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Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] Doug: If you feel you often lose control of your eating and your hunger, if you feel anxious or even afraid to enter your kitchen or go out to eat with friends. If you feel you can’t stop eating once you start, or you no longer want to be controlled by food and the emotions that surround it, lean in my friend and get inspired.

This is your wake up call to a life where food doesn’t control you. Where you’re comfortable with what you eat and where you can easily stop whenever you want to. This isn’t science fiction and it’s not another empty weight loss promise. This is hypnosis. And if you like this show, you’ll love my powerful hypnosis audio, The Binge Blocker Protocol. This hypnosis helps you stop out of control eating the moment you feel that urge. It’s a 15 minute audio that deals with the emotions behind compulsive eating. Once those emotions are out of the way, the urge to overeat goes [00:01:00] away with it. Once you get your binge blocker protocol, you can download it to your phone to carry with you whenever you might feel that urge. Whether in a restaurant, in your home or even at your workplace when those breakroom donuts are calling your name. Whether you call it a binge, overeating or simply losing control for a moment, this audio will help you resolve it. You can get your Binge Blocker Protocol by going to anywherehypnosis.com.

That’s anywherehypnosis.com. Right on the homepage, you’ll see where you can get your copy of the Binge Blocker Protocol right now. And I’m serious about that, right now. Pause this podcast to go get your hypnosis today. Don’t worry. I’ll still be here when you get back. Go to anywherehypnosis.com and sign up.

It’s completely free. And if you’re even thinking about getting this hypnosis, trust me, get this hypnosis today. Try it out because you’ll never know just [00:02:00] how effective this can be until you test it out in your own life. Again, that’s anywherehypnosis.com. One more time, anywherehypnosis.com. Now on with the show.

 (QUOTE) 

[00:02:12] Amy: “The best and safest way in my mind to release toxins from sequestered in tissue, especially fat, is the far infrared sauna. It’s not just a regular sauna. It’s more of a designed strictly for detox sauna. You can get them for in your home. You can find, you know, far infrared sauna near me. What’s important is to see if you can find one that has only the far infrared spectrum.

A lot of those companies make them, they have a mixed spectrum. Far infrared is a light, right? It comes from the sun naturally. It’s when you’re sitting in the sun and you feel that deep penetrating sun, that feels so good. You’re like, oh my gosh, that sun feels so amazing. That’s far infrared light. And so it’s an invisible form of light.

But when you get in one of those saunas, it penetrates about an inch and a half to two inches beneath the skin into the fat. And it creates, it’s almost in your mind, you think microwave because it’s close to [00:03:00] that spectrum, but it’s not, you’re not gonna get cooked. But what it does is it does this bioresonance sort of vibration frequency in your fat. And as it does that, you start to sweat and you sweat out these toxin…”

[00:04:00] 

 (INTRO) 

[00:04:10] Doug: Welcome back to the weight loss with hypnosis podcast. My name is Doug Sands, and I’m the hypnotist and the host behind this show. This week I am joined by Amy Denicke, a functional medicine chiropractor. Amy is board certified with the Institute for functional medicine, and with the functional medicine university.

And when helping people improve their health, she leaves no stone unturned, including nutrition. And we talked extensively about many different things in this episode. 

Amy specializes in helping women around ages 40 to 50, who are overworked and overstressed. We talked quite a bit about how stress and overwork and tension in our lives really impact our health in many different ways.

And though Amy is trained in chiropractic work, she does work virtually with people all around the US. Amy has [00:05:00] extensive knowledge about a wide variety of topics. And on this episode, we talked about everything from overwork, to toxicity, to heavy metals, to body hacking and more. This is an absolutely excellent conversation that I know you’re going to want to listen into.

So without further ado, let’s get right into today’s interview.

 (INTERVIEW) 

[00:05:27] Doug: Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. My name is Doug Sands, and today I am so excited for this interview. Today, I am joined by Amy Denicke. Amy, thank you so much for joining us. 

[00:05:37] Amy: Thanks for having me, Doug. 

[00:05:38] Doug: Absolutely. Amy, for listeners tuning in, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and perhaps about your practice?

[00:05:44] Amy: Sure. I live in the beautiful area outside of Aspen, Colorado. I’ve been here for 23 years, and I’m classically trained as a chiropractor and then have evolved into practicing functional medicine. And it’s my passion. It’s what’s brought me to this career and this [00:06:00] field is being my own patient, my own client.

And I thrive in it and I work mostly with women, you know, namely like a 44 year old female that is overworked with whether it be family or job, just doing too much and feels exhausted, tired. I work with people with GI complaints, detoxification, chronic pain and hormones. 

[00:06:20] Doug: That’s excellent. And that’s definitely something that we all can use it seems, now that we’re all picking up the speed of life. I don’t know. It just seems like we’re all so busy all the time. And I imagine that’s quite a potent issue that you deal with quite a bit. 

