The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - How To Rid Your Home Of Things That Are Harming You, Including Mold, Hazards, Bacteria, EMF, & More With Test My Home's Ryan Blaser

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

#552: Today we're sitting down with Ryan Blaser, Founder of Test My Home. Ryan's passion is bridging the gap between environment and wellness, and this has fueled his 25 year career as an electrical e...ngineer specializing in health hazards of the environment. Ryan’s work is now at the forefront of a cutting edge industry, and he dedicates his time to helping people protect and reclaim their health by identifying and eliminating the dangers that may exist in their home & workplace. Today we get into what exactly in your home is can hurt you and how to minimize the effects of dangerous molds, toxins, and hazards in the home.  To connect with Test My Home click HERE To check out the Jasper Air Purifier click HERE Code: TMH200 To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you Stanley The Quencher 40oz is the must-have hydration accessory. Shop the quencher and other Stanley hydration favorites at stanley1913.com. Also available at Dick's Sporting Goods, REI, Scheel's, Amazon and more. This episode is brought to you by Sun Bum Sun Bum creates products to protect the world from the sun, specifically formulated to help protect those of us who love and live in the sun. Use code SKINNY at www.sunbum.com for 15% off your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Living Proof Living Proof understands that there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for all hair types and textures. Visit livingproof.com/skinny and use code SKINNY for a free travel sized dry shampoo with a purchase of $45 or more. This episode is brought to you by AG1 AG1 is way more than greens. It's all of your key multi-vitamins, minerals, pre-and probiotics, and more, working together as one. Go to athleticgreens.com/SKINNY to get a free 1 year supply of vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by DoorDash You’ve trusted DoorDash to deliver your restaurant favorites and now you can get grocery delivery, too. Get 50% off your first DoorDash order up to a twenty dollar value by using code SKINNY at checkout on the app. This episode is brought to you by Perfect Snacks Made with freshly-ground nut butter, organic honey and 20 organic superfoods, Perfect Bar has a variety of products that are good to eat and good for you. Go to perfectsnacks.com/skinny to learn how you can receive a perfect bar for free. Produced by Dear Media

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 The following podcast is a Dear Media production. it to you on my Instagram story. But here's the thing about the Stanley Quencher and the thing I'm obsessed with is that it makes it so much easier to drink water. I drink about 10 times the amount of water now with my Stanley Quencher. It's so easy to have it by my bedside. I put tons of ice in it. Sometimes I put electrolytes in it. Sometimes I put chia seeds. Sometimes I put lemon. I mix it up. But the point is, is it's so much easier to drink water. It just really helps me hit my hydration goals. The quencher is 40 ounces, so I don't have to fill it up a lot, which is great. I try to refill it three times a day. It stays cold all day long. Like literally,
Starting point is 00:01:05 it stays cold in the morning, which is amazing. And sometimes even when I wake up, the ice is still in it. The handle makes it so efficient and seamless to carry. And it's perfect for when I have my arms full with the kids. If you're looking to stay hydrated like me, definitely go check out their neon green one. It's such a moment. You're going to head to stanley1913.com and check out the other sizes and colors on their site. Also available at Dick's Sporting Goods, REI, Shields, Amazon, and more. And you should know that you should hurry. These sell out so fast. So you'll soon feel as hydrated as I feel. This is so good for your skin. Keep listening and sipping away with your new must-have hydration accessory from Stanley, the quencher.
Starting point is 00:01:48 She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Aha! To the skinny confidential, him and her. But once you level up and you're like, oh, wow, I like how I feel.
Starting point is 00:02:10 That was great. But then you go back to that. You're like, okay, I remember that. That sucks. I don't want to do that anymore. But if you keep leveling up, then you become more and more aware. But you're not aware until you actually take that leap and level up. It's kind of like the habits they have.
Starting point is 00:02:23 And it feels like they're going to have to change their life. They're going to have to get out of their comfort zone. They're going to have to make changes. It might cost them money. And people don't like to make change. They don't like to do those things, even when their health is on the line or their family's health. This is an episode that you do not want to miss. Today, we are sitting down with Ryan Blazer, the founder of Test My Home. To give you a little background, I was on Instagram and this company, Test My Home, popped up. And I looked at the page and I was like, I have to have this person on the podcast. So I harassed Ryan on Instagram and said, you have to come on the podcast and talk about the killer toxins that are hiding in our home.
Starting point is 00:03:06 And here's the thing. This is one of those things that when you're aware of them, you can make a big difference. In this podcast, we are going to go through so many different topics. What to do with your phone at night. The most common toxins that might be hiding in your home. How your body responds to toxins in your home. How you can be an advocate for your own health. What EMF is, cleaning products that affect your immune system, and what to look for when buying a home. We also talk about mold, air quality, and EMFs. This episode is
Starting point is 00:03:37 really important because there's a lot of people that are actually sick from their environment and don't know it. I am so excited to have Ryan of Test My Home on this podcast. I personally learned so much. I even learned a hack for EMF with my phone. We talk about it in this episode. I learned about where mold is hiding in my house, and he really pointed out things I never would have known about if it weren't for him. Anyway, if you are interested in bridging the gap between environment and wellness, you got to check this episode out. You're going to learn everything that you need to know about your home and your environment with Ryan of Test My Home. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. What does everyone need to do with their phone in the night? Put it on airplane mode
Starting point is 00:04:24 and keep it away from the bed as you can. You want to create a nice eight foot bubble around the bed and not have any electronics in that zone. Why do you not want to turn off the phone? Because you were explaining this to me yesterday. Yeah, so we learned that with you guys' phone when we were measuring. If you turn it off, it actually still is transmitting back out to the tower. And it does that for find my phone or to ping your loss or something So what it's doing is it's trying to find your iPhone
Starting point is 00:04:50 So it's more strategic to just put it on airplane mode turn your Wi-Fi off and turn your Bluetooth off. Yes, correct Okay. All right. What are the things? Blow everyone's mind in people's home that you find the most that people would be shocked at Mold in places they didn't think they had mold. I think that's the number one thing is moldy homes. I'd say that the second biggest thing is lack of ventilation. People's homes are not ventilated properly, especially new homes. They're built super airtight. And a lot of times the only time we're getting fresh air in and out of the home is when we open up the doors and windows to go outside of the house.
Starting point is 00:05:23 Why are they built that way now? Is that just for energy efficiency? What are other little tiny things that people can look for in their homes, condos, apartments that they wouldn't think about? So, I mean, toxic chemicals, that's another big one. I'm sure you guys fully aware of that. Obviously, your house is very great. I'm very good with that. But making sure that you're not bringing things in that you wouldn't want to ingest, that you wouldn't want to put on your body, things that are very non-toxic. If there's like one blanket thing that you're not bringing things in that you wouldn't want to ingest, that you wouldn't want to put on your body, things that are very non-toxic. If there's like one blanket thing that you could tell to everyone who lives in an apartment, a condo, and a house that they can do right now today, that's an easy switch. Besides the EMF, what is that? Go open your windows right
Starting point is 00:05:58 now and get your house aired out. What if it's a rainy day like today? Still, you can open window a little bit, crack it, and get some fresh air in there. And tell Michael and I about that one tip that you told us about the air conditioning vent. Yeah. So if you can turn your fan to on versus auto mode, typically if you have it to auto, the fan will turn on when the air conditioner and the heat kicks on. But if you go over and turn it to on, then it will turn on all the time and it will filter your air continually and distribute it throughout the house. When you go into someone's home and you see some of the things that people aren't seeing and their home has so many different things, is it causing certain diseases, allergens, allergies?
