Pursuit of Wellness - How Organic Olivia HEALED her Chronic Illness: Ancient Medicine, Blood Sugar Balancing, and Self-Discovery

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Ep. #129 Join me for another episode of the Pursuit of Wellness, I am joined today by herbalist and CEO Organic Olivia. She shares her journey from a pharmaceutical-dependent upbringing to discovering the healing power of traditional herbalism. Olivia opens up about her family's health struggles and the generational cycles that led her to seek holistic alternatives. Tune in to hear her story of transformation and how she balances productivity with well-being in her current work. Leave Me a Message - click here! For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Mari’s Newsletter click here! For Olivia’s Website click here!   & use code POW15 for 15% off For Olivia’s Instagram click here! For Olivia’s Podcast click here! For POW Brand Promo Codes click here! Sponsored By:  Bite is offering our listeners 20% off your first order. Go to trybite.com/POW or use code POW at checkout to claim this deal. That’s trybite.com/POW. Visit clearstemskincare.com and use code POW at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. Again, that’s code POW for 20% off your first purchase on clearstemskincare.com. Sleep is the foundation of health, and there is nothing better than waking up feeling refreshed and ready to attack the day. Use code POW for 20% off your order at dreamrecovery.io Right now, my listeners can receive forty percent off Earth Breeze just by going to earthbreeze.com/pow. That’s earthbreeze.com/pow to cut out single-use plastic in your laundry room and claim forty percent off your subscription. Show Links: EP. # 74 – Why Protein & Muscle Are So Important + Ozempic (the truth) Weight Lifting & Fat Loss w/ Dr. Gabrielle Lyon EP # 80 - Fix Your Hormones: PCOS, Fertility, Pregnancy &  Autoimmune Conditions w/ Dr. Sara Gottfried  The Cysters Kit Topics Discussed 00:03:56 - Herbology and the beginning of Olivia’s story 00:10:33 - Understanding autoimmune diseases 00:11:46 - Accepting the gray area and differences between western and traditional medicine 00:12:52 - Hitting rock bottom and the start of Organic Olivia 00:17:11 - The mindset behind the weight loss 00:19:59 - The importance of community and someone to help you hold your vision 00:24:59 - Balancing discipline and shifting to a softer approach 00:29:13 - Thoughts on Los Angeles 00:35:10 - Being metabolically unhealthy 00:39:40 - Blood sugar balancing problems and relation to PCOS and weight 00:41:43 - Your muscle mass is your suitcase 00:44:21 - Assessing different workouts like walking and pilates 00:48:05 - Getting stuck in a routine and the urge to let loose 00: 51:11 - Finding healing through health struggles 00:52:20 - The evolution of Olivia’s diet 00:59:45 - Managing your protein intake 01:02:56 - Controversial opinions in the health industry 01:05:12 - Honoring ancestral diets  01:08:05  - Any worthy path back to health is tied to relationships 01:12:17 - Thoughts on Ozempic  01:31:41 - Quick low down on Olivia’s herbal recommendations 01:35:54 - Wellness is the capacity to be with every moment in its entirety

People don't need more information. They need the self-worth piece that switches them from I have this information to I am able to act upon this information because I am deserving of these actions. This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What is up, guys? Welcome back to the show. Today, we have a highly requested guest, someone that I see a lot of overlap with, with my story, and that is Organic Olivia. I am so excited to finally be bringing her on the show. She is one of the most intelligent, emotionally connected people I've ever sat with. And I think you guys are going to really gain so much from this conversation. She has been through a lot herself and is really candid and willing to share what she has been through and the things she has learned. So today we're talking about how she

healed her chronic illness using ancient medicine, blood sugar balancing, and self-discovery. If you don't know Olivia, she is a clinical herbalist who is passionate about utilizing traditional herbalism to support humans in our chaotic modern world, both physically and emotionally. She believes medicinal plants have the power to reconnect us to ourselves, help regulate our nervous systems, and impart the deep nourishment that is missing from our diets and lives. She is bridging the gap between the gifts of science and tradition through Organic Olivia,

which is her line of easy-to-take, delicious, effective herbal remedies. So we're going to discuss Olivia's rock-bottom story, understanding autoimmune diseases, the importance of community to help you hold your vision. We're going to talk about the mindset behind weight loss, blood sugar balancing problems in relation to PCOS and weight, how important muscle mass is, managing your protein intake, honoring ancestral diets, her thoughts on Ozempic, and so much more. Again, such, such, such a good episode. I really love Olivia. I feel like she brought so much to the table today. And without further ado, let's hop right in. Olivia, welcome to the show. Mari, thank you for having me.

I feel really, really excited for this conversation. We already just had such a magical conversation like off air. And I was like, wait, let's record. Because I feel just so much overlap with you. I feel so much connection to you. I find you to be incredibly smart. I love the content you put out there. I think what you've done with your brand is incredible. I just think you're awesome.

And we have the same area code. Same area code, same story. It's actually really wild. I feel like we've lived the same life and now we're kind of converging on paths and being like, oh, I see you. I get you. And it's a nice opportunity to be able to share with one another. I know. It's pretty magic. And I'm really excited to kind of get deep on this episode. I mean, I have tons of questions from a more of a science angle, but also I think inevitably we'll talk about our journeys spiritually too. I'd love to start by hearing how you got here. You're a herbalist. By the way, guys, I say herb like this because I'm British. I know it's herb, but if anyone's confused, I'm saying herb. Okay? We love your British ass. It's all good. What was the class in Harry Potter? It was herbology.

It was herbology. I think, you know, one of my teachers, Claudia Keel at my herb school, because I attended a three-year clinical herbalism program and Claudia had been in the UK for a bit and she worked in the UK and they put a sign on her door that said herbologist. And she was like, that's not the term, but we can keep it. And like she just dealt with it. And she felt a little bit magical there too. Yeah, you do give me herbology vibes. Like I feel like you took the class. Anyway, you're a CEO, you're a founder, you're doing amazing things. I'd love to hear where you came from because I know the story wasn't always this finished. Like where did everything begin for you? Yeah, I think it begins. I can't

tell my story without going back to my roots and my childhood and sort of the original wounding in all of us that makes us tick and sends us eventually down a line of purpose. And so growing up, I was in a home where Western medicine was the one and only thing. And like, you know, pharmaceuticals and going to the doctor was the only option that was very normal to me. And now that I'm in a phase of kind of rediscovering my heritage, actually, I'm understanding that my Italian ancestors, even three generations ago, did not live like that and actually had this immense plant knowledge. And my Macedonian flock ancestors as well, like my grandmother or great grandmother on that side was the town medicine woman. Like there, that wasn't always

how things worked in the lineage of my DNA. However, looking at my parents who were second generation or maybe even third generation who had become very westernized and Americanized, they really went to an extreme and extremes are a big theme inized, they really went to an extreme. And extremes are a big theme in my journey. They went to an extreme of living within the framework of kind of like the more individualistic, capitalistic Western culture where things are very black and white and we like to be certain. And we like science and we like things to be proven. And we want to know because it gives us a sense of safety. And there certainly is a place for that. So there's a place for data always. But really, the nature of life is that we can never know. We can never be certain. And so sometimes

I look at us humans thinking that we're like this dominant species that can know all the answers of the mysteries of this beautiful world. And I'm like, what are we doing here? So anyway, that led them to be, again, very like right brained, very in the masculine, one would say maybe the more Western side. And they had a lot of health issues growing up. And I think this was also a reflection of their lifestyle being equally tied to that individualistic, capitalistic type of culture where they just worked all the time. My parents were very much about work, academics, performance, productivity, degrees. And obviously, they grew up in really difficult financial situations. And we were living paycheck to paycheck. So I understood why they were in this grind.

And I very much looked up to their work ethic. And I think it translated to me almost to an extreme. And because of that, they sacrificed their health essentially for the sake of that extreme of work. And I think that they maybe never fully mapped out their values in life and in a soul level. So it was just like, when you don't do that, you kind of take on the values of the dominant culture, which in our society is work and productivity. So I watched them sacrifice their health. I watched them get on a lot of different medications. My mom was, she struggled with a lot of mental health things. And it's very much like a generational cycle on her end. Her mother was very abusive towards her and had some

mental health issues that back in the day, there was no words or treatment for, right? And so it was this cycle. And that was the relationship that I had with her. And the same way that she was put on a lot of different mental health medications, I also was at a young age and I was trying different things. And we just all had a lot of health problems in my home. My mom was extremely, she was considered, quote unquote, morbidly obese as well. And it was to the point where her mobility was affected and she wasn't able to move around. So she had to go on an extreme diet and get bariatric surgery, crazy complications from that. So I saw

the extremes of Western medicine in my home. And yet I still was like, no, this is great. Thank God we have these pharmaceuticals and yada, yada and surgeries. And I still believe that there is duality and balance in all things. So I, as I got sicker myself from the way that we ate, it was again, like individualistic, capitalistic culture of convenience over anything. We ate a lot of fast food, all these things. I developed really severe IBS. I developed really severe cystic acne on my face and my back. I still have some insane scarring on my back from it. And I, again, had the really bad mental health issues. And I noticed that when I would take things like doxycycline antibiotics for my acne, all of a sudden my digestive symptoms would get better and my anxiety would get better. And I was like, wait a second, are these systems of the body connected? And I would talk to my

