Our cells know how to keep us well. And we've almost been trained to be at odds with our bodies Mhmm. And at odds with our cells. Mhmm. And our symptoms have been really talked about like they're the enemy.
You know, if we have this symptom, whether it's a headache or a painful period or whatever it might be, then that's the problem that we are to fix. Yep. But that's the way that our cells talk to us. I think a lot of us are walking around feeling less than we should. I don't know if we really understand how good it's even possible to feel.
So instead, we walk around feeling tired or foggy or in inflamed or maybe unmotivated and just feel like this might be it. Maybe this is what getting older feels like. Maybe this is what life with kids feels like. This is just how it is now. But what if it's not?
What if we could feel way better? Today, I'm talking with doctor Michelle Jorgensen who is going to tell us exactly what we can do to feel way better. She is a biologic and holistic dentist whose own health journey forced her to rethink everything, from what health and medicine really is, how we support our health, how we protect it and rebuild it after it's gone off track. She became seriously ill from mercury exposure in her dental practice and had to basically start over. And what she uncovered became the foundation for her work, her clinic, and now her new book, which we get to talk about today.
She especially teaches us so much about cellular health and how we can support our cells to support our energy to support our bodies, and this is something that you will not want to miss out on. I finished recording this episode and immediately wanted to go back and relisten to it again because it's so helpful and so inspiring and makes me feel optimistic about my health instead of feeling bogged down and overwhelmed by the changes I need to make. So I hope you will feel the same way. Every single cell in our body will remake itself within a year's time. So every cell that's listened to what you told it, every cell that's eaten what you fed it, every cell that's done any of those things that have led to your symptoms today will be a new cell in a year.
So you have every ability to remake yourself and allow your cells to do what they intrinsically know how to do. Well, doctor Jorgensen, Michelle, thank you so much for coming back. We're so happy to have you back. We had so much fun last time we met. Yes.
We did. Thank you for having me. I love that you do these. Thank you. And since coming on, you've released your new book, so we get to talk all about your new book.
It is called Living Well with Doctor Michelle, and I love it. One of the things that I love about it is I've read now at this point a lot of health books and a lot of functional medicine books, and they all tend to have a similar pattern and a similar vibe. And you can read maybe five, and then you've read read them all sort of thing. Right? And yours is not that way.
So I am so curious to hear, how did you conceptualize this? Because it has elements from very different places than we're used to hearing about that make it so special. You know, really, honestly, a lot of it is my journey to getting well myself. Yeah. Because after I got sick, I was really disenchanted with, honestly, all medicine, you know, but particularly the modern medicine because that's what I was raised in, that's what my family practiced, that's what I've practiced for so many years.
But it hadn't kept me well. First of all, I'd gotten sick in the middle of doing all of those things, and it hadn't given me the answers to returning to wellness. Yeah. I hadn't gotten better by doing any things that I was learning inside of that practice model. So I started studying all kinds of different medicine.
So I started studying Chinese traditional medicine, Ayurveda from India, German herbalism, all just all these different varieties of medicine. And I realized a couple of things when I did it, that number one, they knew a thing or two. Yeah. You know, that honestly, in today's world, we often discount a lot of what happened for those centuries in traditional medicine because we now have science. Yeah.
But what I found as I was researching is that science is, a lot of times, just validating what they already knew. Right. You know, one of my favorite examples that a lot of people may know, but aspirin is from the bark of a white willow tree. Mhmm. And they knew this clear back in Egypt.
You know, the Sumerians knew this. And so now science can name what it is from the bark that leads to this, you know, pain relief effect. It doesn't not val you know, it doesn't unvalidate the fact that they didn't know what it was. Yeah. Exactly.
It, to me, solidifies that they actually knew a lot, and they were doing it through trial and error of thousands of years of work to see what actually worked, what actually, you know, worked from a medicine standpoint. So as I studied them all, the thing that I found is that it was so confusing because I didn't speak Chinese. I don't understand the Hindu religion that often backs Ayurveda. I didn't, you know, I just didn't have cultural references to understand a lot of what they were saying. Yeah.
So I realized that everybody else would feel the same. They're not gonna read all of these books and learn about all these methodologies and that they attempt to find something to keep themselves well. So I thought, you know what? Let's see what they all have in common. And that's kind of the way that I look at the world.
And, you know, when I walk into a room, I'll say everything that's yellow all at the same time. You know, my brain just picks it out. And so that's what I started doing with all of these. I started picking up the similarities. What in all of these things was the same?
And to me, that validates it all on its own because all of these individual, unique, isolated societies discovered things. So what I found is they were all talking about the body and the way we heal using the seasons of the earth and the elements of the earth as a reference point. Which is what they had. Which is what they had. Yeah.
Which is what we also have. Yeah. We've just all forgotten to pay attention to it. We also live through the seasons every single year. We all do it because we all live on this Earth and we cycle through it all.
We all are very familiar with the elements of the Earth, water, air, Earth, plants. You know, we just don't think of them as medicine. Yeah. So that's really what I, all of a sudden, realized I wanted to do is bring all of these methodologies and information together into something that we all could understand because we all live it. We all live with it.
We all live through it. It was a common language. We all know what seasons are. If I tell you spring, we all know what that means. You know, you and I were just having a conversation about how, you know, one place was lovely to visit in in the springtime, and we both knew what that meant Yeah.
Because that's a commonality that everyone on the earth shares because we all know what those things mean. So I decided, okay. This is gonna be a different book. It's not gonna just be science, and it's not gonna be just all traditional medicine. Right.
It's gonna be the meeting of the two. Yeah. How do they come together to utilize the best from all those worlds? And the illustrations in the book are another little bit of a story because I didn't want it to look like a textbook because it's not a textbook. There's a lot of stories in here.
There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of research, well researched information, but it's not a textbook. And I thought, I don't want it to look like a textbook. I want beautiful illustrations. There was a one of my very favorite books. I absolutely just adore the illustrations in this book, and it's all about very random, but it's all about landscaping and how to create these woodland landscapes.
And I tried to find somebody who could replicate illustrations that looked like that. Couldn't find anybody. So I just decided to reach out to the illustrator of this book. Reached out to her. She's in England.
I said, would you be interested in illustrating this book? And she said, well, I've never done anything like that, but why not? So I never met her. The entire time, we did all the illustrating and everything back and forth. We did it all virtually because she's on another continent than I am.
And her illustrations are whimsical and nature based and just delightful. Every time she would send me another group, I would just smile the whole time as I looked at them because what I wanted to display is that our bodies and health and healing and the earth are all interconnected. And we need to revisit and rediscover that interconnectedness to truly find wellness. So it was really, I mean, it was a lot of work, but it was really just kind of a delight to try to bring these worlds together. I love hearing all of that backstory.
