Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode, and I'm so excited for our next guest. She is a functional medicine certified health coach. She's one of the world's first national board certified health and wellness coaches and the founder of Route of Well-Being, which I love. Love, love that title. Welcome, Heather Artemia.

Thank you. I'm just delighted to be here. Thanks so much.

So tell us, I know that you have had your own share of health struggles, and I feel like everybody who's so passionate about health and wellness, they themselves started with some kind of issue that they've kind of figured out and now they want to share that with the world. So talk to us about your own personal experience and how that led to the start of root of well-being.

Well, yeah, that's totally my story. So I spent 20 years in corporate America and I enjoyed what I did. I got to travel all over the world. I got to really do some challenging and some fun work. But I always knew that I just wanted something more. So it was good. It was good work. I give my corporate experience a B, but I wanted it A and I remember talking to my colleagues thinking and saying, gosh, like what? What else do you think there is? What else can we do? And it was not until my health tastes really truly and not until I got through that experience that I knew without a doubt I had to get into the health and wellness world, that that is definitely where I belonged.

So what happened with you physically? Like what were some of your ailments that you've kind of helped figure out?

Sure. So I have three autoimmune conditions. And, you know, really, truly, I I started having health issues in high school, but I really I you know, I had indigestion. And so my parents just thought I was being rude at the dinner table, you know, and just I didn't realize that that it was really due to the foods that I was eating in and how those foods were reacting in my body. And so my first autoimmune disease that was diagnosed was rheumatoid arthritis. And that was in my early thirties. And then I was diagnosed with another one called psoriasis in my early forties. And then we realized that this whole time I have had something called Soberanes and I've had that for decades and decades. And so those those were the autoimmune conditions that well, those are the ones that I have. You know, you can

look at my my thyroid because then you can be like, wow, but I'm just I'm going to stick with three. That's I'm going to say I have OK.

And tell me I haven't heard of showgrounds. Tell me a little bit about what that is. Sure. So dry eyes.

Dry mouth. I mean, it was both my dentist and my doctor that really freaked out on me and say, oh my gosh, this is ridiculous. How dry, how systematic. It's throughout the body. For me, it's called a secondary insurance because I have rheumatoid arthritis. And so typically when you have when they come together, the second your insurance, the symptoms are not as bad if if because it's secondary or primary. If you didn't have the rheumatoid arthritis, the show symptoms can be a lot worse. Really, really miserable. Super dry mouth. My mouth gets dry, but it's not it's it's I can handle it when I when I meet people that have the really bad symptoms, like, gosh, they just it's awful.

Yeah. See, so it's like dry eyes, dry mouth, difficulty swallowing the tear glands. Yeah. I said yes.

Yes. Anywhere, yeah. Anywhere you where you want to create moisture in your body that's that's impacted. And also things that come along like the chronic sinusitis and gerd. And so when I got Suresnes it actually kind of connected a lot of my really random symptoms that I had for basically ever. And so so that one was the one that tied it all together in an nipple.

So I've been diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. So all three of these myself. So if you had to look for someone who has autoimmune disease, what would you say that for overall? Well, wellness. What would be some of the keys that you would say? Here's my top three things I look at for overall wellness when someone has autoimmune issues?

Well, I'm OK. Here's the gifts. And not only did I change my career and switch out a career for calling, I mean, that's really, truly the gift. However, the gift is that I slowed down. So I am an extrovert. I'm a type of person. I go, go, go. I'm an I I'm just I'm an enthusiast on the Enneagram, I love being with people and I love just that constant. Go, go, go. My mom used to say to me when I was a child and when I was a teenager, oh, Heather, you're going to burn the candle at both ends. You'd better be careful. And I just I feed off of others and stuff. The gift for me with these autoimmune conditions is that I have to slow down. And when I slowed down, I my body responds really well to that. My flares are much

worse. And I for the most part, feel really, really good when I slow down. It's all about self-preservation. And so I had to sell myself on that, though, because I didn't want to stop socializing as much as I was and working as hard as it as I was. But when I started to slow down, I think just my body responded so well that I wanted to keep going with that.

