Category: Health & Fitness

The calorie and macro math

Here, we outline the numbers used to determine the calories and macros delivered by the calculator.

Calorie math

This calculator uses the same baseline algorithm as the Precision Nutrition Weight Loss Calculator to calculate maintenance, weight loss, and weight gain calorie needs. It factors in the dynamic and adaptive nature of your metabolism to predict how long it’ll take you to reach your bodyweight goal.

This algorithm is a mathematically validated model based on the NIH Body Weight Planner and adapted from research collected at the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease.

Macro math

The macronutrients are calculated by many rules.

1. Protein is set on a grams per pound of bodyweight basis, at a range of 0.65-1.35 g/lb, depending upon sex, weight, goal, and activity level. (For very low-fat and very low-carb options, protein is set at 20% of calories, not on a bodyweight basis.)
2. Protein needs are also set on a sliding scale since, on average, even within the same goal and activity level, heavier folks would generally have a greater body fat percentage than lighter folks. Therefore, they require a smaller amount of protein on a grams per pound basis (though still higher on an absolute basis).
3. Then, dependent upon the Macronutrient Preference chosen, either fat or carbohydrates are set at a particular percent of calories (e.g. “Low-fat” is set at 20% calories from fat, and “Low-carb” is at 20% calories from carbs) to determine the allocation of the remaining non-protein calories.
4. Finally, the rest of the calories are filled out by the remaining macronutrient (either fat or carbs). Note, if “Balanced” was chosen, the non-protein calories are split evenly between fats and carbs.

Custom macronutrient percentages

When custom macronutrient percentages are entered, those ratios are used to determine all macronutrient and hand-portion calculations. Overriding the macronutrient math outlined above. (Calories will not be changed.)

Calorie and macro FAQ

How do I make meals out of macros?

You can’t. At least not easily.

Instead, you often have to make your meals first, weigh and measure foods, and input those measurements into an app to find out the macronutrient and calorie amounts. Then see what “allotment” you have left as the day progresses.

However, the hand-portion system does make this much easier, which you can read about in your free personalized guide (as well as below).

Hand portion math

The hand portion amounts were determined based on the calorie and macronutrient calculations as outlined above.

Approximate portion sizes

Using the average hand size for the average-sized man and woman, and combining it with common portion sizes of foods, we approximate the hand-size portions as follows.

For Men
1 palm (protein)	~4 oz (115 g) cooked meat / tofu, 1 cup Greek yogurt / cottage cheese, 1 scoop protein powder, 2 whole eggs
1 fist (veggies)	~1 cup non-starchy vegetables (e.g. spinach, carrots, cauliflower, peppers, etc.)
1 cupped hand (carbs)	~⅔ cup (130 g) cooked grains / legumes (e.g. rice, lentils, oats), 1 medium fruit (e.g. banana), 1 medium tuber (e.g. potatoes)
1 thumb (fats)	~1 tablespoon (14 g) oils, nuts, seeds, nut butters, cheese, dark chocolate, etc.

For Women
1 palm (protein)	~3 oz (85 g) cooked meat / tofu, 1 cup Greek yogurt / cottage cheese, 1 scoop protein powder, 2 whole eggs
1 fist (veggies)	~1 cup non-starchy vegetables (e.g. spinach, carrots, cauliflower, peppers, etc.)
1 cupped hand (carbs)	~½ cup (100 g) cooked grains / legumes (e.g. rice, lentils, oats), 1 medium fruit (e.g. banana), 1 medium tuber (e.g. potatoes)
1 thumb (fat)	~1 tablespoon (14 g) oils, nuts, seeds, nut butters, cheese, dark chocolate, etc.

You’ll note we used one cup of Greek yogurt and cottage cheese as comparable to a palm. And we used a medium-sized tuber and medium-sized fruit as a cupped handful. These sizes were used as they represent common consumption patterns or pre-portioned amounts of these foods, which allows accounting for them to be as consistent and simple as possible.

Now remember, these are just approximates. Not exact measures. Actual portion sizes ultimately depend on the size of the individual hand, which is usually proportional to the size and needs of the individual. (That’s part of the beauty of the hand-portion approach.)

Approximate portion math

With the above approximate portions, we can create various meal scenarios and simulations, and calculate the approximate macros these portions provide. This helps number-oriented users see how weighing and measuring their food compares to using our hand-portion system.

Men’s portion macros
1 palm protein	~ 24 g protein, 2 g carbs, 4.5 g fat, 145 kcal
1 fist veggies	~ 1.5 g protein, 5 g carbs, 0 g fat, 25 kcal
1 cupped hand of carbs	~ 3 g protein, 25 g carbs, 1 g fat, 120 kcal
1 thumb fats	~ 2 g protein, 2 g carbs, 9 g fat, 100 kcal

Women’s portion macros
1 palm protein	~ 22 g protein, 2 g carbs, 4 g fat, 130 kcal
1 fist veggies	~ 1.5 g protein, 5 g carbs, 0 g fat, 25 kcal
1 cupped hand of carbs	~ 3 g protein, 22 g carbs, 1 g fat, 110 kcal
1 thumb fats	~ 2 g protein, 2 g carbs, 8 g fat, 90 kcal

It can’t be emphasized enough—these are approximations. Nothing will be exact, because all aspects of calorie and macronutrient calculations are based on averages with known error rates. (Yes, even the USDA nutrient database reports out averages. Actual foods always vary.) Regardless, this information can be helpful to know for the more mathematically inclined and/or individuals with highly specific and targeted goals.

Assumed variety of food choices

And as you can see, the hand-portion system assumes a mixed intake of protein, veggies, carbs, and fats. As of course, these food sources will have varying amounts of each macronutrient.

For example, let’s look at protein.

Perhaps you start the day with eggs (a high-fat protein source), have a mid-morning Super Shake (very lean protein powder), have a chicken breast for lunch (very lean protein source), and have salmon for dinner (moderately lean protein source).

The hand-portion recommendations are based on the assumption that, on average, you’ll get a moderate amount of fat and even a small amount of carbs from your protein sources.

Now, if you’re consistently eating lots of fat-rich protein sources, or lots of very lean protein sources, you may need to make adjustments. Based on your progress, use outcome-based decision-making to determine if you, or a client, should simultaneously increase or decrease your daily number of thumb-sized portions of fats.

These same assumptions are built in for carbohydrates and fats as well. The hand-portion recommendations assume you’ll have a mix of fruit, starchy tubers, beans, and whole grains for carb sources.

And it assumes you’ll have a mix of whole food fats (e.g. nuts, seeds, avocado), blended whole foods (e.g. nut and seed butters, guacamole, pesto), and pressed oils (e.g. olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil) for fat sources.

If your intake is skewed towards oils, you may have to decrease the number of thumb-sized portions of fat you eat—since they contain more fat than the other sources. Or if you only eat berries for carbs, you may have to increase the number of cupped hands of carbs you eat—since they contain fewer carbs than the other sources. However, you should only decide that using outcome-based decision-making.

In essence, this means asking, “How’s that working for you?” If you (or your client) are achieving the desired results and are pleased with the overall outcome, there’s no reason to change what you’re doing. But if you’re not progressing the way you’d like, you could adjust your intake.

Testing the hand portion math

Let’s see how this system works in practice and in comparison to manually tracking macros and calories.

Example 1: High-level female athlete, 135 pounds with 18% body fat, who trains twice per day

• Pre-Workout @ 6am: 16 oz black coffee, 1 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt, 1 cup chopped pineapple, 2 tbsp chopped walnuts, 1 glass of water
• Workout @ 7:15-8:30am: Sips on 16 oz water during training session
• Post-Workout Shake @ 9:00am: 12 oz water, 2 scoops protein powder, 1 medium apple, 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats, 2 cups of spinach, 1 tbsp ground flax seed, 1 tbsp almond butter
• Lunch @ 12pm: 3 oz salmon, 1 cup steamed mixed veggies, 1 medium sweet potato, 1 tbsp coconut oil, 2 glasses of water
• Mid-Afternoon Snack @ 4pm: 1 banana, 2 tbsp natural peanut butter, 1-2 glasses of water
• Workout @ 5:30-6pm: Sips on 16 oz water during training session
• Post-Workout Dinner @ 7pm: 3 oz chopped chicken breast, 2 cups cooked whole grain pasta, plus 2 cups sautéed veggies with 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, minced garlic and white cooking wine, 2 glasses of water

If you calculate the calories and macronutrients of this person’s intake using the USDA nutrient database, you’ll get:

• 2672 kcal
• 170 g protein
• 264 g carbs
• 104 g fat

And if you put this person’s intake into hand-size portion terms, you’ll get:

• Protein = 5 palms (Greek yogurt, protein powder x 2, salmon, chicken)
• Veggies = 5 fists (spinach x 2, mixed veggies, sauteed veggies x 2)
• Carbs = 10 cupped hands (pineapple x 2, apple, oats, sweet potato, banana, pasta x 4)
• Fats = 9 thumbs (walnuts x 2, flax seed, almond butter, coconut oil, peanut butter x 2, olive oil x 2)

When you multiply those portion numbers using approximate hand-portion math for women (see above table), it would provide an estimated intake of:

• 2672 kcal (exactly the same as calculating it with apps and spreadsheets)
• 166 g protein (4 g fewer than calculating it with apps and spreadsheets)
• 273 g carbs (9 g more than calculating it with apps and spreadsheets)
• 102 g fat (2 g fewer than calculating it with apps and spreadsheets)

Example 2: Moderately active male, 210 pounds with 17% body fat

• Wake @ 5:30am: 12 oz black coffee
• Breakfast @ 7:00am: 4 whole eggs with a large bunch of peppers, scallions, and mushrooms cooked in a large pat of butter, placed on whole wheat wrap, with ~1 oz cheese, 1 cupped hand of black beans, and some pico de gallo, large glass of water, 12 oz black coffee
• Super Shake @ 10:30am: ~10 oz water, 2 scoops chocolate protein powder, 2 cups of spinach, 2 cups frozen cherries, ~1 tablespoon cacao nibs, ~1 tablespoon of chia seeds
• Lunch @ 2pm: 4 oz turkey breast, ~⅔ cup quinoa, 1 fist of mixed veggies, 1 apple, 2 thumbs of roasted almonds, 1-2 large glasses of water
• 1-2 cups green tea @ 3-4pm
• Dinner @ 6pm: 8 oz sirloin (lean), 2 cupped hands of roasted red potatoes with onions, 2 cups roasted rainbow carrots, 2 tbsp olive oil for roasting, 1 glass wine, 1-2 large glasses of water

If you calculate the calories and macronutrients of this person’s intake using the USDA nutrient database, you’ll get:

• 3130 kcal
• 212 g protein
• 283 g carbs
• 111 g fat

And if you put this person’s intake into hand-size portion terms, you’ll get:

• Protein = 7 palms (eggs x 2, protein powder x 2, turkey, sirloin x 2)
• Veggies = 6 fists (scallions / peppers / mushrooms / pico, spinach x 2, mixed veggies, rainbow carrots x 2)
• Carbs = 9 cupped hands (wrap, beans, cherries x 3, quinoa, apple, potato x 2)
• Fats = 8 thumbs (butter, guacamole, cacao nibs, chia seeds, almonds x 2, olive oil x 2)
• Alcohol = 1 (wine)

When you multiply those portion numbers using approximate hand-portion math for men, it’d provide an estimated intake of:

• 3183 kcal (53 kcal more than calculating it with apps and spreadsheets)
• 220g protein (8 g more than calculating it with apps and spreadsheets)
• 285g carbs (2 g more than calculating it with apps and spreadsheets)
• 113g fat (2 g more than calculating it with apps and spreadsheets)

When looking at both examples, simply using your hands would be 96-100% as accurate as weighing, measuring, and logging all foods on apps or spreadsheets. Plus, with the known error rates of calories and macronutrients present on labels and in nutrient databases, this level of accuracy will likely suffice for all but the most advanced individuals (i.e. people being paid to look a certain way).

Hand portion FAQ

Do I gauge my portions before or after cooking?

One of the most common questions asked about using your hands to measure portions is whether the hand portions are for cooked or uncooked foods.

The answer is most certainly cooked. Hand portions are for plating your food, not cooking it. That way, they can be used at home, restaurants, buffets, conferences, Mom’s house, and the office.

Other helpful notes:

• Dry carbs tend to double in size when cooked. For example:
  • 1/4 cup of dry oats (25g) = 1/2 cup cooked
  • 1/4 cup of dry rice (50g) = 1/2 cup cooked
  • 1/2 cup of dry whole wheat fusilli pasta (40g) = 1 cup cooked

This is helpful to know when it’s difficult to use your hand to measure a cooked food.

What to do with foods that don’t fit?

Some items don’t fit well into the hand-size portion system. It’s not perfect. No single system is. It’s meant to provide practical and actionable guidelines.

Most notably problematic are liquids.

Dairy

Cow’s milk and non-Greek yogurt are tricky as they’re a pretty even mix of all 3 macros or can vary depending on the fat level someone chooses (e.g. whole, low fat, skim, etc.).

Ultimately, we suggest making that decision based on the fat or carbohydrate content of the milk or yogurt you’re consuming.

Generally, consider 1 cup (8 oz) of whole milk products a “thumb” of fat. (Even though it’s larger than a thumb and also provides protein and carbs).

Anything lower in fat (e.g. 0-2%) is generally considered a cupped hand of carbs (while also providing fats and protein).

A cup of anything highly sweetened (e.g. chocolate milk, strawberry yogurt) is generally considered a cupped hand of carbs (while also providing fats and protein).

So what happens in this situation: You have a full-fat Greek yogurt or whole milk that’s highly sweetened? Is it a fat or carb? Think of it this way: If it’s already full-fat, you know it’s a thumb of fat. But if a lot of sugar is also added to it, then it’s also a cupped hand of carbs.

The key is to pick an approach, and apply it consistently. This is probably more important than the actual classification itself. (Remember, the system already has built-in buffers: It assumes your protein, fat, and carb sources contain smaller amounts of the other macros.)

Cookies, ice cream, chips (and other compound foods)

With naturally occurring or minimally processed foods, it’s usually best to assign only one hand portion to a food. But with these highly-processed “compound” foods, you’ll want to assign two (or more) hand portions. Because just like dairy products that are full-fat and highly sweetened, they count as both fat and carbs. An easy way to account for them: one handful is equal to one thumb of fat and one cupped hand of carbs.

Soda

Again, a serving of soda doesn’t really fit into a cupped hand. Instead, consider a 12-ounce can of soda as a cupped hand of carbs. Certainly, 8 ounces would be preferable from the standpoint of physical size (and carbohydrate total), but 12 ounces really simplifies the size and math, as these beverages come pre-packaged this way. (This is similar to how we account for bananas, apples, oranges, pears, and other fruits, since they’re “pre-packaged” by nature.)

Nut Milks

Nut milks are much like cow’s milk above. They tend to provide a mix of macros, depending on the source, and classification would also depend on whether or not they’re sweetened.

Generally, unsweetened versions (like almond milk) don’t count as anything, as they typically only have about 30 to 40 calories in a whole cup (8 ounces), and are often consumed in relatively small amounts. A sweetened version, however, would be considered a cupped hand of carbs.

Again, the key is to pick an approach and follow it consistently.

Alcohol

Alcohol generally should be its own category, as the majority of its calories are derived from its alcohol content (7 kcal / g), not its carb content. This applies to pretty much all alcohol, be it light beer, microbrew / craft beer, wine, and spirits (although some microbrews / craft beer and dessert wines can contain quite a few carbs).

However, many folks like to put alcohol in the carb category, which can work, too. Again, whatever method you prefer can work; just follow it consistently.

Note that most alcohol is about 100-150 calories per serving. If it has a sweetened additive (think margarita, or alcohol + tonic), then it’s adding a whole lot more sugar. So count that as a serving (or more) of alcohol and one (or more) cupped hands of carbs too.

How do I account for mixed-food meals?

It gets tricky with mixed-food meals, like soups and chilis. You simply have to eyeball it, and make your best guess, especially if you didn’t make it yourself.

Ultimately, the general goal is to get a protein, veggie, quality carb, and/or healthy fat in each portion. This is relatively easy to do when making it yourself. When made by others, simply guesstimate as well as you can. Most importantly, if the goal is anything other than weight gain, eat slowly and mindfully, until satisfied.

Often, meals like this are a mix of protein, carbs, and fats, but are a bit lower in veggies. Adding a vegetable on the side can be very helpful. And adding additional protein can also be helpful if the meal seems to have a greater proportion of carbs and fats.

Legumes and lentils: protein or carb?

Legumes and lentils both contain protein and carbs, so where should they be counted?

Answer: It depends on the meal itself and/or the eating style of the individual. If someone is fully plant-based/vegan, then it’s likely the legumes or lentils will count as their protein source, since those are probably the most protein-dense foods they’re consuming. But they can also count as both… under certain conditions.

Our suggestion: Choose the most protein-rich food (assuming there is one) as your protein source, and slot the other items from there.

Examples:

1. Chicken with beans, broccoli and olive oil.
2. Beans with rice, broccoli and olive oil.
3. Beans x 2 with broccoli and olive oil.
4. Rice with broccoli and olive oil
5. Beans with broccoli and olive oil

In example 1, chicken is the protein (the most protein-rich part of the dish), beans are the carbs, broccoli is the vegetable, and olive oil is the fat.

In example 2, beans are the protein (the most protein-rich part of the dish), rice is the carbs, broccoli is the vegetable, and olive oil is the fat.

In example 3, one serving of beans would count as protein, and the other serving would count as carbs. In this scenario, it gets more difficult because it’s less clear-cut than the first two examples.

In example 4, there isn’t a protein-rich food, just a carb, vegetable, and fat.

In example 5, it would depend on the eater. Omnivore? Then we’d count the beans as a carb. Plant-based? Then we’d count the beans as a protein.

How do I quantify my exercise?

In using the calorie, portion, and macro calculator above, you’ll see the terms gentle, moderate, and strenuous. These describe the intensity of your activity.

Use the guide below to gauge your activity levels. When in doubt, it’s better to underestimate your activity rather than overestimate it.

