Making Your Impact
Everyone makes an impact in their own way! I want to help show it off and show that you too can make an impact in your local community!Listen to amazing stories about real people, real work and how people are making an impact in their own way!
Making Your Impact
Making an Impact with Nutrition and Conscious Eating with Barb Beavis
Is your health not quite where you want it to be? Ever considered that the food you're eating could be leading to problems rather than solving them? That's exactly what we explore in our riveting conversation with Barb Beavis, a functional nutrition practitioner and personal trainer who champions a holistic approach to health. Barb helps us understand that our diet is more than just a culinary choice – it’s a tool for healing. With her, we debunk the myth of the all or nothing diet culture, and get into how making informed food choices can not only transform your health but also your life.
Imagine a world where your child's behavior could be influenced by simply making healthier lunch choices! We delve into the fascinating and sometimes frightening ways food companies design hyper-palatable foods that cause chemical imbalances, leading to addictive behaviors. And it's not just about kids – you'll be shocked when Barb reveals how these foods may be affecting you too. We also discuss the crucial role of gut health and how something as mundane as poop can give critical insights into our overall health.
But that's not all – we touch on some gritty realities about the food industry, and the culture of eating sustainably. Barb shares her unique method of assess, recommend, and track, which empowers her clients to understand their health issues and make informed decisions about their nutrition. Moreover, we debunk some of the most common food myths and misconceptions, giving you the knowledge and power to make healthier, more informed choices. So, buckle up and get ready for a health journey like no other with Barb Beavis. This is not just about what's on your plate, but about taking control of your health.
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What's up everybody? Welcome to Making your Impact. Everyone makes an impact in their own way and I want to help show it off and show that you too can make an impact in your local community. Listen to these amazing stories about real people, real work and how people are making an impact in their own way. In this episode, I sit down with Barb Bevis, a Flex Appeal Nutrition.
Speaker 1:Barb Beavis is a functional nutrition practitioner and personal trainer who works with clients to achieve optimal metabolic health through nutrition, reducing toxin exposure and healing the gut. With certifications in nutrition, personal training and yoga, barb specializes in helping individuals with autoimmunity, metabolic disorders, cancer, inflammation, weight loss and general health issues. She takes a system-based approach to identifying and address the root cause of deficiencies, aiming to bridge the gap between patients and physicians for personalized healthcare. Join us as we break down the all or nothing approach propagated by diet culture. In my latest podcast episode with nutritionist Barb Bevis, discover how making informed food choices can transform your health. Also, remember to follow the show so you're always notified when I post, and make sure to follow us on Instagram to get a behind the scenes view into the making of making your impact. But enough of me talking. Here is Barb. This week on the podcast I have the amazing Barb Beavis with me. Why don't you explain a little bit about what you do and what your background is?
Speaker 3:Okay, hi. Yeah, my name is Barb. My business is called Flexipial Functional Nutrition. I consider myself a functional nutritionist, and so what that means is I try to help people or teach my clients how to deal with those undesirable symptoms they may be having so whether they're just not feeling good or they've been given a diagnosis of some kind and really teach them how food and lifestyle modifications can be implemented as a form of healing.
Speaker 1:Cool, awesome. So what makes you get into that?
Speaker 3:Well, okay, so my background is as a personal trainer. I've been doing that for 22 years, so nutrition has very much been a part of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah definitely In my career, but I also am proud to say that I talk the talk and walk the walk to you. So I've implemented these strategies in my own life. I don't just give people advice and tell them what to do. So, as a personal trainer, nutrition was for sure something that needed to be addressed with my clients. My aha moment was not that long ago. So in 22 years of personal training, I feel like I very much subscribed to diet culture back then, because that was just part of the training.
Speaker 1:It's very bred into an almost kind of training, for sure, yeah, and I mean for sure with the invention of the internet.
Speaker 3:We have way more information now and that's a good thing, but it can also be very confusing. So another part of what I do is helping people weave through the sift, through the weeds of misinformation or just information overload yeah, doesn't even have to be misinformation. So my aha moment, getting back to that, was about two years ago. I had a client that came to me for personal training but I couldn't train him because he was really really sick but he didn't recognize that he was sick.
Speaker 3:So he came to me and I did my assessment and I was like, okay, here's the work of like the plan that we need to do, but then the first two sessions that I had with him, he couldn't do like he couldn't execute the movements that I was asking him to do, which is fine, I can work with that, like we can just back off a little bit. But then I just realized he's not sleeping well and he's not eating, like he only ate once a day, and I mean these are confessions. It was like I can go by what the client tells me. He was only eating once a day and it wasn't good quality food, like he was a bachelor, he lived alone, it was takeout all the time and only once a day. And I think I mean for sure alcohol was was part of his lifestyle too.
Speaker 3:And I did. I can't work with that, yeah. So what? He needed nutrition therapy, but he came to me for physical training. So when I approached him with this, it upset him because, well, who am I? I'm just a personal trainer. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And he just he was like, well, I don't want this, so that was my mistake, maybe I shouldn't have brought it up. And unfortunately that relationship ended. But he, after he left, that was my aha moment. I was like, oh, my goodness, I've been doing this backwards the whole time. I'm trying to tell, teach people that exercise is so important. And nutrition was kind of the side dish, yeah, and nutrition needed to be the main course. It's a focus and I'm so mad that it took me so long to figure it out.
Speaker 3:But I guess I just didn't realize how troubled my clients really were, because in our sessions we always talked about exercise. We didn't talk about nutrition that much. Like that wasn't at the forefront and it should have been. But I mean, that's not a personal trainer's job, that's a nutritionist or a dietitian. So I was like I had my wake up call and I needed to switch gears. So I went back to school.
Speaker 3:I took this really awesome course through the functional nutrition alliance. They are based in Portland, oregon, and there's practitioners from all over the world that join this course group. So that was kind of nice because I got to talk to other people who were just like me and we're all going through the paces together. And lots of them were professionals like the people who took this course with me were other personal trainers and nutritionists, but also MDs and NDs. So medical doctors and naturopaths were in on this group too. Oh, wow, yeah, and that was a group of people then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a super diverse group of people, people who knew nothing about nutrition, all the way up to doctors, and it just was really comforting to know that even the healthcare professionals that are a little bit high rap understand the importance of nutrition, not just the layman.