And so in my newest edition of my book, I just wrote my second edition and I added two hundred additional pages to my first book because I just kept, you know, you know, you have more information. Like, I want to say this. I want to say this. And so I talk about how people don't need to deprive themselves, but they do need to have red light, yellow light and green light foods. And I don't tell you what those red light, yellow light green light foods are, you have to decide them for yourself of what is it that your body responds to and not so for you. What are your red light foods that you just go, my body does not respond well when I eat this or yellow light. I don't feel great, but I'm not on the floor dying. And then what are you,

some of your green light foods where you're like, man, if I eat this, I feel like ten million bucks.

Sure. So I don't want to stress anybody out because my list of red light foods is pretty large.

But for me, that large list creates so much freedom. And I'll explain. Explain in a second. So red light foods I do not touch. Do not touch gluten. I do not touch dairy. Yes, it just these things. Yes, they're delicious. But I stayed one hundred percent. No desire. Not if there are, if there was a plate of donuts right here that can gluten and then I just now because I'm so used to this, this approach to eating, it's been about eight years. I see that plate of donuts as poison because that's what it is in my body and because now I know how to make a really delicious, gluten free grain free duty three, don't it? And it won't make me sick. And so I have these options now, so and that somebody had said something to me and it was so good.

They said, you know, when you get to the point that you feel so sick when you eat it, then your motivation to eat that food is way down here because you're like, if I eat this, I'm going to be so sick. There's no reason for me to do it. But until you get to the point where you realize this makes me so ill when I eat it, there's no reason for me to. And as that goes up, your temptation to eat the food is like this.

And same thing with gluten like my my husband will say, like, if you want to just put Chantel straight and bread bad, give her a piece of Wonder Bread. She will be down for the count.

Totally. Oh my gosh. I'm with you on that first year. Well, I remember back in my corporate days, we would always have bagels on Monday mornings, donuts on Fridays, and there was always food. I mean, there was a hot chocolate machine with marshmallows. They wanted to treat us well and incentivize us. And I just remember thinking, you know, after there was like a big pizza party when they had a big meeting and there are 20 of us sitting around a table and everybody sitting there like this barely able to hold up their heads because maybe, maybe it impacts us all differently. But for most people, it's going to make you feel a little more sluggish and want to take that after your nap. And I was not eating those foods and I was the only one with pack and zest and energy. Well, I just

thought, wow. So I went to the CEO, who is just a phenomenal person. And I said, Listen, Lisa, do you think that you could bring in some organic blueberries, organic raspberries, strawberries to stock a Whole Foods on the way in instead of these donuts or some of these bagels? And because she was doing this was a gift, this was something she wanted to do for the company. And she did it and it was great. And she did it twice. And I will tell you, the bowl of organic berries went faster than the donuts and the bagels because people got excited about that. But so anyway, back to the foods, I would say I absolutely read like the gluten, the dairy, legumes. I stay away from night shade's. One hundred percent. Tomatoes, the white potatoes, it's hard, I used to think I need a jack white

potato every day in my diet, but those those are definitely going to stay away from.

And what about yellow light foods? Like for me, a yellow light food is quinoa. Like, I don't feel great if I eat a ton like a huge bowl of it, but if I eat a little bit, I feel fine. Yeah.

Yellow light foods be for you so I can do a little bit of quinoa as well. And here's what I, I know I react, but I love sushi, loves sushi. So I go. I used to get more often but I would do sushi maybe once a quarter, not very often but I will have that white rice. But what will happen to me. I will eat sushi. My wedding band within twenty minutes will get really tight and I get on the scale the next day, which I've learned to not do because there's no point. I already know what's going to happen. I will gain two or three pounds and that is from the the rice. So rice is a yellow food for me, but I'm not giving up sushi and I tried sashimi, not the same so that the white rice glasses say the two things

I love. I love Plantagenets, I love the salty crunch and I can buy the plantations that are made with coconut oil. So as healthy as can be. But I find myself sometimes using the plantain chips to feed. You know, maybe I'm not hungry, but it's more of an emotional thing and I'm using them to kind of work through whatever I need to work through. So those are more really like food for me because I realize I have a more of an emotional relationship with those foods.

You know, my personal trainer is so funny. He always says he doesn't eat sushi that often, but he says when he eats sushi, he guarantees will gain. And he's a bigger guy.

But he says he guarantees he'll gain four pounds the next day. But do you not think do you use soy sauce in your shower now? It's all are like gluten free soy sauce even.