Starting point is 00:06:38 Absolutely. There's so many things that it's affecting in people's lives. It's affecting their sleep. It's affecting how they think, their brain fog, how their body is just working in general. Your body just works so much better when you don't have these environmental stressors constantly pounding the body. So what do you do when there's a house that's too crazy? Well, I mean, if it's too crazy and it's going to be too much effort to fix it, we talk about potentially moving. If you're not emotionally tied to that spot, let's talk about maybe it's a good time to move, upgrade the home. And what if people can't move? Then we start with the low hanging fruit, the easy stuff, and we make a list and we prioritize it and we just start going down the list. So when you were saying earlier that people
Starting point is 00:07:17 find mold in places they wouldn't think about, like when I hear mold, I'm thinking, okay, it's probably the wet spots of the house. It's the bathrooms. It's the, maybe around the kitchen. It's maybe around some of the appliances. But are you saying that that is not necessarily the most common places? Those are common places, but maybe humidifier in a kid's room is a common one that you might not think about. Maybe the toilet tank behind your toilet. But yeah, all the places in your house where you have water, that's where you want to look first. Why did you become passionate about testing homes? Like what's your story and how does it sort of intertwine with this? You know, I've always been kind of fascinated with the environment and how it affects the body.
Starting point is 00:07:52 And in my first part of my career, we were designing, building nightclubs and recording studios. And we were interacting with the body with sound, lights, video, acoustics. And it was fascinating how our bodies and our mental state can change when we go into different environments. But there's also the dark side of the environment. It's the harmful things, the mold, the chemicals, the poor water quality, even weird noises and vibrations that can be stressors on our body over time. And so my own personal journey, I was in a home that was fairly moldy. I was restoring this old car and I was grinding on the metal. It had lead in it. Wasn't being careful with that.
Starting point is 00:08:27 And I got my body pretty toxified to where I was going to several different doctors. I couldn't figure out what it was. They thought maybe I had stomach cancer or they want to take my gallbladder out. Finally went to a functional medicine doctor and he ran some tests and said, I'm pretty toxic with mold and heavy metals in my body. So going through the process of cleansing my house, cleansing my body, I was able to get better and just kind of kept on that journey because the better I felt, the more I liked it and then the more I wanted to do.
Starting point is 00:08:53 It's overwhelming when you're sitting here and a lot of my audience, they don't even know where to start. Well, I think it's a hard topic too, because for whatever reason, especially in this country, people, and I was one of these people, so I can say this. I think people are more resistant to these types of things potentially being a problem for you. We believe that, oh, the government has let these things happen or people have allowed these buildings to be stood up this way. Or even if you go into our food supply, like these chemicals were allowed by the FDA or whatever. So people just assume because somebody gave it a stamp of approval that it must be good for them. Well, that's just not necessarily the case.
Starting point is 00:09:31 And I think if anything over the last few years has taught us is that maybe some of these entities don't necessarily have your best interests at heart. In some cases, maybe it's for better energy efficiency or it's for making a cheaper product or for streamlining a logistics supply chain. There's a whole bunch of reasons that may fall into a reason why something gets done and it may not include you and your health being at the top of that list. Absolutely. That's a really good point. I used to work for Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Energy and they come up with those numbers based on how far can we push these toxins on the people till so many people get sick and we get sued and we get pushed back.
Starting point is 00:10:08 It's a numbers game. It's totally a numbers game. And they push these limits as far as they can to where they say, okay, X percent of the population is going to be affected and we're okay with that because we need to make money off industry. We need to mine this gold. We got to put out these toxins. We got to burn this.
Starting point is 00:10:23 We got to do that. And so they're always pushing these levels to the limit and that's not healthy. That's not the safest levels. I also think that people don't believe that it could happen to them. They believe that, oh, at this time, in this modern age, they've taken care of all this stuff and they forget about asbestos and now recently Roundup and all these things that were approved products at one point and were allowed and were stamped with a bill of health. And I just think that we were so comfortable as a population that we don't actually believe that we could be living in a time where something like an asbestos or something like a Roundup
Starting point is 00:10:54 could be allowed to enter our environment when it's just, that's not the case. We see all the time things getting recalled or new data coming out saying this was really harmful for you or whatever the case may be. Absolutely right. There's always the new thing coming down the horizon. And that's kind of where EMF jumps into. I believe that's going to be the new cigarettes of our time. We're starting to see some of the effects of that already, but some of this stuff is more long-term, more chronic. That's what Robert Slovak said when he came on the podcast. He very very into the whole emf thing and he sort of broke it down for us i would love to go into what emf is how we can be smart about it i don't want to be
Starting point is 00:11:33 like we don't want to be like howard hughes living with eight no yeah i don't have you ever seen what's that movie or what's that show with the guy with the um the aluminum cap on better call yes yes better call saul yep And he has like an aluminum cap and he doesn't want, like, I don't want to go that crazy, but like, what are some tangible tips that people can do to eliminate so much EMF
Starting point is 00:11:53 and what is it? Yeah, you know, and the sad thing is there are actually people that are very, very sensitive like that. Almost look at like gluten, where some people just can't even be around it.
Starting point is 00:12:01 And there truly are people that are that sensitive to electronics. It's crazy. I would have never thought. But limiting your usage on devices that you're not actually using at the time, we call it practical avoidance. So if you don't need to be using your Wi-Fi at night when you're sleeping, might as well turn it off.
Starting point is 00:12:17 Same thing with your cell phone. If you don't need to use it, put it on airplane mode. If you're not using the PlayStation or the TV entertainment center during the day, turn that stuff off. So turn these off., distance yourself. Those are some really easy things you can do. And what actually is it doing? So, you know, and going back to what is EMF, EMF is the electromagnetic fields and frequencies that we have that are traveling through our air. Up until a hundred years ago, it was all natural. That came from the sun. It came from space. We have the static field of our earth that doesn't change.
Starting point is 00:12:46 Now we've come up with all these electronics. We've come up with alternating current. We've came up with wireless technology that's sending these high energy frequency waves through the air, and it's interacting with our bodies. Our bodies are electrical beings. Our heart, our brain, our nervous system, even our cells are working on these little electrical impulses. And when we send these artificial frequencies through our body, it causes system, even our cells are working on these little electrical impulses.
Starting point is 00:13:09 And when we send these artificial frequencies through our body, it causes a lot of interference and it causes a lot of inflammation and it causes a lot of problem in our bodies. Yeah. I look at this stuff, again, like not to be tinfoil hat, like we're talking about, but I look at this stuff the same way that I potentially look at something like a diet Coke. Once in a while, I might have a diet Coke. It's not good. I don't think it's going to kill me. I don't think it's great for me, but at the same time, I'm not going to have a, I'm not going to be drinking them all the time if it's not necessary. And I think the same thing for the phone. It's like, I don't need to sleep with it right next to my head. I don't need to have it on my lap all the time. I don't need to fall asleep with an iPad on my chest or, you know, my lights on or whatever. And I think like that is something just as a human, we should
Starting point is 00:13:44 get in practice doing, because these things have such a chokehold over our lives now. You know, you meet people, especially younger people, not to be ageist, that have grown up with knowing nothing but this technology. Lauren and I were lucky because we, like, I didn't get a smartphone until I was getting right out of college. I had like the little flip phone, so not to date myself too much, but it wasn't something that was such a big part of our childhood, right? It wasn't like this thing that we carried all the time and used for social interaction. You used to page me. Yeah, I used to pager.
