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Nutritional Therapy - Getting Back to Basics, with guest Melissa De La Cruz

Nutritional Therapy - Getting Back to the Basics
with guest Melissa De La Cruz

Full transcription available at the bottom of this post

Getting Back to Basics

Special Guest Interview!  Meet my friend Melissa De La Cruz, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and CEO of Made to Be Thriving.  As a nutritional therapy practitioner, Melissa gets to help people thrive not just survive. She focuses on a holistic and bio-individual approach to nutrition, lifestyle, and supports foundational health aspects like nutrient dense food, optimal digestion, blood sugar regulation, hydration, etc. 

Melissa shares her journey from years of illness to finding the right doctors and treatments to finally get her on the path to health.   And now she's made a career of helping other women find health through improving digestion and reducing toxin exposure.  

Enjoy our chat!

XOXO
Tara

PS. If anything in this episode resonated with you, then share the LOVE! Head to iTunes and subscribe and leave a written review or post a screenshot of this episode in your stories and tag me @tarafaulmann 


Important Links:

Melissa De La Cruz at Made to Be Thriving 

Episode 10 - Trust Your Gut Part 1
Episode 11 - Trust Your Gut Part 2

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Show Notes & Transcript: 

Full Transcript: 

00:00
Welcome back. My friends, I have a special guest interview for you today, you're gonna meet my friend Melissa De La Cruz she is a nutritional therapy practitioner and owner of made to be thriving. As a nutritional therapy practitioner. Melissa gets to help people thrive not just survive. She focuses on a holistic and bio individual approach to nutrition lifestyle, and supports foundational health aspects like nutrient dense food, optimal digestion, blood sugar regulation, fatty acid balance, etc. She's got an amazing story about helping herself go from illness to health, I can't wait for you to hear if you want to know more from Melissa go to made to be thriving.com. And of course, I'll post it all in the show notes. Let's go

01:02
Welcome back to the no nonsense wellness podcast, the place for women who are trying to do all the things and stay healthy, sane and actually enjoy life in the process. Hey, I'm Tara, a trained therapist, a life coach, a nutrition coach and a fitness instructor. And I'm on a mission to help you take back control of your mind health and life. Each week, I'll be cutting through the nonsense and getting real with you. I'll bring you the insight and information you need to take control of your weight and health. Find food freedom. And finally break free from the thoughts that are sabotaging you and holding you back. You, my friend are powerful, and the world needs you to start showing up in a bigger way. It's time to get unstuck and start moving forward. So let's pop in those earbuds, tie up those shoes. Let's walk and talk.

02:00
Welcome back, I'm so excited to have my friend Melissa here with us today. I'm super excited because she is a Certified Nutritional therapist. And that is not somebody that you get to talk to very often. Welcome, Melissa.

02:14
Hi, thanks for having me. Yes, super

02:16
excited, Melissa, is the owner of made to be thriving? And why don't you quickly tell us about what you do at made to be thriving.

02:24
So basically, I provide nutritional and lifestyle support that's specific to individual client needs. So I'm not about you know, blanket approach. It's really based on everyone's needs. The primary focus is digestion, because that tends to be the most common area of need before other areas can actually improve. So that's a lot of my focus, and just helping people to reduce toxins and all of that. So I work on all of that with my clients really helping them to make good nutrition and lifestyle changes not about bad diets and programs at all. It's all really about making lifestyle changes.

03:06
Do you think I feel like at some point, everyone has been on so many diets, they finally realize like, I should probably just get a person who's going to help just me the way I need to be helped.

03:17
Yeah, exactly. I felt like you know, even I've gone through it to where I was trying different types of diets just trying to find that relief symptoms I was going through and you know, over time, I realized, yeah, they can be good, temporarily for a time. But really, it comes back down to the foundations, are we implementing foundational things that we should just be doing every day? And if we are we should see a huge improvement in our overall health. Of course, you know, if you've got major things going on, you're going to need stuff beyond that. And that's where I want to help people do the deeper dive.

