Ep 441: Signs Your Food, Supplements or Meds Aren’t Working for You – With Amy K Wilson

Doing all the things and still not feeling 100%?  Wondering if there’s something more to your fatigue, health conditions, metabolism, pain and more?   Amy K Wilson is a Board Certified Geriatric Pharmacist, a certified fitness professional, and a certified nutrition coach using the FASTer Way to Fat Loss platform, who is working to disrupt the diet industry by helping her clients take their life back.  Amy is on a mission to share what she’s seen as a pharmacist and nutritionist to help women understand their bodies and metabolism. In this episode of The Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause and Amy K Wilson have a conversation about how they eat, the labeling of ultra processed foods, labs, methylation, colon health, allergies and how they play into metabolism.

Resources From The Show:

• Amy’s Website: www.amykwilson.com
• IG: @Thenutritioncoachpharmacist – send her a DM “healthfix” – free 5 day fat loss blueprint

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

3:03 – Importance of running labs to get a baseline

9:55 – How the system transports or distributes vitamin D throughout the body

12:51 – Vitamin D and the circadian rhythm / Best time to take

14:35 – What is methylation?

20:26 – Alternative option to taking a colonic to cleanse your colon

23:22 – Common irritants of colonoscopy prep from a pharmacists view

26:42 – How to reboot your gut after a colonoscopy

29:52 – Can getting off antihistamines help you in your weight loss journey?

32:13 – What is Alpha Gal Syndrome?

37:29 – Can you trust food labeling if you have allergies? Orla Baxendale story

39:41 – What are ultra processed foods?

42:39 – What you need to make simple dinners that are healthy

43:28 – What are processed healthy foods?

48:03 – Are there other types of medication that have allergens and mess with people’s ability to lose weight?

51:51 – Advantage of using a compounding pharmacy

54:35 – Being your own self advocate

56:21 – How living a healthier lifestyle can help lower or eliminate your medications

59:29 – Average time it takes for someone to come off blood pressure medication once they improve their lifestyle choices

102:05 – Effects of living a healthy lifestyle will have on your body

104:20 – Amy’s approach to fat loss

1:10:23 – How long does it take for someone to go from high blood pressure to full blown  cardiovascular disease on average?

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JANNINE: [Intro] Welcome to the Health Fix Podcast, where health junkies get their weekly

fix of tips, tools, and techniques to have limitless energy, sharp minds, and fit

physiques for life. Hey Health remove guys, on this episode of Health Fix Podcast,

I’m chatting with Amy K. Wilson again, and we’re going over a lot of the things

that we found that we need to talk about. Now, here’s the thing. We go over a lot

of subjects in this podcast, but one of the biggest things I want you to be

about during this podcast is self advocating because the truth and labeling act let’s be real

there is 20% error allowed one way or the other on processed foods what the heck i mean how can a

person really truly know what they’re eating when they’re eating processed foods if the labeling

is wonky like this it’s just not fair so that’s a biggie and then the other big thing one of the

Like, let’s put it this, like tools you can have in your toolbox, if you’re taking medications is

having a friend who’s a pharmacist or getting to know your local pharmacist. Pharmacists are

amazing for the knowledge that they have. Not only that, they hear from patients side effects,

they hear what possibly other doctors aren’t hearing about medications and things of that nature.

They know more about the medications than us doctors do. That is why they are a crucial tool

for us.

So, Amy being the combination of a nutritionist and a pharmacist, ooh, game changer there.

So we go into things like the labeling, we go into if you’re on meds and you’re starting

to lose weight, what do you want to be looking for?

We talk about labs, we talk about so many things in this podcast.

You guys are going to love it.

So get ready, jump in, let’s reintroduce you to Amy K. Wilson.

Hey, health junkies.

I brought Amy K. Wilson back on because we had just such a great conversation last time

and like we may be becoming BFF seriously. But really, we just want to share stuff with you guys.

Like there are so many things we talked about and I’m like, yeah, what about that? And she was like,

yeah, so anyway, she’s back on. We’re talking labs. We’re talking what we see in pharmaceutical

items and we’re talking all things health and weight and things that could be in the way from

weight and gosh, just sit down and relax. This is gonna be a good one. So Amy, welcome back

to Health Fix Podcast. 

AMY: Thanks for having me. I am really stoked to be here. So yeah,

grab your cup of coffee because it’s good with like two girlfriends just having a really good

kind of conversation and diving into some things that I think need to be dived into.

JANNINE: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And probably the first one is this whole concept of labs and

what labs to run because a lot of people will come to me and go, “Doc, my doc won’t run my

because they told me my hormones are too unstable during the month, so I won’t get an accurate

idea of what’s going on. And I’m like, and then the same thing about I can’t run food sensitivity

because it’s not going to be accurate. And I’m not going to run this. Do you hear that often from

your folks? 

AMY: Oh my gosh. So what I can’t stand is somebody saying, well, there’s nothing wrong with

you. Why should I run labs? And I understand. I think the pushbacks and insurance company,

the insurance company wants that ICD 10 code that says why, but you don’t know

what’s going on or what your baseline is. Like when I started going through perimenopause,

my practitioner was like, we are getting your labs now because I need to know what your baseline

is. I need to know where you’re starting from, what’s going on so that we can start following along

to see when you are tanking, when we need to possibly, if at that time, yes, I will tell you

guys right now, I’m on bioidenticals. That was a choice that I made. We need to figure

out what’s going on and what’s the best way to treat if you want to be treated. And I’m

like, yeah. And it’s the same way when someone says, well, and I’m fighting with one of my

practitioners right now, not the one who I go to, but she wants me to get a DEXA scan

for bone density, bone density. They won’t do it until I’m 65. And we’re both like, but

– By 65, you probably have osteoporosis.

So you should be testing it when you hit 45, 50,

because we wanna see if there’s osteopenia or anything else,

not when you get a fracture and say,

“Oh yeah, I know you qualify.”

And it’s the same thing with vitamin D, B12s,

we can get all the whole TSH, not just TSH, T3, T4.

Let’s have the whole kind of thing.

And then when you’re talking about cholesterol,

okay, what does everybody do?

They do total cholesterol.

All right, you’re over 200, let’s put you on a statin.

Hold one minute.

Okay, my HDL is crazy through roof

that comes from my mom’s side.

But also my LDL is a little bit on the higher side.

And if you, I went to the minute clinic,

you know, one of those little clinics

’cause I had to do something.

And they’re like, “Your class is all high.

Should we do something?”

I’m like, “Wait, wait, wait.

Let me show you my test where we actually looked

at all the LDL, and I have the fluffy kind.”

By the way, the fluffy kind’s good.

And there is, it’s, we have everything in Pigeonable.

HDL is good, LDL is bad.

And so therefore, if your LDL is higher,

and you’re over 200, we put you on a statin,

instead of looking at the whole entire kit n’ kaboodle,

because if you look at my ratio,

ratio is nothing. If you look at my triglycerides, they’re in the 50s. So it’s looking at labs,

but it’s also understanding labs. And then also, you know, I bet you see all the time is like

somebody comes in and they’re like, Oh, well, my doctor says that my T3, T4 and TSH are all in

normal levels, but they’re not normal. They’re in normal lab levels. And every lab, by the way,

your lab’s different and my lab’s in Kentucky are totally different than what

yours are where you practice and I know you do virtual so their labs are different

everywhere across the country. Those normal or those ranges are averages.

They’re not, they’re not per se and one of the things that we’ve always been told is treat the

patient not the lab, right? And I don’t know where that disconnect, where that comes from that we

stop doing that, because if somebody is having hypothyroid issues, and we’re seeing all the

clear case symptoms, but their numbers are on the kind of higher end of the spectrum,

but they’re fine. They’re fine. But maybe they’re not.

– It’s crazy, I’ve never watched that tangent there.

JANNINE: No, no, no, it’s huge because people will be like,

“Oh, my doc checked my thyroid and told me it was okay.”

And I was like, “Oh, let me see your labs.”

