WEBVTT
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We become like detectives.
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You and I are detectives going through people's lifestyle,
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their food, their supplements, what they're exposed to,
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their emotional beliefs, their thoughts to really uncover
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what are the things that are causing imbalances.
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Would you agree?
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Absolutely.
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I think functional medicine is not random supplements.
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It is pattern recognition.
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Every single person is so different.
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Like Mona, we could have two clients.
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One of my clients can have the exact same symptoms
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as another.
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One of them can have them from eating tomatoes
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because they have a histamine issue.
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While another person's, because they're eating too much fiber,
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like there's literally no way that any one protocol
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would fit both people and understanding anything
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about a person's body is so relevant to the treatment plan
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that there's just no way you could ever apply
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a functional, a true functional medicine
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or a functional nutrition model without extreme detective work
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and kind of putting the puzzle together
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and making those connections.
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My dear friend, new lifelong, where have you been?
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Oh, my life friend, Michelle Shapiro, welcome to Rooted
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in Wellness.
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We have so much to talk about today.
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But let's just start up with the foundation of the podcast.
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So this podcast is really all about ancient wisdom
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in our modern world and how we can become more rooted
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in our self and our health and our happiness.
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So let's start off the episode by talking about
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what are two or three things that help you feel really rooted
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in yourself and in your happiness and in your life?
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I love that.
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So it's been almost corny.
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I've been talking so much about walking.
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And I'm like, why did I get this like huge degree
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and like practice for all these years
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if the whole thing is walking?
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So for myself, if I do not walk a certain amount,
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for me, it's like really 10,000 steps
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is kind of where I landed.
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I just don't feel like myself and I don't feel well.
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So walking is all that.
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So to speak, and for me, it really does make me feel
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rooted and grounded in wellness.
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The other thing I would say is that for me to feel like myself,
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I need to be what I call working the phones.
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So when I'm not with clients and talking to them,
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I'm with my friends and family.
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You will find me on the phone with my friends and family.
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And that is like where I feel the most like myself
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is just listening and talking to the people who see me
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for who I am.
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And it makes me feel anything that makes me feel like myself
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makes me feel grounded.
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So that's where I feel the most like myself
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and the healthiest.
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We're the first person to give such a unique authentic answer.
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Oh my gosh, on the phone with the people that you love,
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the people who see you for who you are,
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like talk about a brilliant way
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for you to just shine your light, right?
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And that's exactly what you do online
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for so many people.
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You are so authentic in the way that you speak.
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And it doesn't come off in an approach
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that is startling to people.
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It really does come from this heart-centered approach.
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So that's a reflection of your community for sure.
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All right, so on the flip side,
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you and I have these insane healing journeys
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which I'm convinced is what keeps us aligned
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with our purpose.
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We'll get to that.
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So you must know in your life when you're drifting from that
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maybe when you're not talking to your try
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when you're not walking,
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do you catch the symptoms or what are the things
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that cause you to feel more uprooted?
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It's whenever I notice a symptom that I know
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that I'm past my baseline.
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So I will actually say and I almost have a joke
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that goes on with my husband where I'll say,
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you know what, I haven't noticed any digestive issues
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in so long and by the time I say that
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is when the digestive issue is coming already.
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So that's when I know is when a symptom shows up.
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I have a very strong communication line
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between and you do as well, Mona, of course,
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between my mind and body.
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So I get those signals and I take them very seriously.
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So I'll start to notice when any of those symptoms come up,
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it's kind of a call to go back home.
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But nothing will disregulate me as much
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as sitting on my phone too much, looking at it.
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Now it's very different if I'm talking to people.
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If I'm looking at my screen, scrolling on Instagram,
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I will face neck pain.
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I will, that will result in some sort of
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disorderly function, which I know we're gonna talk about.
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So for me, that's one of the most
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least grounding things in the world.
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And then I would say, you know,
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before I mentioned what makes me feel grounded
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is feeling like myself.
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If I'm doing things that are out of alignment
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with what I wanna do consistently,
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it's so silly, Mona, but I hate sitting at dinners.
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So I need to like walk around and talk to people.
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I need to, it's the way I like to engage.
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So just sitting down in the same position for that long.
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If I have to do like three dinners in a row, I feel awful.
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So I just know my body and I know myself.
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So I won't book them in a row.
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I'll do a brunch one day if I have to.
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I'll do a dinner and then I say,
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I have to see you next weekend.
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So anytime I'm doing something that I know
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doesn't make me feel good repeatedly,
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even that being out of alignment,
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it really can create some dumps for me.
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Let's take a quick break to talk about something
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that's made a huge difference in my skin health lately.
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A product called one skin.
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If you're like me, always on the hunt for a wellness solution
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for optimizing your skin's health and longevity,
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you need to hear about this one.
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Most skincare products focus on surface level results,
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but one skin goes way deeper,
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working at a cellular level for lasting results.
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They're amazing all women team of skin longevity scientists
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developed OS1 after testing over 900 peptides.
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It's the first ingredient scientifically proven
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to interrupt cellular senescence, a core aging process.
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As we age and get exposed to UV rays,
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our skin cells enter senescence.
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They stop rejuvenating and producing collagen
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and elastin like they should.
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And even worse, they release harmful inflammatory chemicals
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and cause neighboring cells to become dysfunctional too.
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It's like a domino effect that makes our skin age faster
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with deeper wrinkles, thinning, and sagging
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what we all want to avoid.
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But one skin's OS1 switches off these senescence cells,
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getting to the root cause of skin aging.
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It helps our skin stay younger and healthier,
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and since skin is our body's largest organ,
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the health of our skin is absolutely critical
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to our overall health.
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That's why I personally love one skin.
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I've noticed a real difference in the resilience
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and youthfulness of my skin since using it regularly.
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As a rooted in wellness listener,
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you can get 15% off your first order
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I really believe one skin is something
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that can benefit all of us on our journey
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to optimal skin, wellness, longevity,
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and just aging feeling our best.
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Definitely check it out and see the difference it can make for you.
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Remember, go to 1skin.co slash Mona.