03:51
Yeah, I love that approach, too. Because starting with the basis is so important. When I talk to women, they'll be like, I just want to lose 15 pounds. I'm like, Well, how much water did you drink today? Oh, aren't you gonna just tell me what to eat? No, nope. We're talking about water first.

04:11
Yeah, I feel like that's the same here too. I get a lot of people coming to me saying that that's their primary, they just want to lose weight or, and I don't exactly specialize in that. But what I've noticed is the ones who come to me with that, as they start making these foundational changes, their body is just starting to naturally balance. And they're dropping weight. Because it's

04:31
a shift, a shift that we have to make. Yeah.

04:35
Now all that inflammation because of things that they're eating, they don't realize that's actually contributing to that struggle. And a lot of yes, people are just not drinking enough water. And that causes a lot of problems too. But

04:48
nobody wants the simple basic answer, right? Everybody wants like the complicated eat this don't eat that. There's a place for that, like when you're dealing and I'm sure and I know that that's what you do. Because when you're Dealing with certain ailments and illnesses. And like, if I came to you with my autoimmune disorder, like I would expect you to tell me, you should not be eating that. And you should be eating more of this. Right? Yes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely a time and a place for that.

05:16
Exactly. Yeah, I agree. Because I know even for myself, like I discovered, I can't have any gluten or dairy, meat. Oh, yeah. gluten free, dairy free diet I need to be on otherwise, I experienced a lot of problems. That in general, it's just making good healthy dietary choices, reading those ingredients, actually making sure I'm putting real stuff into my body versus a more inflammatory, you know, stuff. So,

05:41
exactly. Well, why don't we talk about that, then, let's talk about how you got here. Because I know, we sort of have a similar story in that we had a lot of issues of our own. I love you always say that you had to kind of assemble your team. And so tell us about your story. How did you get here?

05:58
So basically, you know, I think I was actually dealing with some digestive issues when I was a kid. And it just, you know, they tested me everything was always fine. Went through high school was dealing with migraines, and menstrual issues, and just different stuff like that. And then as I entered being an adult, I started noticing more things just getting worse and digestive issues getting worse. And I was dealing suddenly, with severe adult acne. I never dealt with that. Even in high school.

06:28
If you don't mind me asking what age range was, like it was getting worse.

06:34
I would say I was probably about 1920. When I started, things started just getting more weird and worse and stuff like that. I would say around that time and throughout my whole 20s Like I was having these ups and downs where I felt like things were getting worse than I was okay. And then things were worse and Okay, kind of that kind of thing. That more and more things were were happening getting worse. I've struggled with being underweight for as long as I can remember, no one knew why. They, you know, say they were checking my thyroid, but I don't think they were doing the full panel. So you know, I was doing the best I could, but I think I just kept having that prompting of the Holy Spirit. I truly believe that that something was wrong and don't keep pushing. Yeah. And so I probably became that problem. Patient. I don't know if I had more than I thought I was a hypochondriac or something.

07:28
Okay, wait, can we pause right there? Yeah. Because I feel like as women, we get stuck in this place a lot. Like, we don't want to be the bad patient. We don't want to be the one who asked too many questions. We don't want to be the one who doubts our doctor. They're the expert they should know. But no, you know, your body. And you know if something's wrong,

07:47
absolutely, yes, absolutely. And you know, for so many years, like I tell the doctors about this symptom or that symptom. And most of the time, and it's just written off as though I'm sure it's fine. Or it's all or stressed. Yeah, and just written off. And as things got really worse, and I felt like most of the time, they were just putting me on something, you know, you're just take this that should help or whatever, my digestive system was getting worse and worse, to the where to the point where it's like, embarrassing, like I was having major gas issues that was just embarrassing to me. And I'm like, something is not right. Like, my stomach is a wreck. You know, I'm underweight, I've got this and that going on all these different symptoms happening. And I felt like it was kind of exceeding their knowledge, I would ask them things, oh, it's fine. Or I finally got to the point where they asked me, Well, what do you want us to do? Because around towards the end of me doing the conventional route, was when I was being taken off of dairy by a chiropractor, nutritionist insurance didn't cover it, you know, dependent on that. But I got so bad. I was like, You know what, something needs to change. I know that she's helped my friend, I need to just go check this out. And so she was the first person to really listen to me and tell me, I want to know all your symptoms, if there's something that pops up telling me because it's likely all related.

