Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - BONUS: Tina Anderson - Good Gut Health For The Holidays

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Kaitlyn is joined by Tina Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Just Thrive! This former trial lawyer turned entrepreneur explains what inspired her to make the jump from the courtroom to pharmaceuticals, why she focused on gut health specifically, the importance of gut health to overall health, and how we can all achieve a healthy gut! She also shares how managing gut health can help with stress and anxiety. Thank you to our sponsor Just Thrive! JUST THRIVE – use code VINE to get 20% off the Just Thrive probiotic 90-day bottle and Just Calm at JustThriveHealth.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Conix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to a advisor free of charge but mGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with eye gaming ontario this episode of off the vine is brought to you by just thrive use promo code vine for 20% off a 90 day bottle of just thrive probiotic and just com at just thrive health dot com welcome to off the vine with kaitland bristow get ready to laugh connect and feel in powered with Caitlin and her guests as they sip wine, lots of wine, and get candid. They say vulnerability creates connection.

So save the highlight reel for Instagram because when we're among vinos, there's no filter. It's time to unwind. Here's your host, Caitlin Bristow. Welcome to Off the Vine. I'm your host, Caitlin Bristow. on Zoom with me today is the incredible Tina Anderson. So she is the co-founder and CEO of Just Thrive, the first 100% spore-forming probiotic and antioxidant supplement.

So Tina was in-house counsel for a family pharmaceutical company and left that job to focus on the field of natural health, which led her to discover the importance of gut health and how connected and crucial it is for our overall health and wellness. so you learn on today's podcast just how connected your gut is to your brain so how important your gut health is it helps you feel better sleep better it can change your mood it can help with depression anxiety i just really hope today's episode inspires you to take control of that gut health because it really actually did that for me hi how are you i'm great katelyn how are you

We're here. You've arrived and that's amazing. I'm so excited because I feel like gut health and just like all this stuff that we're going to talk about today is so like prevalent. I feel like everybody on social media is wanting to know more, learn more, hear more. And we're just we're just finding out so much information on it. So I'm excited to talk to you today. And for my listeners who aren't familiar with the brand, can you tell them a little bit about who you are and what just Thrive is? Sure. Yeah. So my name is Tina Anderson. I am. am the CEO and co-founder of Just Thrive. And Just Thrive, we launched as a probiotic company. So we launched a flagship probiotic, game changer. We were disruptors in the market. And then since then, we have

focused on research-based products that are primarily focused on the gut. Because, like you said, the gut is so, so important for virtually every aspect of our overall health. Right. Yes. I didn't, like I always heard. about gut health and all that but I was always like well I feel pretty good like I'm I think I've like good to gut health and then when I started doing tests and I went to this girl in Vancouver and we did everything blood work stool samples like everything to to get in there and I found out so much information like I I found out I had a little bit of food poisoning that was just sitting in my stomach that I had no idea like it was it was I don't know it's just um I feel like everybody

could benefit from looking into gut health you know what I mean even if you feel like you're an overall healthy person. So what made you decide to start your own business and go into that market? Yeah, it's kind of an interesting story. I am an attorney. So I was in litigation for many years. And then just after being in that crazy world and starting to have a family of my own, I decided that I didn't want that type of lifestyle. So I went into, I stayed home for a little bit and then I went to work for a family pharmaceutical business where I was able to have much better work life balance, worked on a part-time schedule. And I thought it was really great that I was in the pharmaceutical world because I'm like, oh, this is so fun to be doing something that's like

helping people and delivering these life-dating medications. But then after being in that industry for a while, my husband and I were both in the industry, we started to see a lot of the abuses in the farmland world, you know, the over-prescribing of medications. Yeah. And then people would be on, we had a relative that actually was on one pharmaceutical for one issue. and within a year was in on a dozen different medications and never getting better, you know, because this one, you know, prescription caused, you know, she took it for stomach issues, then it caused joint pain. And they took another prescription for joint pain and then it caused, you know, some other type of issue.

And it was just, it was just constant. And then we actually saw it in the industry. In fact, one story always comes to mind where my husband had just won this big bid for one of the largest hospital systems in the whole country. And the pharmaceutical rep came into our office and said, oh my god great job billy this is awesome we just won this huge bid and he goes now you know what my job is my job is to go to every cardiologist in this hospital system and have them lower the number to have the doctors prescribe the medications so that they would be prescribing more medication so

you know unfortunately we see pharmaceutical reps are educating doctors a lot of times the doctors are very educated smart individuals and um have so much to be proud of themselves um unfortunately they don't have enough time in the day to do the research. So they're counting on getting educated by pharmaceutical reps and by big pharma. And so why do you think that is such an issue? Like, is it just all money behind it? Is that like what is driving these people to do these things? Like it's just money. Well, I mean, it's a business. Yeah. Pharmaceuticals is a business. And I don't, and there's a lot of good pharmaceuticals. Of course. There are a lot of paid ones, and I don't mean to say, like, oh, it's the whole industry is awful.

