The Apex Podcast

Empowering Holistic Health: Unpacking Chiropractic Wisdom, Nutrition Secrets, and the Art of Natural Wellness

January 29, 2024 • Apex Communications Network

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Step away from the medicine cabinet and into the world of holistic healing with Dr. Lexie Taylor, who brings a wealth of knowledge from the chiropractic field, focused on nutrition and natural wellness. Imagine a world where your diet is your prescription and your lifestyle your therapy. This episode promises an enlightening exploration into alternative healthcare and a new perspective on managing your well-being. Together, we peel back the layers of conventional Western medicine and reveal how everyday choices can significantly impact your health.

Dr. Taylor and I dissect the intricacies of food labels, unmask the benefits of organic eating, and unravel the mysteries of gut health. We share tips on steering clear of the snares of processed foods, the deceptive allure of seed oils, and why gut flora could be your mental health's best friend.

We also discuss your body's toxic load, hormonal fluctuations, and the profound effects of diet on both your sleep patterns and energy levels. With personal anecdotes sprinkled throughout, this episode is a veritable feast for those hungry to understand the true impact of what they put on their plate.

As we wrap up, Dr. Taylor opens up about the often underestimated and misunderstood challenges posed by parasites, shining a light on their significant role in chronic health issues.

The vision behind Connected Nutrition unfolds, a beacon of hope in a post-pandemic era, aiming to empower you with the tools for a more holistic approach to health. Tune in for this treasure trove of insights that could very well be the catalyst for a healthier, more vibrant you.

Learn more about Dr. Taylor by visiting: https://www.connectednutrition.co/

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Speaker 1:

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Apex podcast. As always, I am your host, John Almacy, and today we are going to be diving down a rabbit hole on health. I'm sitting across the table today from Dr Lexi Taylor. Dr Taylor, thank you for coming to hang out today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

So why don't we start off just by explaining a little bit about how you ended up becoming passionate about what you do? We've worked together for context for everybody that's listening. We've spent the last about a year working together launching your business, connected Nutrition, and I'm not gonna give away the spoilers about what Connected Nutrition actually does and all of the things, because we'll be getting into that over the course of this episode. But you are a chiropractor, so how long have you been interested in holistic health in chiropractic? What really drove that interest, and has it been something since childhood or did it come later in life?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I was first introduced to the holistic healing and alternative healing world from a very young age, even before high school. Quickly I realized that's what I wanted to do with my life. So I went to chiropractic school, obviously learned a lot more there, got really submerged in things and from there I continued learning and the more I got involved in it I realized that the nutrition aspect of things is where we could really flourish and you can do so much healing with people. And that's where I realized that I want to teach people and help them learn how they can heal their bodies naturally instead of going kind of the traditional Western medicine outside of things.

Speaker 1:

So that's actually a good maybe. That's a good differentiator to start with, everybody that may be listening and they think medicine is medicine. And then they start to hear like Eastern or Ayurvedic medicines and then they think Western. So when you say Western medicine, what does that mean to you?

Speaker 2:

So I mean, traditional Western medicine is just, we don't have solutions for things. It's a pill, okay, you have this going on. Well, that means this here's a medication we're not looking into certain diet, so like looking at symptoms a lot. Yeah, we're not looking into diet alternatives. How else can we heal this without a medication?

Speaker 2:

All of these medications have side effects and I see people all the time. I see patients who are on five, six, even 10 different medications and we have no idea how those are interacting with one another. And then we start getting medications just to treat symptoms from other medications and it's a huge rabbit hole that does not need to be there.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, yeah, I always think of when I think of and for those of you that are listening that maybe just associate my background with podcasting and entrepreneurship and stuff.

Speaker 1:

In the past life I was an RN. That's what I went to school for. I spent three years working in ERs and ICUs and we used to see that all the time, especially what you just said about prescribing a medication for the side effect of another medication. And then it gets even more complicated when you're hospitalized and then we're giving you medications on top of all of your at-home medications and we have to stop things while you're in the hospital and try to restart them when you're getting ready to leave, and there's all of these. They say non-compliance issues and stuff like that, but it's really what I find drives the most non-compliance quote unquote is people not being able to bear the side effects of the medication, and so to them it's like do I take the medication that the physicians are saying is supposed to help me that is making me feel worse or do I stop taking the medication and run the risk of whatever this disease process is?

Speaker 2:

And it's simple things the cholesterol medications. You know we're just putting people on statins every day, putting them on a cholesterol medication, when we don't even mention, hey, change your diet a little bit, start exercising, and that can change things 100% for you and you don't have to start this medication.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I've seen that a lot with my dad.

Speaker 1:

My dad's a type two diabetic and we've been working and he's been on everything from starting off with the metformin base right, and then going to like genuvia or ozempic now, which is like the big thing, and all these other kind of stuff, right, yeah, yeah, which is crazy to me because it's like marketing towards the type two diabetics but also off brand marketed as a weight loss drug and that's like its own slew of issues, right. But I've noticed with him, just getting him and he's almost 70 years old just getting him back into a routine of I'm gonna walk 30 minutes a day and not like gentle pace, like I'm gonna push myself into that zone two cardio level and for those of you that don't know a zone two cardio is, it's basically a level of exercise where you are, you're strained enough for breath that you couldn't have like a conversation with somebody, but you're not so out of breath that you're like gonna pass out. Right. That's been way more helpful than a lot of medications that he's tried over the years.

Speaker 2:

Something as simple as that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, something as simple as walking.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that's kind of the Western medication side or the Western medicine side. What is the other side? Is it just looking at things from a broader perspective and, to your point, incorporating stuff like diet, exercise and things of that?

