super compliant with the program, you’re going to have to show up.
You gotta show up pretty often. And depending on what you offer in your programs, you might be texting this person back and forth. You might be offering ongoing email support. You’re like their lifeline a lot of the times on these calls. Again, these people can be kind of hopeless and rightfully so, right?
No one’s ever told them that they could get better from the things that they’re dealing with. You’re that person for them, man. And you might have four or five client calls afterwards. So, you need to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself too, because we can’t pour from a cup that’s empty. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. So, you gotta charge the right amount.
Sell Programs: Charge Correctly and Provide Quality
The only way to charge a high-ticket amount, unless you’re a celebrity name, is by doing it in the form of a program. If I tell someone I’m charging $500 an hour, unless I’m a celebrity name, they’re going to be like, what the heck? Get outta here. Unless I’m very well known, not in a celebrity sense, but like just known as someone who is really good at one condition, that’s not going to happen.
A program, a package that’s structured, can still lead to you making a hundred plus dollars an hour fairly easily. But someone might not want to pay that directly. It needs to be done in a program and they see all the value, they get it.
Now you are still worth it. This is not a trick to rip off the clients, that’s not what I’m saying at all. It’s actually the exact opposite. I’m saying for them to get the best results, you are probably going to need to be paid at that level to make you sure your business works, your finances work, and your health is still in order so that you can show up for these people at the highest level.
Because one trap that a lot of people fall into is when they don’t do stuff like this, they start taking on a million clients that they never should have taken on. Then even though they got into this work to get their own health under control, most likely they did that, now their health is in shambles again because they’re going 70 hours a week taken on clients.
Sell Programs: There’s No Price Limit on Our Health
They can’t show up for any of the people properly, and now the clients are upset. They didn’t get what they paid for, you feel underappreciated and underpaid even though you’re working 70 hours a week. That’s not a way to do business. You need to figure out the amount that you need to make in order to work with someone effectively for three months or six months.
Chances are, if you take an honest look at that and break it down hour by hour, yeah, you’re going to need to charge $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 to make that work. Do you think the client’s going to care about that when you help them with some serious condition?
Of course, we don’t treat or diagnose anything specifically. But it’s not a false claim, it’s not even a claim at all to just mention and acknowledge the stories that we’ve heard on this podcast. We interview all types of people. We’re talking about autoimmune disease some days, skin issues other days, cancer sometimes comes up, mental health stuff comes up. The fact of the matter is many people, when they use the FDN philosophy and stick to it over a fair period of time, they do see resolution in symptoms.
So, then the question is for $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, for someone who’s suffering chronically with an issue, and that might have been you. You can put yourself in those shoes, what would you pay for that? Because to me, I got to a point with my mental health and especially the cystic acne, there is no limit on the amount of money that I would’ve paid. I just wanted something that would work.
You Have to Really Earn an FDN Certification
That is true almost a hundred percent of the time with these clients. They don’t care, they just want to get better. So, if I know that there is an amount that allows me to show up as my best self and gets them the best results possible because I’m able to show up for them every time, and they could hopefully see 90 plus percent resolution in the symptoms that they are dealing with, and they’re going to be happy as crap because of it, why would I not do that? That’s just common sense at that point.
But people allow limiting beliefs to hold them back from this stuff. They don’t always believe that people will commit to six months, or that they have the money. They don’t always believe that they can fulfill on the program.
Even though we do not graduate people if they’re not ready to go out and do this work, we only graduate people who are ready to go out and do this work. This isn’t just a program that you come in, click a few buttons and you finish your module for the week and then all of a sudden you get a certificate. You gotta earn this one. The reason that we do that is, so you are prepared to go out there and charge the prices that we recommend. That’s why we focus on the program style of coaching.
Now, one disclaimer I will put on this cause I mentioned this in the beginning. Does one-off coaching sessions ever have a place?
Do One-Off Sessions Have a Place?
Well, one way that it has a place is if you’ve already done the main coaching with someone and now, they want to work with you for like one session again. Maybe it’s been like a month break since they finished a three- or four-month program, and they need some course correction. Sure, give them a one-off session.
Do it at a discounted rate, like at least discounted compared to what your normal package is. Cause you probably like this person now, they’re more educated, they should be less effort, so they should have to pay less. That’s fair.
But should we ever do a one-off session when the person is new? Again, yes and no, but we have to have context.
I do this sometimes. There are a few factors that go into me doing this. One, I highly qualify the person. I make sure this is a person that is willing to do the work. I make sure that the only reason that they have not committed to me on a higher level is because they genuinely cannot afford this right now.
There are many people out there that can afford high level programs, I promise you that. But it is also a factual statement to say that in America, which is a quite prosperous country, it’s like 48% of people don’t even have $500 in their bank account for an emergency. Many people are doing this on credit, and some people don’t want to do that. They might be telling the truth when they say, I genuinely don’t have the money right now.
Make Sure You’re Gonna Get Results
If I have someone that’s super motivated and doesn’t have the money, what can I do for them? I know this exists because that was me. It was me. I was 20, 21 years old. I had never gotten into a career yet, not a real one at least. Cause I couldn’t maintain half of these jobs and the workload that they had with the health stuff. I was willing to do whatever, I just didn’t have the money.
So, there are times and places, there are people that this could benefit. If you hyper qualify the person and you know that they are good to go and they really are willing to do whatever it takes, okay. Now this could be a time for a one-off session. What would that look like? Well, it could be a little different depending on what you feel most comfortable with lab wise. But I would recommend one that you are darn near positive is going to get some results.
Some people will do one-off sessions for gut testing. I do admit gut testing can be phenomenal to do for a one-off session because you can find a lot of useful things. The one issue is, first of all, gut tests are almost always the most expensive test out there, generally speaking, that you’re going to use regularly, at least. But the other issue is it’s going to lead to supplement protocols, right? Because if bugs come up, parasites, whatever, you’re going to have to address that in some way.
Go For the Easy Win Ones
Now they spend a decent amount on the lab, they had to pay for your consultation, and now they’re using the supplements. It’s weird when you go a just gut testing route. I mean, you could easily have a client that’s spending $900 plus dollars a first one simple session, and they’re not getting any additional guidance through the program.
So, with the exclusion of that one, I probably wouldn’t do that. You gotta find the easy win ones. Some of the other easy win ones, in my opinion, hormones, especially for women, can be very useful. Women really like the hormones thing, that’s what I found. Food sensitivity testing, a good food sensitivity test like the MRT or a Wheat Zoomer could be phenomenal because you’re going to find something.
Those tests are highly correlated with symptoms that the people deal with, and you can show them something that they can change in their life. Are they going to get a hundred percent better from either of those tests? I’d be shocked. Those tests aren’t even intended to do that. No one pretends that’s what the intention is, but you can get them a lot better and that’s kind of amazing.
Now they know that it works. They know that you helped them, you certainly helped them for a fair price. The tests aren’t super complicated. Food sensitivity tests are one of the only tests that I could take right now, and I don’t have any prep for the client. You could just say, here, Sally, in front of you and at the same time you’re going to get our lab results and have to analyze it. That would hurt me in no way to do that for a food sensitivity test.
Make Sure Clients Know They’ll Need More
It’s nothing versus a gut test. There are some weird things that can come up or other parts that need to be considered. You gotta address that, work on that, and review that prior to getting on the call with the client.
But find something relatively easy, something that’s not taking a bunch of your time because then you can charge less, still an amount that’s worth it for you, but you can charge less. This might be particularly good in the beginning of your business. So those are my little disclaimers on it.
On one end, I hate when newbies do this because then I feel like you’re kind of selling yourself on those limiting beliefs that, I can only do this. But it’s undeniable that it’s a great way to get more people in the door. Because yes, there are only so many people, despite how many people might want to do it, that can spend $5,000 on a program. That is actually true that there’s only so many people that can do that. We know that from statistics.
So, if you start out with something simple that you know you can get the person results on and you sell it to them, honestly, be like, listen, there’s no way that this is going to get you to where you want to go, but it’s much more affordable. It can show you that I’m valid in what I’m doing, that I actually have something to do here. Then once you know that it’s working for you, maybe we can consider something else.
That’s my final part. Make sure that you are planting the seed that this is not the only thing that they are going to need to get the full help that they want.
Don’t Work Harder, Work Smarter
Really what you are trying to do is give them a break here so that they can eventually commit to something higher. But this is what you can do now. That is my one little disclaimer for one-off packages. I would not recommend it, normally. It can get into a whole mess with it.
A lot of the times if you keep pushing this long term, you are going to attract clients that can only afford a $500 package. So great, you made like $125 from a one-off session, but now you need to work with 20, 25 people a week to make an income. Versus remember those practitioners, there’s plenty of FDNs out there that are only working with 10 to 20 clients a year but charging $10,000. They’re making the same amount as the person who would’ve had to work with 10 to 20 clients a week.
When you put it that way, I know it’s a stretch and it seems like a lot of money but think about what you actually believe would be harder. Do you really think it’s more realistic and easier to get 20 clients a week, that’s a thousand clients a year, to pay $500, or 10 to 20 clients a year to pay $10,000? I mean, I think when you put it that way, it’s kind of a little more obvious. I know it could still be something that triggers limiting beliefs for people, but I think you can kind of get on board with that.
Conclusion
I hope that makes sense. This is why we structure things the way we do and why, whether or not you’re a health coach, health practitioner, FDN practitioner, or someone who’s never going to become an FDN but does something similar to us, you really should consider the program stuff. It helps people get to a higher level of health.
You know this in your heart that they need more than one or two sessions. It allows you to get the money that you need so that you can be mentally and financially stable enough to show up for these people and everyone wins. You’re going to get more referrals, charging more money because you’re doing a better job.
If you have any questions about this, you can always reach out to us on our Instagram. We do not use chatbots. We have real people answering you. It is fdntraining on Instagram, that is at fdntraining on Instagram.
Alternatively, you can comment to me on our Podbean, that is where we host our podcast. So even though it’s not the most listened to platform, Apple is by far, Podbean is still a great place to comment there. And I’m the only one who gets to see that stuff. I can check it out for you.
You could search for the Health Detective Podcast on Podbean or go to us on Instagram, shoot us a DM and I will make sure to get your questions answered for you on this show or directly there.
I’m looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. But until then, please take care.
Homework, school events, friends, sports teams, extracurricular activities, technology and parents’ busy work schedules can all compete for attention in family life. Many families struggle with finding the time to spend with one another in a fulfilling and meaningful way, especially as kids get older and begin to build their own lives and independence. But everyone’s got to eat, right? Cooking together as a family is a wonderful way to spend quality time together and get some delicious eats out of the deal. That’s why we’ve compiled this delectable collection of family-friendly recipes to cook together.
Cooking as a family isn’t just about tantalizing the taste buds. A group family effort to prepare a meal can:
Help family members bond with one another and have fun, and perhaps offer the opportunity to discuss important things without having to sit down and ‘have a talk’.
Make cooking age-appropriate. You know your kids and what they can handle. Some children may be very adept and coordinated at handling tools and ingredients, while others should only be in charge of stirring. Start off with the easy stuff and increase the challenges as they learn and grow.
Trust in your kids. Sometimes we may feel afraid to let children approach the stove or use a knife, but with proper supervision, they can usually handle more than we think they can. Allow your child to boost his or her confidence and skills in the kitchen by allowing them to take the reins with your help and support.
Recognize that cooking as a family will take more time. The recipes that you can whip up in your sleep will likely take more time when the whole family is involved. Give yourself the time and space in your schedule to cook slowly. Patience is likely needed here too – yes, it might be quicker and easier for you to crack 4 eggs into a bowl or to chop an onion, yet when you encourage your child to do these things, it builds confidence and trust. Once the family gets into the groove of cooking together, recipes will likely come together more quickly.
It’s OK to create a mess. Cooking will be stressful if kids feel pressured to do everything perfectly with no allowances for gluten-free flour spilled on the counter or spatters on the stove. Allow the family to cook with abandon. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they do the cooking and you have to deal with the mess. Once the cooking process is finished, you can teach your kids how to clean the dishes, or you can clean in stages while you’re waiting for something to come out of the oven.
Get your kids involved in planning. Sit down together as a family to sketch out what kind of meals you’d like to eat. Kids are more likely to enjoy the process when they have some agency, as opposed to always being told what to eat. Devise guidelines together (that means no dairy-free ice cream for dinner), like each meal must include two different kinds of vegetables or other family food rules.
Take your kids to the grocery store. This helps children learn about recognizing and selecting ingredients, the cost of food, exposes them to scents and tastes, and helps inspire them to explore new flavours. You could ask them to pick one new ingredient each trip, or give them a budget challenge and ask them to buy ingredients for an entire meal within certain monetary limits.
Offer choices when applicable. You’re not running a restaurant. Sometimes the food on the table is going to be the only option and your kids will just have to eat it, even if it’s not their favourite. However, there may be opportunities where you can offer children some choices and options to help them enjoy their meals more. Many of the recipes we’ve included below can be customized with additions or toppings like burgers, chili, pizza and tacos. So if you’re child doesn’t like raw onions, he or she can have sliced tomatoes or pickles on the burger instead, or choose salsa over guacamole for chili or tacos. These little things may help them feel more satisfied with the meal and cut down on fights and tantrums.
Remember to enjoy the process! Cooking family-friendly recipes together is meant to be a fun experience, not drudgery. Make your cooking time fun with a positive attitude, and add in some flair by choosing great music or podcasts to listen to.
