Discussion: Sarah Wilson, Everything's Messy Wellness

[00:00:11] Speaker A: What's worthwhile? [00:00:12] Speaker B: It's a question we all need to answer for ourselves. [00:00:15] Speaker A: I'm Ramsay Zimmerman. [00:00:17] Speaker B: As for me, it's building mind, body and spirit wellness. Let's ponder the big questions together as we seek peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit. [00:00:39] Speaker C: Serving is great and serving others absolutely is what we're meant to do. But there has to be a way that it doesn't hurt yourself to do that. And in turn, as I've gone on this wellness journey, I've had to deal with the mom guilt and the demons that come that say, you know, oh, you're really going to work out 30 minutes, your children need you. I have learned it's okay to take time for me. It's okay to take a space for me right now because while I'm doing those 30 minutes, I'm also praying or meditating or just getting right with my mind, you know, holding those thoughts captive. I had to learn how to do because it was just constantly pushing myself to do more, do more, do more, thinking I'm doing the right thing, but realizing, no, you have to stop. You're not listening. The quiet voices that are talking to you, you're ignoring them. [00:01:35] Speaker A: Hey there, It's Ramsay here. [00:01:37] Speaker B: That was Sarah Wilson. Sarah is a wellness coach that takes her own life experiences and uses the wisdom she has gained to help clients deal with autoimmune issues, manage type 1 diabetes and balance the demands of busy life. We spoke about how when she was 15 years old, God sent a horse to kick her into awareness of her type 1 diabete. How years later, her 16 year old daughter gently encouraged her to go to the hospital to address what turned out to be a multi day heart attack and how she was never the same again. Let's hope we don't need such extreme circumstances to wake us up to realizing that, yes, life is messy, but in the midst of the mess, we can focus on health and incremental progress and making the most of what God and life gives us. Let's jump in. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Hey Sarah, how are you doing today? [00:02:26] Speaker C: Hi, Ramsey. I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. [00:02:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. You know that I think you have such an interesting backstory and I just cannot wait to talk about it. You are a wellness coach and a podcaster and a specialist in autoimmune issues, diabetes and heart disease. You're also a wife and a mom to three kids. Your slogan is everything is messy. And of course, with, you know, three kids, that seems pretty obvious. But what do you what do you mean by that? I mean, what do you. Why. Why do you point that out? And why do you think that admission or realization might be empowering for people? [00:03:09] Speaker C: Absolutely. I think it applies to everything. Right? Life is messy. It is not the perfect aesthetic Instagram picture that everybody tries to show and be this, you know, image that we just aren't. And I think people want to hear it's okay that it's okay to be messy. It doesn't need to be perfect. And messy doesn't necessarily mean explosive or chaotic or just crazy. Although it can. It definitely can apply to whatever journey you might be on. You may have a different path than others. You may be trying things out, maybe doing different things, and messy just applies to all of that. I know I speak of my own wellness journey. My own wellness journey is messy. I didn't have it all figured out. I don't know a lot of people that do and those that do. My hat is off to you. I don't have that. [00:04:01] Speaker A: Have we. Have we met anyone? [00:04:02] Speaker C: I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure they're out there. I. I don't know. But, yeah, and with a husband who sometime is my fourth child and three children, it's messy, you know, and, yeah, we homeschool. We have lots going on. I also coach volleyball. I mean, it's. It's messy. And for those people that are out there and their plate is full, I can't imagine if you picture a real life plate of food, everything piled on it, it's not going to be in these perfect little compartments with these. I mean, I guess if it's in a bento box, maybe, but even still, it's going to get messy. And I think. I think people need to learn to sit in the mess so they can process it, so they can come out on the other side. And when it. Because we know another mess is coming, it's going to happen again, then we're more prepared because we know it's okay to be messy. We know it's okay. [00:04:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's start at kind of the beginning. So at around age 15, quite by accident, you discovered that you were diabetic. How did that happen? How did you feel about it? How did you respond? And so what was the impact of that? [00:05:17] Speaker C: Well, let's just say, as you said, I was 15 years old. And anybody that can remember being 15. [00:05:23] Speaker A: Knows you responded poorly. [00:05:26] Speaker C: Yes. You're not going to accept or want to take any of that. Quite honestly, I knew Nothing about type 1 a lot of people when they hear diabetes, they immediately think of type two and the two are very different. And with type one it is literally an autoimmune disease that's attacking