Category: Nutrition

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp olive oil

• 1 white onion, finely chopped

• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed

• 1 knob of ginger, grated

• 2 medium carrot, chopped into chunks

• 2 medium green zucchini, chopped into chunks

• 100g button mushrooms, sliced

• 2 sticks of celery, finely chopped

• 100g dry red lentils

• 400g canned chopped tomatoes

• 500ml low salt vegetable stock

• 2 bay leaves

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• pinch of pepper and chilli flakes (to taste)

• 100g of shredded cheese

• 1 packet of whole wheat pasta of your choice

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pot. Add onion, garlic, ginger into the pot and cook until aromatic

2. Then add carrot, zucchini, mushrooms and celery, stir until vegetables start to soften

3. Add lentils, chopped tomatoes, stock, bay leaves and oregano into the pot. Stir and cover to bring to a boil

4. Once boils, bring the heat to lower and simmer for 20 minutes until lentils absorb the water

5. In another pot, bring water to a boil and cook the pasta till al dente

6. Season the lentil bolognaise with pepper and chilli flakes

7. Serve 1 cup of lentil bolognaise with 1/2-1 cup of cooked pasta and 1 tablespoon (20g) of shredded cheese

8. Have a side salad with green leafy greens, tomato and cucumber for more veggies!

Enjoy:)

Introduction

An article was published in the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology in September 2022 by Valk et al. It was called “Saturated fat: villain and bogeyman in the development of cardiovascular disease?” (Ref 1). Since the definition of bogeyman is “an imaginary evil spirit or being, used to frighten children”, this was a wonderfully disrespectful title. As it should be.

There are many myths in nutrition – 8 glasses of water, 5-a-day, 3,500 calories, 30g of fiber, American pyramids, British plates, 14 or 21 alcohol units… In fact, I can’t think of any government nutrition message that is evidence based. One of the worst, however, must be the claims made against dietary fat in general and saturated fat in particular. Let’s start with a summary of the facts about food and fat. I share these at conferences to give the context for why the myth that fat/saturated fat is bad makes no sense.

Facts about food and fat

Introduction

[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, AKA Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show. We have a bit of a unique episode today for a couple of reasons. One is the fact that we are talking about sound healing with our guest, Ian Morris.

Sound healing is definitely not a topic that has ever been brought up on this show. If it has, it’s been very brief and was just touched upon maybe for a second or two. We’ve never had one episode where we touched on it in depth and had real questions about the science behind it, how does it work? We touch on all of that today, so it’s going to be pretty cool.

Another reason that it’s unique is because this episode is actually the audio extract of one of our ProSeries webinars for AFDNP. Now, AFDNP is the Association of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioners. It is something that if you’re not even an FDN trainee yet, this is pretty far down the line for you. But once someone goes through the FDN course, they have the ability to join AFDNP. It is an optional thing. It’s not required.

Many graduates do choose to do that because the association gives you a bunch of extra benefits. We’ve touched on that in a separate episode with Jennifer Woodward. But one of the benefits out of the many that we get is ProSeries.

ProSeries is when she brings on a guest. It’d be similar, I guess, to a podcast, except it’s not as interview based. I mean, I do ask questions today, but that’s just my style.

AFDNP ProSeries on Sound Healing

Typically, people would come on and it’d be more webinar format, but there’s a live Q&A, so that’s the advantage. I know a lot of the times we have guests on, and I do imagine that some of you guys would love to be asking questions Live, but it’s just not really practical when we’re recording the podcast.

ProSeries is kind of like a cool middle ground and we bring on specific people on there. It’s not the same guests typically that we have on the Health Detective Podcast. In fact, it’s completely different. I would say it gets much more technical on there, where here we typically flow with a little bit more of a story.

Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.

All right, we will get this rolling then. Hello everyone and welcome to another ProSeries. Evan Transue here. I have never been here before for a ProSeries, but I feel like I know most of the names that are already on here today. If nothing else, I know that you guys hopefully listen to the Health Detective Podcast. I asked for Jennifer’s permission, and we will be saving this episode on our podcast as well.

Jennifer is on a division-head meeting, and they said, hey, who likes to talk and get on camera? And of course, that’s me. So, I’m here with you guys.

I want to read the bio today to give you guys a little context of what we’re talking about. We’re going to be talking with Ian Morris about sound healing, and we’re also talking to Joe Phillips. We’ll explain how these two come together as we move along in the presentation. So, a little bit about Ian.

Starting with Sound Healing to Reverse Two Diagnoses

He calls himself a sound alchemist. However, his personal story is Joe Dispenza-level fascinating. In 2011, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and MS. Ian’s cancer was advanced, but because he didn’t have insurance as a musician, he didn’t seek the treatments or see the specialists that doctors referred him to. The medical debt became too much that he had to accept death or dive into holistic healing. We know which one he chose.

He discovered The Healing Power of Sound, which naturally intrigued him as a musician. He began working with frequencies alongside deep meditation and mindfulness. Breathwork, meditation, and sound healing were the gateways to helping him shift his mindset, which in turn gave him the strength to change his eating and sleeping habits.

It was the combination of diet, proper sleep, and holistic modalities that facilitated this healing. Over time, he successfully reversed both diagnoses. This is what inspired him to begin Listening to Smile.

This is awesome. Those are some pretty serious diagnoses, obviously. We deal with a lot of people, especially myself on the podcast, getting to interview people who have been through these health challenges. They’ve been through some stuff, not always life threatening.

We both have colon cancer and MS here. MS is one of the only directly life-threatening autoimmune diseases. And of course, colon cancer is not a great thing to be having. Yet here you are today, sharing the story with us and on the webinar. That’s amazing.

So, welcome. Thanks for coming on.

[00:04:09] Ian Morris: Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited to share the story and the music and everything. So, thanks for having me.

Sound Healing Uses Frequency as a Guide

[00:04:16] Detective Ev: Absolutely. I have some questions for you guys, of course. But I also understand that you probably want to share some information with us to start off, is that correct?

[00:04:24] Ian Morris: Yeah. As far as I knew ahead of time, was Joe, we were going to focus a little bit about workplace wellness and how the FDN network could utilize the music and the tools that we have.

[00:04:37] Detective Ev: Okay. Well, I have no problem guiding it to some degree. My first thing, what is frequency minded music, this sound healing thing? I mean, how do people use it? Why does it work? Let’s just dive into that.

Admittedly, even for me, I’ve heard of it, no pun intended. Well, that was a terrible joke. This is why they don’t let me host these things. This is why Jennifer switched you guys. I can’t resist.

But seriously though, even as someone who’s very functionally oriented, I admittedly don’t know nearly enough about that. Nor would I have ever known that this could be something so powerful as to be contributed to a legitimate healing in the way that you experienced. So, what is this sound healing?

[00:05:12] Ian Morris: Basically, we’re using frequency as a guide or a bar.

You know, we all have those friends who can complain a lot or look at the world and everything’s out to get them. If you hang out with those people long enough, that energy starts rubbing off on you. But the other side of that coin is we all have those friends who are very positive, outgoing, and see the world as sunshine and rainbows. If you hang out with that person, that starts affecting you as well.

Sound Healing: Music is That Positive Uplifting Friend

This music is really just tools that change your vibration. It’s through consistency and through that raising the vibration or raising the bar of what you’re surrounding yourself with.

One of the big things that we try to do with our listeners is really concentrate on the focus that everything is vibration of light or sound in this perceived reality. What we’re having them look at is then the thoughts they’re thinking, the food they’re eating, the people they’re surrounding themselves with, the media, the tv, the film that they’re taking in. All of these are inputs of vibrational proportions that are affecting our vibration, our personal vibration.

This music is really just a tool that helps to be that good friend, that positive friend that’s helping to uplift and encourage them to stay in their highest vibration.

[00:06:32] Detective Ev: I think this is something that resonates with a lot of the people here. I don’t know every FDN, but typically every FDN has a more open mind to some of these concepts than perhaps the average person.

We’ve had to become open-minded. It wasn’t really even a choice. You are forced into open-mindedness when you deal with these chronic diseases, as you know. I mean, you’re either going to get better or you’re not. And to get better you might have to start thinking outside the box. On a surface level, this makes sense to me.

I’m totally a believer that we’re the product of the five people we spend the most time with. I am admittedly someone who practices visualization techniques to try to bring in the things that I want into my life, but I also do that with a lot of faith. There’s nothing wrong with faith, faith is a beautiful thing.

Sound Healing: Clinically Proven to Help Dissipate Depression

But I’m curious, what is the science behind this with what you’re saying in terms of actually getting people better because I’m not familiar with it. Is there science already showing the benefits of this?

[00:07:20] Ian Morris: Yeah, there’s science as far as binaural beats. I mean, there’s a lot of actual studies, case studies and clinical studies, on binaural beats and how powerful and effective they are, which is essentially what we’re using as the root foundation of the Listening to Smile music.

We’ve kind of enhanced it and made it a little more modern. But a lot of that work started coming out in the late sixties, early seventies, and into the eighties where binaural beats became very popular and even more so now with hypnotherapist, life coaches, you know, things of that nature and a lot of people getting into the power, the law of attraction and manifestation.

A lot of people are starting to get into binaural beats as another tool to add to those practices. But what we’re doing is we’re integrating our music with modern genres.

So, you’re talking about trip hop, hiphop, folk, pop, rock, and typically things that you wouldn’t think of binaurals being included in and the type of frequency work that we’re doing. We were really out to create a soundtrack for healing. We kind of crossed over into those more upbeat tracks for workout and things of that nature.

But yes, there is trials that are showing that certain hertz, like 111 hertz has been clinically proven to help dissipate like feelings of depression in clients.

Sound Healing Lowers Heart Rate & Brain Wave Activity

When you start working with these frequencies and incorporating them into meditation music, you’re already kind of engaging the body with these binaural beats in a way that really targets the stress response. You’re talking about lowering the heart rate, which can be proven through science. You have people that the brainwave state is changed to like a theta pattern, which is what we hit just before REM sleep.

What you’re talking about with this music that can be proven by science, is actually targeting the stress response of the body, lowering heart rate, lowering the brain wave activity. Then you start working on a more personal level in like a coaching one-on-one situation where you’re really talking about creating new neuro pathways in the brain, creating new belief systems, new consistencies with the way a client talks with themselves, the way they internally speak.

It’s really rewiring stagnant energy and creating new belief systems through that interaction. You’re really talking about something that’s on a mental and physical level simultaneously. That’s cool.

[00:09:44] Detective Ev: We all have our little side passions in this world of holistic healing. For me it’s light. And it sounds like this is conceptually similar in the sense that there is really solid science going back from quite some time and now it’s almost like being brought to the light again. No, definitely, no pun intended with that one.

It’s being brought to the light again, so that we are now reexamining this stuff, and more and more is coming out. So, we already know it’s good. Possibly there’s sometimes that it’s working and maybe we don’t even fully understand why, but the science is going to catch up to this.

Sound Healing Quickly Quiets the Mind

I guess what I wanted to establish today is this is not woo-woo by any means. What you just said is already more than valid enough. Bringing in the binaural beats, I’m like, oh, that makes perfect sense. I’ve used those for probably almost nine years in meditation, right? Because it does, it helps calm you down and focus you rather quickly.

[00:10:27] Ian Morris: Yeah. I was working with a monk about three years ago. One of the things that he said whenever he worked with our music for about a week and a half, two weeks, he said, I spent 25 years working with my brothers on meditation and learning how to quiet my mind and to set myself up for these meditative states to heal my body and to go into deep meditation for spiritual enlightenment, et cetera.

He was saying that when I put on the headphones with this music it’s doing it instantaneously. Where it took him 20, 25 years to get to a point where the music is doing it with the snap of a finger, just putting it on and hitting play. He said, within a few minutes, you’re already setting up into that state without any kind of conscious effort moving into that.

I think that’s what’s real important is there’s a lot of people out there that believe that meditation takes 20 years, and a lot of people are overwhelmed by that thought and don’t start the practice because it seems so overwhelming. I think that this is the perfect opportunity for practitioners to have an additional tool in their tool belt that can engage their clients.

Healing Is a Multifaceted Approach

It not only creates another point of contact where they’re interacting with that client, but it also is giving them a tool to use at home that really helps to create another facet of healing.

You know, I believe that healing is a multifaceted approach. It’s not just nutrition. It’s the mindset first, then the nutrition, then moving the body, getting enough sleep. You know, it’s like giving the body what it needs. So, it’s a multifaceted approach.

But I think this is something that helps get the mental game established where people can really get behind it from a mindset standpoint.

[00:12:09] Detective Ev: Awesome. And Joe, we’re going to bring you in here in just a second. I’m not leaving you hanging.

One other thing I want to know from you though, first please, Ian. I’m kind of curious cause I read your bio. Summarized as you want or as long as you want, it really doesn’t matter to me. I’m just curious about the background story and how this led to eventually LTS for you and forming these things. What were you even thinking when you had these diagnoses?

I don’t want to go too much into my normal podcast interviewing mode. I know we’re here to talk about other things today. But I gotta know what the story’s like. Like how did this all even come to be?

[00:12:35] Ian Morris: Well, growing up I had played sports my whole life, so I was pretty active. I played baseball and I was a pitcher. I played from T-ball all the way to high school.

When I was in about ninth and 10th grade, I started getting college scouts and professional scouts that were coming to my games.

A Dream Snatched Away

Most of my life I was told that I was going to play professional baseball from everyone around me. One day, I was running around the bases. I think that was in 11th grade and passed out when I was running the bases. I had hit a ball, was running. I was between first and second base and I just passed out.

Went to the hospital and they diagnosed me with mitral valve prolapse. Just said that there’s like a heart arrhythmia that I had, and the mitral valve prolapse were acting together.

They said it most likely is not going to kill you. But when those happen together, then basically you are losing oxygen to your brain. When that information got out, all the scouts left. You know, everyone kind of was lost interest in me. I think there was a real deep depression whenever you have spent that much time focused on a goal, and then it’s taken away from you.

So, I started self-medicating, drinking and hanging out with not my normal friends, not the jocks or the sports guys, but the creative people, the drug people, and just party people. Started really self-medicating and there was a weight gain that started happening.

I learned to let go of the self-medication as far as the drinking and smoking and things like that, but I started eating differently as a crutch using food as a crutch and gaining weight. I think that it was a good 10 years of just depression and weight gain.

One day I started having these health issues and it took them about a year to get a real diagnosis. I was kind of bounced back and forth.

Sound Healing Helps Shift the Mindset

I was already a musician; I didn’t have health insurance. So not having health insurance, you don’t always receive the greatest of care.

It took about a year to be diagnosed and it was a very dark night of the soul. I read Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life. That was one of the books that came into my path. Then another one by Dr. Mitchell Gaynor called The Healing Power of Sound. Those two books just hit at the right time.

You know that eureka moment where I was like, I’m already musician, I could do this stuff. I started having the faith, like you said, moving into the belief that I could heal myself. It was from these books and this literature that really encouraged me to step into that.

It took about a year and a half of really trying to rewire my mind, come out of that depression and that self-talk, that defeatist talk and that hopelessness that I was in. I really contribute the binaural beats to being the first thing that really helped shift my mindset to that hope, those moments of hope, and really moving into getting up and doing the baby steps necessary.

At my heaviest, I was about 320 pounds and just not in a great space. So, I lost over a hundred pounds the first year, started getting into breath work, meditation, and sound healing. Those were the first three things. Those things were actively progressing me forward to a point where I could start making better decisions about food, moving my body more than I was, and really learned a little bit more about sleep and the cycles that take place when we sleep for the filtering process.

Sound Healing Business Growing Internationally

All of that just brought me to a point where I started creating my own music through the encouragement of these books. As I started getting into the music and sharing it with people, they were like, this is what you did to lose a hundred pounds? I was like, absolutely.

It was something that just started growing into personal and friendships and family. They started seeing the same results that I was seeing, changes in their sleeping patterns, changing in the ways that they were looking at food, changes in the way that their body was responding. It was just something that was really encouraged.

It was never something I really thought about making into a business. But I had so many positive results and friends and family started having very similar that I was encouraged through so many friendships, like, hey, you need to share this with more people. So, it grew to yoga studios and holistic practices.

Then it took the last five years, but we’ve grown into nine different countries now all over the world, working with people, holistic practitioners with this music.

[00:16:44] Detective Ev: This is so cool. This is how the best businesses are started. I feel like this is just speaking our tribe’s language because no one gets into this space by accident.

I always make a joke. There’s no five-year-olds out there that are like, mom and dad, I can’t wait to be a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner. And I would assume there’s not a lot of five-year-olds saying, mom and dad, I can’t wait to get into sound healing. Like that’s where I want to go. Right?

Clif Bar Corporate Wellness Program

That’s what’s even cooler about these things. Because, if you’re doing it, it’s because you love it. It’s because you felt called to it and there’s something there truly for you.

So, Joe, I want to bring you in really quick too, to kind of combine this all together. How did you become involved with Ian, LTS? I’d love to hear any background about your story too.

I also think you had mentioned the Clif Bar thing when we were not recording yet. But that’s definitely something we need to share in the audience cause that’s pretty amazing that you’re doing that.

So, introduce yourself. Let’s hear about you.

[00:17:34] Joe Phillips: Thanks Evan.

I’ve been at Clif Bar for quite some time now. Started the corporate wellness program here. I’ve been here about 26 years. I’m always looking for creative ways to help sustain our population, our employees.

I am a C.H.E.K certified instructor for nutrition as well as personal trainer, in addition to being an FDN. With our D.R.E.S.S model, our five foundational principles, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to bring Ian into this conversation. But I also thought if I brought Ian into Clif Bar, since we’re doing so much, we already offer yoga. You know, we offer massage, physical therapy, acupuncture, all of that already. I thought, you know what? This is right up our alley.

I saw Ian being interviewed with Paul. I reached out to Ian, told him what I was up to, and he is like, yeah, we can work with you and do some stuff.

So, we’re in transition. We were just recently sold to Mondelez, parent company Kraft for $5 billion. There’s a lot of stress going on cause there’s a lot of uncertainty.

Sound Healing Does Much More than Mitigate Anxiety & Stress

I said to Ian, hey look, I know you do more than stress reduction, but I think we could really use your help. I lead Sonic Meditation Programs and use Listening to Smile for our staff. They found it very helpful to help relieve that stress and anxiety that’s going on.

For some of the other folks, we’re actually using it for focus and productivity. I came with the thinking of let’s do this to help people sort of bring it down a level with the anxiety and stress, but there’s so much more it can do. We’re seeing some really great results and I wanted to share this.

I reached out to Jennifer and said, hey, I think this would be a great opportunity for FDNs to use this as a tool with their clients and show them. It ties right into the D.R.E.S.S model that we already use. So that’s how I came into this with Ian and FDN.

[00:19:40] Detective Ev: Awesome. And that’s totally impressive over two decades with a major company, right? It’s like something that literally everyone has heard of health space or not.

I can picture my dad even as he, I love him to death, smokes two packs of cigarettes a day, he would know this. He’d be like, that’s the stuff in the bike shops, right? You guys are everywhere. That’s really kind of cool.

One thing I want to just clearly define here. When we were talking about your story, Ian, I don’t know if we fully got this. So, Listening to Smile is what exactly? And for those listening, that’s what I keep referring to when I say LTS. That’s what that stands for. Just so it’s crystal clear, what is this and what does it do?

Using Sound Healing Ethically

[00:20:14] Ian Morris: Yeah, so I would define Listening to Smile as a unique sound healing company that specializes in music licensing. What that means is, we have a catalog of over 700 songs that are in frequency-based music, which means we have songs that are focused on body organs like the lungs, small intestines, large intestines, the liver, things of that nature.

But we also have binaural beats that are targeting brainwave states. We have music that is like, there’s 520 hertz, people will define as the frequency of love. So, we have music that’s created in the frequency of love. There’s everything from chakras, planetary frequencies, body organ frequencies, and then the human resonance and solfeggio scales.

We have a broad spectrum of frequencies that we work with to target different areas of focus. So, we have created this catalog to be used in these holistic ways. Life coaches, hypnotherapists, acupuncture, chiropractors, yoga studios, everyone’s using this in different ways. They make their own playlist; they create the music.

The licensing side of the business comes in where a lot of holistic practitioners use music in their practice in some form or fashion if they’re working with coaching, to pump them up for workouts or inspire them. People do guided meditations or tracks to help with sleep, things of that nature.

But a lot of people don’t realize when you’re creating programs that you’re pushing out and charging money for, if you’re using somebody else’s music, you’re actually breaking copyright law unless you have a license to use that music. So, we wanted to create something that was a new paradigm and licensing that was fair, but also creating more.

Using Sound Healing with Different Holistic Modalities

A lot of Spotify’s music I would not use in a holistic manner cause of the lyrics and the things it’s based in, the intentions. But that music as well as the tunings of the music are different. So standard music is in 440. Our whole catalog is in 444 and 432. 432 was concert pitch or the way that everyone tuned music in the original old school days.

As we’ve moved into this 440, there’s a lot of research and science that shows that standard tune music is out of alignment with the human body, plants, and animals in the way that our cellular growth happens. The frequencies of the music are different. The intention of the music is mostly instrumental and meant to be used in these types of applications, the way the frequencies are based for healing and release work.

Then you have this whole catalog that is now privately licensed to the practitioners and creating a multi-use license. What that means is they can use it in YouTube videos, social media, they can use it on podcasts, they can use it in all of those ways under this program.

They can also resell the music to their clients. Like if a yoga studio is hosting an event and people are like, man, I really love the music from today. They say, here’s a code, go make a purchase. If you purchase that album, you’re actually supporting the studio as well, because we’re getting a portion of that sale. There’s a lot of things like that.

They can also create their own white label products. So, they could make their own guided meditation, positive affirmation album, coaching album based around this, even like personal trainers.

Sound Healing for Protected Multiple Revenue Streams

We’re even getting into working with chefs with intentional eating, conscious eating, and creating meditations around slowing down, chewing your food, having gratitude for what you’re taking in. It’s really changing people’s perceptions of where their food comes from, the ingredients of their food, and then also the intentionality behind their eating.

There’s so many applications that you can apply with this music, but it’s also creating more revenue streams for the practitioners as well. That’s really the focus of what Listening to Smile is doing. It’s creating this catalog of frequency-based music and then creating opportunities for the licensed distribution where there’s actually multiple revenue streams created and also support where you know you’re not going to be sued using this music.

[00:24:10] Detective Ev: Interesting. This definitely could be for you as well, Joe. This is, again, a major company. Lot of respect just in the world of business, let alone in the world of health and fitness.

I know this alone probably wouldn’t create the most insane testimonials, but I’m curious of the feedback. FDNs primarily are making the income off our expertise, right? That’s the primary thing. The supplements, the other things, they’re side things, which are great. It’s wonderful to increase revenue if we can.

But since the core comes from the expertise, we’re willing to add pretty much anything on, as long as we can see what it’s doing for people. So, I’m curious. Are there any cool stories that comes to mind if I was wondering what this has done that someone verbally gave some type of testimonial or came to you guys and said this was amazing. I think that’s what’s going to get our FDNs really excited about this and myself included.

Using Sound Healing in Quiet Rooms at Clif Bar and Company

[00:25:02] Joe Phillips: I’ll jump in really quick. Ian has some stories I’m sure as well.

At Clif Bar we created this program and it’s part of Ian’s affiliate program. He’ll share more about that in a moment. What I do in my practice is I have everyone check in and they get a scorecard on a scale of one to 10. They check in like where are they? Ten being the best ever. Zero, basically, you’re dead.

They’re checking in, saying, today I’m at a five. They’re coming into the studio, and we do our meditation. Then after our meditation, I ask them again on their scorecard, have they changed at all, or have they come up or down on the scale? Obviously, nine times out of 10 people are moving up.

I had an employee here actually move up five basis points in one meditation. She’s a little more skilled. But when she got into it, she’s like, wow. That really just brought me back down to a base level where I could just get quiet, really calm the body. This is a normal occurrence for us here at Clif Bar. It’s really cool.

We have a quiet room where we use a BioMAT and we’re using Ian’s music in addition to the BioMAT. It’s paying huge dividends. Not to go off task, but that quiet room, people were teasing me about it in the corporate setting initially. It was so popular we had to add a second one. People are using it that much. There is a demand and a need for it, and it’s huge.

Sound Healing for Pain Relief

When we talk about stress, Ian’s done a lot of work with veterans from the military and has had great success. With that, I’d like to pitch it over to you, Ian, for you to share more about some of the stories that you’ve experienced with your clients.

[00:26:42] Ian Morris: Yeah. We have an album called the Pain Relief Album that really just targets relieving pain in the body through different frequencies that we’re using. A lot of the veterans that we’re working with have had three, four, sometimes five surgeries or more for some of their injuries.

The threshold and levels of pain that they’re dealing with are just probably more than what the average person could imagine. These guys are saying that these albums are helping them to get sleep and to actually relax the mind to even get into the point of where they could even begin to settle down into a nightly routine.

There’s even people that have given us video testimonials saying that it’s almost like they feel like the music helps separate them from their body for a moment where they are disconnected from the pain to that point where they feel like they’re almost hovering over their body. When they stopped listening, they said it would take two or three hours before the pain would even come back to them.

They were saying that this was a huge help for them to get sleep. A lot of them even listen to it for the duration of their sleep and helps them to do that. It’s just been really humbling to be a part of a process where people are using these tools in that capacity.

Sound Healing Client Testimonial

The last one I’ll say is probably one of the most noteworthy ones that I can remember in the last few years. There was a woman that took her music on her iPod or her phone into the dentist office and had a cavity filled completely, the whole process, procedure, done without sedative. She didn’t do Novocaine or any of that.

The dentist was so impressed that he called us asking to have a conversation about the music and wanted to learn more. He ultimately became an affiliate and started using it with his other patients because he was so shocked by that interaction. It’s been really humbling to be a part of that and to see it used in so many different ways.

When we started initially creating this, it was for one, two, or three different focuses that we were working on. It’s grown into such a broad spectrum of people really utilizing these in different ways.

[00:28:45] Detective Ev: That’s amazing.

[00:28:48] Joe Phillips: Evan, so to wrap up your original question, how can we use this as FDNs? This is another tool.

What separates us from other practitioners is our education, how thorough we are. But if we layer this on top of that, that makes us separated for sure. I mean, we’re very thorough and we’re looking at alternative ways to do this.

Ian told me one story about a woman that had a son that was very, very sick. This kid actually was unable to get out of the bed and was bedridden for quite some time. Had a very lengthy health history of problems. Ian worked with this person. Within a month or so, this kid actually was able to get out of the bed and start walking. Turned his life around.

Using Sound Healing to Take Clients to the Next Level

That, in addition to our lab work and what we do as FDNs, it’s huge. I mean, it’s the full package because I really do believe in D.R.E.S.S. It’s a five-pillar program. But we can’t look at just one. This is just another way to help take our clients to the next level. So, that’s how I would say you’d use it.

[00:29:52] Detective Ev: Nice. Well, this is amazing. Because like for me, I know we’re talking about the practical side now.

Then guys, for those that are on the Zoom, you’ll be able to have some time for questions here. It looks like that’ll be permitted. And if you’re on Facebook watching, I will check the Facebook comments. Just so you know, Zoom always gets priority, so I’ll go here first and then I’ll go to Facebook second.

But what I’m wondering, instantly I’m thinking about my girlfriend, business partner and I, we have this functional medicine studio that we started this past year. We do red light therapy and other things, but sound is always playing in the background.

We go back and forth with like just these generic YouTube tracks of like 60-minute meditations, which they’re great and all. But I’m thinking, wow, if I could do something more targeted and we’re going to play the music anyway. It’s a 40-minute treatment and all they’re listening to is the stuff that we have already. Well, this makes sense to me.

Then for the FDNs that are usually not working in person, they’re working online with someone else. Practically speaking, how does this work? What would it cost? I’d love to get into the logistics of it now.

Sound Healing: Listening to Smile’s Affiliate Program

[00:30:50] Ian Morris: The affiliate program for a single practitioner starts off at $777 for the year.

We have created a code, it’s FDN22 for you guys. By using that code at the sign up on the website for the membership affiliate program, they would be saving 20% off the program using that code.

Basically, you’re getting support for the whole year. That’s email and phone support. If there’s questions like, you know, I have a client, this is coming up. What frequency should I use for this? There’s support in that way. Also, you’re getting the albums. You’re getting two free albums plus the month you sign up for, so you’re starting with three albums right off the bat.

Then every month you’re getting a new album. Those albums that are coming have information about the frequency so that you have full transparency to talk about this with your community or your clients and sharing the music that way. You are also getting the affiliate code.

So, now any kind of content that you’re creating on social media is now monetizable where you can say, hey, if you like the music in this video, or you like the music from this post, you can purchase using this code. They’d have their own affiliate code. Every post that they’re creating, any kind of social media podcast, any of that thing is now monetizable.

Then also working with clients one-on-one or in group settings, like a retreat or an event that you’re using the music in, if people are like, I really like that music, you can actually sell direct the music that way.

Needing the Permissions & License

Ultimately, have the goal where you could create your own white label, your own branded package of like guided meditations, life coaching, any of that kind of stuff as well. Basically, that’s what you’re getting for that price. Then also just the permissions and the license to use it in a commercial setting without worrying about getting sued from someone. A lot of people are like, what does that mean?