Speaker 3:So that was nice and so, yeah, that's how I got started in this game was because that one client he was the one that kind of woke me up to this and then I started learning that I couldn't stop. So all of the lectures and handouts and things they gave us in the course there was so much resource material that I haven't even gone through at all yet. Like, there's so much learning and some of it gets repetitive once you start remembering and you learn it yourself. But so many other practitioners that have featured in it that have been really helpful, and so on my Instagram page I'm trying to post them as much as I can, just as kind of a backup. Like, well, this is what this doctor says to and that's what I've been telling you and it's just, it's been so good and so refreshing.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. It's an interesting for me, like nutrition has been a huge thing. I've had like health issues my whole life growing up and my whole family have like celiac disease, diabetes runs in it, all these different types of things and I've always found that my mom always told me growing up that food was the main culprit for everything and if you didn't take care of that wouldn't. And so when I got younger I found that it was harder for me because I actually went and like Rebelled and I was like I want to do what I want now that I live alone and stuff. So when you're dealing with clients, do you find that like with the younger people, that's more of a problem that compared to like kind of the older or they were open to change in their diets?
Speaker 3:I have to say it's hard for everyone Because of all that information that's out there. So social media, oh yeah, social media is killing us. So there's a time and place for it, yeah, but there's so much in the media and especially food companies, because their best interest is selling a product yeah, it is not. The information that you see in the media Most of the time has nothing to do with your health, it's to sell a product, and that's where the confusion started. So I could get into a story all the way back to World War two, but that's for another topic. But it's very confusing for everybody, not just the young kids, because even the boomers who knew because I mean most of them, let's say who live on the prairies here, yeah, on a farm.
Speaker 3:Yeah they know what good food is and how animals need to be treated, yeah, and growing gardens and all these things. But then we all moved into the cities and, even though they have this knowledge, it's all been forgotten, because now we have food companies and government telling us how we need to eat, and it's all backwards, and so we got. We really got away from nature that way too, and, yeah, it's very confusing for everybody. But just to get back to what you said, that you grew up, your mom knew that this was important. Yeah, and you were raised that way. Yeah. And then you went through a rebellious stage, yeah, and then I had an health issue Sure, a concern, yeah, for me, because I'm a parent too.
Speaker 3:I'm just a nutritionist and a personal trainer, but I'm also a mom and we're trying to teach our kids the best we know how. Yeah, for their age appropriateness about nutrition, and for sure we have some, some thoughts about like is this the right thing? Am I saying the right thing?
Speaker 3:I do think, yeah, because Eating disorders is terrifying me. Yeah, what am I studying my kids up for health or am I setting them up for failure by doing the things I do now? But then some other parents will always make me feel better about myself when I see. So I went, my daughter goes to elementary school and I go there to pick her up every day. So this is just a little story, mm-hmm. I was asking some of the other kids ones, I know I'm not just going to drink.
Speaker 3:So do you? I ask them if they've had through a lunch, and if they do or if they don't, it doesn't matter. What's in your lunch? Today? I always make sure that my kids have a fruit, a vegetable and then something with substance, so that might be a sandwich or it might be a beefy salad or something like that. And then I'm asking these other kids what's in your lunch? And two of them I only asked three. Two of them said pizza.
Speaker 3:I forgot two food groups. Yeah, and I mean, pizza can be healthy, but what kind of pizza are we talking about? Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I was a little bit disappointed with that, because I I know parents can do better than that. Or yesterday I was listening to a kid tell a story about how well she's allowed to pack her own lunch. So she decided she didn't want to pack lunch, she wanted to have money instead to go somewhere else at lunchtime. So I think she's in grade six, so she can go do her own thing. And she went to Tim Hortons and and not a, not a full-sized Tim Hortons, a gas station Tim Hortons. So it's got like half the meal, it's got it for sure. It's not gonna have the variety, yeah, but full-size Tim Hortons. So I questioned did it even have like the sandwiches or whatever that you can get there, or is it just don't? It's like, did she have Donuts for lunch? Yeah, but regardless.
Speaker 3:A gas station and food are never two things that I would put together. Yeah and I would never tell a client to do that either. Do not eat at a gas station.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what about the beef?
Speaker 3:jerky? Well yeah, but then what kind of beef jerky? Yeah right, exactly. So that was hard for me to hear. And then I think one of the parents had asked oh well, just wait till your kids get a little bit older. It'd be so good, you don't have to pack their lunches anymore. And I said Actually, I like packing my kids lunch because I know they're eating something healthy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I don't know if that was insulting to that parent or not, but I'm not. I'm not gonna hide behind who I am either yeah, well, no one.
Speaker 1:It's like I think too, because my one friend she fell down like and I don't know how to this is something I want to ask you about was like red dye and like food coloring in food and stuff like that and her kid has some really bad ADHD and like Behavior issues and she said that the minute she cut out all these process dye foods it changed. Do you know anything about that? Like, have you?
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. So, um, Hyper palatability is a term I use a lot in my practice. So food companies again that we're we're getting our nutrition if they're telling us what's healthy and whatnot on purpose make their food feel good in the mouth and Look good to our eyeballs, especially kids. So that's why, free these are so brightly colored. Cheesies are like that bright orange. Like what kind of cheese is that color? Yeah, so that is done by design, because it's very attractive to us and we're drawn to it. So then we're like, oh, that looks really good, so we try it because it looks good to our eyes and sends that message to our brain. And then we try it and it's so crunchy and like we love that kind of stuff. Like that's, that's normal, that you like the crunch of those cheeses. What's not normal is the constituents that are in it.
Speaker 3:Like that's not all the chemicals, yeah so what happens with these food dyes and all these things to make the food look appealing is for sure affecting our microbiome and Causing neurodegeneration. So this a bd, a dhd thing is very new to us Because of the way we're eating, like even 20 years ago I don't think a dd and a dhd was heard of.
Speaker 1:No, I'm gonna comment on.
Speaker 3:So, but also, 20 years ago we weren't eating as much of this I call it franking food as we are now. So this hyper palatable food that is made that we love and enjoy and like to look at and taste yes, now we're becoming addicted to it and we eat more. So sugar. Sugar is an addictive substance. We know that now, but so are trans fats, and that's what you're gonna get in some of those other hyper palatable food. So, yes, that's the thing a dd and a dhd is for sure caused by the foods that we're eating. If, if you remove nature from your food, you're gonna get Chemical balance is probably in your brain and stuff like that in different issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there's so much like I know now. When you're at the grocery store, there's all these like it's, so you get drawn to the colorful packaging and like different things like that and like I have different Allergy. So I'm constantly reading labels and when my friends go grocery shopping with me, they actually started reading their labels and they're like, wow, this food. It doesn't actually have a lot of food in it.
