If you're ready to take your health and wellness to the next level, this ones for you as I sit down with the incredible Andrea Nakayama, host of the 15-Minute Matrix podcast and founder of Functional Nutrition Alliance. Andrea is on a mission to empower individuals, especially moms, to become the best versions of themselves by taking charge of their health through functional nutrition. She shares invaluable insights and tools that you can add to your toolbox to support your journey toward optimal health and wellness.

As a single mom who tragically lost her young husband to a brain tumor, Andrea discovered the power of personalized nutrition and has since become a trusted expert in the field. With her extensive experience and knowledge, Andrea has trained thousands of practitioners worldwide in revolutionizing solutions to the growing chronic illness epidemic. She's a mom herself, and we delve into her journey of implementing functional nutrition into her family life, from childhood to adulthood.

During our conversation, Andrea provides practical tips on incorporating functional nutrition principles into your household, regardless of your children's ages. We discuss the importance of understanding when to seek tests or labs, and Andrea sheds light on some of the conflicting aspects of traditional and functional medicine. If you're ready to take control of your health and discover how functional nutrition can transform your life, this episode is a must-listen!

What you'll hear in this episode:

[0:00] Functional nutrition, chronic illness, and personalized medicine.

[10:25] Gaps in functional medicine and preventative care.

[15:00] Testing and simplifying solutions for chronic illness.

[20:50] Addressing children's health issues with functional medicine.

[26:41] Health and nutrition principles for parents and children.

[30:46] Nutrition for young adults and families.

[36:37] Healthy eating habits for teenagers.

[41:28] Coping mechanisms and self-care for a widow navigating single parenthood.

[46:59] Parenting, prioritizing self-care, and balancing personal and professional growth.

[53:49] Motherhood, entrepreneurship, and personal growth.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA

Follow Andrea: @functionalnutritionalliance

Learn more on her website: https://www.fxnutrition.com/about-andrea/

CONNECT WITH KELSEY

Follow Kelsey: @thisiskelseysmith

Follow Momma Has Goals: @mommahasgoals

Download the app for Apple or Android

Learn more at https://mommahasgoals.com/

Join our text list. Text "Goals" to (707) 347-0319

Speaker 1 0:00

And three is based on that systems biology. So recognizing that your gut is connected to your brain, your hormones are connected to your liver, which are connected to your gut, your immune system is connected to your gut. Like it's this really nice wheel of recognition that you are not a bunch of ologies you are all connected in there. And everything matters, including the things that happen in your life, and in utero.

Kelsey Smith 0:30

Speaker 1 3:34

Kelsey Smith 4:57

Yeah. And I think that We usually get into these concepts one of two ways. We either start learning it for ourselves and teaching it because something big has happened in our life, or something like a diagnosis is something happening. And then we're like, I need solution. You kind of had both happen that really started here. So take us back to that moment where you were like, I need to jump into research, I need to find some of these solutions.

Speaker 1 5:23

Kelsey Smith 8:04

And so once you had that diagnosis, and you've navigated all these different things, you've learned things along the way. And you've been able to implement probably some changes. But what was really the next big change? What brought you to really being like, wow, this is a whole world that I'm really is going to become my career, my life and everything else. I

Speaker 1 8:26

know, this is such a good question. I love talking about this. So again, I think of that time during my husband's illness, and been wiping him really through His death as a real wake up call for me in terms of what we could do, and also the preciousness of life and health and the things that we struggle with prior to that it wasn't really a part of my life, maybe a broken arm or had a head cold. Wasn't that really in my face, and we were young, we were in our 30s when he died, so it also catapults you outside of the norm. I'm not any longer in the current cultural wave, right? So I'm looking at things through a different lens. It took a long time to figure out what was going on with my own body. And it was an experience with working with a friend who is a naturopath and had colon cancer. And I was propelled to help her but then going no, she's a naturopath. No, all my friends are naturopaths they don't need me to help them. What do I have to offer? They know what they're talking about. And she actually came to me and asked me to take care of her food, while everybody else took care of the family. And that set me on a course of questing and seeing is there a profession here because I had a totally different career. I worked in book publishing and had a very successful career. So I started to look around and it was Like the rays of light pouring down from the universe with telling me this is where you need to go. And it took me some time after that after saying, I'm going to put myself back for school, I'm going to, you know, I'm a single mom at this point, putting myself back through school working full time. And it took time after that to identify it as related to functional medicine.