Moderate to Strenuous Activity

• Resistance training
• Interval or Circuit training
• Crossfit
• Running or jogging
• Rowing
• Cycling
• Swimming
• Team sports (e.g. basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, etc.)
• Hiking
• Jump Rope
• Group classes (spin, dance, etc.) and bootcamps
• Yoga (power, bikram)

Gentle Activity

• Walking
• Yoga (hatha, vinyasa, ashtanga, etc.)
• Pilates
• Golfing
• Biking, swimming or cycling at a leisurely pace or for pleasure

Example 1: Let’s say your week includes:

• Walking for 20 minutes, 2 times
• Vinyasa yoga for 30 minutes, 2 times
• Resistance training for 45 minutes, 2 times
• Running for 30 minutes, 3 times

That’d count as:

• 4 gentle activities (vinyasa yoga x 2; walking x 2) for a total of 100 minutes (1.66 hours)
• 5 moderate to strenuous activities (resistance training x 2, running x 3) for a total of 180 minutes (3 hours)

Which means you’d select your activity level as “Moderate” under the purposeful exercise question. (Defined as moderate to strenuous activity 3 to 4 hours per week.) The gentle activities are fantastic, but don’t bump up your calorie needs like higher-intensity activity does. So that is what you would be counting.

Example 2: Suppose your week includes…

• • Swimming leisurely for 30 minutes, 3 times
  • Resistance training for 30 minutes, 2 times
  • Group exercise class for 60 minutes, 1 time

That’d count as:

• 3 gentle activities (leisurely swimming x 3) for a total of 90 minutes (1.5 hours)
• 3 moderate-strenuous activities (resistance training x 2, group exercise x 1) for a total of 120 minutes (2 hours)

Which means you’d select your activity level as “Light” under the purposeful exercise question. (Defined as gentle to moderate activity 1 to 3 hours per week.)

Example 3: Suppose your week includes…

• Golfing for 2 hours, 1 time
• Resistance training for 60 minutes, 2 times
• Mountain biking for 90 minutes, 4 times

That’d count as:

• 1 gentle activity (golfing) for a total of 120 minutes (2 hours)
• 6 moderate-strenuous activities (resistance training x 2, mountain biking x 4) for a total of 480 minutes (8 hours)

Which means you’d select your activity level as “Very Intense” under the purposeful exercise question. (Defined as moderate to strenuous activity 7+ hours per week.)

And he wrote voluminously. Many of his essays, as he put it in the introduction to “American Homo: Community and Perversity,” his 1998 book, “explore the social significance of homosexual emancipation since the end of World War II and the political reaction that it has precipitated in American public life.”

That included excavating the pre-Stonewall history of gay life, along with economic and other aspects of it. It also included examining gay pornography, how it had changed over the decades and how it had both reflected and helped to shape gay identity. His most recent essay collection, published last year, was “Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography: The Pornographic Object of Knowledge.”

“Jeffrey Escoffier embodied the radical queer public intellectual,” Whitney Strub, an associate professor at Rutgers University-Newark whose books include “Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right” (2010), said by email. “In particular, in such essays as ‘The Political Economy of the Closet,’ he showed how to think and write gay economic history, even when its archives had often been erased or destroyed. Later, his pioneering work on pornography called on scholars to move beyond textual analysis and think about labor, the work behind the bodies onscreen.”

Jeffrey Paul Escoffier was born on Oct. 9, 1942, in Baltimore and grew up in Manhattan and on Staten Island. His father, George, was an Army colonel, and his mother, Iris (Miller) Wendel, owned an antique shop.

“I had my first homosexual experience at 16 during the summer of 1959,” Mr. Escoffier wrote in “American Homo.” “After that, I thirsted for wild adventure. Growing up on Staten Island, realizing my queerness in its sleepy working-class communities, I viewed Greenwich Village as Shangri-La.”

Mr. Escoffier earned a bachelor’s degree at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., and a master’s in international affairs at Columbia University. He moved to Philadelphia in 1970 and did doctoral work in economic history at the University of Pennsylvania.

These chicken enchiladas Verdes are cheesy, delicious, and a big hit with everyone in my family. They also freeze well so I can make a double batch and easily get two meals with half the work. This Mexican food dish may become a staple on your meal plan!

Chicken Enchiladas Verdes

So what are enchiladas verdes? Instead of using the typical enchilada sauce made with tomatoes and spices, we’re using one made with green tomatillos. It’s similar to green enchilada sauce, but it’s chunkier instead of blended. If you’re in a hurry you can always use a healthy jarred salsa, but I love my homemade roasted salsa verde recipe.

It’s easy enough to control the spice by choosing the peppers you want. For a spicier roasted salsa opt for more jalapeno and serrano peppers. If you want a milder version (especially for the kids!), then go for bell peppers and poblanos. I’ve had a harder time finding mild salsa verde at the store, especially one that isn’t full of junky ingredients, so making it is a great way to control the spice level.

Chicken Enchiladas Recipe

The nice thing about this recipe is it can use up that leftover rotisserie chicken. If you don’t want to cook a whole chicken, then chicken breasts are a faster option. Chicken thigh meat is also nice if you’re a dark meat person. And if you want to stretch your meat (have you seen prices lately?!), then add some pinto or black beans into the mix.

That’s a Wrap

I chose corn tortillas here because they’re gluten-free. They can be a little trickier to work with than flour tortillas, but I find they really add to the flavor of the dish. Sometimes enchiladas get soggy, but there’s an easy trick to help prevent that. Cooking the tortilla for a bit first helps it not get too soggy when it’s covered in the sauce.

Fresher Is Better

While I’m all for quick and easy recipes, that doesn’t mean I have to rely on premade, jarred food to make it. Tomatillo salsa made with fresh tomatillos, garlic cloves, fresh veggies, and a squeeze of lime juice tastes so much better in my opinion. Roasting the peppers really helps develop the sugars in them for amazing flavor. You could puree the salsa verde if desired, but I prefer to leave it as is.

What Kind of Cheese Goes on Enchiladas Verdes?

There are a lot of different cheese options that will work here. Anything that’s mild and not too overpowering makes a great enchilada topping. Something like blue cheese is way too strong for enchiladas, even though it makes a great topping for a salad. Monterey jack, mild cheddar, and pepper jack are good options.

Making Enchiladas Verdes

A word of warning here: hands will get messy making these. It’s okay though, we’re washable. This recipe is a fun one for the kids to help with since even little ones can help put in the filling and sprinkle the cheese on top. I’m a big advocate for teaching kids how to cook so they know how to make their own healthy meals. You may know that my son even co-authored a cookbook, Chef Junior, with some of his friends.

These enchiladas are easy to customize with your favorite toppings. Sprinkle on some tomatoes, chives, avocados, or whatever your family prefers.

How does your family like their enchiladas? Leave us a comment and be sure to share with a friend!

“I wish I was the kind of person that loves to exercise… I’m just not that guy.”

My friend Dave takes a sip from his perfectly poured pint, while explaining his reluctance to exercise.

“I’m the guy who’s really into beer,” he adds. “I have no interest in exercise. Beer is my thing. That’s who I am.”

Dave, like lots of people, knows exercise is something he “should” do. But it holds no appeal.

Going for a run—and actually enjoying it? Unfathomable to him. The gym? Forget it.

Coaches, doctors, and fitness enthusiasts love to espouse the benefits of physical activity: It makes you feel good! It’s rewarding! It’s necessary! 

Yet, like a triple hopped IPA, exercise can be an acquired taste. Some people love it at first sip, some learn to love it, and others just plain don’t like it.

And that’s okay.

Disliking exercise isn’t some kind of moral failure.

It doesn’t mean you’re broken or lazy—it’s just a personal preference.

Still, there’s no denying that exercise is good for the human body.

But how do you exercise when you don’t like it?

And if you’re a coach, how can you help clients with this challenge—without coming off like the fitness police?

We turned to our in-house PN Coaches, who collectively have decades of experience helping people move more (including plenty of folks who’d given up on exercise altogether).

In this article, they share five refreshing strategies—plus over a dozen how-to tips—that can help you (or your clients) stop fighting with exercise.

Strategy #1: Stop trying to exercise.

Yes, you read that correctly.

“Stop trying” may sound like strange advice, but hear us out.

If exercise feels like an impossible, torturous task, the best approach might be to take it off the table completely.

A few reasons:

For one, the more you push against your own resistance (or your clients’), the more that resistance is likely to grow. Conversely, if you stop telling yourself you “should” exercise, you might discover you’re more likely to do it.

Also: You don’t HAVE to exercise.

Yes, it’s good for you. But you’re in the driver’s seat in this life. And you get to choose how you spend your time and energy.

That said, if you want to explore movement in a pressure-free way, check out these tips.

▶ Try a “do nothing” experiment.

Here’s a weird idea: Limit your movement for a few days and see what happens.

“When a client tells me they don’t want to exercise, I say, ‘Great, don’t do it. In fact, don’t even move. Just lie in bed and do as little as possible,’” says PN Master Coach Kate Solovieva.

And what happens?

“Eventually most people are going to want to move in some way, of their own volition. They’ll say, ‘Wait a second, I actually want to move around a bit. I want to go for a walk’.”

This isn’t about tricking yourself into wanting to move; it’s about learning if and when movement does feel good for you. You might discover your body craves movement more than you realized.

▶ Focus on other ways to improve your health.

It can be easy to fixate on the thing (you think) you’re bad at.

But when you do that, you can miss other (potentially easier, less stressful) opportunities for improvement.

“If you absolutely cannot or will not move in any way, think of it like this: You still have plenty of other ways to improve your health,” says PN Coach and Holistic Nutritionist Sarah Maughan.

“You could put your time and energy into improving your sleep, your stress management, your nutrition, and so on. Exercise isn’t the only ingredient in a healthy life.”

Of all the health-improving options available to you, what’s most appealing? Make that your priority for now.

▶ Build your bucket list.

Rather than obsessing over how much you hate the gym, Solovieva suggests putting the focus on what you want to do.

“Sometimes, I’ll say: ‘Okay, let’s put exercise aside for a while. Instead, let’s talk bucket list. Tell me about the things you’re curious about, the things you want to try before you die’.”

The items on your bucket list might naturally inspire you to get moving (perhaps you want to be fit enough to cycle around Amsterdam or climb a volcano in Hawaii). Or not.

Regardless, the “bucket list” exercise can shift your focus towards what you want for yourself—which can be meaningful and energizing, no matter what you choose.

Brainstorm a bunch of things you want to try in your lifetime. Then consider: Which of these could you start working towards today?

Strategy #2: Aim for “movement” rather than “exercise.”

“People often assume they have to go straight into training for a marathon or lifting heavy weights,” says Solovieva. “But in order to get the benefit of movement, you don’t have to train. You can just move.”

And if you’re wondering how you’ll find big blocks of time to exercise—or even move?

“You don’t necessarily need to schedule time to exercise,” says Maughan. “Your movement could just be a pile of mini actions that add up over the day.”

Those “mini actions” could be anything: walking to the office water cooler for a drink; emptying the dishwasher or mowing the lawn; goofing around with your kids.

Bonus: Research shows that when you treat exercise as fun or play (rather than work), you’ll be less prone to hedonic compensation—the phenomenon of loading up on treats post-workout, negating a calorie burn, if that’s what you’re after.²

Either way: Moving rather than exercising might feel more accessible—and have less baggage attached to it.

Want to get moving? Try these tips.

▶ Aim to slightly increase the ways you already move.

PN Coach Jeremy Fernandes points out that even if you hate movement, you might be doing more than you think.

“Unless you’re literally lying in bed all day, you’re probably getting some kind of movement. Just getting up in the morning, making breakfast, getting to work—all these things require movement, says Fernandes.

“So the real question is, How can you expand on the movement you’re already doing?”

For example—could you pace the bathroom while you brush your teeth? Circle the block after you take out the trash? Walk the dog for an extra few minutes? And so on.

▶ Lean into the “mostly inactive” things you enjoy.

“One client of mine wanted to move more, but movement wasn’t her thing,” says Solovieva. “Her passion was cooking. So we focused on that: I encouraged her to cook more, to check out new recipes, and so on.”

Here’s the interesting part:

“The more she got into cooking, the more she moved. Without trying, she naturally became more physically active by grocery shopping, chopping, picking up pots and pans, and moving around her kitchen.”

In time, Solovieva’s client grew more comfortable moving. (She even eventually graduated to some home workouts.)

Cooking isn’t your only option. Many hobbies involve movement, even if they aren’t seen as “fitness activities.” For example:

• Love to read? Walk to the library or stroll around a bookstore.
• Like to paint? Try painting on a larger canvas so you’re encouraged to stand and make some larger arm movements.
• Shopping fanatic? Instead of shopping online, saunter through the mall or local shops.

And hey, if you’re a beer fan like my buddy Dave, maybe do a brewery tour, or walk to the beer store instead of driving.

▶ Embrace the “everything counts” philosophy.

Get this: Just thinking that your daily activities “count” towards your fitness goals can make a difference.

One study conducted out of Harvard University found that if we believe our daily activities (like housework or child care) count as exercise, the physiological benefit of those activities is enhanced.³

The placebo effect can be a legitimate way to increase physical fitness, without changing your daily routine.

So, think about your daily routines, and appreciate how the activities you do are already contributing to your health.

Strategy #3: Do Less.

To reap the benefits of movement, you might need less than you think.

According to the CDC Physical Activity Guidelines, adults should aim to get 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a week (or 22 to 43 minutes a day).⁴

(Note: Time-crunched folks can also meet the guidelines by doing 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise per week.)

But exercise isn’t all-or-nothing: Everything counts.

If the above recommendations sound overwhelming to you, try these tips.

▶ Break your goal into manageable pieces.

In her book, The Play Book: How to Get In the Habit of Good Health, coach and play expert Janet Omstead, PN2-MHC, suggests:

“If 22 minutes all at once feels like too much, just break up that 22 minutes into smaller chunks.”

For example, 22 minutes broken up over the course of the day could look like:

• 5 minutes of movement 5 times
• 8 mins of movement 3 times
• 11 mins of movement 2 times

(Small but effective exercise “snacks” are also called “trigger workouts.” Read more about them here: The intermittent workout method that could transform the way you exercise)

▶ Start small and build slowly.

“You can also make 22 minutes the goal rather than the starting point,” says Omstead.

“You can even take a year, or longer to work up to 22 minutes. For example, if you start at 5 minutes per day and add 1 minute per day each month, at the end of a year you’d be at 17 minutes a day—and you’ll have built a regular daily habit, something many people never achieve.”

▶ Explore the continuum.

If exercise seems like an all-or-nothing kind of thing (you’re either training for an IronMan or in full-on couch potato mode), start thinking on a spectrum.

“I ask clients to imagine a continuum from 0 to 10,” says Solovieva. “If 10 is ‘I move all the time and do everything perfectly’ and 0 is ‘I don’t move at all and just lie on the couch till I kick the bucket’, what are some options in between?”

One way to think about this is to imagine movement as a dial or volume knob. If you were to turn your volume knob up a bit—say a 2/10 or a 3/10—what might that look like?

When you explore the continuum you might find a level of activity that feels doable for you.

(And hey—this “dial” method works for basically all of your health habits. Learn more: Never press “pause” on your health and fitness again. This free tool is your secret weapon)

Strategy #4: Try stuff.

If you do want to move more—and ideally, find something you like, if not love—there’s no getting around it:

You’ll have to give some things a try.

That maybe means doing some stuff you might not like. Fortunately, there are ways to make the experimentation process more fun (or at least, not awful).

Here are some ideas.

▶ Apply the 10 minute rule.

“Give yourself permission to try just 10 minutes of something. If you don’t like it, you can stop,” says PN Coach Pam Ruhland.

This low-pressure approach makes it easier to try new things: Get in the pool with your kids for just 10 minutes and see how it goes. Try 10 minutes of an online Zumba class or a yoga video on YouTube.

“Knowing you can quit can make it easier to get started—which is actually the hardest part,” says Ruhland.

▶ Return to things you used to like.

“How did you love to play when you were young? Start there,” says Omstead.

“Make a list of all the ways you loved to play and be active when you were a kid. Did you jump rope? Play soccer? Explore the forest? Chase the ice cream truck down the street?”

Pick something from your list and try it. Yes, it might be harder as an adult. (Where do kids get the energy to jump rope for hours?) But it might also rekindle your playfulness.

And don’t forget, you can always quit after 10 minutes.

▶ Create your “bingo card” of new activities.

Even if you think you hate ALL exercise, there are probably things you haven’t tried.

To experiment, Solovieva suggests creating a “bingo card” of new activities.

She explains: “On each square, put an activity you’d like to try: maybe yoga goes on one square, zumba, hiking, boxing, and so on.”

Then, for the next 30 or 60 days, aim to fill the bingo card by trying each activity.

“In the end, maybe you’ll still hate everything you tried,” says Solovieva. “But even if you don’t like the activities themselves, the process of experimenting can be weirdly fun.”

(If you like this idea, download our free PDF: Movement Bingo)

Strategy #5: Adjust your expectations.

Fitness culture has exploded. This can be a good thing when it encourages people to get active and try new things, but it can also be, well, intense.

These days, it seems you can’t just throw on some sweats and move your body; you have to go full BEAST MODE.

And it’s not enough to just get it done, you have to do something you LOVE [unicorn emoji, rainbow emoji, heart emoji].

Plus, your efforts should somehow result in six-pack abs no matter your age, gender, and lifestyle. #noexcuses

FACEPALM.

Let’s take the expectations down a notch, shall we?

Truth is, movement doesn’t require anything fancy, or have to yield some magical transformation overnight.

By adjusting your expectations around exercise, you can make the whole thing less of an ordeal… maybe even more fun.

Here’s what that can look like.

▶ Don’t worry about “loving it”—aim for “meh” instead.

Exercise advocates will tell you to “find something you love.” But for some of us, “love” is too strong of a word.

Case in point: One day, Fernandes asked a previously inactive client what she loved about her new workout routine.

Her answer surprised him.

“I don’t love any of this,” she said. “I don’t love walking. I don’t love going to the gym. What I do feel is a sense of contentment after I’ve done it.”