We were working at Carnegie Mellon two years ago. When we were there, a woman came up to us after the event. She ran a yoga studio; she had six yoga studios. She had 55 teachers working under her. She was getting sued for $155,000 from BMI.

Now, BMI is a performing rights organization. A lot of people refer to them as pros. They sent someone in undercover and showed proof that they were using Spotify playlists without license in these classes. All of these teachers were using it at six different studios. They were going to make an example out of her and sue her for copyright infringement.

She was asking me, why pay the $10 a month for Spotify? I said, you do, but that’s for you personally, for your car rides or you at home. It’s not 55 teachers at six different locations using your sign in to get in there and use this music. She said, well, I don’t understand.

I said, okay, let’s flip it. I said, let’s say I took a music video of mine and I put your yoga class in there, made it to where your beauty, your flow, your demeanor, your personality engaged people in this video. And I was making money off of every stream that came through.

Careful to Do Business Ethically

Let’s say it racked up a million streams or 2 million streams. If you saw that, would you not be upset? She goes, yeah, I would be upset. I said, well, that’s how musicians feel when you use their music without permission.

I said, another way to look at that is like if Trump or Bill Clinton or some president uses a song for their campaign trail, and they don’t ask permission. Then the musician disagrees with how that person is choosing to promote themselves, what party they stand for, what their morals are. The musician wants the right to say, hey, I don’t want my music associated with that lifestyle.

I was like, these are the kind of things that come up as why this is important. You want to be in integrity as a business owner, to be in integrity with your business, and move forward in a positive fashion and attract like-minded positivity to your practice. This is just another extension of that and all of us have to think in those ways.

It’s something that when I started this business, it really made me check myself and how I was interacting with other businesses and the way that I was wanting to promote myself, all of that. I think this is the new paradigm of business as a synergistic, you know, giving.

One of the things I’ll say to close this is in the back end. Let’s say someone from the FDN network becomes an affiliate. One of the things that’s really neat is if another practitioner that they interact with comes to one of their classes or workshops and says, man, I really like the music you’re using. I want to use that in my practice. If they sign up, we have gratitude payments.

It All Comes Back in One Way or Another

So, if someone signs up, it’s not like a multi-level marketing, it’s not something you have to do. But if the opportunity presents itself and someone signs up for our program through that interaction, they will actually get a kickback for every person that signs up. And if people buy albums, they get percentages of every sell. So, there’s always a synergistic give and take on this. I believe that this is the new paradigm of business moving forward.

[00:35:40] Detective Ev: All right, cool. Well, what you just said about the Spotify thing too, I think this is something that most of us don’t think about.

I won’t admit it live on a camera now, but I’m assuming at our studio we probably do use Spotify sometimes. I would guess YouTube’s fine cause it’s free and I could sit there and watch it with three friends. I don’t think that’s an issue. But the Spotify, I think, yeah, it’s actually a really good point.

Obviously, I’m assuming this yoga instructor, this was totally innocent and not with malintent. But yet you don’t even think about it. It’s like, well there’s 55 instructors, there’s a bunch of people in the class. The potential that that should be is worth way more than a $10 subscription per month from one person.

That should be like $550 just from the practitioners and then all the people. That’s a very fair point. I think if nothing else, and I feel like our FDNs think like this. That’s just the moral thing to do. You always do good in business because it all comes back anyway. So, for nothing else, do it for selfish reasons, because everything you put out comes back in one way or another.

Exclusive Sound Healing Albums

So yeah, you can go use someone else’s stuff now for free, but I guarantee that’s going to come back in some other way. So, you might as well just put the good out.

If anyone has questions, I think we’re probably safe to start asking some of those. Please, our friends online, you can either raise your hand or you could type something in the chat. It is up to you.

I definitely will have some other questions if nothing else, but I want to give these guys a second. And I’m going to check Facebook as well.

While we’re waiting then, my first obvious question is for Joe or Ian. Is there anything today, questions aside, that maybe we still need to touch on that maybe we just didn’t naturally get to?

[00:37:06] Joe Phillips: I did want to say one more thing. Ian forgot to mention that every month he makes new albums. These new albums are exclusive for the affiliates. He has a library that you can buy and certain albums you can buy. But the affiliate program, it’s really cool. In addition to, as he mentioned, the information that goes along with each song, those are just for affiliates. Those are exclusive, so people outside aren’t going to be able to have the same music, which makes you a little more exclusive. I just thought I’d share that.

[00:37:39] Detective Ev: Very cool. I see the hand raised and I will get to you in just a second.

Michelle asked in the chat, she said link for music.

Michelle, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m guessing she meant maybe there’s like a sample of something that’s available somewhere to check it out.

Where to Find Ian Morris & Listening to Smile

[00:37:50] Ian Morris: So listeningtosmile.com, there’s samples of the music that you can listen to and there’s also more information that you can find out to read more.

The links to the membership program at the top of the page, it says Sign up. Then right beside that you’ll see Services. In the services there’s a membership that they can click on, fill out the form, and sign up on the website. Right before they get to the sign-up link, there’s more information that they can learn.

Just all the things that they get is kind of laid out on that page, the membership page on the website. So just listeningtosmile.com. At the top there’s services, and you’ll go to the membership service. Then it gives everything there, sign-up link and everything.

[00:38:29] Detective Ev: That is a wonderful name. Because it’s always tough when you have a business that it’s not easy to remember. But listeningtosmile.com, that’s about as easy as it gets.

I just put that in the chat for everyone. I would assume that you guys could spell that, but you know, it’s nice to have. Thank you, Michelle, for the question.

If anyone else has one, drop it in the chat.

But I also see a hand raised and it is from one of my favorite FDNs, Mary Ann. Hello, Mary Ann. How are you? Hi.

[00:38:52] Mary Ann: Thank you. I have a question because I have a client who is having weight problems. I know you mentioned, Ian, that you had weight issues and music was part of it. Can you explain what you were doing with music that helped with that weight loss?

Sound Healing Facilitating a Joy of Emptying Out

Ian Morris: I was grieving. That’s the simplest way to put it. Yeah, I was 320 pounds, and I was using food as a crutch. I was getting those dopamine hits, chocolate and sweets and all the stuff to get through the day fighting the depression.

What the music did, I think it was the first time I can ever really remember sitting with myself in peace. I remember the first time that happened with the binaural beats, tears started streaming down my face. I wasn’t grieving, like I wasn’t crying, but it was just tears pouring out. It was really a sign that my body was craving that sense of pause that I wasn’t giving it.

So, when I started grieving, I started feeling the chemical changes in my brain and my body. I would think a lot of people from the outside in might even say it was like a depression, like crying, but for me it was a joy of emptying out.

I think a lot of that weight was padding that I was putting on to protect myself from myself and the world and just that whole interaction. There was a reel, I believe, creating new neuro pathways through using the frequency of 528. 528 hertz was the frequency of love. It’s what I really felt drawn to the most.

I’ve since used it with other clients that had weight issues and it seemed to really help. Now, it’s not just going to be the process of listening to the music. They’re going to have to interact with you on other deeper levels and facets to create that. What I mean by that is, I was asked on a podcast one time, what is the first step for healing? I said, number one is mindset.

Sound Healing Assisting in Emptying Grief, Pain, and Trauma

I believe that the music was helping me with the mindset of looking at my life differently from a new perspective that I was unwilling to before.

Then what happened is through the new perspectives, I started thinking like, I don’t want to be fat and overweight anymore. I don’t want to be miserable to move and depressed all the time. So, I had to make better choices with food.

I actually started reading books about nutrition and food and food combinations, things that I was unwilling to read before. That was a start, was the mindset. And I think that that 528 hertz really helped me empty out the grief and the pain and the trauma that was in my body so that I could get to that new perspective of making better choices. That was really reading first and educating, and then putting into action.

I think the music was my support the whole time that I was doing that.

Mary Ann: Thank you so much. I think that’s really a great testament to what you were going through. I know some people that probably are holding on to some of that stuff too. So that’s really helpful. Thank you.

Ian Morris: Yeah, no problem. Thank you.

[00:41:52] Detective Ev: Cool. Thanks for the question, Mary Ann.

Next up we have Naomi. Hello. Hello. You are good to go. Please ask your question.

[00:41:58] Naomi: This is really fascinating. So, you might have mentioned this and maybe I missed it. But with the membership, is there also guidance for us or is it more the access to the music?

Creating Sound Healing Playlists that Fit Your Clients

Ian Morris: So, you guys will each get an orientation. It’s a Zoom call and you’ll get also a PDF orientation. Then from there you have support for the whole year. And then every month that the albums come, there’s information that kind of leads you with where these frequency tracks would best be utilized.

Naomi: Oh, okay.

Ian Morris: But the thing that’s really neat is that you get three albums when you first sign up, and then you get a new album every month for the rest of the year. So, it’s a one year. You would have to renew the next year to utilize the music in that commercial setting again.

It’s a one-year membership. Then in that you’re also able to create your own playlists. So, if you have a group of people that are more movement based, you might want more mid-tempo and upbeat music in that setting. If you’re working with a meditation group or creating something for sleep or pain relief, you probably want more meditative tracks. So, you’re able to create these different approaches based on the groups of people you’re working with, and you can kind of move and create your own playlist.

The last thing I’ll say, the reason why I like the affiliate program is that these songs, like Joe said, they’re only available through the program. They’re not out on Spotify or YouTube, so no one has contact to these tracks. So, when they first hear them, it’s their first experience. It’s not like they’ve heard something before, and it could be a trigger.

New Sound Healing Albums Every Month

I heard one time, there was a girl in a yoga class that shared with me, she said, I really like my yoga instructor, but she uses all this music that I listened to with my last boyfriend. Every time she plays the track, it brings up all this bad mojo for me. So, I had to quit going to the class.

I was thinking like I had never thought about people having attachments to music in that way to that that degree. I think that’s one of the things that’s so cool is this is the first time these people will hear this music. And the fact that there’s always new music every month, it keeps it fresh, and you can work with different music in that way.

Naomi: That’s cool. Then just to clarify, if we were to join and then next year, it’s new albums and everything that are released monthly, but do you still have access to the year? Or you need to continue to have access from the previous year?

[00:44:15] Ian Morris: Yeah. You’ll have personal access to the music. You get to keep the music. But to use again in a commercial setting, you need the license to do that each year. Yes.

Naomi: Got it. Thank you.

Ian Morris: Yes, no problem.

[00:44:27] Detective Ev: Very cool. Thanks for the questions. Guys, I think this is going to be your last shot, so if you have any questions, you can raise your hand or drop it in the chat.

Okay. Naomi asked again, what was the discount code?

[00:44:37] Ian Morris: fdn22. The year 22. So fdn22 and that gets 20% off.

Having a Set Standard of Sound Healing for Clients

[00:44:43] Detective Ev: Great, thank you.

This woman, she’s really cool, her name’s Liz Georges. She commented to us on Facebook. She said, this is really interesting and exciting. I’m definitely sharing this with a couple healing centers nearby.

[00:44:57] Ian Morris: Awesome. Thank you.

[00:44:58] Detective Ev: Yeah, I’m excited. I’m going to go check it out myself cause I feel like this is just very interesting for what we do at our business.

I’m thinking about how certain clients come in for certain conditions and this is pretty advanced, pretty targeted. I’m like, I could just put on music that they think is just super relaxing. Because I know for some people, I could show them studies, and this is still going to be a disconnect. We get a variety of people that come in our studio, but everyone knows relaxing music. So, I’m just like, yeah, this is just happening to be the song that always plays when you come in Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so. Right? That’s actually really interesting.

It would kind of make so much sense at our studio. I just feel like we’re always juggling around trying to figure out what to actually play, and we all play different things. So, to have a set standard that is also grounded in health, that kind of seems like a no brainer to me.

It looks like that might be all for the questions. But Ian, I just wanted to thank you for coming on today. Joe, thanks for helping bridge this gap and telling about those testimonials too. I’m always fascinated by that. I’m actually kind of like obsessed with the story part and to hear what this is doing for people.

Listening to Smile’s Sound Healing: A Legitimate Healing Modality

This is amazing because this is even simpler than taking a supplement. You’d think a supplement’s easy, but I promise you, and everyone on here knows this, that’s an FDN. Sometimes it can be a little hard to stick to every single day or some clients don’t like swallowing a capsule. I have not met the human being yet that does not listen to music.

So, to think that this can be done and be a legitimate healing modality or supportive of getting that mindset right, like it did for you, Ian. Which I totally believe in by the way, that the mindset comes first. Healing is a personal development journey. Healing is the result, but the real journey is the personal development one.

So yeah, just thank you so much for coming on today. Any last words or are we good to go?

[00:46:32] Ian Morris: I was just going to say that Listening to Smile on YouTube, if you type in Listening to Smile in YouTube, we have a page on there that’s just testimonials right now. I think there’s like eight or so testimonials on there that people can scroll through and check through.

I’ll just say, in my personal opinion, I think in today’s mainstream medical field, for me, testimonials that are unpaid testimonials that are freely given.

Yes, I saw the question. So yes. They’re putting the fdn22 on the website, it says coupon code. That’s what they just asked. Sorry.

But yeah, I believe that testimonials speak volumes. We have testimonials from Europe and Australia and Canada and all over the US. It’s something that really means a lot to me because people are actually taking their own time and effort to put these out there. Then they’re sending them to us.

Sound Healing Benefits Animals Also

One, it helps us having that feedback. But two, because they’re unpaid, it just means a lot to me. Because a lot of the clinical studies that are out there these days, if you follow the money, a lot of the people who are paying for these clinical studies and holding them up to be a powerful thing to have this are the people who are benefiting from the study and they’re paying for the study. So, I feel like there’s kind of a contradiction in that practice.

For me, it just personally means a lot to have these testimonials. I love getting feedback from people that experience the music and then are willing to share in an unpaid way their experience with that. I think it means a lot these days.

[00:47:58] Joe Phillips: Another thing I’d like to add in really quick before we leave, Evan. Actually, Ian’s also working with the SPCA, and animal groups cause animals are actually benefiting from it as well. Animals, as they’re being rehomed it helps as they transition off the street into their forever home.

It’s another cool feature. So, animals also are benefiting from this music.

[00:48:20] Detective Ev: I guess, it’s such an integral part to all of our existence. I mean, that kind of makes sense, right? And at the end of the day, it’s like, oh, well dogs and cats don’t make music. Well, they still are subject to frequency though, and this is just a targeted frequency.

It makes a lot of sense when you actually think about it and just say it out loud.

Country Music or Sound Healing for the Family Dog?

Of course, it could be affecting them. I know half the people that are listening to this that are dog owners are watching this also leave the radio on for their dog when they leave the house.

I know my parents do for the family dog. It’s like this poor dog is getting to hear about the heartbreak of country songs. It’d be great for this dog to have actual healing therapy instead of just hearing that kind of music.

Oh, Stephanie just purchased. She’s excited to use that. That’s awesome. I’m glad this is already being used by people. I’m going to have to look into it a little more.

She did specify guys for those listening to the podcast version or on Facebook, the code is lowercase fdn22. I’ll make sure that’s in the comments on Facebook for you guys, and I’ll make sure that’s in the show notes when I post as the podcast.

Conclusion

All right. Well, thank you guys so much. I’m glad I got to host this today. Maybe they’ll let me do it again sometime. Thank you, guys, very much.

You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.

To hire a coach, go to fdnthrive.com.

For a FREE Health Review, go to fdnthrive.com/match/.

Delicious (& deconstructed) spicy prawn cocktails in lettuce cups

An impressive, easy, fresh, delicious and healthy dish to serve to your friends and family as appetizers, or chop up the lettuce and make it into one big prawn cocktail-esque salad.

Find the full recipe below…

DECONSTRUCTED SPICY PRAWN COCKTAIL IN LETTUCE CUPS 

PREP TIME: 10 MIN

Serves 4

Gluten free : Dairy Free

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

200g tomato passata

zest and juice of 1 lemon + extra wedges for serving

1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

1 tsp tabasco sauce (or to taste)

200g cherry tomatoes, halved

1 stalk celery, thinly sliced

1 lebanese cucumber, diced small

1 large avocado, diced

2 tbsp cornichons, thinly sliced

2 baby cos lettuce, leaves separated*

16 large cooked tiger prawns, peeled

Optional: Sliced chilli, herbs such as chives or parsley, to serve

 

In a medium bowl, combine the oil, passata, lemon zest and juice, worcestershire and tabasco, stir well and season to taste. Toss the tomatoes, celery, cucumber, avocado and cornichons together and season with salt and a squeeze of lemon juice. Lay the baby cos leaves on the board or platter, drizzle some of the spicy tomato sauce into the base of each, top with some of the tomato avo salad mixture, followed by a prawn each. Drizzle with some additional sauce, squeeze with lemon juice, give it a good grind of black pepper and sprinkle with herbs if desired. Enjoy!

Want something EXTRA?

+ try chargrilling raw prawns on the bbq

+add 1/4 wasabi to the tomato sauce for a real kicker!

+ add a spoonful of greek yoghurt to the tomato sauce for a more creamy option

 

*Use the larger leaves for the cups, reserve the beautiful hearts of the lettuce for another salad!

 

Choc chunk almond and peanut cake with caramel frosting

Hitting the sweet and soft spot (for caramel, peanuts and chocolate lovers that is) with this recipe. Recommend fresh, crunchy peanuts for this one (rather than using up some that may have sat in the pantry for a bit too long!?!?) it really makes a big difference to the crunch factor in the cake and on top – making it more a snickers vibe…*winks.

Find the full recipe below.

 

CHOC CHUNK ALMOND AND PEANUT CAKE WITH CARAMEL FROSTING 

Serves 10-12

Gluten free : Dairy free : Vegetarian

1/4 cup (80ml) extra virgin olive oil or melted butter

1/3 cup (58g) coconut sugar or maple syrup

4 free range eggs

1 tsp (5ml) vanilla extract

1 tsp baking powder

2 cups (220g) almond meal

1/2 cup (95g) roasted peanuts, chopped

180g roughly chopped dark chocolate

 

Frosting:

1/2 cup smooth natural peanut butter
3 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp soy or other plant based milk

1/3 cup (approx 65g) peanuts, chopped

 

Heat oven to 180C and line a 20cm x 20cm square cake tin with greaseproof paper. In a large bowl whisk olive oil, coconut sugar, eggs, vanilla, and baking powder until creamy. Add almond meal, peanuts and chopped chocolate and mix. Pour into lined cake tin and place in oven to cook for 25-30 minutes or until skewer inserted into the middle comes out mostly clean (you need some fudgey-ness to this cake not dry-ness). Set cake on wire rack to cool in tin for 10 minutes before removing from tin to cool completely. Whilst cake is cooling, place peanut butter, maple syrup and milk in a a bowl and whisk until smooth. Once cake is cooled spread frosting over the top, sprinkle with chopped peanuts and serve.

Introduction

[00:00:00] Detective Ev: My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show. We are talking to an FDN extraordinaire, Nicole Ritter. I call her that because she is someone that had a tremendous amount of success with the FDN system.

In fact, in the first two years after graduating the FDN course, Nicole took over 200 clients, which is an insane amount. If you’re doing that, you are doing quite well in the world of FDN. You’re absolutely making a full-time living and then some, and you’re helping a lot of people. It’s pretty amazing that she was able to do that.

Today we’re going to be talking about not only her health story, because of course every FDN has one for the most part, but also discussing the business success that she’s had, a lot of the things that she’s learned, some tricks that you guys can apply to working with your own clients.

These are things that can work for individuals, whether or not they are an FDN or whether or not they ever plan to become an FDN. If you’re just a health professional that works with clients one-on-one and you’re looking for some tips and tricks with the business side, we are going to discuss that today.

Now, Nicole did not provide me with a full bio. We’re actually just going to go into her credentials and then start the episode.

She is a certified holistic nutritionist, board certified holistic health practitioner, certified FDN, of course. She is currently obtaining her Master’s of Science in Clinical Nutrition and Integrative Health. I hope you guys enjoy this one. Nicole, is someone actually doing the work, knows what she’s talking about.

Talking to an FDN Extraordinaire

There is a lot to be learned here, both in terms of health and the business side. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.

All right, hello Nicole. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you?

[00:01:43] Nicole Ritter: Good. How are you? Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:45] Detective Ev: I’m doing well. This is long overdue.

Someone had actually asked for you by request at a conference I was at. They asked, are you ever thinking about bringing her on? I think they follow you on social.

I said, I almost feel like we’ve talked about this before. And then sure enough, Nicole and I were looking at like the Facebook messenger chat. We had talked about it a year ago and things just, you know, they don’t fall through sometimes. Then here we are.

For those just on audio, because I know not everyone does the video side of this. How old is he?

[00:02:11] Nicole Ritter: He’s turning two, December 3rd.

[00:02:12] Detective Ev: Okay. I’ll give that as a valid excuse for not hopping on the podcast. Believe it or not, this might not be the most important thing.

But I’m excited to hear about your story today because Nicole and I work together. I mean, it’s more than just FDN colleagues. You’ve been a part of FDN and stuff like that. Nonetheless, we have a lot of people working with and for FDN, so you don’t always know the stories and backgrounds of people. And I do not fully understand your story. These are some of my favorite episodes where I get to talk to a fellow FDN, whose story I’m not even sure of.

Antibiotics Were Always the Answer

I want to start out with the same question that we typically do start with on this show, and that is, what did your health journey look like? Because no one gets into this by accident. So, I’m wondering, when did your health symptoms start and what did they look like?

[00:02:53] Nicole Ritter: Okay, this is really long. I’ll make it a little short. I grew up really sick. I was always the sick child. I was, you know, cold, sinus infections, migraines that progressed into period problems, anxiety, and really bad depression.

I was raised by a heart surgeon. My dad’s a heart surgeon. My grandparents were doctors and antibiotics were always the answer. As a mom now, getting off topic, but when you’re given antibiotics for your kid, in that moment if their kid is sick, you think you’re doing your best. So, I don’t blame my parents. I always want to clear that up. They did the best they could, and functional medicine wasn’t a thing.

You know, I’m 32. Functional medicine wasn’t popular. So, my health journey really started when just I was chronically ill. I wasn’t diagnosed with anything other than PCOS and migraines. But I literally had a sinus infection every month. I would get strep throat. I had two sinus surgeries. I got my tonsils removed; my adenoids removed.

I will never forget; my dad and I were driving a week after I got my tonsils removed and I had strep throat. I was like, Dad, I thought when I got my tonsils removed, it was supposed to cure the strep throat. He was like, No. Let’s just go get you antibiotics. So, it was really just like this spiral.

Like a Zombie, On So Many Medications

As we know now being FDNs, when you have antibiotics that wipes out your good gut bacteria. I wasn’t replenishing that. I wasn’t eating kimchi or sauerkraut. I wasn’t taking probiotics, so it really just set the stage for illness. Do you want me to keep going?

[00:04:26] Detective Ev: Yeah. Oh yeah, please. It’s your show.

[00:04:28] Nicole Ritter: It wasn’t until about 2016 that I started to get interested in things other than medication. I was on seven different medications. I ended up actually being on steroids for my migraines, and then I had to give myself steroid shots for my migraines.

I was engaged. It was supposed to be the most amazing time in my life, and I was like a zombie. When you’re on that many medications, you don’t really have a personality, you’re just going through the motions. My anxiety, my depression were so bad.

I was actually in graduate school for mental health counseling at the time in 2016 and 2017. And I remember working with clients who were bipolar and schizophrenic. I had such bad anxiety that I would throw up before meeting with them cause I didn’t know what I was doing, I was still in school. I didn’t know why I was working with these people. But I also just didn’t know how to help them because I couldn’t help myself. I felt like such a fraud.

I feel like in this industry, a lot of people who are chronically ill, they feel like they can’t help people cause they haven’t cured or solved their health problems, which is totally untrue. We’re all on a journey, you can’t achieve optimal health. You know, if you go to Mexico and pick up a parasite, you gotta deal with that, right?

No More Meds, No More Depression

So, in 2017, I actually found black mold in our basement. It was like this thick. And I don’t know why, I think podcasts had just come out, but I Googled like what to do with mold. I found this podcast called Learn True Health with Ashley James. Have you heard of it?

[00:05:58] Detective Ev: No, I haven’t.

[00:05:59] Nicole Ritter: She’s really smart. She’s out of Canada and she interviews the most amazing, well-known, world-renowned doctors, functional medicine practitioners.

She had an episode on mold. So, as I was cleaning up the mold, without a mask, without gloves, which you’re not supposed to do, I was listening to this podcast. I was like, whoa, this is cool. You can do alternative health, like that’s a thing. I actually dropped out of grad school and enrolled in my first course, which was health coaching through Health Coach Institute. Then from there I just became obsessed with helping heal myself and helping others.

Fast forward five years, I’m on zero medications. I have my personality back. I’m happy. And you know, I think the most important part is I don’t have debilitating depression anymore, and I can actually get out of the bed.

There were times where I was just like, oh, I’m just going to be depressed and live in bed all day. And that’s not the case. I don’t have migraines. My periods are normal. I got pregnant, which two doctors told me I couldn’t get pregnant cause my periods were so bad. I had PCOS and it’s just been such a long journey.

Mold Exposure and Gluten Intolerant

But I’m so grateful and that’s really why I do the job I do because I get it. Like, I get how much it sucks to feel horrible every day and to not want to get outta bed and just like want to give up. There’s totally another side to it.

[00:07:15] Detective Ev: Really, I don’t think we’ll ever get old hearing these stories, especially from FDNs. I mean, we go through some crazy stuff and then these people come out on the other side. If I saw you walking down the street, I would just think, oh, this is any normal, healthy looking 30 something, right? I would never think twice about you, and it’s like seven medications.

In America, I think the average 65-year-old is on like six different medications, which we already would think about is extremely high and yet you were on seven. What age was that? I missed the timeline, I guess. I know it was younger than 32 obviously, but what age was it?

[00:07:45] Nicole Ritter: I think I was 26. And that included like Claritin. I had really bad what I thought was allergies. But I can tie a lot of those symptoms to that house. Obviously, you know about mold. Mold is horrific for your health, and I was living in our house for three years, I believe, and also eating gluten like it was my job.

Soft pretzels were like a daily thing for me and I’m severely gluten intolerant. So, a lot of those things I was able to just get off of within a couple months. Yeah, that did include Advil and Claritin, which I took daily.

The Emotions of Dropping out of Grad School

[00:08:19] Detective Ev: Gotcha. Geez.

Well still, Advil especially, that’s not really something anyone wants to be taking daily. That has some pretty serious consequences long term.

With that said though, I want to rewind for a moment to this whole mold situation. You’re listening to this podcast and then decide to drop out of grad school. I mean, there’s a lot that goes into that, and I feel like it might be even more.

The alternative health thing sounds like it was a totally new concept to you. It’s something that you really hadn’t previously thought of. I mean, I’m assuming it was more than just one podcast. Were you continuing to study? Were there other aspects of the grad school that you didn’t like? How do you go from that?

Cause that’s a pretty serious commitment to switching into online certifications, which I’m not lessening. Obviously, I love FDN. But the college educated perspective, especially at that time, I feel like it’s growing rapidly. But it might look down on something like this prior to the pandemic.

So how did we really make that shift from one thing to the next?

[00:09:11] Nicole Ritter: And full disclosure, I’m currently in grad school for clinical nutrition and integrative health. I’m a psycho, I’m always learning.

But it was really hard for me to drop out. Coming from a family of doctors, like, that’s one of the highest educations you can get. You know, that’s eight to 12 years of education and clinics and rounds and whatever. I had so much guilt. I just felt like I was going to be judged. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing.

A Very Supportive Family

My mom is a therapist and she’s amazing. No one was pressuring me. It was my own pressure I was putting on myself. No one made me feel like that, but that’s just how I felt.

My parents were so supportive, and you know, my mom being a therapist, she’s like, you have to be happy. If you’re in a career, you spend most of your life working. That’s what you do from nine to five or eight to whatever, however long you work. You have to love it. So, it was really hard.

Obviously, not just one podcast. I mean actually James really did truly save my life. Saved my life, changed my life, and I messaged her. We’ve talked a lot. We actually enrolled in FDN at the same time. She was one of the reasons I enrolled in FDN, cause Reed was on her podcast.

But I kept listening to hers and then I found Dr. Mark Hyman, who I became obsessed with. I’ve messaged him on LinkedIn like 60 times, he’s never messaged me back. But he is just such an inspiration. And seeing that he made the switch from MD traditional doctor to this functional medicine that was really profound to me.

And really just the support of my parents. My husband is, oh my gosh, the most amazing person in the world and so supportive. I may cry, but all he wants for me is to be happy. I couldn’t have done this without him. He really encouraged me to just go for it and just do what I wanted to do.

So, while it was hard, I think the people in my life really made it easy because they were so supportive.

Not Satisfied Without the Functional Labs

[00:10:59] Detective Ev: Nice. Well, it’s obviously worked out for you, so that’s pretty darn cool.

I appreciate you helping me dissect that a little more. Cause I knew it was more than just one single podcast on mold. I mean, there’s gotta be a little more to it. So that makes sense.

When you went through Health Coach Institute, first of all, I always want to say this cause we bring on practitioners from every different type of school that you guys can imagine if you listen regularly, you know this. Obviously, we prioritize FDNs for clear reasons, but we still bring on all different types of practitioners. It’s never a one thing’s bad, one thing’s good.