Yeah. And so you talked about there being some gaps in functional medicine? Did you recognize those gaps prior to that, when you're like, okay, here are some gaps that I'm going to step in and fill and then you conducted it to functional medicine? Or was it after you got into functional medicine? You're like, wait a minute, there's some gaps in here, there.

These are great questions. I love thinking. And yeah, it was quite a journey. Because I started working in nutrition, I started working with another one of those naturopathic friends, teaching an eat to be cancer class, and I was the food prep person. And then slowly as I was going back through school, I was teaching with her and then I started counseling and started my own practice. And slowly but surely, I don't think I knew the gaps, I had experienced the gaps with the SAMU. Some of the big gaps like they're only looking at the disease, they're not looking at the person like a big gap. But it was as I started to practice more and attract more and more people who were sick and not getting better. So people who had hormone issues got issues, but also a lot of autoimmunity, Lyme disease, like things that just weren't easily resolved by our current medical system that I started to see more and more of the gaps in functional medicine. So even where functional medicine doctors know a lot about diet and lifestyle modification, but they don't know how to do it, they don't know how to really help somebody make a change or a transformation. Specially working with women, our bodies, our food, there's a lot of history there dietary changes, not just a handout. So recognizing, yeah, we can read about diets, we can read all this stuff, but what's going to work and not do more harm than good for each individual. So I started in practice, to experience more and more of these gaps, some related to functional medicine when I got in there, but gaps prior to that just in our medical system, period. And that's not to have disdain for our medical system, it's just recognizing that we need a new kind of practitioner for people who are dealing with chronic health conditions where you can just go to the doctor, get a prescription, and all better now that there were some big gaps there. And there had to be another way to think about them. And another kind of practitioner to help.

Yeah. And like I said, I didn't know that this was an option really, until I got into really the self development world. Because when you get into that world, you decide, okay, I'm gonna start improving myself before I'm even broken, right? And it's this same thought process, when it comes to our health and our bodies is, Hey, before there's a problem, or maybe there's already a problem, but we want to get to the root cause we don't want to just put a bandaid on it. And it really comes full circle in that way. How do people find out about other solutions other than just a doctor before they need it? And what can we do as parents to make this like a culture that we're talking?

Oh, my gosh, I love this. So yeah, I think that we don't need to think this way until we have to think this way. So I joke about it a lot in terms of like if you flew over the country or the planet, barely anybody knows what functional nutrition is. And you don't need to know about it until you need to know about it. It is preventative care. But we don't even think about preventative care in the same way until we're faced with it. And so we really have to make a change. So if there's a part of me that wishes people didn't need to know about functional medicine, but we are a population that's growing in our chronic health concerns. We saw this with the pandemic, like there were a lot of people with underlying health issues, that then we're struggling with fighting the virus, right. So we can see that chronic underlying health conditions are on the rise, despite the information we have access to despite the wearables we have access to despite all the fancy testing and the information about food and diet we have access to there's a disproportionate increase in chronic illness in relation to what we would think we have access to in terms of prevention. And so for me, if you don't need to think about it and you're looking to optimize your health, then there's plenty to just like bring in more veggies or work on your sleep and there's little fine tuning week. do for me, I have a real passion in helping the people who just are not getting better. And a lot of them have gone to top functional medicine, doctors, and they've been put on diets, given lots of supplements, spent money on tons of tests. And to me, there's a whole other way, there's another way we can slow it all down and look at little things that actually make a big difference.

Amazing. Give us an example of how it showed up with a client before where they were getting all the testing, they were getting all the experts, all these people involved in you came in and you're like, hey, here's where we're not seeing. Yeah,

