The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - The Wellness Mama, Katie Wells - On All Things Wellness, Optimization Of All Areas Of Your Life, Effective Parenting, & How To Build An Online Platform You Control

Episode Date: May 3, 2019

#186: On this episode we sit down with our friend Katie Wells. Katie is the founder, creator, and voice behind The Wellness Mama brand, blog, & Podcast. On this episode we are talking all things wellness, how to optimize all areas of your life, effective parenting, and how to build an online platform that you actually control. Katie and her team have been an amazing online platform and resource connecting men and women all over the world primarily around the topics of health and wellness.  To connect with The Wellness Mama click HERE 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 FOUR SIGMATIC We have been drinking this company's mushroom-infused elixirs and coffees for over a year now. When we need a break from coffee but still need that extra morning jolt and focus the Mushroom Coffee with Lion's Mane and Chaga is the way to go. Lauryn also drinks the Mushroom Matcha which is a green tea designed as a coffee alternative for those of you who want to cut back on caffeine without losing focus and cognitive boosts. This stuff doesn't actually taste like mushrooms, it's delicious. All of these blends have a ton of nutrients and amino acids to give you balanced energy without the jitters. To try FOUR SIGMATIC products go to foursigmatic.com/skinny and use promo code SKINNY for 15% off all products. This episode is brought to you by GOMACRO Enter promo code SKINNY for 30% of your order at check out. We love these all natural, plant based, and organic bars. We keep them in our bags on the go and love that they are a completely natural and farm produced bar.  This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning space offering more than 20,000 courses. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for our listeners: Get two months of Skillshare for free! That’s right, Skillshare is offering The Skinny Confidential listeners two months of unlimited access to over 20,000 classes for free! To sign up, go to www.skillshare.com/TSC.  Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. 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! Most of us are pretty much used to burning carbohydrates, and that's the preferred method if we have it in our body. That much fasting, your body has to burn fat. So you're burning body fat and you're making ketones, but the benefit beyond that is the body then remembers that switch more easily, so you can go back and forth between burning carbs and burning ketones, which gives you dual fuel sources,

which is more efficient for the body for one. But a lot of people tend to notice that it can improve hypoglycemia over time. But again, I would say work with a doctor who has experience in that. Boy, oh boy, am I excited for this episode, Michael. I am ecstatic for this episode, Lauren. I one-upped you on my excitement. That clip was from our guest of the show today, our friend, the wellness mama, Katie Wells. for this episode, Lauren. I one-upped you on my excitement. That clip was from our guest of the show today, our friend, the wellness mama, Katie Wells. On this episode, we are talking all things wellness. I know it's been a while since we've done that.

How to effectively build an online platform and how to set up effective systems to optimize all areas of your life. Guys, my name is Michael Bostic. I'm a serial entrepreneur and brand builder. Most recently, the CEO of the podcast network, Dear Media, focused on amplifying female voices in the podcast space and growing rapidly. Across from me is my, what are we talking here?

Flames, fire, super hot, super hot, sexy wife, Lauren Everts. I'm Lauren Everts. I'm the creator of The Skinny Confidential, but enough about that. Let's talk about the new book I got you. What did you get me? Oh yeah. What do you mean? Oh yeah. Do you know what though? You don't realize it. So that book is men are from Mars and women are from Venus. It's for men and women to understand each other. I think you thought that it was just a book for men to understand women. It goes both ways, buddy. Totally goes both ways. Unfortunately, I'm the one that found it at an antique shop in Reno while we were going to a

brothel, but that's a different story. And it's six bucks and I picked it up and I'm the one that gifted it to you. So you get to read it first. You can highlight the shit out of it and then I'll take a peek. If there's one thing I've learned reading that book, it's that you need to read that book. No, Michael. Yep, that's true. State some of your plans that you've highlighted. The book says... You're going to take me on a picnic.

The book told me that it's always the woman's fault. No, Michael. And it said that... Michael, is that really what you got from it? It also said that you should just do whatever your husband says, love him up. No, Michael. Give him unlimited sexual favors and never complain or whine. That's exactly what it said.

You found it in the antique shop. I read it. That's what I got from it. You might need to do a second pass through to make sure I was accurate. I actually want you to study this book every single morning for 15 minutes like you do stoicism. I don't give a shit if I have the eternity of time to study this book.

Men are never going to figure out women ever. Period. End of story. We can't. It's impossible. I've been millions and millions of men before me, billions, and they've never figured it out. I'm not going to figure it out either.

I'm just going to have to try to do my best, Lauren. That's it. Rule number 11. Give her four hugs a day. There's 100 rules. And at the end of 100 rules, the last rule 101 is give this to your wife to add more to the list. As if there wasn't, there's already 100 rules.

They wanted to give another second. Today, I've only had three and a half hugs. Yeah. Well, the day's not over. The day's still here. I still have an hour and a half. To hold my hand with, and never let your hand go limp i will do that but i'll not let another thing go limp i'll keep that hard for you forever okay thank you that's enough of that speaking of

brothels we were actually in a brothel all weekend with alice little we weren't speaking about brothels but that was a nice transition we were speaking earlier about it and i just want to like bring it i don't think anybody was speaking about it. Oh yeah, we were. You're talking about the ghost. Okay, go back. Okay. So we were in Reno this weekend. We were interviewing Alice Little, who is a badass. She is a legal sex worker. She's smart. She's well-read. She's sassy. She's funny. She's pretty. And I'm so excited for that interview too. We are batch. We have a lot of interviews that are coming up. Jessica Alba coming.

We have Mark Manson coming. We have Khalil Rafati coming. We have Alice Little. We have a lot of really, you know, we're like Game of Thrones now with podcasts. We're like building it up, you know, and we're saying like, it's coming. Winter is coming. Podcasts are coming, but you have to brace for them. You know, you got to get ready for them.

I got to, you know, it's like building up, building up. All right. So we have a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline, guys. Get excited. A lot of phallic remarks. But you should be in your car wherever like cheering right now. Like everyone's like fired up. There is a lot of good episodes coming in. Michael doesn't know this, but I'm recording two solo episodes next week. So sorry, babe. You're gonna have to put that in there, too. That's fine. But today, guys, we are interviewing one of our good friends, Katie Wells, the founder, the creator, the voice behind the wildly popular blog, brand, resource, podcast, Wellness Mama. Do you know what's so funny is how I initially met Katie was I'm constantly Googling and researching on the internet for things like, you know, chlorophyll benefits or, you know, how to make the best, healthiest chocolate chip cookie.

And I kept coming across Katie's blog. And this is like back in 2011, wellness mama was always popping up. So funny because right before I met her, I Googled benefits of salt rock lamps. And there was a whole post that she did so in depth, so informative. I got so much information, obviously cited her like always. And then we ended up meeting in Finland. Of all places, we ended up meeting in Finland. We met a lot of amazing people on that trip in Finland. It's a little bit of context, guys. At the beginning of this year, we went with the Four Sigmatic team to Finland and chased the Northern Lights. Lauren was a little irritated at first because she didn't realize that it was negative 20 degrees Celsius there. And I didn't tell her until we got there. Remember, I thought I was going to wear

a cardigan. Yeah, it was ridiculous. But the way we met Katie, Katie literally lives up to her name, the wellness mama. She had all sorts of vitamins for us. She was basically like a mother for the whole group. Lauren was not helping me at all. She was mostly just complaining and hitting me in the cold, but Katie was there keeping us level, keeping us set up. Katie gave us some amino acids some melatonin yeah i got to the point in the trip when i didn't even know what she was giving me i just trusted her and was like i'm just taking it she seems to know what she's doing and knows what she's talking about so just whatever she gave me who knows just took it and you never know it could have been a roofie whatever

it worked whatever so we're super excited to have her today on the show. So who is Katie Wells? As we said, Katie Wells is the founder and creator of the Wellness Mama brand podcast, blog, you name it. Wellness Mama is an online resource for women and moms who want to live a healthier life. Katie, with a team of researchers and medical advisors, analyze a wide variety of topics and summarize the information in a clear and usable way. Their goal is to present practical tips, real food recipes, natural beauty and clean tutorials, natural remedies, and other information to make your life better. And she does not fail to deliver. With that, everybody, welcome our friend Katie Wells, the wellness mama, to the podcast. Lauren, during this quick commercial break, I want to talk to you about a little known fact. That's not a little known fact,

but it's a fact that I found out. Americans drink a ton of coffee, no surprise there. But did you know that if you're listening to this episode and to me talking right now, chances are you're one of those coffee drinkers because over 64% of Americans drink coffee. Staggering, not surprising. See a lot of you jitterheads running around. What was surprising to me, Lauren, is that we are not the biggest coffee drinkers in the world. Interesting factoid, Michael Vosdick. Interesting factoid.