Speaker 2:

It is, yeah, and it's a whole learning curve really, because people are not introduced to this from a young age and there's a lot of aspects to it. So, with the people that I work with, I like to start off with talking about diet. Very simple things like making sure you're eating breakfast, making sure you're getting protein in in the mornings, not drinking coffee on an empty stomach. So it is a very holistic thing talking about those certain diet and lifestyle things. Lifestyle things would be, if you're having issues regulating blood sugar or even hormonally, taking a walk after your meals. A 10 minute walk after your meals, just moving, can help to regulate that blood sugar a little bit, just giving those little tips and tricks that people aren't aware of.

Speaker 2:

As far as diet goes, we really dive into what people are eating because they're just not aware of what better alternatives are at this point. So, and then first other things we'll talk about certain supplementations that can help, because our food is significantly decreased in nutrients in terms of where it used to be, even just 10 years ago. We do not get half the nutrients, the vitamins and minerals that we used to in our food, so a lot of people ask me why do we have to supplement?

Speaker 2:

Why is there a point where we need to start supplementation? Because we just can't get the nutrients like we used to? So, it is a must for almost everybody.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think a really easy to recognize example is I try to talk to people about that as well the at least the nutrient devoid food right, growing up on more of like a farm and like growing all of our own food and everything like that. I think a really easy example for people is asking them what color they think an egg yolk is, you know, and depending on whether they answer bright, yellow or dark orange.

Speaker 1:

Yeah is really kind of a big differentiator between how many, how much, or the nutrient dense, how nutrient dense that egg actually is even just learning the difference.

Speaker 2:

That's something that I talked with patients a lot about too. When you're doing eggs, you know they should be pasture raised eggs. It shouldn't be cage-free. Those cage-free chickens are still not outside. They're not eating bugs, they're not in the grass, they're not in the natural sunlight. So pasture raised is really where it's at, and it's those little itty-bitty tips and tricks that really makes all the difference.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which actually that's probably a good, a good time to jump into Nutrition labels. So that's something that, like I mean before we were turning on the mics and stuff like that, though that we've talked about extensively through it the last year of building connected nutrition, which we'll still get to. We'll find out what connected nutrition is all about here in a little bit. But Nutrition labels what? What are things that people can look at? You've already kind of said, okay, this is the difference between cage-free and pasture raised, right. Are there other Like designations, whether it's organic, non organic or other labels that people can look for is like oh, this is something that you know. Maybe not every time, I can guarantee this is a great product, but these are good clues that this is something that would be beneficial.

Speaker 2:

Right. As far as organic and non organic goes, I definitely have a preference to do all organic, everything. If that's not in your budget or within your means, then you can always Look up the dirty dozen in the clean 15 the dirty dozen interesting.

Speaker 1:

I've never heard of those.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the dirty dozen is the most heavily sprayed with pesticide foods, so those are the ones that you always want to get organic. That's kind of a non negotiable. The clean 15 are ones that really aren't that heavily sprayed or they have thicker skins on them, on those fruits and vegetables, so they're not as easily penetrated with those pesticides.

Speaker 2:

Okay so the dirty dozen in clean 15. Look it up. There's lots of things out there. You can find Infographics super easily on those and then and they come out with a new one every year too, I believe. And then, as far as ingredient labels go, we really want to avoid Processed foods as much as possible. Ideally, when you're grocery shopping, stay on the edge of the grocery store, right. Don't go on those inside aisles where all the process junk is, if you do need to go in there, because it's not always possible for everybody to do 100% whole foods right.

Speaker 2:

Right so if you do have to go into those, those middle aisles, checking the labels, salad dressings are a really big one. So, salad dressings, you need to look at the oil that's used.

Speaker 1:

You don't want to be using Sunflower oil, or I know there's a lot of soybean oil and stuff too, yeah, so I oils that sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

You really ruin my life.

Speaker 1:

when I realized that branch was like 90% soybean oil, I was like oh no. Now I just get the packets and mix it with buttermilk.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, our canola oil. So you really want to go for extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil? There's always certain brands that I point to that are better than others, that always have clean products. So you know, if we talk about those brands, it's easy just to stick with those when you know that they're clean brands and they do their due diligence and using the right ingredients.

Speaker 1:

So what is what is a big? I mean, if oil is such a big thing, that's inside of the Salad dressings that we're looking for and stuff like that. Is it that you know the canolas and the other seed oils and stuff like that? Are they More inflammatory than the avocado oil and the olive oil, or you know? I guess what is the benefit of actually using the other oils versus Falling into that trap?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, those oils are very inflammatory. They don't contain as much omega-3s, they're more omega-6s. Those omega-3s are the good fatty acids those omega-6s. Omega-9s you need them to an extent because you need a good ratio, but it creates a lot of inflammation in the body when we're overdoing it. And even with processed foods like chips and anything like that, they're always using soybean oil, canola oil, that sort of thing, so you're getting it in a lot more than you recognize. So it's not something that you want to Intently purchase right, especially if you.

Speaker 1:

I know that when I worked in food service the majority of restaurants are cooking in canola oils, you know, and large oil fryers and stuff like that. If you're getting fried foods, you know, bars, things of that nature. Most of the time your fries are cooked in in Like canola and other seed oils and stuff like that. So it's not just the products that you're buying at the store, it's Because it's so cheaply created and mass produced. It's. It's a lot of different places. So if you're eating out three nights a week and you're covered is stacked with these oils, you're just getting hit from all sides right, then that's pretty much all you're getting in.