Of course. We've started to see the abuses. You know, you've started to see if they reach this revenue number, then how are they going to reach it next year by continuing to push, you know, different products? And some of the products are really helping people and saving lives. But a lot of them, I just feel like pharmaceuticals in medicine is really great for acute situations, something that's temporary. And then also for emergency type situations.

I mean, I want to be able to have a hospital if I needed it for an emergency situation. It's just when you're talking about chronic conditions or talking about prevention, you know, about our maintenance of our health. The medical system, the insurance system, the pharmaceutical system is not set up to focus on prevention or maintenance of health. It's all about kind of putting a band-aid on something. So if you have gas and bloating, if you have anxiety or depression, if you have allergies, why? nobody's ever asking why do you have these things what is it what is it that's going on and it's not well because i eat a certain food we should be able to eat lots of different foods you know right that's our body is not meant to be so um afraid of all these different foods um in fact sometimes

i feel like we get ourselves more in trouble by eliminating so many foods and our diets so you know i think that the you know like most industries you know they start out really good and then there's just abuses that happen and i'm just very skeptical of a lot of, you know, pharmaceuticals out there because they're focusing on chronic, no one should be on pharmaceutical for the rest of their life. I mean, in my, I mean, without getting to the bottom, to the root cause. Yeah. I mean, you want to be on one, that's fine, you know, but you could at least get an opportunity

to figure out what's going on. Especially because it's, you know, it's your body. That's your home. That's what you have to, like, live in for your whole life and you want to be making sure you're taking the best care of it, not just, like you said, putting a Band-Aid over it. So that's, it's so interesting. Like, I want to know the lowdown on probiotics because there's so many myths out there and so much false marketing. So I always want to know like what people should be looking for and what to avoid.

Yeah. Well, I think the biggest thing is just to be, A, looking for a probiotic. Right. I think what people are starting to understand is like you said, you're hearing about gut health so much more on social media. Everyone's, everybody's experiencing gut issues. And what people are starting to understand. to understand it's not just your gut or you know digestive issues people think oh i have gas or have bloating or i have constipation or diarrhea those are indications that i need a probiotic or i need

i have gut imbalance or gut issues going on and yes those are definitely signs that you have some gut imbalance going on but what people are just starting to understand and what the science is so clear on is that you have allergies that's a sign of dysbiotic gut or an imbalance gut you have anxiety and depression, that you have mood issues. Those are signs of a disbiotic gut. You get skin rashes, you have acne. Those are all signals that your gut is disrupted in some way. And so that's where I think that's what's so scary and so exciting because we know that like our gut is dictating virtually all aspects of our overall health.

Right. I'm very passionate when I talk about like it's the foundation of our health. So we could be taking all these different multivitamin. a vitamin C, vitamin D, all these great vitamins. But if our gut is inflamed, which unfortunately most of this country's guts are inflamed, you're not absorbing the nutrients that you're taking in. And so the where you start with health is your gut and focusing on your gut health. All right. I have a question.

Are you feeling stress lately? I know the answer is yes because same, same. and I feel like everyone is feeling that right now. The hustle, the bustle of the season makes everyone just kind of a bit anxious, but I've got an insider secret for you to help you keep that holiday weight off and stress a little less.

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of the bottle guarantee. So take control of your health this season with Just Thrive. You're so knowledgeable and you have so much information. It's good. I was like, I'm like, talk the whole time. This is amazing. But like, how do you know which one to look for? I've actually, have so many questions.

But how do you know which probiotic to look? look for because yours is very science-based like yeah you know that is such a great question because it's flooded you know yeah yes marketplace is flooded with probiotics and so where we started when we launched is we decided you know I'm a huge believer in supplements unfortunately just like the pharmaceutical industry there's abuses in the supplement industry as well and so we wanted to do everything that was based on research and studies so one of the first studies that we did was a gut I'm sorry, a gastric survivability study. And that study showed that we took our probiotic strains and then the leading probiotics

sold at a major health food store and found out that that leading probiotic that's in the refrigerator that has 50 billion CFUs actually died by the time it got to the intestines. Wow. Where the strains and just thrive, because they're a very different type of strain, they're an endosporic strain, they actually survived 100% by the time they got to the intestines. So the biggest thing you want to look for with a probiotic is survival. Does it survive and make the journey from the mouth all the way to the intestines? The stomach is very acidic.