[00:06:31] Amy: It is. I think that, you know, when we have the touch of a screen and we have this immediate feedback from anything from, you know, knowing any kind of event or anything, it’s just, everything comes so fast, you know, and I think our technology is evolved to a point that our bodies just cannot keep up with. 

[00:06:49] Doug: Yeah, I definitely know what you mean on that. And I’d love to ask, you had mentioned that you were perhaps your first patient and, working through this with your own issues and I’d love to know perhaps your own story.

[00:06:58] Amy: Sure. So, I moved to [00:07:00] Colorado when I was 28. And when I was 26, I had a really, really frightening medical diagnosis that required me to undergo surgery of my reproductive area, namely the uterus. And I had cancer and it was extremely scary to me. And I was wondering how could this have happened? you know, and they couldn’t find anything that had caused it, but, you know, I used to live free and just have fun and eat whatever I wanted to as a young kid. And so I started figuring out that, you know, I need to change my lifestyle. So made a lot of lifestyle changes, and you know, started really integrating clean living and healthy lifestyle and found what worked for me.

And then when I started, I was sort of a, not a classical student, as far as I went back to chiropractic school as a 38 year old. And then starting my own practice, I went into a pretty much a stage three adrenal fatigue, and found out that I could use the tools that I had, you know, through functional medicine and through my training to heal myself. And I know that we don’t have [00:08:00] medication deficiencies, so we don’t need to take medications for chronic issues. And so it really helped to kind of be my first patient along with all my friends and, you know, everybody else I wanted to help. And so it’s just kind of evolved into being my practice.

[00:08:14] Doug: That sounds like such a powerful story. And we’ve spoken with other nutritionists on this program, but you’re actually the first chiropractor or person with chiropractic training that I’ve spoken with. And I’d love to know, from that vantage point, how does stress impact the body and how do perhaps our choices impact the life that we’re living?

[00:08:30] Amy: Well, I’ve always said, you know, my favorite sort of quote is, our bodies respond to the environment it’s based in, based on the set of genes we’re born with. And so, you know, you take out Dr. Google and it makes it super simple, right? It’s exactly whatever’s in our environment based on the genes that are expressing that environment. And everything so is so coactivated, right? You know, stress can impact the gut and the gut can impact hormones and stress hormones. And there’s so many things, certain toxins and chemicals [00:09:00] can impact hormones. And so as a combined sort of overlook of our environment, you know, that’s really basically, and especially stress in and of itself.

I mean, you just take the past two years just alone. And, you know, it creates a sense of sort of ongoing anxiety that, you know, people just don’t know, things are going to be normal again. And it has a huge impact on our body and some people just live in the brown cloud. They don’t realize, until they step out and see, whether it be some certain tests that we do with stool or certain blood testing or urine testing to look at hormones. They don’t really see that they’re in this brown cloud until they get out and actually start making changes and start feeling better. 

[00:09:38] Doug: Yeah. That reality tunnel, it convinces us there’s no other thing out there and that’s something I see with my clients all the time as well. And for your clients, what’s that one moment or that triggering moment that they first realized they’re in that cloud, that they start to question whether they’re actually, you know, quote unquote healthy or living their best life?

[00:09:55] Amy: Right. 

Well, you know, it’s like, we sort of just go through life and we just accept, not [00:10:00] necessarily accept, but we’re given a set of cards. Right. But basically, I think that the important thing to what I see is that, we test. Or at least I test with my clients. And I call them clients instead of patients, because my clients are healthy individuals. But, anyways, with my clients, we do a lot of testing based on their clinical history, their medical things that they’ve done, things that, you know, doctors have told them. So, we do some more specialty testing that you don’t normally get at a regular doctor’s office.

And we get ideas of balance in the gut, or we’ll get an idea of how someone might be metabolizing certain estrogens or hormones. And so based on that information, we have a lot of data that we can work with. And then, so after we do the tests, then I start implementing very much peer reviewed information that drives better health or better function of a gut, and better use or metabolism of the hormones, things like that, detoxification.

And then it’s immediately the biggest things that I noticed that people start sleeping. And many people realize the value of sleep and they may think though, I don’t sleep very well, [00:11:00] but most people don’t sleep well. And when you have a really good night’s sleep, it’s like, wow. My life has changed.

And then that’s when things can start to really unfold. And one of the other big things that I implement in my practice is lifestyle and behavior change because we’re so in the stress cycle, is called the sympathetic nervous system, which is that fight and flight. And I do a lot of different biohacking techniques that help generate more parasympathetic outflow, which is the rest and digest.

And that’s where you heal and tissues restore and regenerate. And so getting people into that, you know, just simple little things, you know, of maybe being off of your device after dark and some people who can’t, maybe they do the blue light blocking glasses, and maybe meditating for five minutes, a few times a week, you know, it doesn’t have to be that you have to move to an Ostrom or go vegan or anything like that.