I don't I don't I, I bring coconut niños with me, so I actually I'm slightly going. I actually take a bottle of Coconut Niños to the restaurant. They used to carry coconut. I mean those they don't anymore. I stay away from soy pretty much. So I don't, I don't do the soy sars-cov-2 we, I don't do the Temari and the coconut minnows. To me it is close enough to close enough that institutions in its own way that that's what I bring.

But I do think it's I think the coconut Kammenos or the eat gluten free soy sauce or regular soy sauce, I think that has a lot to do with the weight gain because I think it just has so much salt in it that kind of helps you retain water. So I think that's the combination of what it is when people say, oh, I gained weight because I've heard that several times are like what? I went Nate sushi and I've gained so much weight. But I think it's I mean, those even the coconut Kammenos has a lot of sodium in it and you could kind of get with that. Well, so tell us a little bit about I ask all my guests this walk me through a day in the life of Heather. So, like, what is it that you do kind of breakfast, lunch, dinner?

What does that day look like for you? A sample like would you do yesterday?

Absolutely. So I, I like to enter it fast. And when I first started intermittent fasting, I thought, well, maybe I'll just do it twice a week. But I realized I felt so much better on the days that I did it that I do it seven days a week now. And so yesterday, pretty typical day. I had a few meetings in the morning and then I laughs. I like to walk a lot. So before the autoimmune diseases, really, I like to do Ironman and marathons. And I was a runner and they did all of those things. I don't do those things anymore. So now I am a walker. I do yoga and a mountain bike. Those are my three things. And so I left yesterday for my walkabout. I had my it. So I had my tea, I had some bone broth, I had some water.

But then I took the walk and I walked five miles around a pretty lake, come home and then I eat. And so I'm I, I really like to keep things simple and I like to get rid of the clutter. And so to me, a lot of choices with clutter and makes things kind of complicated. So I am a creature of habit. It just makes things easier. And that way I'm spending less time in the kitchen making food, even though I like to eat food and I like to eat healthy food, I don't like to spend a lot of time making it. And so every day I have two eggs, I have a bok choy or whatever, whatever vegetable I have in the fridge. So either is chopped cabbage. It's like. That seemed with the eggs and then a whole avocado. So that is my breakfast

or my meal number one, and usually I got no one around 12 till 30 and it's delicious. It's filling. I I'll grab a huge sample, huge by small hands, but I grab a huge sample of blueberries because I like to end up with something sweet. And so I don't and I know that about myself and it's OK. And so I feel like if I'm opting for something healthy and sweet. Why not? It's going to help me get through the rest of my day. There's so many other benefits to to what I'm choosing. So that was my my meal one yesterday. And then number two, we ended up doing tacos and I so I'm pretty much cream free. I don't do corn, but I found a new taco shell or new to me. I love it. It's the CSA brand of textiles. Have you. Yeah, they're

great. Oh wow. So just the last two months we have introduced to our we have two kids. They're seven nine. So now we have tacos. So we had the top shelves with some bison because we don't do dairy. I made a cauliflower cheese sauce a few days ago, so we had to call for cheese sauce. We had chopped romaine blueberries and guacamole. So that was our dinner. Super yummy. Everybody liked it and then we had watermelon for dessert. I'm definitely if I don't want anybody to feel deprived. And so I'm always looking for things that will make us feel like, yeah, this is yummy and delicious and wonderful.

That's awesome. Well, let's jump right into. Oh, let me ask you this. So with eggs, you feel great on eggs.

You know, you took them out for nine months, brought them back in and did not really notice anything. And so I thought might as well just keep eggs in my diet because it's it's the only little tiny symptom I notice is maybe I have a little bit of stuffiness, but if I had the eggs the morning, by the time I'm going to sleep, it doesn't impact my sleep. So I extramural.

OK, so if I like you and I are just like the one person, like we just like have all the same. So I took out eggs, I actually took one of those food allergy tests that I was highly allergic to eggs. So I took eggs out and then one day, I don't know, I was just craving eggs. So I like put it back in. I was like, I feel OK. So I don't eat them a lot. I kind of I only eat them because I still am not sure, like, I don't know if I'm going to feel great or not feel great. So I actually eat them like, like on a Sunday when I don't really have anything else to do that day. So like if for some reason I ate them and I wasn't feeling good, I could like go lay down, but I'm

not going to eat them when I have like big day planned.

Lots of meetings. I've got to be high energy. I'm just not going to take that chance because I'm not one hundred percent sure how my body's going to process eggs right now, but I am eating them right now.