It makes it so much better. I I love the illustrations in the book, but knowing that, it just adds that much more to it. That's such a special story that you were able to find this dream illustrator that you were hoping for. I love hearing that. You title the book Living Well, Living Well with Doctor Michelle, and you say a comprehensive handbook for optimal health and unlimited energy.
And I am so excited to dive in because one of the things that I hear a lot of women say when you say, like, how are you feeling? I feel as good as anyone else. When did that become acceptable? Like, when did that become the status quo of, like, well, then you must be fine. This idea of unlimited energy, I think, is very foreign to us.
Right? Everyone that we see and talk to is tired. Mhmm. Everyone is so tired at the end of the day. So tell us a little bit more about what you feel like this potential is in the human body that we could and should feel.
What does it mean to feel like you are living well with with optimal health and and energy? You know, my definition of well is being able to fulfill your unique purpose in life. Mhmm. So it's gonna be a little different for every person. Right?
Yeah. Because every purpose is unique. However, I don't think anyone's purpose is defined by tired. Yeah. By fatigued.
Yeah. I made it. Yeah. I made it because I'm tired. Barely.
I was holding on by, you know, for dear life, but I made it. Yeah. I don't really think that's the definition. And honestly, I don't believe we can really fulfill that unique potential and unique mission unless we do have energy. Yes.
But energy in our world is used as a term that's kind of out here. You know, it's ethereal. Like, it's so energy. I'm so tired today. I'm, you know, just burned out.
I'm you know, we use these words, I'm drained. Yeah. But we've never really been taught that we actually have the ability to recharge every single one of ourselves. And that's the piece that I really introduce and want people to embrace, is that energy is not something that you have or you don't have, and that you might luck into it or not, or life may take take it out of you or, you know, it's something that you absolutely have control over. Mhmm.
And there's some very simple things. In fact, I talk about how the elements of the earth are really where we find this energy. Yeah. And I talk about bioelectricity because we understand electricity. You know, we all have a cell phone in our pocket, and we understand when it dies and the battery is dead, what do we do?
We go plug it in the wall. We all get it. Right? Yeah. We use the same terminology for ourselves.
I'm dead tonight, or I'm just so out of energy, or I'm drained. We use the exact same words that we use with our cell phone, but yet we do not understand how we recharge Yeah. And how our cells work because they are actually run on electricity as well. Mhmm. And this is a very unknown kind of mystical concept.
Makes you sound like you're crazy a little bit. Right? Mhmm. But it's not. Right.
Because I always point to well, a lot of people now wear Apple watches or Fitbits or, you know, all the fancier versions of those. Garmin watches, what are they tracking? Electrical impulses, basically. Electrical impulses. All the information that is on any of those smartwatches is coming by reading the electrical activity in the body.
Mhmm. If you hook somebody up to a heart monitor and you hear the beep beep beep beep, what is that tracking? The electrical impulse. Yeah. The electrical impulse in the heart.
When it stops, beep, it means the electricity in the heart is stopped. So life itself depends on electricity and electrical flow. Yeah. So why don't we talk about this? Yeah.
Isn't that interesting? Like, why don't we talk about this as a concept? It is interesting. And just a random sidebar, I've worked with a biomedical engineer in a product for a while, and I went to him. And it was about electricity, and I went to him kind of thinking he was gonna think I'm crazy.
Because if I went to a lot of people in the medical field, they would think I'm crazy thinking about this idea of electricity and healing. And as I talked to him, he was like, oh, no. That's well established. Like, you don't have to convince me. Like, I know all of this.
This is a thing. So so there is definitely the idea of healing through electricity. So keep going and tell us more. That was one of the main things that I really wanted to get into is this idea of cellular health that you talk about and how we can regenerate and reenergize the cells. So let's even back up one step further and talk about cellular health because I think it's a word that people throw around, but we kinda don't really understand it.
So my favorite example is if you cut your finger. Mhmm. If you cut your finger, you might put a Band Aid on it. Does the Band Aid heal your finger? No.
No. I always joke that my granddaughter thinks the answer is yes. My little three year old granddaughter thinks the answer is yes, but the answer is actually no. So what does the healing how does that cut go from open to closed? What does the healing?
Cells. Your cells. Your own body has to do the work. And I, you know, like to think a little bit about it. So we got a cut in the finger.
So now immune cells say, all right, boys, it's time to go over here. We have to go clean up the mess, clean up, make sure there's no bugs that got into that cut, you know, get any dirt and rocks and everything out of there. That's why it gets red. That's why it gets kinda pulsey and gets sore because that's your body going to clean up the mess. Once the mess is cleaned up, then the construction crew comes in.
They start to knit the cells together so tightly that that cut doesn't separate anymore. And after a while, you don't even know what happened. Pretty miraculous, isn't it? Mhmm. Because do we have to tell our body to do any of that work?
No. None of it. Not a bit of it. Did we have to tell our body to wake up in the morning? Do we have to tell our liver to process all the things out so that we could pee in the morning?
Do we have to tell our no. It does it all without us even knowing. So, we often will ask things like, well, what supplement should I take? And what pill should I use? And what diet plan should I follow?
And all these things, when all of them really are Band Aids. Mhmm. They're just there to support the body in doing what it already knows how to do. Mhmm. So cellular health is all about asking, what do my cells need to keep me well?
Mhmm. They already know how to do it. But, unfortunately, we don't always help them in this process. Yeah. Right?
Yeah. The foods we give them, which is the supply so there's four areas. Four areas that every cell needs to stay well. Supplies is one. And we talk a ton about this.
Right? Everybody knows this one. Oh, yeah. I need to go eat this or take this or that's the supply piece. But that's only one of four.
Another thing it needs is support. This is like removing the garbage. You know? Once that cleanup job is done and there's all the dead cells, well, where do they go? Your body actually has to get rid of them through the lymphatic system, and that lymphatic system doesn't move on its own.
You have to move it. So that's the support piece. You have to support the cells so that they can do what they need. Security is the third, which means you got to protect them from bacteria, viruses, fungus, all those things, but also toxins, EMFs, you know, things in the water, things in the air. That's a protection or security piece.
And then signals. And people are like, what in the world is signals? Cells actually have to be able to talk to each other to be able to operate the right way. Like I said, the construction, you know, the immune system comes in first and then the construction crew. Well, how do they know that it's their turn?
They have to talk to each other. They have to communicate in a way to tell each other, okay, you're up. High five on my way out. You know, they have to be able to do that. So what I teach is that every single cell has this ability to be well.
It does. And inside of each cell is kind of like a city. There are all the things that we have in our cities. You know, there's the the farms, there's the grocery stores, there's the libraries, you know, where everything's housed, there's the sewer system. There's, you know, all of these things exist inside of every single cell, including the power plant.