You can do some very simple little strategies that have a huge impact on your body and how your body functions. So it’s kind of a multi-tiered sort of hitting it at different angles, not just changing your diet and taking a bunch of [00:12:00] supplements. 

[00:12:00] Doug: Absolutely. And I’d love to ask a little bit more about the biohacking and these lifestyle changes.

But before I do, one question I had was, you mentioned these tests and for someone, perhaps who’s never done nutrition tests, myself included, what different types of tests are there and perhaps how invasive are these tests? 

[00:12:14] Amy: Sure. So there’s so many different tests. I mean, there’s testing under the moon and what’s really the key is to know what tests to do first.

And I feel like, you know, testing can be overdone. It’s quite costly and before, you know it, you could spend tens of thousands of dollars on certain tests. But my focus mostly, if I could pick one test that I feel is the most important. That’s kind of hard to say, but one that’s really up there as a stool test.

So it’s not glamorous cause you have to collect your own stool, but at the same time, it’s a very great way. I mean, I’m sure in mainstream media you’ve seen about gut health and the microbiome and all of those great big buzzwords and you know, the gut makes 95% of serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that’s responsible for mood.

And also, you know, if you have certain organisms that are in there that are not doing you any good. They have a lot of different [00:13:00] metabolic waste products that can be toxic to the body and may cause brain fatigue and poor sleep. And they know it doesn’t create gut problems all the time. So some people who feel like, oh my guts, fine. Like, I don’t have bloating. I don’t have gas. You know, they can have other manifestations of malaise or poor health that can show up. And when we start to target the gut, that’s when you see a huge imbalance for thyroid and other hormones and adrenals and things like that.

I mean, even just blood sugar can affect the gut. But those tests, you know, I mean, I use medium such as blood. I use urine, I use saliva, stool. And the good thing is, is that I can work anywhere in the state. I mean, anywhere, I’m sorry, in the United States. And so I’m not limited just to being in my scope in Colorado, which is where I practice.

[00:13:42] Doug: That’s fantastic. When in fact that you shared that really struck me was that, 95% of serotonin is created in the gut. That was something I had never heard of before. When working with people with mental health on my own end of things, there’s so much talk about, you know, serotonin, uptake inhibitors, and other ways to work with serotonin. 

Looking at your experience with [00:14:00] gut health, I’d love to know what are the ways that we can perhaps improve serotonin and what are some of those things that might be impacting our serotonin negatively. 

[00:14:08] Amy: Sure. So I mean, things that we can improve, I mean, obviously since 95% of serotonin is manufactured in the gut, what’s important is to eat a plant-based diet. That doesn’t necessarily mean vegan.

That doesn’t mean avoiding meat, but really making sure you understand if you’re are eating meat, knowing where your source comes from, you know, it’s that conventional raised beef or any other kind of meat, you know, It’s got a lot of chemicals that your liver and your kidneys have to take care of.

So plant-based diet, eating more plants than meats and cheese and things like that. If you have any auto-immunity, you should avoid gluten and dairy. Those are things that have commonly been attributed to creating more auto-immunity. And so, it’s kind of a digress.

Typically I lose sight of the question, but eating that plant-based diet and alcohol is a big key player in that too. Alcohol really affects the gut. It affects the mind. And so, you know, limiting [00:15:00] alcohol, finding mocktails that work for you. my favorite mocktail is a, sparkling water with some digestive bitters in it.

And, you know, I know that sometimes having that bubbly really helps curve that alcohol craving for a lot of my clients. And it becomes a very favorite little mocktail that we integrate. 

[00:15:16] Doug: That’s excellent. Thank you for sharing that. I’d love to ask about what you mentioned about biohacking and these small changes that people can make.

Would you give us perhaps just an overview of the work that you do with this? 

[00:15:26] Amy: Sure. So I’ll give you an example. One is, as a briefly touched over the sympathetic and parasympathetic and, you know, we’ve become so driven in the sympathetic, not only dimension, you know, the pandemic and trying to make a living and learning how to recommunicate with people and trying to get our life back.

You know, it’s just become more exacerbated in a lot of times. I don’t know if any of you guys mountain bike, but it’s like when you’re riding a bike on a dirt road and there’s like a rut, right. And your wheel get stuck in the rut and you can continue to ride, but how easy is it to get out of the rut? Right? Sometimes you have to stop, get your bike and put it back in. And that’s kind of [00:16:00] how our brain and our sympathetic nervous system kind of works. It kind of develops these channels that are easily in that zone. And so some people are just always stressed out, you know, the reactive and especially is you know, when they’re growing up, if they’ve experienced a lot of traumas as a childhood, that rut becomes deeper.