It's meant to be the gastric barrier. And so it kills off the overwhelming majority of probiotic strains. But to be defined as a probiotic, it actually needs to arrive alive in the intestines. And that's the biggest difference with just thrive versus the majority of the other probiotics on the market and you'll see like I always talk about the refrigeration myth that's one of my favorite myths out there people will be like oh my doctor told me to get one that's in the refrigerator and the bottom line is like and the reason the doctor says that is because we now know a probiotic needs to be alive yeah in order to find as a probiotic but it doesn't need to be alive in the

refrigerator it needs to be alive in your intestines right and that's where the majority of those if a probiotic can't withstand the room temperature of the store shelf Like, think about that. It can't even withstand. It would die if it just sat on the room temperature of the store shelf. Then how in the world would it ever survive your body temperature, which is 98.6, let alone the gastric, you know, system. That's a good point. So we have studied this over and over and over and over again and found that the strains just thrive to survive 100% alive.

They get to the intestines, and then they go and they stay there about 21 to 28 days where they start working throughout the intestinal tract. So the biggest thing is survivability. That's so interesting. I mean, people would not know that, right? So it's that like that to me makes so much sense, but I wouldn't have known that or thought about that until I hear you say it. So, and then what are some things people should avoid when they're getting a probiotic? Well, I would probably say not to get one in the refrigerator because bottom lines,

if you can't withstand the room temperature of the store shelves, and it won't. And I think, and it's not even just about a probiotic. I mean, my bigger picture is just gut health. You know, what is it that we should be focused? I'm so passionate about gut health. And there are other things besides taking a sporebase probiotic that you could do. You know, like meditation, people think of it as like, oh, that's woo-woo. But actually calming your mind down actually sends signals down to your gut.

And then the opposite is true. So if your gut is healthy, you're taking care of your gut, you start to be calmer because those signals, there's something called the Vegas nerve. And it's like I call it the communication superhighway. and it's sending signals back from the brain down to the gut. And that's why, you know, we get those butterflies in our stomach. You know, people will always say like, oh, you know, there's no connection between the gut and the brain. It's like, oh, my gosh, like, think about that.

When you're nervous, you know, your stomach starts, you have butterflies or you're excited to have butterflies or you start having to go to the bathroom more. Even everyone's saying, like, you know, trust your gut, go with your instinct, trust your gut. That's so interesting because that right there, that saying shows that there is a gut brain connection. that's true right absolutely yeah i mean it is so important and that's why we see people who will just start just alone on the probiotic and they start to say oh you know i'm sleeping better or you know they they start taking it because they have some gas or bloating yeah all of a sudden they're like i'm sleeping better i feel like i'm in a better mood yeah you know 90% of our serotonin is produced in our gut and serotonin of course is our happy hormone gaba is produced in our gut which is

our calming hormone. Dopamine is produced in our gut. So it's really, I can't overstate enough how important our gut health is to everything. Yet to your overall health, it's literally the root of it. So where does all this bad stuff happen? Like how do you just keep your gut happy and healthy? Like what causes it to be an issue in the first place? Yeah, no, great point because that's the sad part of the story is that we know that the environment that we're living, the world we're living right now is so disruptive to our gut health. Yeah. Now, we are 99, we are 99% bacteria.

I mean, we are more bacterial cells, 10% more bacterial cells, 10 times more bacterial cells than we are human cells. So that's so important to like 10 times more bacterial cells than we are human. And yet we do all these things to disrupt our bacteria. You know, the hand sanitizers, for example, are very, you know, we're killing the bacteria on our hands every day. And like, these bacteria are beneficial to us. We always think people are trained to say, like, bacteria is bad. There are definitely, there's definitely bad bacteria out there. But only, like, less than 1% of bacteria out there is actually harmful.

The majority of the bacteria that living, that's living in and honest are incredibly beneficial to us. Wow. So that's one really important point. And so, you know, not taking antibiotics regularly, you know, avoiding antibiotics foods that are loaded with antibiotics. Unfortunately, antibiotics are killing off the good thing is they're killing off the bad bacteria, but they're also killing off the good bacteria, which is not good. So people are taking antibiotics like, no big deal.

Now you're seeing that kind of trend, doctors not prescribing antibiotics as often because now they're realizing how disruptive they are to our gut help. And now we know the gut is like dictating all aspects of our overall health. Then we also have like glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup. So it's sprayed all over our produce and our food supply, very disruptive to our gut health. I mean, this is why we're seeing so many kids with allergies. I mean, I'm so particularly passionate about that. When I was a kid, I knew one one classmate who had an allergy, a peanut allergy, from kindergarten all the way through the end of high school.

And now, of course, we know there's peanut-free tables. Allergies are so prevalent. And this is because of the world that we're living in. Household products that are killing off, you know, 99% of the bacteria. You know, the ones that say there was actually a study that showed households that use those products that, say, kills 99.99% of the bacteria, actually have children with a higher incidence of allergies and autoimmune issues because we know that they're, and those killing off that bacteria all the time It's just very disruptive to our gut.

