Realfoodology - Weight Loss, Overcoming Struggles of Mental Illness, Healing Acne from The Inside Out + Creating an Empire | Mari Llewellyn

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

EP. 175: Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! Join me, as I welcome my dear friend Mari Llewellyn, founder of Bloom and host of the Pursuit of Wellness Podcast. Hear about her inspiring journey to wellness, her transformational weight loss, and how she uses diet to manage a diagnosed personality disorder. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from Mari's experiences and gain a fresh perspective on your own wellness journey. Topics Discussed: 0:00:00 - My New Grocery Store Guide 0:10:19 - Transforming Mental Health Through Fitness 0:17:29 - Diet's Impact on Mental Health 0:24:09 - Manage Phone Use + Knowing When to Put it Down 0:32:55 - Using Pain as Purpose 0:38:27 - Struggles of Being a Public Figure 0:41:30 - Revealing the Root Cause of Acne 0:45:22 - Overcoming Skin Issues and Healing Naturally 0:51:30 - Diet, Supplements, and Skincare 0:55:27 - Discovering Balance and Building Confidence 1:00:58 - Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience 1:06:55 - Product Development Challenges and Lessons Sponsored By: Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic seed.com/realfoodology Use code REALFOODOLOGY for 30% off your first month's supply of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic LMNT Get 8 FREE packs with any order at drinkLMNT.com/realfoodology\ Wildway https://wildwayoflife.com Code REALFOODOLOGY will give you 20% off your first order Check Out Mari: Mari’s Instagram click here! Pursuit of Wellness Podcast click here! Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! Check Out Courtney: Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson Edited & Mixed By: Mike Frey

I've finally created a PDF for you guys, a grocery store guide. This is all of my tips and tricks on how to navigate the grocery store in one easy, simple, digestible, for lack of a better word, guide. It is completely free to you. All you have to do is go to realfoodology.com and there's going to be a pop-up there asking for your email and then you're going to get it sent to you directly for free. If for some reason the pop-up doesn't come up, you can also scroll to the bottom of the page. And when you sign up for the mailing list, it will automatically send you the PDF. I have been working on this for

a couple months now. It's a long time coming. A lot of you have been asking me for a simple guide that you can use when you are navigating the grocery store. And it's finally here. I'm so excited for you guys to get your hands on it. So please just make sure to go to realfoodology.com, put in your email and it will automatically send you the PDF. I hope you guys enjoy. On today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast. A lot of people go through life tolerating sort of a mediocre level of pain. And I feel like before I hit rock bottom, I was like, eh, don't love my classes. I don't love my life. I feel like I'm not obsessed with who I am as a person, but it's okay. It doesn't hurt that badly. And then everything falls apart and you kind of don't have a choice. You

have to look yourself in the face and be like, wow, you know, you're the reason that you're in this position right now. And yeah, I'm grateful that that happened to me because I don't think I'd be where I am now if it didn't happen. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. I am your host, Courtney Swan. And today's episode happens to be a dear friend of mine. You guys may know her as the founder of Bloom and more recently, the podcast host of the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Mari not only happens to be a good friend, but she has such a cool story of how she started and has such an inspiring health journey, which we talk about. We talk about how she lost 90 pounds, what motivated her in the beginning. We also talk about the personality disorder that she got diagnosed with

at a young age and really how diet plays a role in her symptoms. I found this absolutely fascinating and it is so refreshing to hear her be so open and honest about her journey. We also talk about her fitness and also how she started Bloom. And we also talked about her Bloom bars and the ingredients. This was a requested question that I had a lot in the DM. So don't worry. We definitely talk about that as well. Mari is such a wealth of information and she's just a fun girl. Whenever you listen to her talk, you just feel like you are sitting down with a bestie. And this is what I love so much about her. She's very relatable.

She's very honest and makes you feel not alone in your journey because we all have our things. We all have our struggles that we deal with and we all have our triumphs and seeing and hearing about how she has overcome so much in her life is really truly inspiring. So I really hope you guys love the episode. As always, if you can take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it means so much to me and it really, guys love the episode. As always, if you can take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it means so much to me and it really, really helps the show. And also look out for the episode

that I did with Mari on Pursuit of Wellness because I also was a guest on her podcast. So I hope you guys enjoy the episode. Tis the season for a giveaway. I'm so excited. We are finally doing another Real Foodology Podcast giveaway. And one lucky winner is gonna win

an AquaTrue carafe, which is the glass carafe AquaTrue water filter that I have. It's a reverse osmosis countertop water filter that is my favorite. I have been using it for two or three years now. And you're also going to get an Air Doctor 3500. The EPA has said that indoor air is way more polluted than outdoor air now thanks to all the pollutants that we have in our homes and we're spending so much time in our home that it is so incredibly important to have an air filter so you have clean air so one lucky winner is going to win an AquaTrue and an Air Doctor and it is so simple for you guys to sign up for this giveaway all you have to do is go to Apple Podcasts and leave a

rating and review. That is it. Make sure that in the comment section after you've written your review that you leave your IG handle, your Instagram handle, because without that, we're not going to be able to get a hold of you. Now, if you have already left a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, I have another solution for you. But I really do want to reiterate that this is to help with the ratings and reviews. So if you have not left one you, but I really do want to reiterate that this is to help with the ratings and reviews. So if you have not left one yet, if you guys could take a moment to leave a rating and review and then leave your Instagram handle, it takes about two seconds. If you have already done that, Apple Podcasts will not let you do another one. I have a solution for you.

So go to your Instagram and upload any Real Foodology podcast that you want. And then just make sure that you tag at Real Foodology so that I see it. And then just write me a little message underneath and just say, this is my submission for the giveaway because otherwise I'm not going to see it and I won't know that that's your submission. So good luck. I'm so excited about this giveaway and I hope you win. Not all probiotics are created equal. I cannot stress this enough. You cannot just go to the grocery store or Whole Foods and buy any probiotic off the shelf. It is so incredibly important that you are getting a good high quality probiotic. The reason not all probiotics are created equal is because a lot of these probiotics or the good gut bacteria that need to populate

our gut never actually make it to our guts. This is why you will hear companies saying, our bacteria arrives alive. That is really incredibly important. And this is why I love Seed Probiotic. Seed's DS01 daily symbiotic is a broad spectrum two-in-one plant-based prebiotic and 24-strain probiotic. If you guys follow my stories on Instagram, you will know that they have a pretty extensive delivery technology and a dual capsule design. And what's really cool and special about this, it's very unique. It essentially potentially delivers more bacteria to the colon because it gets through all of the stomach acid and everything else that

would otherwise burn up this bacteria and not allow it to get to the gut to repopulate our gut. They also have a proprietary formulation of 24 distinct probiotic strains in scientifically studied dosages, systemic benefits beyond the gut, and proprietary engineered two-in-one capsule that I was just talking about that protects probiotics through digestion to ensure delivery to the colon. It's really cool. If you actually take the green cap and you open it in your hand, you will see another capsule pops out with some of the supplement in there as well. So when I say that there are systemic benefits beyond the gut, what does that mean? It's including gastrointestinal or GI function, skin health, heart health, gut immune function,

gut barrier integrity, and micronutrient synthesis of vitamins B9 and B12. Gut immune function is not boosting the immune system. It is about supporting the crosstalk between your intestinal cells and your immune cells. Many people see improvements in digestion within 24 to 48 hours, which can include bowel movement, regularity, and eased bloating. If you want to start a new healthy habit today, visit seed.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology to redeem 30% off your first month of Seeds DS01 Daily Symbiotic. That's seed.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology. I have been a longtime supporter and lover of Organifi, and I'm so excited to announce that they are rolling out a special product line just for kids. They're committed to delivering the

same level of quality nutrition and a yummy experience even picky kiddos will love. To kick off this line, they're going to be launching a Kids Greens called Easy Greens, as well as an immunity product called Protect. The Kids Greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to bring balance to kids' growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk. The main ingredients are nutrient-rich veggies, carrot, broccoli, sprout, spinach, and beet, superfoods like moringa and chlorella, and digestive support like digestive enzymes, probiotics, and fiber. And the Kids Immunity is going to support your child's daily immune health with a berry blast of herbs and superfoods that work to strengthen the body's first line of defense.