gastro about it. And I would say, wait, I'm noticing that when I eat yogurt or peanut butter, I'm doubled over on the ground in pain. Could food be part of like my treatment plan? And he was like, no, you're bugging. Like, unbelievable. You're nuts. And, you know, this was like 10 plus years ago. So maybe it's different now. But yeah, we were also on doxycycline for a while. Yeah. And like, I'm sure you also had a history of antibiotics in your youth deeper than that. You know, I was on antibiotics for ear infections and even just like other odd infections in my body. My parents used to hide antibiotics in Wendy's cheeseburgers because I was too young to like swallow pills, but too old for the pink liquid. I was an antibiotic girl. And again,

it was that mindset that we can be certain that we just need to kill this bug and kill, kill, kill. That, you know, was the paradigm of pharmaceutical medication that got me into this place of extreme imbalance. And now I'm seeing that in the functional medicine world, which we can talk about. Yeah. But regardless, I was like, you know what? I'll become a doctor because I'm just going to figure out my own health and that's going to be my thing. And I had started to play around with nutrition. I had in my senior year of high school, I had lost a bunch of weight. I had lost like 40 pounds, which I've had to lose like twice now, three times maybe because of my extremism. But I

lost 40 pounds the first time I got into nutrition. I got into fitness. It was like my way in. And I was like, great, I'll become a doctor. I'll mesh these worlds. We're good. And so I got a scholarship to this wonderful university. I went there, I went to the pre-med track and my health got worse than ever. It was to the point where I had swollen lymph nodes in my groin, in my armpits. I had, my skin was like, I was on so many antibiotics and meds that like my skin was like getting a little bit yellow. My liver enzymes were through the roof. And my doctor said to me, who's a genius doctor, my family GP, he won an award for his discoveries around one of the herpes viruses. So he's wonderful when it comes to immunology and pathogens and all these things. And he understands the immune system. And he said to

me, you know, you have some kind of an autoimmune disease, but it's just not going to show up in your lab work for like 10 more years. So there's nothing I can do for you. Why would it not show up for 10 years? That is actually how autoimmunity works. I just had Dr. Sarah Gottfried on my podcast, who I think you had on as well. I have such a crush on her. She's unbelievable. She's so grounded. She's such a powerful woman. I know. And so, you know, she talks about that in her book and in our episodes, right, that it actually takes 10 to or 7 to 14 years for autoimmune, you know, like ANA, positive antibodies to show up on your lab work from the point where the autoimmune cascade begins to develop, where the immune dysregulation,

which doesn't start in the immune system, which more so starts in the brain and the neuroendocrine system and the psychoneuroendocrine system, more so like your brain, your nervous system, your mental health. That's really where immune dysregulation starts. But it takes that long. And I think there was an old podcast by Dave Asprey that he had spoken to someone who looked at old lab work from the military. And they could see in people because they had to take their blood every year in the military. They could look at people who had autoimmune disease diagnosed later in life and kind of see the little changes on their lab work before that happened and how it was brewing under the surface. That's insane.

That's where Western medicine, while it serves us in these beautiful ways when you need some antibiotics and some acute medicine, it is failing people in the middle when there's no lab or diagnostic to see the person in front of you that is clearly suffering, that is clearly an imbalance. But because their labs are normal, there is nothing we can do for you. We don't have a language for the gray area because we are a language of certainty. Wow. That is how Western medicine functions.

And so traditional medicine is more comfortable playing in the uncertainty, playing in the story, playing in the spirit, the folklore, the oral tradition, the things that science can't necessarily prove, but that we know over time by being in relationship with people and plants. And so I think it serves people who are in that gray area, which makes sense. Western medicine serves you when you really need a remedy now that is going to push, push, push the body and fix something. And traditional herbal, holistic, whatever you want to call it, medicine serves people who are in the great in between, which is most folks nowadays. And so all this to say,

my health hit a rock bottom. I was in my chem lab class one day. I was like itching my skin. I was going to crawl out of my body. I got in my car. I was like, let me just drive to this acupuncturist herbalist office that I saw in Mount Vernon. And let me just pull over and run inside and see what this guy has to say to me. And I popped in there and he was like, let me see your tongue. And I was like, what'd you say, buddy? And he was like, no, no, no, stick out the tongue. And so I did. And he told me every single freaking symptom that I was experiencing from just looking at my tongue. Insane. And I was like, just looking at my tongue. Insane.

And I was like, I need to know everything about this. Tell me your secrets. So that is where my extremism, obsessive personality, which we have in common, came in handy because then I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to learn everything that there is to learn about herbalism and Chinese medicine and all the things. So I finished out that year, switched my major, eventually went to Arborvitae School of Traditional Herbalism in Manhattan, did a three-year clinical program. During that time,

started my blog, started my Instagram, really got into this world, this sphere at the right time, kind of, and just shared my story really candidly and shared the like, hey, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm just going to share with you guys what's working and what's not. And we're going to figure it out together, which is again, where, you know, holistic medicine plays and why it's so beautiful. It's relationship, it's collaborative, it's leaning into tradition. And I think that really spoke to people. And so I started my Lion Organic Olivia, my herbal formulas, and now we have like 36 herbal formulas, like something for everybody, whether it's anxiety, you have a cough, all the things. And it's been a wild ride.

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for 20% off your first purchase on clearstemskincare.com. Absolutely insane. I mean, so much gold in everything that you just said. And I especially love just the awareness you have around your childhood and taking that with you. I mean, I don't think enough of us really look back that far and really see the patterns that are getting formed as kids and what we bring into our adulthood. And I just see how much work you've done. And then also the fact that you celebrate the gray area. I think I'm definitely someone who tends to think in a very black and white way. And I have to really bring myself back down to earth to get to that gray point. And I think for me, I mean, I'm just resonating so much with everything that you're saying and

just having a lot of awareness around the fact that I maybe dove really far into the natural side and maybe potentially needed some Western medicine every now and again. So I really appreciate that approach. I know you mentioned weight loss. You said you've had to lose the same 30-ish pounds like two or three times. Yeah. I want to hear about the mindset shift and like what makes it different now? Like now it really seems like you're permanently in this lifestyle. What's different? Yeah, it's funny. This is a question I have for you too because I think it takes the mind and the self-worth piece to shift. And that doesn't happen in a linear way. And it's interesting because most people who have lost a considerable amount of weight, when you try to get them to tell their story, they often have a hard time with it because it's not actually like,

here's a step-by-step prescriptive thing of how I did this. You know, in practice, in theory, yes, there are certain guidelines you have to follow and abide by in order to have a thermodynamic change in your body composition. But when you really get down to the nitty gritty, often what's happening is that something else changes in your life, in your field, in your relationship with yourself. And the weight loss becomes a byproduct because we often already know what we need to do. And I think that is the pinnacle that we have reached in functional medicine and wellness in general. We are living in an age of information where you can Google anything at your fingertips and probably get

pretty damn good information about a few things that you should do, at least the basics that can shift you considerably. And yet what I'm finding is that people don't need more information. They need the self-worth piece that switches them from I have this information to I am able to act upon this information because I am deserving of these actions. I'm deserving of the everyday step-by-step pieces, even when they're really hard and I can do hard things. Fuck yeah. Sorry. I love it. I don't know if I can curse on my own show. I love it. No, you're absolutely right. Please. No. And more than anything, you don't get to self-worth alone. You don't get to health alone. I think a lot of people define health and wellness as like

self-care. And we're losing the plot. It's not about self. That's going further and further into this myopic black and white view. It's about us. It's about we. It's about community. And so what I think takes people from a place of, I'm overwhelmed by all this information. I know what I need to do, but why am I not doing it? And now I hate myself more because I'm not doing it to the, I'm worthy of doing it is often a relationship or multiple relationships. It's being witnessed. It's being held and seen. It's being in relationship with a practitioner, a coach, a provider, a friend group, whatever it is, someone that can hold your highest vision. And that is their sacred task. They are not doing the work for you. They're not, you know, like letting you complain and vent

and all these things. Maybe they are. They're giving you a space. But more than anything, they're saying, I know you could do this. What are you talking about? Of course, of course, you got this. And I had many people along my journey who did that for me. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who we both love, is one person who, when I walked into her office, 35 pounds overweight, this time around, she was like, you're an athlete. And I was like, what are you talking about? She's like, no, no, no, you're an athlete. And she just held this crazy vision for me and just didn't back down. And you have to trust that in relationship when you hold someone and you trust them to do the right thing, that trust, that regard moves mountains. And that allows them to come up into that space that you're holding, into their highest selves. And so I had a coach along the

way, Lulu. She's the functional nutritionist on Instagram. She's in Kuwait, actually. And so I had a coach along the way, Lulu, she's the functional nutritionist on Instagram. She's in Kuwait actually. And so we would do like Zoom calls every single week when I started losing the weight this time around and exercising and all the things. And she just kind of like held that container for me. And even more so than having a doctor who was looking at my labs and all the things, it was so nice to have this coach who was sitting in the fire with me and every single week being like, what's coming up now? What are we needing to tweak? Like, tell me what happened that day. Tell me what's coming up. And was willing to witness me. And before all of that, it was really a journey of self-discovery, a journey of therapy, a journey of why am I going to the food to cope with the

heaviness that I'm feeling? Where is this heaviness coming from? What is my inner child, my little me, who's the one who's really suffering here? What is she trying to not feel by doing something maladaptive, but that's soothing her in the moment, like turning to food. And it was starting to have this curiosity and this compassion and starting to spend the time and develop the relationship with myself and specifically the relationship with my inner child and learning how to mother her the way that she wanted to be mothered, not the way that, again, was just more of an extreme and more of like a, you just need to do better. You suck. Cause I think, um, you know, and this is another thing, like, I think one of the greatest things

that I got out of the time that I worked with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is the way that she gives pep talks. It's really the relationship. And she had said to me, you know, listen, beating yourself up and telling yourself you're a piece of shit and you need to do better and blah, blah, blah. And having something to fight against served you up until this point. You made your company, you did all these things, you're successful. It's not working anymore. You need to realize that what took you to here, what took you to this level is not going to be the thing that takes you to the next level. You need a new plan. You need a new strategy. And sometimes that's the hardest part is pivoting into softness, self-compassion, curiosity, and mothering in a way that is discipline without shame. Mothering in a way that is, hey, I see you. I see that like you had a

really long, hard day. You had a few things that came up that like triggered a wound. You feel really weird about this friendship dynamic right now. And work is stressful. And you're overtired. And so right now, you just want to eat a box of cookies. I feel it. I'm with you. I'm going to sit there with you and feel that.