But you know what? That’s okay, says Fernandes.

“The good new is that you don’t have to love it. The goal is to find something tolerable that adds some value to your life.”

Think of it like brushing your teeth: “No one gets really excited about doing it, but you know it’s important for your health, and it feels good after you do it,” says Fernandes.

▶ Be nicer to yourself.

Years ago, a friend and I agreed we’d start working out.

Without intending to do so, we both took different approaches:

The night before, I’d write little notes of encouragement for myself to see first thing in the morning. Stuff like, “You are a badass.”

My friend, however, would wake up and say to herself: “Get up you lazy bum. That weight isn’t going to lose itself.”

Guess which one of us made it to our workout? (It was me.)

These results aren’t just anecdotal:

We interviewed a bunch of PN Certified coaches about what causes clients to quit, and they all agreed that “beating themselves up” was the #1 factor.

Research also shows that self-compassion—being kind and supportive to yourself—is positively associated with health-promoting behaviors like eating healthy, exercising, prioritizing sleep, and managing stress.^{5 6}

(Want to give self-compassion go? Check out our Self-Compassion Quickie.)

It makes sense: Being a jerk to yourself pretty much guarantees you’re not going to have a good time, no matter what you’re doing.

So, watch your self-talk. Try to be kind and encouraging, and give yourself a gold star for your efforts, no matter how small.

Maybe even write a friendly note for yourself. Sounds cheesy, but it works.

References

Click here to view the information sources referenced in this article.

If you’re a coach, or you want to be…

You can help people build nutrition and lifestyle habits that improve their physical and mental health, bolster their immunity, help them better manage stress, and get sustainable results. We’ll show you how.

If you’d like to learn more, consider the PN Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Certification.

C60 is the newest buzzword in the natural health world. It’s recommended for everything from avoiding sunburn, to hair growth, to longevity. C60 benefits the whole body and acts as an antioxidant to help protect against free radical damage.

This molecule works by donating electrons to neutralize free radicals and prevent oxidation. You’ll usually see it as a C60-infused olive oil, but it can also be dissolved in other oils or sold in capsule form.

What Is C60?

C60 is short for “Carbon 60.” It refers to the number of carbon atoms that, when connected, form a molecule called a fullerene. More specifically, a Buckminsterfullerene, or “buckyballs” for short.

This odd name comes from scientist and architect Buckminster Fuller. He often used geodesic domes (like you might see at a botanical garden) in his building designs. These domes resembled the newly discovered molecules so the molecule was named in his honor.

The scientists who made these discoveries received a Nobel Prize for their work in 1996.

Where Does C60 Come From?

C60 is a synthetic molecule derived from graphite in a lab. The scientists vaporize graphite so the carbon can form new bonds, changing its shape to that of a soccer ball.

C60 As a Health Supplement

C60 first got attention with the landmark 2012 Baati Rat Study. This study looked into C60’s effects on toxicity, oxidative stress, and long life.

According to researchers, C60 benefits may help with a laundry list of health concerns, including:

• sun damage/sunburns
• radiation protection
• viral infections
• oxidative stress
• amyloid plaques in the brain (linked with Alzheimer’s disease)
• allergies
• enhance brain activity

It may also stimulate the immune system against cancer and promote healthy hair growth. Those are a lot of benefits in one little molecule! The researchers concluded fullerene promoted longevity in rats, with exciting possibilities for humans. They noted that C60 could be the most efficient material for longer life.

C60 fullerene is a powerful antioxidant that fights damaging free radicals like superoxide in the body. Although superoxide is a natural byproduct of our cell’s metabolism, it’s not something we want hanging around.

According to 2013 research,  Scientists believe it works by absorbing protons, creating a positive charge. When C60 passes through cell membranes and into mitochondria, our body’s natural energy-producers, it decreases oxidative stress.

Fat Soluble vs Water Soluble

It’s important to note there’s a difference between fat-soluble C60 and water-soluble C60. Mice given water-soluble Carboxyl C60 went from a 120-day to a 128-day lifespan. That’s only an increase of 6.67%. Regular C60 dissolved in olive oil though nearly doubled the mice’s life span.

There have been some mixed results, however. Although this research seems impressive, a more recent 2021 study did not get the same results. The scientists saw no improvement in the animal’s lifespan.

C60 Health Benefits

C60 molecules have a wide range of potential benefits for overall wellness. Although most of the research is on animals there are also some human studies. Scientists have explored C60 benefits for skincare in human trials and the results are encouraging.

C60 Benefits for Skin Care

According to research, C60 may have anti-aging effects and promote clear, youthful skin. When used in lotion, it’s been shown to protect against sunburn. C60 also seems to help with acne, according to a small study of a C60-containing gel. Applying the gel twice a day over two months helped lower breakouts and plump up the skin.

Anti-Inflammatory

C60 may help lower skin inflammation when it comes to eczema. In a mouse study from Nanobiotechnology, C60 helped calm inflammation and restore the skin barrier. But the inflammation-lowering benefits go beyond the skin. A 2019 rat study for osteoarthritis found that C60 was also helpful for inflamed joints.

Anti-Aging

This molecule with its antioxidant and inflammation-fighting properties may help slow the aging process. As mentioned above, scientific studies showed a potentially increased lifespan in animals. Again, it was more effective at doing this when dissolved in oil.

Increased Energy

C60 might just even replace your morning cup of coffee. C60 may help with energy production by collecting inside mitochondria. It acts as a buffer against reactive oxygen species (ROS), which slow energy production. While it may not happen for everyone, most people notice better energy and metabolism.

Healthy Weight

Another potential effect of C60 is weight loss. In an animal study, researchers noted that C60 not only lowered inflammation but helped normalize weight. Since weight gain and inflammation often go together, it makes sense that less inflammation could also lead to weight loss.

Another way C60 may also help with weight loss is by addressing metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. Research in the journal Biomaterials found that C60 in squalane oil helped stop fat cells from forming. The scientists suggested using this for metabolic syndrome and other obesity-related issues.

Brain and Cognition

Insulin resistance may also play a role in Alzheimer’s, with some even calling Alzheimer’s type 3 diabetes. Amyloid plaques are another key characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. In a 2017 rat model of Alzheimer’s, C60 helped improve learning and memory by protecting against amyloid plaque formation.

It’s possible that C60 works in part by lowering inflammation and addressing metabolic syndrome.

Cancer Support

C60 benefits could even help with cancer recovery. In a 2021 mouse study, researchers combined C60 powder with nano-sized diamond powder to create a composite. The combination was then used on cancer cells, successfully causing them to self-destruct and shrink the tumor. The scientists hope this combination could help increase survival time in cancer patients.

Because C60 is so good at addressing free radical damage, it may also help with cancer. It’s this oxidative damage to DNA that leads to abnormal cell growth and, eventually, a cancer diagnosis.

C60 Benefits for Muscle Recovery

Another 2017 rat study explored whether C60 could lessen muscle fatigue by speeding up recovery time. Rats given this solution needed less recovery time and had more endurance. When we increase our ability to exercise other positive changes happen, including more oxygenation and better flexibility.

EMF & Radiation Mitigation

C60 seems to act as a buffer against EMFs and radiation. For radiation exposure, it may even work better than taking iodine. More research is needed but C60 seems to make the body more resilient against radiation and electromagnetic stress.

C60 Side Effects

C60 benefits research is still in its infancy, and there’s some evidence of toxicity, especially in high amounts. A 2021 study in Geroscience questioned if C60 in olive oil could really help extend lifespan. The researchers also raised the question if light exposure could cause toxins to form in the oil.

In animal studies, light-exposed C60 olive oil was toxic to the mice. This shows the importance of getting a brand that’s packaged in a dark bottle and then storing it in a cool, dark place.

While we still don’t know if C60 can promote longer life in humans, there are many other benefits to taking it. Less inflammation, better memory, and better endurance are all great reasons to give C60 a try.

Plus, with its potential to protect the body against radiation and electromagnetic fields, it’s very timely with the rollout of 5G. With Wi-Fi, cell phone towers, and smartphones we’re exposed to much more radiation than in the past.

How to Use C60 and Where to Get It

There are a few different ways to take this miracle molecule. C60 is available in liquid form, dissolved in olive oil, avocado oil, MCT coconut oil, or even black seed (Nigella sativa) oil. You can also get it in capsule form, which should include one of those carrier oils.

It’s recommended that the average 150-lb person take one teaspoon a day in the morning. However, this isn’t a hard and fast rule.  The amount is often based on body weight (grams or milligrams per kilogram) to get the right concentration. The Baati animal study used 1.7 mg/kg, since they were researching toxicity levels. Even at these high doses, C60 wasn’t shown to be toxic in the rats.

When selecting a high-quality C60 product, be sure to look for these things:

• Dark/amber bottle, protecting the C60 from light
• Certified organic oils
• Solvent-free
• Third-party tested
• Highly concentrated. Should be 99.95% to 99.99% pure C60

After looking into C60 supplements, I found this one from Purple Power that meets my standards.

Have you tried any C60 products? What was your experience? Share below!

Sources:

1. Ali, S. S., et al. (2004). A biologically effective fullerene (C60) derivative with superoxide dismutase mimetic properties. Free radical biology & medicine, 37(8), 1191–1202.
2. Baati, T., et al. (2012). The prolongation of the lifespan of rats by repeated oral administration of [60]fullerene. Biomaterials, 33(19), 4936–4946.
3. Chistyakov, V. A., et al. (2013). Possible mechanisms of fullerene C?? antioxidant action. BioMed research international, 2013, 821498.
4. Gordon, R.,  et al. (2017). Intrahippocampal Pathways Involved in Learning/Memory Mechanisms are Affected by Intracerebral Infusions of Amyloid-?25-35 Peptide and Hydrated Fullerene C60 in Rats. Journal of Alzheimer’s disease: JAD, 58(3), 711–724.
5. Grohn, K. J.,  et al. (2021). C60 in olive oil causes light-dependent toxicity and does not extend lifespan in mice. GeroScience, 43(2), 579–591.
6. Inui, S., et al. (2011). Improvement of acne vulgaris by topical fullerene application: unique impact on skincare. Nanomedicine: nanotechnology, biology, and medicine, 7(2), 238–241.
7. Kato, S., et al. (2010). Fullerene-C60/liposome complex: Defensive effects against UVA-induced damages in skin structure, nucleus and collagen type I/IV fibrils, and the permeability into human skin tissue. Journal of photochemistry and photobiology. B, Biology, 98(1), 99–105.
8. Lee, H., et al. (2021). Hand-ground fullerene-nanodiamond composite for photosensitized water treatment and photodynamic cancer therapy. Journal of colloid and interface science, 587, 101–109.
9. Mamontova, T. V., et al. (2013). Fiziolohichnyi zhurnal (Kiev, Ukraine : 1994), 59(3), 102–110.
10. Pei, Y.,  et al. (2019). Antioxidative nanofullerol inhibits macrophage activation and development of osteoarthritis in rats. International journal of nanomedicine, 14, 4145–4155.
11. Prylutskyy, Y. I.,  et al. (2017). C60 fullerene as promising therapeutic agent for correcting and preventing skeletal muscle fatigue. Journal of nanobiotechnology, 15(1), 8.
12. Shershakova, N.,  et al. (2016). Anti-inflammatory effect of fullerene C60 in a mice model of atopic dermatitis. Journal of nanobiotechnology, 14, 8.
13. Xiao, L., et al. (2010). The effect of squalane-dissolved fullerene-C60 on adipogenesis-accompanied oxidative stress and macrophage activation in a preadipocyte-monocyte co-culture system. Biomaterials, 31(23), 5976–5985.

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

 

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Katie: Hello and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com, that’s wellness with an E on the end. And I’m here today with my friend, Naveen, who is an intensely curious entrepreneur who has been taking on some big, audacious ideas to push humanity forward. He’s the author of the award-winning book “Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance,” and his current moonshot adventures are Viome and Moon Express, which is a space company. But as a serial entrepreneur, he’s also founded InfoSpace, Intelius, and Talent Wise, among others.

And his current work is in Viome Life Sciences, which was founded in 2016 with a mission of making illness optional by predicting and preventing chronic disease through a deeper understanding of an individual’s biology at a molecular level. And it’s built on an AI-driven platform that analyzes the interaction between food, our microbiome, and our human selves to develop precision recommendations to prevent and reverse chronic disease. He’s also the vice-chairman of the board at Singularity University, and on the board of XPRIZE Foundation. He’s been the recipient of many things including Entrepreneur of the Year, Most Creative Person by Fast Company, Top 20 Entrepreneurs, and many more.

In this episode, we talk about the human ecosystem and personalized optimization of your gut health and your overall health. We talk about the reason the gut affects the entire body. Why it’s not just genetics from our parents but actually our ecosystem within our gut that controls our body. Why 70% of the immune system is in the gut. How microbiome balance begins at birth or even before. How 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut, not the brain. What makes up the ecosystem of the gut. We get pretty granular on this one.

The difference between DNA and gene expression. How some foods can be good for some people and not others, and how to know which is best for you, but also, the universally harmful foods. Why there are some universality bad ones but not universally good ones. Why he doesn’t recommend harsh products that kill bacteria in the mouth or in the gut. The real reason it’s important to chew your food really well before swallowing, and so much more. Lot’s of practical info in this episode. Also, lots of links to learn more in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm, so check those out. But without further ado, let’s join Naveen Jain. Naveen, welcome back.

Naveen: Well, Katie, so good to see you finally after a long, long time.

Katie: I’m so excited we get to have a conversation and get to record it and share it today, and we’re gonna talk a lot about gut health and even beyond gut health, how this affects the health of the whole body. Before we do, though, I would say you’re the only person I know in real life who has a Moon rock collection. And so, I would love for you to just talk about this because I think you’re my only hobbyist Moon rock collector.

Naveen: Well, I think, Katie, you know, to me, the Moon is symbolic. It is symbolic of what humanity is capable of doing. So, to me, going to the Moon is a way of expressing that there is nothing that’s impossible for us to do. Even though it’s called “Moonshots” that people thought was difficult, if not impossible to do and having, you know, now to be able to go to the Moon and to me, the collection of space rocks actually was just simply a hobby of able to hold something in your hand. That may be even before the birth of our planet. And it gives you some idea of how fragile we are that if we don’t take care of ourselves, our planet, we as humanity may not survive. As a species, we may not survive.

So, you know, idea of when someone says, “I am really worried about our planet,” ask the planet and planet will tell you, “Don’t you worry about me because we…” Planet will do just fine but human species may not survive. Very similar to dinosaurs. And to me, having a Moon rock simply reminds me that we all are connected together. When something outside us goes wrong, we as internal ecosystem will also be impacted, right. And that’s coming down to, you know, if you look at what’s above, so below is really what’s outside the ecosystem and the universe impacts us, and our ecosystem inside us impacts the universe.

Katie: I love that you said it like that because I interviewed my oldest son on this podcast a couple hundred episodes ago when he launched a cookbook and you know him as well. And I asked him that question. You know, your generation’s gonna face a lot in the environmental and climate stuff. And, I raised this question and he goes, “Well, mom, you’re actually asking the wrong question because the…”

Naveen: Oh, I love it, I love it.

Katie: He said, “The planet is a self-correcting organism. It’s gonna heal itself. It’s just a question of whether we get to stay here when it does. And we need to be asking how we can be more synergistic within an environment that is bigger than us.”

Naveen: That is the perfect answer. That is exactly how I would see it that…you know, when people say, “Aren’t you worried about the planet?” I say, “That’s not the question you should be asking.” It’s, “Are we worried about the human species?” That’s what we should be asking.

Katie: Which is a perfect segue because that is something that you are intimately involved with and I would say not worried about but working to solve. My listeners are pretty health savvy and understand or at least have a passing understanding that gut health impacts the whole entire body. But I feel like this concept is…well, we’ve known aspects of it for a long time. We’re seeing so much more research about it right now. And we’re…thanks to companies like Viome, we have many more tangible tools to actually understand and start to do something about that. But to start broad, kind of give us an overview of what we mean by the health of the gut affects the health of the whole body.

Naveen: So, well, first of all, you know, let’s just start from the beginning. We as human beings are not simply a product of the DNA from our mom and dad. What we are is a symbiotic ecosystem, and in that ecosystem, 99% of all the genes that are actually expressed in our human body are not our own. They come from these microbes that are in our mouth, in our gut, all over us. So, imagine…I mean, there’s literally…if we look at the human beings as such in terms of all the genes that are expressed that makes us who we are, they are not humans. They are mostly microbial. We’re living in their world. They don’t live in our world, right.

So, when we understand that, you know, even though you could argue that they are the puppet masters and we are simply the host or puppet for their benefit, and you could argue someday that maybe they actually created us to spread them around, maybe they created us so they can rule the world, right, but in all honesty, we coevolved together. In coevolution what happens is we feed them and we give them a nice and warm and comfortable place to stay. In turn, they feed us the nutrients that our body needs to actually be healthy, right. So, imagine from the time a baby is born, and I think this is something that most people don’t realize, that in the first couple of days of mother’s breast milk is full of oligosaccharides. And that cannot be digested by the human body. That is there only for the microbes in the gut to be able to convert into nutrients. That means it is to create the ecosystem inside us.

Now imagine what nature is telling us, that we just created a offspring and the best way to keep this offspring healthy is not to feed it but to feed them who are going to keep the offspring healthy. And as the baby goes through the birth canal, this is the first exposure the baby gets to the whole world of microbiome. It gets…completely inhales the microbiome as the baby’s going through birth canal. And unfortunately, some of the mothers for obvious reasons end up getting a C-section. They actually…the babies are not going through the same…they are exposed to skin microbiome rather through the birth canal, the microbiome that they would get through the birth canal. And that is a fundamentally…the baby, when it’s born, is actually…the nature has created in a way that the microbes get introduced into the baby at the time of the birth and that actually now becomes a coevolution process. And the mother’s breast milk starts to feed these microbes to create this ecosystem.