It has orange and acerol cherry. It has astragalus, which is a potent adaptogenic root used to support and boost the immune system. Also elderberry, which is an antioxidant rich healing plant that supports the body's defenses against illness. And then of course propolis, which is the bodyguard of the beehive that can help naturally prevent sickness and modulate the immune system. Make sure to go to the website and check out some of my favorites, especially as we were going into winter. I love their critical immune support. It's fast acting immune support for quicker recovery and a stronger sense of wellbeing. I'm also a huge, huge fan of their liver reset. It supports the liver natural detoxification process with a

unique formula to improve liver health, digestion, and energy. I tell everyone I know and including you guys, my audience, that I think everyone needs to be on a liver supplement because we are being exposed to so many different environmental toxins, stuff in our water, pesticides in our food, stuff in the air that all has to go through our liver. And so our livers are really working on overtime right now and taking something that will protect our liver health is absolutely imperative. They also have green juices. They have a chocolate gold, which is a delicious bedtime drink that I like to drink before bed. It tastes like hot chocolate and there's like no sugar in there. And it really helps you get sleepy and ready for bed and it's a

great bedtime treat. So if you guys want to try any of these products, go to Organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash Real Foodology or you can just go to Organifi.com and use code Real Foodology. Mari, thank you so much for coming on. I'm so excited to have you on and talk to you about your fitness journey and your weight loss and also your acne journey. Thank you so much for having me. First of all, you were just on my show and you're incredible. So I am honored to be here. Thank you. So are you. Okay. So I want to start first and foremost with your health journey. I know it started with you losing 90 pounds. So can you kind of take us back to the beginning and where it all started? Yes. So my weight loss

journey was 2017. But a lot of things happened in the lead up to that journey. So I was at college in Philadelphia, I was at Drexel. And I'd always had underlying mental health issues. I grew up in a pretty tumultuous household. I feel like I had a lot of internalized insecurity and pain and never really had healthy ways of dealing with that pain. So when I went to college, it was kind of like an explosion. I was like, oh, alcohol, partying, relationships. I found all these things that helped me feel whole for a minute. So I got really into drinking. I was definitely using that as a way to numb the pain. You know, a lot of different relationships, a lot of like chaotic up and down moments in my life. And my mental health was really deteriorating and becoming more and more of an issue.

So my junior year of college, I had my first, and trigger warning, I had my first self-harming incident. And this is where it became obvious that I was in a really dark place. So I was self-harming. I was with Greg, who's my now husband. And he was like, you know, I really think you need to go see a psychologist. I'd been in therapy since I was 14.harming. I was with Greg, who's my now husband. And he was like, you know, I really think you need to go see a psychologist. I'd been in therapy since I was 14. But anyone who's had mental health issues will know if you're struggling, there's this tendency to kind of push away the therapist. I would go ghost mode on my therapist, just disappear for weeks, come back, whatever. So ultimately, I went to a psychologist who diagnosed me with borderline personality

disorder quite quickly was put on a cocktail of medication so I was on anti-psychotics antidepressants anti-anxieties basically put on the same medication you'd put on for someone with bipolar because borderline is a very kind of specific disorder that often goes undiagnosed which is why I was diagnosed so late in life. So I was put on medication that was really, really strong. So it didn't necessarily help. The self-harming continued, the drinking continued, but I was pretty much numb. I didn't feel anything. I didn't have any highs. I didn't have any lows. I completely checked out from reality. It was basically like a continuous dissociation for about two years. I ended up failing every class. I was in my final semester

of senior year and I deteriorated so quickly that I was failing every class in school. Barely could get out of my bed. Couldn't recognize myself in the mirror I had never struggled with weight before in my life I grew up in a pretty I don't know healthy household health wasn't emphasized but we you know I'm from the UK and we ate well we ate a pretty European style so I never really thought about it on this medication I was emotionally eating heavily I gained a lot of weight. So I was pretty much at rock bottom. I was very unwell physically and mentally. Ended up having to move home with my dad, which was embarrassing, you know, shameful, a massive reality check for me. Didn't have a degree, didn't have a job, didn't really have a plan. And I cold turkey came off the medication,

which I'm not recommending. It's really, really hard to do that. And it takes months to recuperate from, you know, being on that heavy of a medication. And that was when I decided I needed to take a step in the right direction. And Greg, my husband, who was my boyfriend, had been into bodybuilding his whole life. And I'd seen him super dedicated to fitness. You know, he'd go to the gym multiple times a day. He had his Tupperware, which in college was super rare. And even just cooking your own food in college was so rare. I mean, we were all going to Subway and he was like eating chicken and rice. So I initially went to him to ask some advice. I mean, we were all going to Subway and he was like eating chicken and rice. So I initially went to him to ask some advice. I was also tuning into, you know, fitness influencers

who are popular at the time, like Buff Bunny and Christian Guzman. I was watching bikini competitions and emulating there what I eat in a days, which isn't the way I live my life now, but it was a step in the right direction and also allowed me to figure out on my own, you know, what makes me feel the best. And from there, I just became truly obsessed. That's how it all began. First of all, I want to take a moment to really commend you for being so honest about that journey, because I think some people would feel ashamed. They wouldn't want to share that publicly, especially with like the self-harm stuff. But it really, you kind of take away the shame around that and you give other people permission to be okay with if maybe that's their story too, which I think is really, really powerful. You make people feel like they're not alone. So it's really amazing that you do that because I think many people

would be too embarrassed or like scared to admit that. Thank you. It's honestly super inspiring. And I'm sorry that you went through that, but like how amazing to look at you now and see and just know your backstory and know, know you in real life and know how you are and also just like see how successful you are now and how you really like fought for yourself. Thank you. I am so grateful that I hit that rock bottom because I always say, I think a lot of people go through life tolerating sort of a mediocre level of pain. And I feel like before I hit rock bottom, I was like, eh, don't love my classes. I don't love my life. I feel like I'm not obsessed with who I am as a person, but it's okay. It doesn't hurt that badly. And then everything falls apart and you kind of don't have a choice. You have to look yourself in the face and be like,

wow, you know, you're the reason that you're in this position right now. And yeah, I'm grateful that that happened to me because I don't think I'd be where I am now if it didn't happen. Yeah. So I want to go into what you said about going off your medication, but I want to give a little bit of a context to it first, my thinking around this. So a lot of what I talk about on my podcast, I bring on experts all the time. We talk a lot about the importance of gut health, your diet, your lifestyle, and really how much of a role that plays in your mental health. Because I think often it's really downplayed because we've been told that you just go on a medication, you just deal with it for life, you're just on the medication, and this is just what you have to deal with now. And I know a lot too, a lot of times what will happen is someone

will go into their doctor's office and they'll say, well, are there diet and lifestyle changes I can make? And the doctor's like, no, no, no, just take your medicine. And I think part of your message, what's really powerful about that, but also I want to remind people that everyone's journey is different.