09:09
It's all in the same body. Of course, it's related, right? Yeah. Now

09:13
the first time I'd ever heard that, like, normally everyone just wrote it off,

09:17
right? Well, or it's like symptom symptom, like, deal with that symptom deal with that symptom instead of trying to figure out what's the underlying stuff.

09:25
Things did improve, but I still had things going on. And around that time, I was starting to, you know, really read labels more and starting to learn more about ingredients and trying to make better choices as far as like cleaning products and things like that and to just to see and so the common combination of those three kinds of gluten dairy, starting to kind of shift what I was using product wise, yeah, toxin exposure, I started noticing some beneficial changes in my home like I wasn't getting headaches as often because I wasn't using the toxic cleaners. And that in thing seemed good for a while, I felt like I was stable. And then all of a sudden I started getting more flare ups again of just different symptoms. And then symptoms were adding and, and my chiropractor and nutritionist, I was seeing her and we reached a point she's like, or she recommended that I go see this naturopath that she knew of. And he did the most thorough bloodwork I'd ever hadn't done in my life. I did it at the hospital that's local to me, which my previous doctor, they were all connected with that so they got all the results, including the ones he did, because I happen to do it at that lab. And I went to see them and she's going over everything and nothing was of concern.

10:42
They have very different standards of what's okay and what's not okay.

10:45
Oh my goodness, so much. Yeah, because I'm sitting there listening to her. And she's like, not concerned about anything, whatever. And, and I knew I was gonna go see my chiropractor soon. And so I took her the results. And yeah, I still remember I took her the results. I see her looking at it, and her jaw just dropped. And she was like, Oh, my goodness, she's like, your doctor didn't see anything of concern here was like, nope. So basically, it was showing that I'm going through menopause at a very early age. That's what it was indicating. And my thyroid.

11:18
That's why I asked what age all that started to happening. Because I was wondering,

11:22
I mean, I don't remember how I mean, I was in my 30s At this point, my early 30s At this point, and it was basically showing all this stuff out of whack. My hormones were just crazy and really low. Actually, my thyroid was like through the roof numbers like abnormally so that was pretty much my last straw with seeing the conventional. You don't

11:45
want to Doctor bash, either. There's amazing, talented doctors out there they're out. There's an absolutely a place for that. I do think there's a lot of us who have felt just sort of left behind. Yeah, with our regular doctors. And I, yeah, I want everyone to just sort of hear my heart and I know your heart to him this is you have to be your own advocate. If something's wrong, you have to keep searching. And you have to keep finding different people. And you have to keep asking get a third opinion, get a fourth opinion, get a fifth opinion. It's worth it. Your life and your health is worth it. So I'm so glad you kept fighting.

12:22
Yeah, and so many people don't. And that's where, you know, their health is failing, because they're not pursuing. They're just saying, Oh, my doctor said do this. And I and I

12:32
still feel like crap, but I'll just keep doing this.

12:35
Yeah, and that's how and I knew I'm like something is wrong. They're just not finding it or something like all the tests would come back normal and all them like something's wrong. So my naturopath he has been amazing. He never ever has given up. It took them about a year and a half of finally getting to a point where we found like a significant issue. Finally, about a year and a half. That's way more progress than anyone else was making.

13:01
Yeah, but it does take time. Because as soon as you start dealing with some symptoms, it reveals other things that are going on.