And then saying, what if we try to eat some protein first? What if we just do that gentle nudge? Let's just try that. And if you still want the box of cookies after you eat a nice protein rich snack or meal, we can do that. But I just want you to try. And that's the way that a mother would speak to a child, a mother that I never had would. I mean, I had a beautiful, wonderful mother, but she didn't mother in that way. Right. She was very unkind to herself and thus did not know how to hold that space for me, right? So I had to learn how to hold that space for my younger self.

And I had to learn how to talk to myself in a way where like, it was motherly love, which involves tough love sometimes. You mentioned shifting the mindset from, I hate myself, I have to do this, to a little bit softer of an approach. Do you feel like, I'm saying this because I felt this way, there was almost a necessity for that type of discipline when you were losing the weight? And now you've been able to shift to a more feminine way of being? I mean, again, this is another question that's in your outline right here because we're the same damn person. But yeah, it's, there is such, this is the, this is the beautiful thing about, I think, what is my real underlying philosophy of health and wellness at this point in my career. At one point, I thought it was all the herbs. At one point, I thought it

was all the energy work. At one point, I thought it was this, that. It's never any one thing. And for me, I think true health and wellness is being in right relationship with yourself, with others, with nature, with everything around you, being in right conscious relationship where you're not looking at other things for what they can do for you, not looking at other people, not looking at other substances, not looking at anything, a tree or plant for what it can do for you, but you're just seeing it and witnessing it for what it is. And I think that that is the ultimate shift that needed to happen at the end of the day in order for me to correct the extremes that caused me to need to go from like totally being out of control to like totally being more rigid and disciplined to find that like happy medium. And that's something I'm

still working on. And that's like my philosophy right now. But I do think at that time before I could see clearly this whole like, oh, here's how to be in relationship with myself. Here's how to be compassionate with myself. I did need to experience both sides of the extremes. I did need to kind of hack the system for a second and like throw a wrench in it and glitch and be like, now we're just going to channel this extreme personality into extreme, you know, like being able to like weigh my food and be a data machine. And like, this is exactly how many units of calories I need to put in my body. And that helped because it gave me also the structure that I didn't often have as a child in a certain way. And so it was

kind of like this journey of just walking myself through the different things that I didn't have as a child, seeing what stuck and knowing that when something expired, it was okay to expire and it was okay to pivot my coping mechanism. And that was kind of my original point of the being in right relationship. The most beautiful thing to be in right relationship with is the nature of life. And to me, the nature of life, the nature of reality is duality. It is the fact that two opposing things are totally true at the same time. And that is the hardest thing for any of us to hold. It is my life's goal to be able to hold that effortlessly. And it's what I pray for every

single day. But I think that that is where a piece comes in where an extreme rigid approach to hitting a goal and changing your life can be supportive at one point in your journey and at another point can expire and not be helpful any longer. And it's that like specificity to the person and the phase and the nuance. And that's what's missing from health. I don't think I've ever been able to eloquently put that into words and you just did it so well. I feel like a lot of times when I sit down for an interview or people ask me like, losing weight, like, was it a self-love thing you know they want me to give that type of yeah um positive feedback but the truth is that it was pretty

intense and it was a lot of like self-hatred at the beginning and a kind of a fear-based yeah um motivation yeah but as I went through the motions it was almost like I went from one extreme to the other like zero structure in my life. Everything was loose. I didn't care about anything to literally caring to the point of like not one calorie over every single day. And I think that was needed for me at the time. And it's difficult to say that out loud because I think it can be perceived negatively. But until you've gone through it, it's impossible to understand, you know? But at the same time, it's like, there's no free lunch. That's my mantra in life, right?

You're now probably, I assume, and I had had to go through the same thing. And again, it's a lifelong journey, having to walk back the consequences of that opposite extreme. 100%. It's so difficult for me to not live that way. Like I have to be so intentional.

Even moving to Austin was a huge piece of it for me. Like living in LA, I felt very much couldn't drop the act. You know what I mean? What's your feelings on LA? No, I just... It's a place, isn't it? It's weird. LA in terms of like the people who grew up there like LA natives and like folks that are from the the greater areas of LA amazing it's kind of like the the almost fake bubble that we have created

in certain parts like Venice and like it people have just created a fake world and we all participate in it to some extent. And I think the more that you become intolerant of it, the healthier you're becoming, even if like because we're in a human meat suit and get to participate in the material world and have fun here on Earth. Sometimes it's cool to go in and out and be like, that was an experience. Yeah, it's fine. Like it's like I'm not some Buddha that has like transcended my own humanity. But yeah, it's definitely like a fake world. And I think it is, it is an extreme. And those of us who are recovering from living in the extremes, which I would say is a consequence of not being

in right relationship with yourself and everything around you, We're drawn to places like LA, bubbles, or like New York City or like intense places because it kind of mirrors that extremism of the land that we're playing in, which is the land that values, again, like individualism, capitalism, growth just for the sake of growth. Like there's this abstract goal, like these abstract things that I think we've started to strive for in today's society. And I'm guilty of it as well. And this is my journey of like also walking that back and being like, what do I actually value in my life? Is it freedom? Is it time in nature? Is it being able to do things slowly? And if so, why am I pushing myself and

overworking myself and building a life where I can't do those things? It's because I haven't defined them. It's because I'm working towards abstract goals because I haven't taken the time to sit with myself and build the relationship with myself where I can know those things and thus the form of my life will follow. So it's like this extreme little place where we can live so much in that abstract wealth, abstract this, abstract whatever. And there's like no consequence to it. I don't know. It's like a playground. As you guys may remember, I have had Todd Anderson, a sleep expert on my show twice now. And we talked about the importance of sleep

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and claim 40% off your subscription earthbreeze.com slash pow. It's a playground and it's like almost a dissociation for a while. Like when I was there at the end, I could tell that it wasn't lining up with who I was anymore. But you get trapped. I mean, you're surrounded by people who are doing more and more and more. They look better and better and better. And it's really challenging for people like us who are obsessive. So coming to Austin has been the best thing I really could have done for myself, I think. I want to kind of switch to the science of it all. Yeah. I've heard you say you were metabolically unhealthy. Yeah. Can you define that for us? And how would someone know if they are also metabolically unhealthy? So when you're metabolically

unhealthy, I wouldn't even say unhealthy. There's this spectrum of like metabolic dysfunction or dysregulation to like true full-on metabolic regulation. And you're running like a machine. And when you're more on the side of metabolic dysfunction, it's that your cells are no longer as sensitized as they should be to insulin. And insulin is this hormone released when you have an injection of carbs through your meals that basically opens up the doors of your cell. It's like this key that opens up the doors of your cells in order for the glucose to come in.

And it's funny, even my paradigm about that has changed over the years as I've continued to stay curious and challenge my own beliefs of what actually causes insulin resistance. Is it eating too many carbs? Are carbs the problem? I thought that for a while. And while I was working with my coach, I actually did pulse a low-carb diet therapeutically for a while, and it certainly helped. But now I wonder if it helped because I was naturally eating less calories because you can't really overindulge when you're cutting out a macronutrient group the same way that you can when you're eating everything. So I don't know if it was the low-carb diet that helped me or not. I think most people

feel that metabolic dysfunction happens when you do overindulge on sugar and carbs for too long, and thus, you know, insulin stays too carbs for too long and thus, you know, insulin stays too high for too long and then you become insulin resistant. That's not necessarily the truth. It's more so that you have over consumed energy period, not just carbs. You've over consumed calories for your body, for your level of muscle mass, for your level of activity for a period of time. And thus, and you've also been sedentary for a period of time, either or both. And you've gotten to a point where your cells essentially have this, an excess of fatty acids within them. And that fatty acid can't really be burnt off as well. I have a whole episode with this 18-year-old kid coming out. His name is Calvin Scheller.

He's a genius. He started reading PubMed articles and now is publishing them from the age of 13. What? You got to get him on. And we did this whole episode on insulin resistance. And he really taught me this. And it was mind-blowing because it makes sense with my journey. So basically, being insulin resistant is really just a result of overconsuming calories for your body and not having the right amount of muscle mass on your body to be able to metabolize those carbs or to be able to raise your metabolic rate to where you can eat that amount of calories.