I’m just curious, what did it not give you that led you to pursuing something like FDN eventually? Because if you felt like you had everything that you needed you wouldn’t be pursuing something else.

[00:11:37] Nicole Ritter: I don’t think any one certification will give us all we need. Because in order to do that, it would have to be like five years long. Right?

Health Coach Institute, while it was good, it taught me how to coach, it was kind of the same as grad school for mental health counseling. You’re not doing anything super actionable. You’re counting on these people to take control of their health and their actions. You’re giving them a little bit of a guideline, but you’re very, very limited in what you can do with counseling or coaching because you don’t have that raw data.

I love data. I’m always going to run labs and even back then I was running blood work cause I didn’t know that functional labs existed. That just wasn’t a thing.

Choosing to Take the FDN Course

Whenever I would go to a doctor, I’m like, well, why didn’t you do a test? Why are you just giving me this migraine medication? Just because the pharma rep just left, like I just saw him. And that is why, right? I was always obsessed with data and that’s one thing that’s so missing in just coaching.

After that I enrolled in Bowman College for their holistic nutritionist certification. And I did love that. I just love research. We did a ton of research papers. Really just digging into like mechanisms of action, like what causes a migraine, what’s the root cause? But still, there wasn’t that concrete data.

So, when I heard Reed on the Learn True Health Podcast, I was like, whoa, this guy sounds fun, first of all. I would love to learn from him. I loved the fact that, I think he said, he’s not a scientist, he’s not a PhD. So even though now I’m in grad school, it’s very dry. And FDN is, yes, it’s amazing information, it is scientific, right? It’s all science backed. It’s a little bit more fun to learn than a traditional like masters or doctorate program. That’s why I chose that.

And even after FDN, like I will never forget. I won’t say his name, but my advisor who graded me on the last verbal, the final of FDN, he was like, what are your plans? What are your plans after this? Like, you did great.

I was like, oh, I’m enrolling in grad school. And he was like, what? Why? You’ve done a lot of certifications. Can you just stop? Like, just start working with clients.

An FDN Needs to Keep Learning

While I took his advice, I’ve worked with over 200 clients, and I’ve only been an FDN for a little over two years. I’ve worked with a ton of clients, but I just love learning. It’s not like someone else is making me get my masters. But in this field, we need to be constantly learning and constantly evolving and changing our opinions too.

I do a lot of gut health stuff. We didn’t know about the inner workings of our microbiome a hundred years ago, so what else don’t we know? Right? I think it’s really important to not just get stuck and complacent in what we know and really push ourselves to learn more because health changes every single day and research changes. There’s always new research.

[00:14:26] Detective Ev: I love this perspective. Well, I love both these perspectives. Because one, is, yes, we should keep learning. It becomes a problem, and this happens occasionally with certain FDNs. And you might be an FDN listening to this, so be honest with yourself.

There are some people that get 10, 20 certifications or different programs, they go through whatever and they’ve never taken a single client. It’s like you absolutely know enough to take clients.

Now, on the flip side, the best of the best FDNs, although I know a few that are actually incredibly successful and very impressive having just done FDN itself, it’s not that they don’t keep learning, But they focused more just on learning business and stuff.

I think that proves, by the way, how far the FDN system can take a person. Cause we’re talking multi, multi six-figure businesses that are coming for people just from having the FDN cert and then business training on top of it.

An FDN Needs to Be Open to Change

It’s not like they’ve gotten any additional health training. However, I think the most successful route is to add this as a tool to your tool belt. Go out with what you have, come as you are. Go do that thing and keep learning over time. That’s who’s going to be in this space 10, 15, 20 years from now.

It’s kind of like a responsibility, in my opinion, in this space, to continue learning. Because dogma usually is what allowed people like us to say sick for so long. It was people who are otherwise very well meaning, great individuals, smart individuals, but they got so boxed into the things that they learned that when their box did not help us get fixed, oh, well it must be us.

We must be the problem. You’re just too stressed out. You need to relax a little more. That’s not true. And we don’t want to fall into the same dogma.

Even though at this point in my life, I really do believe meat-based things are better for most people, I have people still to this day calling me that say, hey, I did this. I feel phenomenal on plant based and I have a few lingering symptoms.

Now, could those lingering symptoms go away from a mix of meat? Sure. But who am I to tell someone that they didn’t get better objectively and subjectively from changing to something that I don’t really fully believe in at this point? That’s not my place to do that. That’s where we gotta be kind of careful and, like you said, change your opinions over time. It can be really easy to find the thing that worked for us and say, everyone needs this thing. That is so rarely the case.

Commercial Break: Download the FDN Course for Free

Hey guys. It is Detective Ev popping in here really quick. Just wanted to tell you about a new resource that we have where you can see the entire FDN curriculum before you actually go through the course. We know it’s a big investment for people. We know it’s a big-time commitment.

It’s worth it if you are interested in it. But if you’re someone that’s not really sure, the last thing we’d ever want is for someone to pursue FDN if that’s not what they wanted to do.

So, what you’d like to do then is go to fdntraining.com/course. That’s fdntraining.com/course, and you can actually get a free download where we go over the entire course curriculum with you so you know exactly what you will and won’t learn if you pursued FDN.

That’s fdntraining.com/course. And now we are heading back to the episode.

It’s Not Wrong for an FDN to Evolve

[00:17:28] Nicole Ritter: I want to go back really quickly. If you just do FDN, that is more than most programs ever. It’s amazing. I’m not saying everyone needs to go off and get more certifications. But for me, I think, I’m a lifelong student and I just love it. I love writing research papers, I’m weird.

I do agree with you. Changing your opinion is so important. We talked about Jen Cino earlier. Jen and I, about four years ago, we came out with a plant-based program called Plant Powered. Now both of us are like, eat meat. We need to eat red meat.

If I had never changed my opinion, it would be lying, right? Cause I’m animal-based protein. That’s what we eat. But it’s just so important to keep researching and it’s not wrong that we did that. We didn’t know what we didn’t know.

We both, we didn’t have these advanced certifications. She was a personal trainer; I was a health coach at the time. Not FDN, but the Health Coach Institute. It’s just funny how things evolve.

An FDN Needs to Be Humble

[00:18:25] Detective Ev: I’m sure you guys still helped plenty of people. Because the good news is, it’s good and bad, the system that we have, especially in America, and I feel like Canada’s probably no better in terms of the food that we eat and the chemicals that we have. I mean, you pretty much have to be dumb as a rock to not be able to help those people. I’m sure you guys still very much supported people even with your plant-based program. So, no worries there whatsoever.

I appreciate the humility cause that’s what it is. You can’t go into this space with this dogmatic ego, that’s not going to work out well here. Just be willing to learn and admit when you’re wrong. I think that’s just a great lesson in life in general. You know what I mean?

We get so defensive about not knowing something. Anyone that knows me knows I’m the first person, and this was not always the case to be clear. But I’ve developed this over time from reading books that recommended this.

How many times do we not know a word that someone said, and we’re embarrassed to ask about it? I’m so annoying with this now. If I don’t know a word, even if I don’t know five in a single 10-minute conversation. I’ll say, what does that mean?

Who cares, you know? You gotta have humility. Then you end up getting smarter than most people because you had the patience and humility to ask questions.

A Business Already Under Construction

With that said, I know we will specify later why the client thing is no longer something that you’re offering right now. But I think there’s a lesson to be learned or probably multiple lessons to be learned in the fact that you worked with 200 clients in a fairly short period of time.

I’m thinking that there’s many FDNs listening, whether they’re in training or maybe just graduated and they’re thinking, wow, less than two years, and she had already done 200 clients. That’s a great number. I think that’s a great number. How did you start to have that success once you graduated? Like what were you doing? What was the strategy?

[00:20:02] Nicole Ritter: I didn’t have a strategy. I was kinda like a throw paint at the wall and let’s see if it’s stuck. I got all of my clients from Instagram, and I had gotten a lot of referrals.

There were two therapists in Denver who (I live in Denver), who started referring me, who I’d never even met. There’s one nurse practitioner in Denver who refers me. Once again, had never met her. She had just heard good things. And then there’s a nurse practitioner in Massachusetts who refers, have worked with family members, and it’s been over two years.

I graduated August, I think, of 2019. August would’ve been two years. But I had already graduated with a nutritionist certification, so it wasn’t like I was building a business in 2019. My business had been being built since 2017. So, while yes, I was only in FDN for like a little over two years, the grind that I put in from 2017 to 2019, it was insane.

An FDN Needs to Build Connections

I mean, going to networking events until Covid hit. I just love people and I wanted to see them in person. Cause this is like, this is great, but being in person is just amazing. I was so sad when all of the networking events were canceled cause I love them, just being able to talk to people. Not that I had a pitch, even though I should have had like an elevator pitch, but just explaining how functional medicine changed my life and what FDN can do for people, it’s so powerful.

And when people can meet you and see you and know you – know, like, and trust you – they were more willing to work with you. I think that’s why I was so successful. Because I showed up on my stories. I had a lot of engagement. It looks really weird, right? Just being like, hey guys, you know, looking at your phone. But I did it in my house.

That’s something I actually really didn’t like doing. I don’t like having to show up on social media, but it’s just part of this. And I was super consistent with showing up, sharing labs behind the scenes. I have a ton of client testimonials, always was sharing those, just proof that what I’m doing is working and I’m helping people.

[00:22:05] Nicole Ritter: The strategy was, just show my face, let people know who I am.

An FDN Can’t Fix Their Clients

I think trust is huge in this. We’re asking people to hand us their credit card. Asking people to give us money; and I don’t guarantee, right? People are like, well, what’s the guarantee? I’m like, nothing. I will teach you. I will show you what’s wrong. We’ll come up with a plan together. If you do the work, you’ll feel better.

But I can’t control what’s happening in their house. I’m not checking in on them every five seconds. I’m very upfront about like, hey, this is you. You’re investing in yourself. You have to do the work. No one can fix you.

No, I took it upon myself to quote/unquote “fix my issues”. I didn’t rely on anyone else. And I think that’s the disconnect. People are so desperate to heal and feel better that they put all of their eggs in Evan’s basket. They’re like, Evan will fix me. No, you have to take it upon yourself. Yes, Evan can teach you about these labs and about your blood work, what’s disconnected, what are the inflammatory things, what do you have to reverse and how to do it, but Evan can’t do that for you.

I think just being honest with people about, that’s how it works, that’s when you get good clients who will get good results, who will then refer you. In the beginning I didn’t say that. I’m like, yeah, I’ll fix all your problems. Yay! You know, I had to really restructure. I can’t just say like, hey, yes, we’ll fix all your issues when I can’t control these outside variables.

An FDN Can’t Fill From an Empty Cup

[00:23:45] Detective Ev: This is a great lesson for anyone who’s in training. When you are getting on these calls, just set those realistic expectations with people for what it is.

I’ve said this a million times in this podcast, the journey of healing chronic issues, it’s possible, it’s fun. But it is as much, if not more, a personal development journey than it is a health journey. If it was just a health journey, you could literally do this for someone in a two-hour session. You just record it for them, give them all the recommendations, tell them all the supplements stuff.

And I’m not saying it’d be hard to learn all that in that session. I get it. But again, they could just go through the recording and say, all right, I do this next, and then that. But that’s not how it works. We end up working with people for 3, 6, 9, sometimes 12 months, depending on what the practitioner offers. You have complete customization with that as an FDN.

But you wouldn’t need half a year to do this if it was just purely educational. Oh, you go on your way. You have to become a different type of person to resist temptation around the holidays and to just decide that you’re going to do things for yourself and not for other people.

I think, especially if you’re a yes person that says yes to everything, that’s another big one you’ll learn, right? It’s just, I have to say yes for myself first, otherwise I’m not going to be able to say yes for anyone out there. You can’t fill from a cup that’s empty. That’s not really how it works. I think this is actually gold for people that are starting out.

An FDN Needs to Be Confident and Know Their Offer

Because yeah, of course if they get on their first sales call, they’ll say pretty much whatever to get this person to sign up and do it. Now, we’re not saying be unethical, I’m saying we make unrealistic promises that maybe we do commit to. But that wasn’t worth the money, and it wasn’t really even fair to the client because it’s not actually helping them.

Are there any other things or maybe just like a tip that sticks out from working with 200 people, what you might give advice wise to a new trainee?  I mean, anything that comes to your mind. It could be the business side, health side, whatever.

[00:25:38] Nicole Ritter: I think mindset on both ways is really important. The client mindset is really important, but also your own personal development journey.

Like you said, it’s just so important. You have to be in a good mindset going into those. I don’t do discovery calls anymore, but when I did them, if I was in a bad mindset or was like, oh, I can’t help this person, or they seem too extreme, you know, people can read energy, especially on Zoom, right? So, just be confident in what you can offer, know your offer.

In the beginning, I was just like, you could do three months, you could do six months, we could do this lab. Like, what’s your offer? There’s so many different opinions on this, but I believe offering one thing is so much easier than presenting like three or four different offers and having them pick. They’ll always pick the cheapest one, usually, depending on how you present it. So, know your offer, be really confident, and share who you are.

An FDN Needs to Be Authentic

People in this field, you could go to any doctor under the sun, right? Like I just picked a new pediatrician based off the reviews on Google. If you don’t have Google reviews, people are buying from you. They want to know, like, and trust you.

If your Instagram is just graphics and they don’t know who you are, you’re not showing up on stories, why would they pick you over this other Instagram person who has a thousand more followers and the same exact graphics? Be yourself because people buy from you in this industry and also, they buy the story, right?

How are you helping them? Where are they going to be in sixty, ninety, a hundred eighty days? You’re the secret sauce. Like no one can be Evan, no one could be Nicole, you know? You are the best part of your sales journey, I think.

[00:27:19] Detective Ev: That’s excellent advice, the whole being yourself thing, especially on social. Because if you were trying to be a celebrity, okay, yes. There’s probably certain personalities that are more prone to doing that. You have to please an insane amount of people.

Here’s the good news. You’re not trying to do that. You’re trying to be a full-time FDN or maybe a health coach or someone functional oriented. That’s why you’re listening to this podcast. So, chances are, you only need a handful of clients, I mean, relatively small compared to the world’s population, at any given time to have a thriving business that helps you survive and do a lot more, even thrive.

An FDN Needs to Be Relatable

With that said, you don’t have to be the celebrity personality. You’re better off being yourself online because there is someone else out there like you. If you just show up as yourself, they’ll relate to you.

We were just talking about this today. I think you know I do this; I speak in schools for the mental health issues with like kids and stuff. I won’t say the name. I watched a speaker from the organization that I’m a part of when I was younger and first starting out because the trainers basically send you to these things and say, make sure you want to do this, right.

I’ll be straight up, I was expecting, like Tony Robbins type of things, to get into these schools and do this stuff. I watched this presenter and I’m not being rude to him; I have another side to this. He was not good. In terms of technical skill of presenting, it was actually one of the bottom 10% presentations I’ve ever seen.

But we are there talking about mental health. We are increasing mental health awareness, trying to reduce the stigma, and encourage kids to ask for help. He had an audience of about 400 kids. He spoke for 40 minutes. When I say 50 kids were in a line to talk to him afterwards, I mean like literally 50 kids, and I might be underestimating.

So how did that happen? It’s because what he did is get up there, he was real as can be. He was vulnerable. I think subconsciously he related to a lot of kids because they’re like, well, if I had to do that, oh my God, I’d be so nervous talking about this stuff up there too.

An FDN Needs to Attract Clients Like Themselves

So, don’t think that you need to be the talk show host or podcast host personality to get clients. That’s ridiculous.

In fact, sometimes those personalities, like I know for myself, you seem, I haven’t met you in person obviously, but you seem quite extroverted too, the way you described. Like, you gotta go see the people. That can be too much for the average introvert. They don’t want to work with people like us. They want someone that is a little calmer and gets them more so.

Just go out there, be yourself, be authentic. That’s the real word here. And you will attract people who are very similar to you and that need your work and services. It’s kind of a beautiful thing. It works out great.

[00:29:44] Nicole Ritter: Yeah, I love that.

I want to know about the charity work. Is it a charity?

[00:29:47] Detective Ev: It’s a nonprofit I’m associated with. It’s called Minding Your Mind.

[00:29:50] Nicole Ritter: Okay, cool. I want to talk to you about that later after the podcast.

I mean, it’s true. And if you try to please everyone, you’ll end up working with people you really don’t want to work with, which I had my fair share. I’m just like, oh yeah, I would like more money this month. I’ll take on these people.

I was not good at niching down because, sounds bad, but I don’t think I really had to be, I was still successful not super, super niched down. But the people who are way more successful than me, niche down. Everyone says that.

An FDN Needs to Be an Expert on One Thing

Kendra Perry has a really good coaching program. She’s always like, you need to niche down. She’s amazing. If you don’t know how to get your niche, go to Kendra Perry. This is not a sales pitch for her. I just think she’s amazing.

But the people who niche down, if you know exactly who you want to work with, only speak to those people. If you only want to work with people who are constipated, only talk about not pooping. That’s all you would talk about. It’s actually pretty easy to make content and talk about one thing. You don’t have to be an expert on 6,000 things, you have to be an expert on one thing.

[00:30:48] Detective Ev: Nicole, I’ve only really learned about the marketing side of business over the last two years. I was big into sales, leadership stuff, and that’s cool, but I was completely missing the marketing part of this. I learned a lot through FDN.

This whole concept of you have to speak to someone, otherwise you speak to no one, what that means is what Nicole just described. Find that person.

Listen, there’s times and places for this in businesses. I don’t think it is as universal, however, in what we’re talking about here today for the coaching, it’s as true as true can be. You need to figure out who you’re talking to and know unique struggles of the person that you’re talking to because you’ve probably been through those things.

I know for me having dealt with severe cystic acne, what I can do in sales copy and in marketing material, I can get into their head. This is not a manipulative thing, it’s to let them know that you actually get them because you can serve them.

An FDN Needs to Be Empathetic

I know that people with acne check their face in the mirror a hundred, if not 200 times a day, obsessively, just to look at the same thing that they looked at 30 seconds ago. That is a unique experience to people with cystic acne or perhaps other skin issues as well on the face. But I would literally do this 200 times a day. And you’re looking at the same thing you just saw. But it’s this obsessive thing that happens. Right? If it’s cystic acne, it might be painful.

And I’m not trying to get too graphic for someone who hasn’t dealt with it, but that’s the exact point. You might not relate to that at all. The person that deals with that, every time I check another box, we build that trust. They realize I can help them, which is true. And then they’re happy to hand over their money.

It’s an ethical business transaction. You make money, they got better, that’s a great way to do business.

[00:32:20] Nicole Ritter: Then sharing your story, I think too, I think a lot of people are just afraid. I was always very open about my depression, PCOS, I don’t want to call it infertility journey, but my fertility journey, how doctors treated me.

I did a series on like, literally what doctors said to me and it was kind of a joke, and it blew up. People would message me and be like, I didn’t know other people went through that. Like, I have the same experience. And connecting on that human level, then it’s not just a transaction, right? It’s like you understand me, you can be empathetic, sympathetic. She gets it cause she’s been there.

An FDN Needs to Share Their Story

I think it’s different in this business because if you’re like a CEO of, I don’t know, my husband works for Salesforce. If you’re the CEO of Salesforce, you’re not going to be like, this is my journey because like no one cares. They’re buying software, right?

In this journey, in this business, the more vulnerable you are, the more real you are, the more people connect with you, and then they see you as a person. A lot of my clients, on calls, I’ll share. They’ll be like, oh my gosh, this happened, blah, blah, blah.

If they’re having a bad day or they’re like, it’s not going to work out. I’ll be like, no, that happened to me, like literally. Obviously, don’t make it up. If it didn’t happen to you, don’t say that.

I’ve been through a lot of things, and I’ve done every single test. So, I’ve had parasites, Lyme, like everything. And if a client’s like, oh my gosh, no, a parasite. I’m like, Dude, I just went to Mexico, came back with Giardia. It’s raging on my GI MAP. We’re going to get this done together. Like we’re doing it.

Share the story, make them feel seen and heard. It’s a win-win, right? Cause it’s kind of like cathartic to express that. I went through this and I’m on the other side. Then they see you as an inspiration. Like, wow, she went through it, she did the work, and it’s possible to be on the other side.

[00:34:06] Detective Ev: Yeah, absolutely. This is so cool. I like when these kind of transition into a business podcast as well, especially with someone who can really give legitimate advice to our practitioners.

An FDN Needs to Get Out There and Help People

They got one of the best systems in the world if they go through this program. You guys can help other people.

I almost don’t even say this sometimes cause I feel like it overwhelms people, but there’s practitioners out there making half a million dollars a year, guys. And they’re not even working more than 40, 45 hours a week. Then there’s other practitioners who again, have those 10 certifications and they’re barely taking on two clients.

I’m not condemning the person who’s only taking on two clients. But I’m trying to wake you up out of it and make you realize you have more than enough to serve other people. You don’t get to the half a million a year mark without helping some people along the way. You can only get through scamming people and doing BS for so long before it catches up to you.

You have a program. We have a bunch of tips. We have AFDNP. We got every resource in the world to help you with the business side. So, make sure you’re going out there and actually sharing this message and letting people know that you offer what you offer.

I want to go back to something that I probably should have asked before. I’s when you went through the FDN program. What did you find on the labs that we provide to our practitioners as they go through the course? I know that you were probably in a much better spot than when you started by then, especially, you just seemed like very disciplined, regimen person. But I’m sure there was something to learn. So, what did you find on the labs, if you recall, when you went through FDN?

Pregnant and Stressed

[00:35:26] Nicole Ritter: I was in a very unique position because I found out I was pregnant right when I got the labs back and I was too afraid to look at them. This was back when we did the BioHealth Labs.

The one thing I do remember was that my progesterone was so low. I was like, wait, I’m pregnant. That should not be that low. So, I ended up taking progesterone in the beginning of my pregnancy cause I did not want to have low progesterone. But I don’t think I did the GI MAP back then. I think the BioHealth…

Detective Ev: The BH 101?

Nicole Ritter: Yeah. You remember the names?

[00:35:56] Detective Ev: Yes. Yeah, I’m weird. At this point it would be, for those listening now, the Fluids IQ metabolic wellness panel would be the somewhat equivalent of the BioHealth 101, for those listening that might not know. It’d be the similar thing.

[00:36:08] Nicole Ritter: I really just remember the hormone panel because honestly, I was really scared during my pregnancy.

One of my friends from home had miscarried at seven months. Not miscarried, but it was very tragic. She ended up having to have the baby and it didn’t live. It was like the beginning of COVID. So, I was terrified during my pregnancy. And I know, you know, stress makes everything worse.

I had a therapist I met with, I think, like two times a week, virtually. I was like, I’m so stressed. You know, I want to have this baby. I’m so worried. And she was like, don’t look at labs right now. I did everything after I had a baby.

It’s Better to Know the Healing Opportunities

GI MAP was pretty bad. Really low Secretory IgA. So, my gut immune system was suppressed. Really low beneficial bacteria. It’s as if I hadn’t ever eaten a vegetable in my life.

I didn’t have parasites after I had the baby, but I just redid a GI MAP (I love testing. I try to do them every six months, which is not necessary. I just love them.), and I had two parasites.

Then something recently I found out. Becca Kyle, I’m friends with, she’s an FDN. I love her. She posted that she had Lyme. That’s something I’ve never tested for. Why not just order a Lyme test? So, I did. It came back with both bartonella babesia and then toxoplasma gondii, a cat parasite, which is horrific. Which can cause toxoplasmosis, which is actually horrific for people pregnant. That’s why pregnant women aren’t supposed to scoop up cat poop, but I don’t have a cat. That was confusing.

It’s so interesting when clients are like, not woe is me, but it can be overwhelming when you’re not used to getting these functional labs and all these results. It can be oh my, I have so much to deal with. I’m like, same dude. It’s okay, you know.

As Reed says, it’s healing opportunities. If we don’t know this information, we can’t correct and we can’t heal. So, it’s better to know everything. I’m one of those people, I’m like, let’s order it. I love all the labs. I’ve done all of them, like I said.

My OAT was anything but normal, organic acid tests. Candida came up on that one a couple months ago but not on the GI MAP, interestingly. So, yeah, you name it, I’ve probably dealt with it.

The OAT vs. The GI MAP

[00:38:19] Detective Ev: I have some training in the OAT. I feel like I would trust the GI MAP at this point for candida more than the OAT considering. I mean, the OAT is not even really diagnostic in a sense, you know what I mean? Like it could be implicated with other things when a certain market comes back. So that’d be an interesting one. There’s a lot to that.

[00:38:36] Nicole Ritter: So, the GI MAP, it’s the DNA assay, so it’s actually testing the DNA of the microorganisms in your stool. Candida is very tricky, as are all pathogens, right? They’re hidden by biofilms. Which if they’re hidden, the biofilm, I like to describe to people as like the force field in Star Wars, right? It’s like when they do the invisibility club in Harry Potter or Star Wars. That’s the GI MAP, right? The DNA.

The organic acids, it’s the urinary metabolites. It’s like the byproducts of things that happen in our body. So, while, no, it’s not diagnostic, it is a really good indication of whether there’s mold colonization or fungus and yeast. And I see a lot of clinical correlation with candida and the organic acid test.

And even with me too, at that time, I was craving sweets all the time. I was just like, ugh, I have candida. Normally, you don’t have to just test all these things. I’m not encouraging you to do testing every six months. That gets expensive. But I like to collect data, right? I’m a data person. So, I can clinically correlate that with my symptoms.

Okay, great. I dealt with candida, don’t crave sweets anymore, which is very interesting. And I was having really bad brain fog.

An FDN Needs to Always Clinically Correlate

As FDNs it’s always really important to, we’re not just reading the labs, we’re not diagnosing the labs. We’re not like, you aren’t a lab. Like I’m not my OAT test.

We always clinically correlate and look at the big picture. And at that time, I was craving sweets. I had brain fog; I was having trouble sleeping. Doctors will tell you, oh, you’re just a new mom. Your baby’s not sleeping. And I’m like, no, that’s not a good answer.

That’s how I use the OAT and I love it for mold. I use it a lot for mold cause I do see a lot of mold in my clients. And then the mycotoxins as well, if there is mold.

So, no test in my opinion is to be used to diagnose cause that’s not what we do. It’s not helpful. But I think the OAT has a time and a place, especially when people aren’t getting better. Right? If you don’t see candida on the GI MAP and they have all the candida symptoms, you may do the candida spit test. If it comes up positive, you may want to dig deeper just to see if there is fungal overgrowth.

[00:40:41] Detective Ev: I actually appreciate that explanation because honestly my statement, I’m just being serious, it might have been misleading for the people listening. Cause what I was trying to get at was the fact that when you run an OAT, if there’s something there, it’s going to show it.

But the markers on that don’t always, it’s not a one for one. Like there’s more to it when you get a high marker back, you gotta really like kind of think about it and clinically correlate, like you said.

The OAT vs. The GI MAP (Part II)

As opposed to the GI MAP where if we see candida, okay, it’s probably there. Although they say themselves, they do miss it, I think, five to 10% of the time on that test. So, I was just going off like statistics.

But with the clinical correlation also put into the context here, I mean that makes total sense. Right? So obviously that is one of those cases where it was totally beneficial to run both at the same time because of what you found.

I actually just did a thing where I had, it was like family-friend clients coming in. Basically, what happened is I had the one person in the couple do a GI MAP and the one person do the OAT, just because money was a little tight. I was like, all right, I’ll have one do this and one do the other.

Then of course I’m seeing like certain things that might be more indicative of mold on the OAT. I saw like H. Pylori stuff on the GI MAP. This is not something I would necessarily recommend to other people, but this was a family-friend situation. They knew that it’s not perfect.

You can kind of infer certain things if people have been dating for years and years and years and they’re loyal to each other and one as H. Pylori. Okay. Probably a good chance the other one’s not doing so hot with H. Pylori. And then similarly, if I can see that one was exposed to mold on the OAT and they’ve been living together for eight years, okay. Again, not perfect, but probably can use my head there to think that both of them have been exposed.

Where to Find Nicole Ritter

It’s interesting how you can use these things at the right times as you progress in your career as an FDN or just health coach in general that utilizes lab testing. I appreciate you doing the differences for us there.

I know one question we definitely need to end on is, what do you offer now? This is a great thing for Nicole, but you’re not in a position at this exact moment where you’re taking on direct one-on-one clients. So, what do you offer now and where can people find that?

[00:42:44] Nicole Ritter: So, I am huge on education. I will always be educating people. You can find me on Instagram, @NicoleRitterHealth.

I do have two courses that I offer. One is for the business side of things called Automate Your Wellness Biz. Then for the client side of things called Minerals and Metabolism. It’s a base course to teach you the foundations of health. It’s basically D.R.E.S.S. for health success, to guide them through that. Because I think that’s one thing that is missed. People are like, oh, these labs are going to cure me, right? No, you have to eat correctly. You have to rest, you have to exercise, you have to do stress reduction. You have to have a good mindset.

So, it’s really the foundational course that you can take to make all those changes. Learn about toxins, learn about oxalates, learn about lectins, all of these different things that if you don’t know what those are, go get the course because you’ll learn. All these things that we’re not taught in school, unless we spend thousands of dollars on a certification.