So we often think about things like, well, I'm going to, you know, drink a cup of coffee or something in the morning for energy. That's a complete fallacy. Coffee does not bring energy. Coffee actually turns off your body's signal that it's tired. It doesn't give you energy at all, which is why you get the post coffee, post caffeine crash.
Because now you've pushed your body past its energy reserves because it stopped telling you that it was tired and you should stop. So So caffeine doesn't do a thing from an energy standpoint. It just turns off your body's signal that it's tired. Energy comes from your cells. And the way it literally works is you feed it a molecule of fuel.
And this is an interesting thing that a lot of people don't understand. The preferred fuel for cells is carbohydrates. There's such a push, and I'd be curious to know your take on the whole protein because isn't this what always happens? We go through cycles. First, we have to hate on this macro, and then we have to hate on this macro, and then on this macro, and we kind of go in cycles.
It'll be back around again. This is how it goes. So currently, we're on the love protein kick. People don't understand that of the three kinds of fuel, protein is the last one that the body uses for energy. So if you're tired, getting your macros, getting your protein is not giving you more energy.
Isn't that interesting? Like, people don't put these things together. So the preferred fuel source is carbohydrates, complex ones. I'm not talking just go eat a donut. You know, you're gonna get a spike, but you're not gonna get long term energy.
I'm talking an apple. An apple, that slow drip of carbohydrates. The body takes that carbohydrate molecule. It puts it through a series of reactions. When you add oxygen, it explodes the capacity that it has to make energy.
So one molecule of fuel all on its own will make two batteries, basically, of energy. One molecule of fuel plus oxygen will make 34 batteries of energy. So you learned this in medical school. I did as well. It's this old thing called Krebs cycle that we never remember once we pass that test.
Yep. And what it is is simply the way our body makes energy. So when we talk about needing more, all we're saying is, I need to give my cells what they need to be able to produce more batteries. Mhmm. You got more batteries, you have the energy you need to do what you need in life.
Yep. So the question should be, what do I need to do to do that? Yeah. Right? Yeah.
That that was my next question for you. Yes. Yeah. No. I do think I just wanna kind of emphasize it.
I when I was in my own health journey, and we're I wanna talk a little bit more about yours that you mentioned. When I was on my own health journey, I, as a busy OB GYN, I was tired. I was always tired. And in fact, if you talk to any member of my family, I have been chronically tired my entire life. I was the teenager who could come home and nap for three hours and then wake up and still go to bed at, you know, 10:00.
Like, I have I will fall asleep anywhere. And it was in my own health journey that was kind of inadvertent. You know, I was trying to help people, and as I'm talking to people and I'm saying, you know, you should really make these health changes, and I was sort of doing it. And then they would do it and come back and be like, I feel amazing, and I'd be like, gosh. I should really do this.
You know? So it's not everyone. Some people have really good transformation stories. Mine is sort of shame ridden. You know?
We all get there in our own way. But as I went through these things of doing the things that I was telling my patients to do, I remember coming home one night, and it's almost emotional for me because so much of my own struggle has been this balance of having a career and have and being a mom and trying to be both and trying to be everything and not not feeling like you could do it. And I remember coming home from clinic one day and feeling like, I I feel great. Like, kids, you wanna go for a hike? And they were like, yeah.
Mom's mom's fun, you know, for five minutes. Like, fun mom's back. And we went for a hike, and I was baffled. I was absolutely I guess I wasn't baffled because that's what I was telling people to do, but I I was blown away. I could not believe how good I felt.
And it lasted, but it was that one moment of, like, wait a minute. Is this supposed to be the reality? Like, I'm supposed to come home and still have energy to, like, play with my kids and make them dinner and enjoy them. And because the fact is so many of us do not. We're exhausted emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, whatever other thing that I'm missing.
Like, we are just so empty and drained. And that was really eye opening for me of, like, oh gosh. I think we've got this wrong. Like, I think we're supposed to feel really good. So I all of what you're saying about this idea of generating energy in the cells, these are are the basic foundations of, literally of life, of our life source.
Right? One of the questions I get asked all the time is what supplements do you recommend? Now whether this is for daily essentials, sleep support, gut health, what to take during pregnancy, I know how overwhelming it can feel to choose the right products. I have spent hours myself combing through these brands and ingredients, trying to make sure that I can find things that I'm comfortable taking myself and that I'm comfortable recommending to my family and to my patients. I'm then able to get feedback from my patients and family to see, did these supplements actually accomplish what we were hoping that they would accomplish?
And this is why I created a curated full script storefront with the brands and supplements I trust most. These are the same ones I use in my clinic and in my own home. When patients say, what do you recommend for magnesium? Or what do you recommend for fish oil? Or what do you recommend as a fiber supplement?
All of these supplements are listed in this storefront. If you're curious, just visit the link in the show notes. There's also a link on our website and through our Instagram account to explore all of my favorites in one place. When you purchase through the link, you get 15% off. Now back to the show.
So keep going along this journey here. We understand that the body and the cells have the mechanisms inside to make this energy. Now fill us in on kind of what we actually do then. Yep. So I'm gonna give you just some very simple, literally anybody could do it today types of things.
Yeah. Every single body, remember we talked about those support systems, the things that the body has to do. Well, just like in your home, you have to clean up your kitchen and, you know, do the dishes and things every day, so does our body. Right? We have a lot of things that happen on a daily basis, and so we have to clean up and do the dishes.
Thankfully, it all happens while we sleep. Isn't that nice? That's why when we wake up in the morning, the first thing we do is go to the bathroom because we have to, you know, empty the garbage disposal first thing in the morning. It's awesome. Our bodies are incredible that they're able to do this.
So first of all, go to sleep, you know, because your body needs that time to really be able to and I talk in the book if you struggle with sleep, because some I said that flippantly, but some people struggle to sleep at all. And I actually address a lot of those concerns, and a lot of them are related to oxygen and the way your mouth and airway and everything here is structurally formed in order to get enough. Which you know so much more about than the average, you know, functional medicine doctor who's talking about this. Yeah. Yep.
So I teach a lot about the structure and the function of the airway and the mouth and all those kinds of things because there are things to do to help somebody who's struggling with sleep. So you do need to sleep because that is the body's cleanup time when everybody else is just like when, you know, you're a mom and all the kids go to bed and you're like, oh, finally. I can go like, you know, because somebody's not going to mess up while I'm cleaning up, you know? So the body does the cleanup, but it needs a little bit of help. So there's two things that I recommend every single morning that you do.
One is dry brush. And people are like, what the heck is dry brush? So the lymphatic system is your garbage system. And what it is, is it is it's underneath the skin, and it is where all the dead stuff has to go. There's two garbage disposals.
One is the armpits, and one is the groin. There is no pump in the lymphatic system. So our heart has a pump. Right? Is the pump for the blood.