And as the gut microbiome starts to get healthy, it starts to train our immune system. And I think this is the fundamental part that people need to understand. Seventy percent of our immune system is along our gut lining. In fact, all the research shows that how gut microbiome is constantly training our immune system what’s a friend and what’s a foe, right. So, in some sense, if you look at the human body, there is a tube that goes through us. There is a top of the tube in your mouth and then there’s the bottom of the tube, and then you start to look at all along the lines there is a massive amount of microbial existence there. And they in fact are constantly interacting with our immune system and the immune system is now understanding when there is actually a pathogen that’s coming through the food or the pathogen that’s coming through the outside world, how to react to it. And these microbes are the first signal that tells the immune systems, “This is not good. Go do something about it, right.”

And I think to me, that symbiotic relationship breaks down when there is a dysbiosis in the gut. So, I think as your son pointed out, not just the planet but even the human body is designed to heal itself. The human body is designed to be in homeostasis. And any time…and whether we cut our skin or whether there is some type of pathogen or we get some type of a disease, it normally is designed to heal itself if our body is in balance. So, when there are gut microbial activities and the human host are constantly in sync and healthy and our immune system is healthy, then our body will actually heal itself. When there is a dysbiosis or imbalance of the gut microbiome, this is where the unease happens. When your body is not at ease, you get disease which we call disease.

Katie: Yeah, so many important points you just said to unpack. And I think the first being that we really are more bacterial than human and you…here you said you are what you eat but it goes so far beyond that. It’s not even you are what you eat or even you are what you eat-eat, but what your gut bacteria eats and how it grows. And I love that you brought up the birth canal thing because I am a doula and I’ve actually helped in several C-section births with feeding the baby, because like you said, if you don’t…the baby is naturally meant to seed their gut through the birth canal. And if that doesn’t happen, like you said, they’re seeding to the hospital room, to skin, to potentially disinfectants that are in that room, all kinds of things. And we know that this gut bacteria at birth, more and more we learn, sets you up for your whole life. But also, the good news is…and I know that Viome does a lot of research on this. All is not lost if you don’t get a perfect start. We now have the ability to kind of get a snapshot and look in the gut in a really unique way and then optimize to improve someone’s health going forward.

And also, like you said, the body’s natural state is health. It’s not often that we need to do anything drastic. We need to get out of our own way and just remove the things that are keeping the body from being healthy or maybe sometimes give it little extra nutrients to help get there. Talk a little bit about the science of Viome and what we’re testing because this technology didn’t even exist a couple decades ago, and now we have such amazing data from this.

Naveen: Well, it’s very interesting is this idea of, you know…if you go back and look at couple of decades ago, it was actually the bacteria and all these organisms were considered as an enemy of the human body. That is the minute you see them, your job is to kill them as quickly as possible because they can’t possibly be there for our good, right. And as we started to learn more about the human body, we realized that most of these organisms are actually commensal. They are supposed to be there and they in fact…when we feed them things like, you know…in olden days, when we were living in the savannas of Africa, we’ll pull out a leaf or we’ll pull out the root and eat it. That’s full of fiber. Those fibers are actually what our gut microbes eat, and those gut microbes, by eating these fibers, actually turn them into short chain fatty acids. Things like butyric, things like acetate, these were all the nutrients that our body needed.

In fact, if you start to think about it, 90% of all the serotonin is actually produced in our gut, not in our brain. So, if you really think about all the things that are being done in the gut and how what happens in the gut doesn’t simply stay in the gut, it actually impacts the whole body including our brain to coming back to it, Katie, that you pointed out. What happens in our gut impacts our mood. So, whether it’s a depression or anxiety or, you know, you can call them any names you want, you know, many of these things including autism is now connected directly into the gut microbiome. In fact, they have done now the research where they did simply a microbial transplant called a fecal transplant and they were able to in fact show that kids with autism, their autistic symptoms went down by 50% even after two years just by simply doing the microbial transplant. They were able to show when you took a person that has a depression a microbial transplant or anxiety, it can be transferred simply by transferring the microbiome into another species. And they’ve done them in mice and they’ve done that in fact in humans, and obviously, it was done by mistake but that’s actually how it happened.

In fact, what’s really interesting is addiction. And they’ve shown the same thing. They took…there were 17 people on the research that were completely addicted to alcohol. And those people, they gave them a fecal transplant from people who actually had no addiction. And these people’s addiction went away. Now imagine that, that our gut microbiome are controlling our brain in terms of what to do. That’s what the addiction is, right. And I think that’s really phenomenal.

And now what we’re learning is every type of cancer…in fact what they have now looked at is every single solid tumor has microbes inside that tumor. Think about that a second, the microbes are inside the tumor. And what we found most fascinating was there is microbial peptides being displayed on the surface of the tumor. Now, why would a tumor that’s an organism wanting to survive would ever display a microbial peptide unless it is there to fool our immune system into thinking this is self and protects the tumor against the immune system attacking, right?

Now, imagine what…another thing that’s most interesting I found was when you do immunotherapy, it works about one-third of the time. And the people where the immunotherapy does not work, in the 70% of the people that immunotherapy did not work, they simply were able to do a change in their gut microbiome and the same immunotherapy started working. So, our gut microbiome is not only there to keep us healthy from all the diseases today we call the different names. Heart diseases, it is coming from our gut microbes actually producing things like trimethylamine or TMA. TMA gets absorbed in the blood and our liver converts them into TMAO, trimethylamine oxide. In fact, we can now look at things like LDL production which is a bad cholesterol production and see how microbial activities and microbial metabolites actually change the LDL production. You’re able to look at how…what’s happening in your gut, how are we changing the inflammatory markers in our host. So, we are able to measure the gut activity and the human host activity, all their cytokines. So, we are looking at every interleukins, we are looking at all of the inflammatory markers to see how they are changing with the gut microbial activity.

And so, anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that you mentioned something about these bacteria, and I just want people to know the microorganisms are not just bacteria. They are predominantly bacteria but they also consist of yeast, viruses and even the RNA viruses or fungus or mold. All of these things are actually the whole ecosystem and the biggest part in fact if you noticed almost 10 to 1 if not more is actually phages. And phages are the viruses that infect the bacteria. And if you look at any nature whether you’re looking in the swamp or you’re looking at the gut microbiome, in fact there are 10 times more phages than the bacteria alone. And that means these viruses that infect bacteria are modifying the bacterial…the organism, the functions of these bacteria that in fact changes how these bacteria behave in terms of what functions they are performing.

So again, what’s really interesting is by looking at what organisms are there, will never tell you what is going on in your body. In fact, their functions are what makes the difference. That means what they are producing can…is really the only thing that matters what these gut microbes are producing, not who they are. And I think, Katie, you probably know that a lot of the people like Akkermansia muciniphila. Some of the companies are selling them as a probiotic without realizing that Akkermansia can be good for some people and in fact it is the number one reason for causing multiple sclerosis, and it has also been directly linked to Alzheimer’s, right. So now think about it. The same organism can do something good for one person and can do something really bad in another person. So, taking something blindly, taking any supplement, any probiotic, any prebiotic blindly is actually not good for you because your body is completely different than other person’s body. The same organism or same probiotic can be good for someone and could be harmful for another person. And that’s the biggest learning we have had in the last six years.

Katie: Yeah, I love that you brought up the fecal microbiota transfer as well. I’ve seen some of the science on this and… you know, caveat, this is not something to attempt at home but it’s pretty amazing what they’re accomplishing in labs with some really targeted and very specific ways of doing that. And I feel like in a sense, this is also something you can accomplish without having to go to that extreme if you know what you’re working with. And for the last two years, I’ve been saying, you know, early on in health and wellness, I would find out information, read studies and be so excited and write about it, and I’ve realized more and more over the last 15 years everything is so personalized and so individualized. And so now when people ask me like, “What exactly did you do to reverse your Hashimoto’s?” I say, “You know, I can tell you what I did but it’s not gonna work the same for you. It can be an idea with the starting point but it’s not gonna be your blueprint. Each of our blueprints is gonna be very, very different.”

Which is why I love now more and more access to these at-home testing whether it be things like Viome, even now blood testing available at home, genetic testing just so we can have more information and access. And I’ve said so many times on here we are each our own primary healthcare provider. At the end of the day, it’s great to work with doctors but we are each our own primary healthcare provider. And I feel like having tools in our pocket that let us be more effective at that can really, really make a difference. So, let’s talk a little bit more about the personalization aspect of this because I also am curious…you know, I know you said everything is so different. What’s good for one person might be not for another. Are there any things that are kind of universally bad that you’re finding in Viome? Like, I would put maybe processed vegetable oils on the do not cross list, but I’m curious what you’re seeing in the data.

Naveen: Yeah. So first of all, it’s really interesting. I think you phrased it correctly. There is no such thing as universal healthy food. And that means there is no such thing that’s good for everyone. That means the same food can be good for you or bad for someone. However, there are some universal unhealthy things that you can know. So, there is no universal healthy thing but there are universally unhealthy things. Sugar is one of those unhealthy things. There is no one who says, “The sugar is good for me, right.” So that’s actually having a fried, you know, fried food. So, all fried stuff, it’s just bad for everyone. Eating a lot of sugar, it’s just bad for everyone. However, what we find most interesting is that analyzing the human body and analyzing based on what is going on and what is dynamically changing in your body…and I think a lot of the people who are listening to it, I want people to understand the difference between a DNA which is static. So when people do their DNA test, it tells you what is inherently there in your body. It doesn’t tell you what is actually going on in your body. That means…if, Katie, you allow me, I’m gonna explain the DNA because I think to me a lot of people get very confused about what DNA is.

So, every part of our body is identical DNA. That means you look at my hair, you look at my eyes, you look at my teeth, you look at my nails, you look at my finger, it’s exactly the same DNA. Then why is it we don’t have the eyes growing on my fingers and the nails growing on my head? Same DNA. And the answer is there’s…when some genes are overexpressed, some genes are under expressed, the same DNA can become eye, same DNA can become nail, same DNA can become skin, same DNA can become heart cells or neurons or things like that, right. So, point is DNA is like an alphabet and the story you are writing is actually what is being expressed. It’s called RNA. So, RNA tells you the story that’s being written for you right now and DNA tells you every possible thing that can happen. And that’s one thing.

So, what we do at Viome, Katie, is we look at your gene expression and what gene expression tells us is what story your gut microbes are writing. What story your human host is writing. And now I’m gonna come back and tell you…some news to share with you towards the end. Once we understand all that’s going on, we are able to then tell you, “Hey, don’t eat broccoli or cabbage because your sulfide production in your gut is too high and the sulfide need sulfates to produce sulfide and the broccoli and cabbage are very high in sulfate so you should cut it down, right.”

We can tell you that…a lot of people will tell you go take vitamin B3. But vitamin B3’s actually not good for you when you have high uric acid production. So don’t take vitamin B3 if you have high uric acid production. Similarly, everyone will tell you, “Hey, take curcumin and turmeric. It’s really good anti-inflammatory.” It is. However, when your bile acid production is very high, you don’t want to take curcumin because it’s going to convert into bile salt that’s gonna cause more inflammation. A lot of people think somehow taking NAD or NR, and NMN which is precursor to NAD is actually increase your longevity. It is true for some people it may do that, but for others it actually will harm you when you have high cellular senescence, or when you have high inflammatory activity. You don’t want to be taking additional NAD because that’s gonna increase the mitochondrial biogenesis that’s going to increase more free radicals, gonna increase high cellular senescence, right.

So, the idea really is that you have to learn what is happening before you treat your body like a black box. And I think you’ve said it right, that we are just…we are the CEO of our own health. We are the ones who need to know what is happening in our body because our primary care doctor…I don’t know about you, Katie. When I go to my primary care doctor, by the time I start speaking, he’s already writing the prescription. I mean, literally, the word he says… “Oh, did you say coughing? Here it is. Did you say this? Give me the ill, I’ll give you the pill.” And that’s all they’re simply doing. They don’t need to…they don’t care to understand what is causing that to happen in my body. Like, you had Hashimoto, or if you had any type of an autoimmune disease, the first thing they tell you is just take the immune suppression drugs and suppress the symptom. Not worry about what is causing it, and that is a fundamental problem that our healthcare system has is that our medical industrial complex, everyone makes money when we are sick and no one makes money when we are healthy. And so, we decided to change that. In my world of the future, Katie, we believe that…I think just like you just said, the future of healthcare is going to be delivered at home, not at the hospitals.

And the medicines of the future are gonna come from a farm, not a pharmacy. And that is going to be the biggest change you’ll start to see us taking control of our own health. And I think COVID has been one of the…I would say if you look back at COVID 10 years from now, it will be the biggest inflection point that happened in humanity’s perception of that we as individuals have control our own actions and our actions have health consequences.

Katie: Absolutely. I think so many good silver linings and teaching moments in COVID and people spent more time at home and with their families cooking dinner at home. There were a lot of great outcomes, as hard as it was for many people. I think we can focus on those positives. And I love your explanation of DNA and how it goes beyond just your genetics. It’s about how they’re expressed and how that’s controlled in the gut. And I’d love to go a little bit deeper about Viome because I know I talked to you years ago about this and you guys have made some big advances since then. So, talk about kind of the snapshot of what Viome is testing and then how people are making changes based on that and what they’re seeing.

Naveen: Yes. So obviously, Katie, a couple of years ago we did a gut intelligence chart that simply measured your gut health. And then we realized that that was really good but it didn’t tell us how those gut changes were impacting us and the human body. And so, we now launched…about two years ago during COVID actually, we launched our health intelligence test that measures your blood and it measures your stool, and by doing the finger prick blood, so you don’t have to go to a lab. It’s a simple finger prick blood, couple of drops of your blood. And your starch of your stool. We are able to now look at both your gut health and your human host and able to now tell you what is your biological age. And that tells you not only, you know, how well or how poorly your body is aging compared to your chronological age.

So, to give you an idea, I am now gonna be 63 in September and my biological age is down to 50. And that tells you that literally that my body is performing at the level when I was 50. And I feel it. I run up the stairs two stairs at a time and I have more energy than in fact I had when I was 50. And that simply tells you what your biological age is. Then we give you immune health. That means how well are you protected against if you were to catch flu or cold or any type of pathogen, how well your body is able to protect itself? And that’s your immune health. Your cellular health. That tells you how well your cells are able to undergo the things that are going on in the human body. Mitochondrial health, that’s your energy factory. How well the mitochondrial health is performing because if it’s not, you get brain fog, you feel fatigued, you feel tired. We give you obviously your gut health.

And now this is something new that we’re gonna be launching in June and we’re launching a new product called full body intelligence. And for the first time, we’re gonna be analyzing all the way from top of your tube, your saliva, your stool and blood, all three at the same time. And by looking at that, we’re also gonna be able to provide you some additional insights such as your heart and metabolic health. We’re gonna be giving you your brain and cognitive health. We’re gonna be able to show you your oral health such as your gum health, your teeth health and all the gum, you know…leaky gum instead of just leaky gut. We’ll be able to show you how well your boundaries of your gums are performing so that microbes are not going into your blood.

And other thing we do now which we did not do until about a year ago is when you do a test, not only you get your deep insight what’s happening in your body and not just tell you here are the foods that are good for you and here is why. Here are the foods you should avoid and why. We used to tell you here are the supplements you should take. Now we go beyond that, Katie. We are able to tell you you only need 22 milligram of berberine every day. You need 17 milligram of elderberry every day. You need 79 milligram amylase every day. And we go through every vitamin, minerals, herbs, food extracts, digestive enzymes, amino acids, probiotics, prebiotics, and we literally make those for you on demand.

There is no premade stuff. Think of it like a compounding pharmacy. There are robotics compounding pharmacy. It says, these capsules are being made for Katie. Go to bin number 17, get 17 milligram of elderberry. Go to bin number 29, get 27 milligram of berberine. And we literally take all the strawberry extract here, put this thing here. And by the way, once we get the powder, we make the capsules and ship them off to you every month. And as your body changes, we change your supplements at the same time. So, every time you retest, we say, “Oh, you don’t need amylase anymore. What you really need is butyrate now,” right. And we literally are able to adjust your…as your body is changing, we adapt the nutrition that your body needs. And those are the new things that I’m super excited about.

Other things that I’m really, really excited about…and we have not talked to anyone yet about it. We’re gonna be launching in June also our cancer detect. And this is gonna…first time as a consumer you’ll be able to spit in a tube and with 95% specificity and 90% sensitivity, we’ll be able to tell you if you have any oral cancer or throat cancer. And then we’ll be able to actually connect you with a doctor to be able to do something about it. So, if you are above…over 50 years old or have any history of smoking, vaping, chewing tobacco, you’ll be able to actually at home do a test and actually know that you’re not at a risk of developing a cancer right now. Or you’re developing a cancer right now.

Katie: Yeah. This is so cutting edge and I think just to highlight what you said, this is really fascinating news of basically machine learning and AI and this adaptive technology. And because you’ve now tested thousands and thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people, then the algorithm has access to all this information so it can continue to get more and more specialized and direct with the recommendations and learn your own body over time. So, you’re getting this kind of ongoing, accurate picture which I think is so fascinating.

Naveen: Yeah. So, Katie, we have analyzed over 350,000 samples already. And that has given us this…you know, the part of being the…part of that Viome ecosystem is every single person who joins benefit from the other 350,000 samples that we have analyzed and they contribute to the ecosystem, and our AI and machine learning is constantly getting better. And for every single person who joins benefit themselves and benefits the humanity at the same time because now the more we learn, the better recommendations we can make for everyone. So, before we just only could look at your stool. Now we look at stool plus blood. Now it’s stool plus blood plus saliva. And we’re gonna launch…the next thing will be with urine. And then we’re gonna start to look at other biomarkers in your body. So, our recommendations get more and more precise as we learn more and more about the human body. And our real hope is, you know, in my lifetime we’ll be able to understand what causes the onset of a chronic disease and what causes them to progress and to be able to prevent them from happening in the first place, to diagnose them early when they actually do happen, and to come up with a cure for these diseases. Not simply manage them but to cure them once for all for each individual. And that’s going to be the ultimate goal of our life.