that's another great question. And I just want to specify that what I do primarily now is training other practitioners. So at the functional nutrition Alliance, I have a school I've trained over 8000 practitioners around the globe. So my hope is always to help others to get out there and do this work. And we also have a virtual clinic. At the same time, I'm working with patients again, in a way that helps me to write my book, because the book is for the end user, who again, is somebody working with a chronic illness in their own body. As an example, I'll give a story of a woman who was working with issues related to fatigue for a very long time and looking for what's the root is that Epstein Barr Virus that is it this she had a stack of tests that, you know, we were able to break down and look at? And my first question for her after looking at all of these labs that she did, were Are you hydrating? And she was like, I'm really bad at my hydration why? And I'm like, well, your hydration is going to affect your red blood cells, which are going to affect your iron metabolism, which is going to affect your energy. There's a simple solution. Sometimes when we're searching for the diagnosis, or the thing that's going to give us the big answer that can be treated. And we can't overlook the simple factors like hydrations. I have lots of tools that I use to help us remember what am I not looking at in favor of questing or seeking some fancy answer to what's troubling me. And that was what I call this simplicity on the other side of complexity. We got her drinking more water, we got her pooping better, we got her resting, and she can see the difference and make a change her herself. Doesn't mean she's not working with her medical practitioners. But it wasn't one of those fancy things that was leading her to what actually felt like resolution. Yeah,

I think I talk a lot about being solution oriented and having a problem solving mindset. And I think that's so important in every area of our life. But what you're saying that I think is so important is the solution doesn't always look like a diagnosis, or the solution doesn't look like a label, it's actually a solution of action to get the result that we're looking for. But the result doesn't have to be you have this, this is what's happening. Because even if we get there at the end of the day, that's not helpful that we just have a label, we want to feel better than what the result that's actually going to change it. Now, as I learned about functional medicine, and I came in to learning bits and pieces, I still know very little, a lot of people did talk about testing, they're like, make sure you're getting your labs, make sure you're getting your testing. And I know you have a conflicting opinion on that. So I would love for you to break down why and what the other solutions are.

Yeah, I mean, this is a place where I feel like the practices of functional medicine have kind of gone off the rails because it feels like people are looking for functional testing all the time. So for me, I love testing. So I want to make it clear that I love testing. I only want to test when I actually need more information to make a recommendation. If somebody is coming to me, and I see there's the non negotiables aren't in place and I have a non negotiable Trifecta sleep poor blood sugar balance. If I don't see those in place, it's not time to test because the testing is going to tell me I need to work on sleep, poop and blood sugar balance. We also need to think about sleep and relaxation, Exercise and Movement, nutrition and hydration, stress and resilience relationships and networks. There are these core pieces that I want to see in place to see what resolves to clear the Muddy Waters before I go looking for more answers. If somebody comes to me with digestive distress, and they're eating a certain way that doesn't work for their body, and I don't have I don't subscribe to any one dietary theory, and I do a stool analysis to look at their microbiome. I'm gonna see imbalances but they're gonna leave me the same place and I could save them the money on the two asked, have them spend that money on self care and their food. And we can do that later if we need to. And I barely ever need to. So I really think there's a disservice when we're running all these tests up front, again, hormone testing, I love hormone testing. But we're often doing it too early in the clinical arena, and for the wrong reasons, because there's a lot we can do to help somebody with their hormone balance through sleep and relaxation, Exercise and Movement, nutrition and hydration, gut and liver support. When we overlook that we're bypassing the body's natural ability to come into its full service to us. Yeah,

the first place my brain goes thinking about this as a non medical person is my oldest is going into kindergarten. And so I've been really involved in talking to other parents about what do we need to be doing before kindergarten? How do we set up good habits, and I've been hearing from a lot of parents about being able to sit still or manage emotions, or these different kinds of things that we want our kids to learn. And I've also been talking to a lot of moms that kids are struggling with that. And often where people go is a diagnosis of is there add involved is the child need to learn how to behave themselves better, these different things? Were really it's the same approach of what you're saying is, before we even get there and do that, are they hungry? Do they need a bathroom? Do they have breakfast today? Have we asked him how they're feeling, we can do a couple of things first, that may sure bring us to that place in the long haul. But if we get that test, that doesn't negate the questions that we should have asked at the beginning. Anyways, I think it's so important to see that on both sides of we don't always need again, going back to we don't always need a label, we don't always need a test, we sometimes need to just ask better questions,

listen better, yeah, our own bodies and our children. Listen, what are they actually telling you are asking for. And I think that's where we bypass a lot of opportunity. Like you're saying, a diagnosis often doesn't lead us to feeling better, because we think it's going to get us then the protocol or the pill that's gonna make everything better if it's a chronic diagnosis, it won't. And the test is another quest to diagnose or put a label on something. And I just want to say what I didn't get to say is I really love baseline serum labs. And so for me, the first testing I'm going to do is what we get from any old doctor, and I would do this for kids too. So having that baseline helps me to see what's true for them at the gross level, if we don't actually address the gross terrain, and we're trying to deal with little offshoots, we're not going to get to resolution.