Wow. So that's the bad news. But the good news is that we really do have ways to help heal our gut. You know, I mean, they're really, our gut can be healed. And it's just about really making like small lifestyle changes, you know, avoid trying to eat clean as much as possible. So like avoiding like, so should it be organic like at the grocery store? Because I think a lot of times I'm like, is it organic? Are you just saying it's organic?

But like, does organic? mean they're not spraying the protose with that? Like, is that why you should get the organic ones? Exactly. Okay. And unfortunately, now, even organic food, like you said, does have some trace amounts of, you know, the pesticides in there because it's in the rainwater now. Right.

Now it's just being sprayed everywhere. And that's why, like, if you go to Europe, you don't have those effects because they don't. I know. I mean, a lot of the countries banned, like, glyphosates. Do you think that we would ever live in a country? Like, would they ever ban those? here? I don't think so. It's like the lobbyists are just too powerful. Yeah, that's so true, though,

when you go to Europe and you, you know, like the lifestyle over there and the food, everything is so fresh. I remember when I was in Germany, I had to get produce and eat it within like two days or else it was bad because it was so fresh. And there was not all those, you know, things sprayed on it to keep it just, you know, whatever was going on in there. And it was, I, I never had bloating. I never felt like so full that it was like uncomfortable. I felt like I digested everything better. I felt better overall. That's so interesting. Yeah, that's real. I mean, a lot of people say, oh, that's just because you're on vacation. Well, I've been on vacations in the United States and I haven't had that experience. So yeah, I, it is very real.

I mean, these are real problems that we have in this country. But there's a lot of great things in this country, too. So I don't want to. Right. It's just, you know, we just have to be aware of that. And there are certain things we could take control of. And it's, I mean, obviously, eating organic is more costly. But even if you start introducing a few things, you know, organic and just stay away from processed foods and stay away from sugar. And I don't want to say this, but alcohol is, you know, bad. I don't totally always stay away from alcohol either.

Yeah. I'm in Miami right now. I've had some wine last night. Yeah. I figured out what the heck, you know. I know, I mean, I think people get so overwhelmed with the lifestyle changes. because they think it has to be this big grand, like, change everything. But really, like you said, it can be as simple as changing a couple things,

taking baby steps, seeing how you feel, and going from there. Because it's, and taking a probiotic. I'm like, I've, like, how long does it take to see results when you're, when you're taking just thrive probiotic? Yeah. So, you know, some people will see results within a couple days and some it takes a couple months. You know, it all depends on what you're dealing with.

But we always, I always recommend people staying on it for at least three months because it really, then you start to see really the difference. Yeah. You know, you can stay on in a month and you might notice some things, but the really profound changes seem to start happening after a couple months. And it's, it's just so excited to go to the bathroom regularly. And people don't realize what, like, I had no ball issues when we launched this company. And it was like, but I thought I didn't. And I mean, I probably didn't have that bad. Right.

But then, on the sudden, I'm just like, oh, my God, this is what it's like to be regular. This is what it's like just go to the bathroom every day. And you just feel lighter and you feel, you know, you're getting rid of those toxins. Like, we want to be able to go to the bathroom. And the interesting thing is people will think, you know, whether you have constipation or diarrhea, it doesn't matter which one. I mean, that's telling you, you have an imbalance going. So it's not like you're going to start taking this and you're going to, you know, have diarrhea or something. Right.

you're going to, you know, you had diarrhea and you're going to be constipated. It doesn't work like it's just about rebalancing your gut to get yourself in a more natural place to begin with to start, you know, supporting your bowel function. Is there any side effects to look for when taking it? Yeah, no, great question. Sometimes people will get like a die off, you know, they'll get, and what that means is these strains are actually killing off the pathogenic bacteria. they're helping bring our good bacteria back to life, and then they're helping kill off the pathogenic bacteria in our gut. So sometimes people might feel some more gas or bloating,

or some, they might feel, I mean, they could feel lots of different things, but all we ever do is say, like, that is actually a good sign, because that actually means it's moving. Yeah. And so, but I don't want anybody to be uncomfortable. Right. So we would say to go slower. So you could go maybe one other day.

You could open the castles and make food and boo. you can do a half a capsule every day, just go slow, but eventually titrate up to that one full capsule a day. And it's literally the easiest thing you could do. I mean, it's one capsule with a meal. We recommend taking it with a meal. You could certainly take it on its own. But you could, or you can take it on empty stomach, but we have a study that shows it actually works better in the presence of food. Okay. So I would recommend taking it with food. Okay. And you have other products too like there's so many again products out there for stress and mood support but what makes just calm different because that's another product that you have yeah well so like I had mentioned earlier