Katie: And I love that you brought up the interaction of all the different microbiomes within the body as well and how you’re looking at all of these, because some of my early research was in oral health and learning for instance that strep mutants and the bacteria that cause gingivitis don’t both exist at the same time. And this is because we have an oral microbiome. And if it gets out of balance in one direction or the other, you’re gonna end up with those problems. But the answer is not sterilizing your mouth and killing all bacteria just like we wouldn’t want to in the gut. It’s getting a healthy oral microbiome that has that ecosystem that it needs. Same thing with the gut. And like you said, you’re looking at these throughout the whole body. I know your daughter’s also doing some fascinating research with the vaginal microbiome and I’m excited to chat with her about that.

But I think, like we talked about in the beginning, since our body is more bacterial than human, the more we understand about these interactions, the more kind of intricate data we can get to make improvements over time and of course there would be a cancer connection here. You know, I’ve heard it said that cancer is a metabolic disease in some part. And this is a way of…because even within an individual, if you’re looking at a metabolic disease, you’re looking at, “Okay, we need to get blood sugar in check. We need to get blood pressure in check. We need to get obesity measures in check.” But the way to do that’s gonna be different for every single person.

Naveen: I think it’s a metabolic and inflammatory disease. So, I mean, it’s caused…chronic inflammation is a root cause of chronic diseases. However, what causes the inflammation in our body is different for each individual. So even though it is the inflammation that may be at the root cause but the underlying reasons for that inflammation are very, very different. And as you mentioned, our daughter is, you know…has this company called Evvy, E-V-V-Y, which looks at the vaginal microbiome. And to me, what she’s doing is so phenomenal and especially your audience, every single woman should do that because that is really…is going to be…you know, lots of women suffer through many of the diseases that we as men would never understand. And that to some extent is, you know, largely reproductive organ and many of the times the later research shows that vaginal microbiome is involved in preterm birth, in the health of the baby and all the things that you mentioned as the baby goes through the birth canal. All the things that come out in fact are contributory from the vaginal microbiome. So, my high recommendation…again, I’m biased. I think every woman should be doing the Evvy test, right.

Now, coming back to the things you mentioned that, you know, human health is complex but once we understand biochemical level what is going on, that’s the reason instead of looking at organisms and instead of looking at DNA, we focused on the gene expression or RNA. We focused on what microbes are producing. Looking at the whole body. And I think, Katie, I wanna point out that the products that you build for oral health are some of the best products because, to me, what is the biggest gamechanger is people thought the organisms were your enemy. So, they have this Listerine. Kills 99% of all the bacteria in your mouth. For heaven’s sake, don’t do that. When you kill the ecosystem in your mouth, it actually destroys the whole digestive tract. And I wanna just emphasize, you know, to people when our mothers told us to chew our food, she didn’t ask us to chew the food because they thought the food was too big to go down our esophagus, right. It was actually was when you chew your food, you’re allowing the oral microbiome in your saliva to actually predigest the food, and by predigesting the food…in addition to predigesting, it also sends the signal to the gut and to the body about what is coming down. So, when it tastes sweet, it starts to release the signal for pancreas to release the insulin, because it knows the sweet stuff is coming down.

So, the main thing is that we need to allow the oral microbiome to predigest the feed so your small intestine can now absorb the nutrients that are already predigested. So, when you are…so two things you need to think about here. And one is when you are stressed and you are eating your food, it does not get properly digested and here is why. When you are stressed, you are in a fight or flight response. And the number one thing that happens when you’re in fight or flight response is your digestive system shuts down. Remember why it was designed. When you’re running away from a tiger, at that time, the body knew there is no point worrying about digesting your food because either you’re gonna be lunch for someone else or you’re going to survive. And if you became lunch for someone else, it didn’t matter. And if you survive, guess what? The stress went down and you moved from sympathetic mode to parasympathetic mode and you could digest your food.

When you come from work and you are stressed, what do we tell people? Before you eat, do the gratitude. Why is that? It’s because you want to bring your body from sympathetic mode into parasympathetic mode. Get rid of fight or flight response. By taking the deep breath, by doing the gratitude, what you are doing is actually allowing your body to be able to be ready to digest the food. Then when you chew your food, you’re allowing your saliva and oral microbiome to actually predigest your food. And these are simple techniques we learned in the ancient culture but we now know scientifically why did they say that, right. We tell…like, Katie, you may not know that my mom and dad and our religion, they don’t eat after sunset. And I always wonder why would that be. And it turns out because you need to have three or four hours of break after you eat food before you go to sleep. So, they made that as a religion do not eat after sunset so because people will get three, four hours of digestion. So, in fact telling that, you know…and that to me was really the thing that we learned as part of our culture. Actually, turns out we’re very scientific.

And I wanna come back to the oral products. I think people need to be really thinking about oral microbiome health and using the actual oral toothpaste, oral things that…you know, probiotics. And the products, some of the products that you have, Katie, are designed to enhance your oral health and oral microbial activities or oral microbial ecosystem in your mouth. And I think everyone who’s listening to it to start pay attention because that is the number one. Your mouth actually is the beginning of your digestive tract. It is not simply an opening to your digestive tract. It is the path of the digestive tract where the digestion happens.

Katie: I absolutely agree. I think very multifaceted but start with the mouth is so important. And I love a couple of the things you just mentioned about why we don’t digest food if we’re stressed and we know, of course, that Americans live in a chronic state of stress often. And one thing I’ve become fond of…you know, there’s a reason many cultures also pray or meditate right before eating, which also helps the body get into parasympathetic or you can simply do breathing exercises. Do some box breathing to calm your nervous system. I love that your family naturally from a religious perspective stopped eating at sunset. I’ve learned in my own life that I do great when I time restricted eat and for a long time I would wait and not eat till noon and then eat later in the day. And I noticed when I shifted that to eating and stopping by sunset, I feel so much better and it goes to that point you mentioned about letting your body finish digesting before you sleep so that when you’re sleeping, you can be healing and your body can get into autophagy and you can allocate resources to all the natural processes the body has built in to keep us healthy.

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And I also wanna piggyback on what you said about the same reason we don’t wanna kill our oral microbiome is the same reason we don’t wanna kill our gut bacteria as well but I still see people kind of hopping on the bandwagon of these really harsh cleanses or of course people sometimes take antibiotics for reasons whether they need to or not. And those can both have a pretty harsh impact on the gut. And so, I’d love to talk about it. Maybe if someone knows they’ve been on antibiotics before or they know they have a gut issue related to really kind of killing some of those good bacteria. Obviously, Viome helps with this but kind of, like, what can be done? How can we help fix it?

Naveen: So, first thing is, you know, before you go start taking a lot of things is to understand, what is the state of your gut bacteria? So do a Viome test, understand where it stands. And then you start to look at what you…you know, we tell you what are the foods you should eat. And again, taking a lot of the fermented food especially when you’re trying to repopulate or rebootilate your gut microbiome, really the things should be diversification. So instead of just taking one type of probiotics, you should be taking kombucha, the kimchi, the…you know, all the fermented foods you can possibly get your hands on. So, whether it’s a yogurt or, you know, at least oat milk yogurt if you can. I mean, I’m a big fan that I think dairy…in fact for a lot of the people, dairy is the big problem. Now I’m not saying it’s for everyone but a lot of the people, dairy could be a big problem. And the mammalian products actually could be a big problem for some people and not for others.

So, I’m not the person who is preaching veganism here at all. What I’m saying is know what is good for you. There are a lot of people who can eat red meat for all of their life and live to be 100, and the reason for that is red meat contains obviously as you all know, choline and carnitine that can get converted by our gut microbiome into things like TMA. And I mentioned TMA is the one that gets absorbed in the blood, causes the TMAO which causes the heart disease. So, it’s not the red meat that causes the heart disease. It is the byproduct of how the red meat is digested in some people that produce TMA. So, if your TMA production is low, you should eat red meat if you want to because it’s not gonna harm you. And that’s really the point is to understand, don’t simply ban foods and whole category of food.

Another thing that we learned…we published a paper having analyzed over 100,000 people at that time on aging. And what we found, Katie, that you may find really fascinating is people who were on these fad diets like, you know, keto diet or paleo diet were the worst offender of their biological age. The people who were on keto diet in fact were three to five years older than their chronological age and the same is true for paleo diet. It turns out that people who are on balanced diet, that means they were eating their carbs but not a lot but they were eating their normal carbs, they were eating their protein, they were eating their fat and they were eating the protein, they were much more balanced, were actually better off biologically than cutting out the whole nutrient group completely.

Katie: That makes sense, that we need the variety. And I’ve learned more and more as well that I think the simplistic version we all learned, hopefully learned in school was about just kind of calories in, calories out. And I’ve heard it said, you know, our body’s not a bank account. It’s a chemistry lab. And so, I now try to eat for maximal micronutrient and nutrient density in food, not just hitting or not hitting target calorie ratios because it’s so much more diverse and important than that.

And what’s next for Viome? I’m curious because I know you’re constantly doing research here, and like you said, your goal is to tackle chronic disease in its entirety. So, what’s in the pipeline for you guys?

Naveen: Actually, I mentioned that next test we are launching in June is a full body intelligence. We’re launching a cancer detect test. And we’re making our supplements and probiotics more and more precise for every individual since we make it for each individual. We are, you know, trying to do additional tests now and our goal is to launch in the next six months another test which is gonna be more, like, a proteomics test because the things we cannot see in the blood because they are produced somewhere else. So, can we measure things, you know, the proteins for a Hashimoto disease? Can we measure things like lipopolysaccharide binding protein that can predict if you have a leaky gut by looking at LBP, by looking at CRP which actually is done in the liver? So, we’re going to be able to actually measure additional things in addition to just the ones that we are measuring, and the more information we can learn, the better recommendations we make. So, our hope is to continue to launch these tests that give us better and better insights and that means we can make more and more precise recommendation for each individual.

Ultimate goal really is to understand…as you say, the human body is a chemistry lab. We have basically biochemical reactors in our body. Your body is a biochemical reactor. And that is the thing people need to understand that the gene expression tells you what biochemistry is going on in the body. And that’s a reason…and in fact, Viome is the only company that does look at the gene expression because there is no other company that has this technology. And I think people who have listened to your earlier podcast, we talked about, this particular technology came out of Los Alamos National Lab where they had the laboratory for biodefense project. And that’s the reason no one else can do it because it took 10 years and multibillion dollars’ worth of resources to develop this technology. Unfortunately, we were very fortunate to be able to get the license to be able to use this technology to help the humanity get better. And if our mission was simply to make money, we would not have been able to license this technology, right.

So, the fact today we are simply focused on making every single person be better. You know, our mission on day one was what if we could understand the human biology at a molecular level so we can prevent, diagnose early and cure these chronic diseases including cancer and aging? And I think a lot of the people who have heard you and I talk in the past, you know that I lost my dad to cancer and that was one of the biggest motivator for me because if I had started this company half a decade before I did, I could have potentially saved my dad. And, you know, having watched him go through that pain or suffering through cancer I realized that even though I couldn’t save him, I could dedicate my life to saving everyone else. And that will be my way of letting him know that, you know, I am so proud of what he…how he raised us as a child and giving us everything we have so we are able to save everyone else’s loved ones whether it is from heart disease or diabetes or depression, anxiety or cancer.

And my hope really is that in our lifetime we will absolutely eradicate cancer from the human body. And if I were to make a prediction today, I will tell you within a decade I think we will get rid of cancer from the human body.

Katie: That’s a big claim and I hope we are on track for that as well. I’ve lost two extended family members in the last couple of months alone to cancer as well as some of my grandparents. And it’s no secret that those are all still very much on the rise right now and I’m sure the chronic stress of the last couple of years is not helping that problem. So, I’m grateful that there are resources like you, and I have done Viome. I’m doing an updated one right now so I can report back with my results on that. But I also am gonna make sure…I know you’ve offered a discount code for the Viome testing. So that link will be in the show notes for you guys listening at wellnessmama.fm. You can find the discount code and the link directly to it there. And to make sure I respect your time, there’s a couple last questions I would love to ask you. The first being if there is a book or a number of books that have profoundly influenced your life. And if so, what they are and why?

Naveen: Yeah, so the book that really influenced me…there is a book by Clayton Christensen, you know. I love the man and I saw him before he died. The book he wrote, “How Will You Measure Your Life?” And to me it was such a profound book which tells you that you have to be 100% honest. You cannot be 99% honest because once you take a step down of this honesty, it’s a slippery slope and there is no stopping it. Once you make an exception to something, there’s just no going back but there’ll always be another reason to make an exception. And so, you have to focus yourself to never, ever compromise on your principles that you stand for. And that was just absolutely a marvelous book I read.

You know, the book that also…I mean, obviously I wrote a book called “Moonshots” that’s really about creating a mindset of abundance rather than a mindset of scarcity. And the fundamental belief that I have is that there is nothing that humans are not capable of doing if we actually get our mindset to believe we can. So, any time when someone says, “I can or I can’t,” it is true because it is up to them to decide whether they can or they can’t. That once you believe something is impossible, it becomes impossible for you and no one else. And so, you are completely in control. The only thing you can’t do is what you can’t imagine. Everything else is possible.

Katie: I love that. I know you and I both raise our kids with that mindset and yours are older and doing amazing things out in the world already and mine are in the beginning stages of that. And lastly, what parting advice would you like to leave with the audience today? Could be related to something we’ve talked about or entirely unrelated.

Naveen: I would say dream so big that people think you’re crazy. That means never let someone tell you that you can’t do it. Fall in love with yourself because the day you fall in love with yourself is the day the world will fall in love with you. Loving yourself is not about being self-conceited. Loving yourself is about not looking for someone else’s approval to do the things that mean a lot to you. Follow your heart, follow your gut, listen to your gut and follow what it tells you. Find a purpose in life. Once you find a purpose in life, you will never ever think it’s work. I get up every day at 4 a.m., and that’s my advice to everyone. Whenever you get up in the morning, if you’re not jumping out of the bed, you should quit what you are doing because that’s not your calling, because when you find your calling, you will not be lying down in the bed. You jump out of the bed with joy wanting to solve that problem.

And, Katie, I just want to reiterate, I met your kids and I know I remember the oldest one and I gave him the Moon rock at that time. I’m telling you your kids are going to actually move this humanity forward. You are raising these children with the mindset that everything they want to do, they can. And every mother who’s listening to it just should know that parenting is actually very counterintuitive. And, Katie, you and I have talked about it a lot of times. Like, when we raise our children, we tell them, “Our love for you is unconditional but our approval is not.” And what that means is simply is that we’ll always love you, we’ll always be there for you, but I’m not gonna tell you I’m proud of you unless you do things that make us proud of you. And that is really the thing about telling the children that their success will never be measured by how much money they have in the bank. It will be measured by how many lives they improve. And the humility is a sign of success because if you still have iota of arrogance left in you, that means you’re still trying to prove something to yourself or someone else. And humility tells you no longer have to do that, right. And that is a true sign of success. And all I can say is I’m so proud of every one of your children, Katie. And I cannot wait for them to grow up and actually do things that will make our children’s and grandchildren’s life better.

Katie: Oh, thank you so much for saying that. People who don’t know, you and I first met and really bonded over actually parenting before we ever talked about health. And we share that similarity. I tell my kids every day, “I love you unconditionally and there’s nothing you ever have to do to earn my love and there’s nothing you could ever do that would take away from my love.” But you’re right. Also, I want that, like, their pride to come from inside of, like…and I tell them often, “You must feel really proud of how hard you worked and you must…” Because I want them to have that inside them and that self-love.

And this is why I’m so grateful every single day that I get to talk to our audience that’s listening today of moms, because I think moms have such an amazing unique ability to really shift the future of humanity by how we parent our kids and by helping form those future leaders. And for people who aren’t already familiar with you, I would encourage you to listen to our past interview because you tell more of your story in that one and you very much walk the walk of this, of having built all these amazing things and then now helping your kids on their life journeys and your wife in her own right is incredible as well. So very grateful for your whole family and for all that all of you are doing in the world and for your time today. I know how busy you are and I’m so grateful you took the time to be here.

Naveen: Oh, Katie, it’s always an honor and a pleasure to be speaking with you, and I’m looking forward to our next conversation.

Katie: And thank you, as always, to all of you for listening and sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the “Wellness Mama” podcast.

 

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Sometimes you just need some chocolate. Our chocolate cravings are more than just a sweet tooth, but have some genuine health reasons behind them. This healthy adaptogen truffle recipe satisfies those cravings while it improves focus and lessens stress.

There’s no need to wait for Valentine’s Day or a special event (although they do make a great gift). Any chocolate lover would enjoy this truffle recipe any day of the week!

Dark Chocolate Truffles Recipe

There are a lot of truffle recipes out there. Some call for white chocolate, peanut butter, or even cream cheese with oreo cookies. A lot of these candy recipes though are so sweet and full of sugar and are something my family avoids.

Instead, I’ve opted for a dark chocolate truffle recipe that only contains a few simple ingredients and is low in processed sugar. The star of the show here is really the mushrooms though. Yes, you heard me right!

We’re using adaptogenic mushrooms that help with energy, focus, and overall health. While I like drinking my mushrooms in coffee, this mushroom blend is in a cocoa powder base.

Health Benefits of Medicinal Mushrooms

Thirty years ago if someone told me I’d be putting mushroom powder in my candy I’d think they were a little off their rocker. Medicinal mushrooms have exploded in popularity in recent years and it’s easy to see why. There are plenty of different options out there, but I like these blends from Four Sigmatic. The mushrooms are high quality and pre-cooked so their nutrients are ready to use.

Four Sigmatic has a few different blends to choose from, but I used their Focus mushroom blend in these truffles. I felt like the blueberry and cocoa powder complemented the dark chocolate nicely. You can also opt for their Mushroom or Adaptogen blends too for different health benefits.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s in the Focus blend mushroom powder:

• Lion’s mane: Benefits the central nervous system and promotes digestion. Also, increases energy, nourishes the gut, and more.
• Cordyceps – An adaptogen that boosts energy and athletic performance. It’s also anti-aging and immune-boosting, supports healthy blood sugar levels, and may protect the liver.
• Bacopa monnieri – A native Indian herb that’s a nootropic, may protect against brain diseases, and has anti-anxiety properties.
• Rhodiola – An adaptogenic herb that positively impacts mood and lessens anxiety. It also improves energy, stamina, and brain function.
• Vitamin B12 – This vitamin is crucial for energy and brain health. B12 supports the nervous system and is necessary for mental health. It may also help with nerve related pain.
• Blueberry – High in antioxidants and polyphenols that support a healthy brain and fight off free radical damage.