I'm not at all advocating to like go against your doctor's wishes to go off your medication, but I do wanna talk about this because I think there are people that would like to not be on their medication. I have friends who were like, I felt numb. I felt like I didn't have a personality. So what do you think your fitness and your diet and like your food journey, like how has that played such a huge role in your ability to go off your medication and now like how you manage it? Yeah, such a good question. And this is in my experience. But, you know, when I was at that point in my life, I was drinking

iced coffees that were like this big with sugar in them. I was having muffins. I was spiking my glucose all day, which when you have a personality or a mood disorder, you're kind of fighting against yourself. Your mood's already going up and down. So you're adding to it with the sugar and the caffeine or whatever it may be. So I never connected diet and lifestyle to the way I felt in my body. And I remember my dad, your story with your mom actually made me think of this, but my dad bought me a book called Food is Medicine. And i remember my initial reaction was anger i was like how could you think that food would fix this problem i was like this problem's so much bigger than that i had resistance right away because i felt like the problem was so much

deeper than that and i was like how could food possibly help me it did help me um disclaimer but I when I began becoming interested in nutrition I was researching diet for mental health conditions and one thing that kept popping up for me was keto a lot of people and I know Jordan Peterson talks about this a lot but a lot of people see benefits from high fat diets because you have a more stable blood sugar and healthy fats help the brain. So I was like, okay, this kind of sounds up my alley. So I tried keto pretty early on in my fitness journey. I was eating a lot of salmon, olive oil, avocado, poke with salad, like things of that nature. Eggs, eggs have always been a huge thing for me and I felt so much better like I really felt like the fire in my brain calmed down and in my body and I still use keto every now and again now when I feel like

I need a reset it's one of my favorite types of diets out there I don't think it's one that you should do for a long time yeah because I did it consistently for like two years and I had gut health issues afterwards because I didn't have the necessary bacteria I guess from fiber I don't know I'm not explaining that as well as someone else might I love keto and I think that really helped me and also just focusing on whole foods and nutrients and understanding the benefit that can come from that I think nutrition honestly when I look back at my fitness journey nutrition was the most important part of the whole thing. If I had to pick exercise or nutrition, I'd pick nutrition every time. Wow. I love to hear that because I talk about this often that, yes, exercise is really, really important for us. It's really good for the

cardiovascular system. It's good for the lymphatic system, you name it, all the benefits. But if your diet is not right, one, you're not going to see the results that you want. And then also your mood's going to be all over the place. Your blood sugar is going to be all over the place. So, and your lab markers are going to be crazy. Like nutrition should be first and foremost. I think something interesting that you found out and that we talk about this all the time from a nutrition standpoint, whether or not someone has a mood disorder, if someone is dealing with crazy fluctuations of their mood outside of like having a mood disorder, a lot of times what is happening is they're on a

blood glucose sugar, like rollercoaster ride, you know, because what happens is your blood glucose rises, your insulin comes in and then you crash and you're just kind of all over the place. I mean, I've experienced that and I have never been diagnosed with a mood disorder. It was just simply because I was not implementing all the right nutrition tools to help me. And then I will say too, I find it so interesting and I love that you took ownership over in the beginning. You were like, I don't want to admit that maybe I'm playing a bit of a role on this with like my food, you know? And again, I wanna be sensitive to people because there's a lot of things we can't control.

And if you're born with something, there's only so much you can do. But you took your ownership and your power back by being like, okay, now that I know that I have this, it's now on me to make sure that I do better for myself so that I'm not exploding this out on my friends, my family, and so that my life is improved. Yeah, I think blame is a huge part of a wellness journey, mentally and

physically. I think it's funny when you say the piece about the mood disorder, because now, honestly, I look back and I wonder how much of my symptoms were truly coming from alcohol and food. And I'm not saying that my BPD diagnosis wasn't accurate, but I don't check the boxes for BPD currently. And I've learned that it's more of a trauma disorder than anything. So you do need to do DBT therapy, super helpful. But I always wonder, like, if I hadn't been eating that way or drinking that way, would I have been self harming? Would it have been as bad as it was so I think that's such a good point in terms of the blame piece such a massive mindset shift because I think without

realizing subconsciously for years I blamed other people for my BPD for the way I treated my body for okay I you know I have this trauma, therefore I act this way and kind of telling myself this story over and over again. And going through this journey have made me realize, you know, if I keep telling myself this same story and blaming the same people, all I'm doing is hurting myself. Yes. Yes. And I think that's something people struggle with. And as a byproduct, you don't even realize you're hurting everyone around you as well. You know, it's like you, you're bleeding and you're bleeding all over everyone else instead of like stitching it up, which you're the only one that can, you know, ultimately at the end of the day,

do it. That's incredible. And this is so inspiring to hear that. So what, what would you say are your, so you said that you don't even check off those boxes anymore. What are the things that are the most important for you now? Like what are the tools that you have in your toolbox in order to maintain that and you stay in that place? Yeah. It's evolved over time. You know, for me on my fitness journey, even getting to the gym for a little bit was like better than what I was doing before. I wasn't even moving my body before. Even going on a walk back then was better than what I was doing. So I just want to say if you're at the beginning of your fitness journey, don't feel like you need to do all the things right away because just getting your shoes on, getting out the door,

going on a walk, if you're better off than you were, like just take that first step. And that's how I built up my confidence because I do think confidence comes from keeping your own promises. So I slowly but surely taught myself how to do that. Now I have a pretty extensive routine, you know, food first and foremost. I love eating whole satiating foods. I eat a lot of protein. I eat a lot of meat. Yeah, my meat girl. I'm definitely a meat girl. Like at the moment I am eating so much meat, but I'm also like 5'10". I'm not like a small person. So I eat a decent amount.

I don't really care about calories. I care about what's in the food. Definitely getting all my nutrients in for the day. I love sauna cold plunging, even though I hate the cold plunge part. I know. The feeling you get afterwards is just next level. Like it really is a high.

I've been meditating a lot lately, but I wouldn't say that's like always been a consistent for me. I think getting off the phone is a big one. I think that my mental health is at its worst when I'm on the phone more. So intentionally going outside and leaving the phone at home, whether I'm horseback riding or going on a walk or whatever it may be, is really important for me. Yeah, I think that's really important. And I think we really have to stress that because more than ever, we are so chained to our phones. I mean, I had to download an app. It's called Opal, by the way. I have it. Yeah. So good. Oh my God, it's a game changer. It literally locks me out of my phone at 9pm every night and I can't even

open it or get back in my answer. I mean, you can.m. every night, and I can't even open it or get back to my Instagram. I mean, you can override it if you want, but I don't because it really, it makes you take like longer breaks, and then you can like override it less and less. Yeah. And I just get over it, and I'm like, oh, F it. I'm just going to go to bed or whatever. And then I can't get into it until 9 in the morning. So that way I get up, I do everything else in the morning I need to do. I'm not worried about emails. I'm not getting into my Instagram and all this stuff. And I think that plays a huge role in mental health too. It really does help.