13:10
So yeah, and then he led me to my acupuncturist who also does nutrition. She new

13:15
team member? Uh huh. Yeah,

13:18
she does the Nutrition Response Testing. And basically when of within a short time of that seeing her my health started shifting, like she was actually testing what I needed nutritionally as far as supplements and checking for possible foods I was eating that I should not be eating and just doing thorough testing while doing the acupuncture to get things going where they needed to go. And we saw a big shift just in a matter of maybe weeks or maybe a couple months happening. I could feel it it was a weirdest feeling. Like I couldn't explain it but I could feel something good was happening in my pocket. Wow, I could describe it. I'm like something good is happening. I don't know what it is. But it feels like good, you know, throughout all of that process from you know, starting with my nutrition and chiropractor all the way to like my acupuncturist nutritionist, like in between all that your I Am online searching and so all of that I was learning, because I wasn't giving up. So I just kept digging. And I started learning pretty much educating myself, I started noticing I had more of a passion for this area than what I was doing because I taught in the elementary world for years. And even as I was going through that my health was getting worse as I was in that. And somehow, you know, by the grace of God, he was helping me to continue working while I was going through stuff. But I just, you know, started feeling a shift in my passion and being like, there's a better way like,

14:45
I think you probably reached the same spot that I did of like, Whoa, I need to tell other people about this because nobody's hearing about this stuff. And hearing that you have other options and other choices and other ways to heal yourself.

14:59
Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like so many people don't realize that more and more becoming more open to it. Yeah, my whole journey I just felt like is led me to this point. And I never expected to be in this kind of area. Did not expect that.

15:15
That's good. You just kind of heard the calling and followed it. That takes guts. Yeah. So So now, what are the things that you probably spend the most time helping people with?

15:28
Really, the foundation's, honestly, I feel like every new client I get, we really have to start at the foundations, they don't even realize they come to me with all these symptoms and everything and prior expecting to be on some sort of specific diet and all this stuff. But I ended up really just having to focus on the foundations like, Are you drinking enough water? Let's increase that water intake. Let's look at increasing real food, you know, we need to start reducing all those processed packaged fast.

15:57
Can we talk about that for a second? Yeah, a term that I used to use a lot was eat clean, we got to eat clean, we got to eat clean. And then I was like, that's super vague. nobody actually knows what that means. And it's not helpful. So when we say like, eat real food, eat less processed food, what are we actually talking about?

16:15
You know, it's God given foods, meats, fruits, vegetables, you know, things that are not coming in a package, really, that don't have an ingredient label?

16:26
Hmm, very good way to say it. Yeah,

16:29
primary focus should be on those foods that we grow, that we farm, all of those should be the primary bulk of our diet, you really should. Obviously, I'm in a place where certain packaged items, and even if you are doing that, we can do better as far as what we're choosing. There's so many leaner, processed type of foods out there that will be way better than all the mainstream brands that everyone's been so used to.

16:56
Yeah, well, it's so hard. If you were going to give anyone like the biggest piece of advice for moving towards a more whole foods diet, what would that be?

17:05
I always tell my clients one step at a time,

17:08
because it can be a one stalk of broccoli at a time. Yeah,

17:11
seriously, like, because it's overwhelming. And I have certain clients, so I can tell it's overwhelming. And I always try to really reel them back and say, one step at a time. You know, you don't have to do all the things at once. Start getting more veggies or make sure it's, you know, good meat and switch

17:27
one thing out. Now another better option, when

17:30
I tell them, you know, if there's certain products that you are super used to that you want to know, is there a better let me know, I probably can give you some good recommendations that were way better and healthier for you. So that's something I provide as far as support for my clients, I want to help them make that change. And I want them to know it's not going to be an overnight thing. It's a process. Yeah, it really is one step at a time. Even if it comes to products that you're using hands over cleaners, you know, choose one item next time. You need more with that. Let's choose out a better one. Exactly. That's the amount of time I

18:06
couldn't agree more. Yep. Let's talk about then products for a sec, toxins and gut health. I mean, I can preach it all day long. Hopefully someone listens. God is like the root of everything. You got a bad gut, everything's going wrong. So what we're talking about toxins for a second, what do we need to know?