But do you notice a difference? So we have backyard chickens. We live in Colorado and Minnesota.

We can have our backyard chickens. They eat our compost. And so they they give a lot of really good, healthy scraps, organic. Just everything is really good. So sometimes I wonder, you know, you can buy organic at the store, which is great, or pasture raised and so forth. But I will kind of do I'll do a little test of our backyard chicken eggs, looking at the yolks and then looking at the yolks of the other eggs. And there is a little bit of a difference. So sometimes just the quality of the eggs to might make a difference.

One of my friends owns something called the Farm Life, and she has a farm and she has like, I don't know, fifty chickens. And she just literally has all these eggs. And I think she charges like six ninety nine for a dozen. And so I think I'm going to start getting those and seeing how I feel with those eggs. And she, she feeds them all organic feed versus of course I'm buying organic eggs but from Whole Foods. But you know that's so let me ask you, I want to talk to you about the stress factor, because it's funny that you said that because obviously I've got a lot of moving parts and I feel like when I go on vacation, whenever I go on vacation, like my psoriasis is better, I'm feeling better.

And so I feel like that stress has so much to do with auto immune issue to talk to me about. When you saw that shift of how much of an impact do you think stress really has on auto immune?

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. All I can tell you my personal experiences. So where I see stress manifesting the most in my life, in my clients lives are it's in the head. It's in the heart. It's in the kitchen. Really, truly. And so stress in the house. These are the thoughts that you're having that are just heavy and pulling you down. And if my husband and I don't get along, if we have some kind of disagreement and I don't feel like it's resolved, I would get rheumatoid arthritis later in my left shoulder and it will affect every single thing. And I will say, look, look what you did, because we didn't talk through whatever you needed to talk through. And so we both learned, because my body is so sensitive that we both have slowed down. And when when we have something, if we

have something that we need to work through, we're calmer about it. And because we have to because my my body will react. So that's that. It's just really important to keep that stress. Well, I'll give you another example. Yesterday when I was walking my dog, those those five miles, those 12000 steps, I got a call from my husband and he said, our son is OK. But the school just called and I had ignored the school calling me because I was on the phone with somebody else and the school called. The paramedics are there. There's five. There's fire trucks. There's the ambulance. Our son has not had a concussion, but he's got a huge gash in his head and he needs to go to the hospital. And so I said, OK. And he's like, I'm on my way. And I said, all right, I'm not going

to worry because he's with the best of the best and. Prior to learning the stress reduction techniques that I know now, I would have gone all all stressed out, I probably would not have been able to have this conversation today because sometimes my rheumatoid arthritis flares happen in my job and I can't open my mouth very well and I can't talk and the headache and so forth. But because I knew I had an option, I could blow it. I could blow it out of proportion. Because when you don't know the whole story, that's usually what we do. Or I can stay calm, no use with good care, acute care caretakers and be really the 100 percent when he got home. And that's why he chose to do so. When my son came home, I was here, give him a big hug, gave him the attention

he needed so that that stress. Right. I it kind of shown up in my body because of the fact that I could have chosen the have, but because I chose to stay calm about it, I didn't get sick. So that's kind of distressing. The stress of stress in the heart. I really feel I got so many failures. Rheumatoid arthritis flare is the psoriasis and so forth. And my expertize, because I really wasn't fulfilled and I was really kind of bored. And so when you add to me that's a recipe for disaster because you're just kind of sitting there waiting for things to happen. But when you can focus on something outside of yourself and really, really, truly feel fulfilled, you almost don't have time to be stressed out anymore or to respond to stress that you are creating and manifesting yourself. So that's why I

see I see stress in the stress and stress in the kitchens. I mean, really, truly are just the foods that are going to cause havoc in my body. So we got rid of all of those things so that it was a safe place to stress.

Well, let's jump right into the listener questions. This first one's from Maggie in Dover. It says, I try to eat clean most of the time and I keep my fridge stocked with organic fruits and vegetables and lean grass fed meat. But I just can't seem to give up processed snacks. I love sitting on my couch watching reality TV and munching on cheese. It's even though I know they're probably the worst thing for me, how can I retrain my body not to crave these things?