That mantle, that crown belongs to Finland, the Finns. The Finns. Okay. Data shows also that the Finns in Finland are the happiest country in the world. You know that? Wow. Not sure where that comes from, but it's out there. Coffee, happiness, correlation. I think so. What do you think? I think it's great. All right. Keep up,

Lauren. So Finns know their shit when it comes to coffee and the Finnish guys and the team behind one of our favorite brands, Four Sigmatic, really know their coffee. They grew up foraging for mushrooms in Finland and they knew that mushrooms were some of the most nutritious and delicious foods on the planet. So they decided to experiment by adding them to beverages they all know we love and that is coffee, mushroom coffee. It's the best. It contains half the caffeine of real coffee, has a ton of nutritional benefits and adaptogenics. It contains two mushrooms, lion's mane and chaga, which helps you think and gives you a powerhouse of antioxidants. No sugar, Lauren, you'll like that. They don't cause jitters.

They just give you a mental boost and it tastes delicious. Not like mushrooms at all. They come in individualized packets so you can keep them in your bag, your desk, pocket. Keep them on the go, Lauren. Keep them in your purse if you want to. Add them to hot water and boom, delicious, nutritious mushroom coffee. So I know how to spice up mushroom coffee in a hot second. You want to get a frother and you put your mushrooms in there with a little bit of almond

milk and cinnamon. It is so good over ice. Like you can't go wrong. So get your frother, get out the little pack, get yourself a boost, energy, focus, sleep, relaxation. They have products for all. So check them out. Go to foursigmatic.com slash skinny and enter promo code skinny for 15% off your entire order. Again, that's foursigmatic.com slash skinny and enter promo code skinny for 15% off your entire order. It's the best. Try it, guys. Enjoy and be happy like the Finns. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Awesome. I think I fucked it up when I was back there.

Just seeing Katie reminded me to take my amino acids that I would have forgotten to take had she not been here. Because when we were in Finland, you were like the local, I'm not drug dealer, but the local pharmacy. Like you were giving me digestives, I think zinc. It's true. By the end of it, you guys didn't even question. I could just hand you pills and you would take them. Yeah. When I'm around you, I think, zinc. It's true. By the end of it, you guys didn't even question. I could just hand you pills and you would take them.

Yeah. When I'm around you, I just feel calm. We're there and you're like, okay, you're going to take this melatonin. Like we're freezing our ass off in the middle of nowhere in Finland. Okay, you're going to have this. You're going to have this. It's very much living up to the wellness mama name for sure. Yes, you did live up to the name like full heartedly.

You could have given me anything. I'd be like, cool. She told me to take it. I'm taking it. Well, maybe not anything in Finland. Yeah, like full-heartedly. You could have given me anything. I'd be like, cool, she told me to take it, I'm taking it. Well, maybe not anything in Finland. Yeah, that's true. You never know. You got to be careful with what you're talking about there.

Well, still, if you would have given it to me, I probably would have taken it. So Katie, introduce yourself to our audience. Tell us how you got started on this journey. Yeah, so I'm Katie from wellnessmama.com. I am a mom of six. That's the wellness mama part. And basically, my story is I got really really sick and my background was in journalism. So I was trying to find my own health answers.

And this was before so much of what we now know health wise was so mainstream. And I was finding out, it sounds so simple now, but like just the connection between diet and health and how you feel and realize there were a lot of people that needed to know that. And it was so new at that point. I just wanted other moms to know because I figured I wasn't the only person feeling like that. And just with the research background, that was my default to research, to figure out what was wrong and then to write about it. Um, just with journalism, that was always my outlet.

And so kind of just started from there and, and realized that there were a lot of moms and a lot of women in the same place at the same time. And the community just sprung up from there. What year was this that you started actually writing heavily on online? So technically started in 2006, but 2009 is when I got consistent. So still very early. Very early. Yeah. Wow. What advice would you give to someone that's looking to break in the space now in 2019? Run for the hills. I think it's like a very much more competitive market now across the board, as you, I know, have talked about as well. I think consistency always is the key.

It's like my husband always says, doing the right things long enough consistently. But I also think right now niche sites do a lot better. So Wellness Mama is very general. And I know you also talk about a lot of different topics. It's so much harder to be a general site because even you and I are up against sites that are backed by billion dollar VC funds that just have unlimited content writers but we're seeing niche sites like pregnancy or like Hashimoto's or very niche topics go crazy right now and I think Google's preferring that and I think people prefer that because if you

are pregnant you want to read everything about pregnancy or if you have Hashimoto's you want to know everything there is to know so that you can get better so that would be my my advice is find your place, your thing, your way that you're going to change the world and start there. When you were starting out in 2009, what did that look like? Like really get into what that looked like. Oh my gosh. So not glamorous. Even now I should joke. If anybody sees this video, like I, my hair is brushed, which is abnormal. I'm not wearing yoga pants, which is abnormal. But in 2009, I had three kids, three and under, and my life was crazy busy. I had Hashimoto's. So some days I was so tired, I would put them in one of their rooms to play and like sleep in front of the door so they couldn't get out and like run in the street. I was just so tired. And so I was in

that like researching my own health answers and then also learning to blog, which has always been mission first for me, but was even more so then. There was no really the business side as much back then. It was just the content and wanting to learn and to write. So that was very much our life back then. And I spent a lot of my time first and foremost as a mom, as I still do. And then the time that I had left both after the kids were asleep or when they were napping, I would research and write and build the community on Wellness Mama. How long did it take for you to really build a brand that was monetizing and sort of, I guess, build a brand in general? Like I said, it takes years and it's a marathon,

for sure, not a sprint. We definitely had moments where things would grow rapidly thanks to a Google update or to partnerships that we did with people. But it was very much a slow, long process that grew over time. And I remember even the first time, because for years, my husband, who was in the tech and SEO side, would tell me, you know, links to things on Amazon, if you're going to talk about them, just in case someone buys it, it's an affiliate thing. And I did that. And then one month when finances were still really tight, I was balancing the checkbook and was like, where did this extra money come from? Why did Amazon give us money? Did we, did the kids buy something and we returned it? Like what's going on? That sounds like me. What? Why did Amazon give us money? And then I realized, oh, it's because of affiliate commissions and realized like that was one of my pivotal,

like, oh, this could actually be a business as well as just something I love. And that's always been my core focus because I know there's a lot you can do to monetize. And I think in the blogging world, you have to find the path that works best for you. But for us, I loved in-text affiliate links because they just felt natural. It wasn't pushy. It was like, if you asked me where I got my shoes, I would tell you, but I wouldn't come up to you and be like, you have to buy these exact shoes right this second, unless you asked. You know what? We talk, as you can imagine, to a lot of people in this space. We were talking in Finland. I think, and I have been since then, I use you as an example of someone who's really done it right, because you understand how to build platforms that you actually control. Your husband may be helping

you. Building a blog site where you're running SEO and actually controlling that platform, where somebody like Facebook or Google or Instagram cannot take that away. Building a platform like a podcast where you control that. An email list. I know your email list is massive. I think a lot of people listening, they're building these businesses and they're kind of building them in straw houses, relying so heavily on Instagram or Snapchat or Facebook, all these things that could, as you know, change in an instant.