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Use code Mona for 15% off.
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Trust me, your skin will thank you.
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Absolutely.
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You've got to come to the West Coast.
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We do walk-in meetings, hiking meetings.
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You're just hiking the Griffith Observatory.
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You're heading me, that's your lunch meeting.
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Yeah, I know.
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Not in New York.
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I love these stuff, because for me as well,
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I feel like there's this resonance within the body
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that just knows.
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It's like our spidey sense is going off.
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Like, oh, there it is again.
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There's that feeling in your neck.
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There's that feeling in your gut or any digestive symptoms.
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Because I think as practitioners,
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we talk about symptoms all day long
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to the people that we work with.
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But I think for the most part of the population,
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because there's so much happening in our world,
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we've become so desensitized to this communication system
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from our body, which is a freaking miracle.
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Let's just say like our body's communicating with us all the time,
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but we've mastered kind of masking the symptoms,
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the emotions, the feelings that come up
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for what we think we should be doing
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instead of what our body's actually asking for.
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So that's probably a good segue.
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So you take on such a unique approach to nutrition,
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and I love that you really blend the world
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of functional nutrition and healing,
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as well as our mindset and how that matters.
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But what led you into that work?
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And why is it so important to break away
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from this like tradition, dietician kind of mentality?
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I remember when I went to school for nutrition,
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it was like the nutritionist against the dieticians
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that like, it's like, no, no, we can go together.
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But tell us about your story.
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Yeah, I have lovingly called myself
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the anti-dietician dietician a little bit.
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I definitely believe that every single one of us
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has a seed at the table,
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and we are in such desperate need of healers
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and people who want to help others.
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So for one person to diss someone else
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and this kind of like credentialism obsessed world we live
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and I think is completely ridiculous.
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And I think that we should all be so grateful
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that there are people who want to take their time
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to help others and we should welcome help
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from every single person.
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So that's just let me have to say about that
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because I'm really, really passionate about it.
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Yeah, so I went to, I grew up in Queens, New York.
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I'll kind of weave my personal and health story together.
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I grew up in Queens, one of the most diverse,
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amazing places in the entire world.
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And I always lived in a larger body when I was younger.
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When I was going off to college,
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I kind of realized that as I'm going to college,
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it's not gonna be as like,
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it's gonna be much more homogenous place.
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And in Queens, people are really valued
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for their uniqueness.
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Like it was like cool to be different
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in New York City growing up, you know?
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So for myself, like, you know, gender identity,
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racial identity, body size,
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there was so, there was 5,000 kids in my high school.
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So it's like, there's so many different types of everyone
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that whatever made you stand out was actually, you know,
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an advantage, but I realized I was going to school
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at the University of Delaware,
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which is a much more homogenous place.
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And I realized like, if I don't lose weight
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before I go to school, I will not be socially accepted.
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Like people don't know that I'm Michelle Shapiro,
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class clown, like they don't know these things about me.
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It didn't inhibit me in my younger life,
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but it didn't inhibit me going, you know,
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when I was going to school.
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So I lost, and this is like a trigger warning,
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I would never recommend this,
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but I lost close to 100 pounds before I went away to school.
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And it was probably in like a year's timeframe
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through disorder eating and starvation.
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The entire time I was at college, Mona, I was sick.
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I had hypothyroidism, acid reflux,
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severe gut issues, severe panic attacks.
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That would happen several times a day
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with vomiting, like severe symptoms.
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And every doctor I went to was like,
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why don't you lose those last five?
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And really what it was,
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my body was so dysregulated from that extreme stress
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and that extreme weight loss that it led me into
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basically being chronically ill.
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The rest of my adult life,
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and I couldn't understand it until I sought the help
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of a naturopathic physician, Dr. Robert Kochbo,
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who became one of my besties by force.
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I was in that session with him,
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and I was like, we're done now.
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I was like, we are best friends for life now.
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You're not just my doctor,
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but it was when he kind of sat, we did a Dutch test,
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and we kind of looked at everything.
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It was a 90 minute initial session
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that I think we went over into the two-hour range,
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and I was like, oh, this is what I'm actually supposed
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to be doing, because traditional dietetics schooling
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didn't sit well with me,
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and I often complained.
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I worked in nursing homes,
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and the last straw for me
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of why left conventional dietetics was,
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I would not give ensure to long-term care patients.
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I just felt like it was very counter
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to what the work that I wanted to do.
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And then I left to pursue functional health
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as I had my own healing journey.
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I then wanted to help people in the same way.
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I had kind of a second health crisis.
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A couple years ago, we'll talk about two related
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to histamines and long COVID,
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but that was what led me initially
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into functional dietetics versus
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that conventional dietetics grade, which I have.
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But so important.
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And I think that says just a lot about you,
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because often we go into these big school systems,
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and there's a one cookie cutter approach
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to how we're approaching healing and well-being.
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But that's the exact approach that got me sick,
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thinking that I had to do something
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in a certain way to heal.
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And a lot of like the research, I don't know about you,
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but the textbooks that we had,
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they're like so antiquated, right?
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So I love that you said that this idea of conformity
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and you as a kid, how that has also now
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blood into how you lead as a leader
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and a healer in this world.
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And I think that says a lot because when people look at,
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practitioners like you and I,
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I think the misconception is that we've arrived.
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Here's pillar health.
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This is what it is.
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But I swear I got like every weird genetic thing
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that came up, like I'm this highly sensitive person,
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which we'll talk about.
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And like I'm just affected by the weird stuff,
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but I'm kind of changing the lens
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in which I look at that, one to not conform
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to the other healers that are out there.
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I think you and I are here for a reason
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to kind of deliver a message based on our healing.
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And the fact that we're on this path
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because it keeps us students,
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it keeps us in practice for all of those things.
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So I love that you have that approach, especially.
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So let's flesh forward then.
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You and I share the story of COVID.
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COVID was, I thought it was fine.
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COVID felt fine for me.
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My body was strong and resilient
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to fortunately not have the same symptoms
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as a lot of other people did.
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But I didn't realize that I went into long haulers COVID.