18:24
Where do you even start, but drugs are just there in everything? I mean, there's no way to get under percent away from all of it.

18:31
Cancer, you could be the most Amish person living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and you're still gonna get exposed?

18:37
Oh, yeah, for sure. It's it's just everywhere, but there's so much we can do to drastically reduce it. You know, toxins are found in our food, the processed food is the worst, you know, or even just non organic produce has, is really has heavy pesticides on a lot of it. And that's a toxin. And, you know, when it comes to the food as far as organic and stuff, I feel like this is something I've had to tell certain clients lately, don't don't stress about it, you know, do the best we can don't if there's not organic of something. Don't stress, just wash it really good. The best you can with what's available in your mind. As long as it's real food, you're making progress. You know, really so because I feel like some people get real tied up in that or they say, Oh, you recommend organic,

19:24
very all or nothing with stuff. Yeah, yeah. That's why we always do diets, because diets are very all or nothing.

19:30
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I tell them because some will get real hung up on that. Like, oh, yeah, you recommend organics? I'm trying to get everything. Okay, that's great. Do that if you can do it, but don't get stressed out about it. You don't see something organic, but you need that it's okay. Grab what's there. You know,

19:46
I think sometimes we don't talk about also stuff that acts like toxins in your body, right, like a lot of processed sugar. If you're eating a lot of things that have a lot of sugar. Sugar can be a toxin in your body, especially to your gut. Yeah,

19:58
and just all the processes They just have so many chemicals and a lot of them. And like if you actually sit there and read the label, there's so many things. You can't even read those words. Because it's not a real ingredient. It's

20:10
they're not even allowed in other countries. So

20:12
Exactly, yeah. And then in our everyday products, you know, cosmetics household,

20:18
my gosh, don't get me started. Yes. Yeah. Like,

20:22
I started learning on my own like, Oh, my goodness, because what happens is we're absorbing that into our skin. Everything absorbs into our skin within a matter of seconds. Yeah.

20:31
26 seconds to be exact. Yeah.

20:34
And it ends up connecting to our digestive system. And so a

20:38
lot of people will go straight to your bloodstream.

20:41
They'll think, Oh, I'm eating healthy. But why am I not getting better, but yet they're using all these highly toxic products. Okay, now we need to like start swapping those out. If you aren't, haven't already started, we need to swap those out. Because those are also connected to your digestion, your hormonal imbalances, you know, their endocrine disrupters. Yeah, they really are, they cause a whole mess of problems.

21:03
Totally agree. So really, what you're doing is you're taking that individual person, and you're looking at all the things, everything in their life that they're exposing themselves to and eating, and saying, okay, here, here's our master plan, how can we break that down into manageable steps for you to get the health that you want? Is that am I saying that right?

21:24
Basically, yeah, it's I take all the information I get from them conversation, I have intake and everything I do with them. And then I come up with an initial plan for them right in the beginning, you know, I look at all that. And what I'm noticing is most the time, it's just the foundational stuff. It's not. I'm also dying, that's all it is, and a little bit of bio individual type stuff. But most of it is really just foundational. Really, what I'm noticing with all my new clients, that's where we're at, in the very beginning. It's foundational stuff. And a lot of them come to me thinking it's going to be some major shift and all these things and it's special diet and all that that special diet

22:03
to most people mean super restrictive. That's what yeah, that's what we hear in our head. Super Risha. I don't want to be super restrictive.