Starting point is 00:14:08 That's not going to change now. But I think that there's a difficulty now with people that are getting so used to interacting with things to let the thing go once in a while and just go and actually have an experience without holding some electronic device in their hand or pocket at all time. Right. Absolutely. You know, it comes back to that 80-20 rule. If we can do this stuff 80% of the time,
Starting point is 00:14:25 not worry about the other 20% of the time, it's amazing how many of these toxic exposures we can reduce if we're mindful about it, know where they're coming from, and then take the appropriate actions. You know what's crazy too? And I'm always resistant, not resistant, but I'm always a little bit like,
Starting point is 00:14:38 okay, like I want to see the data behind a lot of this stuff. And Lauren always gave me shit for wearing or for having this in my front pocket. It's hurting my sperm. Yeah, we were talking about Andrew Huberman yesterday and he literally just came out with an episode showing there actually is backable scientific data that shows that you could actually drop your testosterone levels and that the heat from the phone is actually hurting your hormone levels by carrying in your pocket. And so this, you know, somebody saying this three or four years ago, again, you would have looked at them like tinfoil hat, but now there's reputable
Starting point is 00:15:09 scientists coming out saying like, there actually is real data that proves this to be true. I am so sensitive. Like I'm such a sensitive person as you saw yesterday to sensory stuff, light, sounds, chemicals, I'm just sensitive. And so i feel like if you can tap into that intuition side too you can feel what works for you and what i mean by that is like when you're at a restaurant and you probably this probably drives you nuts we could go off on this you're a restaurant and you're eating tacos and they start cleaning with windex as you're eating the tacos. And it's like, how can we even... Or you're at a gym and you're sweating, and then someone's cleaning their mat next to you with Windex.
Starting point is 00:15:53 It's because we've been... It's like we've been conditioned that this is okay to literally pour Windex everywhere we are. We've been conditioned as a society that you use these things as cleaning devices that will use these things as cleaning devices that will keep you safe. And honestly, just even coming out of the pandemic, you see how many people were using all these disinfectants all the time. I got to be honest. I didn't use hand sanitizer once. Sorry, everyone. If you thought I did, I didn't use it once. It dries
Starting point is 00:16:19 my hands out. It gives you wrinkles. Listen, they offer that shit to me on the plane. I'm like, I don't want to touch. I don't need any more stuff bombarding my system. And again, people are going to disagree with that. But if you think that it's natural to go through your entire life using chemical formulations to guard your immune system, that to me just doesn't map out. I understand being clean and cleanliness and all of that, but that never included using chemical formulations. That usually included using all natural things that the earth provided. Yeah. And we've been doing it fine on this planet for thousands and thousands of years. And our bodies have provided the stuff that we need. It's called a microbiome and we have it on our hands and our gut and our skin.
Starting point is 00:16:56 And when we introduce these chemicals, we're killing that off. We're sterilizing that and we're changing the whole microbiome of our body and our bodies aren't used to that. Yeah. It's like when you have a, you know, you have kids, you have a kid, you want them to get out and actually play in the dirt and get stuff in their mouth and pick up ants and do all this stuff because it builds their immune function. And I think as adults, you kind of go the opposite way. It's like, you don't allow anything ever to enter your system. And so you have a completely weak immune function. I mean, people don't like to hear this either, but I was probably on 60, 75 flights throughout the pandemic and I'm fine. It built my immune system where I know a lot of
Starting point is 00:17:23 people that were hiding indoors and under the covers for the last three years. And it's like, their immune system's fucked up. They can't handle normal. You have all these things with kids now with RSV coming back and just normal colds. And people are getting destroyed by this stuff because they battered their immune system into nothing, let alone probably adding chemical formulations and hormone disruptors all the time. Yeah. And there's something to that called hermetic stress. And it's an important point that we need to talk about is that our bodies can build up resistance to things. It's the same principle when we're going to the gym and we work out. Let's say we're working out biceps today. Okay. I'm working out really hard,
Starting point is 00:17:54 a couple of minutes, do some good sets, but then I set it down and I let it rest for a couple of days. And I don't sit there and work the muscle nonstop. It's the same thing with toxins. And it's the same thing with the chemicals, it's the same thing with EMF. We can take a little bit because that's what's gonna help us evolve. That's what's gonna help make our body stronger. But where we fail is that we don't get away from it. We don't give our body the rest and the break from it.
Starting point is 00:18:14 We're constantly being exposed to toxins. We're constantly being exposed to EMF. We're constantly being exposed to toxic energy and bad vibes. And that's where our bodies break down. And that's where the cancers and the chronic illness come in because you have to have that break. You have to have a clean home environment that you can go back to and take a break from this stuff.
Starting point is 00:18:32 We had Sherveen of Symbiotica on the podcast, and he said something which is so in line with what you're saying. He's like, your home is where you detox. It's a sanctuary. Why are we not treating it like that? Why are we treating it like a chemical infestation? 100%. What are some success stories that you've seen personally after you've gone in and tested someone's home? Oh, wow. So many success stories. It's crazy. Yeah, I don't even know where to start on that one. There's so many that we go into people's homes and we find these problems, these sicknesses. I can tell you one that's interesting that has to do with a pet. They called us up and he said, you know what? I had a dog that died two years ago of cancer. And now the same type of dog has cancer again, but a different dog. And we need to go get the
Starting point is 00:19:15 home checked out because we think there might be something going on. We did the full analysis, come to find out they had a wiring error messed up with the hot tub. It was grounding through the wrong electrical system, right exactly where the dog had laid. And the previous dog was extremely high magnetic field, higher than if you were to live underneath the high voltage power line. And they are tying that directly, a contributor to the cancer of the dog. So we were able to fix that. It was a simple fix, but believe that's what the thing that caused the cancer. And unfortunately, I have stories like that with humans as well. Tell us some of the human stories. A daughter of this family,
Starting point is 00:19:48 eight years old, had a rare blood cancer. We went into the home, everything checked out fine, but right specifically where the daughter was, was right on the other side of the electrical panel. And she had slept there the whole life. And those levels were extremely high. Did you check that my kids aren't sleeping against an electric panel? Yeah, you're fine. For people that are maybe just thinking, hey, before they work with you or someone like you, they're like, they can just take care of a few things. We're sitting here in front of Branch Basics and we were talking about our cleaning supplies. We use Branch Basics and then Thieves and maybe some water and vinegar. That's all that's in our house. And Lauren did that and
Starting point is 00:20:22 convinced me to do that a few years ago now, which I think has made a huge difference. I'm still working on the wasp spray. That's the most toxic thing that you could possibly find. We still work on that at your house. Can I throw that away? Can we just have an intervention?
Starting point is 00:20:33 Can I throw away the wasp spray? Yeah, you know, the thing is, you're usually spraying that all over where you're eating, having picnics, hanging out outside where that lands on your chairs
Starting point is 00:20:42 and then it gets on your body and your skin absorbs it. It's nasty stuff. I'm throwing that away. Okay. That okay that's gotta go how do you kill a wasp like is there a way you need to kill it i parrot vacuum cleaner yeah and it's like what what am i married for if you can't kill a wasp with your hands kill a wasp with your toe figure out how to kill the fucking wasp just get that you can get rid of the wasp spray no problem but i need you to get the wasp because i'm scared of those things. Those things are mean. But okay. If somebody wanted to just do some, like if you could wave a magic wand and said, I would do these few things that before you even have to check the house, just basic
Starting point is 00:21:13 general practice. Maybe one of those is no more shoes in the house, which we talked about. Maybe one of those is changing the clean. What are the things that people can just do no problem right now? Yeah. I would say quit wearing the shoes. That's a really big one. Think about all the nasty stuff we walk through during the day. We'll fill up our car with gas. There's petroleum products and oils on the ground. Then we go into the public bathroom. There's E. coli on the floor. There's harsh cleaning chemicals. Then we go walk through the park with the pesticides and the herbicides. Then we go walk in our house and we walk through the rug and we kick our feet up on the, and then your little baby comes crawling along the floor
Starting point is 00:21:44 with their hands and feet. That's probably one of the biggest things that's easy and free that you can do right now is quit wearing shoes in the house. It's, you know, like back in the day, it was socially acceptable to smoke in people's homes and restaurants, you know, 50 years ago. But today you would never think about lighting up a cigarette. Hopefully no one's still smoking. It's ridiculous, but it's a good example with shoes. I think it's going to be socially frowned upon to be wearing shoes in people's house. It's already in Asian cultures. It's a big deal. You don't do that.