Oh my gosh. I love how genuine and sincere she is. That's fantastic. All right. First, I would say. Can you make a simple change, can you substitute those cheeses for another processed food that is not not so harsh on the body? Do you know the principal mills? They have some of those, right. So don't buy the cheeses because that's kind of poison instead by the simple mills or by another brand like that. And just make that make that substitution. That would be step number one and not have the cheese. It's in the house so that when you are looking for that snack because you want to get down on the couch, you've got a healthier option. I would also say, you know, what is her name again?

Her name is when we look at a Maggie.

OK, I would say, Maggie, what I would ask yourself and I would be compassionate and gentle, but I would ask yourself, what are you escaping from? Because really what Maggie is doing is using two buffers. She's using TV to buffer herself from something and she's using the food that she's it's the buffer herself from something. And it's OK. We all do that. But when we can get honest about, well, I've got these first, then it's knowledge and knowledge is power. And then maybe she won't need the cheese. Had so much and maybe she just has one buffer too.

Yeah. And I love those almond flour crackers they have. They are delicious. If you don't have an allergy to dairy, their farmhouse cheddar crackers are absolutely delicious. Every once in a while I might have like five of those and I don't feel terrible, but I try not to stay. I try to stay away from them. They need to come up with a dairy free. But I love the ones. I just love the plain ones. Those are just delicious. And I'll make like a different I'll make a great dip for myself or just guacamole and like, dip those plain ones and guacamole. It's to die for.

There's a vegan butter that is paleo. It doesn't have any industrial seed oils. And we will dip those those crackers in the vegan butter. It's a great bread. It starts with a and if it comes to me, I'll tell you. But sometimes it's fun to dip something into something kind of cold and cheese ask as well.

Yeah. And in in my new second edition of my book, I talk about this example of Pavlov's dog. And what he they did was that with Pavlov, they said, we're going to show the dog food. Right. And the dog would start to salivate and then they would say, now let's do a bell. Well, when they did the bell, there was no response. So then they started doing the bell and the food and then the dog would salivate. And soon after doing that over and over again, they just did the bell and then the dog would salivate. And so the whole point is, is that she's saying, how do I retrain my body not to create these things? And part of that is she's got an association which a lot of people do. I have so many people who come to me and say, when I

go on the couch, literally, it's like that Pavlov's dog. I sit on the couch. My body is thinking that the thing is raining and my body start salivating. And I want food because you trained your body that when you sit on the couch and when you're watching TV, I've got to have a process snack. And that's where you've got to really retrain your body by doing some different things, by saying, OK, guess what, I'm going to watch TV, but I'm going to watch it upstairs in my bed. And my bed is off limits. To what? To having any snacks, something like that, to kind of retrain her body.

Right. You have to interrupt that connection. Yes. Or neuroplasticity. I love that totally. Totally. And so interacting that connection, it's so have you heard of the promises and consequences? That's that's something that I so I was laid out again. Say that again. Promises and consequences. This is a technique somebody told me about. I really like it a lot. I was eating the Clinton chips every single day and I was like, OK, I don't I don't want to be so reliant on this food, even though it's healthier. I still don't want to be so reliant. And so what I did and this was the best for me and for my psychology, this is the best thing ever. So I told myself, OK, if I have the planting chips, then I don't want to have that. I want to try and stop eating. And I'm promising myself

that I'm not going to. Then my consequence is so if I break my promise to myself, my consequences, I can't have the organic blueberries that I like more than anything in the world tomorrow. What I found out when I did this experiment with myself is that I actually like organic blueberries better than the plant chips. So I found myself going into the kitchen. Grabbing the championships, I realized, oh, my gosh, if I eat these, I can have liver very and how am I going to finish my breakfast if I don't have that huge blueberries? I'm going to really feel like I'm going without. And so it's you know, if you want to it's a tool. It gives you two two opportunities to really honor your intentions so you can make that promise to yourself. But still, if you break the promise, you have another opportunity

to really kind of really fulfill the consequence. And then still you can still have respect. Well, you know, I have to Blankenship's so I won't have the blueberries. And so the consequence has to be something that that you you don't want to get back and it's something in your life and it's something that you like. If you're giving up something that you don't want to do anyway, then it's not going to work. But for me, that was a tool to kind of interrupt this this relationship I had with these chicks that I didn't want to have.

I love it.

This next one is from Dana in Manitoba, Like these people live in the strangest cities like have you ever heard of Manitoba?