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And that long haulers COVID that ended up,
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I think I was just way more,
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my new system was just so compromised
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that I became predisposed mold.
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I had full mold exposure in my apartment.
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So this is over two years.
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COVID, long haulers, mold exposure,
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and I've shared this on the podcast before,
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getting over mold doing all the hardcore protocols.
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The exact same thing that got me sick, hardcore protocols.
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Now depleting even more, I stripped my system.
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I probably gutted all the amazing microbes
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and my gut microbiome with all these binders and modalities
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and stuff like that in order to heal.
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And now it's been a process of rebuilding.
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So share your story from that
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because the timing of you kind of
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gaining so much traction online
355
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was with the rise of understanding long haulers COVID,
356
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but also histamine response.
357
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Thank you for saying everything you just said.
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First of all, I'm literally actively nodding
359
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so hard and closing my mouth
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because I'm like, oh my God, Mona, I want to,
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what you just said is so beautiful.
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First of all, the conformist thing
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that you picked up on that, I'm very, very non-conformist.
364
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So yes, if you're telling me to fit into a box
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and not listen to myself
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or not listen to the people in my life, it will never work.
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So that is hard for me
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about the conventional education system, absolutely.
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I had lovingly, as you kind of just put together
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the same mold vid puzzle,
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which is I had a mold exposure.
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I had exposure to COVID and I really think of,
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and I want to do a couple like defining terms
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to help us here, but I really think
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of long COVID as a combination
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of a couple different syndromes.
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One of them is mast cell activation syndrome.
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I'm sure everyone's seen it online, M-C-A-S, M-CAS,
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00:14:44.960 --> 00:14:49.640
we call it POTS, Pustural Orthostatic Techic Hardia Syndrome,
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which is, we'll talk about, and then hypermobility.
381
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So that's kind of an exacerbation
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of hypermobility symptoms.
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This long haul COVID, it's kind of a cluster
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of these different syndromes.
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Some people have one a little more than the other,
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but they deeply connect and relate.
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So I had this mold exposure.
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I was going to the best functional medicine doctors,
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best naturopathic physicians, and just absolutely destroyed,
390
00:15:15.560 --> 00:15:19.240
like you said, destroying myself with mold protocols,
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detoxes, binders, everything.
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I got sicker and sicker.
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00:15:23.640 --> 00:15:26.000
The more I went to functional medicine doctors,
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the sicker I got.
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And really, when I'm talking about these
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people in highly sensitive bodies, Mona, like us,
397
00:15:32.760 --> 00:15:35.080
a one time ago we used to always say about functional medicine,
398
00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:38.240
where the last stop when conventional medicine has failed you.
399
00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:40.560
Well, now the clients I'm seeing have been harmed
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00:15:40.560 --> 00:15:41.840
by functional medicine.
401
00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:43.880
So it's like they did conventional,
402
00:15:43.880 --> 00:15:47.360
they did functional, and now they're sicker than they were before.
403
00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:50.640
And can you imagine paying thousands of dollars
404
00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:55.040
for these advanced tests to then get sicker?
405
00:15:55.040 --> 00:15:57.320
I mean, imagine the heartbreak and the fear in that.
406
00:15:57.320 --> 00:15:59.840
If you're going to the practitioners who people say,
407
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this is the last stop on the train.
408
00:16:01.400 --> 00:16:03.320
So that's really where I've been,
409
00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:05.160
and you said something so beautifully,
410
00:16:05.160 --> 00:16:08.080
which is that it was the protocols themselves
411
00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:09.160
that actually made me sicker.
412
00:16:09.160 --> 00:16:11.040
It wasn't even mold.
413
00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:13.480
It was when I tried to kill the mold that I got sicker.
414
00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:15.680
And I can say why that happens too.
415
00:16:15.680 --> 00:16:20.080
So COVID as a virus attacks our immune system,
416
00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:22.400
as we know, and the organs of our body.
417
00:16:22.400 --> 00:16:25.240
But there was something really weird that happened
418
00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:28.560
after COVID, which is that people stayed fatigued.
419
00:16:28.560 --> 00:16:32.680
Their hearts were racing, hives for months after.
420
00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:34.480
And we just really couldn't understand.
421
00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:37.680
There was one study in 2022 where they did statewide surveys
422
00:16:37.680 --> 00:16:41.720
and they found that up to 30% of people in each state
423
00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:45.040
who had COVID were experiencing long COVID, 30% of people.
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00:16:45.040 --> 00:16:49.240
That could be 100 million Americans who are experiencing it.
425
00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:53.400
So as a definition, our mass cells are a type of immune cell.
426
00:16:53.400 --> 00:16:54.920
They're a type of a white blood cell
427
00:16:54.920 --> 00:17:00.200
that is really involved in connecting our body
428
00:17:00.200 --> 00:17:02.440
with the resources that it needs in times of threat.
429
00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:04.640
It's an immune response.
430
00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:06.000
Basically, the way our mass cells work
431
00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.640
is they're kind of like the guards on the watch tower
432
00:17:09.640 --> 00:17:10.480
of our bodies.
433
00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:13.720
So if there's a battle like COVID, let's say,
434
00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:14.880
mass cells are going to see that.
435
00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:17.680
They're going to deliver resources to the body
436
00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:18.360
where they need it.
437
00:17:18.360 --> 00:17:19.880
And I'll say how they do that.
438
00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:22.040
And then after mass cells are really interesting
439
00:17:22.040 --> 00:17:24.320
because they stay kind of on guard.
440
00:17:24.320 --> 00:17:25.880
They're like very hypervigilant
441
00:17:25.880 --> 00:17:27.480
and they connect to both our immune system
442
00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:28.760
and our nervous system.
443
00:17:28.760 --> 00:17:30.760
So if they sense a threat as coming,
444
00:17:30.760 --> 00:17:33.440
they're going to fire out everything they've got
445
00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:34.720
from an immune perspective.
446
00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.600
The way mass cells work is there's receptors on the outside
447
00:17:37.600 --> 00:17:39.600
and then they have these sacs on the inside
448
00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:41.200
which have all these different chemical messengers
449
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:42.040
inside of them.