I said carbs, but I meant calories. So it's really just this state of having unhealthy body composition. It's the state of having more body fat mass in relation to muscle than what would be productive. And often to reverse insulin resistance and become metabolically healthy, you do have to lose the process of resensitizing your body to insulin. You can do other things to kind of increase your carb tolerance because once you are metabolically healthy, yes, then you start to have a problem metabolizing carbs. Then you start to have blood sugar dysregulation because of the preexisting metabolic dysfunction. So as you're losing body fat mass and building muscle and recomping, you do want to utilize insulin-sensitizing foods and herbs, things like cinnamon and gymnema and fenugreek and these therapeutic ancient herbs and spices that actually have been shown in the literature to help sensitize cells to insulin

so that as you're losing weight and building muscle, you're able to increase your carbs slowly. Because actually, a low-carb diet is not, in my opinion, sustainable for women. Our thyroid needs carbs. We need carbs to lower cortisol throughout the day, especially after a workout. You got to have carbs. And so when someone goes on a keto diet or a low carb diet to solve their metabolic dysfunction and that manages their blood sugar, that's still disease management. It's not getting to the root, which would be to recomp your body, build muscle, maybe lose some fat if you need to or not, just build the muscle, resensitize your cells to insulin, and really eat within your carb threshold until you can bring it

up. Can you have blood sugar balancing problems even if you are not overweight? Oh, yeah. Is that like a PCOS thing? It is a body composition, mitochondrial inflammation, oxidative stress thing, which put those things together, you got PCOS, right? Yeah. But it is in an individual who is within a normal BMI, who may have a normal body weight, who is experiencing insulin resistance, it's most likely the case that

they're either very sedentary or they are, their body composition, while they're at a healthy, you know, body weight, they may be quote skinny fat. They may have, you know, a low percentage of muscle mass in relation to their body fat. Adipose tissue, you know, which is body fat, it produces adipokines, for example, which are these pro-inflammatory molecules that are secreted by your own fat tissue. Whereas muscle tissue releases myokines, which are these anti-inflammatory cell signaling molecules that keep your inflammation levels down and help with things like insulin signaling. So just having the right tissue on your frame in itself is so important, regardless of your weight. And then there's the mitochondrial dysfunction piece that can be driven by nutrient deficiencies, B vitamin deficiencies, amino acid, carnitine deficiencies, a lack of

CoQ10 and antioxidants and polyphenols in the diet, especially when people are on like super restrictive diets and they're not eating fruits and berries and all of these beautiful foods. And also just oxidative stress, which is like actual stress, pollution, circadian stress because of lack of proper light exposure and alignment with the photo period of the day. So all of those things combined create a stressed environment within the body. And for any one person, one or many of those factors could be contributing to deficits in insulin signaling and in carbohydrate metabolism or metabolic health. It just depends on the person and again, the relationship with the person really seeing what their root cause is, especially if they are

quote normal body weight. Why is muscle so important? I know you are a huge fan of muscle protein. Why is muscle crucial for blood sugar balancing? I mean, muscle is, this is the way that Gabrielle explains it, is it's your suitcase, right? It's your muscle is where when you eat carbohydrates, you might need some of them immediately, but a lot of them are going to get stored in either your liver or your muscle tissue. And if you have a nice muscle suitcase on you, you can stuff a lot of carbs into your muscle suitcase and save them for later and not have those carbohydrates, which turn into glucose, hanging around in your bloodstream, causing high glucose levels, high postprandial, postmeal blood glucose levels.

That is where we come into an issue because, again, even if you are of a healthy body weight, if you're having blood sugar spikes because of lack of muscle mass, inflammation, metabolic abnormalities, you can have blood sugar spikes, to your point. And when you have blood glucose spikes that are abnormal, that are higher than a normal spike, and thus the resulting crash that happens afterwards, reactive hypoglycemia, this creates an immense environment of inflammation and stress within the body. It's hard on your kidneys. It's hard on your adrenals because when you come back down, the body has to now mobilize stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol in order to liberate glycogen from the

liver. So it creates this added stressful environment on the body when we're already in a state of stress, essentially. We got enough of that. We're trying to actually utilize the proper blood sugar balanced meals and snacks at, for some people, a frequent timing in order to keep that cortisol low, in order to keep everything very stable. Because once you create stability in the body, you can start creating stability in the mind. And this is why I think that our weight loss journeys, muscle building journeys, fitness journeys, all these things were essentially our way into the soul journey because there are so many ways in. There are so

many ways that you can start having a relationship with yourself. Your aesthetics, wanting to lose weight, wanting to look good in a bikini, wanting to whatever, is one way in. And it is perhaps, you know, the most external way, right? It's like the most egoic way. Again, we're allowed to have egos. We're humans. But I think that eventually it leads you down other paths and it's a valid path in. And so it's just a really beautiful thing to just start exploring in any which way and seeing what your body needs. The importance of muscle. I'm just curious your thoughts on like the Pilates walking movement. Sure. I love Pilates and walking. I love a workout split. And here's the thing. This is where I think my sister, Dr. Lyon, and I disagree. I know she had that podcast clip where she was like, walking is not exercise. I knew she'd have a strong opinion on that.

She would. And I love her strong opinions. And I was talking to my husband about it and he was like, I get her like walking is movement, but you know what? I think that some, again, there's this middle ground that's missing in that extreme of a thought sometimes. And I had to go from, when I look at my, my weight loss journey of losing 35 pounds this time around, I really started in 2021. I did. And I just achieved it in 2023. So that's three full years that it took me. And I started away before that therapy wise. But 2021 was when I was like, I'm going to get my booty up and walk. And I had to, I couldn't have gone into the gym and started lifting. And I would have been huffing and puffing and so

disillusioned with myself and ashamed. That was just for me. Maybe not everyone's like that. Same. It's difficult for us to put up, for me at least, to put myself in the head of Mari in 2017. Yeah. Because now I'm so pro-muscle, I'm so pro-weight lifting, but I absolutely could not have done it back then. I had to just walk. I had no doorway in. It was so intimidating. I hated it. I also, I hated myself and many times in my life. So I didn't have the confidence that I could do something like that. And I, I hated hard work. Honestly, I did. And I, that was my biggest mindset shift was like, just accepting that, like having a different attitude about hard work.

I think that really had to happen for me to be like, oh, no, no, no, no. a different attitude about hard work. I think that really had to happen for me to be like, oh, no, no, no, no. Like I can do hard things. This is going to suck. And it's also going to be beautiful. And just like flipping that script. And so it took me building up, like walking 5,000 steps a day, then 10,000 steps a day, then doing 10,000 steps a day plus Pilates, then that plus one day at the gym a week. I had to build up and that was the only thing that worked for me. And I'm not saying that that's the only thing that works for everybody, but that was my journey. I had to just take it slow. That's what my soul was asking for. But now you're full weight training. Yeah. Now I'm full weight training. I actually,

I was lifting pretty heavy and I was finding myself getting injured and like having a lot of lower back spasms and everything. So I got evaluated by a physical therapist and found out that I'm hypermobile where my range of motion in my joints and in my spine is actually too lax. Like it's too much range of motion. So I hyperextend, especially when I'm doing heavy lifts and don't have my, um, like stabilizerizer muscles strengthened because I've been used to relying on my joints my whole life. And so I started, I kind of had to start from ground zero the last few months. And she had me like just deadlifts with a 10 pound kettlebell, which was so humbling and sad. But she taught me how to do it the right way for my body.

I feel like I swear I lift heavy. Yes. And so just yesterday, yeah, yesterday I did a 44 pound kettlebell with my physical therapist. So I'm getting back up to like my 115 that I was doing before. And yeah, so it's again, that's another part of my journey. I went really deep into the weightlifting, got ripped, like looked really damn good for my wedding, all these things. And then was like, wait a second, is this still serving me? Constantly checking in, having a relationship with yourself. Is the iteration of this now still what's best for me? Let me check in with my body. No, I'm actually kind of getting hurt. Let's now work with this person who might guide me on my journey. And yeah. Constant reevaluation. I think it's so easy to, I mean, I did this where I get so stuck in routines

because it feels safe. I mean, I was like working myself into the ground for so long, training six days a week, like hit weights and truly feeling awful on the inside, but not knowing what my life would look like if I broke out of the routine. Yes. You know, and when you go through a weight loss journey, you hold, I held onto it so tightly because I didn't know, what if I slip backwards if I am not doing this? Or what if I slip backwards if I add some more fun food into my diet, you know? Do you ever feel the urge to like play a little bit there where you're like, what if I just let it all go just so I could show myself that it's okay if I do? I have thoughts like that for sure.

Yeah. And I actually think that can be therapeutic. Like when I decided to reevaluate my weightlifting and take a little bit of a break, I had the same thing where I was like, I just got so ripped. I look so good. I know that I'm not going to be able to maintain this exact weight if I'm taking a step back and whatever, and I'm not going to eat less. So I was like, I just, I'm just going to have to deal with like a little bit of extra fluff on me. And I was like, let me use this as an exercise. Let me use this as a challenge for myself to be like, can I hold this? Can I practice what I preach and the spiritual person that I think I am, that I've

come to this place of acceptance and growth and all these things, if I don't fit into my perfect box of like, this is how narrow my capacity is for me to be spiritual, only when I look like this, only when I have this. It's easy to be spiritual when you have everything you want. It's easy to be spiritual when you look perfect and blah, blah, blah. It's easy to be spiritual when you're in relationships where there are no conflicts, which is not the nature of relationships. It's hard to be spiritual when things are not perfect, when you can't push your body the way it wants to be pushed, when you have to sacrifice a little bit of your aesthetics for a greater goal.