Starting point is 00:22:17 This episode is brought to you by Sunbum. I am all about getting the sun in my eyes in the morning. I like the sun. People mistake that with me. I just like to stay very protected. So when it comes to sunscreen for my kids, I've done a lot of research. It's something that's really important to me because I am putting it on their pure, beautiful skin. I'm sure mothers can relate. Fathers can relate. But the point is, is if they're going to go in the sun, I want to make sure what's going on their body is something that's not super chemical driven. So they have this mineral line. It's by Sunbum. And the one that I like is the Roll-On Mineral Baby. What I like about them is they're very
Starting point is 00:23:01 upfront about the ingredients. It's also like a gentle, lightweight, non-greasy sunscreen, which is very important to me. I was in San Diego for a month with my kids, and I had to find a sunscreen that was mineral. And this was the one that I reached for. I used it the whole month we were there. This specific one creates a sunscreen barrier on the skin that blocks UV rays by absorbing and reflecting them away from the skin. So it's super cool. Sunbum's whole motto is to trust the bum. They want to be a trusted brand and an educational resource. Sunbum has helped me find products with legit ingredients that have helped protect my kids from the sun. You're going to use one-time code
Starting point is 00:23:42 skinny at checkout for 15% off your purchase at sunbum.com. This ends December 31st, 2023. And like I said, the product to check out is the roll on mineral baby. When we moved to Austin, we did an audit of our products of our home, as you can tell by this podcast, of all the things. We just really wanted to step it up a notch. And even when it comes to our beauty products. So one of the things that I have switched out in all my bathrooms is my shampoo and conditioner. So there's this brand. It's called Living Proof. I've talked with you about it before. And what I like about it is it has no silicones, no harsh sulfates. It has no SLS, parabens, and they're also PETA certified, cruelty-free, color safe, and safe for chemically treated hair. I actually will bring my own products if I'm ever
Starting point is 00:24:37 getting a blowout too, because I feel like with this, I can really control what is being put on my face, on my skin, and on my scalp because it does get onto your skin. So when I moved to Austin, I was really able to just do an audit of everything. If I had to recommend one of their products to you, the one that I definitely like the best, and my mother-in-law likes this too, she's obsessed, is their original dry shampoo formula. So why I like this is it gives you like a little bit of texture and hold to the hair, but it also works as a shampoo. I'm not a huge fan of over washing my hair. I wash my hair once a week and it's like a shampoo with a leave-in conditioner together. It makes your hair
Starting point is 00:25:16 shiny, soft, smooth. So all you have to do is go on their site and you take this little quiz and then it analyzes your specific hair care needs. You're going to visit livingproof.com slash skinny and use code skinny to get a free travel size dry shampoo, the one that I like, with your purchase of $45 or more. That's livingproof.com slash skinny, code skinny to get a free travel size dry shampoo with your purchase of $45 or more. Livingproof.com slash skinny code skinny. It's not hard to just take your shoes off. Especially in LA, there was literally like we'd walk outside, there was like semen on the street. Just take your shoes off when you go in
Starting point is 00:26:00 someone's house. I don't understand. I always ask, do you want me to take my shoes off? Michael needs a little intervention because he runs across the house real quick in his shoes thinking he can get away with it. Well, sometimes I got the boots on and I just go, I got to make it three steps. That's not going to work for me. You need to take your petroleum boots off, please. Sorry, I didn't mean to. Hopefully, I didn't leave any semen in the driveway and step through it. I know. Stepping through semen, walking it through my house with wasp spray. It's like enough is enough. But okay. So the shoes, the cleaning supplies, what are other things that if you could just
Starting point is 00:26:30 wave a wand and say, hey, these are just general practices that anyone could implement? I would say 90% of the homes that I have tested on do not have enough ventilation. Just go open your windows right now. Even if you're in your house listening to this, just go over and open your window, crack it. Even if it's really hot or cold outside, just open that up and get some fresh air. Put a jacket on, turn your heater up, whatever. I also think this is really weird, but energetically to let the air flow through, it's better energy than trapping yourself indoors. Does that make sense? Candles. I'm a big candle person. What do we need to be looking for with candles? So make sure that it's natural beeswax or a soy-based and make sure that it has natural essential oils for smell.
Starting point is 00:27:12 And the majority of the candles that smell good are toxic chemicals. So you're basically releasing particulates from petroleum products from the candle aligned with the chemicals, the phthalates, the endocrine disruptors, and you're breathing that in. You're just creating toxic soup in your air. And also you gave me such a good tip about the fireplace too. You have to tell them. Yeah. If you're burning the fireplace, good idea to crack a window in the same room so that you can get that good airflow that goes up and out the flue. So every time you turn on the fireplace, the window needs to be open.
Starting point is 00:27:40 Well, yeah. And the same with our house, when we're cooking on the stove, we always crack a window because new homes are super airtight. Where's that air coming from? And so if the air has got exhaust out the vent, we've got to have somewhere for that air to come back in. So you're huge on airflow because you also mentioned that when you're cooking, you have the fan above the stove. Why are you so big on the airflow? What happens if you don't get good airflow through the house? Because there's so many things in the air that we can breathe in that gets in our body that's completely harmful to us so the majority of the dust we find in the air which comes from the air is dead skin cells it's insect parts it's insect feces it's broken down foams fibers pesticides bacteria mycotoxins endotoxins that go on and on there's so many things that primarily make up dust in the air
Starting point is 00:28:24 and settled in our home that we do not want to many things that primarily make up dust in the air and settled in our home that we do not want to breathe in. So if we can open up the doors and windows and flush that out regularly, and not to mention if you live in a newer home and it's off-gassing or you're not being careful about your products that you're bringing in, all of these chemicals are building up into the air and we're just sitting there breathing this stuff in. I think a lot of people too are wondering about laundry and dish soap because the cleaning supplies, yes, but make sure you're switching out your laundry because to me, you're sleeping on a pillow for eight to nine hours a night, breathing that in.