It pumps it around the body. There's no pump on the lymphatic system. So moving moves the lymphatic system, but we also need to help it. So what I do is right here underneath the collarbones, everybody can reach up underneath their collarbones and feel, there's a little depression right there. I like to think of that as the priming the pump.
We're gonna just kinda push on there just a little bit. You're gonna prime the pump. And what that does is it opens up that system, that lymphatic system to start to be able to drain. Then I recommend a dry brush, and you use a dry brush by just going along the skin and brushing towards the garbage disposal. So anything in the top half of the body, you're gonna brush towards the armpits.
Make sense? Everything on the top, you're gonna feel right behind your ears. Those are the tonsil lymph nodes. You're gonna pump those. You're gonna brush down the neck, down into that garbage disposal in the armpits.
Anything on the lower half of the body, you're gonna brush up to the groin. All you're doing is helping the body to dump. Why do you need that? Well, think about how well your kitchen works if the sink is full of dishes. Mhmm.
Can you make dinner very well? Does anybody feel very happy? You know, there's no, like, energy or excitement about doing anything. So you've gotta you've gotta help the body dump. So that's what I like to do.
I just do it. You know, I brush my teeth and we dry brush the body. Literally takes, like, thirty seconds. It doesn't take hardly any time at all. So I want everybody to put this into their routine.
You brush your teeth, you dry brush. Yeah. Next thing I love is lemon water with a little bit of salt in a glass of warm to hot water. Why? What are we doing with that?
Well, first of all, the lemon hits the liver and the gallbladder and it contracts. It's gonna dump all the last little garbage out of there. It's gonna help the body just, choop, get rid of everything else. So that's the reason for the lemon. The salt has minerals that your body absolutely needs to be able to generate that electricity we're talking about.
So salt, a little bit of lemon. Why warm water? Because people are often just gonna go dump it into a cold glass of water. The digestive tract actually has to wake up a little bit as well, And it has its highest efficiency about noon. So if you go dump cold glass water on this warming up digestive system, you're never gonna get it ramped up.
So it's never going to digest your food very well. So you're gonna feel bloaty and just kind of blah, you know, throughout the day as you're eating. Do not do that. In the morning, you shouldn't actually drink a big cold glass of smoothie or protein drink because you are putting out your digestive fire or strength right off the bat. Mhmm.
So warm water in the morning with some lemon and salt in it either before you brush or twenty minutes after. Otherwise, you're gonna brush your teeth away, so don't do that. And then dry brush. K? So that's first thing in the morning.
All you're doing, you're just dumping the garbage, taking the garbage out, cleaning the dishwasher. You know, you're just doing what you need to do. Midday. A lot of people, this is when they're feeling their best. Right?
You feel like, oh, I'm pretty doing pretty good. But about 2PM Yep. Is Is when things start to turn south. Why? Because you're running out of charge.
Just like your phone. You know, it's starting to get down to that red zone where now you're 20, 19, 18, and you start to feel it. Yeah. How do you rev that up? It's with real food at lunch.
So I recommend, even after lunch, an apple and some dates. Mhmm. Why? What are apples and dates when it comes to food types? Carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates. Fiber. Complex carbohydrates. So it's a slow drip of that sugar, which is your cell's preferred source, and it's gonna ramp you back up again along with an electrolyte. So every afternoon, I want people to drink an electrolyte.
Why an electrolyte? It's literally the charge. It's the electrons that bring the energy to your cells. And I I can say that's also I have a little toolkit for the afternoon crash, and it's exactly that. And this is not like, you will notice it day one that you do this.
If you can cut out simple carbohydrates at lunch and not eat crackers or toast or sandwiches, I hear a lot of sandwiches. I'm not anti carbs like you said. Yeah. But the simple carbohydrates of a sandwich, for many people, will tank their energy. Yep.
And if you can cut out the bread and change instead to a complex carbohydrate, like exactly what you just said, it will stabilize. You will not have that crash. And it's funny because the electrolytes are the second thing I always recommend. And for me, that was that was a complete game changer, but that's exactly what I tell people is a lot of people will wake up and drink it, like, when they go to the gym or after they get up get back from the gym. And I say, no.
Don't drink it then. Drink it at 1PM to 2PM Yep. And don't sip on it for the next four hours. Get it in Got a lot. And get the the sodium in.
I feel like I can feel it real time. Like, I feel like I feel this charge, this, like, whoop, this reboot of, like, my brain is more clear, my mood is better, my body feels a little more flexible, and it is something that I tell patients to do on a regular basis. And I very rarely have anyone come back who's like, yeah, I didn't really do anything. Most people will come back and be like, that was a game changer. So I just wanna second that if you're not already doing that.
I love that so much. So let's just clarify what an electrolyte is because this, I think, is a real misnomer. A lot of these words we use, but we don't know what they mean. Yeah. So an electrolyte is a molecule that carries electrons.
Mhmm. Alright? Electrons are batteries. Mhmm. That's what charges your batteries.
They're the literal electric carriers, electric charge carriers in your cells. So if you have a glass full of electric charge, you're just plugging in. Yeah. That's all you're doing. You're just plugging into the wall and getting your charge back up to, like, 80 again.
Maybe not to a 100, but to 80. Yeah. So thank you so much for saying not in the morning. That's not what you needed. And most people think electrolytes are just after you work out.
Yes. Well, the reason you think that is because you sweat out those electron carriers, those electrolytes. You sweat them out. That's why sweat tastes salty because it does have those in it. So, sure, you can.
Yes. But to recharge, you want them at 2PM. Especially if you're not a super sweaty person. Like, I'm not a super sweaty person. So if I work out, I don't know that I need those electrolytes right then.
Yep. If people are going to a sauna or they're going for a four hour hike, by all means, like, I don't mind if you also do it then. But that afternoon, yeah, that that completely makes sense. Yeah. People don't think of it.
They'll you know, a lot of times, I formulate a lot of products and people say, well, you make an energy drink. I say, well, the perfect energy drink is called an electrolyte. So just put some mineral drops in water if that's all you wanna do. You know? Just do some minerals in your water.
It carries electrons to your cells. Yes. So now we have the electrons. Now the missing piece, we have the carbohydrates. We have the electrons.
Remember that we're putting the pieces together of how we create energy. The last one we need is oxygen. And if you've ever run really hard or walked up seven flights of stairs, you know what lactic acid feels like. Right? You know that burn where you go, oh my gosh, my legs are just burning right now.
That is lactic acid buildup, and that is building up when you do not have enough oxygen to keep up with the energy demands of your cells. Yes. So that's why when you run past your fitness level, you get side aches and muscle burns because you've pushed past your, basically, your energy reserves. So how do you build up your energy reserves? By increasing your oxygen.
We don't breathe in today's world. We just kinda forget to do it. So what I like everybody to do around, again, two or 3PM is just to take a breathing break. And it sounds so weird, but honestly, we don't do it. So you're just gonna do some deep breathing routines.