Like whatever it is, like fertility, whatever it is, like sometimes that is what it takes for a lot of women. I just had a fertility expert on and she was talking about like most women in my practice, it's just under eating. That's what it is. Yeah. And, and it's so hard to let go of that again, when that's been your safety, when that's been the way you've been rewarded in the world, when that's been what has also like played a role in your success and your perception, like we live in this world where that's rewarded and it's a fake world. Yeah. I mean, I need to speak to that woman. I, yeah, the fertility piece is a big one for me. Not just in terms of eating more, but also

not taking anything from my skin. Like I was on spironolactone, I was on birth control. Coming off of that, my skin has probably never been as bad as it has been right now. And waking up and having to sit with it and just show up every day and be on camera and say yes to opportunities, knowing that my skin looks like this has been really like, I was saying to my husband the other day, I don't think that I would be as obsessed with health and internal wellbeing as I am if I'd never had acne. Like I think a lot of what I do is because of my acne, truthfully. And it's kind of a blessing because I've learned so much about my internal wellbeing. I would have had no idea that I ever had mold or I ever had bacteria

overgrowth because I wouldn't have looked into it because I wouldn't have cared. You know, it's showing up on my face. Therefore, I care. Like we've been saying, like sometimes you just need a way in. Sometimes your way in is, again, through your body, your aesthetic. Sometimes your way in is through your mental health. Sometimes your way in is through your skin. Rock bottoms are ways in. Extremes are training wheels. Like everything has its purpose. Again, that's the duality of life. Two things are true at the same time. No one thing is entirely good or entirely bad. Every traditional culture we can name in a book has had that philosophy. We look at Chinese medicine,

the yin, the yang, even in that symbol, half of it is black, half of it is white, but there's a circle of white and the black, and there's a circle of black in the white. There's a little bit of good in every horrible thing and it's up to the individual to amplify that good and to make that good the thing that matters and to make that good their story. Yeah. Talk to us about, I know protein is a really big part of your diet. How has your diet evolved over the years with all the different weight loss stories you've had? And what does it look like now? It's funny. I found like when I first lost the 35 pounds, like I said, I was in my senior year of high school. And the like office ladies were like, how are you doing this? What are you, what? And I had written

them this guide on like front and back of a paper. And it was like Olivia's guide to weight loss, but it was like gnarly. Okay. Like it was, um, it was not cute. It was like, get a hundred calorie packs from the store, you know, like eat 200 calories of almonds and blah, blah, blah for your snack. It was really just calorie counting, right? And it was really just like, what are the processed food ways to stay within the calorie count, which I think is why so many people, when they're going the more conventional calorie counting fitness route, over rely on ultra processed foods because, again, it's certainty. It's a number on the back of a package. You can be certain about what you're eating and you can have a modicum of control.

Whereas when you're eating an apple and you're like, how many grams is this apple? I don't have my travel scale. It's a lot harder to plug that baby into my fitness. Is it a Honeycrisp or a Fuji? Exactly. So you don't have, so it's like, it's interesting. But it was more like processed foods

and it was more restrictive processed foods and it was, it was more restrictive. And I mean, listen, I, I was in Weight Watchers in the sixth grade. Like this was a lifelong thing. And that was, I was coming from that mindset of restriction. And I remember when I was in Weight Watchers, I read this book in school where like this boy ran away and was like in the woods and survived on like only a turkey sandwich a day. But in the book, it said that he was like wasting away. And I was like, oh, maybe I could just eat one turkey sandwich away and one turkey sandwich a day and I could waste away like this little boy in the book. And like that. Yeah. What sixth grader? Yeah. Has that thought. And again, I just grew up with my mom.

God bless her. That woman is my greatest mirror, my greatest teacher. Like her inner child just needed so much more love than what she was given. And if I could go back and be her mother, I would. Like I just, I have so much love for her. But I just recognize, again, the duality that the environment that I grew up with with with my mom's influence was very much like her her looking in the mirror actively saying I hate my body I'm disgusting me in the sixth grade when I was in Weight Watchers being like mom let's join Planet Fitness let's go to the gym together and her being like I could not possibly be seen by people

in my skin she would just say things like that. And it was just like this shame and this restriction. And she was part of like diet culture. She was like, you know, ordering quick fix supplements off Dr. Oz. Like it was again, this like quick fix. I can buy my way into health. I can shame my way, restrict my way into health mindset. And it's not her fault, but it was the mindset I grew up in. So no wonder that book in the sixth grade impacted me. And that was just like what I brought from Weight Watchers into my high school calorie counting journey. So that worked, but again, didn't really work because I didn't keep it off. And then I'm trying to think of like the second, maybe this was the second time if I really look back at that, at the yo-yoing. I think I always went up and down, but this was

like the second time that I really lost that 35. And who cares what the number is, but it's just whatever. So this time around, it changed because I was like, hey, I watched my mom again, lose her same way more than 35 pounds over and over and over again and go so crazy and yo-yo. And actually, every time she lost it, her health got worse and it was harder to lose it the next time. And hey, then once I learned about body composition and fat loss and calorie restriction, eating in a deficit in order to lose body fat, I learned that if you're not eating higher protein than you even need at baseline while you are in a deficit. This is so important. You have to eat more protein than you think you do if you're strategically eating a little bit less to lose body fat. Because if you are not, you will not be able to preserve your lean body

mass, which is so much harder to put back on than it is to lose. Your body will catabolize that lean body mass, that muscle tissue when it's in a stress state and you're under fueling it. If you're not keeping your protein levels high and you're not dosing your protein throughout the day to a point where it stimulates muscle protein synthesis and preserves it, it's a biological mechanism. You need at least 30 grams per dose to stimulate MPS. So I was able to, this is why I love information, right? Like, again, duality, as much as I can say we're in an age of information overload and it's not serving us, sure as heck served me in that phase of my life. I took that information and was like, duh, my mom was starving herself to lose weight and doing all these crazy diets. So every time she

would lose the weight, she'd gain it back quicker and she'd have a harder time losing it again because she was ending up in a worse place muscle mass wise every single time until she was like almost no muscle tissue. And so I was like, that's not going to be me. I'm going to get it this time. I'm going to like leverage science. I'm going to use the Western world. I'm going to give myself that balance of like, how can I combine the Western and what we know in data with also body compassion and spirituality and herbs and polyphenols and the gut microbiome and all the things like, and create this perfect like plants and protein diversity diet that will serve not just my muscle tissue, but also my actual body and inflammation levels and all these things. So I just ended up eating like very much a whole foods diet this time around to the point of an

extreme almost. Like if I needed a snack, I would have a mini meal of chicken and squash and strawberries, right? Like I would just eat real food constantly and it really served me well. And of course, for a body that was so inflamed and dysregulated, I didn't have the capacity maybe for a lot of processed foods and I needed the therapeutic nature of a whole foods extreme diet at the time. But the goal is always to build your capacity. The goal is not to have to live in that state of elimination diet and restriction and rigidness because a healthy body has the capacity to come into contact with pollution, come into contact with dairy, come into contact

with whatever, sugar, processed carbs, and be okay because there's resiliency and capacity. Yeah. And health is really about building your capacity and again, building your capacity at the end of the day to be with your own pain more than anything. And then the physical reflects it and vice versa. You build capacity to be in pain in the gym. You build capacity to be in pain when you're like, ooh, being alone feels like the scariest thing in the world right now.

But I can do it. So good. That message carries throughout everything. Throughout health, mental. I mean, I'm still working on that personally. I feel like I'm very much in a place right now with my skin where I am afraid of food. And I want to be honest about that. I wish I could have a slice of cake when I'm at a birthday, but I can't because in my head, I'm imagining this crazy breakout. So my goal is to increase my capacity right now. I want to ask you about protein specifically

for anyone listening who maybe is like, how do I make sure I'm getting enough protein? What should a protein rich meal look like? How many grams of protein? Is there a certain type of protein you lean towards? Yeah. So I, I try to go for protein sources that are like simple to prep and easy to grab first and foremost. And I think that this is where we can get very caught up in like the ideals, right? This like idealistic world of like rotate your proteins and eat the wild venison and the this and that and all this stuff. Yes. In a perfect world, would that be the most nutrient dense, beautiful, varied diet? And is that what I wish I could do all this stuff. Yes. In a perfect world, would that be the most nutrient dense, beautiful, varied diet? And is that what I wish I could do all the time? Sure. And yeah, like

once a month, twice a month, my husband and I will prep like liver meatballs, right? And we'll like get this really cool nutrient rich source of protein in and rotate that in our diets. But what I have found is that I just got to stick to the basics. I'm a human with a neurodivergent brain. I've known I had ADHD since I was 14. And with a neurodivergent brain, you got to kind of trick yourself into making things easy and taking the decision making out of a lot of your day. And you got to like set yourself up for success almost like you're a toddler because your brain when it's stressed and tired is going to kind of go into that toddler mode, which is fun. It actually makes

for a fun life. We're a little chaotic and crazy, but you don't want to have that much fun when it comes to being realistic and a little bit logical about your food and what your body needs. So I will often meal prep a bunch of boiled eggs. Five hard boiled eggs will give you 30 grams of protein, just about, which is the dose that you need. And I will eat five eggs. Period. People. I used to do that too before they broke me out. I'm sorry about that.