With these family-friendly recipes on hand, you can learn to cook together and find new household favourites! And for more kid-friendly recipes, tips and advice, check out these posts:
Tacos, burritos and tostadas make great family-friendly recipes because they are easily customizable based on everyone’s tastes – you can have a toppings (or fillings) bar so everyone is happy and well-fed.
This recipe shows you how to make pizza completely from scratch, from the gluten-free crust to homemade vegan mozzarella. You can also go ‘off-book’ with the toppings and create your own combos.
Every family needs a good chili recipe in its arsenal. For spice-sensitive youngsters, you can easily omit or reduce the spice and this Paleo chili will still be tasty!
This is another one of those fantastic family-friendly recipes where you can provide choices for toppings, and offer alternatives to bread like lettuce wraps.
Here’s a deeeeelicious 15 minute recipe that packs a punch of flavour, has great diversity of ingredients to deliver high quality nutrition and with @sunrice Low GI Brown Rice helps you feel fuller for longer AND sustains your energy. If you don’t have haloumi on hand then feel free to swap for a feta or goat cheese and same for hazelnuts – the nuts can swap for toasted almonds, walnuts, pistachios or pine nuts. Full recipe below and on the blog for you to make stat!
+ This is a partnered post with SunRice, all thoughts and opinions expressed are the authors own.
BROWN RICE POMEGRANATE HALOUMI SALAD
Serves 4
Gluten free : Vegetarian
1 cup SunRice Low GI Brown Rice, rinsed and drained
1 ½ cups shredded kale or leafy greens of choice
½ small red onion, finely diced
200g cherry tomatoes, halved
½ cup loosely packed basil leaves
3 tablespoons finely chopped dill or mint
Seeds of 1 pomegranate
⅓ cup toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
250g-300g haloumi, sliced 1cm thick
Extra virgin olive oil spray, for frying
Dressing:
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon ground cumin
Pinch chilli flakes
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Place SunRice Low GI Brown Rice in a small saucepan, add 2 ½ cups water, cover, bring to the boil and then reduce to simmer until water is absorbed and rice is cooked (approx 15 minutes). Whilst rice is cooking prep your salad ingredients, then combine kale, red onion and cherry tomatoes in a bowl. Tear basil leaves over the top and add the mint. Once rice is cooked allow to cool slightly (you can spread it over a large tray to do this if you wish), then add to salad ingredients followed by most of the pomegranate and hazelnuts (keep some for the top once salad is finished). Heat a fry pan on medium to high heat, spray with some olive oil then add haloumi and cook 1-2 minutes each side until golden. Whisk together ingredients for the dressing. Toss the rice salad with dressing then spread it over a platter and top with haloumi pieces. Sprinkle over remaining pomegranate and hazelnuts, season with sea salt and black pepper and enjoy.
I compare the diets of the Roman gladiator “barley men” and army troopers to the modern Spartans of today.
The remains of dozens of Roman gladiators were recently discovered in a mass grave in ancient Ephesus (Turkey). The clue to their identities was the rather distinct types of mortal injuries the researchers found, like being speared in the head with a trident, as you can see at 0:15 in my video The Gladiator Diet: How Vegetarian Athletes Stack Up. Just by examining the skeletons, the researchers were able to reconstruct the deathblows, show just how muscular and buff the gladiators really were, and even try to reconstruct their diet “of barley and beans.” You can look at carbon isotopes and see what kinds of plants they ate. Nitrogen isotopes reflect intake of animal protein, for example, and looking at the sulphur in their bones and the amount of strontium led commentators to submit that the best athletes in ancient Rome ate largely plant-based diets.
The legionnaires, the Roman army troopers famed for their fighting abilities, also ate a similar kind of diet, suggesting the “best fighters in the ancient world were essentially vegetarian.” So, if the so-called perfect fighting machines, the great sports heroes of their day, were eating mostly grains and beans, what does that tell us about sports nutrition and the preferred diets of elite athletes? “The diet of most Greeks and Romans was basically vegetarian,” centered on grains, fruits, vegetables, and beans, so maybe the gladiators’ diets weren’t that remarkable. Ancient Greek philosopher Plato pushed plants, for instance, preferring plant foods for their health and efficiency.
The Roman gladiators were known as the “barley men.” Did they eat barley because it “gave them strength and stamina,” or just because barley was a common, “basic food” people ate at the time—not necessarily for performance, but because it was cheap?
Let’s look at the modern Spartans, the Tarahumara Indians, who run races where they kick a ball for 75 miles just for the fun of it. They run all day, all night, and all the next day for “as much as 150 miles and more” if they’re feeling in the mood. What do they get if they win? “Interestingly, a traditional prize of victory is said to be a special popularity with the women (although how much of a reward that would actually prove to be for a man who had been running for two days and a night is questionable, to say the least!).” Though, maybe their endurance extends in other arenas, as well.
“Probably not since the days of the ancient Spartans has a people achieved such a high state of physical conditioning.” So, what do they eat? They eat the same kind of 75 to 80 percent starch diet, based on beans, corn, and squash, and have the cholesterol levels to prove it, with total cholesterol levels down at 136 mg/dL, which is essentially heart attack-proof. They don’t have special genetics, either, because data show that if you feed them enough egg yolks, their cholesterol levels creep right up, as you can see at 2:52 in my video.
Modern day Olympic runners eat similarly. What are they eating in Kenya? They’re following a 99 percent vegetarian diet centered mostly on various starches. But, as in all of these cases, is their remarkable physical prowess because of their diets or in spite of them? Or, does their athleticism have nothing to do with what they’re eating? You don’t know until you put it to the test.
“In spite of the well-documented health benefits of vegetarian diets, less is known regarding the effects of these diets on athletic performance.” Researchers compared elite vegetarian and omnivore endurance athletes for aerobic fitness and strength by comparing oxygen utilization on the treadmill and quad strength with leg extensions. The vegetarians beat out their omnivore counterparts for cardiorespiratory fitness, but their strength didn’t differ. This suggests, at the very least, “that vegetarian diets do not compromise performance outcomes and may facilitate aerobic capacity in athletes.” But, this was a cross-sectional study. Is it possible the vegetarian athletes were just more fit because they trained harder? The National Runners’ Health Study looked at thousands of runners, and, as you can see at 4:06 in my video, vegetarian runners were recorded running significantly more on a weekly basis. Maybe that explains their superior fitness, though perhaps their superior fitness explains their greater distances.
Other cross-sectional studies have found no differences in physical fitness between vegetarian and non-vegetarian athletes, while another one found even worse performance among vegetarian athletes, but there could have been socioeconomic or other confounding factors. That’s why we need interventional studies to put different diets to the test and then compare physical performance.
Dark chocolate avocado mousse has a unique main ingredient to use in desserts, avocado!
This is a dairy-free mousse with all the great qualities of a traditional mousse — it’s thick, creamy, velvety, rich in flavor, and pairs perfectly with ripe fruit. It’s a good source of fat, fiber, and micronutrients in comparison to most mousse recipes, not to mention it’s absolutely delicious!
What Are The Health Benefits Of Avocado?
Avocados are an excellent source of healthy fats, particularly monounsaturated healthy fats. Fat is important in our diet for a variety of reasons and is the main macronutrient responsible for keeping us full and satiated throughout the day. Avocado does a great job at doing this because they also contain fiber, another food component that keeps us fuller longer.
Nutrient Breakdown of Avocados:
*Per half of 1 avocado
Protein | 2g
Fiber | 7g
Fat | 15g
Vitamin C | 17% DV
Vitamin E | 10% DV
Vitamin K | 26% DV
Folate | 20% DV
B6 | 13% DV
B5 | 14% DV
Magnesium | 7% DV
Potassium | 14% DV
Copper | 9% DV
Manganese | 7% DV
Avocados are known for their extreme versatility. Think outside of the box when it comes to avocados! The thick, creamy texture is particularly perfect for non-dairy recipes. Use them in ice creams, mousses, desserts, smoothies, salads, or as a mayo alternative in sandwiches.
This avocado mousse is a perfect display of the avocado’s subtle nature in flavor, as it plays back up to dark chocolate and contributes to the velvety, creamy, and thick texture of the mousse.
This week’s paper received media coverage. The UK Daily Mail reported the study as “Counting calories IS king when it comes to losing weight – NOT fasting, study finds” (Ref 1). Bloomberg reported it as “Eating Less Beats Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss, Study Says” (Ref 2). The journal publication site reported “So far, Altmetric has seen 295 news stories from 203 outlets” (Ref 3). That amount of coverage tells us that the article was published with a press release and indeed this one was (Ref 4).
The paper was called “Association of Eating and Sleeping Intervals With Weight Change Over Time: The Daily24 Cohort” and it was by Zhao et al (Ref 5). The headlines made me think that a trial had been conducted, where participants had been randomised to either counting calories/eating less or intermittent fasting. That was not what happened.
The study
The study aimed to evaluate the association between meal intervals and weight trajectory among US adults from three healthcare systems in Maryland and Pennsylvania. This was a population study, therefore and it was an unusual one. Participants were adults aged 18 or over, with electronic health records in 1 of the 3 healthcare systems being used. They had at least one height and one weight measurement recorded within two years before enrollment, which took place between 1st February and 31st July 2019. People meeting these criteria were invited to participate in the study. Interested subjects completed a consent form and a baseline questionnaire. After this process, the study ended up with 547 participants.
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show on banking and marketing for your FDN/Health Coaching Biz.
This will be one of those episodes where we are focusing on our friends who are either about to become practitioners, probably becoming practitioners, or who already are practitioners. We are talking about the business side of things, and I love getting to talk business. It is a side passion of mine for sure.
I find business to be really interesting. There are so many cool aspects about it. And if you don’t like business, I’m kind of like, did you really study it or what parts did you study? Because I don’t know how you couldn’t like this. There’s gotta be a part for everyone.
There’s so much to it when you say, business. Do you mean sales? Do you mean marketing? Do you mean organization? Do you mean structure, I don’t know, branding? There’s, I feel, something for everyone. So, maybe you should revisit that if you think you’re not a businessperson or don’t like business.
Today what we’re going to be doing is, I don’t want to say it’s a continuation cause it’s really not. But it is conceptually similar to an episode I did several months ago where we talked about several tips that could help get your business up and ready for success prior to you even graduating the FDN course.
Banking and Marketing: Apply to Your Unique Situation
Today is more of a pretty solid, simple framework and plan, in a sense, that people can use in order to get themselves to a decent level and making a full-time income with this.
Now, of course, it’s going to be more complex than just listening to a podcast. There is execution, there is brainstorming, and these are ideas, but you need to actually apply your own unique situation to the ideas. All of that, just something to keep in mind.
However, I felt particularly inspired to do this recently because of the success we’re having at an in-person business that I co-own. I was like, all right, we gotta talk to the FDNs about this.
If you don’t know or you’re listening for the first time, I own a business in person called Bucks County Light Therapy, and it is a light therapy studio. We do red-light therapy, we have specialty tanning beds, we have vitamin D lamps, infrared sauna, pretty cool stuff. But we also do functional lab testing.
Originally, when it started out, I would take some clients here and there just so we could offer it. But that very quickly became something where I was like, all right, with everything else I do in my life, very overwhelming. I’ve stated this a million times on the podcast. I love FDN, I love doing what I do. I had never felt myself particularly called to do like a 40, 50-hour week as a functional health coach, I wanted other things in the mix.
I do love running labs. I love helping people with it. It’s just never going to be a full-time thing for me. Whereas many of our practitioners and graduates are like, dude, that’s all I want to do full-time. Fair enough.
FDN Provides a Good Opportunity
What we’re doing right now at the business is my girlfriend’s going through FDN and she’s about to graduate. One of my best friends is going through and about to graduate. And his girlfriend is going through, although she started a little later than those two. She’ll be graduating a bit later, probably about April of 2023. But they’re both on track to graduate in late March or even early April, that’s my girlfriend and my best friend, to be clear.
What’s cool is they want to do this more full-time. I don’t think it’s a permanent thing in their lives necessarily. But we’re all kind of working together right now on unique opportunities. That’s kind of beside the point for this podcast. What we all saw together was that FDN could be a great vehicle to get us as a group to the next level in our goals and can really be a good opportunity during the economy and everything that’s going on.
So, whatever that’s worth, you guys, when you’ve heard my other podcasts where I’m saying FDN is a great opportunity, even with the troubling times, at least you know even if I’m wrong, I’m consistently wrong. It’s not something that I’m not applying to my own life and my own friends and family members. I’m saying this is a good thing to do and I believe in it wholeheartedly, and I am pursuing opportunities in this space myself right now. Take that for what you will.
Banking and Marketing: The Goal of Six Figures ASAP
What we’re going to be doing at the light therapy studio, is now we’re going to be able to offer a lot of FDN work because we will have them graduated. Basically, they are going to be their own business owners, but they will be independent contractors for the light therapy studio. Pretty cool. Not something that you need to have success in your business.
The way that we are approaching it in this business is so similar to how you would do it purely online, and it’s going to include a lot of the stuff that I’m talking about today. But again, we’ve been having success with certain things that we’ve been experimenting with there. So, I wanted to share them with you guys.
First thing I want to jump into, and these might seem slightly disconnected. That’s why it could have kind of went in the category of a continuation of the best business tips to apply before you actually graduate FDN, but it’s not supposed to be that. It’s more like you need to have these things covered to get you to the level that you want to go.