Is it Manitoba Springs? I don't know. I no idea. I have no idea. But it's amazing help.

I love this question. It's so honest help.

I think I'm destined to be a quitter. Every few months I promised myself I'll start a workout routine and stick to it. I'll do really well for about three weeks, but then I'll miss a couple of workouts and decide I've read it anyway, so I might as well just quit completely. How can I overcome this way of thinking and make myself stick with my workout routine?

Oh my gosh. Even with the best intentions, we all go off course. She's human. Really, truly, really, truly. So I would say to Dana, so we don't feel like we've totally messed up. We will say always fall off the wagon. And usually with that idea of that concept, it's like, oh, well, there's no point in starting over because imagine you fall away if you really, truly fall off the wagon in the wagon, ran over you and you are just like pummeled to the ground and then to try to pull yourself back on the wagon, that feels impossible. Right. So I always like what I like to recommend is we we really look at our vocabulary that we're using and to be a little bit more just to be more considerate with ourselves. And so so she didn't push off the wagon, but she feels she

was saying that she feels like, oh my gosh, she she did this. It's too late. She's already messed up. Is it really worth it? And I would say use different vocabulary. So we all dressed in life. Imagine you're going down a river, you're going down a stream and there's just a little bit of a current. And this river is you're taking the river to wellness. So you're facing while that's coming down this river. Well, let's just say you drifted and you went to the side of the stream and maybe you didn't work out as much as you wanted to. But guess what? When you have, you've kind of drifted over. It's easy to drift right back into the direction you want to be going, and that's heading towards wellness. And so for her, it's really what it comes down to is just one decision and

you can only make decisions in the present. So it's not about deciding to go work out tomorrow or starting the next meeting, but deciding what she wants to do right now to day. So if she is on her way to work on listening to this, can she just park farther away so she gets a little bit more movement in her day and food? She's found her flow and she's she's drifted back on course to the direction of wellness.

I love it. Oh, my gosh. So I have an analogy that I use.

I just put it in my next book. But it's basically from if you if you live at point A and you're trying to get to point B. If you were walking and you took three steps to go to point B and all of a sudden you just stepped one foot backwards, would you go all the way back to point A if your whole goal is to get to point B, it's like, no, absolutely not.

If I'm on a walk and I'm trying to go into direction A point B, and just because I took one step backwards, a normal person just goes, no big deal. I took one step back. Guess what? I'm going to take three more steps and eventually I'm going to get closer. But if every time you keep going back to point A, you aren't ever going to get to point B, right?

Right. And you might not you might even go beyond a point A, right. When we're with that kind of mindset. I was all you. I had a friend when we were working together and she was trying to lose weight for six months and she put on ten pounds while she was trying to lose weight. And we started talking and diving into things and diving into mindset and diving into her vision, her values, her goals and where she was. And she started to lose weight and she hit the 12 per mark. And then she said to me. This was after an evening of her kids were eating other foods, she was trying to eat healthy. She ate off of her kids plates and she had already lost. She had already lost a number of pounds. But she said to me, I don't know, is it worth

it? It might not be worth it. And I think it was 12 pounds that she had lost. And I said to her, well, my goodness, of course, you know, that's your critic inside that's telling you you can't do it anymore. It's too hard. But look at you. Look what you've done. And just have a few weeks, like maybe two or three months. She's lost 12 pounds. Whereas before when she tried to gain the ten pounds and we talked through that mindset and got her through that that block that she had and now she's lost twenty five pounds. And sometimes I say, remember when you were the 12 pounds and you fight, it's not worth it anymore. But now you're at twenty five where you want to be and you're eating delicious, wonderful food and not picking up, picking off the food off of your kid's

plates anymore. And so it's crazy because we create these stories in our heads that will really ruin all of our progress and ruin our moment. And so if we can just be honest with ourselves and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what am I doing to myself right now? Because that's clutter also when we create these stories that are helping ourselves.

Yeah, very good. Lisa in Cedar Rapids. So I'm thinking about going paleo, but I'm a busy mom of four kids. I don't have time to make two separate meals. One for me and one for the kids is paleo healthy for my kids. They love milk, cheese and yogurt. Would I be a terrible mom for making them give it up? I'm already having mom guilt just thinking about it.