What Are Adaptogens?

I’ve been mentioning the word adaptogens, but what are they really? In short, adaptogens are substances that help our body better cope with stress. That doesn’t mean we can push ourselves to the limit, and just pop a few adaptogen supplements though.

The best way to use adaptogens is to incorporate them as part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle along with rest. So kick your feet up and enjoy an adaptogenic truffle (or two!).

What’s in the Dark Chocolate Truffles Recipe?

Other than the mushroom blend, I’ve also included some raw honey to sweeten and cocoa powder to thicken. The honey adds enough sweetness without the blood sugar spikes. And the cocoa powder is high in antioxidants with a little caffeine kick. I also added just a little bit of canned coconut milk for a better texture.

You can omit the coconut milk for more honey if you prefer, or use up the extra milk in this strawberry ice cream recipe. This homemade Irish cream with coconut milk is equally delicious.

The Best Chocolate

A truffle is only as good as the chocolate used to make it. My other truffle recipe uses chocolate melted together with heavy cream and coconut oil. I use a cookie scoop to place the chocolate mixture onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and coat them with cacao powder. For these homemade chocolate truffles though we’re making filled chocolate with a hard shell.

I prefer to use at least 70% dark chocolate for that rich, chocolatey flavor. And it helps cut down on excess sugar too. Bittersweet chocolate might be a little too dark though since the filling is only mildly sweetened.

If you prefer something sweeter, like milk chocolate, then that’s an option too. I add a little bit of coconut oil to help it melt better on the stove and prevent the chocolate from burning.

Instead of using chocolate bars and messing with chopped chocolate, I just use chocolate chips to make life easier. Whatever you pick, high-quality chocolate makes for a better truffle.

Truffle Recipe Flavors

I used orange essential oil, but here are a few more options:

The above measurements aren’t hard and fast rules. Add about half of the amount to the filling and adjust to taste.

Sources:

1. Bokelmann, J. (2022). Bacopa (Bacopa monnieri): Leaf, Medicinal Herbs in Primary Care, Elsevier, Pages 211-216.
2. Buesing, S., Costa, M., Schilling, J. M., & Moeller-Bertram, T. (2019). Vitamin B12 as a Treatment for Pain. Pain physician, 22(1), E45–E52.
3. Cheng, A., et al. (2014). Polyphenols from blueberries modulate inflammation cytokines in LPS-induced RAW264.7 macrophages. International journal of biological macromolecules, 69, 382–387.

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

 

This episode is brought to you by Paleovalley – a company that is near and dear to my heart. I really like all of their products and my family especially loves their 100% grass fed beef sticks, which are a clean, gut-friendly protein snack option. They never last long in my house because my kids enjoy them so much, and I love how seriously Paleovalley takes creating healthy and environmentally friendly products. Paleovalley Grass fed beef sticks are the real deal. They are sourced from 100% grass fed and finished cows that are never fed grains or harmful antibiotics. And they come from small, family owned farms right here in the USA that practice rotational grazing, meaning farmers literally rotate the pastures in which their cows graze. So they aren’t feeding on the same soil forever, depleting its nutrients.  This means the cows are helping increase the nutrient density in the soil and put carbon back in the soil where it belongs. Another important difference- Virtually every other meat snack on the market is made with a processing agent called encapsulated citric acid (ECA). Companies use this in order to guarantee a long shelf life for their products but one study from The University of Illinois at Chicago found ECA can cause: Joint discomfort caused by stiffness and swelling, muscle aches, upset stomach, and shortness of breath! Instead, Paleovalley Beef sticks use old world methods of fermentation, which gives the beef sticks a long shelf life without the use of harmful acids and chemicals. They’re also free of Brominated Vegetable Oil, hormones, and MSG and the natural fermentation process means they are a good source of probiotics.  Check out the amazing beef sticks and all of their products at paleovalley.com/mama and use code mama15 at checkout for 15% off your order!

 

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Katie: Hello, and welcome to the “Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com. That’s wellness with an E on the end and I am here today with Dr. Debi Silber about how to stop sabotaging yourself and healing from betrayal. She’s done a lot of work about how unhealed betrayal impacts our health, our work, and our relationships and not just betrayal in adult relationships. She had two painful betrayals by her family and then by her husband.

And at age 50 with four kids and six dogs, she enrolled in a Ph.D. program in transpersonal psychology and did a study on betrayal and what holds us back. And we go deep on that today talking about the different types of betrayal, the physical and emotional impact they have, the three groundbreaking discoveries she made while studying this, what post-traumatic stress is versus post-traumatic growth and her system for moving into healing after experiencing a betrayal. Lots and lots of interesting and fascinating info in this one. I know you will learn a lot. So, let’s join Dr. Debi. Debi, welcome. Thanks so much for being here.

Debi: Looking forward to our conversation. Thank you.

Katie: Me too. And we’re gonna jump in and talk about something that you’ve done a whole lot of really fascinating research on. But before we do, I have a note in my show notes that you have four kids, I have six, you understand mom life, and that, when they were little and you were trying to get workouts in, that you had two in a stroller and two on your body. And I just have to hear this story because I think it’s so relatable to so many moms.

Debi: You know, you know what it’s like when you have to get your workout in, you wanna get your workout in, but you need to take care of the kids. So, I had my 5 and 6-year-old in a double jogger, I had my toddler in a backpack, and I had a newborn in one of those BabyBjörn snugly things. And I actually had a mirror that I would keep in my pocket so I could look at my toddler and see how she was doing on my back. And and I became known in the neighborhood as, “The fit mom who wears all those kids.”

Katie: I love that, that’s so fun. And good for you because I think it’s easy at that phase to just be like, “Oh, it’s too hard to even get a workout in.” And I’ve had those kids at those ages and I know how much energy is required. That’s awesome that you did that. Well, you’re an expert on actually many things, and there’s so many directions you could go, but the one I’m really excited to dive in and talk to you about today is really about betrayal. And I know that there’s a whole lot of layers of even foundational understanding to start to unpack this, although I think that word probably has a visceral feeling for people who have experienced it. So, let’s talk on a broader level, when we’re talking about betrayal in this context, kind of like what does that mean?

Debi: You know, I define it as the breaking of a spoken or unspoken rule, and every relationship has them. You know, the way it works though is the more you trust and the more you depend on someone, the deeper the betrayal. So, a child, for example, you know, where they’re completely dependent on their parent, the parent does something awful, that’s gonna have a different impact than, let’s say, your best friend sharing your secret. Still a betrayal, different level of cleanup left in the wake.

The way it works is, you know, think about it, this was the person or these were the people you trusted the most. So, and it completely shatters any sense of safety and security. So, when the person you trusted the most or the people you trust the most shatter that sense of safety and security, who do you trust? That’s why it has such a big impact.

Katie: And especially kids, that makes complete sense, because they are so dependent on parents. And I’ve heard it said by other psychiatrists on this podcast, actually, that kids will cut off love to themselves before they’ll cut off love to a caregiver because they are so dependent on the parents for survival. And it makes sense that this would, obviously, have rollover and have an impact in kind of all areas of life when someone’s experienced that kind of shattering of trust at a core level. But when you’ve researched this, does this play out in like personal relationships and work relationships, like where are the effects of this seen?

Debi: It affects us on every single level. Well, first of all, if this starts in childhood, then think about it, you move into your relationships and, you know, you move into these relationships not that they’re good, they’re so familiar. It’s like, “Okay. Oh, I know that, I know how that works.” But an unhealed betrayal, and here’s the thing, even if it happened decades ago, it can affect our health, our work, or relationships. For example, in relationships, I see it in one of two ways. The first way is in a repeat betrayal, the face has changed but it’s the same thing, keep going from, you know, partner to partner to partner, friend to friend to friend, boss to boss to boss. You say, “What the heck, is it me?” Yes, it is. Not in that it’s your fault, in that it’s your opportunity. There’s a profound lesson waiting to be learned that you are lovable, worthy, and deserving, you need better boundaries in place. Whatever it is. Until and unless you get that, you will have opportunities in the form of people to teach you.

The other way we see it is in relationships. The big wall goes up. You know, you’re like, “Been there, done that. That was way too painful, I don’t wanna take the chance of that again,” so, we keep everyone at bay. And yes, you know, you’re keeping out the bad ones, you’re keeping out the good ones too. And we think it’s coming from a place of strength, it’s not, it’s coming from fear. In health, we see it in, you know, people go to the most well-meaning amazing doctors, coaches, healers, therapists to manage a stress-related symptom, illness, condition, disease. So often at the root of it is an unhealed betrayal. We’ve seen it work too. You know, people wanna ask for that razor promotion, they deserve it, but the person they trusted the most proved untrustworthy. How do they trust that boss, that co-worker? Right? Or, you know, their confidence was shattered and they don’t have the confidence to ask. Or they wanna be a collaborative partner but they’re terrified. It shows up everywhere.

Katie: And I think that’s important in context as well because often it seems like the word “betrayal” gets linked only to, like, infidelity in relationships. And I know that you, in your research, there’s many many ways this plays out, especially in children, having such a big impact. And I know you’ve studied this, so, what were some of the discoveries you made during your study of this?

Debi: Yeah. And, of course, you know, no one studies betrayal because you like the topic, you know, you study it because you have to. And I had a really painful betrayal from my family and then thought I did the work I needed to do to heal and, a few years later, it happened again, this time it was my husband. So, I got him out of the house and looked at the two experiences, thinking, “Okay, well, what’s similar to these two? Of course me, what else?” And I realized boundaries were always getting crossed, never took my needs seriously. So, here I was, you could relate to this one, four kids, six dogs, a thriving practice. I’m like, “I’m going back for a PhD, that’s it.”

And it was in transpersonal psychology, the psychology of transformation, human potential. I was changing so much, I didn’t even understand what was happening. He was too, on his own, wasn’t ready to look at that. And then it was time to do a study, so, I studied betrayal, what holds us back, what helps us heal, and what happens to us physically, mentally, and emotionally when the people closest to us lie, cheat, and deceive. That study led to three groundbreaking discoveries which changed everything, I mean, my health, my work, my family, and my life.

But to answer your question, so, the first one, the first discovery was…you know, originally, I was studying betrayal and post-traumatic growth. And for those who aren’t familiar, post-traumatic growth, I kind of call it like an upside of trauma. Whatever that crisis is, death of a loved one, disease, natural disaster, leaves you with a new awareness inside perspective you didn’t have. But I had been through death of a loved one and I’ve been through disease, and I was like, “No, betrayal feels so different.” But I didn’t wanna assume it was the same for everybody else. So, I asked all my study participants, I said, “If you’ve been through other traumas, does betrayal feel different to you?” Unanimously, they said, “Oh my gosh, it’s so different.” Here’s why. Because it feels so intentional, we take it so personally. So, the entire self is shattered and has to be rebuilt. Rejection, abandonment, belonging, confidence, worthiness, trust…all have to be rebuilt.

So, it didn’t quite qualify as post-traumatic growth, it was like, “Yeah, you need to rebuild your life but you also need to rebuild yourself.” So, I coined a new term, “post-betrayal transformation,” the complete and total rebuild of your life and yourself after an experience with betrayal. That was the first discovery.

Katie: And I think I resonate with your idea that, unfortunately, many of us don’t get into the thing that ends up being our passion in life because of an easy experience. And for me, that was why I got into health and nutrition was I’ve heard people say, you know, “You get into therapy because you’re trying to figure out what is inside of you.” And for me, that was health. And I hear that over and over from practitioners who had their own journey that then led them to be able to help other people. And it sounds like that very much was yours as well.

I remember reading, “The Body Keeps the Score,” and having this kind of light bulb moment of how the physical body can store and express trauma. And is there a similar thing, you mentioned there could be physical effects of disease that follow betrayal, do you see that in betrayal as well, like the body manifesting physical expressions of that?

Debi: You led me into the second discovery so perfectly, this was the second one. What we learned was there’s actually a collection of symptoms so common to betray it’s known as “post betrayal syndrome.” We’ve had thousands and thousands of people take our post-portrayal-syndrome quiz to see to what extent they’re struggling. Every so often I pull the stats from the quiz. I’d love to share them, if that would serve…okay. So, now imagine, figure 60,000, 70,000 people, men, women, just about every country’s represented, almost every age. Ready? Seventy eight percent constantly revisit their experience, 81% feel a loss of personal power, 80% are hyper vigilant, 94% deal with painful triggers, and those triggers can take you right down. Here are the most common physical symptoms, 71% have low energy, 68% have sleep issues, 63% extreme fatigue, your adrenals have tanked, that’s what’s going on there, 47% have weight changes. So, in the beginning, you can’t hold food down, later on you’re using food for comfort. 45% have digestive issues. And that can be anything from Crohn’s, IBS, diverticulitis, constipation, diarrhea, you name it.

The most common mental symptoms, 78% are overwhelmed, 70% are walking around in the state of disbelief, 68% are unable to focus, 64% are in shock, 62% can’t concentrate. So, now imagine you can’t concentrate, you have a gut issue, you’re exhausted…you still have to raise your kids, you still have to work. That’s not even the emotional issues. Emotionally, 88% experience extreme sadness, 83% are very angry, it’s really common to bounce back and forth between those two emotions. 82% feel hurt, 80% have anxiety, 79% are stressed, just a few more, 84% have an inability to trust. And that affects everything. 67%  prevent themselves from forming deep relationships because they’re afraid of being hurt again. 82% find it hard to move forward. 90% wanna move forward but they don’t know how.

You wanna know the craziest thing about those stats? You didn’t hear me read anything that said, “20%, 30%,” those statistics, 70%, 80%, 90 plus percent from some of those different things isn’t necessarily from a recent betrayal. It could be from something that happened decades ago. So, imagine here someone did something back when you were a kid, or a little kid or a teenager, they may not even know, care, or even remember. And here we are walking around with the gut issue, the anxiety, the hyper vigilance for decades. That’s the part that, to me, is so tragic.

Katie: Yeah, I can think back to my own experience. And I had a very specific acute trauma in high school that I at least knew about and I realized that could be very much a part of things I was dealing with. But when I started doing the work and therapy and then even, like, hypnosis, they would ask me questions that I thought I knew cognitively the answer to. And the answers that actually came from my subconscious often went back to, like, early childhood. And it wasn’t something that on paper seemed like it could’ve been a super significant thing, it wasn’t like I was abused as a child. And that was really eye-opening for me to realize, like you just said, these can be outside of really extensive physical, emotional, verbal trauma, these can be actually what seem like smaller but very significant things. And that meaning that we attach to them and the whole process after them seems like it can really…and without even that conscious awareness. Which makes me wonder, so, it seems like all of us probably have examples of this in our life, some we may not even be aware of, how does one start to become aware of the roots of these?

Debi: You know, there are so many things we need to do, but one thing I also wanna mention about the quiz also, you know, we’ve all heard, “Time heals all wounds.” I have the proof, when it comes to betrayal, that’s simply not true. There’s a question that says, “Is there anything else you’d like to share?” and people write things like, “my betrayal happened 40 years ago, I can still feel the hate,” “my betrayal happened 35 years ago, I’m unwilling to trust again,” “my betrayal happened 10 years ago, it feels like it happened yesterday.”

But to answer your question, you know, first of all, we need to know, and I would love to get to the third discovery, but you wanna know if you’re numbing, avoiding, distract…I mean, there are so many things we do that prevent our healing. In fact, there were actually three groups in the study who did not heal. And so, this is something that may have been a huge betrayal or even a micro betrayal, something that you wouldn’t think is so significant but it shows up and our healing is prevented if we do one of these three things. Ready?

The first group, this was the group that refused to give up their story. They had their story, they were sticking with it, and so they did at the expense of healing. The second group, this was the group that was numbing, avoiding, distracting. They ran to the doctor who put them on a mood stabilizer, anti-anxiety medication. They started emotionally eating, drinking, numbing in front of the TV. May have made the day a bit easier to get through, not without a price.

The third group, I found this so interesting, this was the group where the betrayal really had very little consequences. So, whether it was out of not wanting to break up a family, financial fear, religious reasons, that was a big one, they just did all they could to turn the other cheek, try to put it behind them. I saw two things with this group. The first was a further deterioration of the relationship. The second thing was, by far, this group was the most physically sick. Your broken heart just can’t handle that.

But what so many people are afraid of is they’re so afraid of the death and destruction of the old. But that’s the only way you rebirth the new. Whether that’s just a new you…you know, and here’s the thing, rebuilding is always a choice. Whether you rebuild yourself and move on, and that’s what I do with my family, it just wasn’t an option to rebuild with them. Or if the situation lends itself, if you’re willing, if you want to, you rebuild something from the ground up, brand new with the person who hurt you. That’s what I did with my husband.

So, not long ago, as two totally transformed people, we married each other again. New rings, new vows, new dress, and our four kids is our bridal party. Never in a billion years would I have done anything like that if I wasn’t totally different and, for sure, if he wasn’t totally different. But betrayal will show you who someone truly is. It also has the potential to wake them up to who they temporarily became. And then, you know, you have a choice what you wanna do with that.

Katie: Wow, that’s amazing. I didn’t actually know that part of your personal story. Congratulations, that’s beautiful. Before we move on, I do wanna talk about the third discovery though just so we have those all three in the tank to move on to.

Debi: So, for me, this was the most exciting, this third discovery. And what we learned was, while we can stay stuck for years, decades, lifetime, and so many people do, if we’re going to fully heal, and by “fully heal” I mean symptoms of post betrayal syndrome, to that whole healed place of post betrayal transformation where we’ve rebuilt ourselves and our lives after betrayal, we’re gonna move through five now proven and predictable stages. And what’s even more exciting about that is we know what happens physically, mentally, and emotionally at every stage and we know what it takes to move from one stage to the next. Why is that good? Healing is entirely predictable. If someone is willing, they’re just willing to move through the stages, we got the rest.