your pancreas. And at 15 years old you might as well be the Charlie Brown teacher trying to tell me these things because it's going in one ear and out the other and I'm not understanding on top of it now. I'm angry. I'm angry and I'm mad. And I want to take back some sort of a control in my life because everything now feels out of control. And with that I treated myself very poorly. There was not a lot of support at the time. This was 1995, 4, 95. It was, you know, not as supportive as families who have now. There's a lot of built in groups that will help you, especially with smaller kids, but teenagers, just by itself, it's just a hard time. And you add in a disease where now you have to change everything you've known for 15 years. Yeah, I didn't do very well. I didn't do very well at all. [00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah, so, so what happened like, so, yeah, so your health and with your life and everything else. [00:06:48] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I was actually they, they discovered it because I was kicked by a horse and when they rushed me to the emergency room, they started to check your vitals and everything. And the nurse came in with the glucometer machine, pricked my finger, chested my blood and it didn't register on the machine. So she says to me, I think this one's broken. I'm going to go get another one. Brings another one back and again it's not registering. Come to find out the glucometer in the hospital only goes to about 500. So mine was, my blood sugar was over 500. Now anybody that knows anything about diabetes, a normal person's blood sugar is between 80 and 120. Mine was over 500 and had been for quite some time. I was 98 pounds soaking wet. I was losing my hair, I was having to go to the bathroom every five seconds. But none of these things as like first of all, you don't want to bring attention to yourself. And I wasn't in physical pain so there was nothing that I could go to my parents and say something's wrong. It just, these things were just happening. I was working in a two story restaurant, running up and down stairs, drinking lots of water, like all of it just kind of made sense that there was not something wrong. So I didn't know to Say, hey, there might be something wrong here. And so it was actually by the grace of God, I think he had to sort of get the horse to kick me so I would be able to. [00:08:16] Speaker A: What's the bad about you can't get a horse to drink or lead water or something like that? [00:08:22] Speaker C: Yeah, Leader, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Yeah, yeah. So, but, and honestly, my, my mom after it, I mean, she thanked God for the horse because otherwise, you know, the way that it was going, it could have turned out so much worse. So I don't know. Sometimes I think he uses those things for us to say, hey, wake up, pay attention. But at the same time, like I said, that made me very angry and made me very angry at him, made me very angry at life. And in turn, I took that out on myself by not taking care of myself. And that is probably my biggest regret is I wish I would have been able to flip it and be like, I'm going to take so much control of myself. I'm going to do all the right things. But at 15, what do you know? You know, you don't know what you don't know. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Right, right. So then you had a heart attack at the age of 42. [00:09:14] Speaker C: I love how you just say. [00:09:19] Speaker A: And. And that seems pretty young to me. Like, I think there was probably some systematic. Some systematic issues there for maybe 10 or 20 years. What was going on there? What do you think led up to that? Why did it happen to you so early in life? [00:09:33] Speaker C: Definitely the poor care that I took of my. Myself early on, not controlling my blood sugar, having these very peaks and valleys of high blood sugar, low blood sugar consistently for many, many years, and not realizing the damage that it was doing inside. My heart attack was not because of high blood pressure and it wasn't because of high cholesterol. It was strictly due to uncontrolled blood sugars which caused plaque to go to build up in my arteries. And on top of just, you know, unhealthy habits, not taking it seriously. And it wasn't until I was pregnant with my middle child did I take it much more seriously than I should have been. So there was a lot of damage. I had asked my body to do a lot of things that it, quite frankly, wasn't ready to do or should have been doing. And I asked a lot of it and I paid a very, very high price for that, for sure. [00:10:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And was that the wake up call for you? [00:10:36] Speaker C: That was the anti. Like, I know this is going to sound cliche, but as. As the story goes, at the time we were living in Colorado. I need to just preface this and say I hate snow. I don't. I don't like to do anything now with snow. It is just my enemy. So let me just say that because it was a Friday, it went out to shovel the snow in the driveway and I came in. And this is actually something I learned later in the hospital that this happens quite frequently from people who. I didn't know this. I didn't know this. I was already not acclimated to living in Colorado Springs because It was over 6,000ft, so I had never really adjusted to