And so it’s really hard to create a new path. And some people really can’t meditate, it’s just that they just can’t do it. And then it makes them even more stressed out trying to do it. So, one program that I’ve created is called transcutaneous fatal nerve stimulation. And it’s basically taking a very simple tens unit and hooking one of the leads is an ear electrode to a part of the ear that can access through the trigeminal a part of the vagus nerve, which the vagus is the wandering nerve. It goes from your brain to your gut and into all different other organs and it’s major parasympathetic outflow nerve. And so sometimes we kind of have to exercise it.

We have to create a little bit of a groove to where it makes those channels easier to access the parasympathetic, which is where you heal. So some people who are really stressed out and have all this [00:17:00] anxiety and they don’t know where the anxiety comes from. And, you know, they’re just trying everything under the sun.

Sometimes we just need to bio-hack a little bit and do a little vagal nerve stimulation. And one of the biggest things that I’ve seen that improves it, it helps people sleep. It helps them poop, which is great. And also one of the biggest thing is that when they do this program, they notice that, you know, wow. I don’t really respond to these stressors like I used to, like the world can be falling apart around you, which if it’s going to fall apart around you, it’s going to fall apart around you, whether you have any kind of contribution to it or not. And sometimes you can just be like, wow, I’m really not attached to this.

It’s not that you don’t care. It’s just that your attachment to any kind of outcome is a little bit less. 

[00:17:40] Doug: Absolutely. And what you mentioned about anxiety and other issues, I think that’s such an important point to emphasize. Oftentimes I see it with my own clients and when I was working with my own anxiety in the past, anxiety was the self-perpetuating thing. I would feel anxious when I wasn’t anxious because my mind was like, I don’t know what we’re supposed to be anxious about. So we might as well be anxious about everything. 

And I really [00:18:00] appreciate what you mentioned about breaking those habits. And I’d love to know, how does that psychology of, perhaps that brown cloud and how do the mental programs that we’re running? How do those impact the choices that we’re making each day? 

[00:18:12] Amy: Yeah. So, you know, our brain has a sole, its sole purpose is to survive, help our bodies that are having a human experience. Right? How do we survive in this world? And so its main goal is to protect us from any kind of threat.

And so there are so many different threats that happen, right? It can be perceived in your mind like you’ve never gone face to face with, I mean, it’s like going face to face with a tiger. You know, you’ve never done that before, but you probably would be really afraid even though it’s a cute little kitty, right.

Just from what you’ve known. Right. So you have these perceptions of things that can cause us danger. And your mind has such a powerful play in what happens with, you know, but sometimes you can’t talk out anxiety that’s happening internally. Like for instance, you have an overgrowth of a [00:19:00] certain bacteria that maybe you had some contaminated water at some point in Mexico, or you went swimming in a lake and there was some weird organism that you accidently drank the water.

And then it got into your gut, that your brain can perceive that as a threat to your survival. And so anxiety can come from so many, I mean, a heavy metal can cause the brain to say, Hey, something’s wrong here in generates anxiety. So you can have a biological, physiological, or a perceived emotional threat.

And what’s important is to know, okay, am I in a safe place right now? Is this real, right? Especially the perceived ones. And, you know, to be able to create habits that put you in a safe place, that don’t put toxins in front of you, and that includes people that are toxic, right? So you can clean up people that are surrounding you and try to, you know, be around those people that make you laugh and make you feel good.

You know, doing things that are actually good for your body, but not necessarily, you know, if you’re overweight, say for instance, you’re overweight enough that your joints hurt, right? Well, you don’t go run a marathon, right? You go and you walk 10 minutes a [00:20:00] day and you start doing little by little that your brain says, this is good.

And I actually feel good because if you went from, you trying to lose 50, 80 pounds and you go and run a marathon, you’re going to hate exercise from then on out, because it just doesn’t feel good. And it’s probably going to do more harm than good. Same with changing biology resist change.

So, it’s better to do things slowly, especially when you’re dealing with weight loss, like people who really, you know, have a lot of stored toxins in their body and in their fat, you know, if they go on these big crash diets and all of a sudden lose 20 pounds in 10 days, they’re at risk of recirculating these toxins that can create more anxiety and then they’re going to gain the weight back.

And then it becomes like, it’s sort of, you want to create these little habits that are actually productive to the brain and they don’t have to be these huge monumental, you know, achievements. You don’t have to get a trophy for everything, but it’s just really important. I think to integrate small little action steps really do make a difference.

And I always think of it as like, you know, you have a garden and there’s a few weeds in the garden, right. We always [00:21:00] do. We don’t necessarily have to pull the weeds out unless they’re causing a big problem. We can actually crowd them out with new seeds that we plant that grow, and they take patience, right?