Nicole is Joining Another FDN’s Team

You can’t work with me directly one-on-one right now. I did join one of my best friends, Jen Cino. I joined her team. Like I said earlier, she presented me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

I am her lead practitioner at her, it’s called Fit and Functional is her business. I am the clinical advisor there as well. I mentor all the new coaches. I’m in charge of hiring them, onboarding them. We will be hiring a lot in the new year, so if you are a practitioner and you are really good at your job and want to work for someone else and ditch the marketing, reach out to me and we can do an interview.

[00:44:14] Detective Ev: So cool. I think it’s such a great time to be an FDN. Because even when you originally graduated, Nicole, I was 2017 myself, and I can’t even imagine before that, the only possible route was to pursue this as your own business, which I still encourage. I think it’s a cool thing.

But there are constantly now more and more opportunities where there are really great jobs opening up for FDNs. I see like every other week in the AFDNP group, someone’s posting for a job listing of like starting at $75 an hour. I’m like, are you kidding me? For going into an eight, nine-month program, which yes, is going to be tough. But I mean, compared to most things that would warrant that type of pay per hour, good luck finding it. That’s just not going to be a thing for most people. It’s just a cool time.

Health Detective Podcast Signature Question

And that’s awesome to see what Jen has done and now what you’re doing with Jen. I think that’s a heck of a team there. We had Jen on as well, by the way, if you guys didn’t know. I will put her podcast in the show notes below.

With that said, we’re going to finish up. The final question then for you today, the signature question on the Health Detective Podcast, one of my favorites. If I could give Nicole, 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, whether that’s you actually get them to start doing one thing, or you could get them to stop doing one thing, what is the one thing Nicole would get them to do?

[00:45:33] Nicole Ritter: Be open to changing their opinion and open to learning, two things.

[00:45:39] Detective Ev: Cool. I think that is the first time that it’s ever been said. This is perfect. It’s just amazing to me that something you’d think is so simple, but 200 episodes and not one person has said that as their number one thing yet. I fully support this message.

Thank you so much for coming on today.

[00:45:54] Nicole Ritter: Of course. Thank you so much. This was so fun.

Conclusion

[00:45:57] Detective Ev: All right guys. That’ll do it for today’s episode with Nicole Ritter. I hope you guys enjoyed it. She is someone who I ended up talking to for over an hour after the podcast. I’m like, do you realize we have a whole second podcast here. Just really personable individual. Awesome person. I cannot stress enough that you guys gotta go follow her, check out her content and just shoot her a DM, let her know that you loved the podcast, if you did, in fact love it and are listening to this point. I’m assuming that you liked it. I think the guests really appreciate that.

She came on with no intention of offering anything. I literally had to pull it out of her before we started. I’m like, no, no, no. I always want you to be able to talk about the business stuff and the things that you do. Because if you’re coming on the show and giving value, there’s no problem with offering something at the end. She wasn’t even planning on doing that. There’s just a lot to be said about that.

Please go shout her out and just thank her for coming on. I’d greatly appreciate it.

I’m looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. But until then, take care.

You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.

If you’d like to hire a coach, go to fdnthrive.com.

For a FREE Health Review, go to fdnthrive.com/match/.

You may have seen common culinary nutrition terms like macronutrients or antioxidants bandied about in books, podcasts, websites and articles, or splashed onto food labels, and wondered what they mean. Whether you have a personal interest in nutrition, have an existing food or health business, or want to launch a new food-related career, getting to know the common lingo is extremely helpful and can empower you to make informed decisions about what to eat. 

Let’s delve into some basic culinary nutrition terminology!

guide to basic culinary nutrition terms

Macronutrients

Macronutrients are the nutrients your body needs in large amounts. The three primary macronutrients are carbohydrates, fat and protein (more on those below).

Micronutrients

Micronutrients are the vitamins and minerals your body needs in small amounts. While you don’t need a boatload of them, micronutrients play many key roles in our health. 

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are a macronutrient that is one of our main sources of fuel. Carbohydrates, or carbs, are synthesized in plant-based foods and are comprised of sugars. 

Simple Sugars: Monosaccharides (one sugar molecule)

• Glucose
• Fructose 
• Galactose

When we put sugar molecules together, we get: 

Disaccharides (two sugar molecules)

• Sucrose
• Lactose 
• Maltose

Polysaccharides (many sugar molecules)

These are long chains of sugars that form complex carbohydrates such as:

• fibre
• starches
• gums and mucilage

Are Carbs Good or Bad? 

It depends on the type of carbohydrate and what you’re consuming along with it. Highly refined carbohydrates like white sugar, refined flours, white rice, white bread, juice, baked goods and pasta are digested and absorbed quickly, leading to spikes in blood sugar levels. Complex carbohydrates such as vegetables, fruits, beans, and gluten-free whole grains take longer for us to break down into those smaller sugars, leading to sustained energy levels and balanced blood sugar throughout the day.

Learn More

Fibre

Fibre (or fiber, if you’re not headquartered in Canada like we are) are carbohydrates that we can’t fully digest. Fibre lends structure to plant-based foods and is essential to digestion, absorption, and elimination. It helps us feel more full and slows food down as it passes through our digestive tract so we can break down nutrients. It also behaves like a sponge in the colon, grabbing onto excess hormones, carcinogens, or toxins we need to excrete from our bodies. 

Fibre comes in two forms:

• Soluble: This can be partially broken down and fermented along our digestive tract, leading to the production of beneficial bacteria and nutrients like short-chain fatty acids. Soluble fibre can dissolve in water, creating a gel that helps attract water to the gut so we can pass food on through.
• Insoluble: This type of fibre cannot be digested at all. It gives bulk to our stool and gives our digestive tract muscles something to work against, helping to move poop through and out our colon.

Learn More

Refined Sugars

Refined sugars are derived from plants like sugar cane, sugar beets, and corn. During the manufacturing process, those plants are completely stripped of their nutrients, leaving us with a product that is void of any health benefits, and what’s more, our body needs to use its precious resources to metabolize them.

Learn More

Natural Sweeteners

Natural sweeteners are in their natural state (or very close to it, with minimal alteration or processing) and this leaves them with nutrients that can help support a more healthful dessert habit.

Any sweetener – whether refined or natural – is going to raise blood sugar levels. However, natural sweeteners contain vitamins, minerals, enzymes and antioxidants, as opposed to refined sweeteners that will only deplete us. Also, when natural sweeteners are paired with other nutrient-dense ingredients such as protein, fat and fibre, you’ll end up with a healthier treat overall.

Learn More

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If your curiosity is piqued, we’re just scratching the surface here! We dive much deeper into these terms, and much more in the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program, an in-depth professional certification program in culinary nutrition that offers practical, everyday, natural cooking skills as well as a deeper exploration into the therapeutic properties of the foods we eat and how we prepare them. 

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Protein

Protein is a macronutrient and it’s made up of different chains of smaller amino acids, like beads on a necklace. There are 20 amino acids in our bodies. During digestion, we break down proteins into their amino acids and use them for many essential functions throughout the body. Proteins are important for:

Essential Amino Acids

Essential amino acids are ones we cannot make ourselves and must get through our diet. There are nine essential amino acids we can obtain from food; the rest we can create. 

We can source protein from animal and plant-based foods. Animal sources are complete proteins, meaning they have all of the essential amino acids. Some plant-based foods are complete proteins (such as hemp seeds, quinoa and soy) while many others are not. 

Learn More

Fats

Fat is our last macronutrient and it’s a very concentrated source of calories and nutrients. Fats have been highly vilified in our culture but are actually crucial for:

• energy levels
• the nervous system
• digestion
• hormone production
• stability of cell membranes
• healthy skin

We’ve outlined the different types of fats in more detail in this post about cooking oils if you’d like to learn more.

Essential Fatty Acids

As with protein, there are a few fats that we cannot make and have to consume through our diet. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats are essential. 

Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a type of fat that helps us produce Vitamin D, hormones and bile acids for digestion, and is part of our cell membrane’s structure. Cholesterol is only found in animal foods; however, contrary to popular belief most of our cholesterol is formed in the body rather than eaten through diet.

Learn More:

Vitamins

Vitamins are compounds that we need in smaller amounts for a large variety of functions in the body, and the majority of vitamins we need come from food. We go into great detail about what each vitamin does in the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program. 

Vitamins can be divided into two main categories:

• Fat soluble vitamins: These vitamins frequently live in fat tissue and require a source of fat in order to best be absorbed. Fat soluble vitamins can be stored in the body for longer periods of time. 
• Water soluble vitamins: These vitamins dissolve in water, and water helps us absorb them. Water soluble vitamins are not stored for a long time, so we need to be eating foods with them regularly. 

Minerals

Minerals are elements that we need in smaller amounts, and they have a multitude of functions and health effects. We go into great detail about what each mineral does in the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program. 

Minerals can be divided into two main categories:

• Macrominerals: These are the minerals that we need in larger amounts (often in milligrams), such as calcium and magnesium.
• Microminerals: These are minerals we need in smaller amounts (smaller amounts of milligrams and often micrograms), such as zinc and copper. 

Antioxidants

Antioxidants are powerful compounds that help to protect our bodies from damage and guard us from many chronic diseases. You can find antioxidants in many foods.

Learn More: Anti-Inflammatory Diet and Lifestyle Guide

Phytonutrients

Phytonutrient is an umbrella term for thousands of compounds in plants that are beneficial and help promote good health. Most phytonutrients have a combination of anti-inflammatory, immune-supportive, antioxidant, cardioprotective, and anti-cancer properties. 

Learn More: Guide to Phytonutrients and Where to Find Them

We hope that this guide to culinary nutrition terms is a helpful primer that will inspire your eating choices! If you’d like to dive deeper into these culinary nutrition terms and concepts, consider joining us for the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program where we’ll teach you all about the therapeutic properties of foods and how to create delicious, health-supportive recipes. 

My first day ever in Dubai! We explored “Old Dubai” and had the best Middle Eastern food I’ve ever ever had, wow.

Highly recommend the Arabian Tea House. Save this location if you are visiting Dubai! The tea was next level too, with so many different blends of herbs, flowers, and spices.

For dinner, early in my trip, we had Nammos Dubai. The vibe was nice and loungey. It is located right on the beach. So the view is epic!

The food is just above average because people really go for the atmosphere, not the food as much. The grilled squid was great though, I would recommend that! Nammos also have GLUTEN-FREE bread which is so tasty (most restaurants don’t offer this option nor does it taste good). It came with some olive oil and smashed olives, yum!

There was a Dior collaboration and pop-up which was gorgeous. 

Another restaurant I recommend is Mimi Kakushi. It felt like I just walked back in time to a Japanese restaurant in the 1920s.  So classy! As soon as you walk in you can smell a blend of truffle oil and jasmine, mmm wow! The green tea is next level, that’s always how you know it’s legit Japanese food.

I also recommend COYA Dubai for its fantastic, fun, uplifting vibe, and atmosphere. They’re known for their Peruvian food! Nutritionist Maria Marlowe recommends the food here, tasty!

For drinks, I recommend the Rosé. The Rosé is incredible! So far it’s all been from Provenance, France, and it’s impossible to get a bad rosé from there. So, that has been my go-to!

We had the most amazing nourishing lunch at Drift Beach Bar. I would definitely recommend the lunch here, the menu was insane! So many great fresh clean options. The artichoke salad was next level, one of the most delicious salads I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. Truly, 10/10. The octopus was also perfectly cooked, and the greens we asked for were cooked in olive oil instead of butter. I was so stoked about their gluten-free option bread for a starter with some olive oil and actual sea salt. 

The atmosphere at Drift Beach Bar is incredible! The restaurant is right by the pool so you get to experience the outdoor atmosphere. It’s so worth it and of course, I brought Liana’s Anxiety Free supplements with me! I never travel without it. There are ten natural organic ingredients including ashwagandha, Schisandra, chlorella, and spirulina which nourish your nervous system, gut, and brain so you feel strong and happy every single day!
While in Dubai, I got to be part of a panel discussion on natural health along with Maria Marlowe, acne specialist nutritionist, and Kate Living, who went from working in the pharmaceutical industry to the natural health space. 

I spoke on natural health in regard to treating anxiety:

-Anxiolytic vs anxiogenic foods because you can either reduce anxiety or produce it depending on what category it’s in

– Anxiety is caused by nutritional deficiencies including, omega fatty acids, vitamin D, and magnesium

– You can feel relief from anxiety after one meal if it’s anxiolytic in nature

The overall takeaway is that diet is the same for disease, anxiety, cancer, etc. We recommend a whole-food diet, similar to The Earth Diet and you can customize it based on your bio-individual needs.

The event was held at The Edit a concept store and lifestyle space housing fashion, art, design, events, and a cafe with the most delicious and incredible matcha! Maria has her own very own “Glow by Marlowe” matcha infused with spices. The Cacao Dream is also heavenly, a fusion of matcha and cacao.

My last dinner in Dubai was at Clap Dubai. Clap is a Michelin-Star restaurant with an incredible view, wow! I would recommend ordering the Stone Bowl Vegetables and the Octopus. We celebrated Maria’s birthday. I am so glad I got to be with her on her special day!

The food in Dubai was all so amazing! I highly recommend traveling to Dubai and trying out all the unique food, if you get the chance. 

Here’s What I Accomplished: A breakfast (egg bake), a snack (pumpkin squares), lunch (broccoli soup with chicken) and chicken with cauli rice to start the week. It won’t get me all the way through the week, but will give me enough food to get going on a healthy foot.

Next up, I’m planning on making Mediterranean fish and sheet pan veggies for dinner. When I cook fish, I like to get it day of, so I’ll stop at the store on Tuesday to make that for Tuesday night’s dinner. On Tuesday, I’ll also figure out what I need for Wed. and Thurs. night, and something else for breakfasts and snacks.

One weeknight meal usually ends up being very quick (a rotisserie chicken with a bagged salad — done!) or something similar. And that’s OK. It’s homemade enough.

Meal planning and prepping is tricky. Don’t think it’s not. But, as a working busy mom, if I can do it, so can you!

XO
Robin

Todos Santos, a sleepy desert town near the tip of the Baja California Sur peninsula, is well-known to conscious vacation go-getters. From its stunning beaches, whale watching, and surfing, to artist enclaves, farm-to-table restaurants, historical buildings, and a rich wildlife ecosystem. It’s a destination getaway for peace and tranquility, yet close to modern amenities and activities if you’re looking for something interesting to do.

In the centre of it all, Culinary Nutrition Expert Nilú Feregrino is trailblazing a new path to conscious vacations with her brand-new boutique hotel and cooking studio. A mere six years ago, Nilú barely knew how to cook. Now, she and her husband run a plant-based, environmentally friendly getaway where she teaches cooking classes.

“Most of the time, I’m talking to the guests about what I learned in culinary nutrition school,” she says. “I love my guests and my students, and I love to share what I know.”

Finding the courage to cook

Photo: Ashlie René 

Nilú has always loved eating, but felt completely lost in the kitchen. Her husband, a talented home cook, prepared the household meals and she never imagined that one day she could, too.

“I thought only Grandmas knew how to cook,” she laughs. “I felt that I didn’t have the talent, it was too difficult, and I didn’t even know where to start. It was very challenging.”

A move from Milan, Italy to San Francisco was life-changing in more ways than one, especially when it came to the food. Nilú discovered local farmer’s markets, fresh produce she’d never tried before and delicious plant-based restaurants. Living in a health-conscious city, Nilú was inspired to learn more about nutrition.

As she searched for both online and in-person programs, she couldn’t quite find the right fit – until she came across the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program.

“When I discovered the Academy of Culinary Nutrition I went, ‘Oh my god. This is what I really want’. I couldn’t find another course like it,” Nilú says. “It brings together a perfect blend of nutrition and cooking.”

Developing a brand-new skill set

Photo: Ashlie René

Nilú joined the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program in 2016 and threw herself into the experience. She adored learning cooking techniques and discovering new ingredients and flavours, plus she appreciated the professional structure of the program and its assignments that pushed her to newfound heights.

“It was awesome from the first minute until the end. I still miss it,” she says.

Nilú was four months pregnant when the program began and credits the program’s recipe assignments and wisdom for helping her experience a healthy pregnancy, too.

As each week passed, Nilú’s confidence in her ability to cook grew exponentially.

“I learned to cook, and I was amazed at that,” she says. “I felt very empowered, and now I no longer feel afraid of cooking.”

And by the end of the program, Nilú’s husband stopped cooking entirely because he adored the new style of food she learned to prepare in the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program.

“I learned to cook, and I was amazed at that. I felt very empowered, and now I no longer feel afraid of cooking.”

Establishing a boutique hotel and disrupting the all-inclusive vacation industry

Photo: Ashlie René

During the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program Nilú felt compelled to educate others, and dreamed of building an in-person school where she could teach the basics of cooking for health.

After finding the perfect plot of land in Todos Santos, Nilú and her husband began to build their boutique hotel, Desierto Azul, in March 2020. They sought to create a restorative, rejuvenating place, as well as provide a drastically unique experience from the typical all-inclusive resort.

Constructing a sustainable, organic and eco-friendly hotel outside the norms of the industry was no easy feat, and Nilú found herself educating people much earlier than planned. From tradespeople to suppliers to potential employees, Nilú explained her vision and why it was important to her to make intentional choices, even when there were much cheaper options.

Desierto Azul’s health-building amenities include organic food, organic bedding and towels, a mineral-rich water filtration system throughout the building (you can drink water in your shower!), non-toxic body care and cleaning products, and a saltwater pool that is free of any harsh chemicals.  

The entire hotel is solar powered, has a low-water garden of local plants, and they reuse wastewater for irrigation. Since the property has a comprehensive filtration system, there is no need to drink from packaged, plastic water bottles.

“People are so grateful to find a place that cares about all of this. It’s a lot of effort, but it’s worth it.”

Amid the challenges, every so often Nilú and her husband wondered late at night if all the extra effort, expense and resourcefulness was worthwhile. But they kept returning to their vision, and their great desire to help guests build health. And once the hotel welcomed its first visitors, the impact on them was immediate and profound.

“You arrive to our hotel and you feel different,” she says. “When they have our breakfast, when they take a shower with our natural products, when they taste the difference in our water and feel it in the pool, with the feel of the towels and linens, they say, ‘Oh my god, this is good’. People are so grateful to find a place that cares about all of this. It’s a lot of effort, but it’s worth it.”

Establishing a cooking studio using Certified Instructor classes

Photo: Jo Portia

After Desierto Azul opened in November 2021, Nilú began to build a separate cooking studio to hold classes for both guests and locals.

Between running a hotel and being a mom to two young children, Nilú didn’t have a lot of extra time to develop cooking class materials. Since she wanted to teach quality, professional-level classes, deciding to become an Academy of Culinary Nutrition Certified Instructor was a no-brainer for Nilú. With nine done-for-you classes, as a certified instructor Nilú is thrilled to have many options to teach. 

“They are so well planned, and they have everything step by step. It was just the right choice to start,” she says. “It saved me a lot of headaches.”

Desierto Azul’s plant-based cooking studio opened in July 2022, and is open to hotel visitors and the general public (in fact, other hotels and AirBnb hosts frequently refer their guests to Nilú’s classes). She teaches classes in English and Spanish, to both large groups and offers private lessons.

“It’s going great, and people love them,” she says. “Many of my guests arrive not knowing how to cook, and by the end of the lesson, they know how. It’s important for me to empower them because I know where they’re coming from.”

“Many of my guests arrive not knowing how to cook and by the end of the lesson they know how. It’s important for me to empower them because I know where they’re coming from.”

And the cooking studio is only the first step of Nilú’s plan for Desierto Azul’s growth. She plans to open a café on site, and eventually expand the hotel so they can accommodate retreats, festivals and events.

Her ultimate goal is to help transform Todos Santos into the health capital of Mexico. She envisions Desierto Azul as a hub for health and wellbeing, and a hotel that attracts the best talent across Mexico and internationally to come and share their wisdom.

“We’re not doing this to get rich,” Nilú says. “We put all of our hearts, and all of our knowledge (and all of our savings) into this project. We want to do it because we love this. It’s not about how much you earn, it’s about doing what you enjoy and sharing it with others.”

Header Image: Fabrizio Cavallo

Gluten free salmon potato croquettes

Thinking through how I can diversify the way our family consumes fish and make it fun at the same time and these delicious SALMON POTATO CROQUETTES came to mind. They’re great for these balmy summer nights in oz because you can prep in advance and then just pop in the oven / air frier too cook and add a light salad.

Nutritionally they’re an excellent way to:

+ get oily / DHA rich fish into your diet – DHA supports brain function, cognition, reduces inflammation AND…

+ if you crush the bones into your tinned salmon you’ll have the added bonus of CALCIUM for bone / teeth health and healthy electrolytes/fluid balance combined with the…

+ POTASSIUM in the potatoes – boom chicka boom!

Served ours with a yummy aioli, but you could make your own with greek yogurt, dijon and herbs and LOTS of lemon.

Find the recipe below.

 

SALMON AND POTATO CROQUETTES

Makes approximately 12-15 croquettes

400g white potatoes, peeled

200g tinned pink salmon / tuna (use which you prefer and is on hand)

1 egg yolk

4 tablespoons caramelised onion or 1 chopped spring onion

Crust: (I made these gluten free but use whatever is on hand and works for you)

20g sorghum flour for GF / spelt flour for regular

2 eggs

4 tbsp sesame seeds for GF / breadcrumbs for regular

3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

To serve:

Aioli

Lemon wedges

 

Make the filling by boiling potatoes until soft, then mash well. Add tinned salmon / tuna and onion, whisk egg yolk and add, then mix to combine well. Set up your crusting ‘station’. Place sorghum flour into a shallow bowl. Crack eggs into another bowl. Pour sesame seeds onto a plate. Portion the salmon and potato mix into 12-15 pieces, squeeze together and roll into a mini log. Coat in some flour, followed by egg and sesame. Place onto separate tray / plate and repeat with remaining mixture. If using an air-frier, spray or brush with the extra virgin olive oil, set air-frier to 200C and arrange the croquettes to fit in frier. Cook for 12-15 minutes or until just golden. If using an oven, heat to 180C and line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper. Arrange croquettes onto tray, spray or brush with extra virgin olive oil and cook for 15-18 minutes or until lightly golden. Serve with lots of lemon wedges, sea salt, black pepper and aioli or a yummy home made tartare of your choice, and a big green salad.

 

*I’ve linked the brand I prefer for aioli / caramelised onion. This is not a sponsored post.

 

Today’s note happens to fall on World Diabetes Day. I thought I’d share with you the introduction that I wrote for a book called Diabetes Unpacked. This was a collaboration with a number of authors – most will be well known to you – to raise funds for The Noakes Foundation and to assemble consistent alternative views on diabetes.

To accompany this week’s note we have an option to try to give you the book as close to free as possible. If you would like a kindle book, Diabetes Unpacked will be available for 1.00 £/$/€, or equivalent local currency, for World Diabetes Day. Here are the links to your local kindle store:

UK | USA | DE | FR | ES | IT | JP | CA | AU | NL | BR | MX | IN

The rest of this note is the introduction to Diabetes Unpacked…

———————-

My teenage brother, Adrian, had been in Canada at a scouting convention for three weeks. When we waved him off he had been in great shape – a natural sportsman excelling at all games, but cricket, hockey and swimming especially. A week into his trip, our relatives in Toronto contacted us to say that Adrian had left the event ‘suffering exhaustion’ and was staying with them, but they were quite worried about his weight loss. When we collected Adrian from the airport, he was a shadow of the young man we had seen not even a month earlier.

A mad cricket fan, Adrian installed himself in front of the TV when he got home – watching every ball of five-day matches, as he loved to do. It was the summer holidays, so we had much freedom to spend our days. I would do anything for my big brother so when he gave me some coins and asked me to pop to the local shop to get some fizzy pop, I happily set off on my bike. No sooner had I delivered a two-litre bottle, Adrian would be asking me to take the previous bottle back for the deposit and to get another one. His thirst was insatiable.

I returned from one such fizzy drink excursion to a note from mum saying that she’d decided to take Adrian to hospital. Later that afternoon, dad came home early from work, collected me and we headed off to the hospital together. Adrian was already in a hospital bed with mum on one side and a consultant on the other. The endocrinologist gave the whole family a serious talk about what life would be like, now that we were living with a Type 1 diabetic.

The symptoms were so obvious – dramatic weight loss and insatiable thirst – that Adrian should have been diagnosed in Canada. But this was long before the current era of diabetes awareness. We were shocked and the messages delivered with gravity by the consultant stuck with me from that day. We were taught how to recognise low blood glucose (too much insulin) and high blood glucose (too much sugar). If experiencing hypoglycemia (low blood glucose), Adrian would likely become withdrawn, dopey, maybe a bit incoherent. His hands might shake and he might feel clammy to the touch. If experiencing hyperglycemia (high blood glucose), Adrian might appear drunk, gregarious, ‘high’ – he was given a bracelet announcing that he was a Type 1 Diabetic, so that he wouldn’t be mistaken for a drunk if a hyper-episode occurred.

Family members were trained to administer an insulin injection and we kept sugar cubes to hand, so that we could counter ‘a hypo’ as necessary. I used to help Adrian to inject in the arm, as he could more easily inject himself in the leg and this avoided particular skin areas becoming over-used.

This was my introduction to diabetes – Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) specifically – the rarer kind. The one that we still don’t fully understand. Is it hereditary? Is it an auto-immune condition? Why do some people get it and not others? Why did it only used to occur in young people and yet we now have middle aged people being diagnosed with T1DM? The type, which represents fewer than 10% of all cases of diabetes is a complex condition indeed.

In contrast, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is emerging as the condition that is easier to understand and certainly the one that is easier to address. It is by far the more common type (more than 90% of diabetes cases) and one that is now being described as an epidemic. Why? Why has T2DM gone from being “what granny with a sweet tooth gets” to a condition seen in children?

The beliefs we share

Diabetes Unpacked is a collection of chapters by thought leaders, academics and doctors with personal and/or patient experience of diabetes – mostly T2DM, by virtue of the proportion of diabetes that this type comprises. The traditional view of diabetes is that is it a “chronic and progressive” condition and that nothing can be done about it. Serious complications include loss of eyesight, amputations and death. The writers in this book approach diabetes from many different angles, but they all share one common belief: Diabetes does not need to be “chronic and progressive.” Both types can be substantially alleviated and T2DM can be ‘reversed’.

A quick word on words here, as the idea that T2DM can be ‘reversed’ or ‘cured’ is contentious. May I suggest that this comes down to terminology and may I propose a clarification to ease the contention? I don’t think that T2DM can be reversed per se, in that a person diagnosed with T2DM will have T2DM from that point on. However, it is clear that lifestyle changes can be made by someone with T2DM, enabling them to get to the point that they effectively don’t have T2DM. The T2DM person can make changes such that they would not be diagnosed with T2DM today. To that extent, the T2DM has been reversed or cured. If the person resumed their previous lifestyle, the changes would abate and the T2DM would manifest itself again. Some people refer to T2DM being ‘in remission’ and I prefer this term, as it more accurately describes where the person is. However, I completely understand the importance of terminology in this world. I have met many people at conferences who introduce themselves by saying “I’m a cured Type 2 diabetic” or “I have reversed my diabetes.” The idea that this ‘chronic and progressive’ disease can be ‘reversed’ is hugely motivational to people diagnosed with T2DM. If this means that the words ‘reversed’ and ‘cured’ are used in preference to ‘in remission’ – don’t knock it. Anything that motivates individuals to dramatically improve their health is to be encouraged, not discouraged.

So, what are these changes? How can T2DM be reversed? The writers in this book share the common belief that diabetes does not need to be chronic and progressive. We also share the common belief as to how. We know that the macronutrient that diabetics (both types) are least able to handle is carbohydrate. We therefore cannot understand that dietary advice for diabetics is to eat the majority of one’s diet in the form of carbohydrate – the very substance that cannot be handled. (This is the same advice for non-diabetics, which is why we continue to make more people diabetic daily).

My husband, Andy, and I wanted to produce and publish a book, gathering together some of the finest minds worldwide, to give intelligent and interested readers some unconventional thinking on this serious condition. We want to stimulate thinking, share logic and personal/patient experiences and challenge the status quo that diabetics should “base their meals on starchy foods” and thus suffer the consequences of sugar ravages in their body as time goes by.

We have all donated our work for free and we are hoping that contributions from this book will raise valuable funds for The Noakes Foundation, founded by Professor Tim Noakes. This is particularly fitting for a number of reasons. First, the goal of The Noakes Foundation is “To support the dietary revolution that will reverse the global epidemics of obesity and Type 2 diabetes mellitus.” This not-for profit organisation is thus perfectly suited to address the condition that this book is largely about. Second, Professor Noakes has been the inspiration to so many of us in this field. It is an honour for us to be working with the person who has been so evidence-led and determined to find the truth that he has ripped up one of his own early books! (The Lore of Running). Finally, Professor Noakes has been one of an elite few who have been put on trial, or worse – convicted with no trial – simply for daring to suggest that Type 2 diabetics should eat less carbohydrate.