Speaker 3:That's awesome that you've been a good influence on them. I love hearing stories like that, yeah, and and you telling me that that mom figured out on her own what is making my kid act like this, like this isn't good, it's not normal, it's not healthy for any of us. Yeah, because that affects her too. Yeah, just the kid who's going through it. And that's awesome that she figured out. I mean, maybe she had someone help her. But she figured out what to do with this kid and eliminated the problem. And is he fine now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like a night and day difference with behavioral changes and stuff like that. Took a little bit of time to like bounce out of it. But, like she and I know one thing, she actually asked me because I messaged her and told her that I was gonna be sitting down with nutritionists and she said can you ask her about how to deal with when the kids are At other events and she's like and everyone else is eating the cool food, my kids all love the cake, that's a cake and a hard-frozen and she's like I've been learning how to try to deal with those and try to Teach them that it's like you're actually better off because of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really hard because we're in the same boat. Okay, yeah, right. So the last event Because school just started, so the school had like a community Event where everybody could come and like just hang out at the school. Yeah, I want to be part of the community. So we did that. I think it was last Thursday and a week before that they'd sent out order forms For healthy hunger. So if any parents listening from Saskatoon have kids in school, they probably have heard of this thing called healthy hunger.
Speaker 3:Well healthy hunger is who you order Pizza. Hat pizza through what?
Speaker 1:And it's called healthy hunger.
Speaker 3:It's called healthy hunger. So you can understand, like, what my frustration is with this, because this is not healthy. No, um, so, and they've got some other fast food, like I think. I think subway is on there too. Um, and they try to pride themselves on supporting local. But how is pizza? Hadn't subway local? Yeah, that's a yeah, um. So I didn't order pizza hat through healthy hunger. I just said you know what? It's a picnic. We'll just bring our own food.
Speaker 3:Yeah and lots of the parents did order the pizza, and that's fine. Um, another thing a term I use in my practice is the poison is in the dose. So I mean I'm not trying to vilify pizza, hot pizza by any means, but is this the best choice right now? Like could we make a better choice? Yeah, so if you have choices, let's make good choices, not just I don't care choices.
Speaker 3:Yeah and to me that was an item care choice. So I was like well, we're not gonna order pizza because that's not how we eat and that's not how when I'm teaching my kids that is an expectation at social events. So we brought our own picnic and I packed charcuterie, basically.
Speaker 3:Yeah um, so you know, we had some meat and cheese, sausage, meat and cheese and pickles and, yeah, and the kids love that. So that was on purpose, because I knew the kids were going to be like, well, my friend has pizza, how come we're not having pizza? So I have to stay on top of that stuff. Yeah, and that my kids love charcuterie. So, like, I got to make sure I bring something that I know they're going to enjoy. Yeah, and they never neither one of them asked me about the pizza Because they loved the charcuterie. They didn't care about the pizza. Yeah, if I've done something like brought mashed potatoes and I don't know something that they don't really love, then that would have been like, oh mom, what are you doing? Like we could have had pizza and this is what you brought, but I made sure that I brought something that I really liked, yeah, so that was the trick there um and you can always.
Speaker 3:So this is hard, especially in families with two working parents, to make your own stuff. So if my kids really really needed pizza, I would have made it, because then I know what's in it, yeah, and I know the ingredients that I use are going to be good for them. So again, pizza is not bad, but where is it coming from?
Speaker 1:and what's the the base of it and everything like that. Right when you do when you meet with clients and you sit down with them and talk about kind of their nutrition. What's kind of the steps you go through when you're auditing kind of their Diet and their lifestyle, like do you look at kind of everything overall, like what's kind of the best point?
Speaker 3:No, we, I try to gather as much information as possible. Um, so if a client decides that my services are something that they want your need, um, of course we go through an intake process, so I call it onboarding. My intake form is pretty intense and I use that word in a positive sense. Yeah, um, because we need to ask questions and I feel like people, when they search out a healthcare practitioner, don't get asked enough questions. It's like, you see, your whoever let's say, just use a doctor as an example. You go to your doctor and you've got like what, six minutes with him. What's he learning about you in six minutes?
Speaker 3:Yeah like nothing, um, so maybe you come with them to him and you're like oh well, I really don't know, like I have this skin disorder and it seems like eczema and it fits you all the time and the doctor only has six minutes and he needs to give you an answer, so let's write a prescription for some steroid cream and here you go, yeah, and that's the end of it.
Speaker 3:You walk out and then what are you supposed to do? There's no advice given on what you could do to make this better, what you could do to prevent it. Just here's a steroid cream, put it on there. Yeah, so now you've got this steroid cream that you're just going to use for whatever, forever or just until the problem heals itself, and then when it comes back, you use it again.
Speaker 3:Like these are questions that I would have, but most people don't ask those questions because they don't know to ask them. So my take asks all the questions and leaves nothing for the client to wonder. Yeah, so all the questions are there, and then I would meet with a client to go over those questions together, because oftentimes when you're answering an intake form on your own, you don't know what I'm getting at when I ask that question. So then we go over it together, because sometimes there's things that I will see in there that I'm like I'm curious about this, I need more information. So then I would get you to elaborate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's been really helpful for me to, because I'm the one doing the detective work. Elaborating on some of those questions is going to be key for me. Doing that those investigations, and then a food mood poop journal is something that I will do too, so lots of nutritionists are going to get their clients to journal. I think what's different with the way I do things is that I'm not just asking you to show me what you eat, but how that food is making you feel and what your bowel movements look like that day, because poop is a really good diagnostic tool.
Speaker 3:We don't need a host of blood tests and imaging to find out what's going on inside your body. Your body will tell us.
Speaker 1:I've been told gut health is so, so important. You can learn a lot from just like and how everything's coming out of you.
Speaker 3:Yeah so 70 percent I mean they say 70 percent of your immunity is in your gut, but now I'm starting to hear higher numbers, like 80, 90 percent of your immunity starts in your gut. So if you're sick all the time with colds and flus and sniffly noses and things, so let's put that at the end, at one end of the spectrum, and then now move it all the way up to an autoimmune disease or cancer. All of this is going to start in the gut somehow, because this is your immunity either reacting or dysfunctioning, and that all starts in the gut. And what's the only way we can get into the gut is by choosing the right things that we eat.