I mean, sometimes I see my screen time and I'm like, scary. Like that's scary. It's really scary. So you started with the food. Yeah. With your journey and losing weight and all that. And that had a huge impact. Let's talk about your fitness because that was a big impact for you in your in your career. How did you get started in fitness? What was kind of your motivation behind it? Obviously, you wanted to lose weight, but what else was behind that? You know, I look, it's funny, because I think a lot of people know me as this weight loss person, because of that before and after photo, people respond to the before and afters strongly for some reason online but for me it was very much a mental

battle I think when I started my journey I felt like I was a weak person like I felt like I had no self-discipline no motivation like I had this belief about myself that I was I don't know like okay with being average and I wanted to change that so are you aware of that at the time yeah you were I was I was like you know just definitely doing a lot of self-reflecting and feeling like I didn't really try that hard at school I didn't really try that hard with anything and that made me feel ashamed and I wanted to change that so as I said before the initial steps to getting healthier were just going on more walks with my dog Lulu, like just getting out the door.

The gym was a really scary place for me at the beginning because I was insecure in my body. I was wearing like oversized t-shirts. I'd never even really been to a gym before. Like it was such a new thing for me. Greg was still at school in Philadelphia. So he'd meet me on the weekend, show me a couple moves, like leg press, squat, definitely like bodybuilder compound moves. Like I was trained by a bodybuilder so I had that in my head which I'm kind of grateful for because it allowed me to celebrate growing rather than shrinking because from the beginning I never wanted to just be thin I wanted to have muscle I thought girls with muscle were the coolest thing ever like I remember I was obsessed with Miss Bikini Olympia that year Angelica sculpted shoulders

glutes legs like you could tell that they worked out and I was like that's such a great way of showing that you're a disciplined person by having muscle because as a female to have muscle it takes a lot of work so yeah from the beginning I really wanted that muscle and I was getting in the gym every day even if I mean some days I left the gym crying because it was just too much for me. You know, I was still working on that mental, that mental part of it. But yeah, I became obsessed. I went to Planet Fitness every single day, did my little, my little workouts. I was definitely, you know, following the popular fitness influences at the time, all the bodybuilders. I didn't do a ton of cardio. I was definitely really focused on weightlifting. I wasn't do a ton of cardio I was definitely really focused on weightlifting I wasn't even really documenting this like it was definitely like a private thing for me for the first nine

months of my journey I was following people on Instagram but I never got on the camera myself because I was too insecure yeah so I just kept going I kept checking off the boxes keeping my own promises going to the great these sound like simple, but for me at the time, I was such a shell of a person that going to the grocery store alone, going to the gym alone, cooking for myself, like these were all big triumphs. And I just kept going and going and going. And I didn't really know where it was going to end up. I just kind of had this feeling of like, if you dedicate yourself to this and work really hard, something good will come of it. You guys know we're big supporters of regenerative farming over here and how important it is to put our money into brands, into companies that are doing right by our health. These companies that are putting the health of their customers

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slash realfoodology. You say those are not big wins, but I would argue differently because it goes back to what you were saying earlier that you were just, you were teaching yourself to be, you were building your confidence because you were teaching that you could keep your little promises to yourself, you know, and a lot of the health journey in general, whether we're talking about fitness or with food is that consistency, you know, cause that's really where you start growing and where you start really becoming healthier, you know, it's the consistency in it, you know, where the eating the really good food and the exercise. And I think I probably already know your answer to this, but I always like to ask people this

question because I want to encourage the listeners to think about this for themselves. What's your why? I always tell people, really stay in touch with your why. If you are really struggling with something, whether it's for you you with like a mood disorder or like someone's really wanting to lose weight or maybe they have this like health concern. I always tell people focus on your why because that will get you through those small little things during the day. And the more you start doing them, the more you get in that pattern of consistency, the easier it becomes. I love that. And I feel like whenever I feel lost in my career or my life, I try to tap back into that why. And I think at the core of it, it is sharing the most painful experiences I've had in my life and being really honest and open

about it and helping other people not feel alone. Like it sounds kind of simple, but I think just sharing is my why and which is why I started my podcast and why I've done all the things I do because I have been there and I've been in a really dark place and felt like I was the only one that had acne the only one that had BPD the only one that was on all these medications like I have been in that position and I guess just by getting on the microphone and hoping that people in the same position are hearing me some of my favorite um community meeting moments or fan run-ins are when girls tell me that they have bpd and that they've listened to me and it's helped them because i'm not in that place anymore but i've been there and it's so lonely so i think my why is using my pain as my purpose and sharing about

it and, you know, just guiding anyone who needs guidance, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. You essentially have become the person that you wish you had when you were going through this journey of someone that you could look to for inspiration, maybe for advice. And because I can't even imagine how hard it would have been to get a diagnosis like that. You know, I'm sure in one on one side of the coin, you're probably like, oh, thank God it explains everything. But then part of it, you're like, oh, my God, but what does this mean now? Well, BPD, especially for anyone listening, if you look up borderline personality disorder, it basically tells you you're doomed. Like it gives some crazy percentage about suicide rates.

It tells you that therapists don't want to work with you, that you're highly manipulative. There's this list of horrible characteristics. It made me feel like I was evil and something was wrong with me. And now I have so much more knowledge about the disorder and also more science is coming out with BPD and they have now discovered it's a trauma disorder, which changed my perspective so much

because I was like, if it's a trauma disorder, I wasn't necessarily born with this yeah which means I can undo it which I kind of feel like I have I'm not saying that I'm like mentally perfect right now I feel like we all have our triggers from childhood but I definitely feel like they don't affect my daily life anymore that's so incredibly inspiring it really is because we I went through something very traumatic as a kid, which I'm not going to go into just because I've shared a lot about it. And this is about you on this page, but, or in this episode, but I will never forget afterwards, my mom goes,

you have two choices here. She said, you can either choose to overcome this and become a better person, or you can become a victim of this. And that has really, really stuck with me because we do have a lot of choice in this. And again, that's not to say that people aren't suffering and that, you know, horrible things aren't happening to people, but we can't control the things that happen to us or the things, you know, outside of our control. But what we can control is how we react to it and the things that we're going to do moving forward with it your mom sounds amazing first of all like wow no one said that to me i mean i feel like we can't really expect people to say that to us like that's amazing that you had that experience i think you kind of have to realize it on your own you know yeah like for me it took such a journey for me to realize it on your own, you know? Like for me, it took such a journey

for me to realize that I was telling myself a story and I was the main character of the story and stuck in this victim mentality. And I talk about it a lot on my podcast about getting out of victim mentality because I was in it for so long, you know? And I see it online in the comments, the way people speak.

I think a lot of us are living in that mindset. I know, I know. And it's kind of why I wanted to talk about it a little bit, because I know you have, you know, you've talked about it, you've experienced it. And like you, I've seen it a lot in the comments too. And so I'm just like, I want to tell people, like, I just wish that there was a way we can empower people, you know, to be like, look, you were wronged and it's terrible. But also like that's reality of the situation and we can't go back in time and change it. But what we can change is what you do moving forward. And I personally find that so empowering because then it gives you your control back instead of you being in this victim mode of like, I have no control and everything's happening to me and I'm just like in a passenger seat.

Yeah, period. Yeah. So, well, thank you for being so honest about all this. It's really, it's one thing that I'm, I know many people are so drawn to you because you talk about these things so honestly and you're so authentic about your struggles and it gives people permission to also be like, oh yeah, like I'm also dealing with something and I'm not perfect, you know? Cause I think often when someone like you has this massive platform and they look at you and they emulate you and they put you on a pedestal

and then they're like, oh, but she's dealing with everyday things too, like us. You know, like, oh, she's a real person. It's funny to me that people would ever think about me that way because I feel like I have so many, I don't know, like daily challenges. The acne was a huge thing for me that I recently overcame. You know, I have anxiety still.