And it’s TSH, that’s all they’ve done.

AMY: Right.

JANNINE: And I’m like, “Well, we have no idea which is TSH.”

TSH, that’s brain to thyroid.

What is your thyroid output?

What’s the uptake on the cells?

I don’t know.

Do you have antibodies?

No, no, I don’t know.

These are important things to know.

But what’s interesting, like you mentioned,

is the ranges because I’ve seen people at a TSH six,

like around six, and they have no thyroid symptoms.

They are fine in my apartment, right?

And so, but if you come up in the conventional world,

you’re like, there’s just thyroid med.

And then they’re like, I feel like crap.

So I’ve had people that have been on both sides of that

where they’ve been given a thyroid med, but no symptoms.

And they’re like, now I feel like crap.

And then of course, this is the biggest conundrum

there’s like all the thyroid symptoms showing up and they maybe are borderline low, like maybe

there are T4s like at .77 which for some labs is low, other labs not low. AMY: It’s high, it’s right

there. 

JANNINE: like oh my god. So it’s like where do we stand in this this realm, you know, how do we

navigate this with folks? It’s almost like like you said, we have to go to old school medicine

and look at the patient and not the labs. 

AMY: Well, and vitamin D is another good example.

We, we say that normal’s 30.

So if you look at it lab, we say normal’s 30.

We’re thinking normal’s around 60 something is what, what we’re thinking

that normal is and the, but it depends on who you talk to.

Depends on who, what study came out, depending on what, I guess, what podcast

you listen to today and– 

JANNINE:  Exactly.  

AMY: you know, cause you know, let, let’s, let’s talk

about the hot topics, melatonin, vitamin D, I mean, a lot of those are hot topics.

omega-3s, probiotics, and it depends on who you talk to and what their theory is, but we do know

that our body needs vitamin D is another hormone. It absolutely does. We know that it has something

to possibly do with memory. We know that we see increased falls in people with lower vitamin D.

When COVID was out, there was a study that came that showed that other comorbidities was having

low vitamin D in the elderly population, that those residents in nursing homes with lower vitamin D

had poor outcomes with COVID. Now, where the study is a little bit iffy, some of them were,

but one of the things that vitamin D does is that it does help you feel better. It is a hormone,

it helps your bones. There’s a lot of things that we don’t understand about vitamin D yet,

which is, I think, cool and the same because there’s a lot of things coming out about vitamin D.

Can you overdose? Yeah, there’s possibility, but that’s a lot of vitamin D.

But what I do know is that most people, especially in the United States, do not get enough

vitamin D from the sunshine.

JANNINE: Yeah.

AMY: Good luck on that one.

And even if you live in Texas, you are probably still not getting enough vitamin D because

of the amount of time that you need to be in the sun.

A lot of us don’t convert vitamin D2 to D3.

By the way, that’s what comes in the sun is D2 and then converts to D3.

I am one of those people who does not convert at all.

And then I also don’t have the receptors to get saturated.

And then my transport system sucks.

So here’s what happens with vitamin D, if you guys, I like this analogy.

So you take vitamin D to D3 and then your bus comes to pick up your little vitamin D

kids.

Well, guess what?

My bus doesn’t have that many seats.

So it can’t pick up that many vitamin D.

Then it takes it to the receptors.

Well, my kids get off the bus and play hooky.

They don’t even get on the receptors.

So the amount of vitamin D that I get is not much.

So I have to take daily vitamin D in order to get the kids on

the bus and get them to school without playing hooky.

Other people are different.

Some people have the transport system and the receptors and are

able to convert the D2 to D3.

And so you might be good with taking once a week.

So you may have your friend going,

but I only take it once a month

and know that everybody’s different

because we used to say,

“Oh, well, vitamin D is fat soluble

“so it stays in your system forever.”

Well, we now know that’s kind of wrong

because yes, it is fat soluble,

but it all depends on your receptors

in your transport system, which is crazy.

We never knew that before.

And it has to do with your genetics, believe it or not.

JANNINE: Absolutely.

I mean, I’m blown away.

when I do like the DNA company tests on folks

and I see like their different DNA, you know, mutations

with receptors, carriers, you know, absorption.

It’s wild.

A lot of people are mutated.

Let’s put it that way on all of them.

And I’m like, tay, no wonder we have depression

as seasonal effective disorder response.

No wonder we have MS, right?

It’s incredible.

And no wonder we have some hormone imbalances

Because I, you know, talking about that 30 being the level,

you know, I’ve argued with patients before, they’re like,

well, my labs say they’re normal.

I’m like, oh my gosh, what would life be like

if I could just get you to feel a little bit better?

Let’s try a little bit on the vitamin D

and like yes, 50 to 60, I do see like a lot of people feel good

in that range on people.

Like, and my personal opinion is I don’t have like a set,

like this is where you need to get

if you’re not at that target, you know, oh my gosh.

I want people to get to a point with vitamin D

that they feel good.

And so many people, that is the one thing.

And you’ve probably seen this too.

Like they get their vitamin D up to where their body’s happy

and like moods good all of a sudden.

The hormones fall in place and you’re like, that’s it.

It was really that easy all this time.

AMY: Yeah.

– Yeah.

And something that some people don’t think about.

So if you think about vitamin D

is also with a circadian rhythm.

So if we go, technically if we go outside

and we actually get our vitamin D,

And when we get vitamin D is during daylight hours.

And so if you’re having problems sleeping, what time you’re taking your vitamin D because

if you’re taking it in the evening, it’s very possible as messing up your circadian rhythm.

Try moving it to morning, mid-morning and seeing if that helps because that’s the time

when our body is naturally supposed to be producing that hormone.

And it’s just kind of, you know, we were talking about biohacking before.

like these little bio hackers, you know, that you can make slight adjustments and feel better.

Like, I didn’t know with B12 that cyanocobalamin, the way I methylate, not a good thing. And that

was from doing a DNA test. And I have to take the sublingual because my gut doesn’t absorb it right.

And I have to do the adenosyl because I can’t do the methyl because then I over-methylate.

and I was trying to figure out why B12 was not giving me energy. Like, everyone’s like,

B12 is amazing. And all these drinks have B12. And every time I’d have them, I would feel horrible.

I would actually feel kind of brain fog. Well, it’s because of the over-methylation for me.

And we think of things like, oh, I must need an energy drink or I need this and not really

think that some of the things that these people put in may not be good for you.

and kind of start asking questions. If you’re like, yeah, this energy drink does not make me feel

good. There might be some reason that there might be some biomes and minerals that you just

are not in sync with. 

JANNINE: This is a huge point, especially methylation because they mean methylation.

So those of you guys who are listening, you’re like, methyla-wha? Um, methylation is how we do

detox. It’s simplified. It’s not simplified. It’s a very complex pathway of intricacy. It takes up

a whole page of circles and things that are going in different directions, but it really,

if we boil it down, it has a lot to do with how we clear out ourselves from chemicals, but also

like our mood, also our cholesterol, things of that nature. And I do find methylation being one

of those things that I kind of got annoyed by it when it really came about. I don’t know if this

happened to you. I was like, it’s not the answer to everything. I think that’s what happens, right?

Something new comes out and it’s the answer to everything. And I got annoyed by it and started

to like kind of just brush it a little bit. And then now it’s kind of gone to the point where I’m

like, okay, every we have more chemicals we’re getting exposed to every day. People are really

struggling in this department. Now, because you were working so much in the weight loss realm,

I bet you’ve seen different folks, you know, who’ve had weight loss hang ups related to methylation.

AMY: I have. And because it all depends on how quickly they get rid of toxins. And yeah, we hopefully,

hopefully, the all good thing that you want is that the crap comes in and the crap comes out

at the same rate. That’s probably maybe 25% of the population.

More than likely, there’s a couple of different things. One, it comes in very fast and leaves

It’s very slow and we’ll see that with people who don’t lose as quickly or are more side

effects with diet drugs or had other things that they were trying to use, quick fixes,

and couldn’t understand why they felt so bad.