No, you'd be a wonderful mom. Imagine if you got your kids dad into food and how how I mean, get them dialed in completely. Where does it come from when you eat foods? How do you feel? What foods give you energy? What would make you feel sluggish? My kids are seven and nine and so we talk we and they've been palillo since one was six months and the other was two. So this is just a way of life for them. And they yeah, I would tell you as a mom, it's a lot easier. I make one meal a day that we all share. I am not a special what is it called a special order. Chef said not right. So for this for this mom, for Lisa, I would say you are doing you're going to this is going to be the best gift in

the world for your kids. If you can look at how you are eating, if you look at that, are they sure that you don't don't surprise them, though. Don't just change out the food and not let them know what's going to happen, because then you're going to get a lot of complaining. And so you need to sit down and have a family meeting and talk about it and talk about your family values and be honest and say, hey, maybe the foods that we've been eating, this is kind of how they leave me feeling. I want to feel better. Who here wants to feel better? Have your kids raise their hands, get excited about the process, have them go to the grocery store with you and have some ownership of getting healthy, beautiful, beautiful food on the plate, lots of color, lots of rainbow. And those

kids, you know, they might complain at first, but I would tell you, if the food that you don't want the meeting and the food that you'd want to be eating yourself is not in the house. They will adjust, kids are incredibly adjustable, adaptable, and they will they will also start to see, I think I feel better eating these foods than just.

Last question, Deborah, in Muncie, I'm a 60 year old grandmother of six beautiful grandkids, I love to take them to the park and run around with them. But lately I've noticed that I don't have as much energy as I used to. Are there any supplements I could take and food that I should be eating for more energy? I want to be able to keep up with the grandkids.

Oh, of course. You want to keep up with the grandkids because they are like rays of light and just pure happiness. I would say to Deborah to go back to basics. So health feels so complicated. It really does. And of course, because there's so much marketing out there and money being spent saying this is the right way, that's the right way, it just gets complicated. But we all need to trust our inner intuition and our guidance. And if we just go back to the basics and really address. Yes, how we eat, how we live, how we sleep, you will start to feel better. And so for food, if you're really feeling confused, I would say a rule of thumb is always to aim for less is more. And so the fewer and the ingredients probably the better it is for you. So when you look

at the foods that you're eating, aim for Whole Foods, real foods, vegetables, celery, celery, dipped them in guacamole or whatever it is. But look for real whole foods with supplements, I would say. Talk to your doctor, talk to a nutritionist. There are so many supplements out there. I personally have a not even a shopping bag of supplements, but a huge garbage bag full of supplements that I try. And so that is just a there is there are some quality ones out there and some not so good quality ones. And so definitely if you feel like supplements would add to your life, I would tell you for me with autoimmune I mean, conditions, I always have to be very careful about where my vitamin D is, what my vitamin D level is. But what's going on inside of me is very different than somebody else. You

know, with my youngest son, I have to look at his vitamin C. That's something that we're really looking at. And so I would say try Whole Foods first and really inundate yourself, immerse yourself in healthy, delicious, amazing foods and smoothies and so forth. And then I would go to the supplement, but talking with the doctor or a dietician and so forth, and and then try that route just to kind of fill the holes. You also want to be looking at probiotics. I talk a lot about food. Unfortunately, the soil quality is not not nearly what it used to be. And so our foods are lacking a lot of vitamins and nutrients that they used to have even just 20, 30, 50 years ago. So it is important to have supplements, but you want to make sure you're getting the right supplements for you.

Yeah, and I have a couple of things that I love that give me energy. If you go to my website, Chantel Ray Dotcom, and look at products I love, there's a couple of things there that I love and I'll put them in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for being on our show today. Can you tell listeners a little bit more about where they can follow you and your work?

Sure thing. So my website is Roots of well-being. So just like we like to get to the root cause of somebody's symptoms, when I when I came up with that name, I wanted to get the root to the root cause of well-being. And I knew my happiness came from wellbeing. And so that's where people can find me. My Web site wellbeing. I am on Facebook and Instagram, the same articles of wellbeing. And yeah, if you come to my website, I've got a download. A nice little freebie is three ways to simplify weight loss and to remove the clutter that is standing between us and how I really, truly want to feel and the body and we truly want to have.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, I love that website. It's just that is the key is getting down to the root cause of what's going on with you. So thank you so much for being on our show.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. This has been a blast.

And if you have a question that you want answered, go to questions at Chantel Ray dot com. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.