Speaker 1:

If that's the case, right, right, I like the. I like the analogy. I never would have thought of it this way. I like the analogy of avoiding the middle aisles. I've never really thought about, like the layout of the way into the grocery store is actually set up. But now I, as soon as you said that, I'm picturing like walking into the giant eagle and like the left-hand side all being produce and the fridges, and like the Vegetables sitting out with the little automated sprayers and stuff like that, and then you slowly go to the right and it just gets more and more Processed until you reach the opposite side and it's all the frozen foods right, I never would have caught that.

Speaker 2:

Those outside aisles sticking to produce meat and seafood is always, you know, on the outside of the store on the other side you have your dairy, your eggs, all of that.

Speaker 1:

So just sticking to those outside aisles and only going to the inside aisles for maybe those couple things that you need to stock up on here and there right, right, I'm wondering you know, if somebody Goes to Trying to figure out how to phrase this question If somebody were to start googling, you know ways to Be more health conscious, right? I'm sure that there's probably you know a couple of different categories that you typically address with people. Could you speak to what some of those, like I guess, main buckets of knowledge might be? Or or, you know where people could start that rabbit hole if they wanted to start doing some of their own research?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so focusing on gut health is a big one, because everything is stemming from the gut, right. So that goes into diet. Checking your nutrition labels, making sure you don't have all those inflammatory foods. There's not loads of processed sugars in those foods that you're taking in.

Speaker 1:

I know looking like enriched is a big phrase with like flowers and sugars and stuff like that. If it's enriched, I know that that's like a flag word.

Speaker 2:

Right. So the enriched is where they're pretty much taking all the good stuff out and they're putting fake nutrients and fake vitamins back in which the issue with that is that your body doesn't recognize it, it doesn't absorb it readily and it's just not good quality it's. It's a fake synthetic vitamin that your body Doesn't really know what to do with right. That's why I really push whole food supplements when we're doing any sort of supplementation right Right so, focusing on gut health, that's a big one.

Speaker 2:

Just diet, taking certain probiotics Not for everybody always, but most people should be doing a probiotic. Digestive enzymes are a great one. Talking about environmental toxins too, that's a big one. We're constantly bombarded with toxins every day. So taking an inventory of what you're using in your home your certain cleaners, maybe candles or fragrance products, laundry detergents, fabric softeners, what you're putting on your skin every day, right, your shampoos, your body washes, any lotions those are. Your skin is the largest organ of the body.

Speaker 1:

I love that fact. That's one of my favorite facts, because people are always so surprised when you say that. They're like my skin is an organ and I'm like, yeah, it's permeable, it can absorb things, it has a protective measure.

Speaker 2:

So skin is the largest organ of the body and then the liver is the largest organ in the body. So, and those are the both, both of the organs that have to process right, all of those toxins that you're constantly exposed to so gut health, environmental toxins and just general diet and nutrition. Those are the really basic building blocks of things, and if you can get those in check, everything else is going to follow.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, you. You use this phrase a couple of different times when we've talked. I want to say it's toxic load, is the phrase um? Could you dive into a little bit of about what Toxic load is and how people can could think about that like a way that they could picture their toxic load?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, everybody's toxic load is a little bit different. I like to explain it as a bucket, right, because everyone's bucket is a little bit different than someone else's. People who are really paying attention to these products and using clean products, eating clean, their toxic load is going to be a little bit less. When people just aren't aware of these things, right, it's not a bad thing. We just want to bring awareness to it and make people educated on it, because you can't do better unless you know better. So we're trying to educate on that.

Speaker 1:

I'll have to pull click on that. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2:

So trying to educate on it. So if you're not educated on any of this stuff, your toxic load, your bucket, is going to be overflowing Right, and you have to make sure that those certain Detox pathways are open. So somebody who's Detox pathways are not open, their toxic load is completely overflowing, their buckets overflowing. This has nowhere else to go.

Speaker 2:

So this is when you start experiencing symptoms too, If it's related to toxic load in terms of everything, so you can get skin rashes, you can get acne, low energy, bloating, fatigue. These are things that most people experience on a day-to-day basis. The majority of my patients have digestive issues, they don't have great energy, they don't sleep great. So these are the very basic things that you need to function every day, and it's crazy to me that people are going day-to-day Feeling like total crap.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I. So the Browns just played this past weekend right and we don't need to talk about the game.

Speaker 1:

But I I try to eat relatively clean and not more so, for, like you know, you know, I'm not an athlete anymore. I'm not powerlifting, I'm not doing any of this other stuff. But I notice, when I go to a football party, I have a couple of beers, some buffalo chicken dip, you know, I have a couple pieces of pizza. I Sleep almost the entire next day, right Like I have to make sure, and I'm glad that football games happen on weekends right.

Speaker 1:

I'm not like going to Monday night football and picking out because I know I have to go to work the next day. And I would be. I would be terrible, I'd be a terrible human being the next day. I would be grouchy, I would not have energy, like I would not feel good. Um, and I talked to you know friends of mine and that is their day-to-day right. And then I start to think and, and you double-clicked on something that you makes me think of mental health as well. It's, you know, western medicine is treating a lot of mental health issues with SSRIs and with anti-anxiety medications and all this other stuff. And I will die on a mountain by saying that I think that the majority of, and as somebody that suffers from ADHD and anxiety, like the majority of ADHD, anxiety and maybe depression. Depression is a little bit different. There are a lot of like genetic implications with depression, but I think a lot of those first two could be solved by good sleep.