Love that. Now, how have you implemented this as a mom over the years creating almost a functional medicine culture, if you will, in your household, and not just as a parent, but now that your son is a young adult, helping him navigate the different terrains are saying, using this kind of concept?

Yeah, it's been such a journey. So I will say that for my son, who's 23, and his name is Gilbert, when he was little this was religion was like how we ate at home. And there was definitely a culture of what we did eat and what we didn't eat. And I would notice that language really mattered. So when he was very little, even when my late husband was alive, and his grandparents were coming to visit, my dad was alive. My dad would say, Gilbert really wants XYZ he was crying when I told him, he can't have it. And I'm like, How would you respond if somebody told you you can't have something like saying we don't eat that was very different than you can't eat that. So my dad's saying to his grandson, my son, you can't have that felt like he was depriving him of it or that it was just for him. Versus you don't need that if you talk to a kid who's vegetarian in their family or eats a certain diet because of religious reasons. That's just the way they are. It just is little kids, if we're all adopting the way of eating are very easy to change their diets to be in a specific and when I say diet, I'm not talking about being on a diet. I'm just talking about a way of eating and we also live in a bubble. We live in Portland, Oregon, so it wasn't unusual for him at school to have other kids who had This one Kenny, potatoes and no gluten over here and no peanuts over there. You know, it was a culture where that was just accepted, as opposed to feeling like an oddball. He certainly wasn't the only kid that ate like he did. But it was part of our culture. And as he asked me to explore more, or to open up some of the doorways, that was something I was responsive to, what do you mean, what do you want? What do you want to try? And how did we open those doors. And along the way, he's found his own yeses and noes based on how he feels. So I feel like the best gift that I was able to give him was the ability to tune in to ask those questions of himself and to see some of his friends asking those same questions. I can eat paprika, because it makes me feel hyper, like good for you. If we all knew that in functional medicine, that's what we call a mediator. Yeah, if you know those things, this makes me feel better. This makes me feel worse for now for my son, he doesn't eat a lot of gluten because it makes him tired, but he doesn't not eat gluten. So if it's at least not going to eat a burger bun, but he will eat something. He lives in a like Chinatown type neighborhood, he will eat something like a scallion pancake, and no, it's a risk reward decision for him. And that's something that he gets to navigate. And to me, that's the best thing we can do know how we feel in response to our decisions and make a risk reward decision based on that. Yeah,

I think is a core. That's what we as all humans and parents want to teach right? Life is full of choices. And when we make that choice, there's a result Do we like the result or not? And what comes at the end of it? I think that is really important. Now, as a mom, and as a professional in this field, there's always something new, right? I'm constantly trying to keep up with what should we be doing? What's the new trend? How do you navigate that one as a professional to your clients, as practitioners, but also the individuals, and then to your child coming home and being like Johnny is doing this and doing that. And you're trying to explain that sometimes trends are good, and sometimes they're not new information. Luckily,

I feel like I've developed a system that can filter the trends. So as an example, when it comes to food, I say I don't subscribe to any one dietary theory, meaning it's not keto or intermittent fasting or vegan, or whatever is out there as what's in vogue. To me, those are dietary theories. And some of them might be used in a therapeutic way for a short period of time in the right body. But a lot of times people are adopting these principles without understanding how it's impacting their body, possibly negatively, because they're trying something like intermittent fasting when their body isn't ready for that and could experience blood sugar issues, stress issues, adrenal issues, hormone issues, right? So we have to understand why am I adopting this? And what am I looking to achieve from it, and is that appropriate for me, so for me, those are only used therapeutically. But the principles that I really subscribe to when it comes to how we eat our three, one is fat fiber protein, every time you eat fat fiber protein, and I have a way I talk to the kids about it. So I'm happy to share that afterwards because I would teach Gilbert's you know, friends when he was little how to think through that lens. So fat fiber protein that's going to help with our blood sugar balance, which I said was a non negotiable. So every meal, flat fiber protein, every snack, fat, fiber, protein, kids, adults, all of us, right. So number two is eat the rainbow. And this is really fun with kids because you can get out the markers, you can do it for yourself, you can say as a parent, I'm tracking which foods I've eaten in the rainbow today, they may want to get on board we model that we are getting in a diversity of nutrients. And those phytonutrients give us a lot of what we need in ways we cannot even measure and so just getting in the colors is a really fun way to start playing with our food. And the third one goes back to those mediators they yes no maybe less. So when we know our yes, no, maybe less. What makes me feel good. What makes me feel bad? How do I know and get in touch with that? So that I'm truly asking myself the questions listening in and becoming more aware. Those for me helped me filter out whether it's you know taking eating beef liver or sea moss or goji berries or functional mushrooms as it may give feel like it's not going to be the be all end all. Because we can't hack our health, it doesn't work like that. So for me, those principles help to keep it aside. And I think for Gilbert, he's just suspicious about those things. So it needs, he loves food, he loves cooking. He loves protein, and veggies and rice. And he's working out hard now. So he's got his smoothie, and he reads up what should go in there. But that's his journey. And I feel like he will ask a question here and there. But he's pretty down to the basics, in ways that I think he's got a handle on it and knows what makes him feel good.