Starting point is 00:28:52 Like how important is that? Very important. The sleeping area is one thing you want to really want to be critical about. And so you're washing these clothes and this laundry detergent and then the fabric softener, and then you got the dryer sheets. All these things have toxic chemicals in them. One other thing that I think we should talk about, say, I know you do this kind of consulting work, but say somebody is looking to either move and rent a new place or they're looking to actually buy a new place. What are things that
Starting point is 00:29:16 you would tell them to look for or to potentially avoid as they're potentially doing a move? So sweet spot is to look for a home that's somewhere between a year and a half and five years old. And the reason is, is brand, brand new homes have a lot of off-gassing from the paint, the flooring, the cabinetry, the carpets. And then older homes, we have the potential for buildup for the mold, the mycotoxins, the pest, the pest control, toxins that have been sprayed and used in the house that we don't necessarily know about. You know, you buy a 50, 60 year old home, you have no idea of the history and what's going on in that house. It could be pretty toxic already going into it. And are there things that they could actually even look for in the house? Like say they're doing a walkthrough, are there areas that you'd point them to to say like,
Starting point is 00:29:58 look for this and if the spot has this, then maybe think twice. Yeah. Good simple hack, and you can even do this with your own house, is go lift up the toilet tank in your toilets, in your bathroom, because that's a place that it's cold, it's dark, it's damp. And when you flush the toilet, it pulls mold spores into the toilet tank and they can sit there and grow mold. And so if your home has a potential mold problem,
Starting point is 00:30:18 a lot of times it's going to show up in the toilet tank. What are the different kinds of molds? You know, there's thousands of different species of mold, just like there's thousands of species of animals. And some of them are very harmful. Some of them are not at all. So we have little kitty cat, not a big deal. We have lions and tigers and bears, very dangerous. Same thing with mold. And the different types of mold can also be more dangerous depending on what they're eating. So if a mold is eating on a piece of drywall that has formaldehyde and it has glues and binders, the mold is also going
Starting point is 00:30:45 to be digesting and releasing those into the environment as well. And what are some symptoms if someone's experiencing something with mold? If you're more allergic to mold and it's a pretty heavy mold sport problem, you're going to see more of the respiratory issues. You're going to get the stuffy nose, the runny nose, the watery eyes. You can get rash. You can get the sore throat. You can get a cough. But the more dangerous part to the mold is the mycotoxin. And so mold puts off mycotoxin as its defense mechanism. And it does that to kill off all the other mold and microbiology in the area. Problem is it can be very, very poisonous to us. And that's when we're going to see more of the headache, the brain fog. Irritability is a big one. Neurological issues. In fact,
Starting point is 00:31:22 funny story, I had a client I was working with and they were dealing with mold. I got them to move out of the house. Serious problem. Working about six months, they called me back and they said, you know what? You actually saved our marriage because we were about to get divorced, living in this home. They just could not get along with each other. When they moved out of the house, they started to get along again. They found out that the previous owner had moved out of the house because of a divorce. And now they were getting back together as well. And so the mold itself was making them so irritable and so angry with each other. It almost ruined their marriage. So if you're sitting at home and you're feeling irritable, you're always tired,
Starting point is 00:31:56 you should definitely try to check. Is there a kit that you can buy off Amazon to just do this quickly and efficiently? You know, there's a couple different ways to test mold. Really, the biggest one is if you have any kind of water issue in your house, any kind of leak, any kind of flooding that didn't get fixed properly, there's a really good chance you have mold. There's air testing you can do, but a lot of times it comes back false negative because you have to have actual mold spores in the air for it to pick that up. You can do what's called an ERMI test or a dust test. Michael Rubino with Home Cleanse has a really good dust test. And it gets a little swiffer and you go through the dust and send that to the lab and it tells
Starting point is 00:32:33 you if there's mold spores in the air. I know this is very niche, but we talked about it yesterday, so I think it's relevant. And then we should actually talk about what we did yesterday at our house. But we had that leak in the upstairs. There was an upstairs bathroom and it leaked downstairs. And I showed you the spot, but I said like, what we did actually is we cut all the drywall out and completely got rid of it and then aired it out. And you said, that's the right strategy. But some people don't do that. They just try to do like a patch up. Can you explain why you can't do that? Mold is going to start growing in about 48 hours. So if you have a wall cavity that has insulation in it and it gets completely soaked and saturated and it's up there and it's not open or exposed, that could stay wet for months. And after a couple of days, it's going to start growing and that mold is going to have a party
Starting point is 00:33:12 up there. It's a cold, damp, wet place and it's going to continue to grow mold until it's fully dried out, which could be months. So if someone's listening, they've had a leak and they just kind of patched it and they didn't do that stuff to get rid of the actual stuff that got wet. There's a good chance that that could potentially be a spot for mold to be growing right now. Yeah. Especially if they're starting to not feel well or think, man, I'm getting sick more often. I just don't feel the best. What's going on? Then you start looking at some of those options. You really liked how we had Venetian plaster throughout our house. Why did you like that? And then also, if someone wants to paint their walls, what's a good brand to go for? And it was because of the paint. The walls is the biggest surface in the house. So when you
Starting point is 00:33:51 cover that with the chemical, that's going to be your biggest exposure of off-gassing. And it takes about two to three years to really off-gas to a level where I would consider it safe to be in, unless you're doing major ventilation. So when we have the plasters and the lime and the clay, it's much more natural and it's not going to be off gas in those chemicals. I'm going to live in an all clay house. When we build a house, I already told Ryan and Sam, I'm like, you guys are coming to my house and I'm building a house of clay. On that note, let's talk about how you work with clients and we can even use us as an example. So when you start working with someone and we could talk about how, you know, even us as an example, you come in and it looks like what you do the first day is you fully just go through the house top to bottom. And we're not talking
Starting point is 00:34:34 guys for an hour. I mean, you guys were there pretty much all day yesterday. What are you doing during that process and what are you looking for? So, you know, we're collecting data, but even before that, we have to fill out a pretty extensive client intake form. We're asking questions about the health of the people in the home. We're asking about the history of the house. We're finding about your habits and how you interact with the house, what chemicals we're using, and we're getting as much data as we can. It's almost like a thousand piece puzzle. We walk into it and it's all spread on the ground and we start turning these puzzle pieces
Starting point is 00:35:01 over and we're trying to get a big picture of what's going on with your environment. So once we kind of get the history of you and the home and the health, then we start turning these puzzle pieces over and we're trying to get a big picture of what's going on with your environment. So once we kind of get the history of you and the home and the health, then we start going through the home with meters that we use to measure stuff on site. And we're measuring air quality, light intensity, light calibration. We're doing the EMF. We're doing mold analysis. We collect a water sample. And some of the stuff we can read and sense on site with the equipment, but the other half we have to send to the laboratory. So we're collecting dust and air and water and send those to the laboratory. So once we get all that stuff back, then we have a really good idea of what the
Starting point is 00:35:34 things are in the house that are affecting you and how they're affecting you. So then we come up with a plan and that's really when the fun starts. And we start coming up with a list and we prioritize, say, okay, these are easy things that you can do. This is low-hanging fruit. Then these middle things, they might cost a little bit of money, but they're going to be big impact. And then lower down the list. This is lower impact stuff once we get this bigger stuff done. And we start working through the list.
Starting point is 00:35:55 And it's not just a one-shot deal. This is over years sometimes. I have clients that I've worked with for five years and we just continue upgrading their life, upgrading their health, and we just keep revisiting it. I think with us, if we just use us as an example, the first, the top three things that we discussed, and we'll probably hop on a Skype call, I would think, after this, after you get everything to the lab, is we want to change up our EMF, maybe do a kill switch in our room. So when we press the switch, like everything in our room will turn off. And then we also want to get more ventilation through the fans. And then the third one, what,
Starting point is 00:36:33 what did you say? The third one? Oh, the water. We have maybe an air purification system that is maybe just not being set up to its full effect because it's installed, right? Yeah. You guys had the equipment, but it wasn't set up properly. So I imagine a lot of people don't... Again, if you move into a house, you just assume that the equipment's working the way it's supposed to be working. That's what we assumed. And when you go and take a look at it, I was like, oh, actually we have this thing that's supposed to be functioning in our air purification system, but maybe it's not set up properly or maybe it's not turned on. And so just going through that and having the knowledge. And then the other thing you found is maybe we want to add in some water filters to change some of the water that's coming into our house. Yes. Which to me doesn't sound like,
Starting point is 00:37:11 I feel like everybody would want a better filtration system. Again, it comes down to cost, but if you're just analyzing this stuff and like, what's an effective. Yeah. If you're still drinking tap water, you need to catch up with the times because there's no water that's coming out of the faucet that right now that's safe for you. You were really interested in putting a soft water situation in our house with hydrogen. Why? So soft water is going to take out some of the minerals, but it's going to be a lot easier on your faucets and your pipes. And you use less soap when you shower. It feels better. You know, the hydrogen, that's kind of more of an afterthought. So we always try to go in and focus on let's get rid of all of the toxins.
Starting point is 00:37:46 Let's clean up the water. Let's clean up the air. Let's clean up the EMF. And then we can come in after and add some of these cool biohacking type stuff. So the hydrogen water is something we have at our house. And I feel a lot better on it, more regular when I drink. It's a weird symptom that I have with when I'm drinking the hydrogen water. I just get super regular versus when I'm not.
Starting point is 00:38:08 And so it's something that you can tie into your drinking water system that infuses hydrogen. I would love to play a little game with you because I feel like you're the perfect person to do this. I would love to go through things and for you to tell me your favorite brand and why. Okay. So let's start with an air purification system. Jasper air purifiers is definitely the top of the list for me. And you just gifted me one. And you guys, they're so sleek and gorgeous and modern. They're like kind of a cream. Tell me about like what this is made out of too.