Speaker 2:

And even gut health right the majority of your serotonin is produced in the gut right there. When I tell people that, and even in terms of seasonal depression, vitamin D, I see people every day. Their vitamin D levels are 13,. Right For reference, I really like to see it about between 50 and 70. And I've seen people as low as 13.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a huge issue. So you know, vitamin D is a hormone and everybody forgets that too. So just these little things that are so important that we need to make sure these basic nutrients are shocked up in your body. They're at those good levels and not just within the traditional Western medicine ranges, because 30 is really the low end of the range for Western medicine, but that's not quite. It's just not enough for everybody.

Speaker 1:

There's a difference between like being in the range and being like healthy. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And there's a difference between low end of range and you know this is really optimal for your body's function and we want to be in that optimal range.

Speaker 1:

Right, and everybody's optimal range, I'm sure, is different. You know, I know people you know some of the guys that I serve in the military with. They could run on four to six hours for an extended period of time and be fine. And then there's other people that I know that if they're not getting 11 hours of sleep a night, they're terrifying to be around, and I always thought that that was just like a mentality thing. And then I started going down a rabbit hole and there's actually genetic factors that determine, like, how long your body can go in an optimal state of health with reduced sleep, and there's different people that can handle different thresholds and stuff.

Speaker 1:

I want to go back to you saying that vitamin D is a hormone, because I think that's something else that I see, at least my algorithm is bombarding me with stuff all the time about hormones. I'm not sure what anybody else's algorithms look like, but that seems to be something that is a huge topic of discussion right now is, you know, on top of all these diet and lifestyle things, you know the way that soybean oil affects estrogen levels, you know, and stuff like that. So maybe we opened up the hormone Pandora's box here and what are some of the things that you encounter the most consistently when it comes to hormones, and how do you tend to approach that bucket of conversation? Yeah, when it comes to hormones.

Speaker 2:

I really find that people don't know what normal is. They don't know what that should look like. So this really especially goes for females and relating to cycles. I'll ask somebody you know, how is your cycle? We'll say, oh yep, it's fine, it's normal. Well, when we dive into it, it's not. It's maybe 40, 50 days total cycle length. They're having really heavy cramping, they're feeling terrible, they're having these awful mood swings and that's not normal. We've really normalized, even going back to gut health a little bit. We've normalized bloating, having indigestion, constipation, stomach pain right, we see that all the time on social media. They're making shirts talking about stomach pain being normal.

Speaker 1:

And what I just saw? A sweatshirt not too long ago they said tummy ache survivor.

Speaker 2:

On it, yeah right it's, and then there's also a pill for that you know.

Speaker 1:

Look at that there's. There's a medication for it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and the traditional you know traditional medicine doesn't really know how to solve it. Gi docs they're not doing a great job at this and it's really easy to fix. I see these people all the time Going back to hormones again. So just realizing what normal is and kind of putting people in the right direction. And even when we're unloading that toxic burden, opening up drainage pathways, these hormones can naturally fall into place because your liver has to detox that estrogen. So that's a really important part in it.

Speaker 1:

Right, right. Well, so when you say your liver has to detox that estrogen, you meaning that your liver has to try to, like, correct your levels, or what is it detoxing?

Speaker 2:

Exactly so. Your estrogen goes through three different detox phases in the liver. Certain pathways are more favorable than others. This is also what we look at when we do our Dutch testing. We look at those hormone pathways and how estrogen is being detoxified in the body. If it's not going down the proper pathways, then it creates free radicals in the body which are are damaging to the body. We have to go in and fix that. We have to use up antioxidants and glutathione to fix those free radicals. So the liver's job is really important in terms of basic hormone function.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear that phrase a lot. You know the free radicals moving into your body and stuff like that and from my understanding, free radicals are kind of their inflammatory right and they're a by products of. I'm not trying to piece it together, but it's always different things, right?

Speaker 2:

Free radicals are pretty much these unstable elements in the body. So those elements just have to be corrected. And if we don't correct them, if we don't have proper antioxidants in the body to do so, then these lead to things in the long term like cancer and like disease. Right, Right, Right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because your body doesn't just doesn't know what to do with them. Yeah, because and that's something just in science in general like it's always going to find something to attach to, you know, or your body's going to have to deal with it in some way. There's no, your body's always on a constant quest back towards homeostasis, right, which is just a fancy word for balance or a central point of functioning, which makes a lot of sense. So when it comes to so let's say you're talking to a person and they say, hey, I'm having these, you know, irregular cycle lengths, I'm experiencing a lot of bloating, I have a lot of this pain going on in my life, where where is, like, the start of the pathway towards recovery for a person? That's kind of experiencing those things.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I know it's different for every person, so it is yeah it's hard to say and it's hard to point one thing out, but focusing on general toxic load is a big one we can focus on. It's not just hormones that we look at. We have to dive a lot deeper into the why, which is why connected nutrition and what we do is totally different. We're not just guessing, we're not just treating those symptoms. We're really diving into the why of everything, which is you know why it takes so long to sometimes correct these things. We spend quite a bit of time talking initially with people about what does their lifestyle look like? Because it can be, you know, 10, 15 different things.