The practitioners on trial

Jennifer Elliott

Jennifer Elliott had been a dietician for 35 years and for 10 of those had recommended carbohydrate restriction to clients with T2DM. She was taught the standard advice – a low-fat diet, with plenty of whole grains, fruit and vegetables. Her daughter developed a weight problem between the ages of 12 and 14 and had classic abdominal obesity. A general practitioner tested the young girl for insulin resistance and confirmed the diagnosis. Jennifer began her own research into insulin resistance and found a wealth of evidence that had not been taught in dietetics training. It became clear to Jennifer that carbohydrate was not the friend of diabetics and/or those with insulin resistance. Jennifer changed her daughter’s diet and started to change the diet of clients similarly afflicted. The results were immediate: weight loss; improved blood glucose levels; and a reduced need for medications.

You would think that the dietetic association would have been thrilled and would have sought to emulate the advice that had proved so effective. The opposite happened. Jennifer was reported by a Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) registered dietician and charged with using a “non-evidence-based” approach.

The Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) conducted the investigations into the allegation. You can check the conflicts of the official body for dieticians in Australia for yourself. Around the time that Jennifer was under investigation, the “corporate partners” of the DAA included Campbell Arnott’s “one of the largest food manufacturers in Australia”; Nestle; and the Australian Breakfast Cereal Manufacturers Forum.

The outcome of the investigation was that Jennifer was de-registered by the DAA in May 2015. Her employer, a local Health District, dismissed her.

Jennifer paid a heavy personal and financial price for suggesting that people who can’t handle carbohydrate should eat less of it.

Gary Fettke

Australian dieticians have shown themselves to be particularly vicious in their determination to eliminate any practitioners stepping outside their own belief system. Surgeon Dr. Gary Fettke was the next high profile health practitioner to be targeted by those wedded to the low-fat high-carb dietary advice. Gary is a surgeon. He amputates limbs. He mainly amputates the limbs of diabetics whose bodies have been damaged by the ravages of sugar. As a doctor, who took an oath to “first do no harm”, he felt compelled to advise patients that – if they didn’t consume the sugar that was destroying their limbs, he wouldn’t need to cut their limbs off. That’s the kind of direct guy that Gary is!

Again – you would think that this limb and life saving advice would be welcome. Again, you’d be wrong. Again, it was a dietician who (anonymously) reported Gary – this time the Australian Health Practitioners Regulatory Authority (AHPRA) acted as judge and jury. After two years, in August 2016, they ruled that Gary must not give nutritional advice to patients. Specifically, they said: “In particular that he does not provide specific advice or recommendations on the subject of nutrition and how it relates to the management of diabetes or the treatment and/or prevention of cancer.”

Have dieticians managed to silence these two pioneers? Has the DAA monopoly on low-fat diet advice been preserved? Thankfully not. As of early 2017, Gary has defied the authorities and gone back to speaking out publicly on nutrition and in particular the benefits of Low Carbohydrate Healthy Fat living. It’s just too important for him. As he said: “Once you see the results for people, you cannot unsee them.” Thanks to the networking wonder that is the internet, Jennifer’s personal web site (babyboomersandbellies.com) prevails and she has partnered with Franziska Spritzler, a low carb dietician, to offer a program for diabetes.

Professor Tim Noakes

A different continent, but a similar story. Professor Tim Noakes had gained such a following in South Africa that the term “Banting” (Ref 1) had become commonplace. When I spoke at a conference in Cape Town in February 2015, there were two Banting restaurants and it was quite normal to see menu items tagged with “Banting” or “LCHF” (low carb high fat) to indicate their suitability for this way of eating.

On 3 February 2014, someone called Pippa Leenstra tweeted: “@ProfTimNoakes @SalCreed is LCHF eating OK for breastfeeding mums? Worried about all the dairy + cauliflower = wind for babies??” (@SalCreed is Sally-Ann Creed, a co-author of The Real Meal Revolution with Tim).

On 5 Feb 2014, Tim tweeted: “@pippaleenstra @SalCreed Baby doesn’t eat the dairy and cauliflower. Just very healthy high fat breast milk. Key is to ween baby onto LCHF.”

This became the most expensive tweet in the history of twitter! A South African dietician, Claire Julsing Strydom, reported Tim to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). Tim was charged with giving unconventional advice. Several million rand and three years later, the verdict was delivered on 21 April 2017. Tim was found not guilty of professional misconduct. In fact, the committee delivered verdicts on 10 aspects of the hearing and they found Tim not guilty for all 10 counts. However, ‘the most expensive tweet’ continues to accrue costs, as, at the time of this book going to print, the HPCSA had announced that it was going to appeal the decision.

Along with two other authors in this book (Dr Caryn Zinn and Nina Teicholz), I had the privilege of being invited by Tim to appear as an expert witness at the hearing, It was an extra-ordinary experience on so many levels: Extra-ordinary to present evidence and be cross-examined in an open court session in a foreign country; Extra-ordinary that something so monumental ostensibly started with a tweet (Ref 2). Extra-ordinary that anyone could think that twitter is a doctors’ surgery and that a doctor-patient relationship is even established with open exchanges; Extra-ordinary that one of the finest, A1 rated, scientists that South Africa will ever see has been subjected to a witch-hunt for daring to point out that the dietary guidelines are not fit for purpose – for diabetics especially – if not, to avoid diabetes.

This case also involved one or more dieticians. The professional association for dieticians in South Africa is conflicted, as elsewhere. Russ Greene did an outstanding forensic on the conflicts of interest in the Professor Noakes hearing (Ref 3). The common factors with Jennifer, Gary and Tim are dieticians protecting their non-evidence based, conventional thinking with big food conflicts all over the crime scene. If John Grisham turned his attention to these cases, the book would need to appear in the non-fiction section.

Decent upstanding citizens should be utterly appalled that big food and dieticians are able to silence health practitioners who are simply trying to advise those who can’t handle carbohydrate to cut back on it.

This book

It has been an honour for Andy and me to initiate, assemble and produce this book. I have had the privilege of editing it, which has enabled me to give you a taste of the delights you’re in for…

Setting the scene

The scale of the problem is set out by Mike Gibbs, a Cambridge University graduate. Mike co-founded “OurPath” with Chris Edson, an Oxford University graduate. OurPath is an online education and behavioural change programme, which uses technology to address the growing burden of Type 2 diabetes. With a combination of dietary changes, exercise, support groups and other lifestyle interventions (better sleep and stress management, for example), Mike and Chris are trying to prevent people getting into the diabetes pipeline as well as helping those already living with T2DM to better manage the disease.

The rest of the section “Setting the scene” contains three chapters from three of the greatest thinkers in the world on diabetes. The genius of Dr Malcolm Kendrick, Dr Jason Fung and, perhaps less well known to some of you, Dr Robert Cywes, kicks off the book in brilliant and witty style. The way that these men think is simply delightful. It is concise, logical, memorable and so darned sensible that you read their contributions thinking – why, why, why do the powers-that-be not see this?

Malcolm sets out to explain what diabetes is, in as simple a way as possible, while cautioning that, as H.L. Mencken famously said, “For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, easy to understand – and wrong.” Malcolm keeps it as simple and right as is possible. What is the slow progression of diabetes? Is it impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting tolerance? Do we have the right focus on sugar? insulin? Is what we observe insulin resistance, or are the liver and muscles simply full of glycogen causing a re-direction of glucose? How can lipodystrophy or PIMA Indians help with our thinking?

Jason asks similar questions – what is T2DM? What causes it? What’s the difference between type 1 and type 2 in terms of insulin? Jason takes us through his insulin resistance model of diabetes. What causes insulin resistance? What is hyperinsulinemia? Why do we develop insulin resistance? Does it serve any useful purpose? With wonderful imagery and analogies – from suitcases to sugar bowls to Japanese subway pushers – Jason takes us on a tour-de-force to see what life is really like in ‘DiabetesVille’:-)

I had the privilege of seeing Dr. Robert Cywes present at the Feb 2015 conference in Cape Town, South Africa. A self-confessed carbohydrate addict (in remission!), Robert understands carbohydrate addiction better than anyone I have ever come across. He just gets it. He talks, as he writes, in sound bites. You feel like you want to write down what he’s just said, because it’s so insightful. While you’re writing, the next thing he says is equally insightful and you want to write this down too. Then you realise that you want to write down everything he says because it’s all equally quotable and brilliant. Here are some of my favourite quotations from his chapter: “Asking a diabetic to count their carbohydrates is no different than asking an alcoholic to count their drinks.” “The cause of T2DM is not a lack of insulin, it is a chronic excess of carbohydrate consumption that results in genetically predetermined failure of the insulin-glucagon blood glucose management system.”

Robert is a bariatric surgeon, but he tries to use very low carbohydrate diets as a preferable ‘last resort’ to bariatric surgery, which is usually called the last resort when very low carb diets have not been tried. If surgery is deemed necessary, Robert uses his knowledge of carbohydrate addiction to help him to help the patient after surgery. He knows that their stomach may have been taken away, but their addiction hasn’t been surgically removed. As he says: “No operation on the stomach cures the head.”

Our first case study in the book is Indya – one of Robert’s patients and she credits him with saving her life. Just wait until you see her before and after pictures.

The different types

Section two opens with a Type 1 diabetic general practitioner from the UK, Dr. Ian Lake, sharing how he transformed his own health after 20 years of following the conventional advice. He has stopped his progressive deterioration and he explains how – as well as giving invaluable information for any T1DMs keen to exercise and wondering how this can be done while managing their condition. Carbs, fats, background insulin and meal response insulin – all are wonderfully detailed in a chatty, first-person chapter, which gives a heartfelt insight into life as a T1DM.

Lars-Erik Litsfeldt is a T2DM from Scandinavia – part of the world known for leading the way with the low carbohydrate approach to obesity and diabetes. Lars shares his personal diagnosis as a T2DM and the traditional advice that he was given, alongside his discovery of a woman taking on the conventional world in Sweden – Dr. Annika Dahlqvist. In November 2006, two dieticians reported Annika to the Swedish National Board of Health (sounds familiar?!) and I’ll let Lars tell you what happened. I very much enjoyed the warmth and humour of Lars’ chapter – some probably a result of a Swedish person incredibly writing for us in a foreign language. It’s quite adorable in places.

Then we’re back to the UK, honoured to have a contribution from the famous “Fixing Dad” team. Jen Whitington, has written an eloquent and moving chapter about her father-in-law, Geoff Whitington. Geoff’s story has featured on BBC2 – one of the major UK television channels – and in the national press. Geoff and his son Anthony speak often at conferences and they have produced a book and a film of the family’s inspirational and tear-jerking story.

Nigel is our next case study. Nigel was diagnosed with diabetes – the medical profession couldn’t even decide which type he was. He discovered the low carb ‘fix’ for himself and, in six months, Nigel went from literally being at death’s door, to being “fitter than he had been since a teenager.” The response of his carb prescribing practitioners? Halving his HbA1c in such a short time was “too quick” and he should be more careful! He continued to ignore their advice.

The practitioners

Dr. Caryn Zinn tells a page turner of a story about how her colleague, Professor Grant Schofield, made some ‘outrageous’ statements saying that low carb diets and saturated fat had been wrongly demonised. Caryn stormed off in search of the evidence ‘to show him’ and you’ll have to read Chapter eight to see what happened next. If I tell you that Caryn, like Gary, Jennifer and Tim above, became one of the practitioners at risk of being stopped from helping patients by zealous dieticians, you may be even more curious. My admiration for those within the system, who challenge the system, knows no bounds.

Dr. Neville Wellington is on the board of The Noakes Foundation. He is also a doctor in Cape Town who was becoming increasingly upset at his inability to help the increasing number of T2DM people walking into his surgery. Neville was contacted by Professor Noakes in 2012. Tim shared with Neville his journey into evidence-based nutrition and how it led to low-carbohydrate diets, especially for diabetics. Neville followed along the same path and found the same. Neville now has quite a tool kit to help his patients and his chapter is an invaluable guide to glucose monitoring – why do it, when to do it, how to do it. “Ultimately, it becomes obvious that diabetes is controlled (or even reversed) one meal at a time.” This is a wonderfully practical and helpful chapter for any diabetic and anyone who knows a diabetic – that’s most of us. One of Neville’s sentences should be pinned on fridges across the globe: “In general, it becomes very obvious that ‘lows’ (hypoglycemia) are caused by too much medication, and ‘highs’ (hyperglycemia) are caused by too much carbohydrate.”

The final of our three practitioners is a GP (General Practitioner) in the UK. If you’ve seen Dr. David Unwin present at conferences, you’ll know he has a bedside manner to die for (no pun intended!) He is warm, calm and encouraging. David also currently has the excitement of a 5-year-old on Christmas Eve because, like Caryn and Neville, he has – after 30 years as a GP – found something that works for his diabetic patients. He is getting the most extra-ordinary results – and these have not gone unnoticed. David was awarded the UK National NHS (National Health Service) Innovator of the year award (2016) out of ten regional finalists.

Lindy’s case study closes this section. Life took Lindy to Holland and, when she finally left the country, she had gained 40kg and Type 2 diabetes. Faced with the usual advice of high carbohydrate intake and metformin, Lindy recalled having read one of my books and upped her reading – soon coming across Dr. Jason Fung, Dr Andreas Eenfeldt and more. Lindy adopted a very low carbohydrate diet, embraced fat and you may be able to guess how that worked out.

The big issues

The final section is the big issues. You can read any of the book’s chapters in any order you like and some of you may wish to start with these – or jump around from your favourite authors to new writers that you are keen to discover. In Chapter 11, I ask and answer the question: “Why do we eat so much carbohydrate?” There’s a short answer (because we demonised fat), but the really interesting story is how, when and why we came to demonise fat. Thankfully that was the subject of my Ph.D, the finale of which I share in this chapter.

Dr Jeff Gerber and engineer Ivor Cummins pick up the baton of the diet-heart hypothesis and investigate why do diabetics die from heart disease? What a great question. There’s a great answer too, as Jeff and Ivor walk us through atherosclerosis as a metabolic disease, the Framingham study and where cholesterol and insulin fit in with all of this. I loved this chapter. It should be compulsory to have doctors and engineers work together because the problem solving logic is just a joy to be swept away with. This is a first rate Irish-American collaboration.

The pièce de résistance comes from “The Prof”, as he is affectionately known in the real food world – the professor among all professors: Professor Tim Noakes. Tim’s chapter explains why a low carbohydrate high fat (LCHF) diet is the only ethical option for people with diabetes. (Tim focuses on T2DM, but T1DM’s need to lower their carb intake to similar levels) and why virtually all athletes should also be adopting this way of eating. As you would expect from one of the world’s few A1 rated scientists, this is an academic chapter, beautifully explained and well referenced. You will wonder at the end of it, as I did when I had the honour of being involved at his hearing, how is this man on trial for his advice? Why has he not been made head of public health in South Africa?!

We are thrilled to have the author of the best-selling, award-winning, “Big Fat Surprise” closing the book. That honour could have gone to Tim, but, as a huge fan of Nina’s work himself, Tim will appreciate that this is the logical final chapter. When all the evidence has been presented – from thought leaders, surgeons, doctors, enlightened dieticians, academics, engineers and public health nutritionists – and all the evidence overwhelmingly concludes that carbohydrate is the worst macronutrient for diabetics, one is left baffled as to why governments have not already implemented change. Nina explains why – the interested parties, the money at stake, the conflicts embedded – there is no incentive to change from the perspective of big pharma or big food or the government bodies they lobby.

As Lars says in his chapter: “A moderately ill patient, with a long life, would be the perfect customer!”

Jason emailed me in the early stages of developing the book and, in his usual brilliant and concise way, he nailed it. What this book needs to show, he said is: 1) T2DM is reversible and 2) T2DM is a dietary disease, which demands a dietary solution. Drugs don’t work.

I think we’ve done it – by gum, I really think we’ve done it.

References
Ref 1) Banting W. Corpulence: a letter addressed to the public. Melbourne: W.B. Stephens, 1864.
Ref 2) During the hearing, it became clear that a particular paper had played a significant part in the prosecution of Professor Noakes. Several prosecution witnesses admitted to “waiting for” this particular paper so that they had the “evidence” to charge “the Prof.” The paper was:
Naude CE, Schoonees A, Senekal M, Young T, Garner P, Volmink J. Low Carbohydrate versus Isoenergetic Balanced Diets for Reducing Weight and Cardiovascular Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. PLoS One 2014.
Ref 3) https://therussells.crossfit.com/2017/01/05/big-food-vs-tim-noakes-the-final-crusade/

Introduction

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

We are talking to the one and only Tara Garrison today. I was lucky enough to meet her at the Biohacking Congress. I say Congress on purpose because it is a conference that’s called the Biohacking Congress. It goes on a few times per year.

They started in late 2020, I believe, and we’ve been attending almost every single one. We will be at the one in February of 2023, which is in Austin, Texas. I think it’s the fourth and fifth. I will be flying down for that. I’ll be speaking there. Come check us out. We would love to hang with you. I’m sure I will have another FDN or two that’ll be helping me out at the booth, so it is going to be a good time. We’d love to see you there.

But I met Tara at one of these things. These are the types of people that show up to them, and she’s cool as can be. This woman has a really impressive story. She has an amazing energy. I think you guys are going to love this conversation today because it also incorporates the entrepreneurial aspect of what we do into the conversation.

Every time we include that in podcasts, you guys seem to love it. I love it too, it’s fun. So, we will read a little bit about her and then we will get to it here.

A Little About Entrepreneur Tara

Tara Garrison is the founder of HIGHER, a health and life coaching company that offers training, nutrition mindset, and biohacking coaching. She has helped many celebrities, professional athletes, and top executives optimize their health.

Tara is the author of Short-Term Keto, host of the Inside Out Health Podcast, creator of Higher Retreats, and producer of the Coach Tara app. She is a mom of four, avid weightlifter, Boston Marathoner, and lover of nature. You can find her on Instagram and TikTok at Coach Tara Garrison, where she shares health tips and the inner workings of her life.

This is one of those times where the podcast will just speak for itself. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.

All right. Hello, Tara. Thanks so much for being here with us today.

[00:01:59] Tara Garrison: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

[00:02:00] Detective Ev: So, we had just met the first time in person, at the Biohacking Congress. We met in Miami. I know that you had done an interview with Reed Davis, the founder of FDN. If I’m not mistaken, you guys had to repeat that one, didn’t you? Because of technical. So as a spoiler alert, is that already out or will that be out like a few weeks from now? How will that work?

[00:02:19] Tara Garrison: Yeah, I still have to get it from them, so it’s not out yet. But it will be on my Inside Out Health Podcast sometime soon.

[00:02:25] Detective Ev: Definitely guys, I’ll have her podcast in the links below, and if that comes out prior to this being released, I’ll have it in there. Or if you’re listening in the future, it might already be there. I always update this thing just to keep people intact.

Overweight and Can’t Figure It Out

Reed does so much, and people always follow him. They love listening to his stuff.

Tara Garrison: He’s awesome.

Detective Ev: That’ll be cool to see what you guys did.

But I want to get started today very similarly to how we always get started with people. And it’s just figuring out the background. Because when I was going through your bio and then the website and stuff, there’s many things I want to talk about.

I mean, you got a lot going on. I’m really impressed with the dedication to the health side, sure. But the entrepreneurial spirit, I think is something that very much connects here. Because regardless of whether the person that joins FDN started out as an entrepreneur, you’re kind of forced into that if you really want to succeed at the highest level.

So, you’re like the perfect person in many ways. What got you into this? Did you have health symptoms at one point or what was happening?

[00:03:16] Tara Garrison: Well, yeah. And I got treated, I got to hear your story, which I can’t wait to have you on my podcast cause your story’s so powerful for mental health. Like, so powerful.

For me, my story was, it’s always pain, right? It’s always pain that brings us into our purpose. I mean, it’s kind of cliche, but it’s true.

So, for me, I was the very quintessential mom who’s been kind of overweight her whole life. Maybe had little bits and pieces of not being overweight. And just eternally frustrated. Like I’m not like morbidly obese, but I’m overweight and I just can’t figure it out. And I guess everybody else can figure it out, but me. Right?

Weightlifting and Nutrition

Even with that, I was still, I was running marathons. So, I have four kids and I’m like quintessential mom runner, going to workout classes, Zumba, and the little lifting classes sometimes, but mostly running. I was actually a pretty decent runner, for being kind of overweight.

I wanted to qualify for the Boston Marathon, and I just couldn’t get there. I kept missing it by nine minutes exactly. It was so frustrating. So, I gave up. I did give up on that dream.

Then I picked up weightlifting. I picked up weightlifting out of sheer necessity as a mom. I was tired of doing the whole drop my kids off at the gym for the 10:00 AM Zumba class. And now it’s one o’clock before I’m even showered. Like, where did my whole day has gone? Not good for circadian rhythm at all.

But I was like, I’m going to start putting my kids to bed and join this little $10 a month gym down the street. All they had was weights and treadmills and ellipticals and stuff. I was like, well, I guess I’m going to have to learn how to lift weights. And man, at first it was same story as most women. I was super embarrassed. I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s just so embarrassing. Everyone’s looking at me, gym phobia, all this stuff.

But once I got past that and I got bit by the lifting bug, I was lifting consistently for like eight months. Saw a picture of myself at a family reunion, didn’t look any different. And I was like, I know I’ve got muscle under here. I want to show it. So that’s when I got into nutrition. And it worked.

Running a Marathon & Experiencing A Personal Awakening

I went from probably close to like 40% body fat to, I actually got down to 11% body fat, which I don’t recommend. I got a little too obsessed for a minute there. But you know, what happened after that was, I ran a half marathon with some friends just for fun.

I blew my PR out of the water. So, I was like, wow, I think I’m going to try to run a full marathon, see if I can qualify for Boston. Four weeks later, ran a full marathon. Shaved half an hour off of my marathon time without barely training for it, too. Was not even sore the first time. So, I qualified for Boston with 17 minutes to spare.

That happened because, one, obviously I was lighter, right? I lost 40 pounds. So that’s going to make you a faster runner. But I also really changed my power to weight ratio. So, I ended able to run the Boston Marathon in 2017. And that’s the mechanical health side of my story.

It also led to a huge personal awakening in me. Because as you know, when your gut gets healthier and your mind gets healthier and you’re eating nutritious foods and you’ve lost all this inflammation, like you can literally think better. I truly felt like I became smarter, like a more critically thinking person.

And I went through a dramatic life change. I got out of a religion that, for me, was not aligned for me anymore, that I had been in my whole life. I actually ended up getting divorced, my marriage was not aligned. I got into a really unhealthy relationship after that. Lost everything and went on this journey.

Going Through a Lot Before Entrepreneurship

You want to talk about entrepreneurship. When I started this Coach Tara Garrison business, you’re exactly right, it’s like, I just want to help people get healthy. I kept saying, I want to help people feel strong, this feels so amazing. I felt like the universe was like, oh, you want to help people get strong? Okay, well you got a bunch of stuff you still gotta learn, girl.

You’re going to have to go through some really deep darkness on the life side of things. So, I did. Through that, just like I know probably everybody listening, most people know your story, it’s like desperation. It’s like, I don’t want to feel like this anymore. So, you become extremely open and very solutions focused. It’s like, okay, I’ll try it. Let’s try it. You know?

So that whole path, I thought I had gone through this big mindset journey when I changed my health and my body. Then I had to go through it on the whole life into things and how I relate to myself. Through that, that’s how I got to where I’m at now and teaching all of these things that I’ve learned along my path.

Yeah, entrepreneurship. It’s like you want to help people get healthy, I bet you didn’t realize you were going to become a business owner. That’s pretty much what happens. Good luck. Right?

[00:07:28] Detective Ev: Wow. So many things here. First of all, I have to acknowledge this because our audience is so audio based a lot of the times. We’re working on the YouTube stuff, but the first 170 episodes of this podcast, we did audio only. You’re one of like the first 30 on the more video site.

Longevity & Strength, Without the Bulky

With that said, just for those listening, this is probably the most jacked mom of four you guys have ever seen in your life. Like, it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s very impressive. Very cool. And I had no idea that you had came from a place of being overweight at all. I mean it just seems to me that you would’ve been in fitness kind of your whole life. And sure, you were in a different sense, but not in the way that you are now or what you were doing.

I know so many people, especially women, I hear this all the time, that are scared to lift weights cause they’re afraid of the bulky thing. I’m like, okay, one. First of all, do you know how much time it would take to actually get legitimately bulky as a woman. That’s not how it’s designed. But this is for strength and fitness and health. I always recommend people do it.

I’m not the biggest person in the world. I still go lift weights two to four times a week because I know what it, first of all, just does for you, health wise, long term. It’s one of the biggest things for longevity. Also, you can get very strong. Who doesn’t want to be stronger without getting hugely bulky? Right?

I can do lifts that are pretty decent for my size and I’m not some massive person. So, strength is not always correlated a hundred percent with the mass thing, although obviously they typically go hand in hand. But if you guys want a crazy video, go on YouTube and look up 150-pound guy benches 405 pounds on the bench press. He is the most unassuming dude in the world. The whole gym is staring at him.

My Gateway Drug to Personal Awakening

With that said, you went through all this stuff. And I liked that you brought up how this helps you think clearer. I won’t get into this fully, but our group, I think people in the functional medicine space or the biohacking crew that we have, it is a bunch of people who do think a little critically. Some of us are very skeptical about things that go on in the world. I’m not talking specifics; I’m just saying in general.

I believe if you are out there, one of those people who thinks that there’s some group doing something, which maybe there is, I don’t know, if there is, the biggest secret that they have is keeping people sick and dumb. Because when you are sick, what are you fighting back from? You’re not even thinking about what’s going on in the world.

It is amazing, the correlation I see between people getting healthier and them changing their religious beliefs, right? Getting out of a relationship that wasn’t serving them. We are running on autopilot with things that don’t serve us. And the second you get healthy again, it’s like, I gotta clean up some of this stuff that I’m in.

[00:09:48] Tara Garrison: Yep. I call getting healthy, my gateway drug to personal awakening. That’s what it felt like for me, truly. And you’re exactly right. Like I was raised in a very dogmatic religion, right? It was the lens through which I saw life. And I was in leadership. You know, my whole life was devoted to this.

It was the Mormon religion. I went to their college. That’s how I got out to Utah, where I live now. I was in leadership for the church. You know, I was so in it, it’s unreal.

Entrepreneurship: Getting Healthy & Making Changes More Easily

When I started to get healthy, I finally had the strength to be like, you know what, that doesn’t make any sense. I don’t mean any disrespect to anybody who wants to, you know, that jives with them. But for me, it was just the matter of fact that I was able, I felt like I was literally capable of having the strength within myself to be like, hold on a second. That doesn’t make sense and I want this to make sense. I’m not going to just go along with the show, you know?

And yeah, you’re exactly right. I’m very much a skeptical, critical thinker now. I’m grateful to being healthy, because to me, getting healthy was like the first step. Then that paved, I would say, a more neuroplastic brain environment in which I’m able to more easily make changes in my life.

You know, growing up, I was like the quintessential like plugged into the matrix person, right? In school, I graduated top of my class, went to college, and got my degree in Spanish. You know, this is back before I had kids.

So, it takes a lot, in case anybody out there has tried to do entrepreneurship and you grew up in this very, like, you go to school, you get a job, and you like, you know. It’s like you have to completely change how you look at life and how you think.

To me, getting healthy is like the canvas for that. If you have a healthier brain and you’re not overloaded with inflammation or metals or all of these toxins and all of this stuff, and you’re exercising, you’re creating BDNF, you’re creating an environment in which your body, your brain literally can make changes more easily.

Entrepreneurship & Getting Healthy: Thinking Out of the Box

That’s why I think you see so many people, they get healthy and then they go into business or entrepreneurship or start going after their dreams. Because you actually have more capacity to do that because your brain literally can more easily.

[00:11:47] Detective Ev: This actually, amazingly, doesn’t really come up that much in the podcast. And I probably need to highlight this more. Because getting healthy is amazing.

I mean, not feeling headaches all the time or having severe skin issues or mental health issues is awesome. But yeah, the freedom on the other side! Because it’s not just the scale of, oh, you go from like unhealthy to neutral necessarily. You go from like unhealthy to a little farther than neutral cause now you’re inspired.

You’ve done something tough, first of all. You’ve probably did it in an unconventional way and I think that sets the stage a lot for thinking outside the box. Because anyone that’s listening to this podcast, if they have healed or on a journey of healing, by definition, you had to think outside the box to go do this.

Then I think it does, it allows you to start challenging the system. Cause you’ve already done it once successfully. So, wait, why don’t I just go do this other stuff? And I kind of felt, Tara, like I always had a little hint of that ever since I was a kid. I was always asking questions or whatever.

The health stuff, it’s like I’d get two steps forward and then it would take me three steps back, right? Then once this unleashed, I remember I did like a semester and a half of community college.

Unstuck & Awake

I really think the way that you described the Mormonism was very well received. I can genuinely sense that you’re still respectful to it. But for you it didn’t make sense and it’s allowed to not make sense for you.

For some people, college makes perfect sense. For me, I didn’t even finish out that second semester. I’m like, what am I doing here? Someone else wants me to do this. I don’t know what I want to study. I’m going to be wasting money. Like at the very least, I can come back to this if I want to.

Mormonism is still going to be there for you, right? I’m going to go figure out something else right now and see if that works for me a little better. Then I can decide if I want to be with this other thing.

But yeah, it’s amazing and sad to me how many people, forget even the health thing for a second, just get stuck in doing what their parents did or their teachers told them to do. And they’ll do that for the rest of their lives.