So, I would love to share the five stages. Okay. So, the first stage is if you can imagine a setup stage, and I saw this with every study participant, me too, if you can imagine four legs of a table, the four legs being physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, what I saw with everybody was this real heavy lean on the physical and mental thinking and doing and kind of neglecting the emotional and the spiritual, feeling and being. So, you know, that’s not to say, “If you’re busy, you’ll be betrayed,” but it was the profile profile I saw. So, if you can imagine four legs of a table and only two are there, well, it’s easy for that table to topple over, and that’s us.

Stage two, by far the scariest of all of the stages, and this is shock, trauma, D-Day, discovery day. And it’s the breakdown of the body, the mind, and the world of you. Right here you’ve ignited the stress response, you’re headed for every single stress-related symptom, illness, condition, disease. Your mind is in a complete and total state of chaos and overwhelm. You cannot wrap your mind around what you just learned, this makes no sense, and your world view has just been shattered. Your world view is your mental model, it’s the rules that prevent chaos that govern you, “Don’t go there. Trust this person. This is how life works.” And in one earth-shattering moment, everything you’ve known to be real and true is no longer…the bottom has bottomed out and the new bottom hasn’t been formed yet.

So, it’s terrifying. But think about it, if the bottom were to bottom out on you, what would you do? You’d grab hold of whatever you could to stay safe and stay alive.

And that’s stage three, survival instincts emerge. It’s the most practical out of all of the stages. “If you can’t help me, get out of my way.” How do I survive this experience? Where do I go? Who can I trust? How do I feed my kids? Here’s the trap though, stage three by far is the stage that we all get stuck in, and here’s why. Once you’ve figured out how to survive your experience, because it feels so much better than the shock and trauma of where you just came from, we’re like, “Okay, this is good.” And because we don’t know there’s anywhere else to go, we don’t even know there’s a stage four, stage five. Transformation doesn’t even begin until stage four. But because we don’t know there’s anywhere else to go, we start planting roots here. We’re not supposed to but we don’t know that. And four things happen.

The first thing is we start getting all these small self benefits. We get to be right, we get sympathy from everyone we tell our story to, we get someone to blame, we get a target for our anger, we don’t have to do the hard work of learning to trust again, “Should I trust you? Can I trust you? Ah, forget it, I’m not trusting anybody.” So, we plant deeper roots. Again, we’re not supposed to but we don’t know that. Now, because we’re here longer than we’re supposed to be, the mind starts doing things like, “Well, maybe you deserved it. Maybe you’re not all that great.” So, we plant deeper roots. Now, because you’re here a while and these are the thoughts you’re thinking, this is the energy you’re putting out. And like-energy attracts like-energy. So, now you start calling situations and circumstances and relationships towards you to confirm, “Yep,” this is where you belong, “it gets worse but I’ll get you out of here.”

Because it feels so bad but we don’t know there’s anywhere else to go, right here, we resign ourselves, we’re like, “This stinks but I better find a way to be okay with it.” So, right here is where we start using food, drugs, alcohol, work, TV, keeping busy, whatever, to numb, avoid, and distract ourselves from what’s so painful to feel or face. So, think about it, you do it for a day, a week, a month. Now it’s a habit. A year, 10 years, 20 years. And I can see someone 20 years out and say, “That emotional eating you’re doing, that numbing in front of the TV, do you think that has anything to do with your betrayal?” And they would look at me like I’m crazy, they would say, “It happened 20 years ago,” all they did was put themselves in stage three and stay there. Does that make sense? Yeah, that’s why it’s the most common place to get stuck. And then they stay there. And then the longer you’re there, the more deeply you’re grounded, the harder it is to leave.

Anyway, if you’re willing, willingness is a huge word right here, if you’re willing to let go of the small self benefits, grieve, mourn the loss, a bunch of things you need to do, you move to stage four. Stage four is finding and adjusting to a new normal. So, here’s where you acknowledge, “I can’t undo my experience but I control what I do with it. Right there, in that decision, you start turning down the stress response. You’re not healing just yet but you stop the massive damage you’ve been causing in stages two and stage three.

I always use the example of, if you’ve ever moved to a new house, office, condo, apartment, that’s kind of the feeling of stage four. It’s not quite cozy yet, you don’t know your way around but it’s going to be okay. And that’s the feeling. But also think about it, if you were to move, you don’t take everything with you. You don’t take the things that don’t represent who you wanna be in that new space. And what I found was, if your friends weren’t there for you, right here you’ve outgrown them. You don’t take them with you from stage three to four. And people ask me all the time, “What the heck, I’ve had these friends 10, 20, 30 years. Is it me?” Yes, it is, you’re undergoing a transformation. And if they don’t rise, they don’t come. Very common. And if you don’t know that, it could be really alarming. You’re like, “What’s happening?” That’s what’s happening.

Anyway, when you’re in stage four, you’re making it cozy, you’re making it home mentally, you move into the fifth most beautiful stage. And this is healing, rebirth, and a new world view. The body starts to heal. Self-love. Self-care. Eating well. Exercise. You didn’t have the bandwidth for that earlier, now you do. The mind is healing. You’re making new rules, you’re making new boundaries based on the road you just traveled. And you have a new world view based on everything you see so clearly now. And the four legs of that table, in the beginning, it was all about the physical and the mental, by this point, we’re solidly grounded because we’re focused on the emotional and the spiritual too. Those are the five stages.

Katie: Yeah, I love how clearly you mapped them out. And I can feel, having gone through some of those myself, for a long time, I was very much, especially in the physical, trying to, like, heal everything physically and very focused on what I was eating and all of the physical steps. And it wasn’t until I addressed the emotional and spiritual, like you said, feeling and being, that the others even resolved without nearly as much effort as I thought. But I remember that feeling, and I guess would’ve been kind of that jumping into stage four, of it being so scary. Because it was that feeling of like, “Well, I am starting to feel like a different person, and I’m afraid this is gonna mean letting go of parts of my life and people in my life that have represented something very important until now.” And I can see why that would be a hard jump. Are there things that help people to be willing? You said willingness is a huge key to be willing to step into stage four.

Debi: You know, one of the things that I found so helpful is, first of all, the wrong support does more harm than good. We have so many people coming into the PBT Institute with therapy trauma. If that therapist isn’t highly skilled in betrayal, it actually does more harm than good. And it’s also, you know, people seek support but, if, let’s say, it’s like the “ain’t it awful club,” you know, and it’s almost like, when you heal, you don’t belong, but what I found is, if you have those growth-minded like-minded friends to move towards, it makes that transition and that transformation a little bit easier. Because this way you don’t put pressure on your friends, the ones you are outgrowing, and they’re doing the best they can.

Because here’s the thing, it’s not them, it’s us. We’re undergoing this transformation. So, if we have sort of our people who are already there, who are doing the work that we’re working towards, it actually is one of the things that prevents sabotage. Because we don’t wanna be on our own, we don’t wanna be, you know, totally without any support or anybody that understands this. So, if we have those people kind of in place, we can move towards it without feeling, “I’m totally on my own.”

Now, that’s not to say transformation isn’t a very personal process, it is, it’s not lonely, it’s very personal. And because this is a time period where you are clearly rewriting the rules, you’re writing a new script, betrayal lends itself to creating an entirely new identity. You take all the parts of you that you love, you leave behind everything that no longer serves, and you create a version of you that never would’ve had the opportunity to exist had that not happened. That’s trauma well served.

Katie: And it seems like I hear from a lot of people, and I’ve seen this pattern, where we might have a betrayal or a trauma as a child and then, you mentioned, like, we play this out over and over in our adult lives until we resolve it. Which, of course, would seem scary to a lot of people in a relationship because, if your relationship was kind of trauma-bonded in the beginning, both people then have to do the work to create a new system that’s based on trust and not playing out those patterns. Are there any tools that you found are helpful? Especially, if I can think of examples where maybe one partner is wanting to do that and the other is like, “No, I like the system that we have,” and that seems like it could cause quite a bit of stress.

Debi: Absolutely. You know, that reminds me of…I’m big on analogies, let me give you one right here. People tell me, you know, they ask me all the time about trust, and I don’t think trust can be repaired. It can be rebuilt, it takes a lot of work though. Here’s what I see, I look at trust like a brick wall. You know, the only way I know of a brick wall being built is brick by brick by brick. And that’s why it takes time. Now, imagine the person who built that brick wall in one earth-shattering moment, series of moments, tears the whole thing down. The person whose trust has been shattered can look at the rubble of bricks and say, “I don’t have the least bit of interest in watching that thing get rebuilt.” However, if they are willing, that would be their role. If they’re willing to watch that brick wall be rebuilt, the other person has to be a really good bricklayer. And it goes up the same way it went up the first time, brick by brick by brick. Every opportunity they have to show that they’re trustworthy, that’s one brick in that new brick wall.

But here’s what I see. The wall has been built, the person who built it shatters the whole thing, that person’s not really all that interested in rebuilding the brick wall. So, the person whose trust has been shared, they’re like, “Okay, I’ll build it.” Well, that’s why they never feel safe. That’s why they always have that heightened level of anxiety. You know, we also teach how do you know if it’s safe and in your best interest to heal and rebuild or heal and move on. And this way you know what you’re working with. I mean, I’m happy to share that if it would serve…

Katie: Absolutely, yeah.

Debi: Okay. Because here’s the thing, you know, after you’ve been betrayed and after trust has been shattered, it is really a solo job. And the idea is this is that opportunity for you to just rebuild yourself and, if we are so committed to that other person, what happens is, as we do the work, we sabotage ourselves because we’re afraid of outgrowing them. We don’t wanna outgrow them. So, the idea is we need to be okay with that because, once we do that growth, that other person can step it up or we’ve outgrown them, that’s just the way that works. But here’s how to know…and this is gonna be, I know a lot of people right here, they’re, “I know what’s coming.” So, I mean this in the best way because I want you to know who you’re working with.

I’m gonna teach you something, we call it the window of willingness. How do you know if it’s safe and in your best interest to heal and rebuild or heal and move on? Imagine a window, and the window is the widest open meaning, the greatest opportunity to heal and rebuild with someone. And then we’re going to get to all the way where it’s totally closed. Again, this isn’t to say you have to, this is just if you want to. Window is the widest open with this level one. And it’s remorse, apology, you know, regret, restitution. It may sound something like this, “I am so sorry for the pain I caused you. I can’t even imagine what that feels like. What in the world can I do to make it up to you?”

Now, of course, with betrayal, it takes a lot more than that but at least you’re off to a good start, that person is taking full and complete responsibility and ownership. You can feel the window closing a little bit with this next one. And you know it’s coming, this level two, you know it’s coming when you hear the word because. “Well, I did it because…” “I said it because…” Right? You still may be willing to listen but it doesn’t feel as good as that level one. Right? Okay, you know you can feel the window closing even more with this level three and you know it’s coming when you hear the word you. “I did it because you…” “I said it because you…” I call this the two-sided slap. Here you get betrayed, that’s slap on one side, and then you get blamed for it, that’s a slap on the other. This is crazy making and this is like gaslighting 101.

Level three is very close cousins with level four, you know it’s coming when there is zero responsibility, the window is sealed shut. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re crazy, you really need help.” Right? So, that’s the way that goes. So, here’s the thing, if you’re working with a level one or a level two, you have something to work with here. And then it’s totally up to you. If you’re working with a level three and level four, for sure you have many of those symptoms of post betrayal syndrome. At this point in their current level of consciousness, they are not able or willing to do the work. You don’t have anything to work with here. Here’s where you rebuild yourself and you move along.

Katie: That’s helpful to understand the languaging around each of those different ones so that you can pay attention. And because, like you said also earlier, I would guess there are a lot of people who, for the kids or for societal ideas they were raised with or religious ideas, in a sense, almost like that’s not an option, so, they are like only focused on rebuilding. But both people have to be in that place of willingness in order for that to happen.

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Let’s talk a little bit about boundaries and trust, because you used those words quite a bit. So, maybe after a betrayal, what are some tangible examples of boundaries. Like, how can, knowing each of us only has our own experience and our own actions to work from, what are some things someone can do to put healthy boundaries in place?

Debi: You know, this is a time where you really decide what boundaries you need for yourself, for that other person. Here’s the thing too, forgiveness is all about us. We’ve all heard, you know, “Forgiveness is for us.” When it comes to reconciliation though, that has so much to do with the other person, but you get to rewrite that script right here. And here’s where people are so, and I hear this all the time, “Well, you know what, I feel so bad being like this. I mean, I wish I didn’t have to…” Well, of course. And the rules have to be really really strict in the beginning. And what I always recommend is you make them as super strict as you need to so that you feel safe. And you can always, like, you know, when someone works in a new place, maybe there’s a three-month evaluation, well, it could be the same thing, make those rules super strict in the beginning and reevaluate as time goes on.

And here’s where, whatever it was that made you feel so uncomfortable, you think about it and then start there. Like, if someone was gonna be late, right now either that’s unacceptable or you need to know. And maybe they have to make a phone call or, in the beginning, maybe even a picture of where they are. And I know people are thinking, “I wish I didn’t have to be like this.” Of course not, this is what betrayal does and it’s gonna do that until you feel safe again.

But here’s the thing, if the other person isn’t willing to honor these new boundaries, it’s telling you something. So, the boundaries are super strict in the beginning, you know, until that foundation is rebuilt again. And you can always loosen things up and always reevaluate as you begin to feel a bit safer, as you begin to trust again. You know, there’s also a four-step trust rebuilding process, I could teach you that too.

Katie: Let’s talk about that briefly because I think it seems like trust is a huge key and often maybe a point most people have trouble getting past.

Debi: Yeah, and here’s the thing. If you don’t rebuild it from the ground up, you always feel shaky and unstable. And one of the things that a lot of people have a hard time with is their inability to trust themselves. Because think about it, the person they trusted the most proved untrustworthy, and then the next response is, “How did I not see? How did I not know? Where was I?” So, then they lose trust in themselves. So, think about it, if the person you trusted the most proved untrustworthy and now you don’t trust in yourself either, well, how in the world can you trust in anyone and anything? So, there’s such a ripple effect.

So, I like to build it, and this is what I teach, it’s from the ground up because that’s where it got shattered. So, it sounds so ridiculous but you do need to rebuild the foundation. So, start with something so simple. I’m talking like, “Will the sun rise?” When trust is shattered, you don’t even know. So, you go out, you test every morning, “Oh, what do you know, there it is.” And you pick whatever it is until you have a foundation upon which to stand. That’s your first ground level.

The next stage of that, the next step of that would be trust in your gut, trust in your higher wisdom. You know, it’s like we have that gut feeling and then our mind talks us out of it. So many people who’ve been betrayed, when you speak with them, they’re like, “You know, something didn’t feel right.” But what did we do? We would override it and go with our mind, with “the gut knows.” So, to rebuild that intuition, you know, strengthen that wise inner guide, think about…you wanna create two scenarios. What’s the scenario that represents trust for you? Maybe it’s two babies giggling, right? Maybe it’s, you know, your dog wagging his or her tail. What is it that represents trust for you? Get a felt sense of that. Where do you feel it? How do you feel it? That’s trust, right? You’ll feel it in your body. Open, expansive. Whatever it is for you, get a sense of where you feel it.

Then go back to D-Day, discovery day, or when you saw, you realized someone was lying to you. How did that feel? What did it feel like? Get that felt sense. Did it feel like constricted and tight? Was there a color or a texture? Whatever it was that represents a lack of trust. Now, as you move through your day, which does it feel closer to, right, the sense of trust or the lack of trust? And you need to strengthen that. And here’s the thing, you’re looking for congruency. When people are trustworthy, the energy, the thoughts, behaviors, actions, mannerisms are all lined up. Everything is congruent. When there’s a lack of congruency, it doesn’t feel right. You know, when someone’s saying one thing but their eyes or their mannerisms are saying something else, trust that. Trust that.

Once you’ve rebuilt that sense of, you know, your gut, strengthen your gut a little bit, you kind of feel like you have a sense of safety and security around you a bit. Then you go to that next level, the next level is learning to trust in yourself again. Because that’s been shattered, we lose self trust. How do you do that? You give yourself little tasks and then you do them. “I’m gonna drink that glass of water,” and then you do, “I’m gonna go to the gym,” and then you do, “I’m going to not call my ex,” and then you don’t, whatever it is for you. And what you are teaching yourself is that, “My word is law. If I say something, it’s truth.” And you’re learning, you’re reteaching yourself that you are trustworthy.

So, think about it. You know, you have your foundation upon which to stand. You trust your gut, that wise inner guide. You trust yourself. And from this place, you slowly, carefully, and cautiously can start to trust in others. We bypass the first three levels. We go right for that trusting in somebody else again, and that’s why we feel so shaky and uncertain.

Katie: That makes sense. And the language you use, I love that example of feeling where something is in your body and then trying to feel, “Does it have a color, a smell, a texture?” When I first encountered that in therapy, I remember thinking like, “This is so obscure and random,” like, “what are you talking about? Of course it doesn’t have a color.” And then I started actually paying attention, like, “Oh, I was ignoring sensations in my body that probably could’ve been telling me things.” And now it’s something I try to incorporate with my kids. It’s like, when they’re feeling a strong emotion, rather than me naming their emotion and saying like, “Oh, are you feeling mad? Are you feeling…” asking them and saying, “what are you feeling right now? Where are you feeling it? And if you were gonna draw a picture, what would it look like, of this feeling that you’re having?” just help them to have that, hopefully, body awareness.

And I think about how, from reading a lot of parenting books, it seems like many core wounds in childhood go back to those core questions of, “Am I lovable? Am I worthy? Am I…” And so, I think, as parents, we also have this window with our children to help them establish some of these foundational things early on. So, maybe they are more aware and they have these cues earlier in life that I had to learn them as an adult. But it makes me wonder, have you looked into it with kids at all, like as parents? Are there any things we can do to help them feel safe, of course, and also to learn to trust themselves and to have that kind of healthy relationship with others?