That’s toxins, honestly believe is toxins.

And then, yeah, those people are kind of lucky.

It’s like, oh, it comes in and it goes out really, really fast.

So yeah, I think sometimes methylation is a hang up.

It all comes down to, like I said before, on our other podcast, it really comes down

to whole foods eating right, getting rid of the toxins, getting rid of the ultra processed

foods.

It drives me nuts.

I’m on this kind of like Facebook group with brainers and people who are supposed to

eat.

And everything always just calories in.

It doesn’t matter if you’re, you know, if you’re having sugar free, it doesn’t matter

if you’re eating two Nutrigrain bars, this person was eating two Nutrigrain bars at breakfast.

They had pizza and salad for lunch, and then dinner was something that they were picking up

like Subway. Here’s the kicker. They were under 1,300 calories, which was under what they

should be eating according to this person, but they weren’t seeing any results, and they were

actually gaining weight. So their, their, their assumption was, well, they must be cheating.

They must not be following. They must be eating other things because the pictures that they’re

showing me, they’re under what they should be eating. So therefore they should be losing weight.

And I wanted to screen because it’s about quality of food. And if you have not watched

the blue zone on Netflix. It’s a documentary series. It just puts everything that I say

over and over again. These people are not on meds. They’re living to over 100. They’re

thriving to be over 100. And it all has to do with eating real foods, fruits and vegetables,

and moving their body. So they’re given their body the right thing no matter how slow their

a methylation is in the first place, get back to methylation, or how fast it is, but they’re

giving their body everything it really needs to exist and exist happily, that their system’s

able to keep up with all the toxicity because they’re giving it, they’re actually giving

it minimal toxicity.

JANNINE: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, and that’s the thing that like I want to really highlight with a lot of folks is

that you don’t have to be taking copious amounts of the B 12s and folates and all these things

that we once thought when we first started the whole methylation discovery, it was like,

“Take five grams” or I’m exaggerating, guys, please don’t do this.

AMY: Get your folic acid, get your B 12, and make sure you’re doing

– Oh, cyanocobalamin here. – And once you go ahead and get the injections,

yeah, I mean, and I’ll still see that a lot of times.

JANNINE: Oh, absolutely. I bet people come to you and they’ve seen like a naturopath or functional

medicine doc and, you know, the docs done their training and no disrespect to the docs.

I mean, I’ve done this too. I’ve over-methylated people to the point where they’re having tingling

in their arms and legs. I’ve got lots of energy, but I am not feeling. I don’t feel so great.

I’m tingling. You know, it’s like, oh crap, you know, and it’s like if we could get the

the foundation of food down,

we don’t need to supplement the daylights out of you.

And I’ll pull back– 

AMY: It’s going to the extreme.

It’s like I had someone reach out to me,

it’s like, well, what do you think about colonics?

Aren’t those supposed to be good for you?

I’m like, nope, unless you’re doing like a colonoscopy

for some reason, go ahead.

But on a regular basis to have your colon cleansed,

we have bacteria on purpose.

We need bacteria.

And if you keep wiping out that bacteria

because what they were telling me was that

they were told that things get absorbed better

by cleaning everything out.

JANNINE: Oh, you’re taking off like the old poop

that stays in there for years.

Did you get that story?

AMY: Yeah.

And I’m like, okay, take a really good probiotic

and I’ll recommend one, that’s not cheap,

but it’s really good.

And use that and eat some fiber because fiber

Because fiber is your intestines dishwasher and quit getting rid of all the good bacteria

that your body needs that we now know that your gut microbiome is attached to your brain.

That’s how you absorb your B12s and everything else in your stomach.

And have your methylation system go well is to have all that good bacteria.

So by doing a colonic, and they’re thinking they’re going to lose weight this way, and

I’m like, you are setting yourself up for disease later on.

You really are.

And you’re never going to find balance because you’re not letting your body go to homeostasis.

You’re not letting it get balanced.

You’re constantly taking out the good stuff.

When you think you’re taking out the bad stuff, you’re taking out the good stuff, and you’re

never going to find that balance and the whole, I guess the holistic approach.

I guess they think they’re doing a holistic approach.

But to me, that’s just extreme.

JANNINE: You know, I mean, colonics, I’ve seen them beneficial in some super backed up and we really

need to like get the vols moving.

But when we’re doing it just for weight loss, this is where I– 

AMY: This is not somebody having

a blockage and needs to, you know, they, they’re going to, there’s going to be some issues

if, or perforation if they don’t get it.

But yeah, this is for pure weight loss.

JANNINE: Yeah, it’s, it’s not my, my jam.

And I have heard different stories like I was saying, like the lot of people will talk,

the hydrotherapists, sometimes I’ll talk about

they’re gonna scale the old poop and stool basically

that’s stuck to the walls and this and that.

And if that were the case,

when docs would go in for colonoscopies,

the prep wouldn’t have cleaned things out, right?

They would see the old stool on there.

And as far as I can tell and I’m no gastroenterologist

and I’d love to have some one on,

but we’ll see if I can get somebody.

I do not see stool stuck to the side of the colon when I’ve looked at people’s results.

And I’d be very curious to see if that really is the case, if you can be cleaned out by

these colon preps, which we could probably talk a lot about the chemicals and things

in colon prep.

AMY: Oh, yeah.

I mean, I didn’t like taking it when I was, had to have mine done last year.

It was, you know, it’s not something that is that you want to take on a regular basis.

JANNINE: Yeah.

AMY: Yeah. 

JANNINE: Let’s talk about medications and chemicals and things of that nature because I literally

have some patients that, no joke, cannot tolerate the colon prep, the go lightly and

things because they literally are throwing it up. They cannot get it down. What have

you seen in terms of folks in colonoscopy prep and different, like, from your pharmacist

view on it? What do you think is the thing that bugs people the most in those kind of

medication. 

AMY: I think, well, one, sometimes it’s the flavor. And two, it depends on like,

this is my favorite. And I got my list from my doctor on what I could eat. And of course,

it was like Gatorade pure sugar, Jello, pure sugar, all these pure sugar things and

use the, the, or the artificial sweeteners, the Poweraid. And I’m like, no, I’m using

Ultima. I’m using electrolyte supplements that is that is good for me for mine. And I think sometimes

it’s the overload of drinking because most people don’t drink enough during the day anyway. And

you’re having to get about this amount of liquid down. I think that’s part of it. The sodium it could

be a sodium imbalance too that that’s causing them to to kind of like have a nauseated. But I

but I think a lot of it’s the gag reflex.

It’s just, it’s not the most pleasant thing.

You know what’s going to happen.

You know, you have to drink this eight ounces every,

what every 30 minutes for depends on what protocol it is.

And I think there’s a lot of,

I would say almost a backlash, but just,

the worst part was the prep.

Honestly, the worst part was the prep for me too.

And if you can get through on your head,

be like, okay, I can get through this prep,

then you’ll be okay.

Is it pleasant?

No.

Is it necessary?

Unfortunately, yes, because you do have to be clean

in order for them to see what’s going on.

And because of the incidence

of the increase in colon cancer,

like I just turned, I’ll say just, I’m 53.

I missed 50 ’cause COVID.

So I missed my year that I was supposed to get it.

And so as a couple of years behind,

But during that time, they changed the minimum age

to I think 45 now because of the increase

of colon cancer that they’re seeing in people under 50.

So it’s one of those things that is definitely,

I think, necessary, I’m gonna throw my brother under the bus

’cause he never listens to podcast anyway,

but he’s younger than me, it has polyps.

I had nothing, I’m clear, but there’s also a very difference

how I eat compared to how he eats. And, you know, because

he’s had problems, I’m now on the five year plan. Thanks a

bunch, brother, because just to make sure because they’re afraid

it’s hereditary. And I’m like, it’s, and trying to argue that

no, it’s not hereditary. It’s because he eats like crap. And I

don’t. And it’s a different thing. But understand that, you

know, I will definitely do the five years just because one,

it’s treatable. If we catch early, it’s treatable. It’s the

worst, probably say prep, but it is doable. The only thing that I had issues with afterwards was

getting my bowels back into, I would say, normal, to normal, having my stomach not feel

distended, having that normal, that normal kind of feeling, I guess. And that’s where I had to get

my probiotics in, because I had to get that natural bacteria back in, because it wipes everything out.

and we need that bacteria, so I don’t, that’s why I’m not a big fan of colon cleanses for diet,

you need that bacteria, you absolutely need it. 