Starting point is 00:38:35 It's not plastic. Yeah. So the guy that invented this used to come from the flood and fire industry. And he had, you know, the big commercial units. And he wanted to design something that was a lot quieter and looked a lot nicer that he could sell to doctor's offices and dentist offices and found a need to try to branch into residential. And so he's coming from the professional world, working his way down. And so these units are no joke. They move a lot of air
Starting point is 00:39:05 quality. They're made of solid metal that's recyclable. They have sensors in them. So it will sense when the particles start to get high in the air and it will automatically increase the speed accordingly. Lifetime warranty. I mean, these things are legit. Cleaning supplies? You know, we keep things really simple actually at our house. We use vinegar, distilled water, and a little bit of lemon essential oil or just lemon peels in it. And we clean, I'd say 95% of our house with vinegar and water. But we also use hypochlorous acid, which is like force of nature makes a little unit that
Starting point is 00:39:34 you can make shelf stable hypochloric acid for a couple of days. We use that around the toilets, places where we need to kill off bacteria. Force of nature? Is that the, that's the beef I eat. Is that the same company? Oh, I think you're thinking of something different. I know what you're talking about, though.
Starting point is 00:39:47 Different company. There's a company called Force of Something that I eat their beef. And you like Branch Basics too? Oh, Branch Basics is great. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 00:39:54 And we also talked about Molly Suds that you liked for detergent. Yep. Okay. Yep. Puracy is another one we use for detergent as well.
Starting point is 00:40:02 Do you have a candle brand? We don't burn candles at our house just because it's more particles that are in there. Even healthy candles will put off particles into the air. So you just don't even go there? Don't even go there. Yeah. Talk to me about the lights. You told me that you are attracted to warmer lights. So our bodies have been tuned to the sun on this planet. And that's how we get the cues to sleep and when to be awake, when to be hungry, when to do all the things we do, is a lot of it is based off of light.
Starting point is 00:40:29 So ancestrally, when the sun comes up and it's high up in the middle of the day and we're getting the full spectrum of light and it's above us, it's suppressing melatonin. Now, when we start to go into the evening time and we get the reds and the orange hues, and then the sun goes down, ancestrally, we had fires, we had candles,
Starting point is 00:40:45 we had gas burning lanterns. And so they were all in those red and orange hues. And so we want those lights to kind of mimic that. Now what happens is the sun goes down, our bodies, oh, it's nighttime, start getting ready to produce melatonin. Now we click on all these bright lights, we click on the blue screens, we get on the computer, the TV, and it tricks our brain. Oh, wait wait, never mind, it's not nighttime, it's the middle of the day to suppress melatonin. Then people have a hard time sleeping. And so I think if you know if you're on your phone an hour, 30 minutes before bedtime,
Starting point is 00:41:16 a lot of times you're going to have a hard time getting to sleep. This morning I woke up, I meditated, I opened the shades, I did my lemon and chia seed and mineral water, and then I did my AG1 by Athletic Greens. This is such an easy way to get daily nutrients in. It also supports long-term gut health. So to me, to just do a heaping scoop in water, I froth it up. I add ice. I put my little straw in there and I sip it down. It has multivitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, everything working together as one. And it supports your gut. A lot of people ask like, what's a supplement that you recommend that you really like die for? This one's great because it's just one scoop and I feel like
Starting point is 00:42:01 it has so many different nutrients in it. And it's very convenient. It's easy. You can travel with it. They have these little travel packets that I take when I'm on the go. I just feel like I get my greens and the benefits are like insane. So how I like to take it is I take AG1 in the morning. I gave AG1 a try because I had seen it on so many podcasts and then Michael got it and he got me hooked to it. And what I like about it is, like I said, there's those travel packets. So you can just implement it into your routine so easily. I also think it tastes so good. So if you want like a nutritional drink in the morning, you got to try it. You've seen it everywhere.
Starting point is 00:42:39 So if you want to take ownership of your health, today is a good time to start. Athletic Greens is giving you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. That's what I was talking about. You're going to love those packs. Go to athleticgreens.com slash skinny. That's athleticgreens.com slash skinny. Check it out. The other day, I sat down to make my matcha. I do two big heaping tablespoons of this matcha with protein. I had my cinnamon and I realized that I did not have my very specific unsweetened almond milk. So what did I do? I DoorDashed. I love DoorDash because not only does DoorDash grocery delivery save you time, it also saves you a headache. You don't have to get in the car. You don't have to park. You don't have to go in, wait in line, deal with all the things that you normally have to deal with at
Starting point is 00:43:37 the grocery store. What it does is just deliver it straight to your door. So what I did is I ordered my almond milk. I got the vanilla. I got the unsweetened. I got the oat. I even got the chocolate milk for Zaza all on DoorDash grocery delivery. If you like convenience like I do and you want it straight to your door, that's DoorDash. Okay. You can stock up on last minute things. Maybe you burnt your last piece of toast or your avocados have gone bad. Maybe your hot sauce is empty, but it doesn't matter because DoorDash is to the rescue. With thousands of grocery stores to choose from, you'll find the best in your neighborhood and boost your local
Starting point is 00:44:15 economy with each and every order. And you'll get exactly what you order or they make it right, which I'm very much about. So get 50% off your first DoorDash order up to a $20 value when you use code skinny at checkout limited time offer terms apply. That's 50% off up to $20, no minimum subtotal and a zero delivery fee on your first order. When you download the DoorDash app in the app store and enter code skinny, don't forget that's code skinny for 50% off your first order with DoorDash. All right, I am traveling to New York for a quick trip. And of course, I am bringing Perfect Bar. I bring one for me and one for Michael because if he gets hangry, it's a real nightmare. I travel with these in my purse and my diaper bag. I always go for the dark chocolate chip peanut butter with sea salt. It's so crunchy, delicious. It kind of tastes like a
Starting point is 00:45:09 creamy cookie dough texture, but the best part is it's filled with 17 grams of protein per bar. It comes in all different flavors. If I had to pick like three others, I'd probably pick the dark chocolate chip peanut butter, the coconut peanut butter, and the cookie dough. Those are the moves, okay? They also have these mini little bars that I have in my fridge for Zaza to just grab and go. And those have six grams of protein. So you can't go wrong with these if you just need like a snack that has protein after a workout, if you're traveling, if you're on the go, even if you're like running to work. These taste good. There's no chalky artificial aftertaste. I'm telling you, you got to try. These taste good. There's no chalky artificial aftertaste. I'm telling you, you got to try them. Whole foods and no artificial preservatives. Perfect Bar knows
Starting point is 00:45:50 it will be love at first bite. So for a limited time, they're offering you a chance to try their refrigerated protein bars for free. So here's how it works. Sign up for email or text and upload a picture of your receipt from your local grocery store. Then they'll reimburse you for the cost of one bar directly to your Venmo or PayPal account. This is so cool. All you have to do is go to perfectsnacks.com slash skinny to get a free perfect bar today. That's perfectsnacks.com slash skinny and you get a free perfect bar today. Happy snacking. You know what's a real hack that you'll appreciate i got salt rock nightlights you probably saw them when you were looking in the home and instead of like when i take a shower i'll just put the
Starting point is 00:46:31 nightlight on and you can see like it still lets you see but it's like warm like you're saying and i feel like it maybe eliminates what's the word i'm looking for it gives off like a what's like more of that fire campsite effect. Yeah. And you look a lot better. And this is something I've realized even early on in life is that you look a lot better in front of a fire. So if you're on a first date or you want to look good, sit in front of a fire. You always look like a couple notches higher, always. That is so funny that you just said that. I'm reading Barbara Walter's book, Audition, and she says that you always want to sit in front of a fire on a first date and you never want like cool overhead lights on your face.