I mean, even if you do nothing, you've got you know, that's it. I mean, you can also look online and find some nice little ones you can do, you know, but just ramp up your oxygen. Because if you add more oxygen to the carbohydrates or the fuel you've given yourself and those electrolytes, you now have everything to go from not running on lactic acid two miles an hour to going 34 miles an hour with the same fuel. So now you don't have to eat more to get more energy. You get more energy out of the food and fuel you eat when you add the oxygen.
I love that. So breathe. We forget to breathe. Mhmm. Just breathe.
And then in the evening, it's time to chill out. And this I am the very most biggest defender of this one, you know, because everything settles down. I'm like, oh, time to pull my laptop out and do a little bit more work. And I have really forced myself to just not. Yeah.
To do things that just don't you know, I'm sure I go and straighten up the living room and, you know, I do the dishes. You know, I do those kinds of things, but it's not gonna be hard work. It's not gonna be stuff that requires a lot of brainpower. It's not gonna be creative stuff. You know?
It's not when you have your deep, dark conversations with your family member. It'll only go bad if you do it. You know? Do not do it. It's the time to give your body a break and to say, okay, literally, my battery is on 10.
So now is not the time to ask myself to do more emotionally, physically, mentally. None of those things is not the time. Go to bed. Give your body a chance to dump all of its garbage, wake up in the morning, fuel yourself with that lemon juice, and then go do all your good stuff. Yeah.
So just be really conscious of the cycles of the body and the seasons of the body and the times. You know, there's a time for everything. And just just give yourself a little bit of grace. You know, if you're not super with it at 10PM, great. Go to bed.
Yeah. I I think this is so important. And so I'm glad you're breaking it down in such a detailed, doable way, because those are things that nothing you mentioned feels super hard. Right? It's not.
There are plenty of hard things that we should do, but that's not what you're talking about. These really are basic things, and and I I will say these are the same things that I recommend already in my clinic. And I think the idea of habit stacking, you know, the idea of, like, adding it on to what you're already doing, these are things that are so easy to have it stack. Right? You're getting up maybe you're already having a glass of water.
Great. Heat it up and put lemon and salt in it and call it good. I love that after lunch, I tell people to do it on the toilet, to do some breath work on the toilet because Yeah. Most of us are going to the bathroom sometime on our lunch break and sort of resetting there. And you're alone, usually, if you don't have someone, a little kid, you know, that's on your lap, like like I sometimes have.
But usually, you're by yourself. It's quiet. You can no one's watching. Right? You're in a stall.
And you can just take that moment to kind of don't take your phone and be scrolling all while you're on the bath on the toilet. But just take that moment to do that breathing work then and kind of take that chance to reset. I love that you use the idea of recharging because I think that we kind of, unconsciously maybe, believe that we should be able to run and run and run and run and run without recharging. Is there anything else you've just given us some really good ways to recharge ourselves. Is there anything else from this living well perspective that we can do to recharge?
Because we talk so much about, like, well, don't do that and don't do that and do go for your 10,000 steps and get your weighted vest and do all of these things, but none of that is really recharging. Right? Some of the things you've just talked about are are energizing the cells. Say more about recharging. So it's honestly about understanding again, how do the cells create energy?
Yeah. And where does it come from? Let me tell you a story of a woman. She had long term joint issues, just always sore, achy, and never could get past it. She's in her mid thirties, and it was really impacting everything on a daily basis.
And the interesting thing is, is her mother is a nurse practitioner in practitioner in rheumatology. So she actually works with people who have sore joints. Yeah. She's tried everything. Yeah.
Nothing was really making a difference for her. So we started working with her. And let me back up for just a second. I remember when I talked about how the question we should ask is, what do my cells need to stay well? Now, I've given some very generalized recommendations, but not every body has the same need because not every person's cells need the same thing Yeah.
During a certain time. Yeah. You know, we all go through what I call seasons or cycles where our cells need different things. So in the book, I actually have an assessment where you plug your symptoms into the assessment and say, yes. I have this.
I have this. I have this. I have this. And then I tell you what season you're in. Again, this is going back to the elements of the earth, the seasons of the earth that we all understand.
Because all of these one size fits all recommendations, even ones you were listing now, the 10,000, you know, steps and the weighted vest, are they right for everybody all the time? I'm gonna say no. They're not. Because not everybody needs the same thing and not your own body needs the same thing at every time as well. So this tells you your season, which tells you which cells need help right now.
Mhmm. So for Hannah, her name was Hannah, she plugged her symptoms in and it said you are in the season of spring. Spring season is all about detoxing. And she said, well, but I need energy. Like, I like my and my joints are sore.
Like, isn't that fall season? You know, she was kinda looking at the the information. Isn't that fall? And I said, well, your body's saying no. It's saying that it needs to detox, and perhaps that's why your joints don't feel good is because of that.
She said, alright. So I walked her through what we call a sell well formula, told her I need you to do these things that included everything that I've just told you now, you know, and a little bit each season has a little specific drink in the morning. Like, if you're in harvest season, you're gonna add some cinnamon to that drink, you know, but just just a little tweaks. So the next week I talked to her and I said, well, how are things going? You know, I was expecting, she was gonna say, I just feel so much more energy.
And she said, well, I don't think really anything's working. And I said, well, okay, tell me about your week. What happened? And she's like, well, I didn't really like your exercise program. You told me that I only needed to do, like, fifteen minutes walking in the morning, fifteen minutes walking in the evening.
And she said, I have been working really hard to lift heavy because I've been told that I have to lift heavy because I'm gonna, you know, have more more joint pain. So so I still went to the gym at 5AM and left it heavy. I said, okay. Then what did you do? Well, then I went into the sauna because that's what I always do.
And in the sauna, I sweated really hard. And then I went and had a real hot steam shower. Okay. So when did you had your lemon drink? Oh, well, I didn't really do that.
Okay. Then what did you do? Well, then I just, you know, I usually just get showered up, and I go to the go to work, and I start doing all my emails and all that kind of thing. And then, like, about 10AM, I usually have a protein drink. So you didn't change anything.
Exactly. And not only that, I said, okay. So how'd you feel like 2PM? She's like, I am totally dead. Like, my day is done.
I said, alright. So let me ask you this. What fuel did you actually give yourselves to do that heavy lifting workout at 5AM? What did you give yourselves? Well, nothing.
Okay. So you're asking your body to run on nothing, but then you're really upset with it when two PM comes and it's got nothing left for you. Yeah. You cannot run a car and never fill up the gas tank. So people are so concerned about food and the right kind of food, you know, and intermittent fasting and all these different things.
I'm like, no, no, no, no. Let's just stop and say, our cells need supplies. You gotta give them some fuel. They need oxygen. They can't be stressed out of their minds all the time.