I think it's so important to understand if you're going to come into the space, build platforms that you can control for 10, 20, 30 years. Because like you said, it just starts to roll into something bigger and bigger and bigger every month. Can you speak on that a little bit and like why that's been so important to you? Absolutely. I think you're spot on. I think a lot of people, it's sometimes faster and easier to grow on social media, but like, I'm sure you guys have experienced over the years too. Facebook can change an algorithm and your reach can go down to 90% less than it was overnight. Or like today, Instagram's down. Instagram's down. Exactly. And so like you said, perfect analogy, you're building like a straw house or you're building it on sand.

I view social media as something that points back to your main channel and the main channel, the platform is the mission for me. I think that's the other key is truly at the end of the day, it has to be heart centered. I think a lot of people, and speaking of the VC funds and the people just putting out content, they may be able to grow quickly based on either search traffic or paid media, but they can't connect with an audience the same way that someone like Lauren does, or like, I hope I do as well, because we're actually speaking to the person and we care very deeply about the person we're speaking to. Exactly. We're speaking to the people that we've been, or that we still are in some ways. And we care so much about the mission and what we're teaching and what we're the community that we've built.

Like you said, like nurturing that community, that it's just a different level, I think. And so I think especially back to the point of someone starting from scratch, I think that is a key. And it sounds like idealistic and simple, but you truly have to be in it for the mission and have something that's helping people beyond just making money. What are some tangible steps that you've taken to build your community? So for years, I mean like eight years, I was answering every comment, every email myself. And I think that is so overlooked. People just want to post things and have them take off and

go viral. But the relationships are built in the real people and putting in the time. And when I first started, I probably knew the top 200 commenters by name. I would recognize their comments. I knew to the point like this one has three kids and her youngest son has autism. Like I had a relationship and still do. I mean, there's more of them now. So I don't know every single person by name, but I really cared about the community. And then when I was writing, it was so much easier to speak to them because I could see them. I could visualize them. I knew who they were and I really wanted to help them. That is one of the best tips that has been on the Skinny Confidential podcast when it comes to building a blog. I think everyone should go re-listen to that,

go back a little bit. That was really, really powerful. Well, listen, on this side of it, because a lot of times, you know, as you're aware, I sit on the other side of the table, like, you know, working with influencers and podcasters and brands, and it's not always the largest macro number that moved the needle the most when it comes to advertising or like promoting products or talking to an audience. Like you have to have that connection to the host or to the personality or to the blog. Like, you know, I would take someone like you or Lauren 10 times over somebody that's, you know, maybe got all these millions of followers. Do those people really care? Are they there as passive audience?

Are they there to get some entertainment? Are they really actually there to engage and be influenced? I think this word influencer has been thrown around all over the place. Who actually has influence? That's an interesting question to ask. And I think anybody that's looking to build a brand online should really think like, do you want to have millions and millions and millions of passive followers or do you want to have an extremely engaged community? That's where people are getting a little bit confused, I think. Absolutely. And what is influence? Because I think it's become conflated with Instagram

likes or Facebook likes. And to me, influence is people actually doing the thing and making a change long term. So for me, when I was in that my own health crisis, my oldest son was only six weeks old. I read in Time magazine that for the first time in two centuries, the current generation of American children would have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. And that's my kids. And that's if you guys ever have kids, that's your kids. And it made me really mad because I was reading about how they're going to have such higher rates of disease, they're going to die earlier. And it really like that kind of lit a fire in me. And so that was my, that's the influence I wanted to have was to change those kinds of statistics, to change the lives of these women

who were like I was suffering with autoimmune disease and couldn't figure out how to get answers. It wasn't that I cared about the Facebook likes or the Instagram likes. Those were just to me, a metric showing I was actually hopefully helping people do the thing. You work with your husband, Seth, who's here. Hi, Seth. How does that work? How does that look, especially when you have six kids in the mix? Yeah, so I think we talked about- Six kids in the mix.

This is Chris Jenner. Seth, you are a busy guy, my friend. We're good at a few things. So I think we talked a little bit in Finland, but we've had to, in the years, develop really strong systems, and that's what makes it work. So on the business side, thankfully, we have very complementary strengths. I'm more of the creative writer side, and I can assimilate information pretty quickly. And so I love to research a lot of topics and then turn them into blog posts that are usable, that answer a single question, and it can help the audience wherever they're landing. Whereas Seth is really good at the big picture strategy and the SEO and the tech, which is great because that's what gets the message, the influence out to the world.

But we haven't always worked together. And I know when he first started working more, focusing more on Wellness Mama, we had to kind of have some of those relationship conversations and put some boundaries in place, even on little things. When he had a corporate job, I was able to, you know, clean the house completely and make dinner right before he got home and like, you know, get dressed right before he got home. Whereas during the day, I was like a disaster. The house was a disaster. And so when he first came home, he was like, what is going on in the house? Why is it such a mess all of a sudden? And it was like, well, it's actually always been like this. You just came home in the afternoon. Um, to little stuff like that. What happened to me today? I was, I came home, I was,

I had a lunch break and I came home the day and I said, what are you doing here? Get out. I was like, who are all these people? What is going on in here? Yeah. Leave. You're like, this is my house right now. You're not supposed to be here yet. Um, but all the way to in the business, realizing we had to have our own kind of sectors that we both had autonomy in. And I think that's whether it's husband and wife or your partner that you're working with or even employees or anyone you're working with, people need to have autonomy and the ability to move in their thing that is their job. And so we had to kind of define our roles and then not step on each other's toes and realize like when it comes to the tech side and the marketing, he's the boss in that sector and he has veto power. And when it comes to the content

and the creative and understanding the audience, because I am the audience, that's my veto power. And so we both defer to each other. It took some practice, but we both defer to each other in those areas. And then beyond that, we both are pretty system oriented. So our household has systems, the kids are involved in the systems. Can you speak on, we talked about this in Finland, speak on the laundry system. So I, to be fair, I, that it goes back to a need. I think a lot of things are because of a need. So I hit a point a few years ago where I was probably close to a nervous breakdown. Just, I felt like the business part was great. It was running. I had systems and it worked, but at home I felt like I was drowning all the time.

Even though things were mostly getting done, I was stressed out at the edge of my temper all the time. And I realized in business, I have checklists, systems, deliverables, goals. Everything runs by systems. At home, I'm trying to manage eight people's schedules in my head, as well as meal planning, as well as the household, all of it in my head. So it felt like all of those loops were running all the time because I had to just think about them.

And so when I was doing laundry, I was thinking about everything else that had to happen and when it was going to happen. And there was never a point where I felt mentally calm. And so I realized I needed to implement the same systems in my personal life that we had implemented in business and run it like a team. So that meant getting the kids on board and giving them goals, objectives, deliverables, and tasks. And also that Seth and I had the same thing. So one of our core principles with our kids is that we don't do anything for them that they can do themselves, which means when they're capable of doing laundry, to your point, they do their own

laundry. So everybody from our five-year-old up is capable of doing their own laundry. The three-year-old still needs some help, but they do their own laundry. And if they run out of clothes, it's because they didn't do laundry, which is teaching a great natural consequence in life. Cause all of us as adults, if we don't do laundry, we run out of clothes. And so we just, I was able to hand off the things to them that didn't need to be my job in the first place. And in doing so, we're also giving them life skills. I didn't want them to be those kids that get to college or career or whatever it is in their life and don't know how to cook or do their own laundry or sew on a button or change a tire. So we just kind of started really valuing autonomy in them as well

and making them feel and actually be a valuable part of the team. I think that's really solid advice. So Lauren and I just started recently talking about kids, what that would eventually look like. We're just starting to explore it. He's talking about kids with himself. Trying to anchor, baby, or get some of that skinny confidential. No, I'm drinking rosé with my pinky up, but you're having the conversation one-sidedly. You've been six children now. It's a lot.