Let’s always just assume that that goal should be six figures ASAP. You want to be making a hundred thousand dollars a year ASAP. You do not need to work 40 hours a week as an FDN to do that, you really do not. All right? It is not that hard. You do not need to be the best FDN in the world to do it. You need to have graduated the course and apply some relatively simple principles.
If that is out of your consciousness or paradigm at this moment, I’m sorry, because that kind of sucks and I feel bad.
Banking and Marketing: Many FDNs Have Done It
But you have to understand, and maybe you won’t believe me on this, humor the idea that perhaps it is your own limiting beliefs and mindset that is leading you to believe that as opposed to something being wrong or incomplete with the FDN philosophy or the economy or the government or anything like that.
The reason I say this is because there are tons of FDNs, some of which are freshly graduated, many of which graduated during the pandemic, that are already doing well over six figures.
We have had people, the most extreme success story that I know of right now, and you guys have heard her on this podcast before. She’s 31 right now, 31 years old, that is it. In the beginning of the pandemic, because she lives in Canada, the lockdowns were so extreme it shut down her in-person stuff that she was doing, and she had $0 of income that she was making in the beginning of the pandemic.
When I interviewed her just a couple of months ago for a special that we did for FDN Insider (That’s fdntraining.com/insider, by the way, if you want some exclusive content that we do not share anywhere else. It’s really high-level stuff and very to the point. You don’t get my ramblings and stuff. There are other people on there as well.) But when we interviewed her for that, I mean this woman was approaching $100,000 a month, not a year, a month. And in the beginning of the pandemic, she was making $0.
Is this to imply a get rich quick thing? No, absolutely not, that’s crazy.
Banking and Marketing: The Internet Provides So Much Value
Depending on how old you are listening to this, you need to, again, really shift the paradigm and the consciousness, especially when it comes to the age of the internet.
Every time that anyone has made money in a system that allowed for some type of trade, as long as human beings have existed and used that system where it’s bartering or we trade something for a currency, you had to provide someone with value. You did that by giving them services or products that were meaningful or useful. That’s how you got the currency in exchange.
Earl Nightingale talked about that in his audio/book called The Strangest Secret. You get money by providing people with services and products that are needed and useful or meaningful. Okay? That’s what you have to do. Maybe this is your first-time hearing this, I hope it’s not. But the reason that you are hearing stories about people going from zero to hero on the internet is because the internet connects you with a ton of people. The internet allows for products that can be made one time and resold, and still give just as much value on day 100 as it did on day one because it’s new to that customer that bought it on day 100.
So, if the formula is providing people with meaningful products that are needed and useful, something similar to that, the internet’s fantastic because it allows you to provide that value to a lot of people at a rapid pace if you choose to do so.
Banking and Marketing: Take Advantage of the Internet
I have friends that are not even remotely in the FDN space or anything like that. They are barely 30 years old, and they are doing $200,000 to $250,000 a month. This is what’s possible with the internet.
Now, these people are hardworking, willing to learn, willing to get mentored. But the fact of the matter is there is no time in history that someone, no matter how hardworking or great they were, could go from zero to $100,000 plus a month in less than three years. That is made possible and brought to you by the internet. So, congratulations, it’s here. It doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere. You might want to get on that and use that thing.
Recently, although the success we’ve had was not matching these crazy numbers, we had a lot of success at the business. I told you that this inspired me to create this podcast today. One of the things that happened is we’ve been screwing around with Facebook ads and funnels. I had been getting educated on these things for the last two years. I actually did some stuff with Facebook ads over six years ago and was learning about ads then.
Now the algorithms completely changed. It’s become much simpler in a certain sense. But it’s more expensive now, that was the difference. I used to be able to reach a thousand people for like $5 on Facebook ads. It was ridiculous, it was so cheap, and many entrepreneurs talked about this. I didn’t put as much effort into it as I should have at the time. It was stupid how cheap it was. I would still consider it quite affordable considering what it gives you. So, don’t miss out on that opportunity.
Banking and Marketing: Facebook Ads
What we did was we put some preliminary money into testing a variety of ads, and we put about $300 in, $315 to be exact. What that did so far, because we’re actually still getting some people from this, it allowed us to get over 20 people in the door at our business. This does not count the other emails and phone numbers that we got from these people. Over 20 people physically came into the business, and over seven have already signed up as members.
Now at our studio, memberships range from as low as $137 a month, all the way up until $217. You do the math, cause that’s a monthly membership mind you. And there’s something in business, if you don’t know what this is, it’s lifetime value of the customer. You can’t really predict that that easily when your business is just starting out. But you will be able to pick this up over a year or two years, three years, it’s something to track.
What that basically means, the lifetime value of a customer, is on average, what your average customer is worth to you over the lifetime of them buying stuff. Obviously, if you have a product that just goes on indefinitely, like a gym, I guess this might be a little tougher. I’m sure there’s some way to calculate it, but again, I’m no business guru. I just have a decent grasp of these things and I constantly learn about it, so I’m getting better by the day, hopefully.
But the lifetime value of the customer needs to be considered here because we have a monthly membership. So, we put in $315 into ads.
Banking and Marketing: Get a Good Business Bank Account
This was less than four weeks ago at the time of recording this. We received already over $800 back, and that does not count for anyone else that will sign up. It doesn’t account for the people that will renew the membership, and it also doesn’t account for how they might move up higher in our value ladder and eventually buy our FDN programs.
Now, I’ll talk about the value ladder in a second. It’s actually a huge part of this podcast today. The lifetime value of these customers seriously could be over $5,000 to $10,000, easily. That’s not that hard to comprehend, and we only spent $300. That’s pretty cool.
That’s what happens when you start to learn about this stuff and use the internet to your advantage. There are many people that can do way more, incredibly more impressive numbers than what I just listed. So, stay tuned, check it out.
First thing, again, this one might seem a little bit disconnected, but follow me on this. You gotta get a good business bank account. What I recommend, none of the stuff I’m going to mention today is something I’m affiliated with. I hope that they give it to me eventually, but I’m not affiliated with it. FDN isn’t affiliated with it. I’m just giving you stuff that I like. The business account that I like right now is Novo Banking. Novo is freaking fantastic. Novo is an online business banking platform. It is a hundred percent free, which is amazing.
Banking and Marketing: Reserve Accounts
The coolest feature, cause it does a lot of things. I mean, you can go watch a YouTube video on it if you want to know everything. But one of the things that I love that it does is it has reserve accounts. When you deposit a check or receive an invoice payment into your bank account, you can have up to five reserve accounts already set up for Novo.
What that could look like is one reserve account, might be 10%, 15%, 20% for taxes, depending on how much you’re able to write off each year. So, you have that. By the way, a little tip, always better to estimate more for taxes and give yourself a nice little check at the end of the year rather than underestimate, and you’re scrambling a little bit. No one likes that, that is not fun. I totally haven’t done something like that. Learn from me, right?
So, you could have one for taxes, then you could have one for profit. There’s a method called the Profit First Method. It talks about, I’m oversimplifying it, but it’s basically how to make any business profitable from day one by simply putting something away, even if it’s just 1% of sales, just automatically having that discipline to put 1% away.
You could have 10% in another reserve for maybe tithing, if that’s something that you do. That doesn’t mean at a church necessarily. It could mean you’re giving away to anything. Maybe just like to donate to a non-profit, that’s fine. 10% could be for yourself. Maybe you follow that rule where you try to save some of your income for yourself as an emergency fund, whatever it might be. There are many different ways that you can play with this.
Banking and Marketing: Stripe and QuickBooks
This isn’t a financial plan. I’m just saying that Novo for free allows you to deposit this stuff in. It’s an actual business bank account, and you can have up to those five reserve accounts. In addition, it also integrates with a lot of the major platforms that you would want it to integrate with.
You have Stripe, so you can invoice directly on there. You can send out invoices to your customers and pull that in. They also integrate with QuickBooks. What’s cool about QuickBooks, if you don’t know what it is, that is an easy way to collect receipts and other things and track sales so that you could kind of get a good estimate on where you’re at total for the year.
This is also a great way to track things that you’re probably ignoring, right? If you go out with another FDN practitioner and you’re strategizing on business, whoop, little tax write-off for you. Oh, and you drove to that meeting to talk about business, okay, cool. Well, in the United States of America, it’s like, what? I think it’s 58 cents a mile right now, is reimbursable for you driving to that meeting. That’s cool.
Conferences, depending on which ones you go to and how you participate in them, can be tax deductible and the travel to them as well. Just saying there’s a lot of things there. So, you can integrate it with QuickBooks and easily track that. Then it’s all kind of nicely integrated into your Novo account.
Banking and Marketing: A Money System is Necessary
Novo also makes it easy to send money out to other bank accounts; and it also makes it easy to receive money from bank accounts. Let’s say you need to put some money in from your personal bank account cause you’re just starting off things, you could do that simply.
What I also love about this is if you divide that money into these separate reserve accounts, you can set up individual reserve accounts to pay certain things. Maybe you need your business to make certain payments for, I don’t know, marketing platforms you have, email platforms, whatever. You can actually set up the reserve accounts to pay automatically to those things.
You might have, 25% a month from the money that is brought in, goes to a specific reserve account, which pays monthly payments towards the things that you use platform wise. Really interesting. So, set that up before anything else.
The reason that’s the first thing today is because we could talk about strategies to make money, if you don’t have a system in place for what to do with that money when it comes in, trust me, that’s going to hurt you.
I’m not saying this in a way of not being grateful, what I do business-wise or what anyone else does businesswise. I’m saying this from personal experience because a lot of people come into FDN and have very limiting beliefs. I mean, this is just people in general, this has nothing to do with FDN, I suppose.
Limiting beliefs, you tell them six figures and even with all the inflation, even with everything else going on, somehow six figures to them is still this unattainable number, so high, and their whole life’s going to change.
Does Money Drastically Change Quality of Life?
Okay. The quality of your life might change to some degree. There was a study done by, he actually won a Nobel Prize for this, his name’s Daniel Kahneman, he’s an economist. He showed, this was several years back to be clear, but he did show that a single person making $72,000 a year, you can convert this across all countries and it still works depending on what their currency is.
Just to be clear, that means you actually make the conversion, and you adjust for their thing. I don’t know what it would be for the British pound, but it’s like 72,000 USD would be whatever that is in British pounds. It wouldn’t be 72,000 British pounds.
But he did that, and he found that happiness actually did increase up until that point. Then after that it was a pretty marginal and negligible difference what money did to happiness. I think the basic theory there is, it’s $72,000 for a single person. You’re probably not behind on your bills or at the very least, you’re getting outta that paycheck to paycheck run.
You can go out to dinner without stressing too much. You can buy yourself a little bit nicer clothing than the stuff that you might find at a store, whatever. Maybe it’s some basic stuff being that where you’re not feeling like you’re a paycheck to paycheck scrambling every month to try to get things together.
So yes, after $72,000, fine, we can say that maybe there’s a little bit of a difference. But I promise you $100,000 is not that much money.
Is $100,000 a Lot of Money?
Remember the reason I’m saying this, one, it’s genuine, I really believe this. But it’s also to get the idea out of your head that you think $100,000 it’s like so unattainable. “I can’t even do it.” Not only should you not be thinking of it that way, you should realize it’s not enough money. It’s not a lot of money.
You could spend $100,000 so easily it would make your head spin. If you gave me all of the $100,000 that someone can make in a year in one check, I could drive five minutes down the road to the BMW dealership and drop this all on one car. And that business will sell hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those each month, probably thousands. I don’t know how many hundred thousand dollars BMWs they sell in a month. That’s how easy it is to spend a hundred thousand.
You might say, well, I don’t want a BMW. I don’t need a luxury car. Fair enough. I’m just saying that there are so many things in this world that you could blow the entire year worth of money that you’re saying is so much, you could blow that in a few hours period and never think twice about it.
So, we need to get out of our heads that this is so much money. No, just because, statistically, a lot of people don’t make it, does not mean it’s a lot of money.
Banking and Marketing: Money is Easy to Spend
There are very few people that have a six pack. We know how attainable that is as FDNs. There are very few people that don’t have a chronic disease. We know how attainable that is as an FDN. Just because something is common doesn’t mean that it’s okay. Right? We talk about that all the time with symptoms.
Anyway, get the bank account set up because when that money starts coming in, if you don’t have places for it to go, I promise it’s just going to go out the window. I learned this the hard way. I’m very transparent about this stuff.
For the longest time I was only making like $30,000, $40,000 a year. Partially, that was my own fault because I had great jobs even at 18, 19 years old that would’ve allowed me to hit the six-figure mark pretty quickly. But I was dedicated to doing the things that I wanted to do.
I knew I could get to a place doing the things that I wanted to do, where I could still live comfortably. I knew if I got to that point, then I could just stack onto that over time. Finally, I was able to get there in the last two years. That was after quite a few years of putting in legitimate effort into this, to be honest. But you know, you get to that six-figure mark, that’s awesome.
What happened is I had pretty lazy habits at the $30,000, $40,000 mark. I found, magically, you can triple the income and somehow those lazy habits still maintain. Just as easily and readily as you spent that $30,000, you can spend $100,000. And you’re left saying, huh, where did that all go? I wonder.
Banking and Marketing: LLCs, EINs, and SS#s
Please set it up now. Novo’s an easy way to do this. It’s completely free and it allows you to go into those reserve accounts so that you can automate where the money is going.
Because if you don’t tell your money where to go, I promise you it’s going to leave you. It is going to leave you. It wants to be commanded. It is a very submissive partner. It wants you to tell it what to do. And if you don’t, man, it’ll run you ragged. So, make sure you get Novo.