I know. It's an interesting inflammatory. I know. We'll chat. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, you're fucked up. No, it's not. I used to slam eggs. Oh, in fact,

you're not fucked up. Like, in fact, that is like what I want you to stop. Thank you, babe. I appreciate that. But yeah, so I'll prep the eggs. I'll prep the chicken breast. You want like four or five ounces of chicken breast or ground beef or steak like and you can weigh it out at first. That's again what I had to do. I would get my scale out and I would weigh five. Then you learn what it should look like. Exactly. Yeah. It's just training yourself how to build a plate. And my thing is like plants, protein, carb. And if I can make my carb a plant, even better. If I can make my carb chickpeas, like break open a can of chickpeas and maybe like roast them in a pan with like some red peppers and jalapenos and whatever and have that

be my carb. Fabulous. If it's white rice, great. If it's potato, Japanese sweet potato even, oh my God, amazing. And then, yeah, I do, I try to go for some kind of a plant with every meal. So, and if that means like grabbing a handful of blueberries, even though it doesn't make sense on my plate with my meal, but it makes sense for what my brain knows. Let me get a little plants in here. Let me like nightcap the meal with something. I'll do that. But it'll usually be like greens or sauteed, you know, something bok choy, broccoli, raw greens with like a really simple dressing. It's just breaking it back down to basics. So you're not anti plants because I've had a lot of people on this show. I mean, I get so many different opinions on here. And I've had a lot of people tell me kale's going to kill me, bok choy is going to do this, keep it simple, just

eat meat and whatever. You're a fan of variety. Yes. Do you find it confusing having so many conflicting people? Olivia, I'm, yeah. Yeah. I think it has led to a chronic state of confusion for me. I think it's hard because it's like, it's funny. You've like opened up your show to all of these really fascinating people who are like the voices in the industry. And yet doing that is a reflection of how misinformed and divided the industry is. It's so interesting. Yes. No, truly.

And no gray area. Someone asked me this question on my post yesterday. They asked, oh, you know, I heard you talk about dairy and how you once were afraid of it. And like you also there's a few things that are true, right? Yeah. At one point, dairy made my skin break out. I can't say exactly why dairy doesn't make my skin break me like doesn't make my skin break out anymore. I have no idea what was the thing along the way that makes me have perfectly clear skin now, no matter what I eat. Wish I could tell you. I have theories. I have ideas. I have a video, like the things that I did and people can try it works for half of people, not the other half. Well, I don't think we'll ever know. Right. And

sometimes when you heal one thing, you heal all the things at the same time, or like you just have to like heal as a whole again as a person rather than trying to heal that one thing. But someone asked me, you know, what's your opinion on dairy now? And I replied to them in the comments and I said, neutral to great for the right person in the right amount in the right form at the right time in their life, taking into account quality, sourcing, their stress levels, and their digestive capacity. Not so great to pretty terrible for the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong form with even the wrong heritage, right? Because actually, genetically, epigenetically, your heritage, there's, for example, East Asians. They do not have a gene to break down lactose. They actually

are lactose intolerant because it was just not part of their ancestral diet. I think that's legit. I feel like they're science. Yes, I agree with you. And I've brought that up to other people before. Someone told me that my heritage being, you know, British, European, Northern European, we tend to be way more inflamed than others because we survived so many plagues. I actually don't doubt that. And it's funny, I've often thought about, and like this is such a stereotype, but I have gone to London many times and there is like an interesting like bone teeth, facial structure kind of like interesting thing going on

that to me, my brain pattern recognition looks at as like maybe there's this mineral deficiency piece, again, like plagues, famines in Ireland where there was like less food diversity. And also when I go to the UK, because it's an island, especially in the fall, winter, you're not getting like your food is traveling many, many miles away. Yeah, there's no fruit. There's no fruit. There's not a lot of fresh food. And not to say that back in the day, the ancestral diet of those in the UK would necessarily be eating fruits and things

like that. Maybe there are certain ancestral foods that you should actually be looking into and getting in touch with your lineage to discover like a fermented milk of sorts, like a fermented this or that. Like what did people eat to nourish themselves like, you know, thousands of years, not thousands, hundreds of years back in the wintertime when antioxidants were sparse. This is like the same as in, you know, in New York and the areas of New York slash New England that were once home to natives and were once native lands like the Algonquins and the Iroquois and all that. When they would be low in vitamin C in the wintertime because there weren't any berries growing, they would take pine needles and they would cook low in vitamin C in the wintertime because there weren't any berries growing. They would take pine needles and they would cook pine needle tea because pine needles are a rich source of vitamin C and it's an evergreen tree. So it's a way to get antioxidants and vitamins

year round. Wow. But if we don't preserve that ancestral knowledge, how are we going to know that going forward? And how are we going to be able to customize our diets to our land and our climate and our time of year and our heritage? Yeah. So I actually think, and this is like part of my theory that's developing about the whole right relationship thing. And hopefully I'll have it in me to write a book about this one day. But I think part of developing that relationship with yourself and correcting your ability to have relationship with everything else is actually restoring your relationship to your lineage and your ancestry and understanding what was the medicine of my ancestors? What did they do when they were lost?

What did they, what were their rituals, you know, involving nature or involving prayer or involving whatever that made the everyday magical and special and brought all into their lives and connected them to nature and to one another? We're missing this. Yeah. And we're like living in Venice, seeing who's the hottest. It's crazy. It's crazy. So it's I don't know. I think that there's such like a pilgrimage that we have to make back to our heritage. And all that to say, some people are lactose intolerant. I'm obsessed. I think it's beautiful. Have you spoken to Nikki Novo by any chance? I'm obsessed. That's my girl. I'm obsessed. She brings up lineage all the time. For you? Yes. Yeah, no, you need to do it. I feel it

so strongly for you. You need to do it. So I'm Welsh. I think that dairy is a huge part of my lineage. I mean, I grew up, you know, cows, sheep everywhere. And truthfully, dairy doesn't make me feel bad. That's the craziest part with my whole skin journey. These things don't make me feel bad. I actually feel amazing on the inside. Wow. But just something about, like something's happening and I don't think it's due to the food, truthfully. I think I've obsessed so much about food. I don't think it has anything to do with food. I think food can play a role and tip us on the scale one way or another when

there's already an existing issue, but it doesn't have anything to do with food. I know. Agreed. There's something happening, and I truthfully think it's gut-related I think it's trauma related. I think it's gut related. I have a severe dysbiosis happening in my gut. I think my husband is a big reason for it, truthfully. Really? I've been with him for 10 years and I've had acne for 10 years. Interesting. Has he done microbiome testing? Nope.

Because we swap a little microbiome action. Yeah, girl. I have super high levels of H. pylori, like crazy high. And I would think that he does too, obviously, at this point. Yeah, because that's what even Dr. Lyon told me. If you treat H. pylori, but your partner doesn't treat it, then it just will come back. Yeah. And now I have a parasite. I have staph. I have strep. I just think that there's a certain aspect of any worthy path back to health. Any worthy path back to health will ultimately lead us toward relationship. Yeah.

So if our health is not healthy and we're doing all the things, I do think it's a worthy task to look at our relationships and look at the dynamics in those relationships, the boundaries, the codependency, the health, the everything, the safety, and to start there. Because I think sometimes when we heal in relationship, we heal in a lot other ways. Something resonated with me when, I think it was Dr. Gabrielle who was like, it's either your house or your spouse. Like, which one is it? I was like, well, it's not my house. I've moved house six times. I've been with Greg for 10 years and we haven't left each other's side for 10 years.

It just resonated with me differently than any other sort of reason that I've ever had. This is you developing a relationship with yourself. Yeah. This is like, this is it. This is the thing you saying it resonated with me and trusting that. Yeah. That's all you need to do is just go towards it. And is it the scariest thing in the world to go towards? Yeah. I've been with my husband for 13 years. It's not easy. And it there's been times where like, even as of recent, where it's just been like, we're either going to really, really like utilize this partnership as a way to, as a way to challenge one another to become healthier. Because if you don't fix it in that relationship, it's going to repeat in the next one. Yeah. Or we're going to not do this, right? Like it's, that's, that's the reality of long-term relationships. That's why long-term relationships are so difficult. Yeah. Because

the more you know someone and are witnessed and seen by someone, the more you witness yourself and your patterns, because they're going to come out in that, that deepest relationship, you can't hide from yourself. And, And if you don't realize that a relationship is a doorway to yourself and it's asking you to take its insight of the pain to grow and change and to improve, then you're not using relationship correctly, you know, or engaging in relationship correctly. And so I think that that's a very worthy place to just explore from a very open, curious, I know it can be scary to be like, maybe things do need to shift in some way. I have no idea how. That's the journey my husband and I are on. But sometimes that's the way out.

I would regret not asking you. We are talking a lot about muscle, body composition, body fat. What do you think of Ozempic? Like I have to ask. It's everywhere. You know, it's so funny when I, unfortunately, I decided to like get ripped in 2023. It is so flattering to have a rumor that you're on Ozempic. Dude, it was, I was like, damn it. You're like, no, I really did it. I'm like, I finally got the message. I developed this great relationship myself. I like got the science down and everyone's like, get so zempic.

And I'm like, all right, whatever. It's flattering, you know? I guess, yeah. Everyone thinks I got like full body surgery. That was the rumor, yeah. Well, well. And I would get spray tans and they'd be like, look, there's the line.