And what a gift to be a young adult and be able to have that foundation to be able to say, Okay, I've had some of these conversations before. And I think it's so important for us all to remember, it's never too late, anytime is a good time to start implementing this individually of the family, to our kids, to really just try to make better choices. And in that knowledge is power. And to have that information to do like you said, what makes sense to your body? Now, before you give us how to explain the fiber proteins to the kids, I have, you know, another question, because I think it's from my understanding related, you talk a lot about omics in your work. And my understanding is that it's not gonna work the same for everyone, basically. Yeah, it's like more

everything is connected, right? So the only helps us to understand connections if we think about the microbiome, or there's now the metabolome. Right? The world of science is constantly understanding interconnections. So omics is really about how is everything connected, and my mantra, and all my work is, everything is connected, we are all unique, and all things matter. And the areas of science that applies to our omics, precision medicine, and epi genetics. So those different fields of science are telling us everything is connected, we are all unique. And all things matter. So what worked for your sister may not work for you, even if it's your twin sister, right? So we understand those distinctions and start to tune into ourselves versus all the noise like you were talking about. Yeah.

So as a parent, if you're trying to bring some things into your house, and you understand that what you think is the right choice and supposed to be working for your family might not affect your kids the same way because of these different layers? How does a mom navigate at all? How does she know? Hey, this, I think is the right choice. But we are all different. Everything is connected? And maybe my child or my partner is responding to what I thought was good for my body different. How do we lead but not implement on everyone? Yes,

that's so good. So we really I think if we take it back to those basics, like fat fibers, proteins, what am I getting in? If we're eating oatmeal? Is that enough? Or what can I put in it to add the other nutrients I need? Eat the rainbow and listen in for those distinctions. So if your partner tells you, I can't eat that much broccoli, it makes me really bloated. Then we go, okay, let's put less broccoli on your plate, right? We have to be tuned in. But I think if we're coming back to the basics of the food, and what is whole food? What's a whole food, then that's where we start? And then it's just tuning in and seeing what people like? Why don't they like it? Do I have a child who's always wanting to eat the bread and the cheese? Or the macaroni and cheese or the case idea with the cheese? Like, what is happening? And where are the tendencies? And how do I start to expand into what we're all eating by modeling myself as a parent, how I nourish myself and prioritizing myself because we're not going to be able to make everybody have the perfect diet. And I think that what I've seen a lot because when I started practicing I worked with a lot of children is it really comes up when there is a child who's having a reaction to a specific foods, usually dairy or gluten or can eat certain foods and they're getting obvious reactions, whether it's digestive, behavioral skin, those are really common for kids to manifest when they're reacting to what's going into their body. But I also want to state that it's not just the food alone. So when it comes to a functional nutrition perspective, again, it's not just about the food, it's about the symbiosis where the food meets the physiology. So if I'm working with a child, I'm looking at what's going in and on. And then how do we nourish and repair the internal terrain, to be able to receive as much as possible from the outside world.