What's the most, when young parents are talking to you, and I'm sure you get a lot of feedback from your audience, what is common across, what is the biggest challenges that they're coming to you for? Saying, like, we're struggling here. I'm I was in that kind of nervous breakdown phase on my own, I thought like other moms must have it together. And I'm just, I am like late to this party. I have not figured it out. And then once I figured it out and I feel calm, really pretty much all the time, you mentioned that Lauren before we started, I pretty much am always calm. I realized other moms are not necessarily always calm. I would like mention it to friends and they'd be like, oh no, that's not normal. And I realized, I think overwhelm is a tremendous problem. And it's partially because women in today's world, thankfully we have all these new opportunities,

but we still have all the old obligations. Like we're not giving up the management of the household or the emotional responsibility of the kids just because we can now also have a career and also do all these other things. So there's just more that falls on us. But I also think the new parent thing is a really unique part of life. Just those first couple of years with a baby, you feel like you're in a fog. You're not sleeping. It feels like it's never going to end. And I can say for sure right now with six, but having some older ones, it's so much easier

than when I just had three toddlers. It's like night and day, not even a comparison. I would never go back to one or two kids. It was so much harder. But I feel like so many parents make all those decisions when they're in that early phase where you just literally feel like you're dying all the time or you're so brain fogging, you're running into walls. And I think it's partially systems, but also at that point, realizing it's just a phase and it will pass, but you do have to go through the sleeplessness and the baby phase.

So having been through that now multiple times, what would be your biggest piece of advice for people that are maybe going into that phase or in that phase? Yeah, I would say systematize your life to the degree possible before because adding a baby is like adding eight extra full-time jobs and a lot of chaos to your house. Oh, God. So systematize everything you can before that. Katie, you're not helping my cause over here. I'm trying to. But you guys are good at like building a team and outsourcing. So put in supporting staff if you can, especially if you know that you have other obligations.

Bring people into support in whatever way that you can, but also have systems going into that for meal planning, for keeping up with the house, for business, so that as needed, you can either hand those off to other people or automate them. I want you to strap on some tits. I don't know if that's going to help us at all. I think that actually might cause more problems in a lot of other areas. I also think on just kind of going off on a tangent on what you were saying is that nowadays, like I think that I think like maybe like 10 years ago, if you were a mom, you had to just be a mom. And now it's they're starting with the Internet. I think women are seeing that, no, you can be a mom, but you can's, they're starting with the internet. I think women are seeing that,

no, you can be a mom, but you can also be interested in singing in the choir. And you can also, you can also have, you know, your own company and you can also, you know, maybe be a mom blogger, whatever it is. I think that, that social media has really allowed women to see that, that they can do a lot of different things. But with that, I'm sure comes a lot of stress if you're a mother. Before we get into that, I am going to give you the hot tip of a century, how to not make your partner hypoglycemic, okay?

How many of you have been at the airport or on a long drive or I don't know, just maybe out exploring, taking a walk, maybe to the farmer's market. And maybe this actually happened to me and your significant other gets hangry because that happens to me a lot. I come prepared. And what I do is I put macro bar minis by go macro in my purse. I have them on me at all times. They're in my office. They're in my purse. They're at Dear Media. They're everywhere. Michael, did you know that little fact? Lauren has me covered. I do have you covered, huh? When you get a little upset,

a little grumpy. It goes both ways. Yeah, I just pull out my Macro Bar Mini. All right, guys. So these are made from simple, high quality ingredients. They're certified organic, vegan, gluten-free, kosher, non-GMO. They're clean. They're raw. Most importantly, in my opinion, is they're soy-free too. So you know you're giving your significant other and yourself a little boost of energy and it's healthy. What I love about Grow Macro is their mission is to spread awareness for a balanced plant-based

lifestyle with products that have positive effects on the world. So you just know you're covered all around. I am personally obsessed with their coconut almond butter chocolate chip. That's my favorite bar. I think that's Michael's too. I mean, you also like the peanut butter and chocolate chip. I like the peanut butter chocolate chip for sure. But I'm a huge fan of the coconut almond butter chocolate chip. So cool things about the company that make them really unique. Their mother daughter owned, they use a hundred percent renewable energy in their production of their bars. Their bars are made of sustainably grown ingredients. They're plant-based, like I said, and they're available in over 25,000 stores nationwide. So if you want to solve the world's

problems and have your significant other not be grumpy, then definitely check out GoMacro. They have ingredients that are grown and not made, sustainably grown ingredients, which we love. All you have to do is go to GoMacro.com and use promo code SKINNY for 30% off plus free shipping. So all you have to do again is go to GoMacro.com, use promo code SKINNY for 30% off plus free shipping. Yeah, absolutely. And I also

want to speak to the fact that even if you, what you want is to just, like you said, just be a mom, that is enough. And that is amazing. And that is an incredible accomplishment in life. I think also there is the pressure in society today that you have to do all these extra things. And then not only are you supposed to be a mom, which is like a side that you're, of course you're supposed to do that, but you're also supposed to have a career and you're supposed to look perfect all the time and you're supposed to never get stressed. And you have to bend over, clean the kitchen, do your nails, brush your eyebrows.

It's a lot. I'm not saying it's not. I agree. I mean, shit. You need help. You need a team. Listen, I've learned a few things in life and the last thing I'm going to come on here and say

is that it's easy being a mom. That's the last thing. I will be torn apart. I have a question. That's maybe a selfish question. How do you find time with six kids and a husband and running your company and then have time to write content and write two books? So when it comes to the systems and the scheduling, I think we feel whatever time we give ourselves. So I realized if I gave myself eight hours a day to work, I would work for eight hours and I would find stuff to fill whatever time we give ourselves. So I realized if I gave myself eight hours a day to work, I would work for eight hours and I would find stuff to fill that time. So I kind of, I realized in journalism school, I could get an article out in 45 minutes for a newspaper. So I'm

like, I should be able to do that now. So I realized I needed to put the most important things on the schedule first. And since mom and wife... This is the Ivy Lee method. Somewhat, yeah. So, but But I would consider the family my primary job, not the blog. And so the non-negotiables of family went on the calendar before the work stuff did. So family dinner is a non-negotiable. We eat dinner together. We hang out with our kids during that time. I make dinner every night. That's not negotiable. That goes on the schedule. Same with self-care. Things like occasional massages or just spending time outside or spending time with my husband, those things go on the schedule.

They're not negotiables. Or anything related to the kids and homeschooling, those go on the schedule and they're not negotiables. So the time that's left is work time. And that's usually only a couple hours a day. And so I was able to, once I started getting really efficient, fit everything I needed to do into those couple hours a day versus just trying to make an eight-hour workday, which we don't all actually need.

I feel like that's the beauty of the internet or things moving towards more virtual and digital platforms is we don't have to just sit in an office for eight hours because that's what's always been done. We can be really efficient in less time, but it requires extremely good use of time and systems and not like jumping on Facebook when I need to write an article and having that singularness of focus, just like I do at home. Like when it's time for laundry, it's time for laundry. When it's time for dinner, it's time for dinner in work. When it's time for writing, I write when it's time for podcasting, I podcast and everything is very structured. It's important that you mentioned that. Cause I think a lot of

times when you structure yourself at like, I need to work an eight or nine hour day, it actually can become unproductive, right? Because you're sitting there and it's like, yeah, you're like, okay, well I'm just filling this time. And maybe there's, maybe you don't need to fill that time. Maybe there's like, you can get something done in four hours and do something else that could help you in other areas. I think we've just been trained for so long. Like, okay, it's an eight hour day. It doesn't make sense for everybody. It makes sense for some, not for everybody. I'm curious of a day in the life, but I also am curious within that with your business tips, but also your wellness tips. So like, are you drinking something when you wake

up? Like walk us through like a typical day. Cause it sounds like you're so structured and meticulous about how you plan your day. And I would love to know how you do that from start to finish. Absolutely. So I will say most days I don't do anything every single day, including take supplements. So even though I was the pharmacy in Finland, um, usually on the weekends, I take a break from supplements. You know what? I just noticed you're wearing the aura ring.