I think it's funny that in today's society, we have people with these massive platforms or celebrities or whatever, and it's really easy to assume that they're not a human. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Like you reach a certain level of success, and I'm not even talking about myself here,

but people reach a certain level of success and they stop being human. I know, it's crazy. Yeah. Well, and then we don't afford them the same empathy and compassion that we do other people because we're like,

oh, they have it great. They have so much money or they have so much influence or whatever it is. And it's like, at the end of the day, we're all just humans. We're all trying to do our best here,

you know? And so I think it's important to remind people of that. So, okay. I actually want to talk about your acne because going in the vein of you being really honest with your struggles, I had crazy cystic acne when I was younger.

And I just commend you so much for going online, being honest about it, showing the photos, like showing people your journey because I remember when I was going through this, I had just kind of been slowly starting my Instagram journey and I was so embarrassed. I was mortified. I never showed photos. I don't even think, I was actually looking for photos like a couple months ago. I don't even think I have photos of it because I was so embarrassed and mortified. I didn't even want to have like

proof of it. Yeah, I get that. I did that too for a long time. Oh, so first of all, thank you for sharing that because you're helping so many people with it. What is the biggest thing that you discovered on this journey that was leading to your acne that you did not expect? Okay, such a good question. Because for context, guys, I had acne for about a decade. So I had acne showing up at around age 20. So I wasn't a teenage acne person. Like my skin was pretty good in high school. It really began showing up in college. Again, when I was starting to treat my body badly, I was also doing tanning beds a lot back then to try to get rid of it. One of my biggest regrets, by the way, the daily tanning beds. What on earth was I doing? Thank you.

What is anyone doing? First of all, I was orange. Second of all, I'm from the UK. Like, shouldn't be orange. I think I thought it was getting the acne off my face because it kind of was. It dries your skin out to the point where you don't have the acne anymore, but it just comes back worse. So not an effective method.

I got put on birth control. I tried various birth controls for my acne. I took a ton of antibiotics back in the day for acne because they treat it like it's like an illness or something. Spronolactone, I was on for a long time, which I feel like people are talking about spronolactone very casually on TikTok. Oh, have you tried spronolactone? Oh, spronolactone changed my life. It's literally, I mean, you could probably speak to this in a more eloquent way, but it's altering our hormones and you cannot stay on it when you want to get pregnant. So ultimately you're going to have to come off of it anyway.

And I personally found when I was on a high dose of it, I didn't have the same drive or motivation in my life. I mean, what? That's crazy. So I hated being on that. It helped a little bit, but not that much. Thank God I never took Accutane. I narrowly avoided that because I was so close. But this acne just kept coming back and back and back and getting worse and worse. And I decided I wanted to heal naturally. That's a huge part of my value system. I love health and nutrition. And I was like, why am I using these band-aids so I came off birth control didn't get my period back for over a year so that was another journey came off spironolactone my face exploded exploded without the without the band-aids I have never seen my acne worse it was

painful I obviously have a job where I'm on camera a lot. So for the podcast, every time I would review a video, I was like, oh, I see it. I see it. And I know other people say it wasn't that bad, but it was all I could see. I could barely look myself in the mirror without crying. Every time I had a conversation with someone, I was like aware of how the light was hitting me. I had to wear so much makeup, which is not my vibe at all. I hate hate that so i was just changing my whole life to center around this acne and then i found my lovely dr emily morrow who was on my show recently um she is a blood chemist an integrative nutritionist i don't remember nutrition therapist i think she's a yeah i think she's a nutrition therapist i always say it wrong. I don't remember her exact certification.

To put it bluntly, she's incredibly intelligent. She's a genius. A genius. Like, truly has looked at thousands of people's blood work and has so much knowledge around this area. So I got on a call with her, and I have to say I wasn't expecting much because I had been on the phone with so many people at this point. She got on the call. She's like a cute girl in her late 20s. I was like,

what? Kind of surprised. Like, I guess that was my own judgment, which I hate myself for now. But she got on and I was like, oh, hi, super sweet from Texas. Immediately begins explaining to me, I sent her all my lab work, first of all, immediately begins explaining why things look the way they do at the root. So I think a lot of people have this perception that they have hormonal issues, isolated, my testosterone is high, my estrogen is high, whatever it may be, they don't understand that there's something beyond that too. There's a reason that your hormones are imbalanced. Even me, I had no idea. I thought that that just existed on its own for some reason. So I took the DIM, I did the Vitex, I did the

spearmint tea, which, you know, those things help, but they don't get to the root cause. Emily sat with me for two hours and explained, and I'm not going to do this well, guys, you'll have to listen to her episode on my podcast, but your liver enzymes are elevated because your liver is overloaded with heavy metals and microplastics. She found candida, she found bacterial overgrowth, things I had no idea were in my system. And I live a really healthy lifestyle. I thought that I did, you know, I eat really clean, I work out. But there was things I was doing every day that were adding to these toxins, even overeating seafood, for example, things I would never have thought of. So we began a protocol that was basically killing the candida and the

bacterial overgrowth, working on my liver health, I had very low glutathione, I had very low cholesterol, which sounds like a good thing, but it's not, which I didn't know. Kidney overload, you know, things that you would never have expected from someone like me um but now i look back and i'm like what a blessing that my skin was telling me that all these things are wrong so for the last few months i've been working on those um those problems and what's funny is it kind of unveils new problems then i found a parasite in my system so now I'm killing a parasite. We love that.

Don't you? I know, but we love it, but we hate it. But truly, I wish I could scream from the rooftop that there's more happening, especially for like, I see Alex Earl on her like fourth round of Accutane and now she's on spironolactone. And I just wish I could say, be patient,

get someone to look at your lab work, have someone really smart tell you what's going on and work on this from the inside because there's nothing that feels better than having freedom with your skin. And knowing that I healed naturally, now I know I don't have to rely on a pill to not have acne. Well, and the problem is, is for the people that are just chasing the pills, at some point, all of that's going to come down and you're going to have to come off the pill, whether it's causing other side effects that you don't want, or if you want to get pregnant, for example, if it's a woman that's dealing with it. So all people are doing when they're taking those pills is putting a bandaid on. It may be helping right now, but you're

only delaying the inevitable and at the same time causing a lot of unnecessary harm on your body in the first place. And so I love it. This is what I talk about all the time. It's like root cause protocol is getting to the root cause. And what you brought up is such an amazing, valuable point that a lot of people don't understand. I'll get comments, I'll get DMs all the time for people and they're like, my hormones are out of whack. What supplement do I take? And I'm like, where do I start? You need to do blood work. Like what's happening with your liver? What's happening with your endocrine system? Why are they, you know, out of balance? What's happening

with all these different systems? Because we forget that the body as a whole is all working together in rhythm and in sync. And one thing is out of balance, it's going to cause everything else to be out of balance, you know? That was the biggest thing I learned from this whole journey, that everything's interconnected. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think sex hormones start in the liver. So if your liver is overloaded, then obviously your hormones will be too. And these are things I didn't realize. Well, the thing with the liver is if your liver is sluggish or like overloaded, which a lot of people are dealing with this and they have no idea because of our diets, like everything we're being exposed to as far as in our environment, in our tap water, pesticides in our food, et cetera, our livers are essentially working on overtime.