the elevation. And then this freakish. I mean, I'm a Southern California girl, so this freakishly cold weather with having to snow and all that just. No, I just could. It was really bad. So Friday I shovel the snow, I come in and I'm like, I. And I don't have any pain. I don't have any neck pain, jaw pain, chest pain, nothing. I have some fatigue and I have a little bit of what I thought was like muscle strain, but it didn't hurt. There was no chest pain. I just thought, oh, maybe I've, you know, strained my pectoral muscles by shoveling the snow was, you know, there was probably three feet out there, maybe. It was a lot of snow. And this was a Friday. By Sunday, I still was not. There was just something that didn't quite feel right. And my oldest, again, divine intervention, God bless her, she says to me, mom, go get checked out at the hospital. And she's thinking something type diabetic related. She's like, go get checked out at the hospital. I'd rather tell my brother and sister that, you know, you had to go get checked out and make sure you're okay. Then maybe have to tell them why the fire department's here coming to get you off the floor. That was all I needed to hear and imagine. And at the time, she's 16, telling me this. And it was like, again, God used her as the vessel to wake them. [00:12:41] Speaker A: From the mouths of babes. [00:12:42] Speaker C: Absolutely, absolutely. So, as moms do, I drove myself to the hospital, didn't think I should call anybody or ask for help. She was going to stay home with the other two. And the whole time I'm driving to the hospital, in my head is this narrative that I. I'm convince the hospital is going to say, you're having a panic attack. Go home, you crazy lady. We have real patients to deal with. You're not One of them. That's literally what I'm telling myself. Pull up to the hospital, walk through the er. Very quiet day. They get me into triage. They hook me up to the little EKG machine and I have an EMT background. So I start to see the machine. And if you're familiar, the lines are supposed to go up in a very nice wavy motion. Right? That's what the EKG is supposed to like. Mine were going upside down. The orderly space. [00:13:36] Speaker A: That cannot be good. [00:13:37] Speaker C: Right. And so I can laugh now, but the orderly, it, like all the color drained. He disappeared, came back in with probably nine people who started two IVs in each arm, ascended upon. It was sort of an outer body experience. As this is happening, I'm trying to call my husband, who's still in California, telling them they've told me I'm having. I'm in the middle of having a heart attack. They're taking me to the cath lab. I mean, just all of the messy and the chaos and the confusion, and I stopped for a minute and I just. I told God I was sorry and that I wanted to be okay. And I didn't want that to be the last time that I saw my children or my husband and that I can do better. I can do better. And that's where I sort of jump off into my wellness journey. [00:14:28] Speaker A: I didn't know, like, it was possible. Are you saying that you were having like a two or three day heart attack? Like, I didn't know that was a thing. [00:14:36] Speaker C: Apparently it is. They said that it could have subsided as I was resting and then reoccurred, but they didn't say it was multiple heart attacks. They said it was a massive heart attack. It was 98% blockage. And they were able to insert a cathedral and be. You know, I actually had two placed. Two stints placed in. And I. There's only other one way to describe it. And that's a miracle. That's a miracle that I'm here and I want. I want to do something with that. [00:15:10] Speaker A: Well, that is really terrific. So, you know, the. This podcast is called what's Worthwhile? And it really. And it gets to that question of, you know, what is worth our time? What is worth our attention? What is worth us investing in? And, you know, I, As I look at the world today, I just see so much vying for our attention and so many messages trying to convince us of things. And it's so hard to figure out what to focus on. And it's hard to figure out even to know what is true and what is not true. And it just begs that question of like, what is worthwhile in life and what should you focus on? And it seems like, you know, experiences like the one that you're describing really sort of put things into perhaps clarity or they, they bring people to clarity sometimes around what is really important. So I guess I'll just ask you, like, what's worthwhile for you? You know, after that, what, what became, what changed? [00:16:20] Speaker C: Well, definitely clarity. But when you use the phrase, you know, it brought you clarity actually brought me to my knees and I needed to reevaluate everything that I was doing. You know, I started out in my 20s. I really, I had a serving heart. I wanted to serve others. I went in and I became an EMT. I became a 911 police dispatcher. I wanted to help people. I wanted to have a heart. That was the most important thing for me. What it turned into was sort of everyone else except me, I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't doing and you know, turning into becoming a mom. I gave, I was so grateful to even have children. You know, as a type one, I was told pretty much a lot of my life, you shouldn't have children, it's going to do damage to