Speaker 2:

That this is why it's all playing into it, yeah it's never cookie cutter for anybody, which is why we really like to dive deep, take a really good history and see exactly what your why is and where we need to focus those. Those protocols look different for everybody.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that that's an important thing to think about too. You know, if you've been, let's say that you have never really, you know, learned how to read a nutrition label, or you, you know, have been eating a lot of processed foods your entire life, you know that's 10, 20, 30 years of buildup of habits, of of foods entering your body, of your body having to adapt to those free radicals and high omega sixes and like all the other things that we've been talking about. It, unlike Western medicines promise which is, you can take this pill and whatever is pissing you off will stop, which is really just kind of putting a patch, you know, on it and not paying attention to what's behind, you know, actually causing the leak. They're just like, oh well, let's just stop this leak and wait for three or four other ones to start to spring out. It is a journey and that's something that you know. You spent that much time getting to that place. You, you're going to have to invest some time to unwind all of that damage.

Speaker 2:

But it is possible.

Speaker 1:

The body is an amazing thing.

Speaker 2:

It definitely is possible. A lot of people you know, I see that they're not really willing to do it, but it's the right way to do things. It's how we need to do things. It's not just about the symptoms you're experiencing now, but it's what's going to happen down the line to you really have to look at this as an investment, and it's an investment in your time, in your money and then in your body, because, at the end of the day, that's all you have.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, yeah, there's a. There's a quote and I'm going to have to paraphrase this and I don't remember who the quote is, but I see it all the time. You know, again in, like the high algorithm, whatever it's deciding to show me, but that, you know, health is nothing until it's the only thing you don't have, and then it's everything.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

It's like the operating system on a computer, right, like you don't understand what's going on behind the scenes. But as soon as you try to click on something and it doesn't open, you're like what's going on?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you have to have your health, because nothing else can function. You can't do anything unless you're healthy and your body is doing doing the work that it's been designed to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly how often do you think about having a nose until it's stuffy? Exactly the only thing I want is to be able to breathe through my nose again. I think, yeah, that's funny. I used to talk to patients about that in the hospital all the time. I want to talk a little bit about seasonality and we've already kind of hit on like the diet nutrition piece, but I thought that this was a really interesting piece that we discussed, you know, prior to the mic kicking on, because I think it's something that the Slavic culture that I grew up in has done like very naturally, but it's not something that I ever thought about being intentional or purposeful until you brought up you know the reasoning behind eating eating seasonally. So I guess you know to kind of back that up, just starting with what exactly eating seasonally means and then, and what are the different types of foods in the different seasons that make sense and why do they make sense?

Speaker 2:

So it's pretty much what is whatever is being harvested at that point in time. Winter time it's a little bit more important than summertime because our bodies require a little bit more during the winter. It really is a period of rest. We have to take the time. It's darker out much earlier. We have, you know, very limited sunlight and daylight, so we have to take the time, let our bodies rest and nourish them a little bit more.

Speaker 2:

In terms of eating seasonally, that looks like doing warm, nourishing foods, foods, soups, things that are cooked and hot they're baked. You know you took some time with it. In terms of specific foods, it can be different squashes, you know. Pomegranates are in season in the in the fall. In the summer you're not going to want those foods anyways, but in the winter you really want to avoid salads, these cold processed not necessarily processed, but cold raw vegetables. You don't want to load your body up with that because it's not warm enough. It doesn't have all of the energy to break it down like it normally would in the summer. And in the summer you want to lean towards those foods more. But it's not quite as detrimental to do warm foods in the summer as it is to do cold foods in the winter?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I feel like your body, unbeknownst to us, whether or not we are aware of it or not, is trying to process less humidified air, is trying to process colder temperatures, like right now we're in the great state of Ohio, and it's, you know, going to be single digits, with a real feel of negative 10, you know, over the next week, and your body has to kick into a higher gear, a higher metabolic rate, to keep all of that engine moving. If you're adding, you know, not just cold from the outside, and now you're cold from the inside, I can see how that could add a little bit of extra stress into your body's. You know your body's. You know stress into your body's, you know daily routine.

Speaker 2:

Right, we really do need to nourish our bodies during this time, and we kind of wonder why everybody gains a little bit of weight in the winter. Well, it's, it's natural to an extent, but it shouldn't be, you know, more than a few pounds every winter, which is it's normal, because we're not moving, we're not eating like we normally would, but that's how it has to look like.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, you know, I think that that's something that we need to just double click on for people that you know it doesn't. It may not be more than a, or it doesn't need to be more than a couple pounds, it shouldn't be. You know you're not gaining 15, 20 pounds in the winter time, but that that fluctuation in weight is also a natural part of you know, like a yearly cycle, and if you are paying attention and you have awareness around your body, you know having an extra couple of pounds of fat I know a lot of. You know my friends at Compete and Body Builders are J, my co-founder here at Apex, who is a previous Mr Ohio bodybuilder, and there's a reason why the majority of them do bulking seasons in the winter time. Right, you know they're not cutting down to 6%, 8% body fat in January because it's just not. You know your body has to work so hard to stay warm and it's not, you know, as healthy for them at that point and they're at the extreme of manipulating their body weights and stuff like that.

Speaker 2:

Right and they're able to. They could, but it's not easy, it's not healthy, it's not what your body wants to do. Your body's not going to help you in that endeavor.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And then you know, for the Ohioans also. Going back to the vitamin D conversation, that's such an important thing. That's like one of my, the first things that I bring up. If someone's like man, I just I feel like crap all the time. Like I use normally I could wake up in the morning and I feel like I'm good to go and I'm just chugging so much more caffeine and I can't sleep and all this other kind of stuff and they're like I'm just going to take, you know, 10 milligrams of melatonin and I'm like, oh no, like that's also a hormone, right, like that could throw off your circadian rhythm If you're taking that much, do you? Does that come up in conversation at all? Like people taking way too high of doses of melatonin or just kind of leaning on stuff?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think the awareness of melatonin is a little bit more out there, at least in who I'm speaking with day to day. Melatonin is important there's two sides to this because it actually is a major antioxidant in the body, so interesting, okay, there are some people who I'll recommend a small dose of melatonin, like very small one to two milligrams.