JANNINE: It’s a good point you bring up because I think

a lot of people, especially in the functional medicine space, are contemplating whether

colonoscopy is a right choice for them, just based on their gut because of the wiping out of the

bacteria. And this is good for folks to hear because I mean it is something that’s part of my

colon protocol for folks is if they’re doing, they’re going for a colonoscopy. I’m like, okay,

afterwards, we got to get, you know, your gut rebooted. We’ve got to use, I use glutamine,

and I’ll use, you know, different things to reboot the gut lining, Tributryin, and then I’ll also add

in probiotics. It’s kind of like a whole gut repair, I mean, reboot, and it seems to do the trick,

and I feel like a lot of people, once the gut comes back online, after that, they do a lot better

overall. So, you know, it is interesting. Now, the one thing you had mentioned was the electrolytes

Instead of the did you do electrolites instead of the traditional?

Um, start like– 

AMY: I do Merelax so okay. Yeah, so I did Merelax so I did Merelax um and

Used use Ultima is which is a electrolyte drink

Um to flavor it and you know made my big what was it half gallon gallon?

Whatever it was and did it that way because I wasn’t going to do the Powerade that was you know, I’m not someone

I was prediabetic a long time ago and I don’t need to have the sugar crash, the sugar rush,

and I don’t do aspartame or splenda, and that’s what’s in Powerade and that kind of thing.

So I was doing the bone broth and things that were healthy, for me, a better choice than what

was on that nice little prep list that I got. 

JANNINE: Got you. Got you. Good to know, because yeah,

I have a lot of people that will ask me what’s an alternative kind of option and we try to use

magnesium citrates and things of that nature that of the the um Miralax and in some cases

it’s worked for folks but other cases it’s not and and so I think it’s just it’s just cool to hear

kind of what you’ve done and and how it worked I like I like to hear what other people are up to

in that department. I don’t know, colon cleansing and colonoscopy. How do we get on this subject?

AMY: We’re just ripping today, just talking. 

JANNINE: Well, you know, it’s good stuff. It’s good stuff. It’s

all things that people have to go through, right? It’s life. Now, one of the other things that I

think a lot of people are on and we had mentioned it before are anti-allergy meds, whether it’s

Zyrtec, whether it’s Allegra or whether it’s, you know, any of those or the Flonase nasal

sprays. And you were mentioning something that I hadn’t thought about because it’s hard to keep

up with what’s in every mat and what’s in every food and the hidden things and everything. And this

is something I really want folks to think about. But you had mentioned that, you have a patient,

you had a client that was doing all the things to lose weight and she was struggling and had a

dairy allergy. Give us a scoop. I’m telling your story and I want you to–

AMY: So there’s a couple things. So let’s listen to simple part first. So if you’re on, people

are not going to be happy with me because it’s allergy season. Any of the anti-histamines

that cross the blood brain barrier. So we’re looking at Benadryl, Zyrtec, Allegra are the

big ones. The one that doesn’t is, is, um, Claritin. If you’re having problems losing weight,

you know, might want to consider getting off of the antihistamines. And studies have shown that it

can hinder you from losing weight. Now, of course, you know, if you listen to the last

podcast, we don’t care about really weights about inches. But so if you’re not having,

If you’re finding that you’re static, you’re not losing some inches, it could be the antihistomines.

Not really sure what the mechanism is, we just know it has something to do with it going over

the blood-brain barrier. So, Claritin is another choice because it doesn’t. However, most people

will say, “Well, Claritin doesn’t really work that well.” So, here’s what I say when you’re doing antihistamines,

and even Flonase.  Flonase is a steroid for your nose, your body gets used to those.

and it stops working. And it drives me nuts, especially in the nursing home when I see somebody on an antihistamine or Flonase for years,

because those should be used with called P-R-N as needed. You use it for the flare-up and then you stop.

Now, I understand there’s some people who have severe allergies and that might just be a way of life and that’s what you’re going to have to take.

But if you’re taking it for seasons, if you’re taking it for sleep, which is not a good idea,

Um, all the time, then you need to start backing off on it because your body’s getting used

to it.

It’s your body can actually form kind of an addiction to, um, to those.

If you use Afrin, which is a nasal decongestant, you should only be using that three times

about three days because you can get something that’s called nasal rebound where you actually

are even more congested than when you started.

So anything we have to do with allergies, you should take it as needed, not as a routine

chronic basis.

Now what we were talking about before is that I have a client that has something that’s

called Alpha Gal Syndrome.

And if you don’t know what Alpha Gal Syndrome is, it is caused by a tick bite.

We don’t have a sugar or protein called alpha-gal.

The tick pretty much puts it in our system and our body absorbs it and it becomes part

of our DNA.

The problem is, is that with alpha-gal, you no longer can digest meat products.

So one day you’re able to eat a hamburger, the next day it’s causing you to have a severe

allergic reaction, even anaphylactic allergic reaction out of nowhere.

And it goes misdiagnosed quite a bit, one I think because it’s new, two because it just

seems like a lot of, well, all my clients are female who have it.

And I don’t know if it’s more prevalent in female or men, but I do see it more in females.

And of course, sometimes with females, we have to really bang on the door when we know

something’s not right.

And I have, one of my nutrition clients, this is what was going on was that she was gaining

weight and doing everything right, everything. We were doing whole foods, she’s lifting.

She’s not, her hormones are fine. We can’t figure out why she’s distended, extremely

distended after certain things that she would eat, even get worse. She took her food log

to her doctor and her doctor goes, nobody eats this clean.

Really?

Just nobody eats this clean.

This can’t be you, you must be doing something wrong.

Not listening to her, not looking at any of this,

she goes for a colonoscopy, it’s fine.

They thought maybe it was Celiacs, no.

Finally gets somebody in the ER

after she’s having hives everywhere.

And he’s like, this could be alpha gal.

And we had thought about that and she was going to ask for that test and it came back

just blaring.

Yes, this is alpha gal syndrome.

So with alpha gal, she can’t have anything that has mammalian products.

She had something, have no idea what she had, hives, really bad, had to go to the ER, they

got it down.

And the ER doctor says, “Well, it just takes Zyrtec the next time.”

And she’s texting me and we’re looking up and Zyrtec has lactose in it, which is mammalian.

And the doctor says, “Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, that’s a problem.

Do not take that whatsoever.”

And the disconnect sometimes with something that’s a new diagnosis, but also trying to

understand the inert ingredients in medication because they’re not listed.

say inactive ingredients or if you’re lucky you’ll have some of the inactive

ingredients. In food it’s natural flavoring or other flavors. You could

have something that’s supposedly vegan or vegetarian but it could still have

something that has part mammalian. I didn’t know until I started working with

her and really doing research that sugar is however it’s cut is cut with

of mammalian product. And so she can’t have normal sugar. It’s crazy of some of the supplements

out there that are from a mammal source, but it’s not labeled as such. And if you are, you know,

you’re like, Oh my gosh, I can’t eat meat without something happened or my stomach hurt or a headache

or joint pain or rash, I would highly recommend getting this, getting this test just because

it is increasing, increasing, increasing, especially if you live someplace with lots of ticks.