you know serotonin is produced in our gut 90% of our serotonin virtually all of our serotonin is produced in our gut so I've always felt that psychiatrists and you know doctors have had their hands tied with like SSRIs and anti-anxiety meds because they've been treating the brain we're really so much of this is stemming from the gut. And so we know the probiotic alone should help people with that there's LPS toxins that seeped from the gut into the brain and causes brain inflammation. So we know that the probiotic strains, we've done a double-blind human clinical trial showing that it's slowing down the LPS toxins from sleeping into the bloodstream. So we know the probiotic alone should be really beneficial with mood issues and just calming yourself down. But we also know

there's another 50% of our stress, and what that's caused by are those external stressors that we deal with. We get cut off in traffic. We have a deadline. You know, we're looking at our to-do list. We've got way too many things on our plate. Like, everybody can relate to that. We also know that stress is at an all-time high ever since COVID. I see this in children more than we ever had before. It's so sad. And we know that we need to focus on these external stressors. So our product, Just Calm, is a probiotic strain that has been extensive. studied. It's called Bifidot-Longham 1714. And this strain has actually been shown to have you be able to deal with stress better. It brings down cortisol levels. It's putting you more in that

flow state, in that calmer state. So it has been, I mean, we have just had an unprecedented launch, which is sad because it means that like it's so relevant right now. And people are just, there are unprecedented amounts of stress out there. But it's also really exciting that we know when we get to the cause, which is the gut, we start to see these profound changes in people and being able to handle stress better. You know, the study that we did on this was they took a study and they found that people who have higher levels of this 1714 strain in their gut were people who could deal with stress better. You know, those people, I'm not one of them, but you know, the people that can like look at it, they hear an ambulance and they're like freaking out. And then

there's someone who's like, looks at an ambulance is like, oh, they're just doing a practice training or they're looking for like a cat stuck in the tree or something. But so it's it's a very it's these strains are actually helping to deal with stress better and be able to handle those external stressors and even cognitive function, you know, for, you know, exams, people studying my sons in college, you know, studying for exams or a presentation. My daughter was doing a big presentation and, you know, you're just able to handle that, those stressors better and be able to have even better cognitive function moving forward.

Wow. I mean, there's just so many benefits. It's crazy. I'm like, I can't, I can't wait to start. I need to do it now yesterday. If someone can buy like one product, where do you recommend they start? Yeah, I would definitely recommend starting with the probiotic. So it's just thrive probiotic. And the 90 day is what I would recommend because you really want to see a difference. And I also recommend people kind of starting out with like one product and then introducing another one maybe three to four weeks later. that you could really see what affects, you know, you're feeling from it. So if you start on too many products at the same time, as much as I would watch for everyone about it. Right. Of course. I just think it would, I think it's better if you go slowly and really start to see, you know, it's so exciting to see when you start to feel better and noticing it and even journaling about it.

But I really recommend doing the 90 day because it's you really, we have a 90 day product. It's definitely our top seller because of that because people want to see the difference and then they fall in love. with it. Yeah. And we were talking about, you know, how in, we've never seen so much like stress in kids even from COVID. Can children take the probiotics? Oh, absolutely. So they are in a capsule form, but you could open the capsule. Like I think I mentioned, you could mix it with food. They're tasteless, colorless, odorless. So, you know, a child wouldn't even know it's wherever you're putting it in. Right. You could even bake with it. We tested them. These strains survive up to 455 degrees. So you could sneak it into, you know, your child's food.

I used to put in my son's piping hot oatmeal. Yeah. You know, it's really, it's been, it's great that it's so versatile that you could, you know, open it up. It's so important for kids. I'm so passionate about kids because, of course, I'm a mother of three. Yeah. I just, I see what's going on with the kids and the stuff that they're eating and putting and consuming. It's just, it's sad.

And really important for pregnant moms. That's a really other, a really important point I want to mention is that the only time you are inocular. with your bacteria is through vaginal childbirth, breastfeeding, and close skin to skin contact. That is, you, you are, as a pregnant mom, you are literally passing on your gut bacteria to your child. So as a pregnant mom, I mean, I cannot stress this enough. You have got to take care of your gut health because you are, that is the best gift you could give your child is to take care of your gut health because that is the time that you are giving your bacteria that you will have for the rest of your life.

It's not to say you can't, you know, fix it and clean it up. But, boy, what a nice gift to give your child a healthy microbiome. Yeah, no kidding. And, like, how do people find out if they have gut issues? Is it really just through the stress, the acne, the rashes, the, like, your body reacting, the allergies? Is that those are all just, like, telling signs? Or is there tests people can take to check their gut health?

Yeah, well, I always, there's something called a leaky gut. And we did an all-blind human clinical trial and leaky gut. And leaky gut is pretty much what it sounds like. Those LPS toxins that I was talking about seep into the bloodstream and start causing this inflammatory response. And they estimate that 80% of the adult population has a leaky gut and doesn't mean. The leakiness of the gut is responsible for heart disease, diabetes, you know, Alzheimer's. I mean, in fact, there was a study on Alzheimer's that came out that the number one driver of Alzheimer's is LPS toxins leaking into the bloodstream. But this leakiness of the gut is so detrimental.