And our liver is where we excrete excess hormones out. So like if you have really high estrogen, it could be because your liver's not getting rid of all of it. I have that I have poor estrogen clearance. So I was doing tons of work for my liver during this that helped it a lot. See, that's amazing. Another thing too, is we excrete our estrogen through our bowel movements. So if women and I know so many women that only go like a couple times a week, well,'re not going every single day that's going to build up over time in your body as well so I mean there's so there's so much to unpack there pooping is key yeah pooping we love a little moment for poop I love that um so what okay so you you basically said so what was like the the biggest underlying thing for you

was that you had like the candida overgrowth like what was emily kind of like whoa this is really or do you guys know i feel like it was all of it combined mycotoxins and sometimes i get confused about the difference between these mycotoxins candida bacterial overgrowth and my lab work wasn't as great as I would have anticipated I mean a regular doctor love them they're doing great things would have told me I was fine and healthy which many of them did we're looking at this from an optimal lens not a normal lens because I don't think normal is a great range to be in considering that so many people are unhealthy nowadays. Yeah. And within three months of working with Emily, my lab work was astronomically better. It's crazy.

So I'd say the biggest thing, I think she'd tell you all of it, to be honest. Maybe the candida was the worst. I think mycotoxins are mold, correct? Yes. I think I was exposed to mold in college. I think probably a lot of us were living in dorm rooms and sororities and whatever it was. Or it could even be your childhood home. Yeah. Or it could be the home you're living in now. Exactly. So being conscious of molds and all of those things, I think it was just like a collective overload of toxins. Yeah. And you know what's so interesting?

It's such a great reminder that everyone's story is so bio-individual that you can take little tidbits from people's stories online. So like, let's say someone listening, they're like, okay, so I can kind of follow this and ask my doctor for these tests and whatever. But I have candida overgrowth that I'm fighting right now. And it's not presenting as acne for me. It's presenting as fatigue and all these other issues. So what you're maybe struggling with, like as the listener, could be so different than what I'm struggling with, but maybe we have like similar lab markers, you know? And so it's just so incredibly important to be bio-individualistic with your approach and finding a good doctor that can help you get to the root cause. And I love so much that you're

getting this message out there because this will help so many people. Thank you. I agree with you a hundred percent. I think it's so interesting too, how it shows up differently in everyone. My husband, Greg has his own slew of symptoms and I kind of think, I mean, we've lived together almost for 10 years. I've been with Greg for 10 years now. I feel like we have similar underlying issues, but they're showing up completely differently. So it's something to keep in mind. Yeah, it's so interesting. So what do you do now as far as maintenance?

Because I feel like you're probably mostly out of like the kill stage, we call it, while you're killing a parasite. But like, what's kind of your maintenance now? Is it like skincare, food, if you want to take us through all that? Yeah, so food. I eat a lot of meat, as I mentioned before. I, you know, I don't really have a label for my diet. If you wanted to

label it, I guess it's paleo. A lot of protein. I focus on certain foods that Emily encourages me to have. Like I have three cherries every now and again for the kidneys. Oh, amazing. A little bit of mango for cortisol and adrenals. For lunch, I do usually steak, avocado, a lot of high healthy fats. I'm trying to incorporate more potatoes. I am not going to eloquently say why they're so amazing, but they have like something in them that's like dope. What's in a potato?

I love you. Resistant starch. Yeah. Is that what you're talking about? She wants me to cook them, smash them, and put them in the fridge in them that's like dope what's in a potato i love you resistant starch yeah we were talking about she she wants me to cook them smash them and put them in the fridge because overnight they release more yes yes how cool potatoes are like magic so a couple potatoes um and really quickly because people are going to be like what the heck are they talking about yeah so with complex carbohydrates like that with potatoes rice pasta what you can do is if you cook it the night before and you put it in the fridge like let it cool down in the fridge and then you reheat it and you can actually keep doing this so let's say you make like a big batch of potatoes reheat the

whole batch and then put what you're not eating back in the fridge and every time it goes through that heat cool process it builds more resistant starch which is really good for the gut yeah crazy crazy and to be honest, before meeting Emily, I was like afraid of having too many carbs because I always felt like it broke me out. And she's really been encouraging me to introduce that back in. So I'm on a pretty strict supplement regime. I have a pill organizer like this. Like a grandma. Literally, I think it's for a senior citizen. I'm yeah, guys, you have to get one on Amazon. I've talked about it so many times in my podcast,

but I love it. It's pink and it has Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I have a whole morning regime, a lunch regime and a dinner regime. So some of the pills I was taking were to kill off certain bacteria. So like Elysium, Golden Thread, astragalus, I phased some of those things out, but I've kept in all of the really essential ones. And I'm not going to be able to remember them all right now. I just did an acne episode on my podcast where I listed it all out. I definitely love magnesium. That's a big one. I can't remember the rest of everything in

there. But it's okay. Because again, everyone's a bio individual. I mean, I just did a story about this last night on my Instagram. I'm never going to share everything I'm on, not because I'm gatekeeping, but just because it's literally because my doctor told me to take it based off of my lab work. Exactly. Liver support, for example. Yes.

I was doing, I still do weekly glutathione shots because I was very low on glutathione, which is for another reason, but I can't remember what it is. It's the master antioxidant of the body. Yeah. And it's also supports the liver detoxification pathways. Yes. Really important. That's why I do it. It hurts like crazy. Really? Do you do it yourself? Greg does it for me. It stings. It hurts, but it helps a lot. It's so good for you. And then I take black cumin seed oil every day a teaspoon i also take pcps for the cell wall i don't know it's like an oil oh i have to look into that i do spearmint tea still i do think spearmint tea is pretty cool i'm gonna for hormones or testosterone yes okay um i do

castor oil packs every now and again for the liver. Amazing. Sauna, cold plunge to detox. In terms of skincare, um, I, you know, skincare has never really like fully moved the needle for me. I feel like as long as I'm using things that aren't triggering my skin, I went through all my makeup, all my skincare, took out all the pore cloggers. That was massive. Switched to branch basics for cleaning i really

feel like things like fragrances cleaning products stainless steel pans like really being conscious of the things i'm using every day all day were like the cherry on top for me yeah so that's where i'm at with maintenance and now i'm just trying to kill this parasite you got this girl i believe in you thanks, what's interesting about the cleaning products, for example, and the skincare, there are certain chemicals in some of the conventional things that are having an effect on our endocrine system and our endocrine system is what runs our hormones. And sometimes if you're having a hormonal issue, it will manifest as acne. So there are these little things that people don't even think about that you kind of have like a light bulb moment of like, oh, wait, this could

be a thing. And so, you know, it's important that people go on their own journeys to like figure it out. And, you know, also slowing down and not being so stressed all the time. Like I am someone who I fill my schedule to the brim because I hate I was so bad at being still and not having anything to do I'm like obsessed with working I think because you know trauma but I like to fill my time you know um and one of the biggest takeaways for me during this acne journey was that I needed to have more fun and just more you know more socializing socializing. I was, you know, you, we spoke about this on my episode with you, that you get to a point where you're trying to control your environment and your food so much that you end up just stressing yourself out. So slowing down

and breathing, I mean, it sounds corny, but that really did help me a lot too. I don't think it's corny at all. I actually talked a lot about this during the pandemic. RIP to that crazy time. Thank God. Thank God. Because the trauma that I mentioned earlier that I went through, 2020 was really hard for me in the not normal ways that it was hard for other people because I was forced to quite literally sit down and stop in my tracks, basically. And I had this light bulb moment of, I had been so busy with work. I had been traveling nonstop with my job. And I had this moment where I was like, I love my career and I love my work, but part of what