Speaker 3:And so another mantra that I use all the time in my practice is what is the one thing that you have to do every single day, multiple times a day eat, yeah. And what's the thing you have? Another thing that you have to do every day, preferably once a day, is poop. Yeah, you have to eat to live and you have to poop to live. If you don't do these two things, you will die. That's a fact, yeah, so why don't we make good decisions about what we put in, so that when it comes out. It's healthy and good and everything. We know that everything is functioning properly.
Speaker 1:So how do you know if someone's like having like issues?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's a thing that anybody can google. It's called the Bristol stool chart. Okay, b-r-i-s-t-o-l. Bristol stool chart, and it's a chart that this person named Bristol designed and it's super helpful. I use it in my practice. You can get it on the internet, it's free and it's a charting. I think it goes from one to seven and kind of labeling what your poop looks like, and so if we're going from one to seven, you want to be at about a three or four, like that would be normal. So we don't want to be too much on the constipated side and we don't want to be too much on the diarrhea side. We want to be somewhere right in the middle, and frequency doesn't just matter, but color and consistency and smell. So lots of people may not know this, but your shit shouldn't stink. It shouldn't.
Speaker 3:Now, depending on what you eat, sometimes it's going to have an odor yeah, but it shouldn't be like whoo, like you, I'm sure you've walked into a washroom after somebody's gone and you're like, oh, that person's guts are rotten. That's not normal. Okay, you don't want your poop to stink, you don't want to have to strain and you don't want to have to, like, really have to run to the bathroom either, so you should be able to control it. It should be easy to pass and quick too. Like, if you're spending 20 minutes in the bathroom, probably something's going on in there. That isn't right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it should be easy to pass and, honestly, if you're getting enough fiber and so I've learned this from having to wipe other people's butts, aka my kid yeah, um, you shouldn't need have to roll a toilet paper either. No, so I think these are good tips for your listeners, because this is a subject that people don't want to talk about publicly. Yeah, so you're sitting at home listening to this all by yourself, or you've got your earbuds in. I'm telling you, you don't need a lot of toilet paper. If you're eating a good, balanced diet and your body's functioning properly, your poop shouldn't stink. You shouldn't have to. It should be easy to pass and you shouldn't have to use a ton of toilet paper.
Speaker 3:Don't forget that our ancestors didn't have factories making toilet paper. So what did they do? Well, nothing. They squatted down. They didn't sit on a toilet, they squatted down to their you know ass, to grass, yeah, and that poop came up quickly and it didn't leave a mess. They didn't have toilet paper and they didn't need it. So if you think that you're healthy, and everything's functioning properly.
Speaker 3:Use your poop as a as a diagnostic tool. Was it easy to pass, did it smell and did you only have to wipe your butt once?
Speaker 1:okay, interesting. I like those. I like those nibs, something, yeah, a lot of people don't want to talk about. I find too, and like I'd say for me too, like doctors, when I was having like health issues and stuff like that and going through different problems, I would bring up like different problems that I was having and I should like bathroom and different things like that, and they just be like, oh well, that's just like you're over stress. I got told that multiple times, that's why this is happening, and I was just like, yeah, but I was like I think there's something with my food, because I was like I'm having. And then when I saw a natural path and found out that, oh, I'm allergic to soy and I'll just cause all these issues, right, so it's like it's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of doctors don't even, I find, want to talk about it really or like answer questions about it right, which is so funny because I mean they'll look at and touch and talk about blood all day long, but not poop like that means to me. Um, another tool that's helpful in my practice that I use, so we call it the art of the practice. So, um, assess, recommend and track. I'll make my assessments based on the information you give me and then give you my recommendations, you implement them and we track it. So when a client is telling me that their doctor kind of poo pooed what they said, yeah, you were telling this person about your bowel movements because maybe they weren't normal and they weren't addressing it.
Speaker 3:So if it's not something that I think is important, I'm still going to write it down in your chart somewhere so that we can come back to it. So I'll be like okay, she mentioned, uh, maybe this wasn't really happening for her the way it's supposed to. Yeah, we're working on something else right now. We're going to come back to this and I would ask you about it again. So in my recommendations I would want to include something that's going to help with that issue. We can't work on all the issues, yeah, at the same time, um, but there's always, you know, one place that we can start and if you can get that part under control, the rest of it generally falls into place. So if we can get you digesting and metabolizing the nutrients that you eat properly, then the hormone balance will come and the immunity boost will come and the neuro degeneration, hopefully, will stop and the mental clarity will come and all these things will just fall into place.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm and so much goes back to your food. I find nowadays and people just seem to ignore it a lot of the time and not want to take that into consideration they go.
Speaker 3:So I don't think it's so much of an ignore, yeah, as it is defeat, because, again, going back to food companies, they're vested interests in making money. They make these hyper palatable, hyper palatable foods that we love to eat. Yeah, they smell good, they taste good, they look good, they even hear good, like the crinkly bag of a potato chips. Yeah, they made those bags crinkly by design, that wasn't an accident. Like they have scientists who who are paid to do these things for them, and so where we have got ourselves stuck now is we can't control our cravings for these foods because of the way that they are designed chemically. That was on purpose. Like they, these foods were meant for us to crave and be addicted to.
Speaker 3:So now you know I'm trying to tell there's so much in diet culture about willpower yeah, well you have to go on this diet and it's willpower, it's all your willpower, and if you can't do it, all or nothing, you're weak and you failed. And that's the message that's been especially on social media heavily with gym bros and stuff like that for sure and so that's diet culture all or nothing.
Speaker 3:You either fail or you succeed. There's no in between, and that's not what we're trying. That's not normal for humans. We have to try, try again, and we're going to make mistakes and that's how we learn. Yeah, it can't be all or nothing. It's not black and white. Nothing is including your nutrition and the foods that you choose to eat. So the problem with that is we get addicted to these foods and we know that we enjoy them and they make us feel good, because those foods that we love and enjoy, because of the way that they're chemically made, cause those neurotransmitters, your dopamine and serotonin and all those feel good chemicals, to fire. Yeah, so that's totally normal that you become addicted to these foods because of how your body reacts. But most people don't know the physiology of their body, so they just think I'm a failure. My willpower sucks and this is not anyone's fault because that's how your brain's evolved and it went to work hot, yeah, yeah of course.