If you plant a seed, it takes time to grow and you have to have the right amount of sunlight and the right nutrition and the amount of water and all of that. But over time, those newly planted seeds will start to grow and build this beautiful bountiful garden that will crowd out the weeds. And that’s kind of like my mindset of things.

So sustainable changes happen in small steps. 

[00:21:29] Doug: That’s excellent. And I really appreciate what you shared about those small steps. So many times people come in and they’re like, can you help me lose 50 pounds by next weekend? Or can you remove this anxiety so I never feel anxious again or any other thing.

We want those really fast results. And, I think coming into working with any expert, I think it’s really important to know that, small steps are good because they help break up that cloud. And giving yourself the time to actually resolve that is such an important factor. And there’s something I’d love to ask you about.

 You mentioned it a couple of times in this podcast, and that is toxicity. Toxicity is [00:22:00] something I’m not really familiar with. And I’m not sure that many of my listeners are. Would you mind giving us an overview with that as well? 

[00:22:05] Amy: As far as just toxicity in general? 

[00:22:07] Doug: Toxicity in general, in the body. And I think you’d mentioned metal toxicity, is that correct? 

[00:22:11] Amy: Sure. So, you know, we have heavy metals that are in our drinking water, we have heavy metals that are in our food, and you look at where we source a lot of our foods is in the ocean, right? There’s a lot of, you know, the US dumped some 80,000 chemicals into the United States soil and in to the water supply on a yearly basis.

And so, we’re constantly exposed to these chemicals and chemicals can come in your metal fillings, they’re in your cleaning supplies, you know, like common household cleaning chemicals, you know, have like Lysol and all of those things. They’ve got a lot of toxins and chemicals that have to be broken down into the liver.

And generally we’re not very nutritionally complete to be able to do that very well. And so, those are what I mean by toxins that are in our environment that get in our body. And the safe storage for [00:23:00] toxins is in the fat. And so, you know, rather than the brain or the heart, and typically, that’s what they called age related diseases or Alzheimer’s, dementia, cardiovascular disease.

And it’s really not the age. It’s the accumulation that overall, once it gets to a certain threshold, it starts to affect the brain, the heart, the kidneys, you know, it’s always lowered kidney function with the elderly and they get these chronic kidney infections. So, those are typical toxins, but then, toxic relationships, jobs that some people just dread showing up to, you know, every day because of those certain employees or coworkers that we can call them toxic, you know, it’s the emotional toxin.

So, you know, far infrared sauna can help you clean up toxins that are stored in your fat. It’s a great way to sweat those toxins out and then just a good old, you know, we’re done, is a great way to, I mean, obviously in a more graceful way than that, but is a great way to start cleaning up people that we call them soul suckers. Right. 

And [00:24:00] they just kind of feed on you and they never inquire about, you know, how are you doing? It’s all about me, me, me, me, me. And we all have had those types of people and we wish them the best, but sometimes they’re just not the best in our life. 

[00:24:11] Doug: Yeah. I’d love to ask about emotional toxicity. So what is the actual toxin that our brain is producing? Is it more so that it’s the higher levels of cortisol and other stress hormones that impact our overall body? Or is there an actual toxin created that is also stored in fat as well? 

[00:24:25] Amy: Yeah, I’m not sure if there’s an actual, you know, I think it could be the impact of different hormones, but cortisol is the big key player in a lot of stress, right?

You know, cortisol is a stress hormone made from the adrenal glands and it’s a very quickly secreted, you know, it has a very quick impact and in large amounts it can provide you with human superpower. And it’s actually, anti-inflammatory in small doses, but when it becomes, you know, that spouse that’s abusive, whether it be emotionally, physically, or both, just take, for instance, as an example. That chronic exposure to that high level of cortisol can [00:25:00] create diabetes. It can create an elevation of blood sugar, because that’s what cortisol does is it releases the sugar, it releases the fat into your blood so that you can respond to the stress. But if you just don’t do anything about it, It just keeps those levels high and then you can have diabetes from that. And some people can have even an autoimmune type of a diabetes from it too.

And so, I don’t think that there’s necessarily a, you know, quote unquote, toxin that the body naturally produces, as far as like a chemical that the body would throw into the fat or anything like that. 

[00:25:33] Doug: Thank you for explaining that. And for heavy metals and the other toxins that do get stored in our fats, are they there permanently?

You mentioned some ways to get rid of these, to detox. I’d love to know if you can get rid of them and if so, how would you go about doing that? 

[00:25:45] Amy: Yeah. So, different metals have an affinity for different tissues. So like mercury and lead, they may be sequestered more into the brain or into the bone and can cause, say for instance, osteoporosis for women who have lead exposures, and you [00:26:00] often see that in older women, it can be hormone imbalances, but it could also be sequestered lead as a child because they were exposed to lead in that generation. And so, there are different types of detoxifications that you can do.