Speaker 2:

right, we're not talking these people who are taking excessive amounts every single day long term. That's not what we want to do, right? If, and definitely not in kids. That's where I'm really against it in the kids. There's other ways to do things, you know you can do that easy motion.

Speaker 1:

Why is that? What's the difference between adults and children?

Speaker 2:

We just don't want to alter things too much in the kids, because then you know that's leading, that's telling their body what they need to do in the long run, as they're growing up and as they're developing, and that's not something we really want to do so.

Speaker 1:

Their body is adapting to it in a way. Yeah, it's setting their normal Interesting, interesting. That makes sense. I wouldn't, yeah, I wouldn't have put that together. You're like you're allowing the body to almost have like a crutch that early on and then does it, does it? Just, you know, prevent them from producing their own natural cycles, if it's, if it's dosed for long term at a higher dose, type of thing.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of different studies on this and certain people will say different things about it, but everything is a feedback loop in the body, right, everything is a negative feedback loop or positive feedback loop. So if you're constantly getting this endogenous or exogenous in this case, hormone or melatonin, that sort of thing your body's not going to want to produce quite as much because it's already understanding there's enough in the body and if that's a long term thing it can become a problem.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I want to dive into parasites, but I want to dive back to something that's a diet-related question, and this is almost a personal question that just came up as we were talking here. You mentioned the importance of eating breakfast. What is the positives and negatives of somebody that is engaging in maybe some type of intermittent fasting schedule versus the risk of not eating in the morning and then having your body in a state of utilizing stress hormone or whatever it's using, as fuel in that morning? How do you balance those two schools of thought, I guess, or what are the different applications for both, Because I know that they both have potential function?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they both are helpful in certain circumstances. In most cases, what I see is that people aren't eating enough. We're never eating enough as a society. There's often times where-.

Speaker 1:

Interesting. I would have thought the opposite.

Speaker 2:

It's not. We're not getting enough good foods in, we're not getting enough fruits and veggies and high quality meats and we're just overdoing it on the processed things.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay, gotcha. When you said not eating enough, I was like interesting, so we're not eating enough of the foods that we need to be eating.

Speaker 2:

Both. I see people every day, who people tell me no, I don't eat breakfast. I say, okay, great. Well, what about lunch? What does that look like? Well, a lot of times I'm not eating lunch either. You know how are we eating one meal a day. Your body cannot survive on that. Absolutely, that's when those stress hormones kick up, your body thinks that you are running from a tire all the time.

Speaker 1:

Yep, you're not going to lose weight.

Speaker 2:

People are upset. I eat one meal a day, I'm still not losing weight. Why? Because you're stressing your body out and it's trying to run from a tiger 24 seven right now and that is not sustainable. Intermittent fasting can be okay for people who do it short term and for the right person. Most people are not the right person for intermittent fasting. If you do it, then you know your diet needs to be pretty much perfect. You need to be getting all whole foods, all good nutrients in. It's hard. If you don't do it, don't really tend to do it right either. That's another big factor.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a difference between purposely choosing to do like a 14 hour intermittent or, you know, 16 if you're pushing it versus just getting busy and drinking your coffee on an empty stomach in the morning and then getting so busy at work that you forget to eat lunch and you're like, oh, I fasted today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and those people who do? Intermittent fasting. You know they have to push to get all those calories in that.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

They have to do it in a 6 hour timeframe. 6 hour timeframe, whatever it might look like for them.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And that's a lot of work on its own, so you really have to be committed to it, if that's what you're going to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I used to do a lot more of intermittent fasting and then I got to a point where I started to realize and I think it might have been actually one over one of our conversations over some of when we were working on content for the site and I realized, oh, my cortisol is spiking super early in the day and it's right before I go into all of these meetings.

Speaker 1:

No wonder I'm feeling stressed out and making decisions from like a scarcity mindset. I wonder what would happen if you know I don't break my fast like crazy but I just take a 30, you know, gram protein shake in the morning. Totally different human, you know, if I take those 30 grams and that gets me to the point where you know I can make it through two hours worth of meetings and then I have a whole food lunch, like lately I've been doing a lot of kimchi, rice and like seasoned chicken and stuff like that feel fantastic for the rest of the day. But then it's a wildly different feeling than waking up and then not eating and trying to just drink water through the first portion of my day. Totally totally different ball game.

Speaker 2:

Right, and most people are really too stressed out in general life, whether it's works, little home kids were too stressed out in every other aspect to then add more additional stress to your life in terms of diet.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, yeah, I think I want to be. If you're listening to this and you're somebody that deals with ADHD or you deal with anxiety or you deal with, you know, maybe not wanting to be in social situations on a regular basis, or you like, catch yourself be getting to the end of your day and even wanting to have the energy to be around the people that you love, because you've just been around others all day and then you find yourself like I don't even have the energy to, like you know, engage with my significant other diet is a place that I would look, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's the foundation for everything. Right, you have to fuel your body appropriately to get out of it what you want.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, okay. So I kind of teased this and then we're going to come back to it. But parasites so I, prior to us really having this, this deep dive, I was under the impression that parasites were more of a third world problem, right, and I think that that's probably a mentality that is shared by a lot of listeners. It doesn't sound like it is just in that arena. So why don't we dive into a little bit about Parasites? Maybe we talk about one or two of the most common ones that you see, and then we can kind of dive into like what does a detox from that actually look like and why is that a beneficial thing? Or what are some of the protocols that people can go through?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, parasites are really common and we do often think of it. You know, oh, did you go to a third world country or something major happened for you to get a parasite? And that's just not the case. The best thing that I have heard and agree with is that if you're breathing and living, you have parasites. It's just a natural part of your microbiome. So what we're looking at in terms of parasites, number one is pinworms are a really big one, especially in children. It's more prevalent and are most prevalent in over 50% of kids. So the majority of people have kids or around kids, even if you're working in an environment like teachers, that sort of thing. So pinworms are really prevalent and their eggs can actually be airborne for weeks at a time. So kids don't wash their hands. They're not sanitary ever. It's just how they are they're not sanitary.

Speaker 2:

So for the kids those are really prevalent and anybody who has that type of exposure. The other type I see a lot are roundworms. When we do parasite cleanses in people, these are what they're seeing. They're seeing roundworms being excreted from their body and that's when people are like, okay, that's gross, but hey, I know that this is working.

Speaker 1:

I know that this is what.

Speaker 2:

I need to be doing so. It is reassuring to a point that it's working and that's what needs to be done and everybody has those parasites but it's not necessarily an issue for everybody. It's again when that load is overgrown, it's overflowing, that we need to look into that. And parasites can hold up to six to eight times their weight in other pathogens in viruses, bacteria, lyme disease so they're dirty, they're kind of hanging on to all this stuff and when we look into chronic health issues a lot of times, parasite cleansing is where I'll start.

Speaker 1:

Interesting, interesting. So what are I mean? You said that you know they're hanging on all these pathogens and that leads to the toxic load bucket overflowing. Is it the same types of symptoms you know that you look for that may trigger wanting to put somebody on a parasite cleanse, or is it like there has to be a potential exposure event for you to look down that rabbit hole?

Speaker 2:

or no exposure event, not at all with people. Certain symptoms they'll notice. Maybe digestive issues, it can be rashes. They're very general symptoms really it can be stomach pains, digestive complaints, but a big thing we see is that there were some around the full moon, because during the full moon interesting or a tone in goes up and melatonin goes down, so the serotonin makes those parasites a lot more active and that's why you get more symptoms during that time.

Speaker 1:

You also might experience certain sleep disturbances during that time, usually a couple days during the full moon and then after a few days also are the so with the serotonin being that that's such an important hormone or are the parasites kind of gobbling all of that up as the gut is producing it? Then you said it makes them more active, so I'm assuming that they're, you know, stealing it from you. Essentially, if you have a high amount of parasites in your gut, is any of that serotonin really making it into the, into the body, to do what it's supposed to do? Or does a parasite cleanse? Like you know, you get rid of all those extra parasites. Now this person has more serotonin to work with in a way, not necessarily, but the parasites.

Speaker 2:

They just cause a lot of inflammation in the body and they call it, cause all these other negative effects because of what they're hanging on to and what they're doing. And they're not necessarily just in the digestive system either, where we think of serotonin being related. They can be in the brain. I mean, there were. There was a recent news story that was kind of all over Instagram where somebody was diagnosed with something and then they realized that it wasn't that diagnosis, it was actually parasites in the brain.

Speaker 2:

Oh geez Um there's evidence showing that MS could maybe be parasites and not really the pathology that we had initially thought.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, huh, that's gross.

Speaker 2:

Not fun to think about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, not fun to think about but definitely good to have an awareness of. You know to be on the same page with. I know that you also said that you know, if you have pets and stuff like that, that that's also a pretty big indicator for those.

Speaker 2:

Right, there's a lot of ways that you can be exposed to these parasites. We talked about kids being a big one, um, but if you're not washing your fruits and veggies, right, that's a huge one. My husband, sweet, perfect. But when he cooks I'm like did you wash the veggies? Oh, no, I forgot. He always forgets to wash the veggies, so that's a big exposure to you. Have to wash your veggies. Um pets coming into the home. They're outside. Those parasites are in the ground. Um, the pets are coming into your home, then you're not washing their feet with soap and water.

Speaker 2:

Uh, they're maybe coming into your bed on your furniture and they're spread that way. People are kissing their pets right. Their pets are licking their paws and then licking their face.

Speaker 1:

Um, so there's a lot of ways that you're like naming all of the ways that I show affection to my right.

Speaker 2:

Everybody's like oh yeah, I shouldn't do that, Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Noted. Noted. Um, well, okay, so we're starting to get to the, to the uh towards the end of the episode here, which is bonkers. I mean, it doesn't feel like we've been sitting here for an hour, but, um, oh, maybe it does for you.

Speaker 2:

but for me, this hour has been flying by.