Starting point is 00:47:10 But she says she hates cool overhead lighting. And so I'm, that's my other thing that I want Michael to switch up is some of the lights in our house are a little too cool for me, if I'm being honest. So listen, inevitably with what we do, especially on a public platform to a wide audience, there's always skeptics. I mean, I could tell them that the sun comes up in the morning and there's some people that are going to be like, no, I don't think so because you said it. But for people that are skeptic and they're saying, I don't see any problem with my cleaning supplies, what negative effect could this have? Scientifically, how can you prove it? So maybe we'll tackle cleaning supplies and then EMF and maybe they can, if you were going to convince
Starting point is 00:47:43 somebody to change cleaning supplies, what would be the main reasons? I would always ask, you know, what exactly are you skeptical about? Is it that the chemicals you think that our bodies like chemicals, you think that our bodies don't like things from nature? I mean, which part of it are you having a hard time with? Cause I think it's nostalgic. There's that too. No, I think a lot of it is what I said earlier too, which is people believe that if it's an approved product that somebody's selling on a shelf, that it must be fine for you. We all know, especially in modern times,
Starting point is 00:48:13 that we're probably not living in the healthiest way possible. And some people attribute that to poor food or poor exercise habits or poor sleep. But I feel a lot of people don't get to the root. And we were talking about, Lauren and I, you were asking how we feel now, the main difference between when we lived in LA and here. And I don't necessarily think, I mean, maybe LA, it's a kind of chaotic city. There was a huge, but one of the things that we did that was completely different is we
Starting point is 00:48:38 completely changed our living environment, which you saw. We completely changed the stuff that's in that environment, which includes the air filtration system, the cleaning supplies, the lights, the way we interact. And it's had a dramatic effect on our health. Now, that may just be because we were so geared up in LA that that happened. But I also think it has a lot to do with the environment. And so, again, back to what I was saying is I think people are skeptical because they don't want to believe that potentially some of the habits they have are actually contributing to poor health in their life. I think you nailed it right there. It's the habits they have, and it feels like they're going to have to change their life.
Starting point is 00:49:15 They're going to have to get out of their comfort zone. They're going to have to make changes. It might cost them money, and people don't like to make changes. They don't like to do those things, even when their health is on the line or their family's health. But with chemical, there's a company or website, EWG, Environmental Working Group, that is amazing. You can go on there. They've done all the research. There's a ton of studies. If you're the scientific guy, you can read all the studies. It's all there. It's all legitimate. If it's EMF that you're concerned about, there's Environmental Health Trust is a
Starting point is 00:49:41 really, really good website. There's a lady, Deborah Davis, that put that together. She's a doctor. She's a scientist. And she's compiled all the different studies there. And there's a lot. And that's the thing with EMF. There's studies all the way back from the 40s that's saying this stuff is dangerous. The problem is you're not going to see this stuff front and center because a lot of the
Starting point is 00:49:58 devices that we're doing this research on are wireless devices. They're emitting EMF. So, of course, these billion-dollar industries don't want this information front and center. Well, it's funny. When we talk about the EWG, it's been brought up on the show
Starting point is 00:50:12 in the last five or six episodes multiple times. So people are talking about it more, especially mainstream. And I think that, again, people feel that if they don't notice an immediate effect,
Starting point is 00:50:23 or maybe there's people listening, like, I don't feel anything. I'm not as sensitive as Lauren, right? But I also am aware that, you know, I'll give a weird example that I correlate this to. I had a bad, my neck was out for a very long time. And eventually our friend Josh, who does body work on us, he got it out. And this sounds like a strange example, but I didn't realize how out it was for so long. I was just kind of going through because it just became my new norm. And so I feel like if you're somebody that's operated in this norm with all these phones and this norm and these cleaning supplies, you don't think anything's wrong because that's
Starting point is 00:50:58 your new norm. You don't realize how much you could potentially improve by changing these things. When my neck got back in place, everything changed. When we changed the cleaning supplies in the house, everything changed. But if you don't feel like there's something going on immediately because you're so used to living the way you are, maybe you don't feel like anything's wrong. Absolutely. You're complacent with your symptoms and they become the norm. But once you level up and you're like, oh, wow, I like how I feel. That was great. But then you go back to that. You're like, okay, I remember that. That sucks. I don't want to do that anymore. But if you keep leveling up,
Starting point is 00:51:27 then you become more and more aware, but you're not aware until you actually take that leap and level up. It's kind of like what happened yesterday when we turned the power off. You guys, that was the norm, but what happened as soon as we turned the power off? How did you feel? My nervous system immediately relaxed. I can't like, I just, it was like my adrenals or my hormones or something just immediately, everything kind of... Haley, my assistant said her shoulders dropped. You just sort of... It's like somebody being overweight and not taking care of themselves and huffing and puffing up the stairs and not eating right and drinking alcohol multiple times a week and just thinking that
Starting point is 00:52:00 they're fine because that's how they've always felt. That's how they feel. And they're missing the whole area of life where it's like, well, if you got in shape and lost some weight, you built some muscle mass, you started eating well, you kind of slept better. You'd feel completely different, but their new, their norm is feeling bad. Right. And they don't. So if that's your norm, they don't even recognize that it's bad.
Starting point is 00:52:19 That's just the norm, right? You don't realize there's a whole nother way to live life. Yep. So we leveled you guys up just a little bit with that. And so feeling that, then you're like, okay, how can I feel like this all the time in my house? This is great. You know, I think there's another side to this too. And I was at a conference, I was listening to a cancer doctor talk. And he said, one of the reasons cancer is so dangerous is because our bodies don't really have a warning system for cancer. Cancer
Starting point is 00:52:40 mimics our own cells. And so when the T cells and the immune system is going through, it just cruises right on by cancer. So like nothing's wrong. Everything's fine here. Nothing to look at. That's because there's no receptor or no sensory for our body. So when we're doing something, when we've been exposed to a toxin or a chemical or an
Starting point is 00:52:56 EMF or a stressor that's causing cancer in our body, there's no way for our body to really send off a signal. We don't feel that. The only time we feel it is when the body is actually breaking down our body to the point where we're not functioning anymore. A lot of times then it's too late. And so when we're doing these things and saying, well, I don't notice a difference. Yeah, well, you might be preventing cancer in your body and you don't know it.
Starting point is 00:53:15 My thing too in my life is I constantly want to level up. I constantly want to be the best version of myself. And I know it's a journey. It's not something that happens overnight. And if I can do little things every single day that overall make a big difference over time, I'm all about that. I think you have to be open-minded to other possibilities other than what we grew up with. I mean, you can't get attached. Well, I also think that the way that I justify a lot of this in my mind is I don't see any downside in putting better cleaning
Starting point is 00:53:46 supplies in the house, getting better water supplies, getting better air filtration. And maybe some of the pushback is they'll say, easy for you to say, Michael, you can afford a lot of this stuff. And that is a valid point. Vinegar, though, people can afford. But that is a valid point. Some of this stuff requires an investment. But I always push back and challenge people that say that kind of thing to me to say, okay, like how many nights a week you're eating out? How many nights a week you're going drinking? How, you know, how many, you know, what, what kind of material things are you buying consistently? There's ways like if you, if you prioritize certain things in this case, your health, that you can find savings in other areas that are maybe pushing against your health, right?
Starting point is 00:54:19 Absolutely. Yeah. And it doesn't cost any money to go open the windows and get some fresh air. It doesn't cost any money to leave your shoes at the door. It doesn't cost any money to throw toxic chemicals out and use vinegar and water. It doesn't cost any money to turn your electronics off when you're not using them. Those are all free things you can do that can make a huge impact right now that you can do. Yeah. And for the supporters, and I always say this, regardless of say money was not an issue, you could snap your fingers and do these things. You would still think that a lot of these practices are good ideas, So I always figure, I take in the financial aspect of a lot of this stuff all the time. You just mentioned a bunch of free things, but I always weigh it against,
Starting point is 00:54:52 okay, if money wasn't an object, is it still a good idea? And to me, a lot of this stuff, so I always figure if it's a good idea, you might as well figure a way to find the resources to be able to pay for those kinds of things. Because ultimately, the one thing, money in a bank account is money in a bank account, but your health is your health, right? And at the end of your life, nobody's going to sit there and care about how much money you've saved. You're going to sit there and care about the state of condition that your body and mind are in, right? Nobody on their deathbed is like, oh, thank God, I have a million dollars in the bank. They're sitting there saying, shit, I wish I had more time. I wish I took better care of myself.