And guess what that hour of heavy lifting, plus a sauna, plus a steam shower did? It stressed those cells so much, they dumped everything. Yeah. They dumped every bit of electrolyte you had ever given them. So how are they supposed to carry charge to your cells?
So she's like, well, but I just I just don't like what you said. You know, all these things didn't make any sense. And I said, but was what you were doing working? No. So isn't it worth it to try?
I'm laughing because This is my world. This is my world and I have the very best patients in the world. But a lot of them, I have to nudge a little bit strong. And it's the people, sadly, it's the people that feel like they're already doing all the things. Right?
Because they are. They're doing all the things that everybody says you should do, but that's the problem. Exactly. Not everybody should do them. That's exactly right.
And there's an order of operations. There's an order of what your body is ready for. And Yes. There are definitely people out there working out hard, lifting heavy at in the morning and then saunaing and and steam showering who feel amazing. Sure.
But if you're not, then there's something off. And there really is a lot of logic that can be applied through here. I think a lot of us are in the thick of it and are I think the desperation Yep. Can lead to a lot of grasping at straws. And so you listen to TikTok and you listen to Instagram and you're like Yep.
Someone said that's my problem. I'm gonna grab that piece of information. Someone said that's my problem. Okay. I'm gonna incorporate that.
And yet I don't feel better. And if you really what I get to do with patients is I get to go through the whole story and the whole routine. And when you're looking at it from the outside, sometimes it is pretty obvious, like like what you just explained. Like, well, what what do you expect your body to run off of? You you just had a really high exertion day with a protein shake four hours, five hours after the start of your day.
And protein's not what builds energy? No. Right. Right. And so it is and and I will just back you up here.
I this is what we get to do in clinic. And when people do shift and they do things in the right order and they they start fueling before they're exercising and and around their exercise and all of these different things, it really does make a difference. And for me, the the message that I would want everyone to hear loud and clear more than anything is that there's nothing wrong here. There are times when there's something wrong. Right?
Something's broken. But it's such a fraction of the time. The vast majority of the time, the body is doing exactly what we are telling it to do, intentionally or unintentionally, use it usually, unintentionally. But if you're, I call it running from tigers. Right?
If you're in really high stress zone and you're stressing your muscles by working out and you're fasting, which is stressful, and you're not getting any sort of nature rejuvenation with nature and vegetables and sun and air and and the elements that you're talking about, what exactly would you expect your body to do? Yep. I tell people it's like a recipe. Right? Like, if you put an avocado in a bowl and smush it up, you're not gonna get chocolate chip cookies.
Right? Like, there's there's Love that. There's just a disconnect there. And I think if we can do a little soul searching and look at our bodies, oftentimes, we don't need the fancy TikTok stuff. We can just back up and say, what is my body really asking me?
And then starting along what you're saying with these basics, these go way back to the basics. So I I laugh not to make fun of people because I've been there and I've done it and I've seen people do it. But, when when you're on the outside, it's like, oh, well, that didn't make any sense, did it? And it's it's so easy to get caught in that because we are in these trials of overwhelm and confusion. And I always say we are not lacking in information.
That's not the problem. We're lacking in clarity. And that's really what I try to do in the book is just say, okay, can we just talk about actually what makes your cells run? Can we just talk about what oxygen actually does? Can we just talk about, you know, some of these very basic things.
Can we talk about what water does? It just carries things to your cells. Yeah. And if it's full of stuff before it even picks up what you're trying to carry, it has no room for it. Like, you know, some of these just very basic.
And what I find is when all of a sudden it clicks and you go, oh. Yeah. That's how my cell works. So, yeah, it absolutely makes every sense in the world that I need to give it something before I go on a five mile run tomorrow morning. Yeah.
Otherwise, I'm just running on what I had yesterday, which means tonight, I'm gonna wanna eat food at about 9PM. I'm gonna have those crazy cravings because my body knows I'm not going to feed it anything at 5AM on my run. So now I'm eating at 9PM when my body can't deal with the food at that point. So it like shoves it over to your diet. Usually ice cream or something.
Yeah. Exactly. It's something sweet because it's fast energy and we're like, oh, we got to have something. So then it just keeps it over here and we can't figure out why we just put on 10 pounds. And, oh, so if I just give myself something first thing in the morning before my run, I won't need the ice cream.
Like, all of a sudden, the pieces just start to click. And that's really what I hope to do is, number one, give everybody a starting place. You take the assessment Mhmm. And it tells you where to start. Because, again, let's cut through the confusion.
Where do I start? Which cells need help first? That's it. And then what do they simply need using the elements of the earth? No crazy biohack that's going to cost you hundreds of dollars every month.
Just how do you simply eat and move in a way that you actually get the energy you need, the literal cellular charge and batteries that you need. Mhmm. It's it's such a good starting point, and it's so clearly laid out in there. Hey. It's Malorie.
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Now back to the show. Tell us a little bit more about what you mean by the seasons and where you found that coming up in some of these other traditions, health traditions. I think that there's a tendency to be like, oh, that sounds like crazy talk. Right? Like Exactly.
Help us understand what that means. I think it's a paradigm. Right? I mean, it's not necessarily literal, although sometimes it could be literal, but this is just a construct to understand the flow and cycles our body goes through. But Yes.
Help us understand that a little better. Yep. So it's all, again, from all of these traditional methodologies, they all used the seasons of the earth to describe wellness in some way or unwellness in some way. So again, I didn't come up with any of these things. I simply cataloged them and tried to make them in a clear, you know, clear format that people could understand.
So spring is all about the liver and the gallbladder, which is detoxing. So if you think about it, in springtime, what is the earth doing? My clearness is growing and creating. It's restarting, right? It's clearing out the old and starting the new.
And so this concept of spring is also to give you an idea of how to think about it in your own body. Okay, my body's ready to kind of start something new here. It's got to dump all the old stuff. But it actually can be literal. Because in the literal spring outside, the first things that grow are dandelions, are greens, things like arugula and spinach and kale and green onions and radishes.
Guess what are great for liver and gallbladder health? I love that. Isn't this cool? Yeah. So the Earth gives us so many cues if we just step back and pay attention.
So summer is all about the stomach and the spleen. It's all about heat and how does that work. It's all about the heart. K? Summer's all about the heart as well.
When we look in summer, what grows in the summer? Melons, cucumbers, very watery things. Guess what are great for cooling down? The heart, for soothing the stomach. So it is a metaphor or, you know, this construct to think about, but it also tells you to pay attention to what's happening during that season.
Harvest season, which is one that people don't know about, I've added a third one in there. Harvest season is all about the things that your body's trying to do. So it's large intestines. It's like that bringing into the body, and how do you strengthen that digestive system? Well, guess what's really good for that?
Things like potatoes and carrots and sweet potatoes and squash. Mhmm. What's during harvest season? Isn't that super duper cool? Mhmm.