Amazing, because something could need to maybe be eliminated or restricted for a period of time. Exactly. Fix the other variables. And then it can be reintroduced great,

not for everybody. But for us. That's, that would be ideal. Yeah, everybody's going to be unique here. But absolutely, I want to make sure a lot of times parents start with the restriction. And they just keep restricting because the child's not getting better. And they don't realize the internal work that also could be done so that we don't have to keep restricting and worrying about the foods because I would see kids who played their parents, were limiting them to 10 foods and just rotating these foods. And in those situations, there's clearly something at the gut and immune level that needs to be nourished and brought back into health because it's over reactive. Yeah.

So when we talk about explaining the fat, fiber and protein, I would love to hear that. I feel like we've done a pretty good job talking about what different foods do to our body. But I did have this moment where my kids started sitting down and they'd be like, Mom, can we have that? Does it have protein in it, and I started questioning how I explained it, and maybe I could have done a better job. So I'd love to hear some feedback. That's so

cute that they're asking though, does that have protein in it. So I used to explain it to the kids in terms of a slow train and a fast train. And if we can take out the food we have for our lunch and understand what's a slow train, and what's a fast train. And if we have a slow train on the tracks, and we put a fast train behind it, the fast train can go any faster than the slow train in front of it. But if we put a fast train in front, then that fast train is gonna go really fast. And the slow train is just chugging along behind it. So our foods with fiber and fat and protein, fat fiber protein are what make up our slow train. And our foods that are primarily carbohydrates are fast train. So it's fine to have the carbohydrate foods, as long as we have some of the fat fiber protein in our body. For an adult, I might say if you're going to go out, have a glass of wine, eat some nuts before you go take some olives, get something in your belly before you have that drink. Because that drink is a fast train. For a kid, if they're having chips, something that is a fast conversion to sugar in the body is going to be a fast train. So if we took things out and help them understand my sandwich, my apple and my chips, what's a slow train and what's a fast train based on fat fiber protein, then they start to identify and be able to make decisions for themselves

now for a maybe school age to teenager that hasn't necessarily been operating this way. How can a parent come in and try to shift some food choices? When the kids that's not cool? Mom, I want my Hot Cheetos or whatever it is that I want. And I'm not maybe making the best choices, because that's not important to them and not season. Yeah.

And I think that that's really important to identify what their needs are. So is it our need to control them? Or have some better outcome that we think or is there something that's bothersome to them? So I think that the teens that I see make changes are those who are wanting to improve something about themselves. So I'll tell you with Gilbert, that when he we didn't eat sugar in our household because again, that was our religion after my husband and removal of sugar. We ate alternative sweeteners that were lower glycemic, but we didn't eat sugar, at a certain point, maybe 1011. He was saying like if there's a homemade vegan treat at the Co Op, and it has sugar, I'm eating it and I was like, okay, he's got to eat that. When he hit high school. He had acne. And the acne really bothered him. There was a point where it didn't bother him. And then there was a point where it did bother him. That's his journey. And he started researching what he could do to reduce his acne and one of the things was taking out sugar, because he read about it on his own. And the other thing was his hydration and so he put a app on his phone and he was hydrating regularly. And he was the one coming and telling me, I read about this, and I'm doing this, but there was a motivating factor there. And I think we, when we try to impose the motivating factor, the motivation isn't there, and they're going to engage in other behaviors when they're not at home. And so it's that recognition that this is their journey. If they're doing okay, they're gonna be okay, the body is very resilient. I'm working with a 17 year old boy right now, who has a pan's pandas diagnosis and some serum labs that are concerning to his parents. And I have to remind him, first of all, I can't change his diet very quickly, because he has some eating behaviors that are a little OCD. And so I have to be very careful about what we shift and when it's not just about putting him on a diet to address the labs. But also, there's nothing wrong with his diet for a 17 year old boy, that's totally fine. He does things in the house that are beautiful, and things out of the house that are so so. But that's to be expected, as you said, for this season in life, except that he has some health issues. And so he and I need to navigate where that motivation is for him, given his situation, and his risk factors and his own motivation. Yeah.

Now, having these tools in your toolbox, I'm sure was just huge in your single parenthood journey, navigating being a widow, all of these really hard things that you've had to go through. How else did you make it through? How do you make it through? Were there ways that you cared for yourself? Did you lean on a specific type of community? How have you made each chapter throughout this journey?