450
00:17:42.040 --> 00:17:44.760
Histamine is one of those chemical messengers.
451
00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:46.840
So they will have something attached to the outside
452
00:17:46.840 --> 00:17:49.400
and as a result, mountain immune response.
453
00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:53.360
COVID and mass cells share a commonality
454
00:17:53.360 --> 00:17:55.480
in that one of the receptors on mass cells
455
00:17:55.480 --> 00:17:59.360
are this ACE2 receptor which COVID attacks and attaches to.
456
00:17:59.360 --> 00:18:01.320
So the reason why long COVID happened
457
00:18:01.320 --> 00:18:03.800
is because normally we have an immune response
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00:18:03.800 --> 00:18:06.240
and then our immune system's like, okay, that's done.
459
00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:07.960
But now we have an immune response
460
00:18:07.960 --> 00:18:10.320
and a nervous system response that cycles
461
00:18:10.320 --> 00:18:11.880
and perpetually keeps going.
462
00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:13.760
And the problem is that histamines
463
00:18:13.760 --> 00:18:17.400
and those are only one of about 1,200 messengers
464
00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:19.200
that mass cells send out.
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00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:21.640
Histamine's particularly when there's too much floating
466
00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:26.640
in our bloodstream can create extreme symptoms and people.
467
00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:28.920
It's also learned stress response from the body, right?
468
00:18:28.920 --> 00:18:31.440
If the body adapts to constantly defending itself,
469
00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:35.640
it's gonna get stuck there because it's keeping itself alive, right?
470
00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:38.880
So people started understanding this concept of mass cells,
471
00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:42.000
the concept of a cytokine storm within their bodies.
472
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.400
So they're gradually starting to understand this
473
00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:47.440
but they're not recognizing like just the impact
474
00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:50.920
of the smallest things that they could be doing every single day.
475
00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:53.520
And when we think about that concept of a mass cell,
476
00:18:53.520 --> 00:18:55.800
people always talk about your body defending itself
477
00:18:55.800 --> 00:18:57.120
or attacking itself.
478
00:18:57.120 --> 00:18:59.360
I think it's the most brilliant,
479
00:18:59.360 --> 00:19:03.880
like what a gift, you know, magnificent ability
480
00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:06.560
for your body, it's trying to keep you healthy and safe.
481
00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:10.040
It's trying to re-regulate and move back to resilience, right?
482
00:19:10.040 --> 00:19:12.520
So I'm curious from your perspective in understanding,
483
00:19:12.520 --> 00:19:16.840
let's start with, let's start with MCAS.
484
00:19:16.840 --> 00:19:20.280
Would you say kind of as you start to describe it a little bit,
485
00:19:20.280 --> 00:19:22.120
maybe give our listeners some understanding
486
00:19:22.120 --> 00:19:24.440
of how they can check themselves for this,
487
00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:26.120
is this a modern day problem?
488
00:19:26.120 --> 00:19:28.920
Like did our ancestors have to deal with this?
489
00:19:28.920 --> 00:19:33.920
So the discovery of mass cells at all happened in like 1890s,
490
00:19:34.040 --> 00:19:36.680
the cells, mass cells at all.
491
00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:40.040
The, our understanding when we started publishing like
492
00:19:40.040 --> 00:19:43.920
papers on mass cells and like huge practice papers
493
00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:47.440
was like 2012, 2015, 2016.
494
00:19:47.480 --> 00:19:52.640
So our understanding of it is definitely in its infancy,
495
00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:53.680
but it's really good,
496
00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:56.040
because we have a lot of really juicy information coming out.
497
00:19:56.040 --> 00:19:57.560
That's really helpful.
498
00:19:57.560 --> 00:20:00.720
Do I think that people experience what is probably like
499
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:06.040
mass cell activation disorder MCAD, maybe?
500
00:20:06.040 --> 00:20:09.320
What I think I view MCAS from a spiritual perspective
501
00:20:09.320 --> 00:20:13.080
as humans becoming incongruent with their environment.
502
00:20:13.080 --> 00:20:16.280
So we're incongruent with the amount of stress in our lives
503
00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:21.240
with the extreme amount of like toxins, perfumes,
504
00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:23.800
even like artificial light and all these things.
505
00:20:23.800 --> 00:20:28.760
And it's our body is not able to accommodate those changes.
506
00:20:28.760 --> 00:20:31.760
So I do view MCAS as like a lifestyle
507
00:20:31.760 --> 00:20:35.240
and environmental mismatch from how we're supposed to be living.
508
00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:37.560
So more and more people have it.
509
00:20:37.560 --> 00:20:41.040
And you know, when I first started practicing 11 years ago,
510
00:20:41.040 --> 00:20:42.800
you know, I think about clients back then.
511
00:20:42.800 --> 00:20:45.520
And I'm like maybe one and a hundred of those clients
512
00:20:45.520 --> 00:20:48.120
were like what I would call a histamine type of client.
513
00:20:48.120 --> 00:20:50.400
And it's not just because I'm talking about it now,
514
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:53.440
but all of my practitioner friends who don't work with MCAS at all
515
00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:56.280
are like, are all of my clients have histamine issues now?
516
00:20:56.280 --> 00:20:59.400
So I think that we already were on a slope
517
00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:00.800
of environmental mismatch.
518
00:21:00.800 --> 00:21:03.080
And I think COVID kind of blew us out of the water.
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So I would say yes, more people have it now.
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And the types of stress we have on our physical selves
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and emotional selves is probably more as time goes on.
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I would say.
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Which kind of makes sense, right, you know,
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from an Ayurvedic standpoint.
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We used to talk about these imbalances or dis-ease
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within the body as a process of accumulation.
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And we've been...
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We become like detectives.
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You and I are detectives going through people's lifestyle,
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their food, their supplements, what they're exposed to,
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their emotional beliefs, their thoughts to really uncover
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what are the things that are causing imbalances.
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Would you agree?
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Absolutely.
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I think functional medicine is not random supplements.
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It is pattern recognition.
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Every single person is so different.
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Like Mona, we could have two clients.