Starting point is 00:55:27 Absolutely. And if you're running a business and you got 200 people in your business center and you can optimize those people 10% over the year, how much money are you saving? If you can make the air quality cleaner so that they have less sick days, if you can lower the EMF so they have better thinking capabilities and less brain fog, if you can reduce the EMF so they have better thinking capabilities and less brain fog, you can reduce the chemicals in their body so that they feel better over time. How much dollar wise does that make sense to invest into that? I say, yeah, it absolutely does. You have to tell us the weirdest thing that you've ever found in someone's home. Please don't be our home. Sexual or non-sexual?
Starting point is 00:55:58 It could be anything. Oh, if it's sexual, it might be our home. I was going to say maybe you found like like just something so random i mean every once in a while you know well there was this home that they had okay so i'm in i'm in this house then it was a single guy and he says there's one room that normally don't have open to people but i want the whole house inspected okay so didn't know what i was getting going through the house it was out of his office and it was this bookcase that was cracked open. And I go in there, and it's a full-on sex room, like dungeon style.
Starting point is 00:56:33 You're like, let me check that dildo for mold. But it was crazy. He had had a good time, I can tell. It had six queen beds, three on each side. There were stripper poles in the middle. Then there was a big stage up front. And then he had these big closets with every kind of costume you could ever imagine for all the toys you could imagine. Big speaker system, lights.
Starting point is 00:56:53 Like, holy shit, this guy. He's having a good time. What about the weirdest thing that you've ever found when it comes to mold, EMF, air quality, something so random where you just couldn't believe that you found it? Well, I mean, there was one house I went into. And and it was like, you got to go to my buddy's house. He's really sick. He moved into this place. And within six months, he's almost lost all his health. And I pull up. First of all, he's right underneath the high voltage power line. I could hear it crackling and popping. I could have stood on his roof and hit it with a broom. It was that low.
Starting point is 00:57:19 Walk into the house and I look and one whole side of his whole house was just covered in mold. And then I look and then there's like cat shit and there's dog shit and there's beer cans. I'm like, dude, what in the hell are you doing in here? He's like, I don't know, man. I can't go to work anymore. I can't even leave my house. My health has gone downhill. I'm like, dude, you got to get out of this.
Starting point is 00:57:39 I didn't even go in the house much further. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to charge you for this. Like you just need to leave. And he did. He left and I ran into him in a grocery store a couple months later. He was like, man, you saved my life. Like I turned around and he was drinking and smoking because he felt so horrible. And that's the only way he know how to self-medicate. That makes sense. It's a vicious circle. Yep. Yep. Who needs test my home?
Starting point is 00:58:01 Anybody that lives inside of an indoor environment, I think needs to make sure that your home is good. So unless you're living in a cave, like a caveman, with rounded edges, with good airflow, and no molds, and no toilets, you need test my home. Yeah, and the reason, you know, up to 100 years ago, it was the word outdoor, indoor, I don't even think was like a thing because everybody spent time outside. Everybody spent time outside growing and hunting and farming.
Starting point is 00:58:30 And ancestrally, you would go inside your shelter to sleep or to get away from the rain. The rest of the time, you lived outside. Now, we have that flip now. Everything's opposite. How many people actually go outside? How much of your time would you say do you spend outside of either your car your work or your home i tried to be really mindful of it i don't know exactly how much time but i try to be mindful but i mean even with that like if you were to audit the time i would say maximum 20 percent of the time with and we're trying to be mindful of it you know and get out and and so i'd imagine
Starting point is 00:59:00 especially in a more urban you know environment urban environment. Like people aren't outside nearly enough anymore. Yeah. So a study was done actually, and this would be pre-COVID, that said 92% of our lives are spent inside of an enclosed space, either homework or car. Now I would even argue after COVID, that probably has gone up since people spent so much more time in their house. That's a scary thought to think that that's the only time that we're getting fresh air, we're getting natural sunlight, that we're getting the freedom from the electronics and the chemicals in our home. And you'll do any space. You'll do offices,
Starting point is 00:59:33 you'll do college dorms, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Anybody that wants to optimize their living space that wants to turn it into a true healing sanctuary instead of a toxic environment, we deal with that. And my last question, if you ever want to build a house, you help people build the house, right? Yep. Yeah. Those are some of the funnest projects. And someone comes to me and said,
Starting point is 00:59:52 hey, we really want to dial this in from the ground up and truly make it a healthy home. And we can start from picking out the right lot. We can help them lay out their home. We can, all the building material, the whole nine yards, everything.
Starting point is 01:00:03 You know what's so great? Those rounded edges because it makes you feel like you're in a cave, huh? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Rounded edges are good. I love rounded edges. Where can everyone find you? Tell us.
Starting point is 01:00:12 Pimp yourself out. Your Instagram, where can they contact you? Tell us all the things. So Instagram is just testmyhome. All of our handles are testmyhome and our website is testmyhome.com. And you got me these air purifiers on Jasper. Yep. Okay.
Starting point is 01:00:28 You guys go check them out. They're so pretty. And if you want to use a code for Branch Basics, we have a code SKINNY. I got the starter pack to start and I love it. TestMyHome, Ryan and Sam, thank you so much for testing our home. I look forward to optimizing our living space. I'm so glad you subtly manipulated my husband. I think we should do this again because we're still going through the audit
Starting point is 01:00:49 with you and you're sending some stuff out. And then once we do it and make the changes, we can update everybody on what we've done. Yeah. A lot more to talk about. A lot more. There's a lot of different ways it's going to go on. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you so much for coming on. Oh, thank you guys. This is great. Test my home. Wait, don't go. We are going to leave a code for the Jasper air purifier in the show notes. I'm in love with mine. I got two. They're nude and they match my house. They're absolutely beautiful and they really work. And then we are also going to do a giveaway. I have never given this away. So this will be fun on the podcast.
Starting point is 01:01:26 I'm giving away the Skinny Confidential Diffuser. It is absolutely magical for the home. It's perfect for the home. And it's human and pet safe. So all you have to do is tell us your best favorite takeaway from this episode with Test My Home on my latest post at Lauren Bostic. Thank you guys for listening. As always, DM me or comment your feedback. We always want to make sure we're having on guests that you guys absolutely love.
Starting point is 01:01:52 See you next time. You have seen the famous Stanley Quencher on TikTok. You can't miss it. Everyone has one. The only decision that you need to make is what color to go with. I recently got a neon green one. I am obsessed with this. I will show it to you on my Instagram story. But here's the thing about the Stanley Quencher and the thing I'm obsessed with is that it makes it so much easier to drink water. I drink about 10 times the amount of water now with my Stanley Quencher. Like, it's so easy to have it by my bedside. I put tons of ice in it.
Starting point is 01:02:40 Sometimes I put electrolytes in it. Sometimes I put chia seeds. Sometimes I put lemon. in it. Sometimes I put chia seeds. Sometimes I put lemon. I mix it up. But the point is, is it's so much easier to drink water. It just really helps me hit my hydration goals. The quencher is 40 ounces, so I don't have to fill it up a lot, which is great. I try to refill it three times a day. It stays cold all day long. Like literally, it stays cold in the morning, which is amazing. And sometimes even when I wake up, the ice is still in it. The handle makes it so efficient
Starting point is 01:03:10 and seamless to carry. And it's perfect for when I have my arms full with the kids. If you're looking to stay hydrated like me, definitely go check out their neon green one. It's such a moment. You're going to head to stanley1913.com and check out the other sizes and colors on their site. Also available at Dick's Sporting Goods, REI, Shields, Amazon, and more. And you should know that you should hurry. These sell out so fast. So you'll soon feel as hydrated as I feel. This is so good for your skin. Keep listening and sipping away with your new must-have hydration accessory from Stanley, the Quencher.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.