Get that done and set it up now because it is a business account, you’re either setting it up through your social security number or an EIN, that’s an employee identification number. If you have an LLC or something similar, that’s where you would be using an EIN. If you do not have an LLC or anything like that, which you don’t need, although I’d recommend it, you can do it through your social security number. That’s how business works if you’re not aware of that yet.
Number two, something that I just started using two months ago, but I love this platform, is called Pipeline Pro. Now, there are many people in the marketing space that I can already imagine are probably saying, oh, well, don’t use that, use something else. I’m not an expert in it, but I will say I was very happy with the platform for what I was given.
Banking and Marketing: Sales Pipeline Dashboard
For $37, one-time fee, Pipeline Pro gave me access to a website builder, a funnel builder, which is pretty much the same thing, to be clear in their place.
I have unlimited contacts that I can store. I have form builders, well, form builders comes with a monthly subscription, sorry. I’m trying to think of what comes with it without the monthly subscription. Basically, that I can just take in all these contacts, all these leads, build the websites, build the funnels for $37, one-time fee. It’s unlimited funnels too, so I can have hundreds of these in there, all doing different things if I really wanted to. Unlimited domain connections. Really, really, really cool stuff.
Then we ended up paying the $97 a month for their marketing because it allows for the email. I’m pretty sure it allows for the text, although we use the text through something else because we already had that set up. Maybe it’s a little more for the text, but it definitely allows for email, unlimited emails, unlimited contacts, and then you can have the form builders and lead generators.
I may have misspoken there. When I say lead generator, I mean we can actually now go out and collect names and leads from the forms that we are building or with the forms that we have. And I love it. Pipeline Pro.
Check it out. $37 one-time fee. It’s a no-brainer to me to have gotten it and tried it. Then they’re smart, because they end up selling you the $97 a month thing. I’m still happy with it cause it’s way cheaper than anything else I’ve seen on the market.
Banking and Marketing: Store Contacts, Leads, and Notes
It also integrates with WordPress, by the way. So, if you have a WordPress website, you can transfer that over. And if you are using ClickFunnels, which I probably assume most of you aren’t, but if someone’s listening and hears that, you can transfer ClickFunnel stuff over to their funnel builder with the click of a few buttons. So, Pipeline Pro, get that.
You need to store the contacts and leads that you are bringing in. There are notes there. There are tasks that you can set up, they’re called opportunities. Opportunities and tasks are a little different, but a task can kind of be within an opportunity, I guess.
When you get a contact, when you talk to someone, this is how you do business. You need to be making notes about what you and that person said. You have to do this. If you’re saying, well, I don’t talk to enough people that I need to do that. Well then, I can guarantee you’re not making that much money. Because if you are making enough money, you would’ve needed to talk to a lot of people. And to talk to a lot of people effectively, you would’ve needed to keep notes. Pipeline Pro will allow you to store these contacts and do that.
This is how this goes in our business right now. So, we’ll give you the backend transparency thing. Right now, we have an offer. It gets sent out on the Facebook ad. We target certain people. People fill out that offer. They give us their first, last name, and then they give us the phone number and they give us the email. These are all required. They get something for free because of this, and we get their contact.
Banking and Marketing: The World of Online Marketing
Now we text them, we give them calls, we email them, and we’re updating notes along the way. If they don’t answer us, we update the task. If they do answer us, we also update the task just in a different way, and they move along through our pipeline depending on what stage that they’re at.
So, for that thing we have an initial contact stage, meaning that we’ve reached out to them, but they haven’t necessarily reached out yet. Two is active conversation. That means they have responded at least one time to our outreach. Whether or not they’re answering us right now is irrelevant. That means they’ve responded one time to our outreach.
Three is an active customer, and four is a former customer or I guess you could call it Four-B would be a lost lead. Right? Just didn’t answer, told us they never wanted to see our face again, whatever it might be. We haven’t had anyone do that yet, but it could happen.
When you are using something like Pipeline Pro, you’re going to get introduced to the world of online marketing and marketing in general very quickly. I wanted to put in this today, this podcast, the idea of a value ladder. And if you guys didn’t listen to anything else I said in almost 30 minutes of podcasting today, you gotta remember this part and you gotta start setting this out.
Banking and Marketing: The Dating Process in Business
Pease take a piece of paper, or if you’re on your phone, just put it in the notes section on your phone and jot these things down so that you can start thinking about it. Because what you write down, what you focus on, your mind will start to think about and all of a sudden, these brilliant ideas come into your head outta nowhere.
So, a value ladder is an idea in marketing, Russell Brunson with ClickFunnels really popularized this. You basically are going up. It’s a value ladder, I’d say, but it almost looks like from the side like a 2D view of a value staircase. Imagine that that’s kind of what we’re looking at here. At the bottom of the staircase, you are providing the person with value. And to be fair, we’re providing them with value throughout the entire staircase.
But in the beginning, you are providing them with more value than is justified because you don’t know them, and they don’t know you. You gotta build some trust here. Russell Brunson always equates this to like asking someone on the first date. You wouldn’t ask on the first date or first interaction even, with meeting someone for them to marry you. Maybe one in a million you hear those stories and they do work out, but it’s not going to work out usually.
Similarly, marriage in the business equivalency sense and an FDN equivalency sense, would be your high-end coaching. This could be $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 packages. We have FDN that charges $10,000 and above for their packages because of how credible they are, how long they’ve been doing it, and what they offer in their services. That’s your high-end stuff and it could be different.
Banking and Marketing: Give Value on That First Date
You could do this any way that you want. But for an average FDN, a typical FDN, the high end of your value ladder is going to be that one-on-one coaching. Now that’s your marriage. So, you know, you can’t ask for that on the first day. You gotta do other things first.
The value ladder, remember we’re thinking of like a staircase from a 2D perspective, the first thing is going to be something usually for free or so stupidly cheap it’s not even funny. You’ve probably seen this before. If you’ve ever been told to download a free eBook, take a free quiz, get a quote/unquote “free book” all you have to do is pay shipping and handling, you have entered someone’s value ladder.
Most likely, intentionally, they know what they’re doing. I doubt that it was unintentional, but most likely, intentionally, they knew what they were doing, and they put you in their value ladder. They are giving you something for free. They met you; they liked you; they asked you out on the first date, and they’re paying for the date to show you that they have something of value to offer you. If they don’t, then you’re just going to back off.
But they are encouraged, this is a great way to do business, right? They are encouraged and you are encouraged to do this if you choose to do so. You have to give value on that first date. This isn’t something where you rip people off. We don’t encourage that whatsoever. You give value on the first date.
Banking and Marketing: Lead Magnet Example
Wow. You know, this person, they got a good job, and they’re really moral. Wow. We’re the same religion or spiritual beliefs. Okay. We have the same way of handling finances. I like that. This person has a great network. They’re really positive. Wow. This is a person of value. I would like to be around them a little more. So that’s the free thing.
I will again use our value ladder right now that we’re working on. We at least know the steps of it, it’s not fully developed. There are a few parts that we’re missing but it’s going really well at the light therapy studio, so I’ll share that with you. Our bottom of our value ladder, that lead magnet, if you will, the thing that is quite literally in the name, lead magnet. You are trying to get leads and you’re trying to hook them in like a magnet would, right?
So, you gotta pull them into the magnet. How do you do that? Well, the only ethical way to do that is to give them value first. What we do with the light therapy studio is we give them a free session, completely free. They can use any of our services that they want.
We have infrared sauna; they can use that for free. They can also use our lay down red light for free. They can use our vitamin D lamps for free. We have the brain tap meditation that Dr. Patrick Porter guy, shout out to him. He’s been on the podcast. They can use that for free and they can use our specialty tanning bed for free. Now why would we do that? Well, one, I believe in my service.
Banking and Marketing: Value Ladder 2nd Rung
I’m thinking, okay, well if they do this and they see the facility and they like who we have working there on that day, yeah, that’s going to be great. Why would they not stay? And if they don’t stay even after all that, well, then I didn’t want to force them into something cause now I’m going to have an unhappy customer. Sure, they’re paying me money, but they’re pissed off and they’re miserable every time they come in. That’s not cool. This is also a great way to weed out people who you do and don’t want to work with. So, we give that free session.
Awesome. Now we’re basically looking at four steps on that 2D staircase, right? Look at four total, and the first is going to be your lead magnet. This can be an infinite staircase to some degree, but the four is going to be a good base place to start. So, first is that lead magnet, usually something for free.
The second thing is going to be something that is usually within a decent price range, maybe, and I’m using rough numbers here, maybe as low as $47, maybe as high as $297.
For us, even though this is also a continuity program, because there’s more advanced stuff with these value ladders where you try to figure out a way that you can provide value to people long term and keep them on a membership. So, our second step of the value ladder is also our continuity program, and it’s our membership to the light therapy studio.
Banking and Marketing: Value Ladder 3rd Rung
You come in and get some red light. You come in and you get the specialty tanning lamp or the specialty tanning bed, or the vitamin D lamps or the infrared sauna. Those memberships, again, can be anywhere from $137 to $200 a month. So that’s the second level. It’s affordable. No contracts, no upfront costs. You can cancel at any time, but chances are you’re probably going to stick around for a while.
We do know in our metrics so far that people do, typically, if they sign up for one month, they almost always stay for at least 2, 3, 4. Pretty cool. That’s the second level of the value ladder.
The third one for us is what we’re working on right now, and that could be a type of course. We’re working on a course. So, we will do a course on a specific niche. I’m not really going to mention what it is here, it’s not important. And I don’t need any of you guys copying me. Although Picasso did say, good artist copy, great artist steal. But I’m not going to give you the opportunity to steal from me yet.
That third option will be a course, and it will be a higher-level course that will probably range from $497 to $997. We’re trying to figure out what we can do with that. Cause it’s mostly targeted to the consumer and $997 can be a little bit of a hike for a consumer to buy something like what we’re selling. We might do $497, we’ll see.
Banking and Marketing: Value Ladder Top Rung
Then the top step of our value staircase is FDN coaching. That’s a $4,500, $5,000 package. At that point, we’ve already went through a lot of other stuff, right? It doesn’t necessarily mean someone took every step of the value ladder, but almost certainly what they have done is kind of stepped on a couple of them, right?
They probably got something for free. Maybe they’ve been a member at our place for two months and they, wow, these people are really nice. They’re operating with integrity, they’re honest. Okay. Yeah. What is that lab testing stuff that you guys offer? And now you’re not heading up a cold lead and asking them to spend $5,000.
You’re not meeting someone for the first time and asking them for marriage. You’ve went on many dates, you’ve been dating for a while, actually, it’s going really well. And now you can pop the question. Quite frankly, they might show that interest first, if you’re good at dating, that is. So that’s the value ladder.
Then what you can do for your FDN business is get really creative with this. That’s the best part. This is why I was saying in the beginning, if you don’t like business there should be something for everyone. There’s so many opportunities and outlets to get creative here.
For me, to figure this stuff out and test these different things. Right now we’re doing free sessions. I’m thinking about offering a free week. Because especially red-light therapy, for those of you that are familiar with it, a lot of people do feel something off the first session. But man, if you come to three in a week, you’re definitely going to notice something if in no other way, you’re going to notice it in complexion.
Banking and Marketing: It’s Only Valuable to Those Who Care
I’m like, I might as well just give even more value first because then they’re going to reward that value. They’re going to buy something because they see how well it works and they think it’s a fair price and then they’re going to buy it. Awesome. Cool way to do business, right? Giving before you take, being ethical.
I like this stuff. For you with your FDN business, it could be a lot of different things. Let’s say your niche was something with thyroid, that’s a common one. I don’t mean to be too generic here, but the generic aspect of it might actually be helpful because a lot of you might be already thinking about doing some type of niche in the thyroid category.
Okay, so what would I do with that? What could be a good lead magnet? And you want to think about this on your own, but I’ll give you some hints here. If I am searching online for resolutions to my thyroid issues, because this is another part of this, right? The value ladder is only valuable to someone who cares about what you’re offering.
The 90-year-old person that has never, especially a guy, that has never cared about their health, is checked out, wants to drink beer and eat candy for the rest of their time here on this earth, I could offer everything I offer for $0, and they would still never come in and use the membership. They would never do the FDN stuff because it’s not valuable to them.
Banking and Marketing: Speak Their Language
So, when we’re making these offers in the value ladder, we need to be thinking in terms of the person. Who am I offering it to? What would they find valuable? The stereotypical profile of someone who deals with a thyroid condition probably be, I don’t know, 30, 40-year-old woman, right? Maybe has kids, first pregnancy or second pregnancy. Kind of did it to her where she was already not feeling great before, but after that pregnancy was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. Really common thing.
I could make the free gift something like a PDF or an eBook or a guide or whatever, but it’s a free download. It could be 10 ways to address your thyroid naturally.
Hear me out on this because you might already be thinking if you’re an FDN in training or already graduated, wait a second, Evan, we don’t treat anything specifically. Yes, you are correct. But remember we’re thinking from their perspective. They don’t know that we don’t treat things specifically, nor do they care. They just want to feel better.
So, what have they been told? They’ve been told by their doctor that they have Hashimoto’s, they’ve been told that that’s a thyroid problem. We need to speak their language. They think it’s a thyroid problem, so let’s talk to them.