22:09
Yeah. And so they'll I'll give them this recommendation. And I remember having one not too long ago who she was like, Well, okay, well, that's not anything really significant. But yeah, same time, I know kind of what's going on? And like, well, this is be your first step, you have to type of things. So I all hear that from new clients. Like they're expecting like this huge, big old thing, like an elimination diet or whatever, like you said, and that it's more like implementing foundational things, eat real food, let's start reducing some of your toxin exposure, and how are you preparing your food and, you know, giving them some meal ideas and stuff based on their needs? And things like that, to really help them get going.

22:49
How would you compare nutritional therapy to say, like, a traditional diet or like, I'm just going to do the whole 30? Or I'm going to count calories or count macros. Yeah, I've won here, we talk a lot about how diets just really don't work. And it's not the approach and, and I come at it a lot more from the your relationship with food side. And so I'm interested to hear a little bit more about the actual food, like, what is it doing in your body?

23:20
Like, that's one thing, I get clients coming to me because they're used to like a, like a registered dietician, or neutral, licensed nutritionist or whatever, that's what they do. So they're used to Okay, can you tell me how many calories I need, or exactly the ratios and all that, and I don't know, I actually don't focus on that. That's not my area, like I don't focus on you need this many calories, or you need this exact percentage of all, you know, we work on trying to balance things out. That's what we do. And I give them tips, but I even let them know, because I have them do like a food and mood journal. And a lot of times, especially in the beginning, they get kind of stuck on thinking that they need the exact serving size when they input it. And I always let them know I said, Honestly, I don't really care about the serving size, you know, especially if it's real food. You know, if you're eating real food, I'm not really sure. I just want to see like, What are we eating? Are we working on getting some real foods and they're having a better diet, I can help, you know, help them make those connections, help them to start seeing connections between things. But my focus is not on what's the serving size, how many calories? You think that's not my focus. And I tell them that I'm not worried about the numbers you're worried about, we

24:29
have a very similar approach and that way, yeah, I don't care about the numbers. either. I care about the results that you're getting and how you feel and your relationship with food and what are your cravings like and what is your period like and how's your digestion and how's your sleep? Right? All of those things are way more important to me. Then, if you've got 25 grams of protein at your last meal, I mean, that is important. Yeah, that'll be helpful.

24:56
I know it is helpful. I think a lot of that too I come from like, in my own stuff that I was going through where there was a point where I was having to like make sure I get a certain amount of protein. It was recommended. Make sure you get this amount of protein and then and it got to be really stressful for me. It is.

25:13
I think it is.

25:14
I hate it. Oh, like, oh my gosh, I gotta make sure I get this specific amount of stuff. And yeah, it was a great

25:19
sometimes it's like, oh no, today I'm really hungry. I feel like I need more, but I'm only allowed to have this much. And then another day is like, oh, no, I didn't even eat what I was supposed to eat, but I'm not hungry for it. Do I just eat it anyway? Yeah, shooting yourself in the foot.

25:33
Yeah, and all the different tips about all cake you're trying to reach this waiter that way you need this many calories. So then I was you know, doing all that logging, trying to reach that amount of calories or whatever. And that should not be stressed. Like don't even worry about it. Are you eating good food? Do you feel satisfied after a meal? Or do you have to you know, that's it that's hard for people to grasp that concept they feel like they need to portion their meals and eat smaller meals and and get this many calories or eat six times a day. Like yeah, you don't have to know. Yeah, just really trying to help them shift that mindset. Yeah, like it's not about always the number of calories or the serving like are you getting good Whole Foods? Are you eating enough to where you feel satisfied? That's in there. You know, good fats. Fats are good. This is a Heartland. Like fat free? No, no, no. Get some good fats in there.

26:27
Oh, dang fat free era. I'm so glad I passed that. No, although most of the women that I work with, we're in like, you know, mid 30s to mid 50s. And we all went through the snack Well, we're the snack Well, generation. So there's a lot of nutritional information that I know both of our clients always need because we have a lot of preconceived ideas about what's good and what's right. And most of them are not right. So I know one of the things too when we talk about Whole Foods, we always talk about nutrient density. What does that mean? Why is that important? Whole Foods and nutrient density?