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One of my clients can have the exact same symptoms
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as another.
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One of them can have them from eating tomatoes
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because they have a histamine issue.
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While another person's, because they're eating too much fiber,
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like there's literally no way that any one protocol
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would fit both people and understanding anything
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about a person's body is so relevant to the treatment plan
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that there's just no way you could ever apply
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a functional, a true functional medicine
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or a functional nutrition model without extreme detective work
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and kind of putting the puzzle together
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and making those connections.
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My dear friend, new lifelong, where have you been?
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Oh, my life friend, Michelle Shapiro, welcome to Rooted
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in Wellness.
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We have so much to talk about today.
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But let's just start up with the foundation of the podcast.
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So this podcast is really all about ancient wisdom
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in our modern world and how we can become more rooted
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in our self and our health and our happiness.
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So let's start off the episode by talking about
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what are two or three things that help you feel really rooted
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in yourself and in your happiness and in your life?
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I love that.
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So it's been almost corny.
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I've been talking so much about walking.
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And I'm like, why did I get this like huge degree
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and like practice for all these years
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if the whole thing is walking?
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So for myself, if I do not walk a certain amount,
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for me, it's like really 10,000 steps
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is kind of where I landed.
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I just don't feel like myself and I don't feel well.
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So walking is all that.
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So to speak, and for me, it really does make me feel
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rooted and grounded in wellness.
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The other thing I would say is that for me to feel like myself,
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I need to be what I call working the phones.
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So when I'm not with clients and talking to them,
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I'm with my friends and family.
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You will find me on the phone with my friends and family.
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And that is like where I feel the most like myself
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is just listening and talking to the people who see me
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for who I am.
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And it makes me feel anything that makes me feel like myself
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makes me feel grounded.
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So that's where I feel the most like myself
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and the healthiest.
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We're the first person to give such a unique authentic answer.
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Oh my gosh, on the phone with the people that you love,
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the people who see you for who you are,
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like talk about a brilliant way
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for you to just shine your light, right?
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And that's exactly what you do online
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for so many people.
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You are so authentic in the way that you speak.
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And it doesn't come off in an approach
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that is startling to people.
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It really does come from this heart-centered approach.
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So that's a reflection of your community for sure.
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All right, so on the flip side,
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you and I have these insane healing journeys
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which I'm convinced is what keeps us aligned
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with our purpose.
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We'll get to that.
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So you must know in your life when you're drifting from that
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maybe when you're not talking to your try
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when you're not walking,
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do you catch the symptoms or what are the things
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that cause you to feel more uprooted?
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It's whenever I notice a symptom that I know
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that I'm past my baseline.
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So I will actually say and I almost have a joke
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that goes on with my husband where I'll say,
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you know what, I haven't noticed any digestive issues
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in so long and by the time I say that
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is when the digestive issue is coming already.
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So that's when I know is when a symptom shows up.
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I have a very strong communication line
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between and you do as well, Mona, of course,
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between my mind and body.
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So I get those signals and I take them very seriously.
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So I'll start to notice when any of those symptoms come up,
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it's kind of a call to go back home.
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But nothing will disregulate me as much
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as sitting on my phone too much, looking at it.
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Now it's very different if I'm talking to people.
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If I'm looking at my screen, scrolling on Instagram,
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I will face neck pain.
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I will, that will result in some sort of
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disorderly function, which I know we're gonna talk about.
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So for me, that's one of the most
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least grounding things in the world.
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And then I would say, you know,
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before I mentioned what makes me feel grounded
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is feeling like myself.
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If I'm doing things that are out of alignment
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with what I wanna do consistently,
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it's so silly, Mona, but I hate sitting at dinners.
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So I need to like walk around and talk to people.
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I need to, it's the way I like to engage.
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So just sitting down in the same position for that long.
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If I have to do like three dinners in a row, I feel awful.
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So I just know my body and I know myself.
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So I won't book them in a row.
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I'll do a brunch one day if I have to.
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I'll do a dinner and then I say,
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I have to see you next weekend.
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So anytime I'm doing something that I know
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doesn't make me feel good repeatedly,
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even that being out of alignment,
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it really can create some dumps for me.
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Let's take a quick break to talk about something
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that's made a huge difference in my skin health lately.
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A product called one skin.
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If you're like me, always on the hunt for a wellness solution
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for optimizing your skin's health and longevity,
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you need to hear about this one.
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Most skincare products focus on surface level results,
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but one skin goes way deeper,
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working at a cellular level for lasting results.
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They're amazing all women team of skin longevity scientists
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developed OS1 after testing over 900 peptides.
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It's the first ingredient scientifically proven
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to interrupt cellular senescence, a core aging process.
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As we age and get exposed to UV rays,
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our skin cells enter senescence.
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They stop rejuvenating and producing collagen
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and elastin like they should.
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And even worse, they release harmful inflammatory chemicals
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and cause neighboring cells to become dysfunctional too.
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It's like a domino effect that makes our skin age faster
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with deeper wrinkles, thinning, and sagging
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what we all want to avoid.
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But one skin's OS1 switches off these senescence cells,
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getting to the root cause of skin aging.
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It helps our skin stay younger and healthier,
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and since skin is our body's largest organ,
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the health of our skin is absolutely critical
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to our overall health.
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That's why I personally love one skin.
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I've noticed a real difference in the resilience
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and youthfulness of my skin since using it regularly.
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As a rooted in wellness listener,
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you can get 15% off your first order
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with code Mona at 1skin.co slash M-O-N-A.
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I really believe one skin is something
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that can benefit all of us on our journey
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to optimal skin, wellness, longevity,
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and just aging feeling our best.
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Definitely check it out and see the difference it can make for you.
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Remember, go to 1skin.co slash Mona.
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That's o-n-e-s-k-i-n dot-c-o slash M-O-N-A.
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Use code Mona for 15% off.
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Trust me, your skin will thank you.
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Absolutely.
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You've got to come to the West Coast.
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We do walk-in meetings, hiking meetings.
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You're just hiking the Griffith Observatory.
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You're heading me, that's your lunch meeting.