I'm doing is literally running away and not allowing myself to actually sit with my shit. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. 100%. I think that's huge. Yeah. And so the slowing down is like so important. So you mentioned horses, like you love riding horses and doing all of your hobbies and stuff like that. What are some of the ways that you just like really slow down? Oh, good question. Yeah. Horses, because you literally can't be on your phone or thinking about anything else. When you're riding a horse, you are riding a because you literally can't be on your phone or thinking about anything else. When you're riding a horse, you are riding a horse. You can't be like daydreaming. Or like Instagramming. You're like videoing. Oh, gosh, no. Like I'm so in the zone. It's the most mindful thing I've ever done because you

need to be so at one with this horse. It's a 1500 pound animal under your legs. You really can't think about anything else. So I'd say that I feel like I'm getting better at socializing because growing the businesses I have, I locked myself away for a really long time and kind of self-isolated. Even just the girls dinner we did the other day brought me so much joy, just laughing and eating good food

and forgetting about everything else and being able to like connect with other people. I used to fear it because to me, I was like, I'm letting go control of, I don't know. I don't really know what it was. I was like, I'm not being disciplined enough. You know, something that came from my fitness journey was this obsession with discipline and optimizing. And I think I forgot how to have fun along the way because I was like fun is bad we leave that in the past you know what I mean yeah so bringing that back and having girl nights and connecting with people who are like-minded and being inspired by other people is huge for

me as well so horses and people I love that well this is so important and I think it's important for people to hear because I very much resonate with that i felt the same way where for a while it was like if i was allowing myself to have a little bit of fun i was nervous that like i mean this sounds like like a drug it's like i'd get a little taste and then i was scared that i would just go off the rails yeah you know like oh my god my career is out the window now i'm having too much fun i'm doing too many things that are not focused on my career but it's so important to find that balance. And for someone like you, who, I mean, you, your career is amazing. Like it's so inspiring. You've built this amazing company. And I wanted to ask you too, there's gotta be this connection with you. You said in the very beginning that you felt like you were undisciplined,

unmotivated. You didn't really have have confidence do you feel like this journey of like of fitness and also your food and really to a certain extent healing your mood disorder really helped you to build your career also I always said that the gym was such a good representation of life you know like getting an extra rep out or really pushing to the end like you don't grow unless you feel that pain I took that into my real life like I remember on the journey slowly but surely building up my confidence in the gym I was like okay maybe I can get a job now so I got a job as the front desk girl at Orange Theory Fitness I would be there at three in the morning oh my god opening up I know but to me I was like this is a part of the mental toughness. Like I'm doing this.

Yeah. Like this is discipline. This is discipline. Three in the morning, people throwing their heart rate monitors at me. I was making minimum wage because I couldn't make a sale. Could not sell the program for the life of me. I don't know why. So I was.

Which is so ironic. Yeah. I know. I was showing up every single day and just pushing through. I went back and got my degree. Like it really. I was able to take what I learned from fitness and health and really move it into my real life. And I feel like it's the

reason I was able to have the discipline to build the business at the beginning because it was really tough during the first couple years. Yeah, I bet. Well, I mean, it's amazing. It shows how strong of a person you are because you got through that tough time and now you're reaping the reward of that. It's amazing. And we'll always go through, I think, I always say that I'm always learning. I'm always growing, hopefully, if I'm doing life right. So we're always going to have those ebbs and flows, but it's cool because once you go through that kind of rock bottom and you see that you can really pull yourself out of it, you then have the confidence to know that if you end up back down there or maybe you've gone down a couple rungs, you're like, okay, we've been here before. We can do this again. We can get ourselves out of this.

Yeah. It's like I could do anything at this point. You know, once you've been there, kind of feel invincible. Yeah. Which is cool because then you have that confidence to know that you'll get yourself out of it again. Yeah. So how, what was the, what was the motivation behind creating Bloom? Cause you have this amazing company Bloom and I just, all of my friends that I know that have like created these companies that are tangible, that they're selling these products. I'm in awe of, cause I'm like, wow, you had to put so much work into that. Like you literally started from scratch and you created this product. Yeah. So the first business was technically called Mari Fitness. And we created workout plans that I sold for $5.

And I would manually email the plan to the person and they would PayPal me $5. So I was on my phone all day just hustling. And it was a great workout plan. We sold a lot of them. Ended up using that capital and put it into a resistance band that we hand packed and shipped out of my dad's attic the first 900 of them wow and during this time it was like very difficult to get people to take us seriously we'd call manufacturers and warehouses and we were like two 24 year olds and they were like what are you doing we didn't even really know what we were

doing so those were like the training wheels for bloom. And while working on all this, I personally had a hard time finding supplements that I felt like were for me. You know, I was a female, new to fitness. I wanted something friendly and approachable, something that I was attracted to back then. And I would walk into a GNC and it was all very much like masculine marketed products, like Muscle Destroyer. I think that's literally the name of the brand by the way muscle destroyer like red black yellow and i was like oh my gosh i'd come home with supplements and greg was like no take that back that's crazy and i had anxiety anyway so this stuff was full of caffeine you know stuff that would make me jittery so we wanted to develop

something that was for me and my community and greg's dream has always been to have a supplement company in high school he like created a fake supplement company called like simply better or something um so he was living out his dream for sure and he's incredibly entrepreneurial so he was really really excited about this we began working on all natural pre-workouts so really low in caffeine had like rhodiola l-theanine things that were calming and um we did everything ourselves from like the label photography so there was a pina colada on the front of the pre-workout that i actually found the coconut and like took the photo of so we were doing things that like we were definitely not professionals at the beginning we found a

manufacturer local to us in new york so we could actually go and meet people and figure out what we wanted to do um we were doing customer service we were doing social media we did everything ourselves which now i'm really grateful for because i can so appreciate the roles of everyone on our team yeah um we launched in january of 2019 with the pre-workouts they sold out quite quickly which we didn't have that many in stock because we couldn't afford to have that many in stock but we were like oh great people are you know people like the brand so we kept making products I was definitely including the community asking what they wanted what do they want to see more of there was definitely like a hole in the market at that point for female oriented supplements especially in bodybuilding yeah and then right

before covid we came up with the greens because i wanted an all-in-one fruits and veggies adaptogens prebiotics probiotics the greens were really a home run they seem to really resonate with people and we're still at this point i mean actually still currently 100 self-funded so this is all of mine and Greg's money. We've never taken an investment or a loan. So we couldn't afford to keep enough greens in stock at the beginning. So they kept selling out, selling out, selling out. People were so mad at me, so mad. But it also created a lot of hype around the product and people really wanted to try it. And now we are mostly known for being a greens brand and it's evolved far beyond what I could

have ever have imagined I mean it used to just kind of be known as my supplement company now we've got thousands of influencers of different walks of life who represent the product we just did a collab with Mama Carl's who's an amazing mum influencer on TikTok so it's been really cool to empower other creators and just watch I guess this team too like we have our entire office is 90% women they're all under the age of 30 we had you know a great example we had an intern on our influencer program who's now the head of the program she has like 15 people under her she's 23 years old so that's been really a really cool part but yeah wow it's really cool it's amazing what you've built

thank you yeah so i want to ask you something that my news is coming oh i would be doing my audience a disservice if we didn't have a conversation about it because you're my friend and i also wanted you to give you an opportunity to tell people you know like from your own words so i was getting a lot of DMs. One, because I think people knew that I knew you because they saw, you know, we've gone to dinner and stuff. And also too, just because like people expect me to be that person that like calls out when I like see something because I am. I'm like, oh, this is not good. But I was getting some DMs and some questions about there was an ingredient in one of your bars, I think it was like titanium