In that guide I would provide them with 10 valuable tips, like actually something valuable. There are some people who have taken advantage of this. What I have found they’re doing is they do have a value ladder, but none of it’s really legit until you get to the higher end. Yes, of course, your higher end package that cost $5,000 should have more value in it than a $197 course, obviously. Why would it not be more valuable?
Banking and Marketing: Traffic That You Own
It’s also not that the $197 thing should have no value in it, and you’re just talking in circles to confuse the person. That’s really not cool either, man. That’s manipulative, that’s wrong. So, in this 10-step guide, it’s free. Remember, for free, you don’t have to give away everything, but you should give them some tips.
One of those tips could be the concept that it’s rarely the thyroid is the issue. Did you know it could be stemming from the gut? Did you know it could be stemming from this? You could teach them something within that guide. And now you’ve raised credibility, you’ve gotten an email. That’s the most important thing, right? You’ve got a contact now because that’s traffic that you own.
Russell Brunson talks about this in his book, DotCom Secrets. He talks about it many places, but DotCom Secrets is a great book. And you can get it for free cause it’s the bottom of his value ladder. You could get that book for free probably just by searching for it, you’ll just have to pay the shipping and handling.
But now it’s traffic that you own. You still keep that even if Facebook shuts down, if they close your Instagram account, if YouTube somehow becomes obsolete. I’m not saying any of those things are practical or going to happen. I’m just saying that you own this now because you can transfer an email to anywhere you want and you can store that data as a CSV file on Excel on your computer, even if you lost an email marketing account. You own that now.
Awesome, mission complete. You have taken the first step or successfully gotten the person to take the first step on your value staircase ladder thing.
Banking and Marketing: Email Marketing
The next part is going to be a little trickier. It’s going to involve email marketing, and of course we’ll try to bring someone on here soon that can talk about this stuff. I don’t want to just tease you guys completely.
You will have to have conversations in here to get them to the next step, most likely. But if you provide enough value, you might be able to make that next step pretty quickly.
Again, what did I say? We have 20 something people that came in physically into the location. About seven of them got memberships. So, even if I rounded it all the way up to 28, and I know it’s not 28 people yet, which is a good thing in this case, it’s between 21 and 28. That means that we had a 25% to 33% closing rate. That is fantastic as Reed Davis would say himself. I am very happy about this. And that’s cool.
Now we have some data. Now we know how many people from that initial thing, the lead magnet, go up to the next thing. Because we don’t hard sell there either. You could really get into some sales tactics. We don’t hard sell because it’s a membership.
The last thing you want is a bunch of clients coming in that are miserable or people leaving terrible reviews. Even if I know it’s going to help them, I need to make sure that they’re committed on their own. So, we don’t hard sell at all.
Banking and Marketing: Providing Value and Making Sales
That means naturally people come in for the free session. There are no secrets there, it is free. We’re not going to do some crazy sales tactics on you. You can do whatever you want. You could use all the stuff for free in one day. You could come back four different times and use four different services. We don’t care. Naturally, this amount of people will automatically go to that.
Then what you’ll find is that as you do that lead magnet and you provide value to people, which this should, if it wasn’t already the moral thing to do, this should encourage you to provide as much value as possible, right? Because now they can say, wow, that person knows a lot about this stuff. I wonder if they offer anything else.
Cause this will probably get them to some place, but it’s not going to get them to where they need to go. No one’s ever been cured of anything or fixed of anything by taking a 10-step guide, I would assume. Now they want to know what the next thing is.
Maybe it’s like a small course or a group coaching program. It could be a variety of things. Then, that worked for them pretty well. Cool. Now let’s say 28 people take us up on the lead magnet. Twenty-five percent buy the smaller thing, a percentage of that will buy the course, and a smaller percentage of that will then buy the higher end stuff. That’s how many people we need to be filtering in.
What’s cool is we’re providing value, we’re helping people along the way, we’re making money along the way, and we are spending more time at the top eventually, because the rest of this can be pretty much automated.
Banking and Marketing: Get Things Going
We are spending more time at the top doing the stuff that we actually want to do and charging an appropriate amount for it. And people are paying it with a smile on their face because they are your people. So, think about your value ladder.
What is the lead magnet? What is going to be like your mid-low tier thing? What is going to be your mid-high tier thing, and what is going to be your top tier? Most likely it’s going to be FDN coaching. But when I say most likely, it could be speaking for you. It could be a really high-ticket group course where maybe you work with like five people at a time, I don’t know. There are really no limits on this.
It could be something where you fly out to the person’s house and do a whole revamp of their house for them. You get them the right products, you get them the right foods, you tell them how to shop. There are people out there that will pay for these things, guys. It exists and you could charge an extraordinarily high amount for that. But I’m just saying that could be the top end of your ladder. There’s really no limit to where this goes.
Remember, you can always add steps as you go along here. You want to just basically start with four to get things going. I know some of this, I hope it wasn’t too all over, I think it was relatively organized. But I think anyone listening that listens to me regularly can tell it was a bit off the cuff.
Conclusion
I kind of jotted down the bullet points that I wanted to get in today. I knew where I wanted to start, I knew where I wanted to finish. I said, all right, let’s do this and see where it goes. Amazingly, I had no problem talking for almost 43 minutes here. I hope that you guys learned something today.
If you have any questions, you can always reach out to us directly. Best way to do this nowadays is just to go on Instagram at fdntraining. Shoot us a DM. We do not use chatbots, we have real humans there. And if you said that you wanted to talk to me specifically, you’re actually able to do that.
I have access and there is a woman named Jo that manages it mostly. But if she saw that something was for me, she would just shoot me a message and say, hey Ev, can you get to this one? And I would happily answer any questions that you guys might have about setting up Novo, getting Pipeline Pro, or building your value ladder.
And what’s cool about all of this is, this is all stuff that you can do before you even start the FDN course, let alone before you graduate to set you up for success. I hope you guys have a great rest of your week. I am looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. But until then, take care.
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What does the latest research on plant-based meat alternatives say? This fact sheet is a summary of the main takeaways.
[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 toxic mold exposure.
We’re talking to Bridgit Danner. She was actually a guest on one of our Instagram Lives, and I did extract the audio from there to put it on this show. It basically just sounds like Bridgit and I recorded a phone call as opposed to an actual podcast.
So, for me, I don’t really mind that stuff. I feel like you guys are in a similar boat because I’ve done this before, and we’ve never had one person comment back negatively with it. But if it does bother you, let us know. It’s not something that we do every week or even every month. But if someone comes on our Instagram and shares information that I really believe would be valuable on the podcast, it’s always something that ideally, I would love to take out of there and then put onto here so that we don’t have to steal a whole other hour of the person’s time.
Because we’re never going to be able to schedule it back-to-back. You’re going to have to schedule it on a whole different day. And some people like Bridgit, they’re pretty busy. They’re working with a lot of clients, so it’s very nice when they come on, help us out, and just share information with our audience for free.
Toxic Mold Exposure: It’s Everywhere
If you like this episode though, something to keep in mind if you’re not already following us on Instagram, I would definitely recommend that. It is @fdntraining on Instagram. And when you go to @fdntraining, you’ll notice that we have other Lives that, again, never made it to the podcast, but there’s great content. They are basically Evergreened in terms of Instagram. They’re saved there for as long as we can imagine using Instagram and you can go back and watch them at any time.
We also have additional talks that Reed has done, even I have done at conferences for FDN. So, there’s a bunch of content there that would never make it to the podcast and vice versa. If you guys want to check that out again, one last time, fdntraining on Instagram.
But for today, we will get to our very good episode that just happens to sound like it was recorded on a phone call. We’re going to be talking all about toxic mold. It’s not really something that’s come up a lot on this podcast as a full episode. We have had guests that touched on it in part. But it’s kind of cool that this is the main focus of the entire episode.
I still have a ton to learn about this. In my opinion, it’s one of those things that is conceptually similar to EMFs, where it’s like everywhere. So, sometimes the stress of it can probably be worse than the actual exposure itself. I’m not saying that so literally. Clearly if you’re sleeping next to black mold, that would probably be worse than the stress of thinking about it. Also, if you live next to a cell tower, that would probably be worse than the stress of thinking about EMFs.
Toxic Mold Exposure: There’s a Lot to Learn
It’s a little balancing act that we have to do between the stress of knowing that this is everywhere versus also being aware because it is a real threat. How can we act on it when we are dealing with it? Without further ado, let us get to today’s episode.
Hello, my friends. Longtime, no see. It’s your buddy Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. We are inviting in the one and only Bridgit Danner today. This is going to be a good one. I’m excited to see you guys. We’re talking about toxic mold. Hello Bridgit. How are you?
Bridgit Danner: Hi. Good. Thanks for having me.
Detective Ev: Yeah, thanks for coming on. This is exciting. This is a topic that I have plenty to learn about. I’m very fascinated by pretty much anyone in this space, so I’ll have quite a few questions for you. I just appreciate you coming on.
You know how there’s like these little subsections in the functional health space? I feel like this is one that I have a lot of ignorance around. There are plenty of people who take this super seriously and specialize in it. I just want to make sure that I can at least have some skin in the game here and know what we’re talking about. I feel like you’re the person to do it with.
I do the podcast for us, the Health Detective Podcast with Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. If you don’t mind, I always like to start the questions out the same way there, and I will do that here today.
An Environmentalist from a Young Age
My first question really is just how did you get into this space? What I mean by that is like, were there certain health symptoms or issues that you were dealing with before you ever got into the world of natural medicine? Or did your passion come from a different thing?
[00:03:52] Bridgit Danner: Different things. I was young and healthy at the time, but I was like an environmentalist from a really young age. I just sort of was. I was just always very concerned about animal welfare and the whole ozone layer. I was just sort of attracted to the natural part of natural medicine.
[00:04:10] Detective Ev: Very cool. I asked that because I didn’t know if you had a particular story yourself with this. A lot of people do. But interestingly, that’s at least somewhat similar to Reed Davis, the founder of FDN.
He was in environmental law before he got into this. He did not have any health issues, thankfully. He’s like, I literally went to a doctor every now and then. But he made that connection between the things going on with the environment. Basically, I think he said, if this is affecting the environment, what we’re doing, what’s happening to the humans? What’s going on with us?
So, when did you decide though, that you were going to go to school for this? Because I see that you’re an acupuncturist. I mean, that’s a fairly big commitment to do something like that.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Living in a Moldy Home
[00:04:45] Bridgit Danner: Yeah. You know, at the time when I was researching and getting into the world of natural medicine, there was a lot less out there to learn about and choose from. I literally was like picking my acupuncture school out of some kind of library catalog book. The internet was still early days. Functional medicine, nothing. No one’s talking about it.
I hadn’t heard of naturopathic medicine either. I was into herbalism and cooking. So, I just thought, this is cool and interesting. Like most of us, I just kept adding tools. I really added the tool of functional medicine cause of my own mystery illness as I was a practicing acupuncturist, not knowing I was living in a moldy home.
So, I took a lot of steps. I took the FDN course. I was doing pretty good on some of the FDN protocols. It was also summer though, and as soon as fall hit and it got very wet, I really hit a new low with my health. A few months after that, I found out it was mold.
[00:05:45] Detective Ev: Got it.
That was the part I was missing. I didn’t actually realize that you experienced this yourself. So, this is even more interesting then. Again, I’m coming from a place of admittedly a fair amount of ignorance when it comes to the mold topic cause it’s pretty complex. I’ve always kind of wondered, is it that people are kind of already sick and then mold becomes one of these variables? Or are there really healthy people that are just getting affected by mold?
Toxic Mold Exposure: Mold Was the Last Thought
The reason that I wondered that is because, and this is anecdotal, but my aunt and uncle were redoing part of an addition on their home a few years ago. When they ripped up the walls, there was black mold in their living room. My little cousin hangs in there, they both hang in there. All three of them are healthy as can be.
It was pretty gross, it was spread all throughout it. They must have been getting exposed to at least some degree pretty regularly, and they seem to be fine. It’s kind of weird how that can affect people differently. We’ll talk about that later, I guess.
What finally led you to realizing it was mold because you’re obviously a very well-versed person in this stuff? Was that your first thought that it must be mold in the home?
[00:06:44] Bridgit Danner: No, it was pretty much my last thought. I think it often is, which is why you can be in the home for a long time, potentially, without having a big crisis.
But I would wonder if the example you gave, were they in perfect health? What is going on with their gut or their rest? Your immune system or your body is trying to deal with it as best it can.
And you’re right that some people are coming into it with more of a background of other bodily stresses, genetics, age. However, there are definitely perfectly healthy people who move into a moldy home and get perfectly sick. There are all sorts of examples.
Yeah, I don’t know if I answered the question or not.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Most Don’t Realize It’s an Issue
[00:07:30] Detective Ev: Well, you did and more. And that makes sense. That’s a worthy point of going towards. Because, yes, my aunt and uncle look fine right now.
We have a comment here. Seem to be fine. That’s interesting. They may have things happening that are unseen or unfelt.
That’s a good point because it’s not like my aunt and uncle are super into health either. So, they might not even recognize certain things that could be going on or they might have been getting close to it.
The other thing too, I’ve always acknowledged my own bias with the idea that, oh, well is it only sick people that are getting into the mold stuff. Well, what I really think it is, is that people that are already aware of their health issues from a holistic standpoint happen to be aware of mold because the average person does not realize that this is an issue at all. You know, they would never think twice about mold in their home, I don’t think.
So, how did you finally realize that it was mold. Cause you said it was the last thing, but how did you actually realize it?