your body. So the fact that I was able to have children was just a huge thing. And so all my effort went into that. And I don't say this with resentment. I say this with serving is great and serving others absolutely is what we're meant to do. But there has to be a way that it doesn't hurt yourself to do that. And in turn, as I've gone on this wellness journey, I've had to deal with the mom guilt and the demons that come that say, you know, oh, you're really going to work out 30 minutes, your children need you. I have learned it's okay to take time for me, it's okay to take a space for me right now because while I'm doing those 30 minutes, I'm also praying or meditating or just getting right with my mind, you know, holding those thoughts captive. I had to learn how to do because it was just constantly pushing myself to do more, do more, do more thinking I'm doing the right thing, but realizing, no, you have to stop. You're not listening. The quiet voices that are talking to you, you're ignoring them. And that's the in turn what was happening is I wasn't taking care of myself. So not only being brought to my knees, but really diving deep and you say, what's worthwhile? Obviously, the, you know, most obvious answer would be, my family is what makes me continue to go on. But I'll take it one further, and I will say we take our health for granted until we don't have it. And what good am I going to be to my family if I'm not even around to enjoy them? And part of taking care of me is so I can be here for them. And that was a really. I'm sure it sounds so simple to a lot of people. For me, I'm pretty stubborn, and obviously I needed some, you know, big jolts to get me to pay attention. But I'm learning. I'm learning. [00:19:06] Speaker A: Well, I think a lot of people are kind of driven that way. You know, whether you're driven for professional success or whether you're driven to serve your family or whether it's something else. I think a lot of people go really hard, go really hard, don't necessarily take care of themselves. And, you know, I have this image of, you know what, when you're on the airplane and they always tell you, you know, put your own mask on before you help the person next to you. Put the mask on. [00:19:39] Speaker C: And that applies to so much. That applies to so much. And I've noticed when I'm able to do my breathing exercises, take a moment for prayer, Just take a moment for myself. I'm a better mom for it. Never thinking that those little tiny steps would actually result in something so huge. You know, the kids would be like, oh, mom's crabby. I haven't heard that in a really long time because I don't have a reason to be crabby. I'm not saying every day is perfect, but I'm definitely more calm and settled with my own self that I didn't have before. My nervous system was a wreck. I mean, it was just constantly fight or flight. It was constantly on the move. It was constantly, where am I going? And I would say today, it seems like, especially women or moms, they wear a badge of honor of this busyness that they have, and they shouldn't. They should give themselves permission to stay calm and be okay in the quiet. Not every single minute needs to be filled. But somehow we look at ourselves and we're like, oh, that makes us lazy. That makes us not a good mom. That makes us not do our full potential. No, it's okay to just rest, be quiet, be still. But again, that badge of honor of, I have this, I have this. I mean, everybody just thinks that's the Way to go. And I completely disagree. [00:20:57] Speaker A: Yeah, tell me about kind of your practice and what do you do with clients? What does that look like? What kind of offers, like, what kind of services do you provide? And. And how does that work? [00:21:11] Speaker C: So right now I'm specifically working with type 1 diabetics, although I would love to expand into more general chronic illness things. My practice is really based on either helping parents with newly diagnosed type one who are children. Because you have to imagine as a parent, I know I've talked to my parents several times. They didn't know what to do. You know, the doctor gives you the insulin, the syringe tells you to, you know, eat the best you can and send you on your way. What do you do with that? There's absolutely so hard, right. And especially these parents who have like, babies that have just been diagnosed, they. They're just at a loss. They don't know what to do. It's bad. It's hard enough to come home and take care of a newborn. Now you have a newborn that has a disease. That is life or death, basically, right? How much insulin did I give? Too much insulin. Now I have to monitor formula, things like that. So I try and set them up, not only to have encouragement of it does get better, but it takes time. I try to share with them shortcuts and things that they can plan for. We really go over crisis planning in an emergency. Do you have what you need? Extra insulin and things like that. And just to be a sounding board, to be, you know, a lot of the times I have a client who had a daughter who the school wouldn't let her check her blood sugar herself at her desk. She had to go to the nurse's office. And that. That seems to be pretty typical. The problem is it's a distraction out of class. You have to ask the teacher permission. Then you have to go to the nurse. The nurse has to stop, you know, get