Some other day was like, I love your lip injections. Like, who's your injector? And I've never like, look, there's the line. Some other day was like, I love your lip injections. Like, who's your injector? And I've never in my life, hand on God, hand on the Bible, whatever, the proverbial Bible. I've never had any injections at all. I've never done Botox. That's impressive. No, they look, your lips look amazing.

Why, thank you. I made them myself. But yeah, it's just, it's so funny. Like, I actually think it was because I overlined my lips that day. Yeah. And it's funny because I was doing my makeup this morning. And I was like, OK, my lips, I contoured them. And I was like, that looks weird. I looked in the mirror and I was like, that looks weird. Not that it doesn't look good, but it looks weird on me because it doesn't look true to me.

And so I was like, why am I contouring my lips? And then I went to overline them. And I was like, if I were to be in real, I already use every moment as a practice in relationship. And if I were to use this moment of doing my lip liner as an exercise in relationship, and I were to look at my face and be like, what is my face asking for? What do my lips actually, where do they want to be lined? I realized that my face doesn't look true to me, authentic to my soul when I'm exaggerating my features. For some people it does. Yeah. But I don't like that for my face. It doesn't feel like me. And so I actually underlined my lips today. I put like the lip liner like a little bit in. Like usually I'll kind of try to identify the outside a little bit. Yeah.

But I did it a little bit more conservative than ever. And I was like, wait, this looks really good because I'm being true to my face. I'm being in relationship with what my face wants. And I'm working with myself. That's such a good example of how to do it on a really small scale. Yeah. Just everyday little things that feel better and better and better. I'm trying to get better at that myself. That's such a good example of how to do it on a really small scale. Just everyday little things that feel better and better and better. I'm trying to get better at that myself. And it really does take those small habits. It's like literally seeing every moment as like a path internal as a path like into you. And every like every conflict in every relationship as

a like divine chance to go deeper and use conflict to create connection and learn more about each other. It's really seeing every single obstacle as a way in, including your lip liner. So I was thinking, I'm like, oh, well, that's probably why I'm getting like comments because people, I think people can sense when you're like doing something that's not true to you and then it's easier for them to poke at it. Whereas when you're being totally you, it's like, it's hard for people to poke at you. So I just use that as an example. I'm like, let me have compassion for these people

and also see it as a mirror of like, why is it easier for them to poke at me when I'm like coming on with these like juicy lips? Maybe that's not my- In my juiciest form. Yeah. That was me with hair. I got hair extensions like four days ago

and I literally cut them all off. Really? Yeah. I spent hair. I got hair extensions like four days ago and I literally cut them all off. Really? Yeah, I spent thousands of dollars on hair extensions and left and I was like, I think I've gotten more and more myself since moving to Austin. And I came back to Austin with these hair extensions and I was like, I hate them.

And I cut them all off. I'm proud of you. I think that it's the most beautiful part of a journey back to the self. And the most difficult part is learning how to say no. And it's being like, no, that's not for me. Again, even if that's maybe the most aesthetically pleasing choice, even if that would get rewarded by society, even if that would make me more money, even if that would do whatever, it's being able to be like, but there's something that feels icky about it. There's something that feels off about it. And I don't know what it is,

but I'm going to just trust that. And I'm going to act in that way and see what comes out of it. And it's a practice. Saying no is a practice. And I think a lot of people, when they start to have a relationship with themselves, they're like, hey, I've never had an intuition in my life. What the hell are you talking about? And how do I develop an intuition? And I think people think that their intuition is going to show up as like this clear, today you need to go buy a lotto ticket with the numbers four, seven.

Like your intuition does not speak like that. And in fact, when you're out of touch with yourself and when you haven't been spending that time alone with you, that time journaling, that time really connecting with you, sometimes the way into your intuition is just listening to the no's because the no's are going to be way more clear than the yes's. And people think of intuition as yes's, as this is your path. Go here. This looks shiny. That only comes when you start to practice the no's. And really your intuition is the reward for spending the difficult time alone with yourself actually being your own friend. So good. So good. Saying no feels really

good too. It takes a little a little while to get over the judgment of other people. Yeah. But saying no feels really good. Yeah. With that said, are you on Ozempic? So good. I was like, how the heck did we get here? No, what do you think of Ozempic? No, so I have such a nuanced perspective on Ozempic as I do with most things. Okay. Again, like it's, if you ever ask anyone anything and they say absolutely yes or absolutely no,

just run from that person because that will never be the answer. The answer will always be, it depends. And they probably don't have enough research to even say one or the other. Yeah. Or they're like, it's the Dunning-Kruger effect where the more you actually know, the further you are in your field or career, the more you realize how much you don't know.

And you get really comfortable saying, hmm, let me think on that. Hmm, I need to do a little bit more research there. Hmm, I'm not too sure we know that. Again, I can't say why my acne is gone. I could give you my theories. I can't say for sure. So when it comes to Ozempic,

I think it's a really cool drug. I think it's cool that it is a peptide hormone. Peptide hormones are very different from pharmaceuticals. They're kind of a threat to the pharmaceutical industry a little bit. And at the same time, you know, we live in this world where we're bathing in so many things, again, like blue light, ultra processed foods, chemicals that have just been invented in the last hundred years and are allowed everywhere and being found in the rainwater and glyphosate and

all the things. We're definitely bathing in an environment that one could hypothesize and find research to back up that our baseline endogenous GLP-1, which is the peptide hormone in Ozempic and other semaglutide medications, is essentially at a lower baseline level than it should or would be if we just lived in a perfect world. So I do think that's part of this metabolic piece because when your GLP-1 levels, your endogenous hormone that you make yourself is at a healthy baseline level, you are more satiated. There is less food noise. There's better postprandial glucose responses. There's slower gastric emptying naturally so that your food isn't digested all at once and you're not getting all these spikes. So I do think there's

a case to be made that we're living in a world where there's inflammation and thus our GLP-1 levels are a little bit lower. There are cases where if people really hunker down and do the right things, right? We have literature to show that eating a high protein, high fiber meal boosts your endogenous levels of GLP-1. We have literature to show that cinnamon, fenugreek, ginseng are herbs that increase and stimulate your own release of GLP-1, your own release of ozempic. And we can use those herbs as tools. I have a formula, gluco bitters, that I talk about all the time that I use in my muscle building insulin resistance journey. You take it before meals. It has herbs that help to boost your GLP-1 and also help to regulate your blood sugar and your

cravings. This is where we get to like play in the gray area with herbs and holistic remedies to support our bodies. So you can use herbal tools, green tea, dark chocolate, you know, all of these therapeutic foods, polyphenol rich foods, pigment rich berries, all these foods increase our own levels of ozempic. And it's pretty cool to know that these foods work and can potentiate a fat loss muscle building journey when we eat them because of GLP-1. So obviously, if you're giving a human GLP-1 in greater doses, it's going

to help them even more. Like all things, I think that there is, again, quote, no free lunch. And I do think that for the right person at the right time, for the right length of time, combined with the right hard work, it can be a wonderful tool to just get them on the right trajectory. Because if there's anything that we know about the research behind behavioral change, it's that a lot of times people need momentum. They need some wins. They need some early, clear wins to just get on a track where then they can believe in themselves and they have proof of concept and they can continue those behavioral changes until it becomes solidified. So just for that alone, it could be nice for

somebody to get them on the right path. It could be the thing that they need. And then you look at communities that don't have access to polyphenol-rich organic berries and clean 30-gram or protein meals. They don't have access to time to cook. They're working two to three jobs a day. Real people in the real world often just do not have the tools, the access, all of the things to make the strict changes needed to kind of boost GLP-1 on your own and reverse metabolic dysfunction. And so for those folks who have severe type 2 diabetes, who every time they're having a blood glucose spike, the tiny blood vessels in their kidneys are getting damaged and they could need kidney dialysis for permanent kidney damage. Of course, you would utilize a Western drug like that or Western

hormone like that for that subset of people. Everyone else in the gray area, it just depends. And also, I think that there's professionals in the field like Dr. Tina Moore, who are talking about not microdosing GLP-1, but using it on a very low scale, lower than what you can find in the medication brands. You would have to get it compounded by a special pharmacy and use it in these much lower doses. But she's using it from what I heard on Mark Hyman's show when she did a debate with Casey Means. I heard her talk about using it in these tiny levels to actually lower neuroinflammation in people with autoimmune disorders, neurological disorders like neurodegeneration, depression, anxiety. It is such a powerful anti-inflammatory molecule. Does that mean we shouldn't be, again, eating the polyphenols, the protein, the fiber, lifting, exercising,

all of these things, booster GLP-1. We should be doing all of those things. And at the same time, for a person who in today's world needs one of the today tools that are available to get them on that journey and they're using it in that conservative way where they're not risking as much of the very real side effects like, you know, slowed gastric emptying. That's a well-known mechanism. Of course, it could be taken to an extreme with paralysis. But that would be even less of a risk when you are using it in such a tiny dose. Again, our society is a society of extremes. People are using it aesthetically for weight loss. They're not doing the other things. You know, there's like,

it's just so person to person, but I just wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And yeah, I would just always say that it depends. And for some people, they can have side effects and you can have a side effect with anything herbs too. I had JJ Virgin on my show and her son had a traumatic brain injury from an accident and they used GLP-1 and it was transformative. I, I, this is where I'm like, you know, my mom has severe Alzheimer's disease and I think about what if my mom had GLP-1? She's not on it. Um, I don't think she's so severe. It's like nonverbal slash gibberish. Like she's in the late stages.