And, you know, maybe you’ve been, maybe you’ve already been tested from Lyme disease and that

came back negative, but it could be something like this. And it’s just those weird things that come

about, it’s getting more, I don’t say, I don’t say prevalent, but it’s getting more, I wouldn’t say

press or people understanding but the medical community hasn’t caught up yet and it takes

forever for things to change with ingredient labeling and ask anybody with the top nine

allergens that they’ve been fighting this one for years trying to get things labeled to be where

I know exactly what’s in this food. I mean we know what’s in our foods we know what’s in our

vegetables we know we know those kind of things but if you’re picking up something that maybe is

potato chip bag and it says natural flavors. What are those natural flavors? Or if you look up,

you know, your medication, you’re like, okay, so I know my Claritins-Loratodine,

but what’s actually in this pill, what are the other things, and I’ll say inactive ingredients,

you know, or other inactive ingredients, you’re like, well, so what are those? What’s the source?

And that’s really hard to find out sometimes. And you have to be your own advocate.

JANNINE: That is the thing, like that drives me nuts, like drives me nuts about the food labeling industry.

And we had just talked about, and I just looked it up because I wanted to get her name,

Orla Baxendale. 

AMY: The dancer from New York. 

JANNINE: The dancer from New York that died because of

mislabeling of a product. And here’s the thing, like my dear friend, her, she’s my, like one of

my best friends here in Wisconsin, her son has Eosinophilia. Oh my gosh, I’m gonna mess it up.

EOE. This is the problem with healthcare and short shortening of things. Could you use the

abbreviation station? Can’t remember what the condition is. Yes, I can’t even think. It’s a

throat thing, basically, where there’s allergies to multiple of the nine, you know, it’s multiple

things within the most common nine allergens and his is like peanut, his is egg. And it’s, it’s

some one other thing I’ll get it wrong. So I’m not going to say it, but a peanut and egg I know

for sure. And like, we have to read all the labels, and then at the same time, she’s always like

EpiPen on the on guard with EpiPen. I can’t trust any of these these companies. I don’t even know

what to do anymore. 

AMY: And that’s you know, that’s I think she was from Europe and came over to dance

in New York and had a cookie. It was labeled peanut-free. It was mislabeled. And she used

the EpiPad and had an anaphylactic reaction to it and it makes you scared because you

don’t know what’s in the food because if they mislabeled that what else were they mislabeling?

Not only them but everybody else and that’s why I keep saying over and over again ultra

processed foods are not our friends we don’t know what’s in them we don’t and yeah another

I think that got me really ticked off is like, you know, someone puts a chemical structure

on it.

And it was, you know, what is this?

And people like, Oh, don’t eat that chemicals.

I’m like, okay, BS, it’s fruit, right?

Everything does have a chemical structure.

You know, my headset right now that I have chemical structure, my sweater, chemical structure,

the blueberries I had, they have a chemical structure.

That’s not what I’m talking about when I say ultra process foods, added chemicals.

added chemicals, things that are made in a freaking lab, things that are made that have

better mouth feel so that you are addicted to this stuff that makes it have a better

shelf life.

All of that is what we don’t need.

Does it have a chemical structure just like blueberry says?

It does.

But there’s a big freaking difference between that, a blueberry, and what you’re putting

in blueberry top, pop tarts, huge difference.

And to say that they’re the same just because there are chemicals and everything has chemicals

is just I just want to smack people.

JANNINE: it is funny how we’ve like forgot I guess like basic biology chemistry you know in school

we are taught like carbon hydrogen oxygen right all the main components of sugar and

the whole long sugar molecule you know I think people forget that they’re made every single

the whole I’m almost chemical soup right here we are I think you might even say chemical soup on

periods I mean we are chemical soup and and foods that have chemical soup with modifications because

here’s the thing what Amy is talking about is modifications to the chemistry you know food

flavorings chemistry but modifications to the nap like blueberry molecule gets all the carbons

of hydrogens you know we’re tweaking them things and we’re putting things on them um I think everybody’s

has got to go back to organic chemistry. I think that’s where we’re at. AMY: I think we’re making

everything as Frankenstein. So if we take something and make it supercharged or make something that

it’s addicting, make something that has a better mouthfeel, we’re trying to improve it. And it’s

not improving. It’s improving it for the companies who want to sell something, but it’s not improving

for your health. And that’s where we have to start thinking about things in health and longevity.

And, you know, we talked about before skinny, it’s like skinny is not healthy, we need to start

thinking about longevity and how are we going to live our best lives? And it comes down to

taking it back down to the basics. And I know we don’t want to cook and I know we want things

are fast. I mean, believe me, I’m like, I look at the Blue Zone, people like me and they cook

every meal from scratch. Holy crap. But you know, there’s a trade off. There’s a definite trade

off. Their lives are much better. Their lives are much slower. They’re not living in this,

keeping up with the Joneses and this fast pace. And I got to do this, and I got to do this. And

if I don’t do this, I’m a failure. It’s really embracing the joy of life. And I think that’s

part of the thing that we have to get back to is embracing real food, embracing the joy of life.

JANNINE: Absolutely, absolutely. And embracing like, and this is one of the hard things because I understand

that if you’ve cooked for a family for, you know, 30 years and and you’re over cooking,

like, how can we reignite that fire and that interest to cook again and and take it to a level

that’s yes, easy for you. And that’s the one thing I was trying to tell folks, like my,

I think a lot of people look at stuff, folks like you and I, and they think that we’re like

wizzes in the kitchen. And we have these amazing dinners and stuff. And I’m like, my

stuff is so basic. Like sometimes it’s like chicken, salt, pepper, a little onion, and

then a whole buttload of whatever veggies that I pulled out of either the freezer or

my cellar.

AMY: Hey, I just invested in some nice pans for the first time. My husband’s like, they’re

falling apart, he’s like, we have got to get rid of these pans that we’ve had him since college.

That’s, I’m not a gourmet cook, but we do cook real food, and yeah, that’s part of it.

And we make it easy. We do make it easy. And I’m not going to lie, yes. Are there some

processed things that I do, but they’re processed healthy? And I look at the ingredients and

are they real ingredients? Like once it’s a chickpea thing, so it has chickpea and it has

curry and has a little bit of sea salt. Very easy, very good. And it’s something I can,

that I can either heat up or put in the microwave. Okay. It’s, it’s a go-to and add that with the

chicken breast, add that with a, with a salad or some broccoli. It’s, it’s a great meal. It took me

10 minutes. 

JANNINE: And, and something you meant, two things you mentioned. One, I would love to hear

your version of processed healthy. And two, a lot of people will be like, Oh my God, use the microwave,

like that I know that I had to stop using the microwave like I thought I couldn’t use it and

and it’s one of those things where like I’m like if it’s going to stand between

you and not having closest to nature foods I want you to use them because it’s going to be faster

for you. 

AMY: In a perfect world I would be cooking everything I would be using my stove or my instant

pot or my oven. I wouldn’t be using the microwave. Let’s be

real. I’m a pharmacist, full time, a nutrition coach, full

time. Pick your battles. Now, there is process healthy. So

something like process healthy, frozen broccoli is considered

processed healthy. There are, you know, you can get, you can

get some rice that is already pre made for you that you can

just heat up, processed, healthy, where it’s, we used to say, you know, no process food,

no process food.

Well then, then ultra process food came around and we’re like, okay, wait a minute, wait

a minute.

There’s a big distinction between something that’s ready for you.

And what I don’t mean is healthy choice, linquisine, weight watchers, meals in the

freezer section, because what that is, is that is actually ultra process food that’s

disguised as healthy food.

There’s a difference between processed food that’s actually healthy and ultra process

food disguise is healthy. So when you’re looking at something that is relatively easy, maybe

you’re going to the grocery store and they already have chicken breast made for you.

Okay, see what the ingredients are, see how they did it. And that could be processed healthy.

It doesn’t have added dyes, added chemicals, added preservatives. It’s real food that’s kind of

gone in a I would say an easy state or a a healthy state, but it makes it much easier for you to

get onto the table and much quicker. Like I said, you know, if we if I was had all the money in

the world, maybe I’d have a chef, I don’t know. It’s like, or if I had all the time, maybe I would

cook it. Eh, let’s be honest. No, I wouldn’t. So it has to be something that’s doable for me. And

That’s what I do with all my clients is like it has to be doable for you

We have to make it work with your life and make it be the best choices possible and

You know it’s pick your battles. Okay. Are you going to go for a candy bar because you don’t want to use a microwave?