I am wearing the aura. Oh God. Here we go. Are you wearing it too? Do do you love that thing i haven't taken it off since finland i haven't either i do love it i had it before finland and then i got another one in finland it's the best i track my sleep now i'm doing anyway sorry i don't want to do really but i just noticed that here every day about everything you did i'm like lauren are you not wearing your it becomes like a game yeah but michael's like a little more obsessed with the whole game thing. Well, because it becomes like, oh, wow, my sleep was really shitty that day.

What happened? And then I'm like, analyze. Oh, my heart rate's pretty good then. Not so good here. I don't need to hear every detail of your life. Anyway, sorry, we're derailing here. You should wear it because it will make you, it'll like reinforce the things like, oh, I drank dry farm wine and I'm totally fine this morning. See, my aura range.

Do you really look at it every day? I do, but I don't obsess about it. But it does help you see things like, Oh, this new supplement is actually helping my heart rate variability or my sleep is terrible when I do this. You guys are more, I feel like both of you guys are more into analytics than I am. Well, now I got analytics from my life. So yeah, it's like, I have to hear every analytic of every minute. No, but the other day I got like five and a half hours of sleep by accident. And I was like, what did I do? I was like, why did I not get sleep? Why did I get up? So I could now I can go back and like figure out that. I think we should as humans able to figure that

on our own. But this machine helps me a little more. So I'm going to go with it. Okay, you go with it. Okay, can we go back? I just derailed you completely. I have heard enough about the ring. So on the on the daily routine thing, kind of two core principles for me are both personalization and variability. So I think that's one thing in health that's going to be a big trend is that we're all going to have to figure out what works for us. And I think looking at health experts, I think a lot of us have figured out our thing and what works for us. And the problem becomes when we try to make that prescriptive and say, everybody should do it exactly like I did. So before I go into my day, I want to say like, this is what I do and it's what works for me. It's not going to be something

people should copy at face value, but maybe we'll give you some inspiration for figuring out your things. I just wanted to preface with that. And then when it comes to the variation, I think our bodies are so good at adapting. So if you give it the same inputs every single day, it's going to regulate to that and then either downshift or upshift based on those inputs. So I think mixing things up or taking a couple of days off of anything, it's just like with working out, you wouldn't work out every single day without ever taking a rest day. Same thing with supplement, same thing with any part of your routine. But for the most part, like a kind of an average day would be getting up, getting the kids ready for school. We need specific times. Oh, for specific times. I try to let myself wake up

naturally. So unless we're flying or have a hard schedule thing in the morning, usually around seven is our wake up time. And sometimes the kids will be up before we are. So back to the independence thing, they're perfectly capable of making their own breakfast and they do. That is going to be my kids all the way. Don't wake mom up.

Go make your own breakfast. Figure it out. Lauren will have a 12 month old and they're cooking eggs. I'm going to your own breakfast. Figure it out. Lauren will have a 12-month-old and they're cooking eggs. I'm going to be like, go figure it out. I think it's going to fall on me. But as soon as they can cook, I agree. And there's a great course called Kids Cook Real Food when you get to that point. Yeah, Michael had grandma cooking him pancakes at 19 years old.

So we're going to be doing that. I'm going to have you guys on speed dial and be like, boom. I'll just print out my system files and send them to you. OK, please. Send all the files this way. I'm a to have you guys on speed dial and be like, I'll just print out my system files and send them to you. Okay, please send all the files this way. I'm a big fan. I think you mentioned this too about lemon water in the morning. That's part of my routine. And then usually either celery juice or green, some kind of green drink.

If I'm not fasting, sometimes I won't eat till lunch or sometimes even later. So this would be obviously a non-water fasting day. I'll also sometimes fast for five or 10 days. So this would be obviously not one of those days, but lemon juice and celery juice in the morning. And then if I'm hungry, I'll eat protein in the morning. If not, I'll usually get work done and push it out till lunch. And so during that time, the kids will be working on schoolwork and I'll try to get my work in during the morning. And then lunchtime was usually with a family. That's a big priority in our house is lunch together, dinner together. And then lunchtime was usually with a family. That's, that's a big priority in our house is lunch together, dinner together. And then in the afternoon, either doing things with the kids, if there's podcasts that need

to happen, those go in the afternoon appointments go in the afternoon if there are any. And then also things like working out, spending time outside. Those are core non-negotiables that go on the schedule, especially sunshine, being outside, things like that. Is this all written down in your calendar? Some, to some degree, most of it, if it's fully automatic, if my down in your calendar? To some degree. Most of it, if it's fully automatic, if my body's completely integrated it, it gets taken out of my calendar. But when I was implementing it and trying to make it part of the routine,

it was always in the calendar. So even now, a new thing in the calendar after Finland is the gratitude alarm. Did you hear that going off at all in Finland? It was from Travis and our little group. Every day there was an alarm set in his phone and when it went off, he would be like, what are you grateful for? And it was his daily reminder to be grateful. So now I did that when I got home. That is so cute. That is a good tip. I don't know if he told you that.

That's such a cute tip. It takes one second and it brings light to whoever you're around. And it spreads. So I do it no matter where I am. So if I'm at a mastermind event, my phone will still go off. And whoever I'm with, I'll be like, what are you grateful for? And then we'll talk about it. And then so many people have integrated it. And now they text me

when theirs goes off and say what they're grateful for. I'm grateful that we all got to meet in Finland. I am too. So it's cool. I'm grateful that the ring might go missing tomorrow. I would not do that. That would, that's going to mess me up. I'm going to go into a tailspin. Okay. Go on. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not done. I want to hear her nightly routine. Okay. Well, and then also in the afternoon or evening, we do sauna pretty often. So if the kids are outside playing, my husband and I will go into the sauna. We're kind of sauna obsessed. So we have a barrel sauna and we have an indoor infrared sauna. And I'm kind of a geek on this. So everybody thinks like infrared saunas are so great and they have their benefits, certainly,

but you hear all this marketing that they raise the core body temperature more or they detox the body more. But every study I was finding was on old school traditional saunas, most of them out of Finland. And so I wanted to kind of test on myself, do they actually, do infrared saunas cause you to get rid of more BPA or heavy metals through the skin? So I've been kind of testing that. So we have both, but both get pretty hot. What I've found so far with the sauna is it's actually the heat that's the benefit. So

both of them get you hot, but the traditional barrel sauna gets you hotter. So ours can get up to almost 200 degrees. And then we have a cold plunge as well. So that's a regular part of our... Which indoor sauna do you use? We have had several actually. So we have a sunlight and solo pod, which is one that can fit in the closet. That one actually will raise my core temperature the most. So we have a sunlight and solo pod, which is one that can fit in the closet. That one actually will raise my core temperature the most. So if I feel like I'm getting sick, I'll lay down in that for over an hour, raise my body temperature a couple of degrees, basically induce a fever and then not get sick. We also have the infrared smaller, like clear light, just infrared multi-spectrum sauna.