[00:13:27] Tara Garrison: I know. And it really was like, I didn’t do any mindset work, except for changing my health habits.

Just to set the tone so you understand. I mean I was eating McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Kraft macaroni and cheese, white bread, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, brownies, cakes. I mean, as standard American as it can get. I didn’t even have the capacity to think about what we’re talking about right now. I was just so in my life; I was so in reactive mode.

Then without doing mindset work, except for that’s required to change your health habits, all of a sudden, I was like, awake.

From Feeling Like Death to Passionately Full of Life

I truly believe, if we want to talk dopamine, like for me, I look back at that with what I know now and I’m like, Okay. So, you’re working out like crazy. You’re eating way more protein than you ever have in your life. You’re getting all the building blocks for dopamine, serotonin. You probably have more GABA, cause my gut health was better. I’m able to have the breaks on my brain. I’m getting all this neurochemical upgrade and it was just, da, da, da.

I can see life in a way that I never have before. Then on top of it, you go through that journey, and you start meditating and doing cold showers and doing deeper personal development work, hiring coaches. It’s just like, it’s insane.

People see pictures of me. I almost want to give you a picture or something that you guys can put in this. Cause I am unrecognizable, not just because my body changed, but my whole energy. I hear that from people all the time. They’re like, how can you be the same person? I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t feel like I am. I truly feel like that person died and like quote/unquote “reborn” almost, you know. That’s what happened. That’s the power of health.

That’s why you and I are both so passionate about it, because we know what it feels like to feel like crap and be asleep and go through the motions in life. Then you get healthy and it’s like you’re living in like an alternate reality that’s really freaking cool. I want as many people to be able to do that as possible.

Investing in Learning from the Best

[00:15:20] Detective Ev: Well, I think you can even say, you’re actually living for the first time. You’re like, yeah, this is pretty cool here. You know, the time is short. There’s a lot of uncertainties and certain scary aspects. But man, overall, this is an insane, fun adventure when you’re living intentionally, and you have that health on your side. It’s worked out great for you.

You’ve created this really successful brand. You’re training top people. I mean, you’re doing cool things. So, I want to break that down a little bit. One thing I may have missed, and I apologize if you already said it. What career path were you doing when you were the overweight marathon runner?

[00:15:47] Tara Garrison: I was a stay-at-home mom at that time.

I had gotten a college degree in Spanish, and I was going to be a Spanish teacher. Then, you know, I was still married. This is kinda toward the end of my marriage. I got, you know, really fit and healthy. And I was like, you know what? I love teaching. I’ve always loved teaching and that’s why I like podcasting and sharing on social and speaking and writing books. It’s fun for me cause I love teaching.

I was like, this matters so much more. So, I went ham, I just went crazy on investing in my education, mentors, like, who’s the best in the world? Can I learn from them, you know? Just went on that path that way. So, no Spanish teaching for me.

Stay-at-Home Moms

[00:16:20] Detective Ev: Yeah, it’s just amazing. Because, I mean, stay-at-home mom. People, I feel like undersell this. I mean, you’re talking about four kids. That might be just as tough as entrepreneurship, if not harder. I don’t know. I’ve never done that. I would imagine it’s not particularly easy because it doesn’t end after eight hours. That’s 24/7.

[00:16:36] Tara Garrison: Yeah. To any stay-at-home moms or anyone married to a stay-at-home mom, that is hands down. When people say hardest, I don’t think they understand the type of hard that it is. Because, unless you’re like a really unique stay-at-home mom, you kinda lose yourself, right?

Entrepreneurship is very self-focused. I’m not going to lie. I mean, it’s like, obviously, I’m aiming to serve others and help, but it’s like, I have goals. I have things that I’m personally working towards. When you’re a stay-at-home mom, so much love to those women. If you’re married to one or you know, it’s like do everything you can to give them space to let them like, what do you want to do just for you, right?

Because man, as wonderful as it is, it can be very depressing as well. Because for a lot of stay-at-home moms there’s nothing for you really except for serving.

[00:17:23] Detective Ev: Yeah. But this is important because I think this is an aspect of entrepreneurship. And some of our coaches could really use this message cause it is a transition for them.

Entrepreneurship: Money Mindset

In entrepreneurship, one aspect, you guys, you can’t pour from a cup that’s empty. So, you have to be “self-ish”, quote/unquote sometimes to actually be selfless.

One of my best friends and I were talking the other day. Because he, I’m sure myself in the past too, but right now his moment’s happening. And he’s just waking up all kinds of stuff. It’s so freaking cool to see in someone that you care about that much.

As he’s doing this, we’re talking about different money things or whatever. Really, really intelligent guy. He sees a lot of the BS and how money, sometimes, sometimes can corrupt people. I really think they’re probably corrupt to begin with, but that’s beside the point.

I asked him this, I said, well, who’s actually more virtuous? Cause he’s had this almost like limiting belief about earning more money, which is going to be a part of entrepreneurship. I said, who’s more virtuous? The guy that makes $50,000 a year for his whole life and donates 50% of his income? That’s amazing. Or the person who didn’t donate at all. I mean, I don’t really think you should do that, besides the point. Maybe didn’t donate for 20 years, makes a hundred million dollars and before they die, donates 20% of what they made? Who actually did more?

You say, well, maybe virtuous wise, the person who did 50% versus 20%. Okay, sure. But like, just because you did a percentage doesn’t mean that you actually had that big of an impact, right? That money can only do so much as opposed to that other dude. $20 million dollars. Okay. Yeah. You’re changing some lives like that for sure. This isn’t a competition. It’s not saying that someone’s wrong for making 50K a year.

Using Judgement to Protect from Pain

But I think there is a lot of limiting beliefs that come in when you start the entrepreneurship journey. I’m not good enough. Or who am I to make a bunch of money?

It’s like, if you’re living in America making over $40,000 a year, I’m sorry to tell you, but you are already way beyond privileged and you don’t realize it. Making a hundred thousand or a quarter million is not all of a sudden making you some bad person. You are already in the 1% at like $35,000 a year. I don’t know if you know that offhand, in America, puts you in the one percent of the world. Give me a break, right?

We get this illusion that, oh, well it’s the 1% of the 1% that’s bad. It’s like you’re already in the 1%. So, you might as well make some more and do some more good with it, in my opinion.

[00:19:28] Tara Garrison: I have to add that. I just had a call with a client yesterday and we were getting deep into this. Sometimes what we do as humans to protect ourselves from what we perceive might be painful is we judge others when they have something that we don’t really believe that we can have.

I see this a lot with the body. You know, a woman who is pretty significantly overweight might develop a pattern of judging women who are fit and healthy and thinking well, I bet their relationships are terrible. Or I bet they have an eating disorder. I bet they’re unhappy. Or I bet their miserable, I don’t even want to look like that. I bet they’re stupid. You know? All this judgment comes in to protect ourselves. Like, well, I don’t even want that.

Entrepreneurship: Be the Change

I see this with money too, right? So, with money it’s like, well, I bet they’re a bad person. I bet they use people. I bet they lie to people.

I will say, I have been around a lot of very wealthy people. And there are different types, just as you were saying. Like money can be a magnifier, right? And yes, are there people who cheat people and lie to them and have crappy marketing that’s just full of lies and crappy products? Of course, there’s people like that. But there’s a bunch of people who aren’t.

If we can focus on, it’s like, so what do you want to bring? What legacy do you want to build? Cause for me, I fully resonate with your friend. I’ve had to do deep sessions. I have a mindset coach that does a lot of subconscious mind work with me. And I had to do it on marketing.

Cause I was like, I have this thing. I’m like, I don’t like it when I feel like somebody’s trying to lie to somebody and prey on all their emotions and their weaknesses and insecurities and then tell them they need, and brainwash, you know. I had all this stuff with it. So, I’ve had to go deep on that.

And where I’ve gotten, I’ll just share if it’s helpful. It’s the whole, “be the change” you want to see in the world. So, if you feel like, okay, there’s a bunch of slimy people out there with money or whatever. Okay, we’ll show that it can be different.

Entrepreneurship: Find A Good Company to Emulate

Look at Patagonia as a company. They just donated all their profits back to Mother Earth. Like holy crap! It was amazing! The founder of Patagonia, like, I’ve been kind of like looking to them as leaders for the last several years. Cause I’m like, what kind of companies do I want to emulate?

This really respectable, I like the way they show up. I like what they’re about. And I was looking at Patagonia. Then just, it’s probably in the last six months, he announced that all profits from Patagonia are going back to Mother Earth. And their mission statement was, we are in business to like protect Mother Earth, I think I’m saying that correctly. And he’s showing it.

You know, there’s a lot of amazing people out there. So, it’s like, okay, you don’t like how that system is? Then be the change. Show how it can be done well. Do it. Go, you know.

[00:21:58] Detective Ev: Yeah, baby! I like this!

Commercial Break: The FREE Course Download

Hey there friends. It is Detective Ev popping in here really quick. I wanted to let you know about a new resource that we have for people that are considering the FDN course.

I’ve mentioned this before in some of our advertisements, we are people who know that there are those out there that need the FDN course and actually want to do it. Similarly, there are people who never want to do this and don’t particularly need the information in the course.

We are big on giving stuff for free so that people don’t get confused and they’re not joining something that they don’t want to join. Similarly, we like people to know that, hey, we are here if this is exactly what you’ve been looking for.

What you want to do then is go to fdntraining.com/course. That’s fdntraining.com/course, and you will be able to download our entire course curriculum and see exactly what you will and won’t learn in FDN. That’s fdntraining.com/course.

All right. Now back to today’s episode.

Entrepreneurship: “Wants” not “Accountabilities”

We’re going to need a part two eventually, because we’re literally just bouncing back and forth. I’m glad that I get to come on yours. I forgot that you sent me the link, so thank you. I will make sure to schedule right after this.

But on a side note, I want to talk a little bit more about your journey. So, you get into was it the coaching first?

[00:23:05] Tara Garrison: It was like personal training, then nutrition, then holistic health, and then mindset. I just keep adding.

[00:23:12] Detective Ev: Okay. I know there’s a few things that are offered today. I actually think because we’re on the topic of entrepreneurship as well, like normally I would go into that at the end, but I think this will help us transition.

What do you offer today? Like as to where you’ve gotten to now, killing it on Instagram, got the social media thing down for sure. What do you offer people?

[00:23:27] Tara Garrison: The main base of my company is my one-on-one coaching. And I’ve made it a one-on-one group hybrid. All of my one-on-one clients, we have two group Zoom calls a week.

We do a mindset Monday. And then we do, it’s an “accountability” call. And I’m putting quotations if you’re on audio cause I don’t like the energy of accountability. We call them “wants”. If you ever want to increase your accountability compliance, ask your clients what they want to do that week. I’m telling you that word is magic. It went way up. So anyway, we do that. It’s really awesome.

Entrepreneurship: What Coach Tara Offers

Then in terms of what we do is, I started with training and nutrition. I love training. That was my first passion. So, we do training, nutrition, and then we also do mindset. It’s like life coaching.

We go into relationships. We go into your professional life and finances. We go into your relationship with yourself and your physical. I call those my four peaks. I’m not like business coaching them. My job is just to ask excellent questions and make sure they’re aligned and doing what they want to do. I’m holding that space for them.

Then we do, I call it biohacking. And it’s very similar to what you guys do with FDN. It’s a lot of lab testing, right? We do anything from DNA analysis to blood work, to hair mineral analysis, to heart rate variability tracking, to stool analysis and all of that kinda stuff.

That’s what I do. That’s my main gig. Then I have an app for people who can’t afford that, it’s training, nutrition. I have some mindset journeys and a biohacking section in there. It’s just called the Coach Tara app. And I’ve got programs on my website.

And for anybody who’s starting their business listening to this, it’s been a journey, man. Like it started with emailing somebody a Word document and meal plan. Right? It’s just over time it’s built, you know.

And then I have my retreats, which I am so excited about. My whole goal with the retreats is to use Mother Nature as an ally to help people get deeper inside of themselves.

Entrepreneurship: Health Retreats

I’m only on my second one. We did one in Zion National Park in Utah in April. That was like amazing. The power of love and nature and human connection. Wow! So opening and transformative. Then we’re going to Maui in May. We have our next one coming up in May.

[00:25:21] Detective Ev: We took a “less is more” approach. And we had just started, just like you said, you started with a Word document, right? Our retreats weren’t something crazy. But I had done a few with friends and they’re special man. There is an energy. It’s just like being human in my opinion.

I’m like, is this what it was supposed to be like when you disconnect for a week and actually just talk with other human beings? You have your food and really, we’re not doing anything that crazy. It’s just kind of being human. And I’m like, wow, is this what life was actually supposed to be like?

I love that you’re doing that. It looks beautiful too. I saw the background on the website for the retreat thing. I’m like, holy crap.

[00:25:51] Tara Garrison: Yeah. I’m excited. It’s gonna be really cool.

[00:25:53] Detective Ev: So, if these people are coming to you, I mean, it’s for a variety of things, right?

I understand it’s not direct business coaching, but of course it could benefit that with the stuff that you’re doing. And then you have the health side. So, what does your average client look like? Like what’s the person coming in, age, background, like who are they typically?

[00:26:09] Tara Garrison: I’ve had all sorts.

Entrepreneurship: Tara’s Typical Client

You know, I have some of my super high-level entrepreneurs that are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And I’ve got introed into this like post NFL circuit somehow through word of mouth. I’ve had guys coming out of the NFL and they’re so amazing to work with.

Oh my gosh. If you guys can coach ex-professional athletes, like do it. Do what you can cause they’re so easy to coach. They’re so coachable. The most coachable people in the world, they are so awesome. But typically, it’s normal people.

I’ve got anywhere, you know, professionally from real estate brokers to nurses, to doctors, to moms, to business owners, to male and female clients. It’s all over the place. But what’s great about health is like, none of that really matters. You know, I’ve worked with people who are making literally hundreds of millions of dollars, but in terms of how they relate to themselves in their body, it’s still like their nine-year-old self.

We can be that way too. Like we can be really great at business, or we could be really great with health, but then in relationships we’re like our little inner six-year-old cause we just haven’t addressed that area of our life yet. Right? So, it’s health. I love that about health. It’s like equal playing ground, you know?

And I love to meet people where they’re at. I love that. It’s so fun. Just like you were talking about your friend, it’s so cool to help somebody see the beauty and power of where they’re already at and then just keep building that. Helping them see that and be like, look, look, look. And then they feel it. It’s so freaking rewarding.

Entrepreneurship: You Can Figure This Out

[00:27:32] Detective Ev: Especially as you’re living that path. I mean, even if you’re not on video, if you guys are just listening, you can just feel your energy. It’s something that you can’t hide.

And this was such an uncharacteristic phrase out of his mouth today. We were just with each other today. He said, it feels like I have pixie dust on me and someone’s just like, oh yeah, this is working out.

I’m like, Dude, yeah. I’m jumping up and down. That’s what it is like when we start following that calling and intuition instead of what mom and dad told us to do when we were five years old. All of a sudden, it is like things line up and we learn to trust that a lot more.

I don’t mean this as a religious thing, it could mean anything for you guys. But Steve Harvey actually talks about, he’s like, at the beginning when you’re trying to get your dream, you’re just hoping for some stuff, right? Then God, he claims, gives you some stuff that you hope for. Then you’re supposed to have faith. That’s when you learn, hey, it’s going to come, so I gotta pursue.

[00:28:19] Tara Garrison: Whatever you believe. That resonates with all of us.

I will say for just some quick way of inspo, I started my business in the middle of a bankruptcy, had just lost my car, had nowhere to live, and had $17 to my name, had no child support, no alimony, no nothing.

I’m telling you, if I can figure it out from that place, if your heart is in the right place towards others and also yourself like really truly staying open, doing your work, like there’s no reason.

Entrepreneurship Can Be Scary But Very Rewarding

I’m just sharing that because there’s no reason. If I can start from that place and just show up and aim to serve and do my own work, there’s no reason nobody else could not do that either. It’s definitely achievable. And it’s fun. It actually lights your soul on fire.

It’s scary. It was scary when I was in that place. My adrenals needed a break after a few months, you know. And I don’t recommend starting from that place, but at the same time, it does, it lights your soul on fire. And your friend’s pixie dust thing. I call it jumping on the magic carpet ride of life. Truly, that’s what it feels like I’ve been on since this whole entrepreneurial journey started.

[00:29:19] Detective Ev: It’s just the way to live.

Where did you get the training or just knowledge about the lab testing that you’re utilizing with some of these clients? I was curious about that.

[00:29:25] Tara Garrison: For lab testing, Holistic Health Educators is who I work with. They have a nutritional therapist certification and then also a holistic health coach certification. I’ve actually been thinking about getting FDN cause I love what you guys share. It’s good stuff. I was thinking about talking to Reed about that.

[00:29:40] Detective Ev: We’ll talk briefly afterwards, especially with someone that has the influence you do.

But beside the point, so when you are working with these clients? You’ve had some really cool people all types of individuals. I always just like to hear to the degree that you’re able. I’m assuming some of them might be private, others not so private. Like, what are some of the coolest testimonials that you’ve had?

Client Testimonial: Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro

Since you offer so much, I’m kind of interested in what the transformation really does look like for someone that might come to you. Are there any client testimonials that stick out?

[00:30:06] Tara Garrison: Yeah, sure. There’s the fun, flashy, physical ones, you know? Thanks for asking cause I’m terrible about it. Like my relationships with my clients are so sacred. It’s so weird for me sometimes to talk about them on social media. I’m like, are you okay if I talk about this?

But you know, so Haloti Ngata was my first guy coming out of the NFL. He played for the Ravens for a long time. He was playing for the Eagles, and he’s a big guy.

He was over 300 pounds and he wanted to hike Mount Kilimanjaro to announce his retirement from the NFL holding up a flag at the top that said, I’m retiring from the NFL. I’m like, he’s got four weeks. He needs to go from big-big to like, hiking Mount Kilimanjaro. I was like, I don’t like to do fast weight loss. I’m sure nobody listening really does.

But I was like, okay, listen. If you’re going to try to lose this weight, I get it. I want you to be able to do that. So, we did keto. Keto’s one of my specialties, right? I have a book called Short-Term Keto. I’m not like a keto zealot, but for the right time and place, it’s an awesome tool.

So, we did keto. He lost 30 pounds in a month, and he did that. That was pretty freaking cool to have your client holding up his, like, I’m retiring from the NFL on top. And props to him. He did all the work. That was cool.

Improving Clients’ Relationships with Themselves

Then I’ve had several of the guys coming in the NFL, really high responders to keto, which I really love too for their brains. You know, giving some metabolism in their brain after being in the league.

Then on the flip side of that is like, my favorite things that I ever, ever will get from a client is when I have like maybe a female client. She’s working a regular job, she’s a nurse or a mom or whatever, and she’s like, I’m a completely different person now. Like I’m living in a different reality because they’re healing their relationships with themselves.

That is such a tenet of my coaching. It’s about compassion and love and seeing yourself. It’s not about, I’m trying to prove my value by achieving this and achieving this body and achieving this goal. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about seeing yourself and when you truly do and you have that relationship with yourself, then you go out in the world, and you create. You’re truly creating, giving, instead of, let me just try to work my way up this thing so I can feel valuable.

We do a lot of the work of Byron Katie. We do a lot of subconscious mind work. We do a lot of that deeper stuff. When I get something like that from a client of like, I truly love myself now. I truly see myself; I’m living in a different life now than I used to. There’s nothing like that. It’s hard not to cry when I talk about it cause it’s just like, I know what we went through together, you know? I’m like so freaking proud of them.

Entrepreneurship: Pour from a Full Cup

It’s like, yes you did. You showed up for you and you did your freaking work. And I’m so grateful that through all my pain and suffering and my desperation to find my way out of that same place, that I found some really cool stuff that I get to share with them, you know? It’s freaking beautiful.

[00:32:38] Detective Ev: It’s the best thing.

You might know this quote. There’s a quote that goes, the final stage of healing is using what happened to us to help others. And it’s the truth. It’s the only way to make sense of certain things sometimes, especially depending on how severe the trauma is, right? Literally is the only way that it makes it okay sometimes is to use it to help other people. I love that.

[00:32:55] Tara Garrison: My favorite quote really quick, I have to say favorite quote, Leo Tolstoy. Everyone thinks of changing the world, no one thinks of changing himself. I love that quote cause that’s all it is. You want to change the world. You want to have influence, you want to leave a legacy, just focus on yourself. Just put it all on yourself and it will just come through the nuances because it becomes a way of being.

That full cup you’re talking about, that’s it. That’s the only way. You know, Mother Teresa. Was she like, I want to go inspire people? No, she was pouring from a full cup. So anyway, just have to say that in light of what you’re saying there.

Entrepreneurship: The Journey Doesn’t Stop

[00:33:28] Detective Ev: Well, you nailed it. Because I think what happens is the downside of social media and there’s many downsides, many upsides. It goes both ways. But people see the end results a lot. And we want the feelings associated with the end result. And my God, especially the 20-somethings. It’s like there is such a disconnect between what has to be done to actually do that.

And here’s the good news guys. It is accelerated in today’s world. I mean, we got like a 17-year-old created Snapchat. So, you could still do things faster than any time in history, but it’s not overnight fast. That’s not literally how it’s going to work. It’s better to do the journey anyway. It’s better to become that person that’s worthy of getting to have that impact as opposed to just focusing on the impact.

[00:34:06] Tara Garrison: And I just shared a video of the Rock yesterday. He’s working out super hard and I’m like, this is what your after picture is going to look like, still working. So, you might as well start enjoying the journey, cause the journey is it. It literally doesn’t stop.

[00:34:19] Detective Ev: Very good point. You brought this up and I actually would’ve forgotten this, I think, so thank you. I was very interested in what the whole short-term keto thing was to you, cause I’m someone who utilizes that. I know many of our practitioners do, although not all of them. So, what does it mean to you? How do you use this?

[00:34:32] Tara Garrison: In a nutshell, it’s all about metabolic flexibility. Keto was like my first big specialty niche. I was very involved in the keto community as it became popular.

Short-Term Keto

And in 2018 when it was kind of at its heyday, I had actually already stopped doing keto. I was strict keto for a year and I’d started bringing some carbs back in. I was like, everything was getting better for me. I was grateful for my keto phase. I don’t know if I really needed it as long as I did.

I was hearing a lot of dogma. Back then in 2018, it was like, do keto forever. This is the optimal way for all humans to eat. If you have half a brain, you know that ketones are better than carbs. Those people are sugar burners. They’re these pathetic losers whose brains don’t work. You know? That was kind of the vibe.

So, the whole premise of Short-Term Keto is like my catchphrase, I guess is do keto, not forever for most people. Some people, going to do great on keto forever, right? But for a lot of people, do keto. I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, keto is freaking amazing.

So, the whole first part of the book is like, why keto is amazing. And then the rest of it is considerations for why you might consider bringing carbs back in. Because you know, we’re looking at women, they might have low serotonin. You take somebody who’s already low serotonin, you put them on a ketogenic diet for long enough, they might start to get some problems, you know?

Flexing in and Out of Ketosis

I just wanted to give information like, hey, just so you know, here’s how some of that stuff works. Here’s some biofeedback you can look for of knowing when you might want to consider bringing carbs back in, why you might not. Then how do I actually do that? What does that look like? And training plans to match so you’re utilizing those carbohydrates effectively.

We go into intermittent fasting, cyclical, targeted. You know, just giving people options. I hate dogma. I don’t ever want to be right. It’s just, here’s some great information for you to consider on your health journey. So that’s what it’s all about. It’s like being able to go into ketosis and also being able to use carbohydrates, to me, is optimal metabolism. You can do both, either, or. So yeah, that’s my thoughts.

[00:36:21] Detective Ev: That makes perfect sense to me. And that’s kind of the vibe that I got from it. I feel like that’s very aligned with what Ben Azadi has been promoting. It’s like this flexing in and out. That’s what it should be.

I do agree that there’s probably a time and place, especially if the person’s like super sick, lot going on, yes, you might feel about a thousand times better being in ketosis for a little bit. But if I had to choose one, I think obviously logically it would make sense that being in ketosis would be better than the opposite – never being in ketosis my whole life. Cause at least carbohydrates in a sense aren’t essential because we can kind of make the ones we need.

But neither of those is ideal. No one was supposed to be doing either of those extremes forever. I don’t think that’s ever been the case.

Entrepreneurship: The Four Peaks of Tara’s Coaching

What’s amazing is FDN and the system itself, it’s not against keto by any means, but it’s not like we directly teach or promote that. Yet people have been getting the most incredible healings I’ve ever heard for 14 years. That’s why I joined FDN. So, there’s clearly more to it than this.

It’s a very cool tool. It’s free. If anything, it could save us a little money sometimes, cause we might not be snacking all day, every day. But it is just one tool in the toolbox.

Something else I wanted to touch on, Tara, was the retreats. Is this something that in theory would be open to the public, or do you already have to be a client?

[00:37:27] Tara Garrison: It’s open to everyone. So taraharrison.com/retreat. Yeah, let’s talk about it cause it is huge. I was basically intuitively guided to create these retreats. It’s like a “have to” and they’re going to be cool. So yeah. Whatever you want to know.

[00:37:38] Detective Ev: Sure. Well, I guess what I’m most focused on in the beginning, is like what does this look like? Because I know some people that utilize lab testing will now use that on the retreats. Others, they back up from that. So, what do I get if I go on this amazing Hawaii retreat?

[00:37:50] Tara Garrison: Great question. Thanks for asking.

Not on the last retreat, but for all the retreats moving forward, everyone is specialized towards the four peaks of my coaching, which are personal, physical, people, and professional.

Entrepreneurship: Biomechanics Bootcamp in Maui

My Maui retreat is actually my physical peak. It is all about health. We actually are doing a biomechanics bootcamp. Biomechanics bootcamp is like the physical stuff. We’re doing a biohacking buffet is what we’re calling it.

We’re doing breath work, cold immersion, some meditative type stuff with binaural beats and just different things like that, light therapies. Cause I’ve noticed a lot of people have heard about some of these optimization tools, but they’re just not really ever going to go do it on their own. So, I wanted to provide that opportunity.

Then we’re also going into the mindsets with health that hold people back and getting past those blocks. It is focused on physical health, on optimization. But then the other aspects, there’s a couple other aspects. The biggest thing is that the whole point of the retreat is to pull people in nature and let Mother Nature do her work with them.

There will always be a part of my retreats in which people are in silence in nature, and they’re just listening and they’re just open. So, there’s that. We’re going to be surfing, we’re going to be paddle boarding, we’re hiking in Maui. I mean, it’s going to be really cool on that end of things.

My ex-husband’s actually Polynesian, so a lot of our friends were Hawaiian. I actually danced hula for like 15 years and am pretty well acquainted with Hawaiian culture. I’ve always found it to be one of the most beautiful cultures in terms of connection to the land, connection to Mother Earth. They didn’t believe in land ownership in Hawaii until the Americans came, they didn’t believe that way. They’re very integrated with nature and gratitude.

Embracing and Respecting Hawaiian Culture

We’re going to have someone come and teach us how to pound poi, which is like the taro roots. It’s like a communion thing that they do with friends and family. They’re together and they express gratitude.

I, intuitively crazy magic carpet ride stuff, met this Hawaiian man at a gym four hours from my house that normally goes to my regular gym. We started talking. It was so crazy. He ended up writing us a chance, like asking for permission to be there, like asking Mother Earth. They do this in Hawaiian cultures, so freaking beautiful.

It’s saying like, hey, do we have permission to be here, and can you help us with whatever we need while we’re here? And thank you. So, that kind of stuff I wanted to bring in.

We’re going to be doing some hula and some spear throwing and just some Hawaiian culture things too. Because I think it’s important for us when we travel and we go on these retreats, to come in humility and ask and give back. We’re going to make some leis and like give back. Because to me that’s the energy of love that will keep us in optimal health when wearing gratitude, respect, humility, giving back, service, listening, silence.

So, bringing a lot of that into the retreat as well of like thank you to the Hawaiian culture specialists who will be there that are kind of helping us get introduced to that as well. That’s a special thing for this Hawaii retreat.

[00:40:31] Detective Ev: So cool. I love your energy. Everything that you say just sounds awesome. The retreat thing’s very cool.

An Entrepreneurship Question

There’s a gentleman I followed on YouTube for years. It’s like The Earther Guy, I don’t know if you’ve seen him. He’s like this sixty-year-old guy, jacked as can be. But like natural and has lived off the land for a while in Hawaii and does those retreats and stuff.

I’m like, if I end up there at some point, which I will, it’s going to be through something like what you’re offering, what he’s offering. Because that just seems like the best way to go, like really experiencing it in that way seems fun.

Tara Garrison: Yeah, I’ll check him out. Thanks.

Detective Ev: Alright. Last like seven minutes here, not a huge rush. Again, we’re going to have to have you on again at some point.

One thing I wanted to ask though was a more direct entrepreneurship question because we have a lot of people starting off their entrepreneurship journey in the world of FDN. We have a lot of female entrepreneurs as well.

You are killing it. I mean, we’re always on a journey. I get that. But like you figured it out on the point that like you are working for yourself, period. That’s succeeding in my eyes, is when we have the ability to do that. We’re thriving, we’re enjoying what we’re doing. So, what would be some tips that you have maybe for people that are just starting this off?