You can do GI detoxification, that require oral binders like clay and charcoal, and then there’s glutathione, which is an antioxidant that your body naturally makes by itself. But sometimes you can take that extra and you can take other nutrients that can help your body make its own glutathione which is a big detoxifier, and other nutraceuticals. 

And that generally can go systemically in effect, you know, stored chemicals, but the best and safest way in my mind to release toxins from sequestered in tissue, especially fat, is the far infrareds on it. It’s not just a regular sauna, it’s more of a designed strictly for detox sauna. 

You can get them for in your home. You can find, you know, far infrared sauna near me. And what’s important is to see if you can find one that has only the far infrared spectrum. A lot of those companies make them, they have a mixed spectrum.

Far infrared is [00:27:00] a light, right? It comes from the sun naturally. It’s when you’re sitting in the sun and you feel that deep penetrating sun. That feels so good. You’re like, oh my gosh, that sun feels so amazing. That’s far infrared light. And so it’s an invisible form of light. But when you get in one of those saunas, it penetrates about an inch and a half to two inches beneath the skin into the fat.

And it creates, it’s almost in your mind, you think microwave because it’s close to that spectrum, but it’s not, you’re not going to get cooked. But what it does is it does this bioresonance sort of vibration frequency in your fat. And as it does that, you start to sweat and you sweat out these toxins and they’ve done pre and post mineral and toxicity testing in the urine and in the blood that’s proven.

So it’s peer reviewed and there’s a lot of research. And if you do enough of the sauna, you can actually offload mercury that’s in your body and other heavy metals. So I think it’s a good combination to do both. 

[00:27:50] Doug: And you mentioned saunas in your home, are these like, portable sauna craters that you can put in like a closet or is this like a sauna they would have to build? 

[00:27:57] Amy: They have all different versions. They have them like [00:28:00] blankets that you can get into and you can, you know, I’m not sure about the efficacy or, how reliable those are. You know, if anything makes you sweat, it’s great. Right? Cause a lot of times we just don’t sweat enough.

And the ones that I like and the one that I use is of a company out of Boulder, Colorado called High-tech Health. And if anybody wants to use my name, they can get $500 off of one of the saunas, which is great. But it’s basically the size of a little phone booth. And the two person sauna I have in my office is about four by four feet.

And so you know, you ,can find a garage or storage or something like that where you could put one in, but they’re great. I love it. And it’s amazing. 

[00:28:38] Doug: And for anyone listening or watching this, that link will be in the show notes and I definitely encourage you to check that out.

One thing that I would love to ask you about, is the kind of the fad diet of detoxing. Things like juice, cleanses, and other things like enemas and all these odd kinds of ways of quote, unquote, detoxing. Do those actually work? Are they completely fads? Do they have some basis? What’s your [00:29:00] take on that? 

[00:29:00] Amy: I think with everything, you know, here we go back again to your body, responds to the environment it’s bathed in based on the set of genes you’re born with. So, you know, we want to use a lot of these modalities at different angles, right? I think if just one person, let’s say, they do the far infrared sauna and that’s all they do, but their lifestyle is still not great. Right. 

Maybe they eat bad fats or whatever. So I always look at it as this. There’s so many different ways to approach health and yeah, there’s some gimmicky stuff. Like, I’m not sure about the foot bath thing, you know, where you put your feet in and all of a sudden the water is black. I always kind of questioning that.

Like, how do you get such an impact on that? I don’t know, I’m not going to step on anybody’s toes. But, you know, I think that there are some wanting to make money kind of gimmicky things, but when you’re doing stuff that has actually pretty, you know, I always look at peer reviewed, right?

I’m going to look at published literature on certain things and see how big the study is. Right. If it was a study done on one person, it’s not really solid information. [00:30:00] Not enough for me to sell it or pitch it. But if they’ve done on that research that it’s affected hundreds of thousands of people on a global scale, then there’s probably some validity to it.

So you gotta have to be researched. You know, you kind of have to understand that, you don’t trust the internet for everything, so you want to be well-versed. PubMed has a great center and you can just put the keywords in and get all the clinical data you want. You can totally geek out on that.

But I think that it’s really beneficial to have a lot of different things, whether it be far infrared sauna, how about a little bit of yoga? You know, how about a little bit of exercise? What about some filtered water? How about, maybe eating healthy, like putting good fats into your system?

I think that they all have an impact. Now, the gimmicky is the buyer, it’s the consumer, it’s the person who uses their perception of how it works. You know, there’s so much value to even the placebo effect, right. I mean, the placebo effect works and how gimmicky is that? 

Something that doesn’t work works. Right? So, I think that there’s some things that work better than others clinically that lead to better results, based [00:31:00] on experience, but also based on research. So I think that if you’re doing a little bit of everything, like I said, those little steps are super key.