It doesn't get quite as hot, but that can fit more than just one person in that little pod. And then we have a six-person barrel sauna. Okay. I got to check one of those out. You cheated in Finland because you had all this experience when we did the hot cold. I had, but not that cold. So ours, the coldest it got-

I don't think anything was that cold. Was 38. In Finland, Tarot verified it was 22 degrees and it only wasn't frozen because it was moving. And then the air temperature was negative 24. So you know, you get out of it and you stick to the ground because it's so cold. It was so cold. Yeah. Like different level. And I am intense. I love intense everything like intense people, intense, intense situations. And it was intense. And we were packed in there with like, I don't even know how many people were in that sauna. You froze your balls off. Yeah. Well, and I remember that

because you are intense. You were so excited. I was like, I don't want to do it because I knew what the cold, I knew it was coming. You went longer than me. But you were like all gung-ho. You were like, let's do it. You were like totally into the intensity. I loved it. No, you did it for like a minute or something. I did. That was crazy. I was like, my body was hot pink for like 30 minutes before I warmed back up. What are three wellness tips that you would give someone that doesn't know where to start? So let's see. I'm trying to give some ones that are free. They don't cost money.

I would say first thing in the morning, well, as soon as possible after waking up, especially if you're in California, go outside and get sunshine. Even if you're not trying to tan, the sunshine hitting your eyes, hitting certain receptors in your eyes early in the morning signals your cortisol response. So you're actually going to get better sleep. And you're also going to regulate things like estrogen, progesterone. It's going to impact all of your hormones. All of us can do that. So if you drink coffee or whatever, do it outside. I mean, we would all say drink Four Sigmatic coffee outside in the morning, but get the sunshine in. Even on a cloudy day, you're going

to get so much more light hitting those receptors than inside light. I think the lemon water in the morning is also a huge tip. That's really how it's had a big impact on me. I would say use a straw or be careful it's not getting on your teeth me. I would say use a straw or be careful it's not getting on your teeth or swish with water after. And then I think beyond that, it does really get into personalization. I would say like, you know, the basics,

move every day, hydrate. But I think beyond that, you really have to get into the nitty gritty of what's working for you and maybe use things like the Oura Ring to help figure it out. Yeah, learn, get your Oura Ring. You know, there's something really,

I think, smart that you said, because I identify with this. I was with a buddy actually today and he was saying ring you know there's something really i think smart that you said because i and i identify with this i was with a buddy actually today and he was saying you know he's he's in a funk right now he's a little depressed he's like i'm depressed i don't know why he's like my business is going well he's like i get up in the morning early he's like i do my gratitude he's like i go on a hike i work out i read he meditates like everything is like moving in the right direction in terms of this the stuff and the steps he's taking. But he's like, I'm depressed and I can't figure out why. I was like, well, it sounds to me and from, you know, my own experience that he's kind of made every process robotic where it's like doing this, doing this, doing this. And so it becomes so repetitive.

And like you said, your body kind of just adapts to all of it. And I was like, maybe try something that knocks you out of that routine completely. Something different that's not normal, that you're not implementing. We just met Joe and I was like, hey, maybe I'm doing Muay Thai or something. There's things that just take- Hold on. He is doing Muay Thai because of Joe. No, just go off on a tangent for one second. I go a couple times a week to his gym now and do that. Isn't that cool? Yeah, it's really cool. His body has completely changed. I'm not joking. gym now and do that and i was like it's cool yeah it's really cool his body has completely changed i'm not joking he's annoying because

he works out once and it's like he's like it's so annoying but you know like his body has completely transformed since you started doing doing things like that i'm like okay i go there i have to focus so much because i'm low guy on the totem pole i'm not you know there's guys and they're just kicking ass and like it takes me completely out of all my other routines and i think it helps with mood and all sorts of things. So I think it's important for people to understand, like you could be doing all the right things, lemon water, meditating, reading, sonnets, but you could still fall into a rut if it gets, if it becomes like routine. Does that make sense? Guys, I want to take a quick break and talk about

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Absolutely. And there's so much psychology and science to back that up actually. So both the brain being adaptive in that it has to learn how to automate different processes as we need it to. Like if we had to think about walking or breathing, like when you're a child, you're learning how to walk. You have to actively think about that. But as soon as you learn it, your brain outsources that. And then it doesn't have to think about it anymore. And they've done some really cool studies where you have different areas of your brain tied to different movements, different patterns. So to the degree that if you permanently sewed together a couple of your fingers, your brain would shut down the area that used to be part of one of those fingers that was needed for differentiation because it's no longer needed.

It adapts that quickly. Whereas if you then unsewed them, you wouldn't be able to move them separately anymore because the brain had connected them. And you would have to train to get them to separate again. And then the brain would rebuild that area of the brain. So we know the brain only keeps that neuroplasticity and keeps that edge when you're out of your comfort zone. So all those cliches about you only grow at the edge of your comfort zone and all that, they're actually true. They're backed by psychology.

So by adding the Muay Thai, you probably are increasing your neuroplasticity and you're also actually changing your comfort zone, changing your life in other ways besides just working out. Because it's one of the only things that I do now. It's like I did, I did boxing when I was a kid. So like I had some trip, but like the stance is completely different. You got to worry about getting kicked in the head or need in the face or elbowed in the jaw, whatever. And so like, I'm constantly just sitting there and like, okay, I can't, I don't have the

ability during that to think about anything else where maybe someone like Joe, who we know he could do that. And like, it's systematic for him. Like he's, it's not, he doesn't have to think because he just, it's about, it's robotic. I mean, I'm sure he has to do other things to get out of his comfort zone. Maybe he has to do yoga to get on the edge of his comfort zone. But yeah, I love that you're working out with Joe. We joke about that.

Some of us from the trip of like, remember that time we made friends with that stone cold killer? Like I love Joe. He's so like such a kind person. Fuck, don't piss that guy off. No, definitely don't. But he is. He's really cool, humble.

I'm going to have him on this show and talk as I get a little bit further into the training. But like everybody in there, like they're just working so hard, kicking ass. And it's difficult. But when I was talking to my buddy, I was like, you know, all of us at a high level know, yes, read, workout, walk, sunlight. But I think you have to do more to push the limits in order to not fall into a funk or to get complacent. Absolutely. And also just, yeah, anything, your body, your mind will adapt so quickly. Even on a degree of, they call it hedonistic adaptation, something Tim Ferriss talked about a lot. Even you just get used to a comfort level and then your brain and your body adapt to that.

And so anything below that, even though that was once your gold standard, anything below that now seems difficult and like so hard. So I think once in a while, it's really important to get yourself in situations that take you out of that comfort zone and kind of reset your adaptation to those things. And then you can be grateful for them again. That's so true. Remember your sunset story? Yeah, we talked about it. Well, it's not my story. It was, um, and I think Tim Ferris first told the story. It was from, um, fuck, I can't remember, but it was like the whole, and I've told it on this podcast. You've probably heard it where it's like, you know, you wake up one day and you have a great day and you see this beautiful sunset. You're like, wow, life can never get

better than this. And then the next, maybe next year you see that same sunset. Have you heard this? You have. Okay. So I don't need, well, I'll finish it for the audience. Like you see that same sunset and maybe you're drinking like a really nice beer and you're with a nice girl. And you're like, wow, can't get better than this. And the next year, maybe you're in a nice hotel and a resort, can't get better than this. And then maybe finally one day you're on a boat and you have a cigar and things are going, you have a bunch of money. And you see that same sunset. And then the next year you go back and you just see a normal sunset.