all this stuff. What if there's three people in the nurse's office? Like, it just. It's a lot of valuable time that's missed. When she is very capable. I think she's in fourth or fifth grade. She's very capable of taking her own blood sugar and then deciding whether she needs to take a correction or not of insulin. So just helping these parents write a letter to the school, explain to them what is going on. It's just more support for them. And I feel like at least I can take all of this knowledge and stuff that I have and at least give it to somebody who it might be valuable to. [00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So I. I'm in holistic health and nutritional therapy program these days. So I'm learning a lot about foods and ways of eating and things like that. I'm trying to just, you know, base my diet on whole foods, eating whole foods. But we hear about a wide range of different eating approaches. And so I understand that you were vegan for a while, you tried eating vegan. Sounds like that didn't really work out. And then you went all the way to the other side and were carnivore. But how, how did you experience kind of both of those? And what's your approach to eating these days? [00:24:13] Speaker C: Yeah, so when I. After the heart attack in the cardiac rehab, there was this program called the Ornish program, and it was very extensive. It was different than what they decided. That was typical cardiac rehab. This was a program. You went and you spent four hours at the hospital once a week. It was an hour of exercise, it was an hour of therapy, it was an hour of like yoga and breathing, and then it was an hour of nutrition. And in that class of hour of nutrition, this Dr. Ornish, who, who did this whole program, it was learning how to read labels, it was learning what not to do, what to do, those kinds of things. But the diet was very geared towards a lot of soybean, a lot of like impossible burger type stuff. It was geared towards a lot of lentils and things like that. And my first question to the nutritionist was when they. Because we got to sort of eat the. A different meal each week that was sort of this vegan and we could try it and things like that. And so I would have to ask her how many carbs are in this meal so I can bolus and make sure that I don't have high blood sugar after I eat it. And first they didn't really know, and then the next week they had a list for me and it was. It ended up being like 110 carbs in one meal. I don't eat that in a day. I didn't even eat that in a day before my heart attack. So that was very eye opening for me. The second part was I wanted to make this work and I didn't want to be that rebellious teenager and I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. So I dove into everything that they were telling me. More beans, more soy, more. I did everything that they said. And three months after I was in the program, I was severely anemic to the point where they were talking blood transfusion. I was worse off, my weight had actually gone up. None of these things. I had problems before the heart attack and I was in a worse spot afterwards. And this is three months supposedly after rehabilitation. And when I started to do my own research and you and I kind of talked about this, I'm a very big go down the rabbit hole and see what you can find. And so I sort of threw myself down these rabbit holes and it started to contradict what this program was telling me, how great red meat can be. The, all of the nutrients, the vitamins, the ferritin that we'll give you and just all of these things. And I thought that's actually what I need. I need this stuff. And I don't want to have a blood transfusion and I don't want to go on more pills. So, long story longer, I continued to go through the carnivore steps. I was able to get off all of my heart medicine. I was able to stick with a carnivore diet. And since then, and that was about two and a half years ago, since then I've come sort of full circle and I'm sort of more whole food based now. But I. You will not be able to convince me that the vegan diet was better than the carnivore. Now I have, I've talked to several people and the vegan absolutely works for them. And what I've heard is your body can hold onto these nutrients for a long, long, long time. So a lot of people have the success with vegan because they still have these nutrients in their body. But after two, three, maybe four years of being vegan, they start to see they're tired, there's some things that are not working the way that they should. And then they switch and they eat a little bit of meat and voila, it all goes, you know, opposite back. So that's sort of my story. [00:27:50] Speaker A: How, when, why did anyone think that being vegan would be good for you in particular? I didn't really understand that part. [00:27:58] Speaker C: Yeah, so that was part of the cardiac rehab. And so we were all in this group, there was 10 of us. And this was the prescribed rehab for all of us that were in the cardiac rehab. And this was the diet they wanted us to have. And it was lentils and soy and impossible burgers. And you know, it was funny, at one point I actually, we had a conversation, there was like, I don't know, many, many, many, many ingredients in the impossible burger compared to a hamburger which has one ingredient. Exactly. And they couldn't tell me why? That