So I would just kind of, if you have any of those symptoms, you know, if you have acne, if you have allergies, of course, if you have allergies or an autoimmune disease, if you have gas, bloating, diarrhea, all of those things, skin rashes, you know, pretty much have some gut dysbiosis going on. There are stool tests out there, like you had mentioned. I get a little bit concerned about stool tests because they just don't give a full picture. You know, somebody like I give the analogy of like if you go to the city of Chicago and, you know, you kind of sample one neighborhood and it's really not represented of the entire city of Chicago. And so it's the same kind of problems.

It could give you some insight, but it's not going to give you. Because it's all going to depend on what you ate that day, how you're feeling that day like certain things of that time. Exactly. Yeah. And it's only one part of your intestinal track that it's actually testing. So I think it's safe to assume that we are living in a world that's very disruptive to our gut health and that we are consuming offenders to our gut health every day. So which is why I think it's, you know, why I think it's important to take, you know, vitamins and different nutrient like vitamin C,

vitamin D, whatever it might be because we're our society is, our food supply is deplete of a lot of these nutrients. And that's the same reason why I feel you want to be starting your gut health journey because we know that we're, really doing all these things that are so disruptive to our gut on a daily basis, even if we try our hardest to eat clean and do whatever. It's just, it's so, so tricky. Of course, I would say to just eat clean and eat really healthy and stay away from processed foods and sugar and alcohol. But, you know, the reality is, you know, most of us can't do that on a regular basis. What is an example of processed food, like stuff in bags and like, like what I, like I hear processed foods and I'm like, I think I have an idea, but like, could you give us?

examples? Well, you know, that's what's so funny. I think there's, I don't even believe that so many people eat these processed foods. Then I look at studies and how many people just, I mean, I'm thinking even just fast food. I mean, that's probably the biggest offender out there, the fast food that's out there. Shit, I ate McDonald's yesterday. I ate airplane food yesterday. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. But, you know, like the lunchmeats, you know, you see those like lumpy bowls and things like that, those processed foods a lot of the lunch meats are there like anything like we say like in the middle of the grocery aisle you want to stay away from you want to be on the fresh um you like the

produce aisle the meats aisle um if you eat meat you know um that you just want to stay away from all of that stuff that could sit like you to your point sit on a shelf or you know right they sit on a shelf they could be there for 10 years and not ever get any mold on them so yeah that's always concerning that was i know they did like a study one time about like a mcdonald's cheeseburger that did that like it just stayed the same look the same for like like three months and you're like oh hey are you feeling stress lately i i just feel like i wanted to ask because i am too so i figured you might be because the hustle and bustle of the season just makes everyone a bit

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I do want to switch gears a bit because I always love supporting like fellow female entrepreneurs or any entrepreneurs. And I want to, I know my listeners kind of like get so into that stuff too because we're all living in a world where we can get passionate about what we want to do and kind of go after that. what advice would you have for those who want to build something on their own and where do they start oh boy it's so funny at my i was at dinner with my niece and my daughter last night and they were asking the same thing and i uh you know i i a lot of it i i feel honestly i feel

like a lot of what happened with us was luck being at the right place at the right time i'm a very my husband and i are both deep thinkers we read a lot of norman vince appeal and wayne dyer and we do like meditation and we believe in like, you know, energy and putting the right energy out into the world. And so we did a lot of that. And we, that's how we were able to license these strains from London University. One of my husband's colleague, actually, his natural pathic doctor and colleague was able to, he contacted us about these strains. But I think following your, you know, of course they say follow your passion, but just you know you're going to work harder than you've ever worked in your life. I mean, I was a trial lawyer. I worked crazy hours. And,

You know, that was nothing compared to what I did as an entrepreneur. And at the time, you know, I had three kids that were in high school in sports and running out and all. It was a lot. But it's so, it's just so fun to do what you love to do. And I think you should focus on serving people. I think that, and service could look so different. It's not like you have to serve people by bringing this, you know, health product. I mean, there's a lot of ways that you serve people, whatever it is that you do.