dioxide. Yeah. So let's talk about it. What did you do about it? What happened there? So glad you're asking about it. And I appreciate the question and understand why people want to know. The protein bars were a product we launched, I want to say last year. And I think a big misunderstanding people have with product development in this industry is truly the amount of time it takes. So the protein bars was something we started formulating, I want to say upwards of three years ago. So three years ago, I was definitely a different person than who I am now. I was someone who really cared about protein, really cared about taste, wanted it to be yummy and easy to incorporate my routine. And I did not have

the knowledge I have now. So now I have the podcast. I get to sit down with experts. I've learned so, so much. And I guess titanium dioxide ended up being one of the ingredients in the bars, which I didn't even really see as a red flag until after the launch. I actually had Thomas DeLauer on the podcast who I believe brought up the ingredient and it set off a red flag in my head. And I immediately sat down with the team and I said, you know, I feel like this product doesn't represent who we are now and what we've learned now. And as you just said, I'm, my goal in my life and with the podcast is to grow, learn, evolve. I'm okay with being corrected. I'm okay with someone saying, hey, that's not right. And me getting more information and learning. So I felt like

the product wasn't a true representation of who I am and who the brand is. So we discontinued it immediately. It was a learning lesson for sure. And something that I regret, but I'm happy it happened because now I have so much more knowledge. And now, as we're beginning to explore new products, new lines, I'm really focusing on what I've learned and speaking with people who do have that expertise. So yeah, that was an interesting learning lesson for me. For sure. Well, I don't envy being in that position because as someone who has been on the receiving end of the heat on the internet, my heart goes out to you because it's hard. And it's, you know, people don't realize that, well, one, it's hard because a lot of these ingredients, like if you go and you just do like a really quick like haphazard little like Google search, there's so much conflicting stuff out there.

Like there are still websites that are saying like titanium dioxide is fine because like the FDA generally recognizes it as safe. However, now as like more studies have come out, more information has come out, I don't think people understand that it takes so long for the science to catch up to all of this. So like while people are now sounding the alarm on this, the FDA may not even come out with their statement for like five years or something, you know? So all the people like in sounding the alarm on this, the FDA may not even come out with their statement

for like five years or something, you know? So all the people like in my world that are like, wait, no, no, no, no. Like we know this is bad, even though like the FDA hasn't said it yet or the USDA. It's like, there's this like catch up period that has to happen, you know? Yeah, 100%.

And then also people need to understand too that like you just said, I mean, you're on this journey of learning yourself, you know, just like all of us. Yeah. All of us, everyone listening, we are all on this journey of learning and we only know what we know until we learn and then we do better, you know? And so it's. Yeah. And I think it's also, this is not a excuse by any means, but it's just, I think important to say when you are creating a product and you're working with a manufacturer and people who create products for a living you do put an element of trust in that person and when they

present ideas to you now I realize they're coming from an angle of how can I make this as cheap as possible how can I make it taste as good as possible and which isn't always matching up with our beliefs as a brand so now I ask ask those extra questions. And now I know that. And I guess, yeah, manufacturers or whoever's in the business, everyone's being motivated by something. And it's my job to make sure the integrity of the brand stays there. So yeah, yeah, I went through this personally, I came out with a supplement like two years ago, it's a co branded liposomal supplement. And I had the exact same experience where like I was coming in from the health side, thank God, knowing what I

knew about like certain ingredients. But then I had the chemist on the other side being like, no, this is totally fine. The FDA has approved it. And like, no, like we need this because of that. I mean, I tell you, we had probably 10 Zoom calls just about this one thing. And I was like, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not releasing a product that has this in there. And like, I'm cutting the whole thing. Like if we can't get this out, I'm not releasing it, you know? And so that's a great point is I think a lot of people don't know that the people that are actually creating it on that side don't have the same knowledge of like the nutrition and the health standpoint you know that we have so and it's it's interesting how difficult it has become to make a purely natural product it's so hard they make it really hard and I think that's something we have to acknowledge

because yeah you know um on the business side of it there's so many hoops you have to jump through in order to make a really good product yeah I Yeah. I want to say this one last thing because I really want to hammer this in for people because I talk about this all the time on my podcast. Be really careful of the ingredients and be mindful of them and you want to avoid X, Y, and Z. On the alternative that I don't talk about as much, which is why I'm so glad that we're really talking about this right now, is people don't understand. I have a lot of friends in LA that are founders that have started food companies and I've had conversations with them

about how hard it is to really make something healthy and natural. And look, I'm not saying this to make up any excuses or say that people shouldn't fight for it, but we have made it so hard in this country to make anything healthy and natural. It is freaking expensive. You have to go out of your way to find like special manufacturers.

You have to go out of your way to find special chemists that are doing X, Y, and Z. So I just want to acknowledge that it is really hard and companies are really trying their best. And I just want to acknowledge you and say like I really appreciate you for the products that you've made and for the changes that you've made and for listening to your audience because that's really huge. And also for coming on and saying like, look, we messed up, but we righted our wrong. I think that is huge. Thank you. I appreciate that. But you're right. I mean, even some of my favorite brands that are, you know, trying to do it the right way are going out of business because it's difficult. But I'm glad we spoke about it. Me too. Oh, well, before we go, I have two last questions for you.

One, what do you want to leave the listeners with? So maybe there's something that we didn't touch on or maybe just something that you want to leave them with. Oh, I guess that you're doing a great job if you're just even listening right now. I feel like people don't give themselves enough credit for just clicking on a podcast that is going to add value to their day. I think a lot

of people, you know, want to listen to things that maybe are just entertaining or make them laugh. If you're here and you're listening, you're doing something good for yourself. So give yourself credit in that area. I love that. And then I have a personal question for you that I ask all my guests, which is what's your own health non-negotiables? So this is, could be daily things you do, could be weekly. Like what are your just like non-negotiables? So this could be daily things you do, could be weekly. Like what are your just like non-negotiables I have to do this for my health? Ooh, okay.

Walking, it has become really, really important to me. I need to get steps in. I don't have a set number. I just try to walk as much as I possibly can. Water, I mean, I have my massive gallon jug somewhere. I mean, we've been chugging water this whole podcast. Water is a huge one for me. And sleep. I am so big on sleep. If I get any less than eight hours, I'm a nightmare. Actually, I got seven and a half and I feel fine right now. But it has to be really good sleep. So I love tracking my sleep,

getting good sleep, sleep water walking. I love that. Those are pretty much mine as well. Yeah. That's good. Love that for us. Well, I know, same.

Well, thank you so much for coming on. Also, please let everyone know where they can find you, where they can find Bloom. Thank you so much for having me, first of all. My name is Mari Llewellyn, M-A-R-I, and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Mari Llewellyn. My podcast

is The Pursuit of Wellness on Spotify or Apple, wherever you listen to podcasts. Bloom is bloomsups on Instagram or www.bloomnew.com. I think that's all of it. Yeah. So guys, definitely go follow her, listen to her podcast. It's such a great podcast and I really appreciate you having me on recently. So go and listen to that, guys. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks, Courtney. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked the episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a Resonant Media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry.

The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie. Georgie is spelled with a J. For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com. I love you guys so much. See you next week. 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 doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.

Do you suffer from IBS or other digestive issues? Are you looking for a new podcast to listen to? From the producer of the Real Foodology podcast comes the all-new health and nutrition podcast, Digest This, hosted by Bethany Ugarte. You may know Bethany as the face of the popular Instagram page Lil Sipper, or you may have even read her book. Now you can find her wherever you get your podcasts. On Digest This, Bethany examines topics such as gut health, nutrition, the food industry,

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