was better. And that's like I said, the wheels started to turn, the rabbit holes started bigger. And, you know, I was just Alice in Wonderland falling into all of these holes and having to decide, look, I can't be any worse off than I was after almost needing a blood transfusion, so I might as well try this. Even though they were telling me, don't eat eggs, don't eat meat, don't eat, I disregarded. I bucked the conventional medicine system, and I don't implore anybody to do that. You need to do your own research. Obviously, you need to do what your doctor says. For me, that was simply not the case. And my cardiologist now is like, you know, this looks good. Cholesterol is good. What are you doing? I'm carnivore. Oh. Oh, you are. And then, of course. And then they try to give me the whole, well, we want you to take the statin because it is preventative. And I politely decline. The risks of statin is not going to outweigh the risk of another heart attack. That has to be up to me. Right. And that. And that we talk about the whole body. Right. That has to be. My mind is right. I'm doing well for my body, and I'm putting food into my body that we were eating thousands of years ago that we need to continue to eat. That's how we're designed. And if we go against that, look at, look at what we're dealing with today. [00:29:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, in the nutritional therapy program that I'm in, it's all about food as medicine, and it's all about getting your nutrients predominantly and as much as you can from food and finding things like deficiencies and solving those instead of taking lots of medicines to diminish symptoms. And also, it's just sticking with natural, real whole foods. Right. 100% want. You know, I hear things like, impossible burger, and I'm like, well, it's called impossible for a reason. All the just natural added ingredients and things. I don't know, I don't. Never had one. Not planning on it. [00:30:42] Speaker C: Yeah. No. Well, it's interesting. One of the nights they had brought. And I. I don't want to say the name of the restaurant, but it's a place where you can basically go fill a bowl with things that you want in it. And they had it. They had them catered in, and it was a bowl full of rice, a bowl full of beans, a bowl full of veggies, a bowl. It had cheese and salsa and guacamole and they put it in front of me. And again, my question, how many carbs is in this? And it was like 140 grams of carbs. And that is just. You want to talk about, you know, not even being type one. The regular person that has. You're going to get insulin resistance, you're going to have a. Blood sugar spikes, you're going. I mean, that's just not what we're designed to be eating. But it's packaged and sort of sold to us as this health food and how great it is. Don't even get me started on the seed oils. But it's. It's not good. It's not good. [00:31:39] Speaker A: Well, I'm pretty optimistic. I feel like we're kind of in a great holistic health awakening these days. Yeah. Do you feel that? [00:31:48] Speaker C: It's like, I would agree. [00:31:50] Speaker A: And the past few years has just been so much emphasis on not getting sick, but I feel like maybe in the last couple years or now the focus is going towards being well. And it just seems like there's such a significant distinction between those, you know, do you think. And like. [00:32:08] Speaker C: Yes. [00:32:09] Speaker A: How do we. How do we make the most of that? How do we. How do we bring that forward? [00:32:13] Speaker C: Well, part of it, I think it's. It's so great to point out, people are starting to wake up, people are starting to see the benefits that are out there. And again, we're talking about the whole spectrum, all of it included. Right. The nutrition is one part. It's a very important part, but it's one part. And you have to be educated. You can't just stick your head in the sand and do things for convenience or because your mom used to do it or whatever. I don't know about you. I was a kid of the 80s, standard American diet, you know, that was just what you did. But that's no longer what the standard should be. And people are starting to realize that. You have a lot of research coming out on the food pyramid and how it really should be flipped on it upside down because we shouldn't be eating grains like that. And that should be very limited. And it goes back to biblical times when the Egyptians had their slaves, the Israelites, they would give the Israelites the grain and all of these things because it would make them weaker, because they wouldn't want to rise up where all the. While Egyptians were eating the meat and the things that would make them strong because they didn't want to have the slaves rise against them. And that, that is a true thing. You can find that and so when we have these food pyramid that comes out and says all these grains that you need to eat, and then you go slower and slower, and, you know, eggs and milk are at the top in a very small portion. That's simply not true. That's simply not true. And I feel like, again, more people are starting to wake up. The information is getting out there. You know, we spoke a little bit about it. You have Kelly and Casey means that are screaming from the rooftops of these things. You know, she was an educated Stanford doctor, surgeon, and decided she had to get off the rat