Debi: I love that you’re asking that question because, well, first of all…and I’m a big believer in every parent knows best for their own kids. Having said that, my husband was the one who told my kids…so, could you imagine four teenagers looking at him like, “You did what to mom?” If anything is gonna have you fall from grace, wake up, and realize what matters, it’s losing everyone that mattered. And that was probably what made it for him such a powerful wake-up call. Having said that, what they saw in me was they saw mom crash but they saw mom rise. And I can tell you, they are four best friends, and now we have two bonus daughters, you know, girlfriends who came in. All six of them are best friends, it’s like they’ve been through war together.

So, they’ve learned resilience skills that they may not have been able to learn had they not seen me go through what I went through. And both of us go through what we went through. You know, that’s the first thing. What I also see is sometimes, let’s say, after betrayal, there’s a breakup and that’s it. And let’s say one parent, and it could be either one, one parent really isn’t taking the responsibility in making sure the kids are okay. Well, you know what, that leaves the other parent needing to double down and representing, “This is what safety and security looks like, this is what truth and trust looks like. It looks like me. And I’m not gonna be my best all the time but, you know, I will never be untrustworthy, I’m always gonna tell you the truth. I love you with every cell of my being, I’m doing the best I can. It’s not always gonna be great but this is what trust and truth looks like.”

Katie: Yeah, and it seems like there’s a big aspect of modeling there, of course, with anything we’re talking about, parenting, but also it seems like a very common theme that is the core need of children is to feel safe. And, of course, societally, it seems easiest if that’s in a marriage with two parents who are both happy and harmonious but also, like, if that’s not the case in a family, there’s still many ways to make sure that children feel safe. And I’ve even heard from people who say like, as children go through their parents getting divorced, the main question they have in their head is still, “Am I safe?”

And so, hopefully both parents are working together to make sure the children feel safe, even as they’re going for their own process. And I would guess, for your children, it was probably amazing for them to get to see you model and have truth around like, “This is really hard and I’m not gonna do this great every day,” and also, “I’m gonna get up every day and I’m here for you and I’m gonna show up. And sometimes we go through hard things, and also we can get stronger because of them.”

And you talk about the idea of not just post traumatic growth, which I still love that term because it’s such a great reframe to post traumatic stress, but even beyond that, the transformation side post this and how your greatest crisis can become, in a sense, your greatest strength. And that’s the thing, I didn’t understand until I actually felt it myself of looking back and going, “Wow, I would never choose it. I wouldn’t choose it now, I wouldn’t choose it for my kids,” and also, “I wouldn’t change the fact that I was sexually assaulted in high school because it taught me so much and I’ve become a version of myself I might never have had the chance to become had I not gone through that. So, I actually have gratitude for the growth that happened.” But let’s talk about that because I think maybe that’s also a sticking point people get stuck in the, like, pain and the sadness and the victim side of something. Which, like you explained, is a perfectly reasonable thing because you’re trying to feel safe. And also then you sometimes miss out on this beautiful even better phase that can come after but sometimes you just can’t even see it in the beginning.

Debi: It’s so true. It’s so painful, but you can look at it saying, “Am I simply the poster child for this crisis, whatever it is I went through?” or, “am I meant to do something really good with something really painful?” And I’ll tell you, I remember going through the study and I really just wanted to heal. Like one book wasn’t getting me out of this, a whole PhD was needed to help here, but I remember thinking to myself, “If I can heal from this, I’m taking everybody with me.” And there’s something about that where your purpose is revealed to you as you move through it.

And we see this, this is so common to stages four and five, if I tell you how many new businesses we’ve seen birthed, you know, in that stage five or new relationships or new levels of the health, you didn’t have access to any of that earlier. But, as you are moving through it, there are a few things going on. One is, “Well, if I could get through this, I could do anything,” that’s the first thing. And when that old life really has crashed and burned, that’s when the downloads start coming through where, you know, you just get these insights and these opportunities. And I can assure you, the PBT Institute wasn’t even anything close to anything I was ever thinking until I was in stage four, stage five. But, I mean, how many people do you know who’ve had a major health crisis and now here they are, sharing it? Or they’ve had a financial crisis and they’re helping others? You know, you can be the poster child for it or you can travel a path. And then I kind of feel like we owe it to people to teach them that road that we just traveled, the shortcuts we got, you know, that were created because of it.

Katie: Yeah, I think that’s a beautiful reframe. And also just even having that as a hope and to know, like, that I can help other people makes that journey more bearable, especially in those tough days. You’ve also mentioned the word, like, numbing, avoiding, distracting. And I know there are some ways we can pay attention because, often, it seems like, in that phase, you may not even realize you’re doing those things, which is the whole purpose of those things is to distract you from the fact that you’re doing them. So, how can someone become aware that they might be doing some of those coping things?

Debi: Yeah. You know, here I’m gonna invite everybody to write down these four questions. That’s my way of saying write those down. Because this is how you’ll see, “Am I numbing, avoiding, distracting?” Ready? The first question, “Am I numbing, avoiding, distracting?” If so, how, right? Do you walk into the kitchen, you’re not the least bit hungry, and you find yourself in the cabinets? Do you go into a room and you put on the TV to desperately drown out the sound of your own thoughts? Call yourself on it.

The second question, “What am I pretending not to see?” Am I pretending not to see that health issue that needs my attention? Am I pretending not to see, “I hate my job.”? Am I pretending not to see that relationship issue, right, that needs my attention?

The third question, “What’s life gonna look like in 5 to 10 years if I do nothing?” Play it all the way out, we don’t wanna do that, play it all the way out. Take that health issue that you’re ignoring, 5 to 10 years, what does it look like? Take, you know, the job issue, 5 to 10 years, play it out. What does it look like? You know, whatever the issue is, 5 to 10 years, what does that look like if you do nothing?

And the fourth question, “What can life look like in 5 to 10 years if I change now?” I’m not saying it’s easy but transformation begins when you tell yourself the truth.

Katie: I think for me my coping mechanism was hiding in work. And then, as I started unpacking and letting go of things, I had a phase of going, “Am I gonna lose my edge if I let go of this compulsion that comes from this place of pain?” And what I realized that I couldn’t realize until I had gotten through it was, “Oh, you don’t lose your edge, you just get to choose when you pick up the sword and you can choose to put it down sometimes.” But in the moment, I felt like I can’t let go of this because what if…so, that’s helpful to have those questions as a guide. And I would guess there are a lot of people listening who are resonating with definitely certain parts of what we’ve talked about and might have the question in their mind of, “Okay, if I know I’m in one of these stages,” or, “if I’ve identified that maybe there’s this thing that’s causing problems and I hadn’t linked to them before, where do I start to heal, if I am willing?” Like, what are the steps where…I know you have resources for this but where do I begin?

Debi: Yeah, well, the first step is knowing what stage you’re in. So, you know, I shared the stages. So, if you realized you’re in a stage two or stage three, especially stage three, it is easy to stay stuck there for life. So, knowing what stage you’re in is a great first step. You can’t change what you’re not aware of. So, knowing what stage, you know, where you say, “Wow, I had no idea there were even all these five stages, I’m only in stage three, how do I move to stage four?” I mean that’s at least, “I know where I am.” Check your willingness too because there are a lot of benefits for staying stuck. Check how willing you are to move through the stages and then if there’s a road map.

Katie: And where can people keep learning more from you? I know you’ve done TED talks on this, I’ll link to those in the show notes, you have resources on your website, but where would you point people as a good jumping-in point?

Debi: You know, the best thing we have thepbt, as in post betrayal transformation, thepbtinstitute.com, that has everything there. There, we have two quizzes. One is the post-betrayal-syndrome quiz and one is the healed or hardened quiz. And that’ll show you, you know, exactly what stage you’re in, they just find that at healedorhardenedquiz.com.

Katie: I’ll make sure there’s links for all of you listening while you’re exercising or driving, that’s wellnessmama.fm, you can find all the links of everything we’ve talked about. And a couple questions I love to ask, a little bit unrelated, at the end. The first being if there is a book or a number of books that have profoundly influenced your life, and if so, what they are and why?

Debi: You know, I would say the book that absolutely changed my life was “Conversations with God, Book 1,” Neale Donald Walsch. Game changer.

Katie: I love that. And then any last advice to leave with the listeners today. It could be related to everything we’ve talked about or something entirely unrelated.

Debi: You know, there’s two things that are coming to mind. One is, first of all, I know how painful it is. I know that pain, it’s a pain like no other. And if you have to say this a million times to yourself, it’s worth it. And even though it happened to you, it’s not about you, it’s not about you. Believe that.

The second thing I would say is, this is a mantra I’ve been using for my 30 years in business, it applies to every area of life, and it’s this, “Easy now, hard later. Hard now, easy later. Take your pick, it’s one of the two.” And what most people do, especially when it comes to just really anything, is easy now. But the hard later is always there. Healing from betrayal is 100% a case of hard now, easy later.

Katie: I love that, it reminds me of Naval Ravikant saying, “Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.” Yeah, I love that. That’s a beautiful place to wrap up. I know this is a tough and emotional topic, and I think you’re doing amazing work on helping people tangibly work through it and move to healing. I also know how busy you are, so, I’m very grateful for your time today and for all the research you’re doing and all the people that you’re helping. Thank you for being here.

Debi: Thank you so much for the opportunity and for the amazing work you do.

Katie: And thanks, as always, to all of you for listening and sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy and your attention, with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast.”

 

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Nootropics supplements have been gaining more popularity in recent years. Especially with the increased interest in the brain and biohacking. Since they’ve become so popular, there are now a lot of brands out there, but they’re not all created equal.

Natural Stacks is one nootropics brand that I wanted to try out. I tried a few of their products and wanted to share some honest thoughts about how they affected me. But first, let’s cover the basics of nootropics.

What Are Nootropics and Why Use Them? 

Nootropics (also “smart drugs” or cognitive enhancers) are substances that affect the brain in some way. They may protect the brain or enhance cognitive performance. Nootropics can also increase the efficiency of neurotransmitter production and how they act on brain cells. 

What Is Natural Stacks?

Natural Stacks is a quality supplement company that focuses on better brain health. The idea is to “stack” your supplements so that you have something customized to your needs. Instead of trying to get everything we need all in one supplement (which isn’t going to happen).

You can get their pre-bundled stacks for specific health needs, like mood, brain food, and mental performance, or create your own bundle of supplements. They offer products individually, but stacking them gets you the best discount. More on that at the end of this review, but for now let me tell you how Natural Stacks worked for me.

NEUROFUEL™ by Natural Stacks 

NEUROFUEL™ is Natural Stacks’ original supplement. It was originally called CILTEP, an acronym for “Chemically-Induced Long Term Potentiation.” Don’t let the name fool you though! Natural Stacks is made with all-natural ingredients. 

The “chemically-induced” part refers to how it increases biochemical functions in the brain. Neurofuel does this through a few different actions:

1. Inhibiting PDE enzymes
2. Increasing cAMP levels

#1 Inhibiting Phosphodiesterase (PDE) Enzymes 

PDE enzymes would otherwise break down something called cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). Blocking PDEs has a positive effect on memory. Blocking PDE4, specifically, is beneficial for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. It can also increase wakefulness and focus. Some natural PDE4 inhibitors include Artichoke extract, luteolin, and an herb called Kanna. 

#2 Increasing cAMP Levels (Cyclic adenosine monophosphate)

cAMP naturally amps up the actions of hormones and neurotransmitters. These include epinephrine (adrenalin) and acetylcholine. While blocking PDE helps increase cAMP levels, Neurostack’s ingredients also directly increase them. This is thanks to the herb, Coleus forskohlii, with its active compound, forskolin. Neurofuel uses artichoke extract to also help block PDE. 

By blocking PDE and increasing cAMP, it has a powerful effect on a process known as Long Term Potentiation. Scientists believe this process is the key to learning and retaining new information. 

Neurofuel also contains an amino acid, acetyl-L-carnitine (ALCAR). This amino acid crosses the blood-brain barrier to help mitochondria and boost energy. ALCAR also helps fight brain fog and fatigue.

The L-phenylalanine in the formula helps build dopamine for focus and motivation. And the active form of vitamin B6 lowers feelings of stress and helps create calm, focused energy. You can see why Neurofuel is so effective for clarity, focus, memory, and motivation! 

My Experience With NEUROFUEL™

I got to try both their capsule and their lemonade drink packets. I could feel both products within half an hour. Despite a few short nights of sleep, after taking Neurofuel, I felt focused, clear-headed, and ready to be productive. It was an amazing way to start the day. 

I especially liked the lemonade packets because it’s a great way to make sure I start the day with a glass of water on an empty stomach. They mix easily without settling to the bottom of the glass and they taste great! 

The flavor comes from crystallized lemon extract, with some stevia and organic monk fruit for sweetness. No funny business here. 

SEROTONIN BRAIN FOOD™ by Natural Stacks

 Serotonin (aka the “happy molecule”) is a neurotransmitter that helps us feel calm, focused, and optimistic. Scientists have found that 95% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut. When we feed our body the right nutrients, we can increase serotonin production in the gut. 

Natural Stacks’ Serotonin Brain Food has the nutrients needed for optimal serotonin production.

• Rhodiola Rosea – Supports stress relief, combats fatigue and burnout, uplifts mood, and boosts energy and performance.
• L-Tryptophan – An essential amino acid that boosts mood, improves cognitive abilities, and promotes positive behaviors. The gut converts tryptophan to serotonin.
• Vitamin B3 – Increases blood flow in the brain, helps produce energy, and protects the body against free radical damage. 
• Magnesium Glycinate – Helps relieve stress, improves attention, upgrades sleep quality, and sharpens memory.
• Zinc Glycinate – Supports a healthy immune system, and helps increase serotonin in the brain. 

Healthy serotonin levels are linked with:

• Positive social behavior
• Resilience in the face of stress
• Optimism
• Humor
• Cognitive flexibility
• Better psychological health in general

My Experience With Natural Stacks’ Serotonin Brain Food™ Supplement

I took the serotonin supplement mostly in the evening, but also during the day on some overcast days. I could definitely feel an effect; generally, a sense of balanced calm and a better outlook. I think it helped me sleep a little better when I took it in the evening. 

SMART CAFFEINE® by Natural Stacks

Sometimes you just need a little extra hit of caffeine… but without the jitters. Natural Stacks’ Smart Caffeine combines caffeine with the calming amino acid, L-theanine for a balanced energy boost. L-theanine is the balancing amino acid found that comes from green tea. 

The two work together to improve attention and alertness, memory, and cognitive functioning. It even helps us have the ability to ignore distractions. What mama doesn’t need that!

A 2008 study found  L-theanine and caffeine worked synergistically to improve speed and accuracy when multitasking. The combination also reduced study participants’ susceptibility to distraction during a memory task. Together they help improve performance when we need to really use our brainpower.

My Experience With Natural Stacks’ Caffeine Supplement

I could definitely feel the caffeine, and it didn’t take long for it to kick in. I took it about mid-morning when I was sitting at my laptop, typing an article, and was beginning to feel a bit sleepy. It helped bring back my focus quickly and I felt much more productive for the rest of the day. So far, I’ve just taken it as needed.  

Natural Stacks as a Whole: My Opinion

Overall, I felt that Natural Stacks supplements worked very effectively and pretty quickly. They’re a great nootropics hack to have on hand when I need to focus and be productive. Especially after a night of less-than-optimal sleep. The Neurofuel and Smart Caffeine pair well to help make the most of the day.

The Serotonin Brain Food is also a great supplement to have on the shelf for days when you’re just “not feelin’ it.”

I love that their ingredients are all-natural and backed by science. While I tried these three products, they have others you can add to your stack or experiment with. They have a few other neurotransmitter-enhancing supplements, including: 

• Acetylcholine Brain Food – For better attention to detail, faster thinking, and mental clarity. 
• GABA Brain Food – For a calm mind, clear thoughts, relaxed body, and deeper, more restorative sleep.
• Dopamine Brain Food – For laser focus, unbeatable drive to get things done, better athletic balance, and better mental clarity.

They also have magnesium, curcumin, krill oil, probiotics, and Vitamin D3  supplements. There’s even a drink mix to support sleep and gut health all at once. If you’re not sure what to try first, you can order one of their stacks, which combine two to four supplements in a kit. 

They even allow you to build your own stack. Just choose a product from each of three categories: Neurotransmitter Support, Mental Performance, and Daily Essentials. That will automatically get you 15% off of the collection.

I’m looking forward to trying more of their products! If you’d like to give Natural Stacks a try at a 15% discount, click here to go to their website and then put in wellnessmama15 at checkout. 

Have you tried nootropics products before? What was your experience with them? Share with us below!

Sources:

1. Hayashi Y. (2022). Molecular mechanism of hippocampal long-term potentiation – Towards multiscale understanding of learning and memory. Neuroscience research, 175, 3–15. 
2. Levenson C. W. (2006). Zinc: the new antidepressant?. Nutrition reviews, 64(1), 39–42.
3. Lou H. C. (1994). Dopamine precursors and brain function in phenylalanine hydroxylase deficiency. Acta paediatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992). Supplement, 407, 86–88. 
4. Owen, G. N., Parnell, H., De Bruin, E. A., & Rycroft, J. A. (2008). The combined effects of L-theanine and caffeine on cognitive performance and mood. Nutritional neuroscience, 11(4), 193–198.
5. Richard, D. M., Dawes, M. A., Mathias, C. W., Acheson, A., Hill-Kapturczak, N., & Dougherty, D. M. (2009). L-Tryptophan: Basic Metabolic Functions, Behavioral Research and Therapeutic Indications. International journal of tryptophan research : IJTR, 2, 45–60.
6. Sanders, O., & Rajagopal, L. (2020). Phosphodiesterase Inhibitors for Alzheimer’s Disease: A Systematic Review of Clinical Trials and Epidemiology with a Mechanistic Rationale. Journal of Alzheimer’s disease reports, 4(1), 185–215. 
7. Southwick, S. M., Vythilingam, M., & Charney, D. S. (2005). The psychobiology of depression and resilience to stress: implications for prevention and treatment. Annual review of clinical psychology, 1, 255–291.
8. Tang, L., Huang, C., Zhong, J., He, J., Guo, J., Liu, M., Xu, J. P., Wang, H. T., & Zhou, Z. Z. (2019). Discovery of arylbenzylamines as PDE4 inhibitors with potential neuroprotective effect. European journal of medicinal chemistry, 168, 221–231.