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Yeah, I know.
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Not in New York.
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I love these stuff, because for me as well,
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I feel like there's this resonance within the body
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that just knows.
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It's like our spidey sense is going off.
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Like, oh, there it is again.
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There's that feeling in your neck.
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There's that feeling in your gut or any digestive symptoms.
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Because I think as practitioners,
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we talk about symptoms all day long
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to the people that we work with.
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But I think for the most part of the population,
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because there's so much happening in our world,
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we've become so desensitized to this communication system
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from our body, which is a freaking miracle.
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Let's just say like our body's communicating with us all the time,
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but we've mastered kind of masking the symptoms,
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the emotions, the feelings that come up
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for what we think we should be doing
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instead of what our body's actually asking for.
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So that's probably a good segue.
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So you take on such a unique approach to nutrition,
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and I love that you really blend the world
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of functional nutrition and healing,
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as well as our mindset and how that matters.
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But what led you into that work?
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And why is it so important to break away
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from this like tradition, dietician kind of mentality?
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I remember when I went to school for nutrition,
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it was like the nutritionist against the dieticians
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that like, it's like, no, no, we can go together.
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But tell us about your story.
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Yeah, I have lovingly called myself
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the anti-dietician dietician a little bit.
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I definitely believe that every single one of us
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has a seed at the table,
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and we are in such desperate need of healers
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and people who want to help others.
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So for one person to diss someone else
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and this kind of like credentialism obsessed world we live
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and I think is completely ridiculous.
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And I think that we should all be so grateful
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that there are people who want to take their time
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to help others and we should welcome help
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from every single person.
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So that's just let me have to say about that
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because I'm really, really passionate about it.
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Yeah, so I went to, I grew up in Queens, New York.
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I'll kind of weave my personal and health story together.
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I grew up in Queens, one of the most diverse,
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amazing places in the entire world.
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And I always lived in a larger body when I was younger.
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When I was going off to college,
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I kind of realized that as I'm going to college,
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it's not gonna be as like,
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it's gonna be much more homogenous place.
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And in Queens, people are really valued
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for their uniqueness.
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Like it was like cool to be different
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in New York City growing up, you know?
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So for myself, like, you know, gender identity,
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racial identity, body size,
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there was so, there was 5,000 kids in my high school.
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So it's like, there's so many different types of everyone
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that whatever made you stand out was actually, you know,
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an advantage, but I realized I was going to school
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at the University of Delaware,
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which is a much more homogenous place.
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And I realized like, if I don't lose weight
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before I go to school, I will not be socially accepted.
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Like people don't know that I'm Michelle Shapiro,
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class clown, like they don't know these things about me.
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It didn't inhibit me in my younger life,
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but it didn't inhibit me going, you know,
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when I was going to school.
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So I lost, and this is like a trigger warning,
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I would never recommend this,
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but I lost close to 100 pounds before I went away to school.
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And it was probably in like a year's timeframe
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through disorder eating and starvation.
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The entire time I was at college, Mona, I was sick.
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I had hypothyroidism, acid reflux,
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severe gut issues, severe panic attacks.
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That would happen several times a day
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with vomiting, like severe symptoms.
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And every doctor I went to was like,
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why don't you lose those last five?
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And really what it was,
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my body was so dysregulated from that extreme stress
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and that extreme weight loss that it led me into
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basically being chronically ill.
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The rest of my adult life,
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and I couldn't understand it until I sought the help
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of a naturopathic physician, Dr. Robert Kochbo,
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who became one of my besties by force.
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I was in that session with him,
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and I was like, we're done now.
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I was like, we are best friends for life now.
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You're not just my doctor,
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but it was when he kind of sat, we did a Dutch test,
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and we kind of looked at everything.
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It was a 90 minute initial session
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that I think we went over into the two-hour range,
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and I was like, oh, this is what I'm actually supposed
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to be doing, because traditional dietetics schooling
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didn't sit well with me,
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and I often complained.
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I worked in nursing homes,
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and the last straw for me
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of why left conventional dietetics was,
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I would not give ensure to long-term care patients.
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I just felt like it was very counter
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to what the work that I wanted to do.
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And then I left to pursue functional health
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as I had my own healing journey.
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I then wanted to help people in the same way.
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I had kind of a second health crisis.
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A couple years ago, we'll talk about two related
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to histamines and long COVID,
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but that was what led me initially
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into functional dietetics versus
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that conventional dietetics grade, which I have.
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But so important.
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And I think that says just a lot about you,
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because often we go into these big school systems,
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and there's a one cookie cutter approach
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to how we're approaching healing and well-being.
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But that's the exact approach that got me sick,
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thinking that I had to do something
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in a certain way to heal.
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And a lot of like the research, I don't know about you,
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but the textbooks that we had,
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they're like so antiquated, right?
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So I love that you said that this idea of conformity
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and you as a kid, how that has also now
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blood into how you lead as a leader
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and a healer in this world.
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And I think that says a lot because when people look at,
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practitioners like you and I,
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I think the misconception is that we've arrived.
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Here's pillar health.
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This is what it is.
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But I swear I got like every weird genetic thing
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that came up, like I'm this highly sensitive person,
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which we'll talk about.
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And like I'm just affected by the weird stuff,
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but I'm kind of changing the lens
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in which I look at that, one to not conform
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to the other healers that are out there.
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I think you and I are here for a reason
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to kind of deliver a message based on our healing.
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And the fact that we're on this path
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because it keeps us students,
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it keeps us in practice for all of those things.
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So I love that you have that approach, especially.
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So let's flesh forward then.
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You and I share the story of COVID.
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COVID was, I thought it was fine.
332
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COVID felt fine for me.
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My body was strong and resilient
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to fortunately not have the same symptoms
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as a lot of other people did.
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But I didn't realize that I went into long haulers COVID.
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And that long haulers COVID that ended up,
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I think I was just way more,
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my new system was just so compromised
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that I became predisposed mold.
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I had full mold exposure in my apartment.
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So this is over two years.
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COVID, long haulers, mold exposure,
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and I've shared this on the podcast before,
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getting over mold doing all the hardcore protocols.