Well, you know what use the microwave

JANNINE: Yep, yeah– 

AMY:  that’s what you think about it’s it’s one of those things that we’re like, oh, well my doctor says

I can’t have eggs because of high cholesterol, but it said nothing about the alcohol and

the sugar and the chips and everything else that has been going on in your life and stress.

But we just honed in on the eggs.

So we’re just picking something that actually we shouldn’t be picking at all.

JANNINE: Oh, that’s such a huge one right there is the single ingredient foods when yeah, we haven’t

talked about the seed oils and all the stuff on it.

One of the big things that I get from a lot of my patients, and something that I’d love

your input on being a pharmacist, is the chronic medications, meaning the rosuvastatins, the

Crestor for you guys who are listening, if you know the common name, you know Lisinopril,

the synthroid, those kind of things, a lot of people do question being on those, and are

Are they impacting with certain ingredients?

Are they impacting someone’s food sensitivity component, someone’s toxicity or multiple

chemical, chemical sensitivity component?

So my question is really like, are there like we had talked about in terms of the Allegra?

Are there other types of medications that you know of that have allergens that mess with

people and their ability to lose weight, their ability to thrive?

AMY: There would be I would say it’s possible. I don’t know for sure because of course that hasn’t been studied

But I would say anything is possible

what you have to remember is

Vacation is a treatment a lot of times. It’s not a cure. I think we talked about this last time

You know something like Synthroid if your thyroid is subpar

You might need that extra thyroid hormone

It’s not sometimes be like oh congratulations your thyroid just cured itself. Usually doesn’t happen that way

But you can do everything to make whatever’s left your thyroid optimal less stress. Are

you and this might rub people the wrong way? Are you eating gluten? Because we know with

Hashimoto’s and some other things that gluten sometimes is not a thyroid’s friend. Are you

doing keto? Because your thyroid needs hormone or needs it needs, needs, you needs carbs.

Your thyroid hormone needs carbs. So are you doing things to make your thyroid work the

best possible when it comes to Lisinopril or when it comes to the statins, especially statins,

we know there is a, I’m one of them, it’s in my genetics, I cannot metabolize statins

right and what I love is something called pharmacogenetics aerogenomics and what that

is and I honestly believe that everybody should have this test because if you ever have to

go on medication, it tells you what your body can process and what your body can’t process.

Instead of practicing medicine, which most doctors will be like, “I practice medicine,

so this is what I do, and we start with this first.”

Well, your DNA tells you this medication is going to work better for me than this medication.

I can’t metabolize this medication.

I can metabolize this other medication.

Is it cheap?

No.

Um, what I don’t want is people to take this test and be like, well, okay, well, give me

this, this, this because there’s a pill for everything.

And that’s what I’m going to do for my blood pressure or my diabetes instead of, hey,

let’s try the natural holistic way of working on our diet and working on our exercise first,

Because that does cure hypertension, diabetes, it can, it can reverse it.

But if you have to go on medication, it’s so cool to know that if you take this test

that there are certain medications that are optimal for you, that will work better, that

you won’t have side effects or as many side effects with.

So we do know that.

And like I said, especially statins are a big one because if you don’t metabolise them right,

get muscle pain and get severe muscle pain. And then what happens is, okay, well, you

know, we can try your diet, but maybe we’re not going to do your diet. We’re just going

to try another one and we’ll go a lower dose to see if this works because this one doesn’t

have as much possibility of causing your muscles to ache. And it could be like, for

me, I just can’t take statins. I cannot metabolize them. Now, have I ever gotten a statin? No,

I know from my DNA test that I can not metabolize them.

JANNINE: Yeah.

No, I think it’s important to do the testing to know what is possible and what isn’t.

I think another thing, and I’m sure you can speak to this too, is I will, if I do suspect

that someone’s responding negatively to fillers in a medication and I don’t think it’s necessarily

the medication, I’ll have it compounded and use the compounding pharmacy.

It’s nice, to have them– 

AMY: Well, in pharmaceuticals, and they don’t have to list a lot of times the inactive ingredients.

And it doesn’t have to be something could change where they get their inactive ingredients.

It may look a little bit different, it may be a different color, different manufacturers

use different fillers.

And so when you have a compounded, you can be specific, okay, I want you to compound

it in XYZ and use, you know, whatever, usually as lactose or whatever they’re using it to

fill the capsule or if it’s a cream, whatever vehicle that you wanted in.

So you get a little more of a control with what that medication, you’re getting that,

you’re getting that active ingredient, and then you have control over what those fillers

are.

You know, that is it’s thank God we have that really because for some people

Certain fillers can be a trigger. And if you don’t know and

Remember when I when when Celiacs was just kind of like getting known and someone couldn’t be on gluten

It was harder than hell to and this is when I was in retail

So they come in saying I’m gluten-free. Can you tell me if this medication has gluten in it? Um?

No, there is only a couple manufacturers of that time who would mark things specifically gluten-free

It was not the norm and that’s hard

So when you have that control and sometimes it is more expensive to get things compounded because insurance won’t pay for it

But if you know that it’s gonna work for you, you know, you’re not gonna have a reaction it can be worth it

JANNINE: Yeah, and you mentioned like lactose being kind of a common filler

I often will switch people to cellulose, which is used typically a birch tree fiber

Which now of course if someone has a birch allergy now, we got to figure that out, right?

Or potato starches another one that’s commonly used but if there’s a potato or night shade, you know, I

I swear like in another life

I should have been a compounding pharmacist because I I geek out heavily on trying to find the right things for folks

but it is something that you know, I do think for folks doing their due diligence on on the

that side of things knowing what you’re putting in your body, especially if you start a new

medication and you don’t feel good or you’ve noticed the color changed and so you know your

pharmacy is filling from a different manufacturer for things. I think it’s really important.

AMY: And be your own self-advocate. I think that’s what we keep saying is it you know something’s wrong.

You know, you know you don’t feel good. You know something’s wrong.

Be your own self-advocate, whether it’s with medication, whether it’s just with your health

period me like you know what I don’t want to feel like this anymore I’m going to take

I’m going to take my health in in my hands and say you know what I can feel better I can do better

and whether it’s throwing your hands up and saying enough let’s let’s let’s figure this out let’s

get help let’s let’s lose the inches let’s go for longevity or whether you know you’re you’re going

to a doctor and they’re not listening to you then you know and I’ve had that before it’s like my

My sister just went to a physician and her A1C was slightly elevated.

She’s been doing all the things that she’s supposed to is getting better.

And the first thing that they offer her was semaglutide and she’s like, no.

And like, but you understand this will help and she’s like, but no.

And they were so insistent that she should be put on semaglutide that she’s like,

she got another doctor.

I was like, good for you because that’s not where she wants.

She hears me.

we’ve seen it with a family member, what it’s done.

And it’s not something that we want to be part of,

but she was her own self-advocate.

And it’s like, you know what?

I’m going to find someone who aligns with me

and listens to me and understands what I want to do.

JANNINE: It’s so important.

And unfortunately, do you think we’re still kind of,

we’re getting better, but I think as older,

I would say women over 40 were still kind of taught

the doctor’s the authority and you know we should listen to what the doctor says doctor knows best

but I mean like I tell my patients I work for you like I work for you you tell me what you’re

thinking and if you don’t like what I recommended them let’s find something that feels good to you

like because I’m not here to I’m not here to be the authority I mean yes I’m here to guide to

keep people out of trouble but I’m not here to be the authority 

AMY: Well if you’re on on these medications

One, I’m not going to say, oh, my God, how are you on these medications?

No, no, no, no, but if you want to get healthy and you are starting to eat better and you are

starting to lift weights, so here’s things I tell my clients that you need to look out for.

If you’re on blood pressure medication, how do you feel every morning?

Are you exhausted? Are you having what’s called orthostatic hypertension?

Are you standing up and all of a sudden you get that tunnel vision?