Speaker 3:So we have to just undo all of the culture that we've grown up in, and that takes time. So in my practice, I'm only ever going to give a client one or two things to change and once we've mastered those, then we'll move on. It's not an all or nothing. Okay, here's 25 things you need to change right now or you're going to fail, because that is setting someone for failure and we don't want to do that. And lots of people like you know that you failed before because you've tried all the things before you've come to see me. Yeah, and I don't want to set you up for that, but you've got that in your back of your mind. Oh, I've been down this road before and I failed and failed and failed again. So now you don't even want to try because that doesn't feel good to fail. So that's hard for a lot of people. They need to be able to trust me and trust that I'm on their team and I'm a support person. I'm not the dictator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're not trying to take away the fun in their life, but you're trying to help them better themselves, because obviously they see an issue and that's why they're sitting down with you. So do you find two? Sometimes like because I know for me, when I was dealing with all of my health issues and going to doctors and getting put on different diet plans, it was very overwhelming and it was like is that why you kind of start with like two things kind of, instead of being like here's 50 things you need to cut out right away?
Speaker 3:because that was pretty much what I was told right off the hook For sure, yes, and elimination has become a scary word in the diet world too. I also don't like to use the word diet with my client because of what diet culture has done to that word. Yeah, a diet can be defined as what you choose to eat, but now the diet industry, like the people who sell supplements and workouts and all the things, have taken that word and made it like the scary thing for people. But implementing only one or two strategies is going to ensure your success, not make it confusing, not set you up for failure and elimination because, I want to find out
Speaker 3:elimination is also a scary word today when we're talking about diet culture. I try, with my recommendations I try to get the client to implement. So brain the good stuff in first and then crowd out the bad. So I'm doing it the opposite way of what how diet culture would do. Diet culture tells you you need to stop eating this and get rid of all of that. Right now, yeah, where I'm going to say you know what, if you like your cheeses, have your cheeses, but let's get you started eating some of this, this and this that's going to help support your body. And then eventually, because we're adding in all this good stuff, you're not going to have room for the bad stuff and the goal is it's kind of a head game actually that over time we're going to trick you into not even thinking about those things. So now cheeses are part of your life and you've totally forgotten that you used to eat them.
Speaker 3:Like oh, yeah, I used to eat cheeses all the time, but you're not eating them anymore because you don't want to, because the and that was your decision. It wasn't me telling you. You can't have this thing anymore and that's what makes the difference, you so I have lots of people ask me well, your personal trainer and your nutritionist, what do you eat? And I answer I eat whatever I want because I want good, healthy food, like that's the stuff that I like. I don't eat hand quotes junk food because I don't enjoy it. I don't like it. I'm not depriving myself of anything.
Speaker 3:I don't like those things.
Speaker 1:So I do eat what I want, because I want good food and you're like conscious of what you're putting into your body to as well, because you spent so much time so when you got into it, was it because of health issues then like that you got into, like understanding nutrition and stuff like that I don't have any health issues, and I mean, I don't know what got me into this.
Speaker 3:Well, I had my off, yeah, but.
Speaker 3:I was already taking care of my health before I met him. It started with exercise. For me for sure, yeah, I got exposed, introduced to the gym when I was about 20 or 21. I want to say 20, because I was a personal trainer by the time I was 21. And it was just the people I surrounded myself with, so that made a difference. It's hard to get your butt to the gym if you don't have a community of people who also go to the gym. Yeah, so that's where I was lucky is that my friends, the friends, the company that I kept, were health conscious people in the gym. I'm not saying they ate well.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say, I was like, did that?
Speaker 3:So that's what got me started there. And then I got my nutrition certification. So I've been a personal trainer for 22 years. I got my nutrition certification probably like 18 years ago. Okay, the one that I have now is not the same as the one I got 18 years ago. The one I got 18 years ago was part of a personal training program that I was involved in and that very much subscribed to diet culture. I can remember telling clients that fat wasn't good for you, like I remembered that being a time, and when I look back on it now I'm just like what the heck was I telling these people? Like just such bad information.
Speaker 3:And I'm sure your listeners have heard about eating clean. Yeah, well, what does that even mean? What is eating clean? Does that mean not eating fat, not eating meat? Like what is? What does clean mean? I mean, yeah, you could ask 10 different people and have 10 different definitions of that. So what I'm also trying to teach people is not that any I don't subscribe to any one type of diet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, whether that be atkins or keto or a vegetarian or vegan, like none of that stuff, because we're all different and unique, yeah, and it has to be an individualized approach, so it really just depends on the person. What their symptoms are genetics so we always take into consideration genetics. Gut permeability and inflammation are the three things I'm going to address. So those things and how your body deals with the foods you eat are going to determine what kinds of foods we're going to recommend you eat, and that's going to be different for everybody. So I mean, what is eating clean? Is that a vegetarian diet? Is that a keto diet? Well, it's none of those things. It's whatever it means for you. These bodies different, everybody's different, and that's why we have to do that detective work to find out what is it about? Something that you're doing, either in your lifestyle or in the food that you're eating, that's not agreeing with you. So, triggers and mediators what makes you feel bad? What makes you feel good?
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let's sort this out, and that's my job, that's what I do, and that's kind of why you say you're almost like a detective, because you have to figure out and take all the information and come up with a plan and course of action kind of to go forward with it. So how long do people end up working with you? Is it like, do you?
Speaker 1:find it's a lifelong thing, or is it like once they kind of have the steps and necessary tools in place, they kind of are able to manage the cost. So again, that's going to depend on the client Got it and I'll give you a comparison story.
Speaker 3:So in my personal training life I've had clients that come to me for a few months and they learn what they need to be doing based on what their goals for me, and then they go on the road. You know what, you know what. You've helped me a lot. You've given me this program. I've done this and this. These are the goals I've reached. I think I've got it now and they go out on their own and that's great.
Speaker 3:I've had clients that stayed with me, for I have a client I'm training right now who's been with me for six years, I think, because she doesn't care. She just wants to be told what to do. She's got way too much on her plate. She doesn't want to learn about what exercises are good for her body and da da da, she wants somebody else to help her with that, and that's me, and that's fine. So I might see somebody for three months, I might see somebody for six years, and it's the same with nutrition.
Speaker 3:So a client might come to me who's really interested in learning the educational tools that I'm going to give them, and eventually they will. They'll be like well, you know what I kind of already know a little bit about this, but I just need a little bit of help sorting this and this and this out and we help them kind of compartmentalize some things and then they go on their own and maybe they've only seen me for three sessions, but then some clients are going to see me, like depending on the problem. Again, I would recommend like I have a client with a pre autoimmune diagnosis, so her doctors have not diagnosed her with MS yet, but they're waiting for her symptoms to get worse.