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The exact same thing that got me sick, hardcore protocols.
347
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Now depleting even more, I stripped my system.
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I probably gutted all the amazing microbes
349
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and my gut microbiome with all these binders and modalities
350
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and stuff like that in order to heal.
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And now it's been a process of rebuilding.
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So share your story from that
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because the timing of you kind of
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gaining so much traction online
355
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was with the rise of understanding long haulers COVID,
356
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but also histamine response.
357
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Thank you for saying everything you just said.
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First of all, I'm literally actively nodding
359
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so hard and closing my mouth
360
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because I'm like, oh my God, Mona, I want to,
361
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what you just said is so beautiful.
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First of all, the conformist thing
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that you picked up on that, I'm very, very non-conformist.
364
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So yes, if you're telling me to fit into a box
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and not listen to myself
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or not listen to the people in my life, it will never work.
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So that is hard for me
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about the conventional education system, absolutely.
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I had lovingly, as you kind of just put together
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the same mold vid puzzle,
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which is I had a mold exposure.
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I had exposure to COVID and I really think of,
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and I want to do a couple like defining terms
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to help us here, but I really think
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of long COVID as a combination
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of a couple different syndromes.
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One of them is mast cell activation syndrome.
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00:14:41.800 --> 00:14:44.960
I'm sure everyone's seen it online, M-C-A-S, M-CAS,
379
00:14:44.960 --> 00:14:49.640
we call it POTS, Pustural Orthostatic Techic Hardia Syndrome,
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which is, we'll talk about, and then hypermobility.
381
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So that's kind of an exacerbation
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of hypermobility symptoms.
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This long haul COVID, it's kind of a cluster
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of these different syndromes.
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Some people have one a little more than the other,
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but they deeply connect and relate.
387
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So I had this mold exposure.
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I was going to the best functional medicine doctors,
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best naturopathic physicians, and just absolutely destroyed,
390
00:15:15.560 --> 00:15:19.240
like you said, destroying myself with mold protocols,
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detoxes, binders, everything.
392
00:15:22.160 --> 00:15:23.640
I got sicker and sicker.
393
00:15:23.640 --> 00:15:26.000
The more I went to functional medicine doctors,
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the sicker I got.
395
00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:29.240
And really, when I'm talking about these
396
00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:31.800
people in highly sensitive bodies, Mona, like us,
397
00:15:32.760 --> 00:15:35.080
a one time ago we used to always say about functional medicine,
398
00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:38.240
where the last stop when conventional medicine has failed you.
399
00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:40.560
Well, now the clients I'm seeing have been harmed
400
00:15:40.560 --> 00:15:41.840
by functional medicine.
401
00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:43.880
So it's like they did conventional,
402
00:15:43.880 --> 00:15:47.360
they did functional, and now they're sicker than they were before.
403
00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:50.640
And can you imagine paying thousands of dollars
404
00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:55.040
for these advanced tests to then get sicker?
405
00:15:55.040 --> 00:15:57.320
I mean, imagine the heartbreak and the fear in that.
406
00:15:57.320 --> 00:15:59.840
If you're going to the practitioners who people say,
407
00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:01.360
this is the last stop on the train.
408
00:16:01.400 --> 00:16:03.320
So that's really where I've been,
409
00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:05.160
and you said something so beautifully,
410
00:16:05.160 --> 00:16:08.080
which is that it was the protocols themselves
411
00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:09.160
that actually made me sicker.
412
00:16:09.160 --> 00:16:11.040
It wasn't even mold.
413
00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:13.480
It was when I tried to kill the mold that I got sicker.
414
00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:15.680
And I can say why that happens too.
415
00:16:15.680 --> 00:16:20.080
So COVID as a virus attacks our immune system,
416
00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:22.400
as we know, and the organs of our body.
417
00:16:22.400 --> 00:16:25.240
But there was something really weird that happened
418
00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:28.560
after COVID, which is that people stayed fatigued.
419
00:16:28.560 --> 00:16:32.680
Their hearts were racing, hives for months after.
420
00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:34.480
And we just really couldn't understand.
421
00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:37.680
There was one study in 2022 where they did statewide surveys
422
00:16:37.680 --> 00:16:41.720
and they found that up to 30% of people in each state
423
00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:45.040
who had COVID were experiencing long COVID, 30% of people.
424
00:16:45.040 --> 00:16:49.240
That could be 100 million Americans who are experiencing it.
425
00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:53.400
So as a definition, our mass cells are a type of immune cell.
426
00:16:53.400 --> 00:16:54.920
They're a type of a white blood cell
427
00:16:54.920 --> 00:17:00.200
that is really involved in connecting our body
428
00:17:00.200 --> 00:17:02.440
with the resources that it needs in times of threat.
429
00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:04.640
It's an immune response.
430
00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:06.000
Basically, the way our mass cells work
431
00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.640
is they're kind of like the guards on the watch tower
432
00:17:09.640 --> 00:17:10.480
of our bodies.
433
00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:13.720
So if there's a battle like COVID, let's say,
434
00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:14.880
mass cells are going to see that.
435
00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:17.680
They're going to deliver resources to the body
436
00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:18.360
where they need it.
437
00:17:18.360 --> 00:17:19.880
And I'll say how they do that.
438
00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:22.040
And then after mass cells are really interesting
439
00:17:22.040 --> 00:17:24.320
because they stay kind of on guard.
440
00:17:24.320 --> 00:17:25.880
They're like very hypervigilant
441
00:17:25.880 --> 00:17:27.480
and they connect to both our immune system
442
00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:28.760
and our nervous system.
443
00:17:28.760 --> 00:17:30.760
So if they sense a threat as coming,
444
00:17:30.760 --> 00:17:33.440
they're going to fire out everything they've got
445
00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:34.720
from an immune perspective.
446
00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.600
The way mass cells work is there's receptors on the outside
447
00:17:37.600 --> 00:17:39.600
and then they have these sacs on the inside
448
00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:41.200
which have all these different chemical messengers
449
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:42.040
inside of them.