[00:31:07] Doug: Absolutely. And thank you for sharing that. And I’d love to look at your own practice. And what is your process look like? Say, when a client walks into the door or first interacts with you online? 

[00:31:17] Amy: Yeah, so sort of my ideal client is somebody who, let’s say the female in her mid forties that I kind of described earlier, that has a lot of issues going on and it helps me to be able to uncover. And I like to learn about their history, their medical history. So what I do is if I take a case, I have two programs, but if I take my kind of my ideal client, I look at a full in depth overview of their health history, their medical history, their lifestyle, how they were raised, from birth until present.

 It’s a pretty comprehensive look at their body and everything. And then I meet with that person and it’s a 90 minute visit. And then we decide if they’re a fit for my core intensive program.

And the program that I have that is the core intensive is a six month deep dive. And [00:32:00] we go in super deep. We order some testing that I feel will help me to uncover the root cause or the underlying problem that’s causing all of their symptoms. And, we do the testing. Basically, it’s unlimited messaging, you know, it’s a full comprehensive approach to their health and it includes health coaching, it includes journaling, we get into diet, we get into lifestyle. It’s very, productive, encouraging type of an environment. You know, I always tell my clients that I’m in the passenger seat. They’re the driver.

They’ve got access to the steering wheel, the gas and the brake, and I’ve got the map. And I love to DJ. And so we’re going to have a good time. And if at any time, they decide to veer off what the map says, I just put my seatbelt on, but I’m along for the ride. And then eventually get them back on track if we need to, so we make it fun. But I don’t judge people, you know, it’s a really fun thing. But then, I also have people who maybe aren’t necessarily feeling that they’re a candidate for that super intensive sort of deep [00:33:00] dive, that they just kind of want to get a big picture of, you know, how their gut is, what their hormones look like. I offer a less intensive program.

It’s more automated, it’s self guided, self directed. We cover the stool test and the hormone test and off of that information, I base a very customized program for them that includes diet, it includes lifestyle, behavior, a lot of those biohacking techniques that, you know, I mentioned, and then it’s basically, they get a one hour report of findings and I say, let’s go.

And then they start to do everything to create that comprehensive support based on those two test results. And then that’s about a three month program. And so anybody in the United States can do it. There’s no in-person anything, but it’s also zoom, so we can do it remote anywhere.

[00:33:45] Doug: That’s perfect. A lot of my listeners are all over. I’ve got some on the east coast, some on the west, and they’re very used to working online. And so that’s an excellent format for them. And I really love that metaphor that you said of you being in the passenger seat.

So many of us, we want control. We want [00:34:00] agency in our life. And showing that person that you, as the expert, you’re not taking away their control. You are helping to guide them and essentially help them take back control of their life. I think that is so powerful. I’d love to know, for your new clients, are there any common realizations or perhaps revelations that people will suddenly realize after they start working with you?

Things about their health, about the way they’ve been living? 

[00:34:22] Amy: Yeah. They realized how bad they were feeling when they start feeling so good. And there’s always like one or two main complaints that they come with and I’m not calling it complaints, but concerns. Right. One or two main concerns, whether it might be that their sleep’s horrible or that they have gut issues.

And what they’ve noticed is, that’s the reason that functional medicine is so amazing is that it helps the body function better. You know, that’s what they call it functional. And you know, it’s not a pill for the ill, right? A pill takes care of a set of symptoms. Unfortunately it leaves the person long-term with more symptoms that they might need a [00:35:00] pill for.

And if it really fixed the problem, why does the problem come back if they go off the pill? Right. So, I think that so many people start to see that, wow, my brain fog has lifted. Wow. My energy is so much better. You know, I don’t need an alarm clock when I wake up in the morning, I’m so much at more ease. I feel like I can go and socialize now.

And you know, so many people are so overwhelmed that they just don’t even want to be social and they don’t even want to be out with their friends anymore. Or maybe they just don’t want that drink because they feel like their awareness becomes so much more, that because a big part of, when I work with people, is I want to know what they’re putting in their body. 

And it’s so much less for me as it is more for them because they see associations with certain food because I do food and mood. So somebody who says, oh, I ate this. How’s your mood? Oh, it’s horrible. Well, I see a trend here. You know, I see that like every time I eat that, I feel horrible or I drink that. It’s like, gosh, I had two glasses of wine and no one knew where I couldn’t sleep.

Maybe I could leave that to a half. And of course that’s going to make everything better anyway. 

[00:35:59] Doug: [00:36:00] Absolutely. And looking at working with clients, are there any pieces of uncommon advice, advice that perhaps runs against the grain of what people expect that you share with clients?

[00:36:08] Amy: So, I’m very lifestyle and behavior. I emphasize that so much. And you know, so many people are so accustomed to the pill for the ill. And while, you know, supplements are great early on in care, you know, like we want to do a gut rebuild. We need to help, you know, digest and things like that to rest the body.