Speaker 3:So they can give her the diagnosis.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to help her avoid that. So she's somebody that I want to see for like at least six months, because we talked about those small incremental changes. Well, we have a lot of changes we need to make with her and we can't do it all at once. So I've only given her one or two things, but then she needs to come back to me so we can make sure this is working. Okay, it is, you've mastered it. Let's move on to the next step.
Speaker 3:If she hasn't mastered it, what do we need to do to work on that so you can master it? What do we need to do differently? What do we need to add and what do we need to take away before we can move on? So with autoimmunity, it's a little bit more of a process. And then after that, I'm I kind of try to tell clients treat your nutritionist like you would your doctor or your dentist Check in, just check in. Or even with your therapist, like if you're having some mental anxiety and you go to your therapist, are you going to go to one session and whoop, you're cured and you've got it all figured out? Of course not. No, you're going to go for a few sessions. The therapist gives you the tools, you use the tools and then you move on. And that would be the same with nutrition counseling.
Speaker 1:Got it Okay Cause yeah, I found two, cause, like some people think that, like it's a one and done. One and done.
Speaker 1:health is not a one and done policy. There's no easy bandaid, and that's the other thing too. I feel like there's so many bandaid solutions out there nowadays for like health issues and different things like that the amount of different drugs and stuff that I was put on because I wasn't gaining weight. So they're like oh, we'll put you on these supplements and we'll give you these things and these different things, but it was actually just the fact that the food I was eating, my body wasn't actually absorbing and processing.
Speaker 3:Right. So you can take the medication and the supplements, but if you're continuing to put that aggravating thing in your body, then those things don't work. They just cover up the symptoms. Yeah, bandaid solutions are, for sure, not what I'm about. So if a client and I try to make that clear before a client signs on with me, so I always do a free strategy call with someone who's interested in my services so we can talk.
Speaker 3:It doesn't cost anything and you can decide if I'm going to be the right fit for you. That's really important because I don't want somebody to sign on who thinks that this is going to be a one and done policy or a bandaid quick fix, because it's not. Yeah, this is something that's going to take time, especially if, like with lots of my overweight clients, if it took them 20 years to get where they are now, is it realistic that three sessions is going to get them out of it? Probably not. Yeah, so these are going to take time. We make small incremental changes and you have to be in the right headspace for it too. It's not one and done. It's not a quick fix.
Speaker 1:I will advertise that right at the top and it's not a one and done. No, I don't think anything to do with health should be one and done. And then the one thing I wanted to ask you is because it's one of my favorite questions is what do you think is one common myth about your profession or field that you would want to debunk?
Speaker 3:That is a good one. What do I want to debunk? Oh, here's one that is a pet pee for me Everything in moderation. It is not everything in moderation. I really don't like that term, and that's also used in diet culture. So people will make excuses to put anti-nutrients into their body by convincing themselves that it's in moderation. It's okay If you have a food sensitivity to gluten, but you just sometimes eat pizza early, you eat girls.
Speaker 3:Is that okay for your body? Like no, no, especially if you're celiac and you just don't know that yet. Lots of people are going to go through a lot of trials and tribulations before they find out that they have X diagnosis, and celiac is one of those. I mean, they can test for that, but what kinds of things are you going through before you even go to the doctor, right? Yeah, you're dealing with a lot of ill health and poor symptoms before you even ask for help. So everything in moderation is something I would like to debunk, because it's not everything in moderation for most people. Those triggers and mediators I talked about before if something is a trigger for you, even in moderation, it's causing damage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like someone that has an alcoholic or an alcoholic and they just drink it every once in a while.
Speaker 3:So if you're an alcoholic, is it okay for you to have a drink, sometimes in moderation? Of course not, and this is exactly the same with food that you're putting in your body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, putting alcohol that you shouldn't put in your body.
Speaker 3:You're putting food that you shouldn't be putting in your body, and a lot of the food I wouldn't even call food If you can't pronounce the name of the ingredients in it or it wouldn't be in your pantry at home. That's not food. Yeah, that's chemicals.
Speaker 1:Well, that was the biggest mind blowing thing for me, when I think when we chatted the one time, I said I was like with soy, there's so many different versions of soy and it gets like it's complicated because I had to learn all the different names that it could fall under. And even then sometimes I feel like I look at something and I'm like, ah, that's where, doesn't that seems too close to this. So I left the cinder, whatever it is. So I'm just going to put that back instead, because I don't understand what that is.
Speaker 3:Right, and sugar is a thing that's hidden in a lot of products too. You were telling me that too they can use so many different names for sugar that it just confuses people. So you can look at a product and just because it doesn't have SUGAR written on, it doesn't mean there's no sugar in it. You have to know all the funny chemical names for sugar. Well, who's learning this? Like no one. No one's learning this.
Speaker 1:They don't teach it in school. Ask for it.
Speaker 3:They don't teach it in school, and people have way too much going on in their lives to learn stuff like that. So that's why I always say keep it simple and just buy whole foods. Whole foods don't have labels on them, so then there's no confusion. What's in an apple?
Speaker 1:An apple. That's what's in it. There's nothing else to it. I was going to ask you another question. I was going to ask so, like when it comes to organic and natural, because my mom she's very, very healthy and she sends me articles all the time and she went off about this like new wax spray that's on a lot of our fruits and veggies and she was saying to me that that's why they're so shiny and to be careful and aware of that and if I notice it, to like wash and rinse it. Is there like validity to those types of things?
Speaker 3:Do you To a point? Okay, for sure, there's some stuff done to our fruits and vegetables to make them look more attractive, but that's not a bad thing, because the orange carrot's better than the orange cheeses, if you ask me. Yeah, so pick our battles. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I would like to debunk that one because I've read some of those same articles. Yeah, and back when I was a young personal trainer, I spewed that kind of information to my clients as well. Now, when you grow your own garden which I didn't do until I was way into adulthood you start to learn things about fruits and vegetables, and one of those is apples are shiny when you rub them on your sweater or whatever right.
Speaker 3:So when you pick an apple off the tree it looks like that wax film that she's talking about and you see the apples in the store. They've got like that waxy film that she's talking about and it's not wax most of the time. I mean, we are pretty lucky in Canada that we don't do silly stuff to our food because we have laws that protect our food. But in the US, for sure, that's probably a thing. Now I'm not going to confirm or deny that, but that is the thing that I've read too. But I have an apple tree in my backyard and when we first moved into this house obviously we're picking apples and I looked and I was like this doesn't look very good. They're so shiny and beautiful in the grocery store. And then I just like I rubbed it with a towel and it was shiny and beautiful. So whatever is on the film of the skin when it's growing is protecting it somehow, and then you just have to rub it off or wash it whatever. So that's on there naturally. That's a natural thing.