450
00:17:42.040 --> 00:17:44.760
Histamine is one of those chemical messengers.
451
00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:46.840
So they will have something attached to the outside
452
00:17:46.840 --> 00:17:49.400
and as a result, mountain immune response.
453
00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:53.360
COVID and mass cells share a commonality
454
00:17:53.360 --> 00:17:55.480
in that one of the receptors on mass cells
455
00:17:55.480 --> 00:17:59.360
are this ACE2 receptor which COVID attacks and attaches to.
456
00:17:59.360 --> 00:18:01.320
So the reason why long COVID happened
457
00:18:01.320 --> 00:18:03.800
is because normally we have an immune response
458
00:18:03.800 --> 00:18:06.240
and then our immune system's like, okay, that's done.
459
00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:07.960
But now we have an immune response
460
00:18:07.960 --> 00:18:10.320
and a nervous system response that cycles
461
00:18:10.320 --> 00:18:11.880
and perpetually keeps going.
462
00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:13.760
And the problem is that histamines
463
00:18:13.760 --> 00:18:17.400
and those are only one of about 1,200 messengers
464
00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:19.200
that mass cells send out.
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00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:21.640
Histamine's particularly when there's too much floating
466
00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:26.640
in our bloodstream can create extreme symptoms and people.
467
00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:28.920
It's also learned stress response from the body, right?
468
00:18:28.920 --> 00:18:31.440
If the body adapts to constantly defending itself,
469
00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:35.640
it's gonna get stuck there because it's keeping itself alive, right?
470
00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:38.880
So people started understanding this concept of mass cells,
471
00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:42.000
the concept of a cytokine storm within their bodies.
472
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.400
So they're gradually starting to understand this
473
00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:47.440
but they're not recognizing like just the impact
474
00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:50.920
of the smallest things that they could be doing every single day.
475
00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:53.520
And when we think about that concept of a mass cell,
476
00:18:53.520 --> 00:18:55.800
people always talk about your body defending itself
477
00:18:55.800 --> 00:18:57.120
or attacking itself.
478
00:18:57.120 --> 00:18:59.360
I think it's the most brilliant,
479
00:18:59.360 --> 00:19:03.880
like what a gift, you know, magnificent ability
480
00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:06.560
for your body, it's trying to keep you healthy and safe.
481
00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:10.040
It's trying to re-regulate and move back to resilience, right?
482
00:19:10.040 --> 00:19:12.520
So I'm curious from your perspective in understanding,
483
00:19:12.520 --> 00:19:16.840
let's start with, let's start with MCAS.
484
00:19:16.840 --> 00:19:20.280
Would you say kind of as you start to describe it a little bit,
485
00:19:20.280 --> 00:19:22.120
maybe give our listeners some understanding
486
00:19:22.120 --> 00:19:24.440
of how they can check themselves for this,
487
00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:26.120
is this a modern day problem?
488
00:19:26.120 --> 00:19:28.920
Like did our ancestors have to deal with this?
489
00:19:28.920 --> 00:19:33.920
So the discovery of mass cells at all happened in like 1890s,
490
00:19:34.040 --> 00:19:36.680
the cells, mass cells at all.
491
00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:40.040
The, our understanding when we started publishing like
492
00:19:40.040 --> 00:19:43.920
papers on mass cells and like huge practice papers
493
00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:47.440
was like 2012, 2015, 2016.
494
00:19:47.480 --> 00:19:52.640
So our understanding of it is definitely in its infancy,
495
00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:53.680
but it's really good,
496
00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:56.040
because we have a lot of really juicy information coming out.
497
00:19:56.040 --> 00:19:57.560
That's really helpful.
498
00:19:57.560 --> 00:20:00.720
Do I think that people experience what is probably like
499
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:06.040
mass cell activation disorder MCAD, maybe?
500
00:20:06.040 --> 00:20:09.320
What I think I view MCAS from a spiritual perspective
501
00:20:09.320 --> 00:20:13.080
as humans becoming incongruent with their environment.
502
00:20:13.080 --> 00:20:16.280
So we're incongruent with the amount of stress in our lives
503
00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:21.240
with the extreme amount of like toxins, perfumes,
504
00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:23.800
even like artificial light and all these things.
505
00:20:23.800 --> 00:20:28.760
And it's our body is not able to accommodate those changes.
506
00:20:28.760 --> 00:20:31.760
So I do view MCAS as like a lifestyle
507
00:20:31.760 --> 00:20:35.240
and environmental mismatch from how we're supposed to be living.
508
00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:37.560
So more and more people have it.
509
00:20:37.560 --> 00:20:41.040
And you know, when I first started practicing 11 years ago,
510
00:20:41.040 --> 00:20:42.800
you know, I think about clients back then.
511
00:20:42.800 --> 00:20:45.520
And I'm like maybe one and a hundred of those clients
512
00:20:45.520 --> 00:20:48.120
were like what I would call a histamine type of client.
513
00:20:48.120 --> 00:20:50.400
And it's not just because I'm talking about it now,
514
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:53.440
but all of my practitioner friends who don't work with MCAS at all
515
00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:56.280
are like, are all of my clients have histamine issues now?
516
00:20:56.280 --> 00:20:59.400
So I think that we already were on a slope
517
00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:00.800
of environmental mismatch.
518
00:21:00.800 --> 00:21:03.080
And I think COVID kind of blew us out of the water.
519
00:21:03.080 --> 00:21:07.080
So I would say yes, more people have it now.
520
00:21:07.080 --> 00:21:10.160
And the types of stress we have on our physical selves
521
00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:13.480
and emotional selves is probably more as time goes on.
522
00:21:13.480 --> 00:21:14.360
I would say.
523
00:21:14.360 --> 00:21:16.080
Which kind of makes sense, right, you know,
524
00:21:16.080 --> 00:21:18.320
from an Ayurvedic standpoint.
525
00:21:18.320 --> 00:21:20.400
We used to talk about these imbalances or dis-ease
526
00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:23.360
within the body as a process of accumulation.
527
00:21:23.360 --> 00:21:24.360
And we've been...