27:03
Basically, we're getting our nutrients from real foods and if our diet is predominantly a bunch of packaged foods, fast foods, all that our bodies not getting any of the nutrients that we need to complete. Lots of calories. No nutrients a lot. Yeah, exactly. tons of calories. And that's what a lot of people are going for. Oh, I need this many calories. Oh, they look at the package. Oh, it only has this many calories. It's okay. Okay, but what's in it? Yeah, you know, and so basically, you know, nutrient destiny is going to come from real foods, you know, meats, fruits, veggies, whole grains, you know, if you can have grains, rice, you know, that would be real food. Yeah, basically, anything that doesn't have an ingredient label usually is going to be a real foods going to have the most nutrients in it that your body really needs in order to heal itself and thrive. There's so much healing that can happen as a result of just eating whole nutrient dense foods making that the primary of your diet.

28:01
Yeah, thinking about what is in it? And is there vitamins? Is there minerals, what's in this food, not just calories, or protein or fat or carbs? That's in it too. But what's the rest?

28:14
Exactly? Yeah, that's not something I work on a lot with my clients is learning how to read those ingredient labels like actually read the ingredients. Don't read the front, the marketing that's all organic, or it's this it's natural. Turn it over read the ingredient that's gonna tell you what you need to know.

28:30
Yeah, sometimes I get some pushback of like, oh, it's really hard. It's I don't know where to start. What do you how do I make Whole Foods? What am I doing? My usual answer is like, well, if you order pizza, eat some salad first, like the easiest way I could think of what is the things that you hear a lot and the advice that you give for it,

28:54
you know, I you know, I'm all about shopping with a budget. I mean, we try and do that ourselves. Do the best we can and so I always try to share with my clients options for places to shop that are going to be a lot less expensive. Local farmers markets if you can even like Grocery Outlet here where we're at find some good stuff here. Great there. Yeah. Costco, I've been finding some great things at Costco for a much better buy and I use Thrive Market who has really good buys on things and healthier options. So I'm always trying to share with my clients different places that they should check out and look for and not just assume that health food stores are the only place yeah, those are my you know, I love going to sprouts. I think they're much cheaper option than Whole Foods in my opinion. I mean, locally, right?

29:44
There's a lot of farms around me. And there's things there's companies that deliver vegetables to my door. Yeah, be willing to

29:52
kind of the same to we're about 40 minutes or so away from them. So like if I do need to go to those places, I make it worth it like we're doing some grocery shopping. It's a haul. So I, you know, I try to let them know like all these different options that I find, because I want them to save money as they're trying to make healthier. Yeah, it needs to feel doable just like I can't do it is too expensive. Like I want them no, no, it doesn't have to be expensive buy things on sale, you know, when things are on sale get it started to stock up on it. Yeah, I'm always about that find a good sale, if you see a good sale on something that's much healthier stock up on it. That's good. And you'll save money.

30:29
And it's we make it like I said before we make it in our brain so much harder than it has to be. It doesn't have to be as difficult as we make it. Just choose the thing, even if it's in a package, choose the thing that has less ingredients than the other thing. Right? Eat your crackers, great. Have your crackers, I don't care but choose this cracker instead.

30:50
Yeah, in fact, I had a client recently who I know she was really struggling with making some swaps and kept going to the same thing. So I asked her, I said, You know what, send me a list of all your like, Go twos.

31:01
I'll give you the healthier version. Ever the great idea, or your usual go

31:05
twos. And I will in turn, send you a list of some alternatives for each of those things. That's a great idea. Or making some better choices like Oh, would that be helpful? She was like, yeah, that'd be great. So that's what she did. She took a few days, she sent me a big ol list. And I went through and work through it and just name some possible alternatives. That would be a better choice. Yeah. So

31:27
that's a great idea. Because I do forget sometimes, like you and I spend a lot of time researching things. That's just who we are the NBA based on our experiences, that's just what we do. And I forget that, you know, not everybody does that or cares to do that. Some people just want me to tell them, hey, buy this instead of that. Yeah, it's a good reminder for me.