wheel because she wasn't helping anyone. She wasn't helping anyone. And I think this goes back also to. I don't know, I can't speak for other countries, but in this country, we have this white coat syndrome, where anybody that's in a white coat seems to have this authority. And we just believe them carte blanche because we trust that they went to medical school and they know what they're talking about. But when you actually hear that in the span of a doctor's career, they spend less than four hours on nutrition, for less than four hours on nutrition, and they're basically writing pill for an ill on everything that you have. And they don't ask you about your diet, they don't ask you about what you're eating, they don't ask you about what you're. You know, are you exercising? Are you. Are you getting sunlight? Are you spending any time in nature? All of these things are connected. People are starting to kind of come out of it. I think sort of the sleeping coma that we've been in, and they just kind of come out of it and they're like, yeah, I don't. This. It's. Make it make sense. Right? Make it make sense. [00:35:05] Speaker A: Well, and it's getting back to just basic humanity, you know, human functions. Like we. We spent all of our existence as humans in fresh air and getting sunlight and moving around and working outdoors predominantly and having active lifestyles. But instead, within the past few decades, it's sitting down in front of this computer screen and this monitor that I'm sitting in front of right now. [00:35:39] Speaker C: I'm there along with you. [00:35:41] Speaker A: Gonna have to go get some air and some exercise after this, right? Yeah. But the. The state that we're in now is. Is not historic and natural. It's new. And. [00:35:54] Speaker C: And our body doesn't know how to process. [00:35:56] Speaker A: No. [00:35:56] Speaker C: It doesn't know what to do. [00:35:58] Speaker A: No. Evolution doesn't operate on that kind of a timescale. Evolution is still thousands of years ago. In terms of biology, of course, it's potentially messing up our biology and our genetics for future generations. [00:36:15] Speaker C: Well, the big response inside the body is the inflammation that it's causing. And this inflammation that sits in your body then starts to go and cause these chronic illnesses and things like that. And so it's really getting to the root of stopping the inflammation in the first place. And how do we do that? You know that old saying, a body in motion stays in motion. The more you can move, the better you're releasing all of this inflammation and bad toxins. But if you're turning around and downing a Coke and a Big Mac, that's kind of offsetting what's happening for the sake of convenience. And again, going back to what I had said originally, what happened to slowing down? I'm not saying you have to make a three course meal that takes five hours, but what happened to gathering around the dinner table, taking the time to have good conversation and prayer and talk to your family and eat these good things that we should be putting into our body instead of rush, rush, rush, rush, Little Billy has to go to soccer, we're going to eat in the car. We have to do this, we have to. That's, that's become our norm. And it shouldn't be. And it should be okay to, you know, turn off everything for an hour. It should be okay to escape for an hour. It should be okay to just say, this is just quiet time right now. And we just constantly have all of these things coming at us all at once and our nervous system just, it, it's freaking out, it doesn't know what to do. [00:37:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So what do you say to the people who are listening to, listening to this today that are kind of on the fence doing their thing? You know, they maybe pay half attention to their lifestyle choices and you know, they're not feeling terrible, but they're definitely not feeling great. You know what, what do you say to those folks? What advice do you have? [00:38:04] Speaker C: Absolutely. First of all, it doesn't have to be overwhelming and it does not have to be a perfection journey. It needs to start with small, sustainable habits that you can access, actually follow through on and feel good about checking that off your list or whatever your form of reward system is. But it has to start small. And people need to understand the small is okay. When I was doing my exercise after rehab, I could lift a three pound weight. I now can bench 70 pounds. But it took two and a half years to get to that moment. It, it took sustainable. I don't feel like going to the gym, but I'm going to the gym every day. Having that small goal, even if it was just for 15 minutes, you know, I realize as busy parents, busy people, you don't have three hours to go work out at the gym. Who does? So don't give that your habit. Don't track that. Track small goals. Track how much water you're drinking that day. Track what food you're eating that day. Track, you know, how many steps did you get that day, but without the added pressure of it's going to then in turn make you have a bad thought of, oh, I didn't do enough, or oh, I just might as well throw in the towel, because what's the point? There is a point. Back the goal back down. If you can only get 5,000 steps, then make that your goal. If you can only drink two cups of water, then make that