[00:08:14] Bridgit Danner: I was going to a naturopathic college and getting IV therapy. I had already done another round of cleansing, like a 30-day cleanse kit.
Well, first of all, I had gotten really sick. I had strep throat; I didn’t recover from it. I had just, now we can look at this, started working exclusively from home, just a few months prior. But I never thought about it being my home until I was at this naturopathic college getting all these IVs.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Learning from Trial and Error
I was like, nothing you’re doing is helping. Can you please test me for other things? So, they did test me for some autoimmunity and other things. But they asked me, what’s changed in your home? Such a huge question.
Despite the fact that I had heard a little bit about toxic mold, this was still some time ago and it wasn’t talked about as much. I just had never considered. I had switched over my whole home for non-toxic cleaning products and stuff in my journey. But again, just never thought about mold.
You know, most mold is not seen by the way, like 90% of it at least. It’s not like, we were looking around, it’s mold in our home or anything like that. So, them asking that question prompted a conversation in our home.
We ended up getting a mold inspector who found lots of problems. Then as we started ripping up the house, we really saw the problem like your aunt and uncle. Then I made a bunch of mistakes in that process. I got a lot sicker. I definitely learned from trial and error making errors. That’s kind of why I’m trying to come back and be like, here’s just some things to think about as you go through it yourself.
[00:09:46] Detective Ev: Cool.
So, when we’re trying to define this here, cause this might be a good place to start, what is toxic mold? Because again, I’m coming from this more ignorant perspective. There’s mold that grows on foods, there’s mold spores that are in the air and nature every time I walk in the woods.
When we’re talking about a toxic mold, what does this mean?
Toxic Mold Exposure: Mycotoxins
[00:10:04] Bridgit Danner: There’s actually only about a dozen toxic molds, and there’s thousands and thousands of other molds. Any huge load of mold, you don’t want to put your face on like a moldy orange or whatever. Any load of mold isn’t great for you even in your home.
But these toxic molds, basically as the molds are growing and going through their life cycle or protecting themselves, they’re admitting these things called mycotoxins, which is like a toxin that comes from a mold. Those affect all us mammals in a lot of different ways. It includes your pets, includes livestock.
That was where a lot of the research was done because they were eating moldy feed and developing reproductive problems and illnesses. You know, that’s a big industry. So that’s where a lot of the earlier research was done.
These mycotoxins can travel anywhere they want, literally, in your body. They’re often inhaled, basically right up into your brain. They can cross those barriers; they can break down the blood brain barrier. They can enter basically any cell, enter your mitochondria, and they’re toxic. They’re just disrupting everything.
That’s another reason it can be hard to identify, is it mold? Because like for me, some of my related symptoms were like chronic back pain, irregular periods, anxiety, a little insomnia, a little digestive stuff. And guess what everybody would tell me when I would go in to to ask about it. I’ll give you a guess.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Often Connected to Chronic Cases
[00:11:34] Detective Ev: Well, I don’t know what they would tell you. Cause I’m almost thinking from the perspective as like a practitioner, what would I say if someone would come in with something like that? I wouldn’t guess, cause I’m an FDN, right? But I would not say mold, that is for sure. That would be last on my list.
[00:11:45] Bridgit Danner: I would say most people told me stress. That’s what most people told me, even though I was working literally my ass off to get better, you know?
And that, I say, I’m also crusading for now. If you can’t figure out your client’s case and you just tell them they’re stressed, that’s some very lazy work. And I’m sure that you would not be doing that kind of work. Like we’re all stressed in modern life.
So, if you are really trying to tackle your symptoms and it’s not working, you know, I went through the FDN course too. It’s amazing. Like say, you’re trying to balance your hormones, you’re trying to fix your gut, and it’s just not working, it’s not getting through, this can often be mold. Because it’s just in the background causing this inflammation, like literally breathing, interacting with most of the day. You just really can’t get better. I think it’s often connected to these chronic cases.
[00:12:36] Detective Ev: Okay. Knowing what you know now would you or do you test right from the beginning with people with chronic illness? Because obviously it’s great if someone’s even willing to acknowledge this at any point. It sounds like, again, so many of these people unfortunately would get dismissed.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Lab Testing is Readily Available
We live in a bubble. Of course, we would never say just stress to someone or at the very least, we’d be so careful with getting to that point of saying that. Sometimes I guess it could be, but that’s not where we would ever start.
But yeah, you’re right. The rest of the world, they’re going to tell, especially someone with those symptoms, you’re just stressed. Chill out a little bit and you’ll be fine.
But knowing what you know now, is there a way to catch the mold stuff earlier so that people don’t have to go through the ringer with different practitioners and different protocols before they finally realized, oh yeah, none of that worked entirely. So, now I gotta go do this whole other thing with the mold.
[00:13:22] Bridgit Danner: Yeah. I mean, luckily a lot of functional practitioners are looking for mold now and have access to those tests. You can get tested yourself. Most companies, you have to do it through a practitioner. But I think Realtime Labs, you can get a body test directly from them. You can do some home dust testing or plate testing by yourself.
You know, we sell it with a consultation because interpretation, even though it looks like simple results, can be wildly misinterpreted through our emotions as we see the test results. So yeah, luckily the urine testing is pretty straightforward now, which is fantastic.
You know, I’m in a very unique place where people are pretty much coming to us already knowing they have mold or they’re on the cusp of it. People sort of say, well, how are you convincing people mold is real? I’m like, by the time they’ve come to us, they get it.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Repair Work is Rebuilding All Systems
And, you know, most of our tests are positive. I think there’s a range. And then there’s, just like with FDN, like by the time your immune system has been affected probably for years by molds and other systems have been dysregulated, there’s other things going on as well.
So, we try to phase in different testing according to the person’s budget. It’s really rebuilding all systems when we’re doing our repair work.
[00:14:44] Detective Ev: Okay. So, let’s say I had someone coming exactly like you, because a lot of our practitioners do work with people like you with those exact symptoms, is it a big enough problem that people really should be including this in maybe some like preliminary work or is that not always the thing that should be done right from the get-go?
[00:15:01] Bridgit Danner: I would say if it’s a client who’s coming to you, and not only do they have this spectrum of symptoms, but they’ve also tried a lot already and tested a lot already, a hundred percent. Yeah. You know, if this is like your first time, they’ve seen you and they’re like, I’m a little off, yeah, do the basics first. Do foundations first.
[00:15:19] Detective Ev: Fair enough. I think that’s an objective approach with this. And then when it comes to dealing with the house stuff, I feel like this is at least 50% of the battle, if not more.
Toxic Mold Exposure: A Big Proponent of Moving
How do you approach that with a client or what can they do? Because from my understanding the remediation’s really expensive. I mean, I guess you could move, but especially if you’re in a house where you have a family, that’s not always the most practical thing.
Is this one of those things where you just gotta do what you gotta do and maybe spend a lot of money? Or are there other ways to get around this a little better, like if you do discover it in your house?
[00:15:51] Bridgit Danner: You know, I get this question a lot. I think there are maybe some scenarios where you’ve had a new water damage that you’re dealing with and nobody’s really sick. It could be a small problem, so to speak.
Usually that’s not, again, what I’m seeing. I’m seeing someone’s been sick for 10 years, really sick, can barely work, you know, still in the home. I am a big proponent of moving, for the most part, whether you’re renting or owning. Cause the possibility of redoing it so well that you can go back and live there safely, I don’t think it’s very high. And that gets really expensive.
You do have to disclose if you have mold and you’re an owner or you know, repair, there’s different ways to handle it. But yeah, I mean, my family remediated and moved and lost all our stuff. I don’t say it lightly, I had to go through it too. Maybe it’s just human nature or the fact that our brains have turned to mush, but people don’t want to move. It’s like again and again and again I’m having to deal with that. It’s just interesting.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Not Taking It Seriously Enough
I have to give like a loving push honestly, because it’s really made a huge difference in my case and in so many cases. So again, it depends. But please, I would just say don’t be like attached to something that is making you sick, frankly.
[00:17:14] Detective Ev: Fair enough. I mean, I was just wondering. I’m like, is that really just the answer? You kind of have to do what you gotta do sometimes.
I did not know that you had to disclose that. That makes sense. I’m kind of glad that that’s there. I don’t want to believe that people could just toss this off. But you’re also so right about how there is such a lack of seriousness or effectiveness with the remediation even sometimes.
My business partner and I, we were looking at places to rent for a local business that we have. You won’t even believe this, maybe you will cause you work in this space. Some of the listeners might not believe this. I walked in and I was checking the place out by myself with the realtor at the time. There was mold on the wall visible cause this place hadn’t been used in a while. So, I pointed that out.
Now I’m no mold expert, but I’m like, that looked a little funky. I could see that. He said, oh yeah, they’ll put something over that, and you guys will be good to go of course, before you come in. So, he didn’t even talk about the idea of like actually getting rid of this. He was suggesting that they were going to, I guess, seal it up or something. And I was like, yeah, I think we’ll look at a different place, thanks.
Toxic Mold Exposure: It Isn’t Being Handled Properly
My new freaking out thing has been, not freaking out in the sense of actually being stressed about it, but just trying to be conscious of it. We’re in a different place now. We had already been running there, we’ve been in business for like a year. There was a leak the one day coming into the ceiling from like the second floor.
I had these guys come in and because we have the contractors on site, all they did was like replace the panels for us and stuff. And I never know what to do cause I feel like an idiot. On one end I know about this stuff, but I’m like, what can I do if they don’t take this seriously in the moment?
Thankfully no one has symptoms at the business. My girlfriend works there all the time. She feels good. She’s going through FDN. I feel good. Clients feel good. I know this, it’s almost like I wish I didn’t because it’s not doing anything yet. But at the same time, could I be proactive with this?
This is a real problem though, is my point. I don’t necessarily have a question there. I’m just saying this is a real problem in terms of like even when mold is recognized, people aren’t handling it properly.
[00:19:05] Bridgit Danner: No. In the construction industry right now, landlords, you know, it’s a mess. It’s kind of all about money and speed.
I have a friend who has co-founded a non-profit about mold advocacy. That’s basically their mission is to first go, like state by state, and then hopefully nationally to have certain standards for how things are handled.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Mold Advocacy
You absolutely should not paint over mold, but that’s very common. It’s a very common solution and people don’t even think there’s anything wrong with that.
There’s like big employers who, their employees are really sick, and they’ve run their own mold tests. So, the company runs a test, and they say, oh, there’s nothing here. I mean, it’s just insane. As a practitioner, I’m basically like, please don’t deal with that. Like go take care of yourself.
But I’m really glad that some people are working on this advocacy level. His point is like, you know, right now we have very strict guidelines with things like lead and asbestos, and that’s just, we all know that. What is for mold? Nothing. So, if mold could be like those two, it would be a very different conversation and your rights as a renter would be different.
[00:20:17] Detective Ev: Great point. That’s the thing, it’s genuine because there’s the money aspect and then there’s genuine ignorance. You just talked about that’s not the way to handle it.
It’s not like this realtor was hiding this from me, that’s the worst part. He said, this is what we’re going to do. I’m like, bro, whoa. I’m not on board with that at all. I’m like, I can sit here and lecture him, or we can just look at the next unit. Because I wasn’t going to do that. And so, this must be happening all the time.
That kind of leads me to the next point that I had. If this is happening all the time, perhaps not even always getting treated effectively.
Toxic Mold Exposure: What to do When Buying a House
Let’s take the circumstances, I’m sure this does come up more often than I realize. The family’s living in a home. This is a childhood home or something, and they realize, wow, this is bad. They’ve accepted that they have to move. I don’t mean this in such a pessimistic way, I’m just really trying to dig into this here. How can I go into a next house truly knowing that it doesn’t have mold?
Because I know that they have to disclose it if they know. But there’s plenty of places that probably don’t even know. And I mean, it’s not like we’re talking about someone buying the wrong supplement and, oh, sorry, you had to get another one the next day. We’re talking about shifting their entire lives.
Is there anything that you recommend to clients when they are moving that they can do to really help actually understand or know for a fact that there is not mold in this next house that they’re going into?
[00:21:27] Bridgit Danner: Being a hundred percent factual if you only have a short period of time might be a little tricky, but there’s a lot you can do that is fairly helpful.
So, like you saw mold, you could also look for any kind of water staining, any kind of brown line on the ceiling, white crusty line on the ground, any like little black stuff on the floorboard or the sink or around the bathtub. You know, look under the sink and see if that piece of wood there is all damaged and ask what happened. Just generally ask what happened.
Things to Ask and Look for When Buying a Mold Free House
You know, has there been water damage? Has there been mold? Like do you clean the gutters? You can look for things like the grading of the ground around the house should be away from the house, right?
Is there a crawl space? Crawl spaces are notoriously moldy. Is there a basement? How does it smell? Use your five senses first, right? Is it moist? Do you see anything? Can you touch anything? You smell anything? If you’re sensitive to mold, sometimes just being in a new place, if it’s strong enough, will get you to react.
Yeah, there’s some things you can do. You know, how old is the roof? Especially if you’re buying, is it well maintained?
You know, in the market it was so crazy for a while there, no one was even getting any inspections. They were just taking a house as is. You have no idea the cost that could be involved in refurbishing that house. So, there are some things you can do.
You can even have sometimes conversations, especially if the market is softer, which I think it’s getting softer again. If you want to run a test and FedEx it, you could potentially do that in your review period. Or get an inspector to come out and be really savvy about mold. Again, not all of them are, just like the contractors aren’t.