Fall is all about the lungs and about the airway and the breathing system. Again, in fall, think about the wind blowing around the leaves and all of that. And there's a lot of white foods that are actually very good. And that's kind of what's happening during fall time. Everything's kind of clearing out and we're getting a lot of white foods.
So things like mushrooms and even dairy are sometimes really good at that time of season. So again, the earth gives us cues. Wintertime is all about kidneys and urinary tract and water and dark, dark foods, blueberries and blackberries and black sesame seeds and kidney beans are excellent to strengthen your kidneys and your urinary system, and they're that dark, deep color like winter when your body's regenerating. So, yes, it's a little bit of a, you know, a system or a paradigm to think about, but it also helps us think, what is the earth giving us right now? During, during the winter season, what is the earth providing?
Well, it's not giving us cucumbers and watermelon. So what should we be using from a supply standpoint, but also what is happening in the earth during a winter season? It's regenerating, it's recharging. That's not when you're going to be training for a marathon. When you got kidney issues, it's not when you're when you're training for a marathon.
You just shouldn't be doing it. Your body will not respond like you want it to. Yeah. So it's you gotta figure out where is your body right now and give it what it needs for its particular season. You know, it's interesting because this is it's soft science what you're talking about.
Right? This is suggestive and vibes and general zone of if you take this questionnaire and you answer these symptoms and it kind of puts you in this season, but you're also gonna have some in this season. It's interesting to compare to my medical training and yours Mhmm. Of conventional medical training of everything is so specific, but it breaks it down into such small individual pieces that this is where a lot of people find frustration is, as doctors, we want to get to the tiny little minute lab test, even in functional medicine, by the way. So functional medicine is saying, like, let's find the root cause.
But so often, they're not talking about the root cause. There's still a layer up from the root cause. Right? If you're talking about Epstein Barr virus, for example, like, oh, found the root cause. You have chronic Epstein Barr virus.
That's not the root. Like, all of us have chronic Epstein Barr virus. That's not the root. That's just one thing. You've gotta go a level deeper.
My point is with all of this, in medicine, we wanna break it down to the nitty gritty. Well, that that doesn't work because our bodies aren't the individual test. Our bodies are a whole morphine system, not morphine, a system that is morphing, that's changing constantly and going in and out of this flow. And for me and what I do, this idea of seasons and, like, support this system and then move on and support this system, it's so much more what our bodies need than when we break it down too much. And we see this even in the holistic community on, like, TikTok where it's like, so you wanna take this supplement for detox and this supplement for your brain and this supplement.
And by some of the way people talk, you would assume that all of us should need to be on at least 10 supplements. Mhmm. Need to, at baseline, for support, like, not even sick people. And that probably all of us should be on 50 supplements. Right?
And that's oversimplified. It's missing the point. The point is, how do we support our body in its natural flow and natural cycles? And from someone who treats periods, which are are the woman's most natural cycle that we have, it will not work. You cannot treat menstrual cycles by taking a single supplement.
It will never work. What you have to do is restore so much restoration of signaling with circadian rhythm and light and dark cycles and so much restoration of our metabolism and our digestion, which are the other natural cycles. So I just love the way you're describing this because it is somewhat difficult to talk about as a scientist. Right? Yeah.
Because things don't fit in a neat and tidy box. Well, guess what? Neither do humans. No. And so having this as a starting point.
Yes. You need lab tests sometimes, and and we both do scientific procedures and, you know, medical procedures. But as a starting point, do what makes sense and use the body's natural vibe of what it's feeling. And I think we can get so much further by kind of embracing this softer approach to the body instead of dissecting it. And functional medicine is doing it just as much as conventional medicine ever did.
I like both. I use both, but both of them kinda miss the mark sometimes. So that was a rant, but I'd love to hear what your thoughts are. No. I love that.
And when I was originally really delving into some of these more traditional medical methodologies and myself going through training, you know, I went through an intensive training on Chinese traditional medicine. One of my teachers, I remember him saying, do not fall into the trap of just using herbs as another version of prescriptions. Yep. Because he said that's what we, as just as a as a populace, have been trained to kind of expect. We have this symptom, and now we take this thing.
Instead of this prescription, we take this herb. Yes. We're really not doing anything much different. Mhmm. What we need to instead say is, why is my cell doing that?
Let's give it the support it needs not to do that thing, not to struggle like it is, and then we don't need this indefinite you know, I like to call it, like, my supplement supplement graveyard at home. Yes. Where, you know, you hear about something on social media and you go, oh, that sounds great. And you take it and you take it for like, you know, they make you buy it for three months and you take it for like two and a half and then you forget why you were taking it. Yes.
And you stick it in the graveyard and you go, well, that was an expensive graveyard over there, you know? And so, there are things that we, at times, have to do that are bigger, you know, that are more than just drinking lemon water in the morning and drinking electrolyte drink it too. There are some things. However, I really want to go back to what we said at the beginning. Our cells know how to keep us well.
Yep. And we've almost been trained to be at odds with our bodies and at odds with our cells. And our symptoms have been really talked about like they're the enemy. You know, if we have this symptom, whether it's a headache or a painful period or whatever it might be, that that's the problem that we are to fix. But that's the way that our cells talk to us.
Yes. And if we just cover that symptom up, we've simply basically discounted our body's innate ability to keep us well and to alert us when things aren't going right. We have to pay attention to the symptom. The symptom is the starting point. It leads you down the path to what you need to do to actually find what's wrong.
Yeah. So we need to trust our bodies. We need to remember how to listen to them. We need to pay attention to those symptoms and treat them for what they are. Not the problem, but the communication and the message ourselves are giving us.
And we need to trust ourselves and our intuition that, you know what, maybe we actually understand a thing or two because we live in these bodies. Yeah. They're ours, and our cells know how to tell us what they need. We've just forgotten how to listen, and we don't know how to translate what they're saying. So that was really my overarching mission is to give us the ability to trust ourselves, to trust ourselves both, you know, to really listen to what they're saying and understand what it means when we experience symptoms so that we can get to the root cause source for what we don't have and rebuild what we want, which is energy.
At the end of the day, I don't know anybody who doesn't want more energy. So there are ways to do it, and it's not just 15 more pills Yeah. Or 15 more hacks or, you know, any of the other things. It's simply saying, what do my cells need today? I'm gonna trust them.
They know what they're doing. They've been around a long time. They've been doing a pretty dang good job here. Let's just give them some hand, give them some extra help here, and figure out what it is that they're saying. So, yeah, we inside of every version of medicine can just fall back into the same old trap of just trying to patch things up Yeah.