And the same sunset that made you so extremely happy that you said life could never get better actually upsets you. And that's, I think it's called experience stretching. But it's the same thing I think with experiences in life and just like, like, you know, there's a hill that I run. And I remember when I first started doing it, it was like, wow, I'm never going to make it up this fucking hill. And now it's like, it's just a natural hill. I'm like, it's normal. But so you have to, I think you continuously have to find things that push your comfort zones and push the boundaries. I also think when you're a business owner and you it's, you're working in chaos all the time and you, we've got so much going on with social media and all the shit we're doing all the time to do something that takes you out of that is important. And like, sometimes like,

you know, maybe a workout or even something like doing laundry, you're still thinking about all the facets of the business. So sometimes you need to shock your system into something that's like, well, like with Michael's doing with Muay Thai, like it's like, he can't concentrate on anything besides the task at hand. Yeah. Anything that like anchors you in the present moment has a really good effect. And I mentioned fasting earlier. That's one of my, yeah. Talk to us about that. So it's, I'm not giving this as medical advice. Definitely. If you're going to do it, like I do it, talk to your doctor first, but, um, we've worked up to where we'll do, um, usually once a quarter, like a five-day fast, but also start the year. This year, we started the year with a 10-day fast. And when you take away something that you take so much for

granted and that's so part of your daily routine as food, it totally resets many of those markers in your brain. And when I say I fast, I mean, we only drink water. We're not coffee, not green tea, only water, sometimes electrolytes. But not only does it have all of these benefits for autophagy, for resetting the body, for increasing mitochondrial function. And people like Dr. Walter Longo and Rhonda Patrick have written a lot about this much more eloquently than I could, but it really resets, I feel like your gratitude center and your brain and that adaptation. And that first bite, like it could be a blueberry or it's like sauerkraut. It tastes like the most amazing thing in the world when you have not eaten in 10 days. And then for

weeks afterwards, you're so grateful for every bite of food you put in your mouth. And just for the experience of eating and the community, you realize how much our community centers on meals and that shared experience. And it just totally resets your brain. It makes you so much more grateful. Is that hard to fast for five days? 10. 10. I think it's a five. We do five regularly. 10 is the one we do like once a year. It's a long one. It is definite, but it's all mental. The first two days you're really hungry and kind of grumbly. And if you're used to caffeine, then you're, you have a headache or you're just out of it. Days three through five for me, I get in such a zone probably because the ketosis where I can

get so much work done. My head is so clear and you've actually saved a ton of time when you're not eating. Not that I would recommend that as a way to save time, but I'm just really efficient when we fast. That's why I like intermittent fasting too. It saves time. Exactly. But then by the end, definitely, I feel like probably your body's trying to speak to you. You go in phases where the first couple of days, your body's kind of like, oh, okay, whatever. We can go for a couple of days without food. And then you get more mentally clear probably because your body's trying to speak to you. You go in phases where the first couple of days, your body's kind of like, okay, whatever. We can go for a couple of days without food. And then you get more mentally clear, probably because your body's like, go hunt or gather something. Good gosh, we're starving here.

And then by the end, you kind of do get irritable to the point that a lot of people even experience insomnia those last few days, because realistically, your brain's probably like, we're going to die if you don't get up and find some food. So I'm not going to let you sleep. Go kill something. So are you miserable the entire time? Or is it like you just get up no seth he's more miserable i think guys get hangrier or maybe i don't know oh michael's middle name is hypoglycemia i feel like i would have a difficult time it's like i can't i mean you go like a couple hours without

eating and it's like the world is ending man i've done i think three days is the longest i've done did you have any improvements? It was one time. It was like a juice fast too. She's talking about a juice cleanse. She's not talking about this. Oh, yeah, he said worse with the hypoglycemia. Some people who do water fasting notice the hypoglycemia gets better because it makes you more adapted.

So back to the variation and adaptation, most of us are pretty much used to burning carbohydrates and that's the preferred method if we have it in our body. That much fasting, your body has to burn fat. So you're burning body fat and you're making ketones. But the benefit beyond that is the body then remembers that switch more easily. So you can go back and forth between burning carbs and burning ketones, which gives you dual fuel sources, which is more efficient for the body for one. But a lot of people tend to notice that it can improve hypoglycemia over time. But again, I would say work with a doctor who has experience in that.

Talk to us about the wine that you've recommended me to drink and how there's no sugar in it and it's organic, no sulfates. I am such a snob about this. When you try it, you're going to become one too. I used to think, I used to think sulfites gave me a headache and that's why red wine gave me a headache. And I found out in interviewing Todd, who you're talking about Dry Farm Wines, he's their founder, that white wine often actually has more sulfites than red wine. Red wine, especially in America, often has dyes in it. So there's two dyes. I think they're called Ultra Red and Mega Purple. I might be reversing those, but they literally add dyes to the wine because Americans want wines that are bold and red and deep and like really strong flavors and sweet. So they add sweeteners and dyes. So here's a trick. If wine dyes your

teeth, it has dyes in it. Dry farm wines, red wines do not dye your teeth at all. You can drink a lot of it. Other than that, there's a couple of- Yeah, if you think about that, when we're overseas, your teeth don't get dyed and we drink a lot of red wine over there. That's interesting. I've never thought about that. Yeah. So people who think like, oh, I can't have red wine because of the sulfites, you probably are actually sensitive to the dyes. Not that. Not to mention there are over 80 additives that are approved for use in wine that don't have to be disclosed on the label. So many wines are not vegan. People think that they are.

They can use all kinds of animal products in the refining. What kind of animal products are you using in wine? Egg whites, fish bladders, like a bunch of kind of interesting ones, which most of that gets removed, but there are still traces of it. They do, a lot of American wines especially, add sulfites for preservatives or even just for cohesive taste. And there are, it is important to note, there are tiny amounts of sulfites that naturally are occurring in grapes, but those don't bother people typically unless there's another underlying issue going on. We're talking about extremely trace amounts.

In America, they add sulfites to a lot of the wine to preserve them longer. Also, so they found in dry farm wines, they lab test every batch. They found that in America, there were no wines that were not contaminated with glyphosate. So they all had pesticide and herbicide residue in them. And that a lot of people are sensitive to that as well. So if you're having this like negative experience from wine, it might not be the alcohol or the sulfites. It might be something that's been added to the wine that you don't even know is there and they don't have to disclose it on the label. Another thing people don't realize is in America, they actually either are adding sugar or they're adding excess moisture to the grapes, which leads to a sweeter wine with a higher sugar content. So the name dry farm wines

comes from the idea of dry farming, which just like it sounds, they don't water the grapes at all. Even in Italy, which is like California, it does not rain very much, but they don't water it. And that makes the roots of the wine go so much deeper. So the grape has to work harder and it gets to a different level of minerals deeper in the soil. So you end up with this much more complex taste, but less moisture in the grape. So you end up with less sugar in the final product. No hangover. No hangover. So dry farm wines are maximum 12.5% alcohol, no sugar. So they define that as less than one gram per liter. Like no residual sugar, like it would be considered no sugar on any tracking device. And it does not, I've tested it,

it does not raise your blood sugar and it does not pull you out of ketosis. She's tested it. How have you tested it? You told me earlier. With blood tests. So I have meters that measure both ketone, blood ketones and blood glucose. And it does not change either one even if i've been fasting it doesn't change i'm gonna bring this out to restaurants i think because we went out to a restaurant the other night and michael michael had a pinot noir and he was literally sick for a day i felt like shit it's probably because it was filled with dyes and all these things she's saying whatever it was well god damn katie i don't even I don't even need to have Google anymore. I have a random question and I don't know if this is like just throwing it out there. What is the most interesting study? Because it seems like you

read a lot of studies and you do a lot of research that you've read in 2019. It could be with anything. Ooh, that's a really interesting question. I don't know. I read a lot. I have to think about that for a minute. I think, well, the ones that I seem to be seeing trends on, I think that are going to be increasing wellness trends. We're seeing a ton on CBD in general. Like there's a lot of studies coming out on CBD. I go to bed now at, I went to bed last night at 10, 15. I used to go to bed at two in the morning. Whoa. But I, I smoke a pen like two hits. No, there's so many. Whoa, big timer. Take it easy over there.