Um, but what if she had GLP-1 when she was 50? What if instead of gastric bypass slash whatever, slash all the other things, or even in the start of like her early onset diagnosis, if they use it therapeutically for neurodegeneration. I don't know. Again, it's like holistic medicine works in the preventative space very well. And I don't mean preventative even in the sense of like, oh, I have early onset dementia. Now I'm going to prevent. I mean, in the preventative space of

seeing a whole person and figuring out what they need as an individual to be extremely well nourished and strengthened and build that capacity and all the things so that those things are staved off, you know, that is where holistic medicine shines. It's not actually meant to be used as a reactive kind of allopathic pill for every ill. And that's interesting because as a formulator with an herbal line, when I'm formulating for the masses, I often have to make my products in this way where it is going to have this, you know, symptom reducing acute effect that's very similar to allopathic or Western medicine. And that serves a purpose, but even that is not the truest form of herbalism

that like my teachers really hammer home in school. The truest form of herbalism that like my teachers really hammer home in school. The truest form of herbalism is like seeing that person with immune system dysfunction who's always getting sick and being like, what kind of, you know, how can I support their sleep? How can I support their emotional health and HPA access? How can I support them on a mineral level? All of these things so that over time, those constant chronic infections and immune dysregulation doesn't turn into maybe autoimmunity. Whereas like, you know, as a formulator with products, it's like you're often making something for someone who's a little bit further and now has symptoms that need to be helped naturally. But true holistic medicine is like foundational medicine against seeing the person and what they need. But by the time you already get into a disease state, I think that there's

a good amount that holistic modalities can do. There's a good amount that diet, exercise, all the things can do. But when it's something serious like that, sometimes you do need to like use a tool that matches the extreme nature of what you're dealing with. And again, I hate that we even have to do that because in a perfect world, education and access to real food and the system that's broken on a core level in our schools, in our school lunch programs, in our CSA programs, getting produce to neighborhoods that really need it. That system is what needs to change. We shouldn't need to have, you know,

as many people on drugs like Ozempic as we need to have. So it's again, it's a tool for the times, right? Like the sometimes a heroic disease requires a heroic remedy. That was like during COVID. I kept like hearing that in my head when I was formulating because I was using this herb that's like, quote, it's like a toxic herb, but you use it in very low doses to help clear. It's called poke root. And so I actually had made, so I made this lung tincture during COVID and this zinc formula.

And my lung tincture is called microbiome guard because I was finding out that the bacteria from the mouth, when people already had a COVID virus, viral infections make your respiratory tract more susceptible to bacteria basically sticking onto them. So when you have a virus, you actually become very susceptible to a secondary bacterial infection like bacterial pneumonia that can worsen your disease state and outcome, which is what we were seeing a lot in COVID. People were having COVID and then bacterial pneumonia and then respiratory distress and then going on vents. So I was finding that I, in traditional medicine, when you would look at a bacterial infection in the lungs and the way that COVID was presenting, it was this extreme presentation of what we would call damp heat. Heat is usually infection. And like even

acne is damp heat. That's an example, liver heat. Kind of related to anger in a way on an emotional level, which is interesting, but there's other emotions that can be suppressed that can create damp heat. But this herb poke root is really wonderful at clearing toxic damp heat. And you only use it kind of in emergencies. You use it for something like mastitis when you're breastfeeding and you have this clogged duct and it's really angry and it's inflamed and there's toxic heat. You would use a little bit of Pocroo and it's like a one to two drop, not dropper, drop dose. And so when I was formulating my microbiome guard lung tincture for my neighborhood. I was literally dropping them off

because we had no idea what to do with COVID. And both my parents were in the hospital. So I was like, what else can I do? I couldn't get to them in time. I'm just going to make these care packages. So I was dropping off like orange peel and ginger tea and my homemade tincture to everybody. And I was putting like just a few drops of poke root tincture in their formula. I didn't put that in the tincture that's on my site because it's just, again, I wouldn't mass produce something that's that strong. But if I can use it in relationship with people where I can monitor them and talk to them and I can control how much is in there, that's fine. The tincture is still great without it. It's just that this was this extra little piece that really shifted people quickly. And it could shift their experience of like these pneumonia type symptoms quickly.

As herbalists, we can't cure or treat disease. But essentially I was using that because I kept hearing a heroic remedy is required for a heroic disease. And that's how I feel sometimes about Western medicine. Yeah. Do I need poke root? I don't think you need poke root.

Okay. And I don't think you should hear something like that and be like, do I need poke root? I don't think you need poke root. Okay. And I don't, I don't think you should hear something like that and be like, do I need that? Yeah. You, you know, I'm doing that right now. Yeah. And that's okay. But it's just, it's just recognizing it. It's just literally like being like, oh, okay. I'm fiending poke root. Great. Huh? You're what? I'm like, where can I get poke root? I need a plug. It might not be indicated for you. You know what I mean? Like poke root is, there's a personality to every plant. And so that's so much of my herbalism education and like days that I spent in school just dedicated to one plant where we're learning the classic

indications, the storytelling that was passed down for generations and generations from elders of this is the type of person who's a poke person. And when I was hearing the folklore, I remember my teacher talking about how like a teenager who is really feeling lazy and lethargic and won't clean their room and won't like get their shit together and like move around and whatever. Sometimes they just need a little bit of a poke. And so you can give them like a drop dose of poke or it's like this lymphatic. It's really good for your lymphatic system. That's kind of how it's working. One of the mechanisms. So someone who always has either like a mastitis thing if they're breastfeeding or someone who just always has really stagnant lymph,

you know, always having swollen lymph nodes, like a tiny, tiny bit of poke in relationship with an entire protocol that matches the person, never taken alone. Maybe in a formula with many other things that also help to balance the effects of poke could be indicated to poke the lymphatic system and just move things along. I had a whole fan Q&A for you, but I went so over time. I don't think I'm going to get to it. But just like basically what everyone wanted to know is what should I take for PCOS? What should I take for balancing my gut? What should I take for periods? Can you just like give us a quick lowdown on your herbs and what you'd recommend for different people? Yes. I'm actually so glad you asked that. And I appreciate you

asking that and giving me an opportunity to talk about my herbs because I did just release something called the sisters kit and it's a two-part kit for folks with PCOS okay um and so again when I when I originally talked about like this oh the sisters I saw this sisters yeah yeah exactly because a lot of times like in the PCOS community they'll be like oh my god we're sisters and it's kind of like it's cute I really I really like it. And so when I talked about that, like that underlying like etiology of metabolic dysfunction and how it doesn't have to just be coming from the insulin resistance piece, there are other factors. There's the mitochondrial dysfunction, the oxidative stress, the chronic inflammation, and the nutrient deficiency piece. My PCOS kit, it has two formulas. is liquid one is capsule

and you take them each daily like as a protocol as a set and that's why i needed to break them into two formulas because i needed to address the insulin resistance piece as well as the mitochondrial piece as well as the b vitamin deficiency i had to fit a bunch of b vitamins in the capsule as well as the excess androgens that are causing a lot of like the angry androgenic like chin or cheek or back acne, as well as like the hair loss on head and growth on chin kind of situation that comes from androgens. So we have some androgen metabolism shifting herbs in there like saw palmetto and nettle root. We have some herbs in there and even nutraceuticals for estrogen metabolism because also gut dysbiosis can be a piece of PCOS. And women with PCOS not only of certain dysbiotic gut bacteria, that those gut bacteria populations that are there in not ideal ratios are actually able to recirculate estrogen

through the gut wall. So you're not making too much of it, but you're constantly recirculating it. And then your liver has to try to clear it all over again. So there's a nutrient in the capsule that's called calcium deglucorate. that's really good at helping with that exact mechanism of estrogen recirculation in the gut. And then there's liver support. And we also used doses of cinnamon and ginger that were utilized in a study in women with PCOS. So that is like my life's work. I've been fascinated by PCOS since my final year in herb school, and I'm super excited about that. And I have a whole bunch of other stuff on there, but that's our beautiful. And I'll give your folks a code, please. Yeah, you could. We'll do pow 15. Yes, please. I'm

going to use it because I think I have. Honestly, I think I have PCOS symptoms. I've been told that many, many times, but there's layers to it. And I don't think people realize how important liver support is too with hormones. So really glad you mentioned that. Olivia, what would you say wellness means to you? This is a question I ask every guest. I think everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What would you say it means to you? I think wellness means the capacity to be with every moment in its entirety and in its duality and to be with oneself in our entirety and our duality and our conflicting nature and to have that acceptance and to be with other people for exactly who they are and their duality and their conflicting nature. And I think that it's a lifelong practice. Beautiful answer. I

couldn't agree more. Where can everyone find you online? Where can they find the Organic Olivia products? You can find my online apothecary at OrganicOlivia.com. We also have a ton of blogs that I've written over the years on that website. And then my Instagram is at organic underscore Olivia. And my brand is at shop organic Olivia. Oh, and your podcast. And my podcast, which Mari will be on next, is What's the Juice podcast. Thank you, girl. Oh, my God.

Thanks for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. To support this show, please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my favorites at marieloellen.com. It will be linked in the show notes. This is a Wellness Out Loud production produced by Drake Peterson, Fiona Attucks, and Kelly Kyle. This show is edited by Mike Fry and our video is recorded by Luis Vargas. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Mari Fitness.

Love you, Power Girls and Power Boys. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.