Rather than actually fixing them and allowing the body to do what it knows how to do. Yeah. One of the themes that I see most often in my my patients who are really struggling the most to get better, they've tried all the things, they're not getting better. One of the things that we see come up is what I in my opinion, is a disconnect from our bodies where we and some of the people who know the most about functional medicine are are suffering the most from this because they want to know the thing. They wanna know they wanna do one more lab test, one more imaging test.
They wanna take one more supplement, do one more protocol, do one more program, and that will be the thing. If I can just find that one more thing. And what we don't realize when we do that is how much we're turning outside of our body. We're inadvertently giving our body the message of this is outside of me because I'm not enough. And I know this gets a little hippie.
Right? Like, I know that people are probably like, well, I mean, you know, strep throat is a real thing. And, like, yes. Yes. But if we're really getting down to, like, the belief system of how the body works, one of the things that that I really believe is that our cells are listening to us.
They are listening to our thoughts, and they are listening to what we feed them, and they are listening to what we do and program them. They're just they're waiting. They're not doing their own thing. They're listening. They're our, like, servants, for lack of a better word.
Right? Like, they're responding to what we're telling them. When we disconnect from the body and ignore those cues like you're talking about, we ignore the painful periods that are trying to knock like, tap on our shoulder and say, hey. Excuse me. I'm missing something.
Or, hey. Excuse me. You're you're eating something that's causing some inflammation. Instead, we disconnect and we think of betrayal. Right?
Like, oh, my body's the worst. One more thing it's doing. Like, last time, it was the uterus. Now it's the kidney. Like, figures.
Of course, you would, body. Like, these are the things that I hear from people, and it will not heal in that state. It won't Because we're disconnected from the body, and everything you're talking about is how do we not only reconnect to our body, but reconnect to where our bodies take their biggest cues from, which is the earth and the seasons and the elements and the cycles. And I I just I'm not perfect at it by any means, but I am super intrigued by it and very passionate about it. And I really think if we did as much as we could to go back into our bodies and back connecting to the earth, we'd all probably be a little bit healthier and unsubscribe for more TikTok and Instagram accounts.
Mine too. You know? If it stresses you out, like, by all means, like, stop watching it and go, like, go for a walk. I'm I'm being thrilled. Yes.
I have told more than one patient, like, you don't need more medical care. You don't need to come see me. You need to get off of TikTok, and you need to go hiking and spend time with your family. And it's probably not great for business, but it is deeply what I want for them is I want them to reconnect to themselves and to their themselves and to their body and to to these truths that are inherent. Whether you think it's hippie nonsense or not, the fact is this is where we came from, and it's what our bodies know.
So Yep. Another another little passionate rant from me. But yeah. And, you know, one of the things that's why I always like to talk about a cut in the finger Yeah. Because everybody gets it Yeah.
Because we've all done it. Mhmm. So we all see that our bodies are capable of a lot. Yeah. It did it without us even thinking about it.
Even if we don't understand it. Nope. It does it anyway. And here's the amazing thing too. Every single cell in our body will remake itself within a year's time.
So just because you're here today doesn't mean you're gonna be here in a year from now because every single cell is new. So every cell that's listened to what you told it, every cell that's eaten what you fed it, every cell that's done any of those things that have led to your symptoms today will be a new cell in a year. So you have every ability to remake yourself and allow yourselves to do what they intrinsically know how to do. Yeah. Well, I have so enjoyed this conversation.
I really enjoyed your book and reading about some of these these things that if you have read functional medicine books or health books, you will recognize similar things. Right? There's a lot that's not novel, but the way that it's described and the order of things and finding out where to start, I can think of at least three functional medicine books right now that if you read it, you will leave feeling completely overwhelmed. Like Yep. You just told me I needed to add 500 Mhmm.
50 new lifestyle things into my life, and I can't even do one. That is not the experience with your book. Your book is very supportive and very much, like, let's just slow down and tune in and and do a couple things that feel like they match what your body's telling. So I just love it. I'm I'm so glad that you took the time and effort to write it.
Thank you. Any just parting words? Any last words that you wanna share about this book or really more so about this concept of our own health potential, our potential to live well and be well and feel well? You know, I start the book talking about, a gentleman named Jack Lalaine, and anybody who's of my era knows him. Anybody younger may not have heard of him before, but, Jack Lalaine was really a pioneer in the health world, and he had amazing feats.
I was actually just in San Francisco last week, and I was remembering we were riding the little ferry out to Alcatraz Island outside of San Francisco, and I was remembering that he I I'm trying to remember the exact details, but he's some he's something like he swam from Alcatraz Island back to San Francisco, towing six boats handcuffed at, like, age 67. I mean, something crazy like that. You know? Something absolutely crazy like that. And you might think he was just made different.
You know, he just was a unique breed. And, you know, perhaps he was, but that's not where he started. He started off as a junk food junkie, and he really became converted by a health pioneer named Paul Bragg. Early, you might have people who know about Bragg Vinegar. This is the same Paul Bragg from Bragg Vinegar.
He learned from Paul Bragg and he decided that the problems in America were all about nutrition and exercise. And he opened the first gym in LA County, you know, clear back I mean, decades and decades ago. And he gave his cells what they needed to be able to swim from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco, handcuffed, pulling six boats at age 67. You know? He gave them what they needed.
It's not because he was genetically born with anything extra, super special. He just learned really early on how his body worked and what his cells needed and what he needed to give them so that they could give him what he needed. And so I want to tell anyone who's listening, this is not about sacrificing and denying things like donuts or ice cream. You know, it's not about that. It's saying, oh, my cells work best on complex carbohydrates.
Yeah. Alright. That donut actually isn't that, but that apple is. It doesn't sound really great, but I'm just gonna go try it first. If the apple isn't good enough, then I'll You know, it's just about giving yourself a little bit of permission to say, You know what?
I'm worth it. And I have the ability to be well and to do what I want, to have the energy I need. Your body has the capacity to do it, just like Jack Mulaney's body. It does. You just need to give yourself the okay to say, I'm worth it, and I can do this too.
And you can. I believe you can. I love that. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing your your wealth of information with us, and I hope people will check it out. Tell us where they can find your book and then where they can find you.
Yep. So Living Well with Doctor Michelle is the website. The publisher picked the name of the book. I guess they like that name, so they went with that as well. You can check out livingwellbook.com for the book or anywhere books are sold.
So Amazon, Barnes and Noble, everywhere. It's just going to be there. But if you go back to livingwellbook.com and put your info in there, I'm gonna send you a whole bunch of free stuff. You're gonna get a free assessment, a free first steps guide, a whole bunch of things. And everything that I talk about, I talk about for free on there too.
So check out the blogs, the YouTube channels, all those things. You're gonna find lots of information about all of this. I love it. Thanks for all that you do. It's been great talking to you.
Thank you. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. A huge thank you to our guests for sharing their insights and time with us. We are grateful for the incredible support from our sponsors and to all of you listening. We couldn't do this without you.
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