[00:41:31] Tara Garrison: Ooh, yes. I love this question. It’s the same as health. It’s like, oh my gosh, I feel your pain. I feel your pain. And I found some really cool solutions. I’m so happy to share.

Beginning Entrepreneurship, Take Time for Yourself

One of the gifts that popped into my magical carpet ride was in the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. I was just coming out of living with a friend for four months, had just gotten my own basement apartment, have four kids. It was like eating humble pie.

I renamed the basement apartment, my launch pad. I was like, I’m building my whole life out of this little launch pad. I was obsessed. I was in nature and silence all the time, I’m listening.

That’s one thing I will say. And I’ve been telling, my son’s 15, I’ve been telling him the same thing. He’s into all this stuff, right? He loves Wim Hof and personal growth and all this stuff too. He was like, I don’t have any friends who think like this at all. I was like, you know what? I didn’t either when I started on this path.

You know the famous Jim Rohn quote, Of the five people you hang around most are the people you become like? Well, as sad and lame as this sounds, I was like, I’m going to hang around, virtually, Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Wayne Dyer, Napoleon Hill, you know, Viktor Frankl. Like every great mind that I can get, I’m just going to consume the way they think as much as I possibly can until I start to think like them. So, those were my friends, you know. And of course, I had friends in real life, but I spent a lot of time.

That I would say, be, like you said, quote/unquote “self-ish”. Take time to yourself, not only to consume great minds, but also to be out in nature in silence. I can’t recommend that enough. Just go blank with no expectation. Get a view.

Entrepreneurship: Don’t Just Do Personal Growth Business Stuff

That’s why I name my coaching company, HIGHER. Because when I would go up into the mountains here in Utah and just literally get a higher view with no expectation, not like, okay, help me solve all the problems at the universe in my life, just letting go, that’s when all the good stuff came in. So, I spent a lot of time in silence.

Do, not only personal growth business type stuff, but spiritual work. Learn from the spiritual masters. I love Ram Dass and Wayne Dyer and these guys. Do meditation, like get in touch. Cause there’s a frequency that you operate from when you’re tapped into the higher frequencies of love and compassion. It’s different operating systems. So can’t recommend that enough.

And then a book. So, I got introduced to this. I got to go to this mastermind with all these like bazillionaires, when I’m just starting. I was like, how? Cause I trained one of the guys.

Detective Ev: That will rock your system really quick.

Tara Garrison: It was really humbling and very eye-opening and I’m so incredibly grateful.

There was a guy there that actually just sold his company for over a billion dollars. Okay. But back then he was working towards that. So, I’m like sitting here like first year, first eight months of entrepreneurship. And I’m like, Yeah, I can totally hang in a conversation with you. You know what I mean? I’m just like, this is good for you. This is good for you. You know?

He was really sweet, and he was like, you know what? He’s like, I just have one recommendation for you, Tara. He’s like, read the book, The E-Myth, and I’m so grateful he said that.

Entrepreneurship: Spend Time Doing What You’re Good At

I’m so grateful because The E-myth is basically talking about the entrepreneurial myth. Basically the premise of the book is what most people do when they go into entrepreneurship is they just create a job for themselves. And he’s saying that it would be better if you started a business in which you had no idea how to actually do anything in it, because then you would actually create a business and not just a job for yourself.

We as health coaches, we know how to do all the stuff, right? So, that book, I can’t recommend that enough. Because it will get you thinking like, what are the things here that I don’t absolutely have to be doing? And then it’s about getting past your own money blocks.

Like when I hired my first assistant, I was scared. I was like, I can’t afford an assistant. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Figure it out and start working on delegating and getting rid of the things that you’re not really good at so you can just only spend your time as much as possible on the things that you’re super good at. So that’s my take.

[00:45:20] Detective Ev: This is just such a good lesson in general. Cause I was talking with that same friend the other day. This is my opinion; some people love like cleaning and stuff. I’m like, if you start to make any amount of money, hire someone to clean. Why are you wasting time doing that? Cause him and his girlfriend spend every Sunday cleaning the house.

[00:45:35] Detective Ev: I’m like, Hire someone for it. Dude, if you’re on this journey, like you gotta learn to give certain things up.

Entrepreneurship: Let Go of Control

And you know, my dad, I love him to death, but he did that in his own business, right? He’s one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. And I’m not just saying that cause it’s my dad. I mean literally he was a landscaper seven days a week, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, from the time he was 17 to 51. That’s different than most people. He’s built different, right?

But he gets into his own business, and he won’t let anyone else touch it cause it has to be done perfectly the way he wants. I’m like, to grow, at some point we gotta give it up. One person can only do so much.

[00:46:06] Tara Garrison: I agree with you. I hired cleaners when I was still in my launchpad and couldn’t technically afford it. But I figured, I was going to make that time valuable.

What am I going to spend time doing during those two hours that they’re cleaning my little apartment? How am I going to turn the needle on my business? I did that same thing.

And in terms of like letting go of control, which is hard for a lot of people, consider the fact that there might be somebody out there better at things than you are.

[00:46:30] Detective Ev: What a concept, right?

[00:46:31] Tara Garrison: Yeah. It’s like, okay, you’re a health coach, you’re also a graphic designer now? You’re making thumbnails for your website. You suck at that. You are not good at that. Stop doing it. Pay somebody else to do it so you can spend more time building the sides of the business that you are good at.

So yeah, I completely agree.

Where You Can Find Tara Garrison

[00:46:45] Detective Ev: Awesome. All right, my friend. Where can people find you if they’re interested in some of the stuff that we talked about?

[00:46:50] Tara Garrison: My biggest social media platforms are Instagram and TikTok, and it’s just Coach Tara Garrison, t a r a, and then my website is taragarrison.com.

Then of course, I’m on like YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook and all that stuff too, but Instagram, TikTok, website.

[00:47:01] Detective Ev: Yeah. You guys know the drill. Of course. We’ll have that in the show notes.

Health Detective Podcast Signature Question

We will finish up today with the signature question on the Health Detective Podcast. The signature question is if I could give you, Tara, 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, whether that’s literally do one thing or stop doing one thing, what is the one thing that you’d get them to do?

[00:47:21] Tara Garrison: Man, that’s a tough one. My mind is going so many places. I would say, honestly, it’s a kind of outside of the box answer. But investing in help on how you relate to yourself and your mindset, whether that’s therapy or coach or something like that.

Because the way that you see life, if you can start to change the lens of reality through which you see life, you can start to change all of your health patterns. That’s why I do mindset coaching in my health coaching. Because it’s like, Dude, how many times have you done a freaking plan? It’s not that, it’s the lens through which you’re seeing life.

I would say like subconscious mind reprogramming. Some sort of program that offers that is what I would want for people. Because then they can change all of it way more easily because of the way that they’re looking at life and themselves and all of that.

So, mindset work.

[00:48:10] Detective Ev: Excellent. Thank you so much for coming on today.

Tara Garrison: Thank you.

Conclusion

Detective Ev: All right, friends, that’ll do it for today’s episode with Tara Garrison. I hope you enjoyed that one. We are just two Energizer bunnies apparently. We are going back and forth the entire time bouncing around, and some people seem to really like those episodes.

I will also be on her podcast eventually, but this woman is booked the heck out. I am not being recorded until March. I have no idea when that means I’m going to be coming out. It could be even later than that then probably May or June of 2023.

Reed did already record with her, so I assume that one would be out a lot quicker. Make sure you are subscribed to her podcast as well to check out that episode when it airs.

I think that is all for today. I’m looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. But until, please take care.

You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.

To hire a coach, go to fdnthrive.com.

For a FREE Health Review, go to fdnthrive.com/match/.

Health coaching careers – it’s one of our favorite topics!

Whether you’re just exploring health coaching for the first time, or you’ve already graduated from a health coaching program, we’re glad you’re here. 

Becoming a health coach is an incredibly rewarding career, but it can also come with lots of questions. 

• “Can I make this into a full-time career?” 
• “Where would I be able to work?” 
• “What kind of clients would I have?”
• “What would my day-to-day job look like?”

The good news is that when it comes to health coaching careers, you have many options!👇

Health Coaching Careers Are on FIRE.

If you’ve been looking into health coaching careers then maybe you already know this, but the market is hot & it’s not showing signs of slowing down either. 

In 2021, the global health coaching market was valued at approximately $14 billion, and it’s projected to grow at a rate of 6.7% over the next 8 years.¹ 

What are some of the driving factors behind this data? 

For starters, more people are sick with what we refer to as Metabolic Chaos® than ever before. And unfortunately people aren’t getting better with conventional treatment. Nobody can seem to find a lasting solution, so these people end up stuck in an endless cycle of trial-and-error. 

So what’s the solution? A big part of it falls in the hands of health coaches, or functional health practitioners, like the ones that graduate from our online certification program. 

Health coaches are able to provide ongoing personalized support which is often not the case in conventional healthcare settings. Plus, graduates from our program learn to become health detectives – pinpointing & addressing the underlying factors that keep people sick. 

Health coaches & functional practitioners are in the business of getting people real results, and this means they are in high demand. 💃

And you know what high demand means? 

More options for you! 

We bet you haven’t thought about some of these health coaching careers before. 😉

Health Coaching Careers: Sooo Many Choices!

When you’re exploring health coaching careers, the key is to start by asking yourself what you want your days to look like! Try to envision your ideal workplace scenario. 

Maybe you want to work face-to-face with clients everyday, orrrr maybe you love traveling and would enjoy speaking at health conferences. Whatever it may be, the health coaching field is rich with opportunities!

Here are some ideas to get your wheels turning. 

Hospital or Doctor’s Office 

If you like the idea of supporting a wellness team, this might be perfect for you! Hospitals & private practice wellness clinics both hire health coaches to help support their patients. 

If you go with a hospital, you can generally expect to be on-site, providing in-person support with things such as: 

• Helping to educate patients about the doctor’s treatment plan
• Providing motivational interviewing & accountability 
• Working with doctors to help track the patient’s progress 

Corporate Wellness Consultant

It’s a given that improved health & wellness among employees in the workplace leads to better productivity, and because of that, Corporate Wellness Consultants are in high demand! 

As a Corporate Wellness Consultant, you might:

• Help companies develop wellness programs
• Help companies execute wellness programs by working 1:1 w/ employees
• Analyze & evaluate workplace culture as it relates to health & wellness

In this type of position, you’re either working directly for the organization (as an employee) or running your own health consulting business with several clients hiring you as an independent contractor. 

Supplement Companies

When you find something that you believe in or something that has worked for you in your own health journey, you want to scream it from the rooftop! 

And as a Health Coach, you can do exactly that by working for (or partnering with) supplement companies.

This can take many shapes, such as being an influencer on social media, working directly for the supplement company in some capacity, or even just signing up for their affiliate programs, and promoting supplements to your private health coaching clients for a small commission. 

Gyms, Spas & Resorts 

Many gyms, resorts, and spas have recognized the need for high-level / all-inclusive wellness programs, and have expanded to offer health coaching. 

As a Health Coach in this setting, you might: 

• Educate and support clients in lifestyle change 
• Partner with personal trainers to develop a meal plans or other protocols 
• Help these companies develop wellness programs

Speaker, Author, Podcaster

If you enjoy motivating others & providing inspiration, this could be the perfect fit for you. Sharing your own personal story of health transformation makes you relatable, and people love inspirational stories & real world examples of health reclamation. 

There are a number of national health conferences that hire speakers, but you could also:

• Write your own book
• Start a podcast & host speakers in the holistic health space  
• Tap into affiliate marketing & promote sponsored products & brands 

These are all great health coaching careers. 

But many of you are wanting to work remotely, with more flexible hours. 

You want things like:

-more freedom 💃
-more time with family  👪
-more time for the things they really enjoy 🏕️📸🚵🧳

So how do you achieve these things? 👆

By embarking on an entrepreneurial journey and starting your own health coaching business!

#1 Option For Health Coaching Careers: Entrepreneurship.

Okay, maybe not #1 for everyone, but it’s #1 to us!

We love when health coaches decide to start their own online businesses. 

And this shows when you look at our FDN certification course. 

Not only do we train you to be a great functional health practitioner, we also provide important training & resources to help you start your own online wellness practice. 

Now, we know what you might be thinking.

“Starting my own business sounds scary!!”

“Where would I even start??”

And we get it – starting a business can definitely feel intimidating, but there are so many wonderful benefits of working for yourself, including a much higher earning potential! 

Benefits such as: 

• Managing your own schedule 
• Working from anywhere, and 
• Choosing who want to work with
• Being your own darn boss!

And while we’re on the topic of earning potential…💸

Founder of the FDN program, Reed Davis, expects his FDN graduates to be making 6 figures within their first 12 months of business. In fact he says “you’re doing something wrong” if you’re not meeting that mark!

Questions About Health Coaching Careers? 

So, whatcha think? 

Interested in becoming a functional health practitioner in just 6-12 months? 

Curious about opening a health coaching business (even without experience)?!

Book a free call right here & learn how we can help!

References

1. https://www.precedenceresearch.com/health-coach-market
2. https://www.nutritioned.org/corporate-wellness-consultant/

Goat cheese walnut stuffed mushrooms

Mushrooms aren’t everyone’s favourite food, (or funghi, for that matter) and this is more often than not because they’re not aware of all the fab ways to create with mushrooms. This juicy one pan GOAT CHEESE WALNUT STUFFED MUSHROOMS WITH ROAST TOMATOES really packs it for richness in flavour and adds in valuable nutrition too:

• mushrooms
  • great source of beta glucans (soluble fibre) to support cardiovascular health by removing LDL (bad cholesterol) from the blood
  • if left to sit in the sunlight can increase Vitamin D status
• walnuts
  • source of ALA which converts to DHA (although a rate limiting process of only about 5-10%) which helps reduce inflammation, support brain function and cognition and vital in fertility/pregnancy for baby’s brain development
• goat cheese
  • source of calcium to support health of teeth and bones
  • calcium also an electrolyte – important for fluid balance and chemical reactions in the body
• tomatoes
  • rich in antioxidant lycopene and vitamin C to reduce cell damage resulting from oxidative stress in the body
  • Vitamin C critical for healthy collagen in skin, tendons, joints

RECIPE BELOW….

GOAT CHEESE WALNUT STUFFED MUSHROOMS WITH ROAST TOMATOES

Serves 6 as a side

Gluten free : Vegetarian : Vegan optional

700g chopped fresh tomatoes

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic

1/3 cup chopped parsley, plus 1/3 cup fresh leaves kept for garnish

250g / 6 medium portobello or field mushrooms, stems removed

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup (60g) walnuts, chopped

2 tbsp caramelised onion (I like this one)

1/2 cup chopped mixed herbs

1 egg

To serve : 100g goat cheese, kalamata olives if desired

Heat oven to 180C. Brush the top of each mushroom with some extra virgin olive oil. Add tomatoes, 1/3 cup chopped parsley, garlic cloves and about 1 tbsp olive oil to an oven proof dish, season with sea salt and black pepper and toss to combine. Arrange mushrooms over the top with the stem / cup side upward to stuff. In a bowl combine walnuts, caramelised onion, herbs and whisk 1 egg in for binding. Spoon between mushrooms equally and place in oven to cook for 20 minutes. Once cooked top with fresh parsley leaves and goat cheese if desired and serve hot.

(Image : kitchen helper – evidently does not need collagen support *wink, but going for all the mushrooms and goat cheese all the same!)

If aiming for a dairy free option then simply omit goat cheese and you’ll still have a beautiful dish to serve!

Do you often lose control when you’re around food? Keep reading to learn how you can gain self-control around food today. 

Maybe it’s a specific type of chips, or a brand of crackers, where no matter how much you tell yourself no, you feel like you completely lose control around them. Does this sound like you? If so, you’re certainly not alone. Losing control when you’re around food is one of the most common ailments we see clients with today. People often struggle to control how much they eat or what they eat when certain food items are placed in front of them. 

In order to take back control, we actually have to relinquish a bit of control. Confusing, I know. But I promise it will make sense in a moment. Let’s get into it. 

Is Food Controlling Your Life?

So how do you know if you’re really losing control around food? There are a few tell-tale signs we can use. 

• You often find yourself mindlessly eating without intention
• You’re overcome with guilt, stress, and overwhelm after eating “bad” foods 
• Certain foods aren’t allowed to be kept in your house 
• When you eat certain foods you eat much more than you had intended
• You sometimes feel sick because you’ve eaten so much of something without intention

If you see yourself in some of these signs, then chances are your relationship with food is causing you to feel out of control around food. Now let’s chat through how you can take control back. 

5 Steps To Gain Self-Control Around food 

In order to gain self-control around food, we need to create a sustainable, positive relationship with food. That even includes the food items you’ve told yourself you shouldn’t have! The loss of control you’re experiencing is a direct result of the restrictions, rules, and morality that you’ve put into place. 

Take the following 5 steps to take back control and create a sustainable relationship with food that puts you back in the driver’s seat. 

Stop Thinking About Food as Good or Bad

Thinking about food as good or bad creates those feelings of, “I should eat this.”, or, “I’m not supposed to eat that.”. Which doesn’t seem very harmful, right?

Unfortunately, it can be. 

When we try and force ourselves to eat something we really don’t want to eat, we’re inherently unhappy about it. The same goes for restrictions. When we don’t allow ourselves to eat something that we truly want and enjoy, we’re undoubtedly going to rebel. This is where the loss of control comes in. 

Eventually, you break the rules. You don’t do what you, “should” do and instead do what you want to do. The result? You’re completely out of control around food and left feeling guilty and ashamed. The root cause of the scenario is the assigning of morality to food. If we can simply look at food as food, we’re then able to make decisions based on our wants, needs, likes, and dislikes. You have self-control around food. 

Ditch The Eating Schedule 

Your body doesn’t function on a strict schedule. Instead, it has hunger and satiety cues that tell you when you’re hungry and when you’re full. When you ignore these cues and try to abide by a schedule instead, chances are you’ll eventually hit your breaking point. 

Before you know it, it’ll be 6:00 pm and you can’t help but eat everything in sight in the kitchen while you’re preparing dinner. It feels like you’ve completely lost control! When in reality, your body simply hasn’t had enough to eat all day, so your hunger cues are shooting through the roof.

Ditch the eating schedules to gain back self-control around food. 

Stop Following Diet Trends 

Whenever you try to follow the newest diet or trend, you’re often completely ignoring your personal preferences and needs in order to do so. As a result, you’ll probably have to cut out some of your favorite foods or heavily restrict them. 

In reality, does that mean you’re never going to eat those foods again? No, of course, it doesn’t. Eventually, the diet ends. Then what? You decide to have the food item again, and you feel like you’ve completely lost control. At this moment, it’s so easy to blame the food item. As if it’s the food item’s fault or it’s the food item causing the reaction. Yet instead, this extreme loss of control is a result of restriction. 

By no longer following diets, detoxes, or food trends, you can stick to your inherent wants and needs and gain self-control around food. 

Build Balanced Meals

Balanced meals allow you to feel satiated, energized, and satisfied. They don’t leave you feeling lethargic, hungry, and ridden with cravings. 

In order to gain back self-control around food, start paying attention to the components you’re including in your meals. Aim to get a source of protein, fat, a starchy and/or sugary carbohydrate, a non-starchy carbohydrate, and a flavor factor. This is what we call the Foundational Five! 

Remove The Food Rules 

Lastly, after ditching the diets and removing morality, we need to also leave the food rules behind. Food rules are just as wrapped up in restrictions as the previous topics we’ve discussed.

They’re often implemented with great intentions! Maybe you’d like to eat more nourishing meals to increase energy or lower your weight for health purposes, so you create a few food rules. Unfortunately, they almost always come back to bite us. Instead of abiding by food rules, utilize the Foundational Five and a mindset of balance to sustain healthy habits for life. 

The Takeaway

The more control we try to exert over food, the less control we feel like we have. Take your time to mend your relationship with food and make peace with it. This will allow you to feel in control around food and stress about it so much less. 

Do You Want to Experience More Balance with your Food Choices?

Introduction

[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 focused on your skin.

We are talking to a gentleman I’ve gotten to meet a couple of times now at these things called the Biohacking Congresses. The Biohacking Congress, if you guys don’t know, pretty fun place. We’ve been hanging out there as FDNs very often. They are a newer event. They started; I believe in 2020. Not really the best time to start an event, so I give these guys a lot of credit for what they’ve pushed through. And they are doing three or four events per year. I think it’s probably three right now.

So, they do Miami. They’ve been doing Boston. They’ve been doing Vegas. I know that we have one coming up in February of. 2023 in Austin, Texas. Which I think will be pretty fruitful for them because that’s a great place for a lot of these conferences, it seems. I can imagine that’ll be a fun one.

Definitely check them out, biohackingcongress.com. And always, of course, listen to this podcast, because when these events are coming up, we will have discounted tickets for the show. A lot of the times we have 50% off as FDNs cause we are a high-level sponsor of them. So pretty cool.

Now with that said, the gentleman that I got to talk to on this podcast, really interesting guy that took a huge career turn. I know that we have that typically, but very large career turn. You will hear that in the podcast itself.

Natural Rejuvenation Processes for Your Skin

His name is Amitay Eshel. He’s an entrepreneur in the biohacking and beauty field. He has held executive roles in the health, wellness, and beauty industry for over a decade, as well as being a business development consultant in that space.

As co-founder and CEO of Young Goose, the biohacking skincare company and host of the Young Goose’s Biohacking Beauty podcast, Amitay has been making waves in his industry through education and innovation. Young Goose embodies his two passions, performance optimization, and skin health, with products that boost the functions of natural rejuvenation processes in the skin.

Really kind of cool stuff and something that if you’re a regular listener, you know I’m quite interested in. Because I’m someone who suffered with a lot of skin stuff for many, many years. I think what they’re doing is interesting, especially the way that he quote/unquote “sells this”.

He does not sell it as a magic bullet, as a magic potion or lotion that’s going to somehow cure acne or psoriasis or whatever it might be. He fully explains and is transparent that this is a great tool in the toolbox, mixed in with the other lifestyle changes that are needed to get us to optimal skin health. And this serves a very particular role. I think you guys are going to like this one. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.

All right. Hello there, Amitay. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast, my friend. Good to see you after only about a week off.

[00:02:39] Amitay Eshel: Exactly. Yeah. I asked you off air, what’s new? And you were like, well, we’ve seen each, I mean, a week ago. Yeah. I agree. Good to see you.

Hoping Health Conferences Continue Providing New Information

[00:02:49] Detective Ev: For those wondering what the heck we’re talking about, him and I had actually seen each other at the Biohacking Congress in Miami. That is a relatively, in the last couple years, newer-ish conference that, they’re pushing out a few events every single year.

Their next one is in Austin, Texas. I believe that’s like February 4th, 5th, or 6th or something like that. Don’t quote me on it. But definitely check that out if you’re in the area. I think that’ll be cool to see how that one works out for them. Because Austin is just popping, man.

We’re going to the How Do You Health? Festival. KetoCon is down there in April. Obviously, Paleo Effects used to be a pretty big thing down there. I don’t think they’re doing one in 2023. But it seems to be the place for everything health nowadays. So that could be a good one in February.

[00:03:27] Amitay Eshel: We’re going to be in How Do You Health? as well. It’s kind of a, you build it, they will come, kind of thing. I wonder if Austin’s really going to be the mecca for alternative health or whatever you want to call this, progressive health.

Because if it will, I think it’s going to just facilitate more and more of those meetups. How many do you think, can it contain right now? Because the problem is that because there are so many of those, it’s more like local people showing up, right? It kind of is those conferences banking on just the Austin population growing. So, I hope it’s going to continue to grow. And I hope, obviously, education continues to evolve as well, so we can provide those people with new information.

Health Conferences Done in a Healthy Way

[00:04:10] Detective Ev: Absolutely. What’s cool is, by coincidence Thursday night, I just interviewed Baldo and Nurse Doza that are two people helping out with the conference. I shouldn’t say helping out. I mean, there are two people running the conference with Aaron and stuff.

Man, I think the energy of those three combined and just the vision that they had. I mean, they said that they had something going on last year where they had 60 people jumping into a pool filled with ice all at once. I’m like, that’s where this is going, honestly. That’s what people want to do. It sounds funny, it’s not what you expect at a conference necessarily. But I think that’s kind of the future of this stuff.

And you and I were just talking before we were LIVE how there’s a bit of irony. It’s not the conference host’s fault. But when we go to these conferences sometimes, you know, we’re health professionals and you end up feeling more drained half the time than not because you’re outta your routine, you’re traveling, all this stuff.

Yet these guys are smart enough to do this on a ranch. It’s a true festival. We’re all outside. We’re all kind of getting to engage in the things we might normally engage in. So, I can’t wait for this one. I’m excited.

Is it Requiring Too Many Sacrifices?

[00:05:05] Amitay Eshel: Me too. I think what they’re doing is like my dream come true, right? They have a successful business as far as like an IV/Wellness Clinic. Then they’re just feeding their curiosity. They’re like, we’re interested in all those things. How do we learn about them in a short amount of time? Let’s just have the festival around it, but keep it on the, I’d say, the experiential scale. Give it a 10 on the experiential scale, right? Making sure that we’re doing it in an authentic way.

Were you at Rad Fest?

[00:05:41] Detective Ev: No. You were telling me about that and I kind of wish we were.

[00:05:44] Amitay Eshel: That’s The Revolution Against Aging and Death. But within that revolution against aging and death, you started at 8:00 AM and you finished at 10:00 PM.

Detective Ev: Oh, geez.

Amitay Eshel: Yeah. So that’s that. You can say it about most conferences. When is the sacrificing a few days outta out of your life just to ingest all the knowledge that you can becomes too much, because there are too many of those sacrifices, right?

[00:06:13] Detective Ev: Yes. If you only go to a couple per year, I mean obviously that’s not killing anyone.

But you weren’t kidding. You’re so funny cause you had said like, we’re looking forward to taking the next month off, just chilling a little bit. You literally only meant a month because How Do You Health? is like the first thing in December. I mean, you’re right back at it.

Looking For Health Alternatives

[00:06:27] Amitay Eshel: And a week after that we have A4M, The American Academy for Anti-aging Medicine.

[00:06:32] Detective Ev: Nice.

Anyway, we should be talking about you and what you’re doing regardless. I always start off with the same question on this show, my friend. How we actually start is just by asking how the heck the person even got into this. Whether that was like a personal health story.

And what’s cool for me and you, I mean, we’ve interacted relatively limited times, so I don’t know your health story. That’s even better. Like, did you have health issues yourself? Did you see it in someone else? How did this start for you?

[00:06:55] Amitay Eshel: First of all, I just want to point to the elephant in the room that our industry is so in its beginning stages that most people, they have kind of the same route. They were struggling with something. They went to conventional medicine; it didn’t help that much. Boom, they found health optimization or integrative health, or whatever you want to call this or biohacking. And they’re now hooked. Right?

For me, the story, to be honest with you, is more about health optimization. I was an Israeli Special Operations. I was the head of Recon for our special operations group. That hit kind of a lull as far as my commitment to health and started to experience a lot of nagging injuries that I developed through my military service, which was a little over five years.

Having those issues and being a contrarian, I started looking at what we can do as far as technologies to treat that and found low level lasers, which is now red-light therapy. It just wasn’t existing back then.

Doing Things Differently

Alongside that, I had a small company that we were advising. We were basically leadership advisors. We were looking at how companies can build teams out of our military experience, how to build teams in the tech industry. We kind of took red-light therapy, what is now red-light therapy, as a project.

Started the company. The company got bought out and we ended up in the United States. Basically, started consulting within the biohacking space. That’s kind of how I got into health optimization, biohacking, whatever you want to call that.

[00:08:33] Detective Ev: Okay, cool. Is this a company that we would know?

[00:08:35] Amitay Eshel: No, it’s now a non-existent entity within some of the major red-light therapy brands. We were innovating in that space when it was very early.

[00:08:46] Detective Ev: That’s interesting. But obviously you’ve stuck around with this. So, is this one of those cases?

Because my girlfriend served in the military in the United States. You know, she joined it. It was awesome. Then it seems like a lot of people get out and it’s like, okay, well what’s next? There’s not always that next plan.

Did you happen to like fall kind of naturally into this space? Were you looking for that “what’s next thing?” and this worked out?

[00:09:07] Amitay Eshel: Well, yeah. I mean, what we were doing in special forces was always looking outside of the box. How can we do things differently? What everyone’s doing that is kind of, maybe we can have a paradigm shift. If we can do that and attack things from a different angle, no pun intended. That’s carried with me throughout my civilian life.

Everything is Habits

Obviously, I understand how important being in peak health is and engaged in high performance you need to be in order to maintain that.

Because what I got out of all of this is everything is habits. You are, whatever you think you are as a person, is just your habits in everything, how you brush your teeth, how you put one foot in front of the other. Every small part of you is a habitual action.

So, understanding that and being of clear mind to cultivate habits, to me, is really the foundation of our industry, health, whatever that is.

[00:10:04] Detective Ev: Gotcha. I’m curious, cause you had these nagging injuries, you’re looking to optimize. And it’s really something I should specify here. Because I would assume that anyone listening to this podcast does know biohacking. But I think sometimes it confuses people because we kind of bleed into both areas.