Or are you getting headaches and I tell my clients that especially when they first start

because the first two weeks a lot of inflammation loss the first two weeks I want you to take your

blood pressure every single morning because we want to see if there’s a trend and more than likely

your blood pressure is coming down and that’s why you’re not feeling good it’s not that you know

it’s not the opposite that you would think oh I’m not feeling good it must be something about this

about getting healthy, that this is not good. Well, your blood pressure pill is doing exactly

what it’s supposed to. Now that you are helping your body do it naturally, it’s working a little

too well. And it’s the same thing if you’re on anything for diabetes, is that once we start getting

rid of the inflammation, once we start balancing blood sugar naturally, okay, you might get the

same thing. You might be tired, you might be shaky, you might feel ill, headaches, double vision,

brain fog. And all of that might be from having too little blood sugar. And I always,

I’ve been saying is like, you know, I am a pharmacist, I don’t prescribe, but this is where I’m going

to work with your physician. And we’re going to work on changing your dose while we’re on this.

And with with the goal to be on the lowest effective dose, or maybe even off. And it’s the same thing

with being on antidepressant pills and anxiety. Once you start getting your gut microbiome and

check, once you start getting your blood sugar, you may notice that you don’t need these higher doses

of anti-anxiety and antidepressant meds because we’re getting those neurotransmitters that

don’t mean the serotonin. It’s all starting to work a little bit better because we’re giving

your body what it needs to do, the chemical processes, the enzyme processes. And you’re now

feeding, I would say almost like feeding your soul. You’re feeding it what it needs.

JANNINE: Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, and that’s like, I think it’s funny. You mentioned that in terms of like

people think like immediately, like it must be the diet that’s messing things up. 

AMY: Yeah. It must

be the diet. Yeah. 

JANNINE: It’s like, no– 

AMY: We’re trained with that. We’re trained with that because we’re

trained to say that, oh, it must be what we’re eating that is messing it up. It must be what,

you know, I didn’t feel this way when I ate my other food, right? It’s, it’s, you didn’t realize

how bad you felt until you start actually feeling good, but you know it’s because you’re losing

this inflammation, because your blood pressure is going down, because your blood sugar is going

down, the way it’s supposed to, that you know the extra medication is not needed. So we need to

start working with your doctor too slowly back it off. 

JANNINE: Absolutely, absolutely. So one of the things

I totally want to know from your perspective in what you’ve seen just working with clients with

the way it lasts. How long on average does it take for someone to like on average? I know not

everyone’s the same to to come off of a blood pressure med like meaning like their body’s like

I’m doing better. I don’t need this or I don’t need you know the the I’ll give you the quick

and– 

AMY: I’ll give you the the the longer one. So the quickest I see is two weeks which was crazy,

crazy. And this is somebody who we had who had familial hypertension. So was always told you’ll

be on blood pressure medication the rest of your life because it runs in your family.

And in two weeks, the same thing, she wasn’t feeling good. She was like, wait a minute,

why is this? I’m like, start taking your blood pressure. Set her readings to her doctor’s like,

oh, no, we’re getting you off. We’re getting you off. I was thinking, okay,

we’re going to cut your dose in half for a little bit. And I say, no, so she got off.

Then the other ones have been about six to 12 weeks where depending on what dose they were

on to begin with. And so it’s usually taking it down half and then maybe in a quarter and then slowly

getting off. Now, do I have some people who are still kind of like borderline because there is

something going on familiar? Yes, but they’re on extremely, extremely low dose. And then it’s

with the possibility of possibly getting off sometime. We’re just kind of, they’re right there.

And depending on where your physician is, on what number they want to see is where,

right? Because once again we’re treating the numbers, sometimes. And they’re so afraid about

being over, you know, some people want that 120 over 80 when that’s not always the natural. I mean,

I’m always very low. So my blood pressure is never 120 or 80. And you know, there might be 125

over 85, but they want to keep them on there, which I get, you know, I get. But the whole idea is

that we get to on either the lowest effective dose, or if we can get you off, that’d be great.

Now, diabetes, pretty much, that has been usually, because we go by A1c a lot of times.

And so that’s usually three months because of A1c is a three month snapshot.

If somebody has been diagnosed with prediabetes and if they’re on that form or if they’re on

some kind of oral diabetic, anti-diabetic medication.

JANNINE: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

No, it’s good.

It’s good parameter for folks to hear.

I mean, it’s not years, right?

We’re not talking about talking you know

Yeah, we’re just not talking a lot of time you can turn things around pretty quickly

AMY: Oh, and you know menopausal symptoms two weeks headaches two weeks getting your rings back on two to three weeks

Zipping up your favorite pants just depends depends on where it is. This is why I saw people’s like okay

I have people take pictures not necessarily just always measurements and definitely not scale because on measurements

There’s about eight places I have to take their measurement,

but we all know, I want you to go look in the mirror right now.

Your eyes go straight to whatever part that you hate the most.

And that’s the only place you ever look to see if you are getting better.

And I get that with clients all the time, like, but, but,

but I might take your picture and then I’ll have them do a side by side.

And it’s amazing to see how their arms have changed.

And what I mean by their arms is like where their arms are kind of laying by

side. All of a sudden, we see some differences on there is more space between the elbow and the

waistline, where their hands hit on their legs or their hips is totally different. You can see

collarbones, you can see cheekbones, you can see less of a double chin, you can see muscle indentation.

And all these things before, you never realized because you were so focused on that one part.

And then the other part too is that, you know, this may be TMI, I don’t know,

but I was actually going to do a reel on this. The other thing is the biggest non-scale victory

for most my clients is when their underwear stops digging into their sides. And they don’t

realize it until there’s like, man, that isn’t itch anymore. Why is that? And it’s like,

because it’s not digging into your sides anymore. And that is usually within the first six weeks.

JANNINE: Nice. 

AMY: So it’s not years. 

JANNINE: And so I think a lot of people right right now might be like, okay,

Amy, you have a blueprint. You have, you know, a program that that that works with this. Tell us

a little bit more. I know we briefly touched last podcast. And I think for folks to really understand

kind of what’s what’s going down, I would love for you to kind of explain the the faster way.

AMY: So I use a platform that’s called the Fastaway to Fat Loss.

And the reason why I use this is because I believe in it

because I was a client, still I’m a client,

and it worked for me.

And it was something that brought in health,

that’s something that brought in real food,

and it brought in weightlifting.

It takes away the, I have to work out for hours a day.

It takes away the, I got a calorie count.

Yes, we do macro tracking.

And some people are like, oh my God, I can’t macro track.

We can all macro track.

The thing is I always tell people it’s like,

it’s not gonna make you obsessive

because we don’t eat enough.

We really don’t.

You don’t realize it.

We’re overfed under nourished, big time,

with ultra processed foods.

But when you start eating real food,

the amount that you have to eat is crazy.

And I have to track, because if I don’t track,

I don’t eat enough.

And it is using me as a coach

because you don’t know what you don’t know.

And it’s not just about giving you the blueprint,

which you can get the blueprint from me, absolutely.

I can give you the blueprint.

However, if your behavior,

so as a go-to for a Snickers bar at 2 p.m.,

or you don’t eat,

or you’re having stress-related anxiety issues

that you don’t know how to handle,

your go-to’s always been Ben and Jerry’s,

or you’re like, I need to work out,

I just don’t know how to figure that out.

How can I habit stack this?

You need someone, a coach, to help you navigate

this new way of life because I can give everybody

the blueprint.

It’ll work for some people, but more likely,

it’s not going to be the thing that clicks in your brain.

What clicks in your brain is behaviors.

And so, with the first six weeks,

it’s all about those baby steps.

It’s incorporating all these good foods.

It’s incorporating workouts.

it’s incorporating, we do intermittent fasting.

By the way, intermittent fasting is not a diet, it’s a tool.

So if anybody does intermittent fasting,

like, oh, Becky, you whatever I want, no, no, no, no, no,

you can’t eat crap, uh-oh.

‘Cause now you’re not doing your body any service.