When the industry is growing, there are more, like a holistic realtor I interviewed. There’s a mold lawyer. You know, it is growing. You may not find them right next door, but it’s slowly growing.
I think somebody was just telling me there’s an agent in Tucson, I’m in Arizona, who specializes in, like finding homes for people who have chronic illness.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Wi-Fi, EMFs, and Mold
[00:23:31] Detective Ev: Pretty cool. We have an audience question here, Bridgit. I actually should have invited you guys to do that. You’re more than welcome to ask any questions while we have her on.
This is great. Someone asked, can you discuss mold and how it affects EMF sensitivity?
[00:23:44] Bridgit Danner: It’s mostly the other way around that like EMFs affect mold growth and activity of mold. It like stresses mold in your environment. Then often, having mold infection often makes your blood-brain barrier more permeable. So, moldy people seem to be more sensitive to EMFs. Then mold sort of activates in the presence of EMFs and Wi-Fi.
I’m sure you guys probably have had other guests talk about ideally really minimizing your Wi-Fi and EMFs especially if you find you’re sensitive. But they do seem to have like a symbiotic reaction. Maybe that’s not the right word, but they definitely react with each other.
I hope that answered her question.
[00:24:25] Detective Ev: Yeah. Thank you for asking. Again, anyone else can ask anything they have. I wouldn’t even have thought about the connection between those two things.
One of the things that I wanted to know too, with the symptoms, is you had unfortunately for you, symptoms that are quite common in our space. Like everyone kind of has some anxiety. I’ve never had a client that was a female that did not have some issue with her cycle. I’ve only really worked with women under the age of 40, so they all have a cycle, but it’s messed up in some ways.
Are there any symptoms at all that might be unique to the mold thing that people can look out for? Or is it kind of just anything goes?
Toxic Mold Exposure: Other Symptoms to Look For
[00:24:59] Bridgit Danner: Well, those were sort of my early symptoms. And I think I was healthier than I appeared because I was being like religious about my routine. You know, heaven forbid you bring a processed food into my home, like kind of a lifestyle. So, I think that did kind of keep me going.
Then when I sort of hit my crash, it was just like a deep fatigue that wasn’t responding to anything. Needing a lot of sleep. And then for me, like when we started ripping up our house, neurological stuff got a lot worse, like my eyelids twitching all the time, losing things, really poor recall, like my brain was so fried right then.
I couldn’t remember a thought that I just had. I’d have to stop and try like 10 more times and be like, oh yeah, that was it. Just simple stuff. Like if I’d open a tab on the internet, I’d be like, what was I looking for? You kind of lose self-awareness, like that’s not normal.
And I just still went about my work life just like that. I think over time, and I guess everybody’s timeline is different, things can get definitely more severe. So yeah, a little bit of like menstrual stuff and digestive stuff, you’re right, is pretty common, but it can definitely start going into the severe category. Then like I said earlier, you’re just not responding to the other things that you are trying. Those things to me are signs that something else is going on.
Toxic Mold Exposure: To Support or Not to Support?
[00:26:28] Detective Ev: Got it. I’m glad to be learning about this more today because I think about how many times, even myself as a practitioner, I hope I didn’t miss a piece of the puzzle with someone because I didn’t really check out like, where do they live? Like what is it like? When you finally realize that, okay, yeah, there’s mold in someone’s body, what the heck is the process of getting that out?
Let’s say you moved, and somehow, we knew it’s a hundred percent mold free home. You definitely got out. Would the mold in your body and the microtoxins specifically, would they eventually go away? I mean, I’m not saying that you don’t want to help them along, but would they eventually just go away or are you almost always going to have to have some intervention there to get this out fully?
[00:27:04] Bridgit Danner: You know, they can maybe go away, but it’s definitely not guaranteed. When I first started doing this work, people would have a positive test or symptoms, would be like, oh, it’s from something I lived in some years back. I was like, what?
Now, I, a hundred percent, see that as being more common. So, I think you can potentially. You better be like pooping, exercising, eating real food. If you’re doing a lot of good foundations and you’ve moved out, you may. But for me, you know, I was already doing all those things, but I was in the moldy home like eight years. Even moving out, doing all the foundations, I really still needed to support my body in a lot of ways.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Perfect for the FDN System
So, antioxidants, binders, glutathione, lots of fish oil. You know, I still had to be really careful with my diet and like cheese or alcohol or sugar. I still needed a lot of rest. If I look back, I wish I had given myself more hormone support, like hormone replacement earlier on, because I think it would’ve made me feel more energy and better to the things I was still having to go through.
But yeah, I still had infections that I was dealing with, and it took a long time. It’s actually a perfect thing for FDN cause it’s really like looking at so many different systems. You could almost take a lot of the premises of FDN, just then add some premises about detox. Like doing sauna, doing dry brushing, doing binders. That’s kind of what it is in a nutshell.
[00:28:37] Detective Ev: That was the irony about where the leak was. It was in our infrared sauna room. I’m like, Okay. I don’t know if that’s a perfect one-to-one equation, but if it’s going to happen in any room, I thank God it was in that one.
If someone is in a situation actually like myself, I don’t know that we have mold. I mean, it could be happening, the panels were pretty much removed immediately. So hopefully something positive happened there. But let’s say there is mold in our business, and we just started last year. We’re in a lease. The contractors aren’t going to do anything about it. Or more likely I would imagine is someone is in that home. They are totally on board with you. They’re like, yeah, we will move. We physically just do not have the money to do this right now.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Doubtful You’ll Heal in That Space
Is there anything that can be done in the home? Can windows be open, can air filters be bought? Or is that just not even going to cut it when it comes to the mold thing? I never knew if that stuff like really helped.
[00:29:22] Bridgit Danner: Yeah, I think there’s different opinions on this. Like the coach who works for me has some protocols to make a safe room that you basically, I think, just sleep in. But some different like botanicals and I don’t even know the whole procedure for the safe room. You know, I’m less of a fan of that kind of thing.
If you do have a new rental, yeah, opening windows, running diffusers. I would not buy an air filter because the motor will become contaminated. You cannot use it again. That’s a really common one. Yeah, do not spend a thousand dollars on it.
I had a client who was very, very sick, disabled, rash all over her body. She’s like, oh, well, we have a piece of land. We’re going to build a house. It’ll take two years. So, I’m like, okay, let’s try to think about what we can do. She had a screened in porch. I’m like, I want you to basically live in that until you think of another solution.
They can ultimately do what they want to do, but I just know you will not get better in that space. And sometimes it takes like some creative thinking.
[00:30:25] Detective Ev: Well, I actually really appreciate how you approach this stuff. You’re super kind about it. Be like, this is what it is. I’d rather someone that’s straight up.
Realistic and Confident Practitioners Appreciated
You know, a lot of practitioners, and I think it happens because of the resistance of certain clients to do certain things, they’ll take on the client that’s resistant and then they’ll start molding to, no pun intended. That was really lame, I’m sorry. They’ll start shaping themselves in their protocols to the client themselves.
You’re really doing the client a disservice. Well, Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So, you don’t want to do this, so yeah, we can do that instead. And yeah, it’s only 70% is good. You’ll never really get better, but hey we can do that.
No, I’d rather have someone that gets on here and is like, this is what it is, this is how it needs to be handled. But I also appreciate the recognition of just being realistic. It’s one thing when we’re asking someone, all right, can you remove gluten from the diet? Virtually everyone can do that if they chose to, regardless of how much money they do or don’t make. But it’s a choice.
The house thing, that’s pretty freaking big. I mean, that’s a huge thing for a lot of people. Maybe they’re in a house, now they know the mold thing, maybe that depreciated in value. And they’re like, we’ll go negative if we try to solve this right now. Maybe they only got in six months ago.
It’s really complicated, and I actually commend you guys for doing this type of work. Which segues perfectly into my next question. I think we all know the kind of population that you serve, but I always like to ask it directly. I mean, who is your ideal client? Is it exclusively mold people or do you still work with a variety of different types of individuals?
Who Is Bridgit’s Ideal Client?
[00:31:40] Bridgit Danner: Lately, it’s heavily mold. Although, I just came from a more of a person, acupuncture background and then kind of women’s hormones. Then to more like gut and detox.
So, I think we still have some clients who come and just run a GI MAP with us or have a case review. But we’re definitely getting more and more into the mold for sure.
[00:32:00] Detective Ev: So, if I’m at the end of my line and worked with a bunch of practitioners, I’ve recognized probably that mold is a factor here, and I’m like, I’m ready to just talk to Bridgit and her team. I’m ready to do something here. What would that look like? How long do people work with you on average?
I think it’s always helpful for people to get some type of perspective, because there’s still 20 people actively watching this right now while we’re doing it. So, I’m guessing someone out there is probably suffering, and they might be wondering, yeah, what does it look like to go work with Bridgit?
An A La Carte Practice
[00:32:24] Bridgit Danner: Yeah. Our model is a little different, we’re pretty education based too. Well, I have a book on mold that’s just on Amazon, right? It’s really easy to access.
We have free books on mold. We have YouTubes on mold. We have a supplement shop and a lot of education on supplements. You can do a lab review with us if you’ve already run labs, you can just talk to us. You can run a new lab with us.
It’s a little more a la carte than some practices. I find it works pretty well for chronic illness folks because they have often done a chunk of work already and then maybe they want to add our piece. Or they’re already working with so-and-so, but they want to also talk to us. I’ve found out that’s sort of how it is.
So, it’s kind of working for us and working for them. It’s pretty flexible. You can kind of get in where you fit in with us.
[00:33:14] Detective Ev: Cool. If you guys have any last second questions, feel free to throw them on. Technically, I can steal 20 more minutes of Bridgit’s time if we need to.
Where to Find Bridgit Danner
I’ll kind of organically wrap it up here. Other than the obvious of Instagram, is there any place that you’d like to shout out where people can find you?
[00:33:27] Bridgit Danner: We also have this Mold Summit starting in about a month. It’s free, and there’s like 35 experts.
It’s like mold inspection all the way to like making your new non-toxic home, the whole process. It’s totally free to join. I don’t know if you have a link handy, but I can put your link in the comments later. It’s in my Instagram bio, for sure. I’d love to invite people onto that and just pick out a few talks you want to listen to.
[00:33:53] Detective Ev: Excellent. I’m not normally a summit guy, but I like this. I think it’s important and I need to know about it if for no other reason than just selfish ones for the business. But also today with clients, we need to know what’s going on and I like to have an extra tool in my tool belt, especially if this is already affecting so many people.
Now the final question I’d like to ask you today, again, it’s normally like how I kind of set up these podcasts.
I typically ask if I could give the person a magic wand, what would they get everyone to do for their health. I think I’m going to just edit it a little bit today and say, if I could give you a magic wand and you could do like one thing for every mold sufferer out there, or you could get them to do one thing, I don’t know if this is too simple, but like what is the one thing you might get them to do?
Signature Question
[00:34:34] Bridgit Danner: I get them to move, move out of their house. I mean that’s, again, like often the hardest one. But sometimes people ask me that tip.
Actually, one of my tips for recovering from mold or whatever is just like everyday movement and outdoors. I think they’re incredibly healing. Some people who go through mold actually go live on BLM land, like free camping. They’ll just live for like six months, out of a tent and just really minimizing their exposure, really simplifying their life. People heal that way.
So, you know, if you’re not going to that extreme, you can still get outside a lot more, you can still move more and sort of like let nature heal you basically.
This conversation gets really complicated around detox and there are just some fundamental things, like you asked, things that really can improve with a lot of the basics.
[00:35:29] Detective Ev: I did 60 days of camping in the pandemic. I did it for the circadian rhythm benefits, but I always had wanted to do it. I’m like, well this is about as good a time as ever, right? I’m never going to be able to do this probably again.
I mean, the 60 days, I was already pretty healthy. I was in a good spot. I’d been doing this for years. You can’t beat Mother Nature. I don’t think you can out supplement her. I don’t think you can out lab test her as an FDN.
Toxic Mold Exposure and Hormone Recovery
Most people can’t live that way unfortunately, in today’s world. But if you get any chance to do that, or you can maybe even just change your family vacation every year from instead of a week down the shore which probably has a ton of mold in that house, you can do a week, literally, all camping together. I think that makes a world of difference.
Someone did sneak in with a last second question, so thank you very much for this. They said, have you seen women recover their hormones after mold exposure?
[00:36:13] Bridgit Danner: A hundred percent. Yeah. You know, my periods are better now at 48 than they were at 35. Yeah, a hundred percent. There’s a lot of hope. It does take some time, even like pretty serious brain degradation, can repair. It’s just sticking with it.
[00:36:31] Detective Ev: This is a great question. I totally believe that that’s true. The body has an innate healing ability, and that’s not hippie woo-woo.
I just got a paper cut the other day on my body. I didn’t have to tell it to heal, and this scab is almost completely done. Right now, it’s like the last little bit. I guarantee two days from now when I wake up, I will not even be able to see that a paper cut was there.
It is that same innate healing ability that heals the paper cut that heals your brain, that heals the hormones, whatever. I just think that the difference is the paper cut, it was easy to find the stressor. Right? Evan don’t rub the sharp edge of the paper across your skin again, and you won’t get the paper cut. Easy.
Toxic Mold Exposure: Can Develop Cancer from Mold
When we’re talking about the hormones or the brain and then something as complicated as mold or all the other things we have to deal with in today’s world, there’s just a lot of little hurdles to overcome that are preventing ability. I don’t want to oversimplify it. It’s more complex than that, but that’s really it, guys. Just remember, it’s not some hippie stuff to say that the body can heal. You already know that it can, it does it all the time, every time you’ve gotten a cut.