We started out in what would be more called the integrative or functional medicine space and we’re still there. But now we’ve realized, all right, there’s a lot of room for this in the biohacking space. Because in the functional medicine space, a lot of people come in who are super sick. I mean, sometimes 15 years of autoimmune disease, whatever.

Biohacking, you do see that as well. But you’ll also get these people like yourself, and even myself at this point, that are looking to optimize. I said, I feel okay, but I want to be able to work all the time in today’s world without getting super sick. I want to be able to learn faster. I want to be able to think clearer. And I think it’s a common theme that many people want.

And lo and behold, biohacking’s born, right?

Graduating to Biohacking

Do I think anyone needs to wear blue light glasses at night to be in optimal health. I mean, not necessarily. You could just do some other things. But for people like us, it’s like, well I want the blue light glasses. I could still utilize some type of screen so I could still be learning or working, trying to have the cake and eating it too. I don’t think it’s a perfect situation, but it’s better than not. So that’s kind of the differences for those listening to be clear.

In addition to the red-light therapy though, what else were you using to kind of help optimize? Cause it sounds like you were onto this stuff pretty early. Was there anything else that you really loved using?

[00:11:25] Amitay Eshel: Yeah, a lot. But first to your point. I feel like you start this journey with a problem and then you kind of graduate to biohacking, right? Like you’re using whatever that is, FDN, or that’s obviously a staple, but any other technology that is imperative for your journey. Then you’re like, that’s a part of what biohacking is now that my health is somewhat better, whatever that looks like. Now I want to get the most out of it.

I agree with you. As far as I’m concerned, I was trying to do everything because I’m that type of person. I’m a binary person. It’s either zero or 100, you know.

Getting into that, I was trying everything, hypoxic training, a hyperbaric chamber, fasting, intermittent fasting a few days, like water fasting. Obviously sleep hygiene in every facet of it, whether it is supplements, whether it is blue blocking, whether it is binaural beats, light and sound therapy, mindfulness, transcranial, direct stimulation, and obviously IVs.

Creating a Product for Your Skin

I was really into NAD IVs. They helped me tremendously with pain, with some brain fog. That’s kind of how Young Goose started because I loved NAD IVs. The idea was to try something consistent that didn’t cost thousands upon thousands a week, which is how much NAD IVs cost, or nad, some people call them, or NAD+.

So, we tried to get a transdermal cream to replace NAD IVs. The problem was that the product we developed was really loved by the skin. The skin would just utilize it and run with it, and it wouldn’t share it with the rest of the body. We made lemonade out of lemons. And that’s how the world’s first biohacking skincare company started out of actually trying to bypass the skin and creating a product that skin loved.

[00:13:25] Detective Ev: I definitely didn’t know that that is how this was created. Man, I feel like so many things are pointing me towards doing more IVs because now you mentioned it. Of course, Baldo and Nurse Doza mentioned it the other day with the How Do You Health? thing.

I actually asked him, I’m like, in a perfect world if someone had unlimited money, how often would you do certain things like this? He’s like, I wouldn’t necessarily get the same nutrients every time, but I’d be doing this once a week. He’s like, that’s what I do, and I feel superhuman. I’m like, I want to go superhuman.

Now I hear it from you, and I obviously trust your opinion as well. It sounds like this could be a good thing. That’s so funny that you were literally trying to get this just cheaper at first, not necessarily thinking about the skin stuff.

What Aging is

Then you end up having this like really phenomenal product that’s doing kind of great things. So, I think this is where we segue into that. What is Young Goose? What does this actually do for people and who does it help primarily?

[00:14:10] Amitay Eshel: So, connecting to what FDN does, what we are trying to do is get the skin to function at a younger state or functionally younger, we call it. Which means that we all have the recipe of how our body should function and function optimally in every cell in our body, which is called your DNA.

As time goes on, that information gets murky, it gets harder to read, and that’s really what aging is. It’s just like bad information flowing through our cells and through our body. So, by kind of improving that information, we’re fine tuning that engine that your cells have and how they should be functioning.

The problem is, is that if we are looking at the skin, a lot of those things that we are considering signs of aging, the skin does not. So, if you have pigmentation, if you have wrinkles, if you have laxity, as long as the skin is a good buffer and communicator with the body, that’s what the skin is considered youthfulness.

So alone, if we just did that, you are going to get clearer mind. You’re going to get skin that will not age as fast. But if we want to go and rewind what aging looks like in the skin, wrinkle, sagginess, enlarged pores, rosacea, acne, whatever that is, then we need to give the skin specific tasks.

Product for Your Skin Becoming Popular

We have our basic protocol, which is just a couple creams, one for the eyes, one for the face, and they rewind the functional age of the skin. And then our serums are person specific. What do you want to do? What do you want to ask the skin to do? And then that synergy is the way that we create results that made us popular within the biohacking industry, we’re extremely popular.

Outside the biohacking industry, people are starting to find out about us. And that’s really fun. You know, people who’ve never heard about NAD or they have no idea why the cream works so well, they just really like it and recommend it. We get messages or something like that from people, like my friend told me it does something. I don’t know about the cells or something, but it works really well. Can I understand why? Things like that.

Commercial Break: Free Course Download

[00:16:14] Detective Ev: Hey there friends. It is Detective Ev popping in here really quick. We just wanted to let you know about a new resource that we have. It is the entire course curriculum. You’re basically able to download the entire thing so that you can quickly and easily see inside what FDN offers, just so that you can know if this is for you or not.

We have a lot of people that listen that are already FDNs. We have many people that listen that are considering FDN based on some of the crazy stories we’re able to share here because of the results that we get with this philosophy. And so, we really like to just make it simple for people.

We hope that you stick around on the podcast regardless. But we know that the course itself is not for everyone, and we want to make this an easy decision for people. This new resource can be found at fdntraining.com/course. That’s fdntraining.com/course.

Right there you can get a free download of our entire course curriculum. So fdntraining.com/course.

All right now back to today’s episode.

Having Some Common Sense With This

This is so cool. I don’t think you and I would’ve ever discussed this yet, but one of the things that got me into the space is severe cystic acne. Well, you’re in a skincare company, so maybe you’ve seen a few worst cases. But like the average person probably hasn’t even seen a worst case.

It was terrible to the point where like, you don’t want to leave your house, type of thing. And thank God, it was one of those things that triggered me into this, obviously because I was so humiliated. I didn’t want to take the Accutane. I just intuitively knew that it didn’t make sense. Like there was no way you were going to convince me that this is how I’m supposed to look.

I always recall a time, like I was in science class, and they teach you about natural selection. They’re telling me and all these kids in class at like 16, you guys are the best of the best genes. That’s how you got here today. I’m looking around the classroom.

I see face, for me, full cystic acne. This kid is on an inhaler, that kid is 200 pounds overweight, you know, she’s got diabetes. I’m like, this is the best genes? Like, that’s how we got here? It’s not like I had some science background. But at a certain point you can just have common sense with this.

And I believed that the teacher believed what they were telling me, but it didn’t add up. I’m like, there’s no way that this is the best genes. And so, I’m actually very fascinated by this.

Faster Results for Your Skin if You’re Older

I know that you’re in the biohacking space, so maybe it’s a bit biased right now. But do you find that there’s maybe a specific type of condition that this works better for than not? Like, is this really great for acne? Is it better for rosacea or the scarring? Or does it kind of work for all of them pretty decently?

[00:18:34] Amitay Eshel: Well frankly, the older people are, the faster they see results with their product because there’s more to fix, right? There’s more that’s wrong as far as how the cells function.

But as to your point, the problem is not necessarily the genes, the problem is the communication with them. Okay? So, we live in a very artificial society from the food that we eat, what we’re exposed to, all the way to our emotions and what we need to deal with emotionally on a regular basis. So, everything is really detached, neither good nor bad.

But we need to recognize that it is not what we were exposed to become the creature that we are for the last 2 million years, or if we want to consider it like 5.6 billion years since Earth was born. Our society is a manufactured society. It’s built basically to limit the exposure to any type of natural stressor that we have naturally in the world. Whether it is viruses, whether it is predators, whether it is the climate, the need to hunt and gather food, everything is now artificially provided, artificially buffered. And our bodies or our genes are really designed to be interacting with that type of stimulation.

Distilling Environmental Cues

What I’m trying to get to is like, think of a rabbit changing its color from brown to white in the winter. It does that because nature is interacting with it in a way which triggers that. Trees, changing their colors, bears hibernating, whatever that is. We can look at any animal, and every animal has the ability to adapt to the environment that it grew up in. We have that as well; we just are not exposed to that environment.

Part of what biohacking is actually, or health optimization is, is asking ourselves, what are those cues from the environment that we evolved to receive and to react to? And how do we distill them? How do we take only the good parts of them and kind of nullifying the bad parts? Because in everything there is a good and bad, right?

The sun, you know, helps us create vitamin D, but it also creates DNA damage, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So how can we take the good without the bad? That’s what we’re trying to do as well within skincare. But obviously, as a biohacking company, we have to admit that it’s only a very specific part of a ancestral living-oriented routine or lifestyle that someone needs to have, whether it is food, diet, sleep, whatever that is.

[00:21:25] Detective Ev: I appreciate the transparency. I think that’s actually very needed in this space. Again, as someone who suffered and still gets an occasional breakout, but I don’t look at myself as like suffering with it now. I suffered with it from about age 9 to 21. I mean, it was ridiculous. It was pretty much my entire young adulthood and teenage years until I really got this under control.

Also Address the Lifestyle Stuff for Your Skin

My point is, when you’re in that space, you’re desperate to try anything.

All of these places promise you this will cure it, this will cure it, this will do it. So, I actually appreciate that realistic stance where it’s like, hey, this will help, but if you’re not doing the other stuff, it’s just not going to get you there.

Because a lot of teenagers especially were sold on this idea. Well, I won’t mention any brands, I’ll get sued. But you know, this brand will do it, or this other popular brand will do that. It’s really disappointing then when you get it. Some of them, I mean, they don’t do anything because you haven’t addressed the actual lifestyle stuff.

Now, one thing I am very curious about is when people have dealt with like severe cystic acne. I mean, thankfully, I have the beard nowadays. But like I definitely have some scarring here and probably up here. I would be like; this sounds like a cool product for me if I could get that to go away. I don’t really think about it. But I mean, if I could choose to not have it, why not?

And I’m already in that healthy lifestyle thing. I know many people who eliminate the acne, but the scars are still there because of that. So, if they’re already doing the lifestyle stuff, they’ve gotten away the main problem and now they want to heal.

It sounds like your product could probably. I’m selling myself. I feel like it could be useful for that.

Using Stress that Leads to Positive Results for Your Skin

[00:22:45] Amitay Eshel: Well, you’re right. But I think the only word I’m going to change there is, “heal it”. Because it kind of connects to what I was saying before, our skin has no idea that’s a problem. It’s like, I dealt with it. It’s not posing any threat to my survival.

Obviously, we are not at the point where our body is aware of the fact that it can make us more or less attractive to the other sex. We’re not there yet. But the body’s like, yeah, I’m good. I’ll concentrate my effort in other things. What I’m trying to heuristically point out to, is the fact that our body addresses and heals what inflammation is attached to or what is giving a cue that attention is needed.

If you remember before, what I said is, first what we’re doing is we’re fueling your cells with regenerative fuel, but then we need to ask them to do things. And that we do, not necessarily through inflammation, but through stress that leads to positive results.

And if someone wants a word for it, the word is called hormesis. So, anything from infrared sauna or any kind of sauna, working out, intermittent fasting, cold plunge, any type of stress that then the body adapts to and creates and builds resilience from is called hormesis for that matter. Kind of what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger type of thing.

We have hormetic molecules. And our type of retinol is one of them that then have the skin adapt and regenerate in a way that we are asking it to do it. So specifically for scars and things like that, yeah. We have a bio-retinol.

Improving How Your Skin is Functioning

It’s a retinol that is very unique in the way that it only creates the cue for repair without damaging the protective layer of the skin. Doesn’t make you red, irritated, flaky, whatever that is. And we can see incredible results for scarring, acne scarring and for acne as well. That is just to touch on that.

We have another serum that mimics rapamycin and metformin. I don’t know if you guys are talking about it a lot in your podcast, but these two are drugs that are known to be longevity inducing. By mimicking how they work in the skin, we can have, for example, your skin balance out oils much better or detoxify much better.

We have a few products that are not necessarily like you see in some commercial. Oh, they target acne and you’re not going to have acne. No. What we’re doing is we’re improving how your skin is functioning, so it does not develop acne for that matter. But we’re working on a few other really cool things that we’re going to have in the next few years that are even going to improve that.

[00:25:25] Detective Ev: Just for those listening that might not be familiar, because I’m not an expert in it. But the rapamycin and metformin, I’m guessing they’re inhibiting mTOR, right? That’s really the thing. They’re kind of inducing autophagy. Is that the thought process behind it? And that might be oversimplified.

[00:25:38] Amitay Eshel: That is correct.

Zombie Cells in Your Skin

First of all, I really like how Qualia explains it. Qualia, the supplement brand, has a great product for senescent cells, which is called Senolytic. What they say about it is that it is cellular detox. That’s like the best oversimplification I’ve found.

But really what happens is that you have cells, they’re called senescent cells or zombie cells, and they do two things. They create inflammation in the body, and they infect other cells. Aside from that, they don’t do anything, and we accumulate them as we age. That’s kind of a default of the body when it cannot basically kill them off or recycle them.

So, the body defaults to more and more and more as we grow older. The problem is, it’s a real snowball. They just infect other cells. They create more inflammation; they create more problems. They’re the agent provocateur of the body. Wherever we need more renewal or wherever there is more wear and tear, they’re going to be more prevalent.

And guess what organ has the most of them? You guessed right? It’s the skin.

We have a senolytic product that does two things. It does eliminate them, but it also kind of limits the havoc they create. Through that, one of the byproducts of that is like better mitochondrial function, better energy in the cells, which causes your cells also to balance out oils much better.

Because normally oil production in the skin is a byproduct of protective layer that is not hydrated enough, that is not performing very well, or cells that are not performing very well. The body just either over creates or under creates oils in order to try to find another way to kind of balance that out.

Address the Real Problem with Your Skin

But this is a very crude way that creates problems with it, such as acne, such as you know enlarged pores, such as, if it doesn’t create enough oils, it could also cause redness, irritation, psoriasis, eczema, things like that.

[00:27:38] Detective Ev: Well, that’s amazing that this product is actually kind of coming at this in multiple different ways.

Most people don’t realize, I get a lot of people that reach out to me personally just because of the acne story, right? They want to know, what do I do? I don’t want to take Accutane. Is there other alternatives?

The first thing I tell them, I’m like, Guys, you have to realize that Accutane is a chemotherapeutic drug originally. We realized as a side effect, kind of burns out your sebaceous glands in addition to doing a million other not so great things to the body. Really that’s just addressing the symptom. It’s not addressing the real problem there. And it could be a variety of things, right?

In a really simple sense, sometimes people take way too hot of showers. I know for me, when I was a kid, I’d sit in the shower for 40 minutes in the winter. You get out, it’s super cold, and your skin immediately starts like kind of getting a little flaked up. Then as a response, it increases the sebum production because now it’s all dry and it wants it to be at that good level, what it considers a good level. So that’s a really simple way.

Refusing to Explain the Gut-Skin Connection

There’s other conditions like hypothyroidism, could dry out the skin a lot and people could have it as a side effect. What I love about yours is it’s much closer to addressing, if not directly on, actually addressing one of the real problems. Instead of just, let’s take a chemotherapeutic drug and give it to pimple face teens, and yeah, we’ll burn out their sebaceous glands. How on earth did we ever let that get to the market, let alone still be around now? I mean, that’s criminal.

[00:28:57] Amitay Eshel: Well, there are two reasons for that.

In the spirit of not getting sued, I’m not going to mention the university. But I was in a conference that is called Masterclass in Dermatology, which sounds promising, I know. I was giving a talk there about senescent cells and how actually senescent cells affect brain function. But that’s beside the point.

What happened was, I was talking to the head of dermatology at, let’s say the university that is most commonly known with academic excellence in the United States. Very controversial cause a lot of people paid for their kids to go to that university. And I was asking the head of dermatology about skin flora issues and in general, skin protective barrier issues.

I was asking her, you know, a lot of autoimmune and let’s say acne related symptoms are directly driven from bad gut microbiome. She does do consultations; she’s still practicing dermatology. When someone comes to you, the head of dermatology for that prestigious Ivy League University, do you explain the gut-skin connection?

She said, absolutely not. I have 15 minutes. I’m just giving them whatever they want, the easiest solution, and I go to the next person.

Correcting Problems for Your Skin at the Core Cellular Level

The reason I’m telling this story is that we need to understand where we’re at. Like, why are we getting Accutane as a major solution, is because that is the framework of healthcare in the United States, in the world in general, but here it’s very prevalent. So that’s number one.

Number two, our allopathic medicine is really looking at the lowest common denominator, in the most part, in trying to solve that. And the next drug we’re going to take is just going to climb one step up because that missed something that’s more fundamental.

So, let’s say we’re talking about Accutane. Accutane increases the amount of DNA damage we’re going to get from the sun. So, the next step up would be maybe like, I don’t know, God forbid, melanoma. Okay? We’re going to be treating that and we’re going to climb up and up and up. What we are trying to do is to create an upstream solution.

If you think of a stream, whatever you’re dealing with right now could have been solved if you solved that blockage upstream or whatever the poison that’s being spilled upstream. We’re trying to correct problems at their base, at their core cellular level or DNA level. Then obviously everything does improve off of that.

And that’s why I gave you the vague answer before when you asked me, well, do you have things that you do better than others? First of all, yes. Because if you’ve been living with an upstream problem for a long period of time, more things are going wrong.

But in general, because you’re targeting upstream solutions or problems, you are getting that blanket resolution or treatment that addresses most issues that people have in their skin.

Direct-to-consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising Issue

[00:32:11] Detective Ev: Wow. And that’s crazy that that woman said that answer. But I think it also is insightful, right? Because one thing that you mentioned is that she actually said like, you know, you give them what they want.

In our country, people don’t realize this, like direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising is not a thing in most of the world, guys. USA is one of the only countries that does that. I believe the other ones. What is it?

[00:32:33] Amitay Eshel: One of two.

[00:32:36] Detective Ev: Yeah. Yeah. New Zealand’s the other one, correct?

Amitay Eshel: Yeah.

Detective Ev: So, we have two countries in this world out of 200 or whatever it is. Wow, I’m going to mess that up. Do you know how many countries off hand? I always mix it up with how many bones are in the human body.

Amitay Eshel: I think 180 in the UN.

Detective Ev: Gotcha. That’s nuts, right? People don’t realize that it creates a very unique situation in these countries.

I can’t speak for New Zealand. I’m not there. I’ve never been there. But in the United States where people can go in and start asking their doctor for very specific medications for conditions that they might not even be diagnosed with yet, they just believe that they have.

Skin’s a little more obvious, right? It’s pretty clear if I have acne or not acne. But you know, some people will come in and say that they’re depressed when maybe they don’t even meet a diagnosis for that and they’re already asking for the medication.

It’s not just the fault of these doctors. They’re up against a lot. They only have a short amount of time to do this.

Clear Skin Without the Accutane

But it is a shame because I think some of them really are genuinely ignorant to some of that stuff, not perhaps someone in that position.

But I remember all of 9, 10 years ago, going into our family dermatologist, and this is a well-meaning person, right? She’s not some bad evil witch standing behind the desk trying to screw me over. Like, why would she want me to have to take this drug? But in her mind, that really was the real solution.

At some point, I’m going to have to send her my photos, before and after, to show her, hey, I never ended up using that Accutane. I filled the prescription, I was desperate. But I never took one of those pills, not one of them. And it still worked out. Maybe that could be someone to talk to and stuff like that.

I was curious. I always like to hear about like client testimonials. I know this is a little different because this is a product-based thing. And you’re the first to admit that it takes more than just the product.

But I am curious if you have any really interesting success stories about people that came to use your guys’ stuff and it just transformed their skin around and they were super happy. Because I see the before and after pictures at your guys’ booth and those are pretty impressive.

[00:34:24] Amitay Eshel: Yeah. We have a lot of them. And all of them are real users or from clinical trials or whatever that is. But yeah, we just have a lot of them.

Real Users, Extremely Good Results

We have a lot of people who have been using our products for over a year or two years and have started with one product. They can show the difference of using one product for a while. Then, you know, adding another product how that looks like.

But in general, it’s quite tricky to point out in an experiential point of view, what it means to have youthful skin. What our clients normally report aside from having like less wrinkles. or clearer skin, or less enlarged pores is really a sense of skin glow that was missing that they didn’t even know that they’re missing.

Or if the product runs out and they are lazy in ordering some more, you know, a week, two weeks, three weeks pass by, and they feel like they’ve lost that glow that they had. Because again, we’re talking about upstream solutions or upstream problems, it is extremely individual from person to person.

We have around 70% to 80% of our users ending up recommending the product to someone else, writing to us. A lot of people writing us, let me tell you. We’re getting extremely good results. We don’t have a lot of products that we’re making a product for each person, but each person gets the results that they need.

[00:35:55] Detective Ev: That’s awesome. I’m actually kind of pretty excited to try this, not only for myself. But my girlfriend, my business partner, and I, we have a light therapy studio in this area of Pennsylvania. We do red-light therapy, but we also offer UV therapy for vitamin D. It’s pretty wacky. It’s a little different. But I’m wacky and different, so that’s why we started it.

Young Goose’s Hyperbaric Mask for Your Skin

But we get a lot of people that come in for, especially since we’re advertising the red-light the most, they come in for skin issues. They come in for pain. A lot of people are coming in now for seasonal effective disorder.

But I’m wondering totally selfishly for this question, it’s not really for the audience. Would you allow someone to sell this retail? Is that something that your company allows? Like could they buy it?

[00:36:34] Amitay Eshel: Yeah, we have a lot of biohacking facilities or anything like that or like health optimization facilities that are selling our products. We actually have a specific product for red-light therapy.

Again, you mentioned your quirkiness, we’re a quirky company. We like red light therapy. We’re going to play around and see how we can improve it. So, we have a product that we went back to research a bunch of researchers from Germany in the early 2000 up to like the first decade of the two thousands. They showed how a specific form of a specific antioxidant can improve red-light therapy by 200% at least.

So, we really mimicked what they were doing and created a product that does that, that people could use at home, or you can use in clinic. And we do do things like that.

Our number one seller is a mask that is called a hyperbaric mask because it attempts to mimic what hyperbarics do to your skin without needing to be in a hyperbaric chamber, even though they’re also improving the results of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the skin if you are in hyperbaric chamber.

We’re always pursuing those really cool little niche products that maybe other companies are not bothering to do.

Magnifying Red-light Therapy Results for Your Skin

[00:37:50] Detective Ev: That’s of interest to me, and I think it would be of interest to our audience.

To clarify, when it’s increasing the effectiveness of red-light therapy, could they use it anywhere? Could they use it on their face and that would maybe make the results a little more rapid?

[00:38:03] Amitay Eshel: Yeah. Red-light therapy in general, what happens is, you are working against like a ticking clock as far as the results. The results are mainly from stimulating more energy production and also kind of signaling repair through inflammation, which we’ve spoken about before.

The issue comes with, what else is going on? So, that energy creation creates signals for the body to kind of relax a little bit. You know, you’re creating a lot of energy. Our body, again, is a machine that is designed to survive first, and it doesn’t know that you’re not supposed to flee from a tiger attack tomorrow.

It’s going to conserve the amount of energy it creates. After like three to seven, eight minutes, you’re really almost maxing out the amount of results that you can get. You’re not going to create damage, but the big chunk of the results that you’re getting, like three to eight minutes, depends on how big of a chunk of your body you’re exposing.

What our product does, it eliminates those free radicals that are created together with that energy creation and the body doesn’t get the same feedback loop of oh, we’re creating too much energy. Let’s stop that stimulation nonsense. It can extend not only the amount of time that you can be under red-light and reap the rewards, but also the magnitude of results you’re creating within that timeframe.

[00:39:34] Detective Ev: All right my friend. You might have just created a customer. Because I’m thinking about the people that come in and they’re coming in for the skin stuff. Usually, the people can see a minor benefit even on the first treatment because of course, that’s a very transient effect.

But I tell them, hey, you’re going to need to still keep coming in. But they’re like, wow, they seemed to reduce some inflammation a little bit. I’m like, that makes sense. That can happen, you know. So, when they come in more and more, it gets better and better. I mean, if that can already happen on the first session sometimes, I’m thinking about a product like yours for these people that come in.

Like there’s a young woman coming in tomorrow, and she’s like probably one of our younger clients. She’s a teenager and she has pretty severe acne. She’s looking up to us for everything. I know that we should advocate for this, but she is in that high school phase, right? So, she’s not really willing to look at the diet stuff a hundred percent, even though I tell her that every single time, of course.

To give her something that can maybe work a little more powerfully, I think actually as this works better and better, it’s going to encourage her to listen to us on the dietary end and those other things. So, I like this. We’ll talk off air too, but what is that product called for those listening?

[00:40:32] Amitay Eshel: It’s called Green Tea Phyto-Serum.

But for that person specifically, even though that would be fantastic for her because it also reduces inflammation, et cetera. And obviously I’m sure you guys are doing red and blue light. That person could probably also benefit from a product. There’s no financial ties there, it’s just something that I highly recommend with those people specifically. A product called Serene Skin by Microbiome Labs.

It’s one little pill a day. It is a probiotic that is skin specific and one of my favorite products to recommend most people, but especially people who are not very compliant with complex regiments. That’s like one thing someone can do and really improve dramatically how their skin functions and obviously your treatments together, everything. The more things that she is willing to do, obviously the better she’s going to go.

We need to build habits and we need to do it slowly in a way which doesn’t overwhelm her or someone like her.

[00:41:34] Detective Ev: Thank you for shouting that out. I was aware that that product came out. I mean, I think that’s still within the last year, year and a half. We had Kiran on to talk, but of course we ended up talking about Total Gut Restore and MegaSpore, which is great. But there’s so many products that that company has now.

I had seen that one and it was appealing to me, but I don’t know anyone else who regularly recommends that yet. That’s very encouraging for me to know that you think that that one is worth it for people with the skin side.

[00:41:59] Amitay Eshel: So much so that we, at the biohacking conference, anyone who bought a specific kit from us, we gave them one of those Serene Skins for free.

Where to Find Young Goose for Your Skin

[00:42:10] Detective Ev: All right. Well thank you, my friend. I will try that out. I have an account with them, so now I’m very excited.

Well as we wrap up here last few minutes, the first obvious question that I have to wrap up is where can people find you? Just give us the company name again, website, and then we’ll have it all in the show notes as well, of course.

[00:42:26] Amitay Eshel: Yeah. So younggoose.com. The company’s called Young Goose.

Instagram is a great place to kind of follow us and get educated. It’s @young_goose_skincare. And obviously our podcast, Biohacking Beauty, which we didn’t talk a lot about, but it’s kind of the same things I’ve been talking about today. Like what are we doing aside from putting stuff on our skin in order to improve our health and vicariously through that, our skin as well? It’s more of a biohacking, holistic approach to the end result being nice skin. So, half the time we’re not even mentioning the skin.

Health Detective Podcast Signature Question

[00:43:04] Detective Ev: All right, well to finish up today then, I have the signature question for you on this podcast. And I’m very interested to see what this answer will be because you’re such a well-versed guy. You’ve studied so many different things.

The signature question is, if I could give you 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 could choose to get them to actually start one thing or stop one thing, what is the one thing that you would get them to do?

[00:43:28] Amitay Eshel: Mindfulness practice, meditation. Bar none.

I mean, very easy research showing improvement in health and inflammation reduction. I think we have two things that we’re doing in this life. Like we’re taking care of our own happiness in both cases. But the first one is more active and the other one is improving our environment so the environment can then be conducive to better life for us. I’m obviously talking about in a very selfish way, so it would be applicable for everyone.

You know, if I’m the only one that has a good life, everyone around me does not, I’m going to suffer because I’m going to have to live in a castle detached from everyone else.

I think mindfulness practice does both. It improves your health and wellbeing. And if you could spread that around, it’s going to be obviously a huge benefit to the environment, to people around you, to everyone.

Conclusion

[00:44:23] Detective Ev: Excellent. Thank you so much for coming on today, man.

Amitay Eshel: Yes sir.

Detective Ev: Okay, folks. That’ll do it for today’s episode with Amitay Eshel. Really cool guy, right? And what a heck of a transition from very not biohacking skincare stuff to very biohacking skincare stuff. That’s a big career leap. So I thought this was pretty cool for him and the success that he’s had in multiple domains. I really think Young Goose is onto something.

And what interested me most, I don’t know if you guys could tell by the end of the podcast, is I’m like, I want to be able to try some of these things on our clients that I use the red-light therapy with to see if that truly accelerates it. At some point, if you’re a regular listener, you will hear me comment on that as to whether or not that ended up being something particularly useful. Cause I am fascinated as to whether or not that will have results.

I believe Amitay to be clear. But I want to know if it has results that are obvious to the client or myself as the practitioner, as someone who gets to work with people often. So definitely check these guys out if you are interested in keeping your skin as young as possible.

With that said, I am looking forward to talking to you guys again soon and bringing you yet another interview. But until then, please take care.

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