Speaker 3:It's not necessarily a wax spray, but I wouldn't. If you're shopping in the US, that might be a different story, because they do all kinds of things to their food that we don't do here. And another thing that I would debunk if I can, is the stuff in the media about poor treatment of cattle and pigs and chickens and things. All that stuff that you read in the media is in the US. We do not do that to our animals here. We don't on the prairies have animals. Our cattle aren't put in feed lots, they're out in the pasture grazing. If you have ever taken a trip on a highway you can see that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:With your own eyeballs. Our meat is not laden with corn Like it is in the US, because we don't have subsidized corn fields here where we just take corn and put it in everything, including cattle feed. So and if some of your listeners can debunk me, I would love to know that but as far as I know, the cattle here graze on grass all summer and in the winter they get fed hay. Yeah, it's not corn. They don't have a corn-based meal. That is in the US. So when you hear all the stories about how unsafe it is to eat red meat because it's got these polyunsaturated fats or trans fats or triglycerides- that are no good for you.
Speaker 3:That is not in Canadian meat, so you can rest assured that the meat you're eating in Canada is safe, and that goes for dairy too. You hear all these scary stories about hormones and antibiotics getting in the cow's milk. We don't do that to our cows. Our cows are not fed hormones. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Go talk to a dairy farmer in Saskatchewan and I have.
Speaker 3:I visited a dairy farmer because I wanted to know if this was true, because my whole life I grew up drinking milk. I don't love milk, but that's just a preference. It's not because I think it's bad for me. So I needed to debunk that just for my clients when I'm talking to them. We don't give our cows hormones on the prairies. Our dairy cows, and if they're given antibiotics for illness, they're not milked. And the ones that are grazing, if they're ever given antibiotics for illness, they're not butchered. Yeah, we don't do that here, so our food's pretty safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the nice thing with social media so much drives it, it kind of pushes one story and that's really it Well people are always going to share the negative.
Speaker 3:Oh, did you see this? Hormones and antibiotics in the cows. I have to share this. And then that thing spreads like wildfire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like I know a lot of my friends they bring up like pita and stuff like that and all of the types of things that they push and I was super against like beyond meat and all of the fake meat products that have now come to be. Have you ever looked into them? Like what's kind of in them?
Speaker 3:I haven't looked into the company myself, but if you look at a beef patty that doesn't have corn syrup, salt and it's just the ingredients are beef, yeah, and then you compare that to a beyond burger, I think beyond burgers have 56 ingredients in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually freaky the amount of chemicals and different things in them and great veggie burger options out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, if you're someone who doesn't eat meat, for whatever the reasons you don't like it, or it's an animal thing, whatever that's fine, but that doesn't give you a free ticket to eat chemicals. So if you want. If you enjoy a burger but you don't want to eat meat, by all means eat a veggie burger. But you have to look at what that veggie burger is made of. You can't just go oh well, here's a chemical burger, it's fine because there's no meat in it. That doesn't mean it's healthy, yeah.
Speaker 1:And they push that so so much because it's like this is the healthy thing. Now Even my mom's told said in the articles about like bugs and stuff like that and that we're moving to like eating bugs, I guess.
Speaker 3:Well, we only did yeah, we only did my question to people who eat a lot of some of the vegetarian products that are out there because there's so many they really the food companies that make those products really revolve it around meat yeah, they do. Like meat, like substances. So my question to vegans and vegetarians is if you don't want to eat meat or you don't like meat, why are you trying to have all these products that are meat, that taste like?
Speaker 3:meat, Well, yeah it tastes like meat, it looks like meat, it has a texture. Yeah, the texture of meat, like. Why do you want that? I don't understand. If you don't want the meat, why do you want the meat?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. Yeah, I found that like you can eat healthy and have kind of those different types of things if you want to be vegetarian and without having the chemicals, and that's like with anything.
Speaker 3:So right now it's pumpkin spice, yeah. So I jump on that bandwagon too, and I just posted a few days ago a pumpkin spice muffin recipe that I have. That's healthy. It doesn't have 60 grams of sugar in it like the Tim Horton's ones. I don't think Tim Horton's ones have that much in it, but it's ridiculous. Whatever it is, so I make my own. So you can still have treats and things that you shouldn't have every day. Just make healthy versions of them, and that's what one thing that we're trying to teach our kids. You can have a pumpkin spice muffin, but you have to make it. You can have it to Martin's.
Speaker 1:You got to make it, yeah, and then you can have it, and then you know that it's natural and you know what's inside of it too.
Speaker 3:Not only that you know what's in it, but there's a whole like food and social connections are very much like that's been part of human culture since the beginning. Yeah, we want to eat around other people and enjoy food with other people and share food with other people.
Speaker 3:And that's great. I don't want anybody to get away from that, that part of not just knowing what's in your food by making it yourself, but that community. So now I'm doing something with my kids. That's positive. Yeah, they're learning how to cook or bake. They're learning what the ingredients are and how you put all of this, this, this, together and it becomes this so, that's a learning opportunity, and so not only that, but also that we have to work for our food.
Speaker 3:So our ancestors had to work for their food and that's why they were so fit and like, muscly looking. I mean, when you look at all like Greek and Roman statues, these people like, look like bodybuilders, and that's how humans looked. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And now we just have everyone's. Overweight and obesity is such an epidemic in our culture. Now, that's not normal. What's normal is working for your food. So that's why I tell the kids to I'm like you can have a treat, but while we're making it, we're using energy, and then we put that energy back by enjoying it. Yeah, if you have a sedentary job and a sedentary lifestyle, these rules don't apply to you. Yeah, because you're not working for your food, you're grabbing it from the cupboard. So you never made anything, you grabbed it from the freezer and threw it in the oven. Yeah, that's not working for your food.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you have to earn it, you have to earn that energy. Yeah. You can't keep putting the energy in without expending any.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I find you, because I make a lot of things from scratch and I invite my friends over all the time for dinner Because I like cooking for people, I like hosting and it's nice to be able to also date one of my younger friends. She says that she doesn't she eats out a lot, she's just it's easier, it's convenient, it's whatever. And when she goes over to my place she's like I didn't really like how easy it is to make all of these things. The one day I made a basil pesto sauce with homemade noodles and fried some chicken and she was. It tastes like a restaurant and I'm like, yeah, I was like basil pesto sauce is like four ingredients in it.