So gnarly. We just came from Expo West recently. There's so many CBD big timer take it easy over there so gnarly we just came from expo west recently there's so many cbd products like i feel like it's going to be in everything from water to like your shoes anymore so i think cbd there's a ton of studies coming out on that um there are actually a ton of really cool studies on fasting and time restricted eating which is what they would call intermittent fasting just because i you know people tend to freak out if you like you don't eat meals because they think you're supposed to eat six times a day. But if you think about it logically throughout human history, most people did not eat regularly. And so they're finding- Didn't have the ability to.

Exactly. And they didn't die, nor did they have all these weird things that we think are going to happen to us if we don't eat every three hours. And so they're finding like, like, again, it's a different window for everybody, but just so many studies about if you can eat within an eight hour window or a six hour window, how much that changes both your mitochondria, your DNA, your telomeres. They really seem to have long-lasting effects. There's a celebrity trainer here who we did a podcast with named Jorge Cruz, and he's really pioneering intermittent fasting. We talk all about it. you know when i when i when i think about logical i don't understand dieting but i just say eating habits that makes a lot of sense to me because when you bring up like how we've evolved as humans

like you said we didn't always have the ability to eat like walk into the kitchen and grab something out of the fridge like that would just you know we had to hunt and gather and so it makes a lot of sense to me um you know i don't i think we've we talk a lot it's like more maybe a marketing tool it's like three meals a day because obviously gets you buy more products and gets, you know, those breakfast cereals and great jingles. But do you really need that? Like you said earlier, sometimes if you're not feeling so hungry, you can push it out to lunch and that's OK. Like forcing ourselves to eat when we're not hungry just seems a little bit unnatural. Yeah.

You don't want to tell people not to eat. But exactly. Listen to your body at the end of the day. But I think also like things like snacks are largely marketing messages because they certainly didn't have those throughout history. We weren't just like going around eating all the time. And in fact, if you look at the data, most Americans think they eat three meals a day. But if you actually look at it scientifically, they're eating 17 times a day because in science, they would define a meal or an eating event as any time you're putting food in your mouth.

And so many people walk around and just put a handful of almonds in their mouth or sip on a smoothie. So we really aren't having times that we're not eating. It's like the reverse. It's not that we're not eating enough, we're eating all the time. And it's when we're not eating that our liver gets a break. So if we're constantly eating, our liver is constantly engaged. And I know many experts like Dr. Alan Christensen have talked about this epidemic rise in non-alcoholic fatty liver, where our livers are actually getting congested and fatty and clogged because we're overusing them with this constant influx of food. I also think there's something to be said about cortisol, like with Americans.

You said something interesting. You said people are shoving almonds in their mouth. And I remember when I was told that you have to have snacks, I was that girl shoving almonds into my mouth or putting a hard-boiled egg in my mouth as I'm getting on the elevator or whatever it is. I think there's something, I have a girlfriend who's French, her name's Ingrid, and she always says that she sits down and she takes her phone away and she turns on like bossa nova or whatever music she wants and she eats and she concentrates on eating. When we're, when Americans,

sometimes I feel like we're shoving stuff into our mouth just to get it in our mouth. Or when you eat a salad, like how many times are you standing up eating the salad? Like she, she would never do that. She was, she's so specific about how she eats and making sure her cortisol levels are down. Can you speak on hormones? Yeah, absolutely. I think when we look at patterns, Americans, especially the westernized world, were really bad on cortisol and Europeans do. They're better than we are. And when you look at cortisol patterns in places like France and Japan, where people typically have like lower rates of these health problems, they have better cortisol rhythms. Not that it's a panacea. Just

fixing your cortisol is not going to fix everything. But when we have like population-wide changes in things like cortisol, I think it's worth paying attention to. I think there's a lot of factors. So both, we know things like food, light, and stress can all signal your cortisol and change it. But I think we, a lot of times, do all of that wrong. So for instance, if you just look at it biologically, you kind of need more carbohydrates if you're going to eat them at night, because that's what you need to like replenish glycogen and have a good sleep cycle. Whereas you need protein in the morning to signal the right rise of cortisol in the morning and to make that pattern work correctly.

And a lot of people do that reverse. They essentially eat dessert for breakfast, whether it be cereal, donuts, whatever. And then at night, they're eating this really protein-heavy meal or mixing proteins and carbs. I like that Lauren's glaring at Michael right now. All guilty. Guilty. But I think also we really underestimate how much light impacts hormones, especially for women.

I mean, we know the obvious things, like if we don't get enough light, we get seasonal affective disorder or we feel really depressed in the winter. That happened to me in Finland. Did it? I was a little like by the end, I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah. But how even on a daily basis, like I mentioned, the getting daily early morning light, that signals correct cortisol patterns. And

how many of us never actually do that? Or we don't go outside hardly at all, much less intentionally for an amount of time to signal that. And so there's ways that you can kind of hack that using a 10,000 lux or higher light in the morning, still not as good as outdoors, but better than not. So like Finland, we should have been doing that. Salt rock lamp. Those are two. So those are great at night. So the reverse is also true. You want to avoid light after sunset. Okay. Which none of us do. Learning something today.

We're all looking at our blue light phones at night. And when you think about it biologically, blue light is like outside right now. The sky is blue and it's signaling that it's daylight and we should be awake. When you're looking at your blue light on your phone at 10 p.m. and it's hitting those receptors in your eye, it's signaling that you should be awake because it thinks it's afternoon. And then you try to go to sleep. Melatonin is a really tough hormone to create. So when you're looking at blue light, it suppresses melatonin. Speaking of interesting studies, they actually did one where they just shined blue light on the back

of someone's knee and it was enough to suppress melatonin. So like our bodies, even our skin, our eyes are very sensitive to blue light, especially at night. So it's a good rule of thumb. You want to avoid blue light after dark or wear things like blue blockers, which helps some. Taylor, you got to turn off that porn at one in the morning. What the hell are you doing back there, buddy? Taylor, you got to turn off the porn at one in the morning. Can I go all night?

Oh, Christ. Things are hitting his knee. Yeah. Well, this has been, we got to do this again sometime because, well, I know we're going to do it again soon in another podcast, but we got to, we got to do this more regularly. We're going to go on your podcast now. So you got to pimp that out. But before we go, what's a book, a podcast, a resource that you would recommend to our

audience? So if they can, if your audience can handle the science, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, I don't know if you're familiar with her. Amazing. Her podcast is amazing. It's very sciencey. I really love hers. I don't listen to a ton of podcasts, but I do listen to hers.

Any interview with Walter Longo is really, really good. I like a lot of Tim Ferriss's episodes and then the occasional Joe Rogan, especially if it's like Joe or someone we know is super fun. As far as books, I love The Four Agreements. I know you've had that mentioned before. I think that's a really short, easy read that's great for a lot of people. I'm currently reading The Drama of the Gifted Child, which read that before you have kids. I wish I had read that before I had kids.

Fascinating look at psychology. I think that would be a good place to start. And then I just kind of have a list. I've gone through a lot in the last couple of years. I think Sapiens is great for people who haven't read it. It's so good. Yeah. So let's start with those. It's so good. Yeah. So let's start with those.

It's so good. Where can everyone find you? We're going to be on your podcast, pimp your podcast out, your Instagram, everything. Yeah. So like you, it's all the same. The Wellness Mama podcast, the blog is wellnessmama.com and on all the social medias, it's wellnessmama. You guys follow Katie. She is so interesting. Honestly, you're one of the smartest people we've had on here. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. You guys are so much fun thank you katie guys if this podcast or

any of our podcasts have brought you any kind of value please make sure that you're subscribed and you rate and review the show it takes five seconds on itunes and it really helps the show grow also if you want a pink sparkly adorable t pop socket, leave your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram. A TSC team member will drop into your inbox, get your address, and send you one out. They're so cute. You need one. Everyone has one. It's like adorable on the phone.

And with that, we'll see you guys next week. Right, Michael? Yep. Next Tuesday, one of the most powerful episodes that we have ever done if not the most so dot dot dot like i said that game of thrones do it