Speaker 1:

This has been a lot of really great information, um, I want to dive into. You know, we've gotten a lot of advice from you, we've heard about your backstory and everything like that, but I, I, I want to make sure that everybody gets the chance to hear about your vision behind connected nutrition, um, and and why you decided to, you know, kind of, step out on your own, um, and start building this thing. So, um, I guess, what was the initial impetus or the initial inspiration for hey, I, you know, want to try to pursue being not just a, a doctor of chiropractic and somebody that's passionate about holistic wellness. I also want to be an entrepreneur. Then not everybody makes that leap, um, and then, what is the vision behind connected nutrition?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the vision behind it is education. It's bringing awareness to what we need to do as a society because, like I said, people just aren't educated and if you don't know better, you can't do better. So that's what we want to do we want to put, put things out there, get things out there on social media and just help as many people as we can. In this way of things, um, we can reach a lot more people than specifically doing face to face interaction. Um, we can get more content out there, sort of like we're doing now as well. So the goal with it is just to help as many people as possible and get the word out there. I mean, post COVID now, um, the natural health side of things is getting a lot more traction. People are seeing that this is worth something and this is kind of what we need to be looking into. Those healthy people didn't get as sick, right, so they're realizing what your health is worth, and that's kind of the environment that we want to be in and we want to keep promoting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. I think that um, post COVID, that there was almost this um I don't want to describe it like maybe a veil, I guess, over the pharma industry and its connections to the FDA and those two playing together and their connections to insurance companies and what physicians are required to push. And when I was still in the hospital I remember physicians, you know, when COVID was first hitting, they really felt like it wasn't up to their interpretation anymore. You know they were being mandated as to what their treatment protocols were supposed to be for patients and I think that was one of the first times that I really saw, maybe what the darker side of Western medicine could be.

Speaker 1:

Because you know, taking the oath of Florence Nightingale and then knowing so many people that have taken the Hippocratic oath, you know they take those words very seriously, right, and the goal is to not do harm. And then you dive into you know who paid for what study of what drug and how it made it into market and the number of times that pharma companies have released things into the market and like this is going to be great for everybody. And here's our four studies that were paid for by us. And then, a decade later it's the opioid epidemic or you know other stuff, that kind of cracks. So I'm really grateful that there's people like you out there that are, you know, not just passionate about this space but willing to kind of go toe to toe with the establishment, as it as it were right, yeah, this veil has been lifted and these are things that we've been saying forever and we've been called crazy, and people look at us like we're insane and have no idea what we're talking about.

Speaker 2:

And it's just now gaining this traction and people are like, oh my gosh, did you know this? And well, yeah, we've been saying that for the last 10 years and nobody's listening to go there are very few people who have listened and understood, and it's really nice that that side of things is kind of transitioning at this point. It's really nice to see.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think another thing that's been helping is people. I mean the internet has done a lot of negative things. It's done a lot of positive things. I was just talking to my little brother about this yesterday.

Speaker 1:

You know, on one side of the house, we've lifted 100,000 people a day out of poverty since early 2000s. Right, and that was possible because of the internet and massive wealth redistribution and all this other kind of stuff. On the flip side, we have more mega billionaires than we've ever had. Right On one side, we have infinite knowledge sharing, and then on the other side, we've got a lot of disinformation or people falling into traps of the scam artists and stuff.

Speaker 1:

I think one thing that it has done inside of this space that's really been positive is exposing people to other ways that other countries do things, other cultures do things, and we were talking about this probably a week ago, about my family in Slovakia and the way that you know physicians will actually approach things right Instead of prescribing a drug right away that there are, you know, more holistic life approaches, whether it's mineral waters or specific treatments for gut issues prior to going on to a medication and all this other stuff, and I would love to see more of like a playing nice. You know, eventually the Western medicine starts to accept a little bit more of like the preventative side, and the more traditional medicine approach, the more holistic approaches, Because I feel like it is, you know, at the end of the day, them playing nicely together would be the optimal result, right, If we can get it as many people as we can to not have to take medication but still have access to great surgical care.

Speaker 2:

right, and it's unfortunate that those can't intertwine or in most cases, they don't right. The other side of things just doesn't agree. They don't understand, and I see this every day. Someone says oh well, I'm, you know I'm taking magnesium and their doctor says why are you taking that? Magnesium is a coenzyme and over 300 reactions in the body and we don't get enough in our food every day. Why would you not? What's what's the what's detrimental?

Speaker 1:

outside.

Speaker 2:

Taking magnesium it's. It's amazing what I hear from people every day and you know there is a time and a space for all of that surgery and emergency medicine and that sort of thing, but it just doesn't always need to be the first route of things.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, grateful for the technology, but it doesn't always need to be the first line of defense, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, knowledge and and all of the things that we've been talking about this entire episode. I think is is a great way to have that first line of defense, so this has been fantastic. If people want to learn more, you know, find more of your content, see more of your posts, or learn more about, you know, engaging with you, let's say that they're listening to this and they're like I have issues with my hormones or I haven't been able to maintain a solid sleep schedule, or I feel like there's a bear chasing me all of the time. Right, and I've already tried, you know, talking to my therapist and I'm on meds and all this other stuff, and things just aren't working. You know, I feel like I'm kind of at a loss. Where can they find you on the internet and get in touch with you?

Speaker 2:

Yep, so they can find me on Instagram Facebook. My Instagram is at Dr Lexi Taylor. Our website is connected, nutritionco, and there you can find lots more resources, different products I recommend and, if you want to, we can go ahead and always schedule a visit and dive deeper into things for you.

Speaker 1:

Rock and roll Cool. Well, again, thanks for coming, taking the time to come and be on the podcast. For those of you that this is your first time listening to the Apex podcast, you can find me at Jan looks like Jan J A N Almacy A L M A S Y on LinkedIn, instagram, facebook or you can just Google that and you should be able to find plenty of podcast episodes and other resources to get engaged on the Apex side. We have guests like this on the Apex podcast typically around once a month. We release podcasts weekly, talk a lot about entrepreneurship and just bring on interesting people that are doing amazing things in the world. So if that's something that you would interest, you make sure you hit that subscribe button, because I'm watching and I'll know if you don't. Until next time, have a great rest of your day.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.