So there are certain things that I feel like I incorporate, but so often, times people in this industry, you know, they sell a diet plan and a bunch of supplements. And that’s not my goal. My goal is to help people start to understand how food affects them. Right. It’s teaching the brain that, wow, I don’t want to eat that next time.

Rather than being, looking at a sheet saying, oh, I can’t eat that. I can’t eat that. So it’s like, I want people to experience what good health feels like. Then some of the behavior modification that they make. You know, multitasking is one of the [00:37:00] biggest adrenal disruptors that is out there.

So many people are trying to do multitasks, like so many things, and then they wonder why they’re exhausted at the end of the day. And just that one little tip of, you know, why don’t you just create a note, like a list and a sustainable obtainable list of things to do for the day.

Maybe it’s two key things. And then when you’re done with that, don’t keep adding to your list. Maybe go for a walk or exercise or do something for yourself and congratulate yourself. I feel like those are the biggest things that separate my practice differently from others is it’s not just that you’re going to get a whole bunch of supplements and diet from, some tests that I do.

It’s like, I want to make this a sustainable, obtainable, but lifelong change that, there’ll be a point where you got this and you just carry on spread your wings, basically. 

[00:37:44] Doug: Absolutely. And I love what you mentioned about that to do list. For me when I was working through my own issues around overwork, it was that idea that I would set that to do list.

And then some days I won’t finish it. And other days I would set it and I’d finish it by like three o’clock while I’ve got two hours that I usually work. That meant that I didn’t [00:38:00] make my to-do list long enough. And so, realizing that it’s okay to rest. That’s actually better for us.

I think that’s such an important thing that many of us don’t realize perhaps intuitively. 

[00:38:10] Amy: Sure. Yeah. I use a thing called a productivity planner and it’s such a great way to keep my tasks like obtainable for the day. And then, you know, I don’t have any problem going out skiing for the day or going to ride my mountain bike once I get everything done and I feel like I’ve achieved it.

And again, that’s a positive thing for my brain. You know, you want to put as many positive lifestyle things into your calendar, to where it becomes that your body wants to do it. 

[00:38:35] Doug: Absolutely. 

Amy, this conversation has been fantastic. I’ve had learned so much from it. And I’d love to know for listeners, do you have any tools, tips, resources, maybe giveaways that people can find online? 

[00:38:46] Amy: Sure. I’d love to be able to give away the transcutaneous vagal nerve program for free. And I also have a how to reset your gut. I’d like to give that away as well. So, just the basic, it doesn’t include the test, but, you know, it’s a great little format to follow and I think [00:39:00] it’s great for all of us to kind of hit that reset button every once in a while.

[00:39:03] Doug: That’s excellent. Well, thank you so much. And listeners, we will get those in the show notes. And Amy, I want to thank you for your time and I want to ask, do you have any advice, any tips or wisdom that you’d like to leave listeners with? 

[00:39:14] Amy: Yeah. I mean, like I said, plant those seeds in the garden of what you want, what you envision your life to be, and just know that all processes take time.

And as long as you’ve planted the seeds and intentionally have done it and knowing that, you know, you’ve got the right amount of water and the right amount of sun that’s theoretically, right. But, eating the right foods and being a good person and have a sense of purpose and life, just know that these things will come back to you. Just don’t give up.

[00:39:42] Doug: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Amy. This has been fantastic. 

[00:39:45] Amy: Thank you. Thanks for having me, Doug. 

[00:39:47] Doug: Absolutely.

 (OUTRO) 

[00:39:47] Doug: What a fascinating conversation that was. Thank you against Amy for coming on the show and thank you to you, dear listener for listening in. And if you haven’t yet, I encourage you to subscribe. Click the plus sign, if you’re listening in on a [00:40:00] podcasting app or click the bell, if you’re watching on YouTube, because you won’t want to miss out on the excellent interviews coming up next. Also, if you haven’t yet, leave a review. You don’t want to be the one person who doesn’t get their voice on this review board. We’ve been getting reviews from all kinds of podcasting platforms and they really do help.

And there’s one thing I do want to ask. We do need more reviews for apple podcasts. So if you’re listening on apple device, I encourage you to review this podcast. Even if it’s just a one-word five star review, that really helps us out. And in fact, you may have found this podcast because someone else in the past gave a review, and that prompted iTunes to push this out to people like you, who might be interested.

So if you want to pass it forward and to help pay us back Because we put in our time, Amy and I, to make sure that you got this content and this information. If you’d like to help us out with just a little bit of your time, I [00:41:00] encourage you to review this podcast. 

Again, thank you so much for watching or listening in. My name is Doug Sands, and I help compulsive and emotional eaters to end the obsession with food and make peace with it. Often in as little as two sessions. Thank you so much for listening and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

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To your journey towards better health,

Doug

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