31:49
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like it's helpful. Because, you know, I remember what that was, like trying to do it all myself, basically, when you

31:56
first had to be gluten free or dairy free. So overwhelming.

32:01
Oh, yeah. It was super overwhelming, because I was trying to navigate all that by myself with guidance from my practitioners, but not as much as what I'm trying to do now for my clients, because I like all those things that I was missing. I'm trying to do for my clients now.

32:15
Yes, exactly. Like that

32:16
other piece.

32:18
What you need it. That's what I say all the time, like I am what I needed 10 years ago. That's who I'm trying to be right now.

32:27
Exactly.

32:28
I love it. Any last advice that you want our listeners to know about Whole Foods, Healthy Eating toxin exposure, gut health, health, instead of weight loss, anything else you want them to know?

32:43
I think, really, if you want to feel better, we've got to tackle gut health, it really is the first place to start. And the best way to do it really, the first step is start you know, increasing your water intake, start really shopping for more of those real Whole Foods, meats, fruits, veggies, making that the bulk of your diet. And then when it comes to like even more of the toxins, not just in our food, but like as far as the products you're using, start going through and reading those labels. And as you run out of things, start making some swap. And you know, whether it's you researching on your own, or maybe someone you follow or even me like I'm constantly whether it's in my email newsletter, or on my website, trying to share options for people, because I know how overwhelming that can be. Is this better than that? Or not? Where do I even start? Yeah, so you know, just one step at a time, you know, start eating real foods, start swapping things out one at a time. If you just do those things, you're gonna start noticing a difference.

33:45
Yeah. And give it time. Just like it took time for all of these things to accumulate in your body and make things start going wrong. It takes time for them all to get back out again. It does, it really does. So I think that's something a lot of us I know, I'm very impatient. I want results right now. And it's something a lot of us have to work on as is being patient and being in process is okay. And it's good.

34:09
Yeah, it takes time. We're not going to heal overnight. I mean, I still have stuff I'm working on in my own health, like I'm not suddenly 100% healthy. You know, that's never gonna happen. But we can definitely significantly improve our health to where we can actually thrive and feel good. Live with life and minimize the things that we are experiencing. Yeah.

34:29
I love what you say. We got to thrive not just survive. Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah. Well, you mentioned a newsletter. Where do we get on to your newsletter if we want to? Yeah, you

34:40
can head over to my website made to be thriving.com at the bottom, you can subscribe. I also have a couple of freebies that are over on the work with me page features scroll to the bottom there's a digestive download, just some tips and then immune immune boosting like meal plan like a sample meal plan. Ah, so you can find that there. You're welcome to even just reach out to me by email or DM on Instagram or something perfect. And I'll

35:09
link all of that stuff in the show notes. So it will live there forever. So if anyone ever wants to find you, I'll make it real easy to find you. Yeah. And I know that you have coaching programs, monthly programs. So if they want to know more about that, go to the website as well.

35:28
Yeah, they can go to the website as well. If they want to talk to me, they can book a discovery session or send me an email. I love it.

35:35
Melissa, this was so great. You are really a wealth of knowledge. But what I love is that you took a struggle, and you turned it into a mission. And I am so here for that. I love it. So thank you so much for joining us. And until we talk again.

35:53
Sounds good. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.

36:04
Hey, friends, thanks so much for being here. If you found value in today's episode, will you do me a favor and head over to iTunes? Find the no nonsense wellness podcast and subscribe and leave me a review. It would mean the world to me and help other people find the show. And I'd love to connect with you more. So find me on Instagram. I'm @tarafaulmann. Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your stories and tag me. I'll see you over there.

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