Really, we’re activating that same thing. We’re just digging through all the stuff that we have to, to get there. Sometimes it’s mold, sometimes it’s something else. And for some people it’s a combination of a lot of things. But we’ve heard incredible healing stories in the world of FDN and you’ve seen it yourself too, Bridgit. It’s just awesome what people can do.
Someone says that, oh, she said that’s great news to hear. Woohoo for periods. Awesome.
[00:37:47] Bridgit Danner: Yeah, for periods, fertility.
You know, the one thing I’ll say is like, do take this seriously because you can develop things like cancers from mold. So just don’t sit on it. Don’t say I’ll move in five or 10 years. That takes that time to develop. You know, those are some of the things that can be irreversible, potentially.
But if you’re in a stage where you’re just having symptoms and you know you have mold, yeah, you can definitely turn it around. So that’s awesome.
Conclusion
[00:38:13] Detective Ev: Excellent. Bridgit, thank you so much for coming on today. You’ve genuinely sparked my interest in this topic. I’ll probably hop on that summit and end up buying cool stuff that I didn’t need, but I’m going to choose to do it.
[00:38:23] Bridgit Danner: You know what we’re going to do? I’m going to announce to you, it’s like informal. We’re actually going to do a practitioner course too about, just about mold.
[00:38:29] Detective Ev: Make sure you message us when that’s out because I’d love to get you back on the podcast. Our practitioners, I feel like would love that.
[00:38:35] Bridgit Danner: Yeah. I’m really excited! Because yeah, my weak points are like Lyme and EMFs, we all have like weak points, right? So, if we can kind of plug that for people and they can be on the front lines of like identifying it, that’s fantastic.
Thanks for having me.
[00:38:49] Detective Ev: Yeah, if you guys just tuned in a second ago, we’re talking about mold today. You can go back to our pages, and you will be able to see this. Just give it a few minutes to get shared and then you can rewatch what we did. So, thanks again.
We all feel blue from time to time, and food can play an important role in helping us lift our mood and improve our outlook on life. Open up the fridge and poke through the pantry, where you’ll find a wide array of mood boosting foods that are healthful, satisfying and delicious.
* Join us for a special, free live cooking class on Thursday, February 16th: Eating For Stress Resilience. Learn how to apply nutrition and zero-cost lifestyle tips to achieve improved resilience to stress.
Before we get into the specific mood-boosting foods below, there are a couple of key dietary strategies to help you improve and balance your mood with food:
Balance blood sugar levels. Skipping meals, eating erratically or eating sugary meals and snacks can send our blood sugar levels out of whack. This leads to an imbalance of hormones – including stress hormones – and can make us irritable, cranky or ‘hangry’. Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, is linked to depression and anxiety. Consuming complex carbohydrates, protein, fat and fibre with each meal and snack will help your blood sugar levels stay on track.
Get the B vitamins. The spectrum of B vitamins helps soothe stress and support the nervous system. Many of the B vitamins are also co-factors in aiding brain health and formulating neurotransmitters. B vitamins can be found in many vegetables, like dark leafy greens and gluten-free whole grains.
What If I’m Not in the Mood to Cook Mood Boosting Foods?
If you’re down in the dumps, you may not feel like whipping up mood boosting foods from scratch, or even have the energy to do so. Here are some suggestions to help you make your mood-boosting foods a reality.
Take advantage of the good times and meal prep. When you’re feeling able, batch cook a few items that you can leave in the freezer for your future self. One pot meals like soup or chili are great options, as you can make them in big batches and portion them in the freezer. You could also bake a batch of muffins, prep some smoothie kits, or make other recipes you enjoy eating. Learn all of our tricks to batch cooking in this guide.
Start a mood-boosting cooking cooperative. Get collaborative by joining or starting a cooking cooperative. That way, you only need to make one dish but get to take home multiple goodies – plus you get the benefits of connecting with your friends.
Purchase time-saving tools or equipment that will ease the burden. Appliances like slow cookers and Instant Pots can help shoulder some of the workload; yes, you’ll still need to do some prep, but once that’s done meals come together easily.
Make it simple. You don’t need to spend hours cooking mood boosting foods to reap the benefits. Blend up a smoothie, have some avocado toast or cook a veggie omelette if that’s what appeals to you.
Remember you are doing the best you can. Try not to be too hard on yourself. Cook when you’re able and try to make good store-bought choices when you aren’t up to the task.
Aside from the omega-3s, salmon is also high in protein, Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D. Vitamin B12 works in concert with folate to help convert amino acids into neurotransmitters (depressed patients tend to have low levels of both), while Vitamin D deficiency is linked to depression.
Dark Leafy Greens
These are rich in a wide variety of nutrients, including fibre to balance blood sugar, B vitamins to boost brain function, and iron. Evidence indicates that iron deficiency is linked to altered emotional behaviour, anxiety and the disruption of neurotransmitters. Iron (and B vitamins) also help us produce energy, and more energy may lead us to feeling positive and bolster our ability to participate in the activities we enjoy. Too much iron in the brain, however, can also impair neurotransmitters – it’s a Goldilocks situation where you get your iron levels ‘just right’.
So grab a bunch of spinach, kale, collards, Swiss chard, mizuna, mustard greens, dandelion, or whichever dark leafy greens you enjoy, and try different ways to add them to your diet.
Chia Seeds
Chia seeds are a plant-based source of omega-3 fatty acids, and they contain a wealth of additional nutrients like protein, fibre, calcium and iron. This mood boosting food is also a good source of magnesium, nature’s relaxant mineral, and it can help reduce stress and anxiety.
These little seeds are very versatile in a culinary nutrition context:
But that’s not all – turkey contains a multitude of B vitamins – including B6 and B12, and the mineral zinc. A zinc deficiency is associated with mood disorders like anxiety and depression.
Lentils
These little but mighty pulses provide a good supply of folate, a B vitamin that helps develop the nervous system. Folate deficiency is associated with depression, and adding more of it to your diet can help boost your mood.
They are also high in fibre for blood sugar control, iron, protein and Vitamin B6; the latter helps our bodies make mood-boosting neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. Low levels of Vitamin B 6 are associated with depression.
One of our favourite mood boosting foods, eggs are high in protein, Vitamin D and B12. They have a payload of choline, a nutrient that supports the nervous system, improves mood and helps produce neurotransmitters, as well as the antioxidant selenium. Since the brain is more vulnerable to oxidative damage, consuming antioxidant foods can help protect and preserve the brain (and our positive mood in the process).
Eggs are easy to make and transport when you’re on the go, and there are a ton of ways you can consume them:
Sardines
A fatty fish that is filled with mood boosters: it contains sky-high levels of Vitamin B12, as well as omega-3s, selenium, protein, Vitamin D and choline.
Mash them up with lemon, parsley and sea salt, make a veggie + sardine hash, or chop them up into gluten-free flatbreads.
Avocado
A nutritious fat with an ultra-creamy texture, avocados have Vitamin B6, fibre, Vitamin E and Vitamin C. They also contain Vitamin B5, which helps synthesize neurotransmitters and supports the adrenal glands.
Fermented foods, from kombucha to sauerkraut to dairy-free yogurt, are a fantastic source of probiotics. It’s easy to make them at home and they’re one of our go-to mood boosting foods, and they’re also great for supporting immunity.
This mood boosting food is a great go-to for protein (including tyrosine for neurotransmitter production), magnesium, fibre and Vitamin E. As an antioxidant, Vitamin E can help combat free radical damage in the brain and has been shown to improve memory and cognition.
Yesssssssss. Chocolate makes you happy! It contains a number of potent compounds such as phenylethylamine, which boosts endorphins, and anandamide, otherwise known as ‘the bliss chemical’. Studies on chocolate show that it can improve mood and cognition, plus it’s a rich source of antioxidants, iron and magnesium to help us relax. Evidence indicates that chocolate is particularly helpful when eaten mindfully – so don’t gobble it all down, savour it instead.
Grab chocolate inspiration in these posts:
Sunflower Seeds
Sunflower seeds are a good source of Vitamin E, Vitamin B6 and magnesium. They’re a great option for those with nut allergies – you can easily swap ground sunflower seeds or sunflower seed butter whenever nuts are called for. Learn how to make your own sunflower seed butter here (you can also infuse it with dark chocolate for an extra mood boost!).
Sweet Potato
Photo: Abigail Hopkins
Sweet potatoes contain an abundance of mood boosters like Vitamin B6 (as well as other B vitamins), Vitamin C and fibre. And there are so many ways to eat them:
have them plain, either steamed or roasted
drizzle them with coconut oil, nut butter and cinnamon
stuff them with chili, curry, sauteed ground meat or beans
Ghee
Ghee, or clarified butter, is chock-full of nutritious fats and Vitamin D, plus it helps to heal the digestive tract, which can lead to better digestion and the beneficial gut bacteria that supports our mood. Learn how to make your own ghee at home.
Does tea tree oil have enough antiviral activity to combat HSV-1 and papilloma viruses, the causes of cold sores and common warts, respectively?
“It has been reported that essential oils show not only anti-bacterial and anti-fungal activities but also antiviral activity.” As well, it’s been reported that “Bigfoot Kept Lumberjack as Love Slave,” according to in a headline in the Weekly World News. What does the science show?
How about pitting essential oils against HSV-1, the herpes virus that causes cold sores? There’s a drug called acyclovir that helps, but now there are drug-resistant strains of the virus, so researchers have been looking for other alternatives. As you can see at 0:40 in my video Benefits of Tea Tree Oil for Warts and Cold Sores, researchers found that a variety of essential oils, including tea tree oil and peppermint, could totally suppress the replication of the virus at a concentration of just 1 percent, but that was in a petri dish. What about in people?
Recurrent cold sores affect as many as 20 to 40 percent of the population. Tea tree oil appeared to work in vitro, so researchers undertook a randomized, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the efficacy of topically applied tea tree oil in the treatment of recurrent cold sores. When comparing a 6 percent tea tree oil gel versus a placebo gel five times a day, researchers found that the average healing time seemed to be a few days shorter and the virus was wiped out a little earlier with the tea tree oil. However, “none of the differences between groups reached statistical significance,” meaning that a difference that small could have just been due to chance. They blamed the sample size, but maybe tea tree oil just didn’t work.
It would be interesting to put lemongrass oil to the test, since it was the only essential oil in the study still effective at wiping out viral activity at a dose that was ten times lower—0.1 percent—but it doesn’t look like that’s ever been done.
What about warts? They’re caused by viruses, too. Irish researchers reported a case of successful topical treatment of tea tree oil on hand warts in a pediatric patient. A seven-year-old girl had six warts on the tip of one of her fingers, so heavily clustered as to distort the appearance of her finger, interfering with her writing and piano lessons. She had undergone the standard caustic treatment of painting the warts with acid, but they just came back with a vengeance. So, her doctors figured, why not?, and suggested applying straight tea tree oil. After five days, all of the warts had “considerably reduced in size,” and, in another week, they were all gone, and they didn’t come back.
Not bad compared to conventional wart treatments, which can be really painful. Indeed, in this case, the tea tree oil appeared to work without any side effects, only affecting the warts, in contrast to the standard acid treatments that can damage the surrounding tissue. So, the researchers made an urgent call for randomized, controlled trials, but who’s going to fund those when tea tree oil costs only pennies per dose? The reason we’d particularly like to see randomized trials for wart treatments is that they tend to get better on their own, disappearing without any treatment typically within a year or two. That’s why, “Since antiquity it has been believed that warts can be removed by various magical processes.” You pay some witch doctor, your warts go away on their own, and they take the credit.
Surprisingly, such “charming” of warts was actually put to the test and had no effect on the warts. It’s interesting how they do those types of studies, though. For example, one study tested whether warts can be prayed away. The researchers used a placebo prayer, so the participants didn’t know whether they were in the prayed-for group or the placebo-prayer group. They did this to exclude the possibility that participants mind-over-mattered their own wart cure. That’s been put to the test, too. In another study, one from the 1960s, researchers used a “magic” wand secretly connected to a circuit such that it tingled when the wand touched the wart to maximize any placebo effect. And, wrote the scientists, the patients were predominantly “Negroes who were mostly unsophisticated and who had a very deep belief in magic.” Yet, despite the participants’ purported “deep belief in magic,” more warts actually disappeared spontaneously in the untreated group compared to the magic-wanded ones, with no hint of the mere suggestion of magical cures being effective.
I was surprised studies like this were not only performed but published in respected journals. Evidently publication followed a “considerable discussion” among the journal editors, who said they “promised to keep an open mind, but not so open that our brains fall out.”
There are two stories in this week’s note. One is a short story about a library book and the other is the low-down on the weight loss drug, Ozempic/Wegovy, which is in the news.
The library book
I was approached by a fellow real foodie, Robert M, who was shocked to find the following disclaimer stuck in his local library copy of “The Ketogenic Cookbook”:
I was similarly shocked. Our shock came from 1) seeing a disclaimer at all and 2) seeing how far this one went. It was factually incorrect. Animal protein does not significantly increase the risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes or early death. Vegan diets do not create the lowest risk for these diseases.
There was no mention of the nutritional deficiencies that can cause harm with a vegan diet, which even the Vegan Society admits (Ref 1). There was no mention of the need for ruminants for the preservation of topsoil without which we can’t feed the planet going forward.