I mean, what you're doing and bringing reality stars, onto your show and bringing people like me onto your show. Like you serve people in so many ways, you're entertaining them. And it's just when you come from like giving good and always, for me, I love to just truly help our customers out. We've always been about customer service. And in fact, if anybody, you know,

we have like a product coach on our team. And you know, if you call our number, you're gonna talk to a human and that kind of thing. But just kind of remembering where you started from. And the other big thing is we never took a lot of money out of the business. We always put it into the business to continue to grow. I think that's because we were older when we launched, you know, when you're a little younger, it's a little bit harder to have that discipline, but just to really try to keep, um, putting, re-investing in your team and, um, yeah,

we love our team or we love the culture that we created. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's so hard, because you don't know what, you know, industry, somebody wants to go in, but find what you're good at. And I think that's really great advice. I love to do what you're good at, you know? I mean, and that's what I told, you know, my daughter last night, my name, my name, you know like with the jobs that you're in right now you work really hard save as much as you can and develop skills like you give everything to your current employer that you possibly can because you're learning at that time and then and then you're going to take those skills and you're going to develop and network meet everybody that you can yeah I think that's probably my

biggest takeaway from last night's conversation was just meeting everybody that you can and networking and really loving people that you meet along the way yeah because you never know who it's it is it's just crazy how like networking doesn't have to be like let's go here and meet these people and make sure we're around this kind of person like you can go anywhere and meet the most fascinating people and learn from them like even if they're not in the industry that you want to be in it's just like if you are open enough to go you know have a have a conversation with somebody that you wouldn't normally talk to like if like for example i went to a hockey game and we're in a box suite and sometimes

I'm like really people would never believe this but sometimes I'm an introvert and like if I don't know you but I was like I'm just going to like talk to people and see like you know I'm I don't know I just and it was crazy I met people that were so connected in the wine industry and I have a wine label and I met people that like had this a fascinating person that I'm now going to have on the podcast like it's just you just never know you know what I mean I mean I went to one of my first events after we launched the business, I felt like an imposter syndrome, you know, I'm like, and even though I know I'm a lawyer and I had this career as litigation, but what I was doing now, I didn't know, I did not know anything. I didn't know about anything. They asked, what's your core competency?

And I'm like, gosh, what is my core competency? And it was, and I wrote down like relationship building because I love people. Like, I genuinely love meeting people and love learning from them. And that has helped me in business, but I didn't know that. I just thought, that's just what you did. that he loved to meet people, learn from people, but I guess they don't, and apparently that has helped me. And now that I look back,

I realize that even the relationship with our supplier, the relationship with the influencers that we've met, I've just become really good friends with through the years because I just genuinely have learned to love them. And I think, you know, it's been a mutual relationship moving forward. So you don't know, like you said,

you know, you meet someone that has, like, the wine label. Yeah. It's pretty cool. It's just you could always learn something from everybody. Yes. gosh absolutely i i take that in um like when people my girlfriend was just talking about how upset she was that she was dating this guy for years and that now they ended it and she was like it just feels like such a waste of time and i was like absolutely not because you probably learned so much and got so much information from that relationship to help you grow to like you know build you up for your

next relationship whether you know like it's it's you're always learning from every everyone even if you aren't fond of them anymore you've learned something from them and I think that's an important way to look at look at that especially in business you know as well what is what is your yeah what is your favorite aspect of owning and growing your own business oh definitely building a team that was an unexpected bonus in being an entrepreneur when we started to build a team we are very my husband and I are very focused on culture very focused on giving our employees an opportunity to, you know, live a great life in addition to working really hard. So we always, we never missed our kids games or sporting events or

holiday sings or anything like that. And we don't expect our team to either. And it's been, and they're also like, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm like, oh my God, thank you. You're building our dream. You are doing so much for us. And so we, I just, I love that we're all friends we have we just got over our annual retreat we had a huge annual retreat in Scottsdale and we just have had I don't know we I think building a team it is important yeah it's important and it's also like you said it can be so much fun because at the end of the day you got to treat them like family when they're helping you build your dreams so I love that gosh I had something that I wanted to say that wasn't in my notes and I am blanking on it oh I know

you and your husband have been together for what 30 years? Almost in May will be 30 years. Wow. Okay. Number one, congratulations. Number two, are you doing anything fun for your 30th anniversary? Yes, we are. So we don't know what yet, but we decided we're going to take, we always go away just

the two of us anniversary. But we went back to Bermuda for our 25th, which is where we went for our honeymoon. But this year we're going to do a Europe trip with all of our kids and my son-in-law and my daughter's boyfriend. So there'll be seven of us total. my two daughters and my son and then with their significant others and we're going to go somewhere in Europe we're not sure you wear yet but for like maybe 10 days or so so I'm excited for that so that's amazing I was looking up last night randomly because I did spend some time in Germany I

I was there for quite a few months and something that makes me so happy is the German Christmas markets I talk about them all the time and I've told Jason since the day I met him I was like we need. Like, I want to take you to the German Christmas market. So I was looking up last minute flights last night just to go to Germany for like five days and go to the Christmas markets because it's just the most magical thing on planet Earth. That sounds amazing. We're a very Christmas romantic family. So we love everything. So I'm going to have to look into that for next year because, oh, we would love to do that. And I always ask people, especially people who have been together that long. I come from a divorced family. Jason's parents have been married for

37 years, I believe. And I always just ask what do you think it is that, you know, has made you two last and stay together that long? Yeah. There's probably a lot of things. You know, I do, like I know it's so cheesy, but I do feel like we are each other's soulmates. I mean, I love that. From the minute we met, I mean, we were just connected. It was very fast. It was fast love and it was really great. We both come from very similar backgrounds, very similar family lives. Our parents have now become really good friends. That's been good.