Speaker 3:I was like you put it in a food processor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like it's not that difficult to understand these different things, but I feel like because of just how easy access those quicker meals are nowadays, and especially if you look at how much now the frozen food aisle has grown like it blows my mind when I go down there and I see all these pre-made dinners and there's so many options and some of them get labeled as healthy and different things like that, and it's like you look at actually what's inside of it and there's like maybe three actual food ingredients and the rest is just these processed chemicals yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's what people are eating. Michael Pollan, I think, was the one in his food ink, I think.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, michael Pollan, yeah.
Speaker 3:He said I remember in that documentary there's more than 40,000 different items in a grocery store and four companies that control it all.
Speaker 1:Really yeah, that's scary to hear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now there's only four companies controlling everything that you eat.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I know that in Canada now too, we've less diversified our food, which is somewhat nice. There's certain things that they're stopping from coming in, and stuff like that. Like blessio, pizza is now gone. You can't get it here anymore.
Speaker 3:Or Kleenex.
Speaker 1:Yeah or Kleenex. I remember that whole discussion. I know that a lot of our food and stuff here is also kind of changing and transitioning out here in Canada too, because we do have a little bit less options in the frozen food aisle, which I think is good, because I much rather, if I want pizza, I will make it from scratch.
Speaker 3:Well, and with all the different fad diets like the keto and the this and the that. It's getting better with convenience food Now. I hate using the word convenience food, but there are a lot more healthier choices now than there used to be, because the food company is well, the consumer decides what's going to happen. As long as you keep buying the garbage food, they're going to keep making the garbage food, but they're also making healthier alternatives for the ones that really care about what they're putting in their body. So there are some more convenient food options out there that we didn't have before.
Speaker 1:But still, at the end of the day, if you're not cooking your own food, you're eating convenience food that's full of chemicals, yeah, and you want to make sure you know what's in your body and stuff like that which we're putting into it. So, when you look back over your career, what would you say the most important lesson you've learned over your career? Esvin?
Speaker 3:One important lesson I've learned is you cannot let food companies and politicians tell you what's healthy, because there's too much of this whole conversation. We've been talking about what's in the media and the packaging on foods. If you can go down any aisle and it'll say, oh, this is zero trans fat or this is cholesterol free is one of my pet ease, like Cheerios cereal has on the package that it's cholesterol. Lower it's cholesterol.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so people don't know what cholesterol does in the body, so they can get away with saying that. So then someone thinks that eating Cheerios is healthy because it's cholesterol free. So that would be. One of the most important lessons I've learned is that you cannot. You have to take all the information and then pick the ones that resonate with you the most so I can tell you what's healthy and what's not, and then you might read something contradictory, but then you need to decide what's best for you at the end of the day. So take all the information, but don't swing one way or the other. Take all the information and then decide a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B and decide what's good for you. You can listen to all the advice, but it has to make sense to you and it has to resonate with you. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think that's one of my biggest lessons I've learned is just because of all the confusion you have to just drown out the noise and focus on yeah. Drain out the noise and focus on yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and make sure, because everyone's body is different, different. We kind of talked on too. Some people will be able to process certain things. So what is some of underrated tools that you feel are indisposable in your job?
Speaker 3:Indisposable tools. Well, the Food Group Journal yeah, that's a necessary one and obviously the intake form. And then two other things that I use in my practice are a timeline very important so that we can determine when these symptoms of dysfunction started to happen. Lots of people don't realize that they've been dealing with whatever they're dealing with for years, like since childhood sometimes. So that one's important to acknowledge. And my matrix so the matrix that I use shows me and the client how the body is a full body system. We can't ever look at one system in isolation because they all work together and that's what the matrix shows me. So once they've done an intake form, I plug into the matrix which systems of the body, whatever their symptoms, are affecting and then we can see the whole picture. So the matrix is our roadmap. Got it Super important, cool, awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I really do appreciate your time and being able to sit down and connect with you kind of. To end off, I was like to ask one last question. When you think about kind of making impacts in other people's lives, what would you say has been the biggest impact that you've made or had someone's made on your life?
Speaker 3:Well, ok, I'm going to have to say my coach from the functional nutrition alliance.
Speaker 3:So for my functional nutrition certification, the course that I took two years ago, her name's Andrea Nakayama and she's the one who started the functional nutrition alliance and has created the course that I took. She taught me that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. We are all unique, everything is connected and all things matter. That's a quote from her, because before her I really was like well, no, this food is bad for you, that food is good for you and it's not cut and dry like that, and she's the one who showed me that. So taking the full-body systems approach has, for sure, changed my life how I choose to eat food, how I take care of my kids with whatever kind of problems they might have my son has asthma and my daughter has some skin disorders that we're taking care of with nutrition and for my clients and really teaching them about that full-body systems approach. So the functional nutrition alliance and Andrea Nakayama, I can say for sure has made an impact on me and how I'm treating people now and I've got to change the world when clients at a time.
Speaker 1:Awesome, perfect, well, thank you so much for your time. So if any of our listeners wanted to connect with you or reach out, what's the best way to connect to you and find out more information?
Speaker 3:Well, of course, I always drive people to my website at flexappealca because I have lots of information on there, including my blog, where I'm going to post recipes and important articles and things. And if listening you're still not really understanding what it is, I do, my website's going to give all the answers there. And I'm on Instagram, of course, at Flexappeal, Functional Nutrition, and I'm on there more than I'm on anything, I guess, posting free stuff. So that's where I'm going to go to get the free stuff. I'll have tips and tricks and whenever I do a webinar or something, I will post it out there and in stories and things. And usually the webinars that I do are free, but you have to join the mighty networks to get on there. And all this information is on my website too.
Speaker 1:Perfect, awesome, well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me on the third episode of Making your Impact, season two. I love getting to sit down and connect with Barb. Food and nutrition is just something I find so interesting because of the narrative that gets pushed on social media, and I loved being able to dive into that on this episode. So make sure to follow Barb on her Instagram. Her info is all in the description of this episode. Also, it helps me out a ton if you rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, whether that's Spotify or Apple podcast. Also, make sure to follow it too, so you're always notified. When I post and check out my Instagram at Making your Impact, I post teasers behind the same stuff on there, and next time, on Making your Impact, I'm going to be sharing a little life update and, where I have been, what I have learned during this insane time of change. But until next time, remember, don't just make an income, make an impact Bye good.