your goal. But you have to try something small every day. And that small momentum, inclement progress, you will start to see shift. You will see the benefits, and it's also going to start to shift your behavior. Now, we talk a lot about motivation and self discipline, right? The motivation gets you to the point where, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm ready. But the motivation is going to dwindle. Self discipline comes in to go do it even when you don't want to do it. But the mindset of habit tracking eliminates all of that pressure to just start small. And then, like I said, make sure you are having that good internal, individual narrative dialogue with yourself. Hey, high five. I did this. Hey, high five. So the reward system in your head is like, oh, I am doing good. Because we're all. We're are. We're all our own. We're critic. Right? We're gonna beat ourselves up. Oh, I didn't do enough. Oh, I might as well just sit down and have the pizza. Who cares? It does. It all matters. But you have to be kind to yourself because if you're just gonna beat yourself up about it, you're not gonna move forward. [00:40:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Hey, what have you got coming up? What are you excited about? What's. What's new and different and what. What's. What's coming up for you? [00:40:53] Speaker C: Yeah. So everything's messy podcast. We are still going strong. We just created a new Facebook community. I actually have two it's everything's messy, type one diabetics, and then I have another one for messy movers. And these are for people who actually want to get into habit tracking and Mindset and what's your look? We've got messy mountains to move, so let's get some momentum, let's build up what we can. And again, it's okay to be messy. We are not looking for perfect. In fact, the messier the better. [00:41:27] Speaker A: So what's gonna, what do you imagine for those Facebook groups? What kind of interactions? [00:41:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm hoping we can get some speakers into the Facebook group. I've got some PDFs that are already there where you can go and download some crisis things, some prevention things. I really want to get people understanding that the small, just very small minimal habits that you're going to track. I promise it's going to do something. But like we talked earlier, you, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. I want to help them believe in themselves that they can do it, but they're going to have to have the accountability to do it. And accountability and self responsibility. Those are huge words that we talk about because a lot of people are just saying, give me the meal plan, just give me, tell me what I need to do. That's not going to help in the long run. You have to want to change the behavior. [00:42:24] Speaker A: So where can people find you? How can they get in touch with you? How and where can they learn more? [00:42:31] Speaker C: Yes. So my website, Everything's Messy Wellness. I have all my stuff on there. The links to the Facebook group is on there. And then I'm on Instagram. Everything's Messy Wellness. I'm on X. Everything's Mess. I don't have a YouTube yet. I'm working on it. YouTube is a little difficult to try to get videos up and I don't want to be taken down before I can get. [00:42:56] Speaker A: Yeah, gotta be careful which brand names you refer to. Right. [00:43:02] Speaker C: And not just. And also just the content, just what you're speaking about. So. Yeah, but yeah, I, I'm hoping to just look, if I can just get one person, just share my story and it benefits one person, then I feel like this was not for nothing. I feel like God will use me as a vessel to come into people's lives and just lead them right, kind of push them, guide them. He's going to take over and do what needs to be done. But they have to hear it first and I just hope that they can hear it through me. [00:43:35] Speaker A: Well, Sarah, I am confident that people are hearing that and hearing that from you. I'm confident that God is using you and I can just see it and hear it in your voice. I appreciate that. I just want to thank you so much for coming on today and talking, but even more than that, for investing your time and energy and spirit and soul into helping other people. And, you know, taking the experiences, the difficult experiences that you had from your teenage years, your childhood from, you know, the trouble you had in the middle of life, you know, taking all of that and refocusing in that and investing that into others is just really tremendous. [00:44:24] Speaker C: I appreciate that. Thank you. Ramsey. This has been great. I really appreciate the wonderful conversation. And just speaking of wellness and I just. I think. I think wellness is where it's at. I really do. And it's messy. [00:44:38] Speaker A: Yes, it is. [00:44:39] Speaker C: It's messy. [00:44:39] Speaker A: Like this podcast. Take care. [00:44:44] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:44:46] Speaker B: Thank you for asking. What's worthwhile. Visit whatsworthwhile.net to learn more about me, Ramsey Zimmerman. And please provide your name and email. To become a supporter, I'm asking for prayer, advice, feedback and connections. The what's Worthwhile Podcast is on Spotify, Apple, iHeart and Amazon. You can also [email protected] thanks.