But I just, I mean, we just put ourselves, we put each other first a lot of times. Even though we did really put our kids first probably a little bit too much, but because we've never missed any of their events and all that. Right. We both loved it, so that was good. But we're, I mean, my husband's super, like, romantic, very touchy feeling. Like, we just, we hold hands. all the time. We go back to the basics. You know, we actually are in Miami right now for a couple

days. We decided to get away for a couple days. And we were just walking this morning on the beach holding hands. And like, I don't know, he's just a, he's such a great guy. And so that is, that is so cute. Jason, I always talk about this because my grandparents were married. I mean, they, so they met in kindergarten and never were with anyone else. They were like best friends in kindergarten and then like fell in love and then they never were with anyone else and even before like in their 90s they would still hold hands and like they were so cute uh i visualize i see these older couples like walking down because i don't think of myself as old yet no these older couples and i'm like oh my gosh like that's what i want to be and i think i've

always visualized my and i think visualization is a powerful thing yes one thing is that we live in this society that's like you know the minute you get married it's like oh a wife is a nag and your husband is boring or you know they have stereotypes I just I would just caution people to like not buy into it or you hate your in-laws you hate your parents or like you create your own future and you're marrying someone and choosing to spend the rest of your life with them because you love them and like why not feel that that same way 30 years down the road or if not more you know I feel I'm way more in love yeah a lot of a lot of noise gets in the way way of of what relationships like you know what they the stereotypes around it you know what i mean like

that a lot of noise happens that can disrupt the relationship so i think that's yeah that's you you create what you want out of the relationship so i love that you've like visualized that i'm like such a divorced like a family um child of divorce i'm like i see people falling out of love and no holding hands at the age of 80 i'll be alone forever No, I'm not that depressed. That's great, though. Well, happy anniversary for when that happens. That is amazing.

And then I just wanted to ask you what you think the most important thing that you hope listeners take away from this episode. Well, just that, you know, it's all about gut health. I mean, I cannot stress that enough. And like we said, just give everyone, just give yourself like grace when you're doing it. Take baby steps. And do certain things. just help support your gut health, but I just would love that people started to like research and empower themselves overall. That's one of our biggest poor values is empowerment. I, I just

am passionate about having people take control of their health and start to understand, listen to podcast like yours, listen to read blogs and, you know, we have, we do a lot of research on our articles. We invest a lot in our blogs because we want them to be research focused, but start empowering yourself on your health and know that it's all about the gut. And the more research you do, the more you're going to see that to be true. It's just we need to focus up on our gut health. And actual research. I feel like there's so, you know, so many frauds out there on TikTok pretending to be experts on everything. So where can people find you online and be able to purchase your products? The best place is just thrivehealth.com. Okay. And we have a coupon code for your

listeners. So for the 90 day probiotic and the 90 day of the just calm, we have a 20% off discount. And we usually only do 15% off on podcast, but I gave 20% off for the 90 day because I'm really starting to see how important is to stay on it for the 90 days. So we have a deeper discount for the larger product because I think you'll start to see the difference that way. Amazing. I can tell you're at the one hotel, aren't you? I am. I'm a I'm obsessed. I've stayed there a couple times. It is my favorite hotel. My girlfriend and I were just talking about it yesterday because we're going to book a trip and go there. I love that hotel so much. It is amazing. See, that's what happens when you have a 24-year-old daughter that decided to join. She's like, can I come too? And so I'm like, okay, you can come too. So she's like, we have to stand the one. And I'm like, I don't even know what it is. And it's like the average age is definitely skewing towards her age, not mine. Oh, it's, I just love it. The rooftop pool, everything.

I just, the smell, go by the candle of the one scent. It is everything. Oh, I can't wait. Oh, I'm so excited because I love my candles. Oh, my gosh. This one is incredible. It's, um, I order them online all the time and it's always being burnt at my house because it's the best smell ever.

Um, but thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and knowledge and sharing that with everyone because I agree. I think it's so important. And I think, um, I think being. able to approach it like baby steps and think about just the small changes that you can make and the fact that your gut is connected to your brain and we all could use a little help there right now. So I appreciate you and really enjoyed talking to you today. Oh, well, it was so much fun talking to Caitlin.

And tell your daughter, I say hi. Oh, I will. Amazing. Thank you so much. Okay, bye-bye. Okay, bye. episode of Off the Vine. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow on your favorite podcast platform. And we'll see you next Tuesday.

This episode of Off the Vine was brought to you by Just Thrive. Use promo code Vine for 20% off a 90-day bottle of Just Thrive probiotic and JustCom at justthrivehealth.com.