Intermitt fasting, we use a tool for autophagy,

which means cell turnover.

We use it to decrease insulin resistance,

increase insulin sensitivity, helping with you sleep.

There’s so many good things about intermittent fasting,

but we’re not using it as a diet,

meaning that you still have to eat.

It’s not something that says,

oh, well, I can just eat one meal a day

’cause that doesn’t work,

that you don’t get enough nutrition.

So we’re really focusing on the nutrition

so that your body can heal.

I always say we’re healing from the inside out.

And guess what?

That takes time.

And you need a coach to keep reminding you

that that takes time,

because we’re always like,

but, but, but, but my friend got 10 days

was back in their bikini.

And I’m like, yeah, where’s your friend in 10 months?

right? And would you have to realize is every time that you do those yoyo

dieting, every time that you do something that is going to cause you to lose weight

so fast, you’re losing muscle, you’re losing metabolism, and you are aging

yourself. And the one thing that I don’t want, and this is my mission in life,

is to keep you out of my nursing homes. Because in midlife, we have a very

small window of opportunity to get it together. And we can thrive. And we can

live this amazing life, well into our 80s and 90s and 100s, or we continue what we’re

doing and we promote disease.

And I don’t think that’s what we want to do.

I think we want to thrive.

And you need that cheerleader.

You need that person to help you.

You need that person to say, answer your questions.

And I don’t like fish.

So what do I eat?

Okay.

Here’s your options.

I don’t like chicken.

What do I eat?

Okay.

carbs. So it’s two days a week that we’ll do higher fat, lower carbs, and then the rest

time we call regular macaridase. Okay, I don’t know what to do. How do I do this? And that’s

where I’m there to help you. Or I was at regular, regular days like, I need to make carbs. Oh my

gosh. Oh my gosh. And I’ll be there to tell you, okay, this is what’s happening with your hormones.

This is why your body needs carbs. This is what happens. And that’s why you use a, use the coach.

So I do a six-week program just to get the basics, the foundation, and then if somebody

wants to continue on with me, it’s something called VIP, because you still get the workouts

every day.

They’re 30 minutes.

They’re right into your house by an app.

There’s so many good things.

That’s one of the reasons why I use this platform is because there’s so many good things about

it.

And then you get me as your coach, and I honestly believe in one-on-one, I believe in the group

because of the community, but I also believe in the power of the human connection.

And you have to be able to be able to talk to me, to be able to text me, to have that

connection because if you don’t have that connection, then you just, you know, I think

a lot of us, midlife, we were the odd girls out and, you know, we didn’t have anybody

we could go to or ask or we saw the perfect and we thought we should be the perfect.

Was that part of the mean girls, the perfects, you know, and we still sit down on Instagram

and understand not being relatable.

And so am I going to be your BFF?

I’d like to be your BFF,

but I’m also going to be your tough love sister.

That’s going to tell you the way it is

and what you need to do.

And that’s, I guess, that’s in a long nutshell.

JANNINE: You know, it’s great that you’re mentioning

all the ins and outs, right?

‘Cause we really, it’s having something

like an accountability buddy, really.

AMY: Yeah, it really is.

Yeah.

JANNINE: And you mentioned there’s that short window

of getting our shit together before we really end up

into chronic disease land.

I’d love to see from your experience, like I’d love for you to tell us from your experience

with nursing home patients, like looking at their charts.

How fast, like on average, if you had to ballpark it, because I know you can’t give

me like full on, you know, like without a doubt, this is the thing.

How long would you say it really does take someone to go from like just starting the

twinges and little bits of diabetes or high blood pressure till it’s full on cardiovascular

disease and we’ve got like, you know, like slow– 

AMY: I would, I don’t say I see less than

five years. And here’s think, our bodies are telling us before we have that diagnosis,

before we have our diagnosis, something’s going on. Our bodies are giving us signals.

We just don’t choose to listen to them. But then we go to a doctor, not you. We go doctor.

When they say, “You’re borderline,” let’s just watch.

Watch what?

Really?

Really?

What are we going to watch?

We’re going to watch it, go full, but diabetes, full hypertension.

What are we watching?

Instead of saying, “This is our window of opportunity to nip it in the butt now,”

you need to change.

You need to figure out how to eat, how can we work, how can we manage your stress?

Like, you know, I have a client right now who just started with me.

is a nurse, her A1C was 12 and yeah and she sent me her labs and she’s like I have to,

she had, and I would say most people have something like something they hit rock bottom,

they do something and her story was like I got to do something, I need to take care of myself now

and she is doing that and she’s doing all the things, she’s doing amazing but she had to come

to that realization that she was not going to go down this path, right? And that’s what we have to

decide is that, okay, I still can live. I still can enjoy a cookie. I still can

enjoy life. I’m not dieting because when you’re diet, yeah, that does. It’s like what’s

die with the t, right? It’s like it’s taking the fun out of life. When you actually are

feeling your body when you’re actually eating real stuff. You know, when blueberries become candy,

and yes, they do. Believe it or not, they do become tastes like candy. When you have energy,

when you don’t crash every evening because you’re exhausted, you sleep because you need sleep,

and your body is actually recovering, and you start seeing muscle, and you are able to zip up

your pants, and your blood pressure goes down, your A1c goes down, your cholesterol comes back to

than the normal and your thyroid is actually functioning optimally and the way alone your your

hormones because it’s all one big big system it’s not all these individual systems that we keep

trying to trying to do it’s like everything’s connected and when we can connect the dots and

connect everything it’s crazy how good you can feel.

JANNINE: I wholeheartedly agree I wholeheartedly agree and then that point I feel like this is a great

mic drop really because it’s like it’s so crazy how good you can feel when you get things dialed

in and this is where I want I want this for everyone and I know you do too. I do I want I want people

to feel good does take work yes that’s why you have somebody help you because we can’t do everything

on our own. I have a coach. I mean, we can’t do everything on our own. So I don’t, you

know, self-prescribe. I go to somebody else who’s an expert. We’re not meant to do everything

on our own. We’re meant to have this like, I want to say sisterhood, but maybe sisterhood,

whatever it is, to help each other out and lift each other up and make us the best that

we can possibly be and understand the journey. You start today and hopefully you don’t end

until whenever I take my last breath.

JANNINE: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

I mean, I do think, like you said, women banding together,

that’s why we’re doing this, right?

That’s why we’re getting together

and like sharing the information that we have to folks.

And hopefully, you know, those of you who are listening,

I hope this has made an impact,

especially that concept of things can go south in five years.

I really want folks to think about that.

And the time is now to make change

and it doesn’t have to be drastic one step at a time.

so huge. 

AMY: Very huge. Wow. Amy, thanks for coming on again. I know chatting more as time goes on,

but this one’s a good one. I think this will be great for folks to just really let that sink in.

Five years, guys, five years. So if you’re not liking your labs right now,

you’re not liking how things are going, it is time to get some stuff done. And Amy and I are

going to have everything in the podcast notes that doctorjkrausend.com for you to get that help.

Amy, remind folks where they can find you on Instagram and your website and all the details.

AMY: Website AmyKWillson.com, A-M-Y-K-W-I-L-S-O-N.com.

And Instagram, The Nutrition Coach Pharmacist. It’s the nutrition coach pharmacist. And if

you did not get my blueprint yet and you want my blueprint, what the blueprint is, is a lot,

it’s lots of recipes. Plus, you get my special chili recipe too.

message me either on my website or and Instagram and DM me, slide into my DMS.

Follow me, all that good stuff. And I will send you that blueprint so that you can

have some great recipes that you can, you know, double triple whatever and they make

some really good healthy recipes that you can take on a go or heat up later.

JANNINE: Amazing. Amazing. The chili recipe is on my list of things to try this weekend, by the way,

so I’m looking forward to it.

Thanks Amy, I really appreciate you coming back on

and chatting with us.

AMY: So much fun, so good.

JANNINE: [Outro] (upbeat music) Hey fellow health chunky,

thanks for listening to the Health Fix Podcast.

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Thanks again for listening.