Yeah, I certainly don't live a perfect life. And I take care of those things that I talked about, I call them the right side of the matrix, because in my functional nutrition matrix, the right side is sleep and relaxation, Exercise and Movement, nutrition and hydration, stress and resilience, right. So all of those things are things that I baked in. And I think Kelsey, there's ways in which I had to be really selfish, because nobody was taking care of me. But me. So even finding these situations, like where I would go to my mother in law's house for Christmas, and she was making something that I don't usually eat, and everybody would tell me just eat it, I'll make her happy. And then I'd be sick. And I'd be like, You know what, nobody's taking care of me. But me. And I think when we have a partner, we think that person is supposed to take care of us. So we don't necessarily take on that whole responsibility. And the I don't want to call it a blessing because there's no blessing and losing the love of my life. But I only had the mirror that was in. So if I was unhappy with somebody, there was nobody to blame. I learned to build in these structures for myself, whether it was waking up early, to get some movement in where my head could be on straight and Gilbert wasn't up yet, I learned how to navigate to build these things in even if it was, I send myself flowers every other week from my favorite color, like, I'm gonna get flowers. I do have a man in my life who's been in my life for many years, but I still send myself flowers because I want the flowers. If I want nice underwear, I'm gonna get nice underwear, like it's all for me. And so building in the structures that helped me to prioritize myself. And I think that has shown Gilbert, not only how a woman can be strong and in charge and powerful and still take care of herself. But it's also modeled for him that he's a priority. But so am I, I think those are the hardest things for women to do in motherhood is to prioritize ourselves. And I had to learn that the hard way, but in a good way. Yeah.

And now you've had 20 plus years to add these tools to your toolbox to create these habits and routines. And now it may feel a little more fluid and you're in this new chapter of empty nesting. And we were chatting before we clicked record that your son's now in an internship where you actually get to work with him, which is so cool and so exciting. But going back to those very early years, and when you're navigating one your husband's diagnosis while you were pregnant, and then navigating those two Two and a half years. How did you make it through on the toughest days? Is there one piece of advice that you'd give to a woman that's listening to this? And she's like, I can barely get out of bed or get dressed?

Yes. Well, I mean, listen to that. If you can't get out of bed and get dressed, like, what is it you need? And where could that be. But I think the biggest lesson that I had to learn is what I call opt in. And I know today, we think of opting in opting in online and giving your name and information. But I realized that there were places where I felt really other and a bad day wasn't where I cried or didn't want to get out of bed. That made sense. A bad day, for me was where I felt like nobody understood my reality, where I was really alone, all of my peers were having a very different experience. And I didn't fit anywhere. And that sense of not fitting was really what was difficult for me. And I learned that I had to focus on the places of connection instead of the places of disconnection. So what did we have in common, versus what did we not have in common, and that really helped me through, in addition to building in things, especially, you know, I'm not the kind of mom who gets on the floor and plays Legos. So getting through a weekend, I had to plan that because it felt like this long stretch of time for me and a toddler that felt never, and I didn't know how to navigate that all alone. So I learned to build things in that gave me some breathing room, whether it was a sitter, or playdates or supper, club type, potluck type things. So just where was I opting in two ways that gave him a broader experience, and also gave me some support relief? Yeah,

it brings me back to the conversation we were talking about with just that everybody's different. Every motherhood journey is different, and giving yourself permission to have it be different and say, I don't want to play Legos, I need a sitter, I need the support here in saying you may not have these things in common with the people around you, can you find a commonality? And if you can't taking on your own journey, and being okay with that, and just saying, I'm going to figure it out my way, and sometimes it might feel lonely, but if you can kind of go inward, it might not matter.

Absolutely. And I think just recognizing where we can craft the relationship with our kids to that it's not just oh, this is who they are, like, we're in a relationship. And so where is that point of, and those places of connection that work with that human, or these two or three humans, right? There's gonna be different places. And I always joke that if I had to be a single parent, I got the right kid. But we shaped that to get that's our thing. That's what we have together our points of intersection. Yeah.

And when you think about this journey, and you're just getting started, right, this is just a new chapter, that if you think about from the moment of being seven weeks pregnant, and having that diagnosis, to the moment that Gilbert was out of the house, what is something that you are so proud of yourself for that you would do time and time again, and something that we never look back and say we want to change, but something that you're like, if I could give a piece of advice to someone else, here's maybe something I would say, I am

so proud of us. When Gilbert graduated from college last May, I just felt so proud. It's not like I didn't expect him to grow. I mean, he's a really smart kid, he went to a really good college, but just the pride that like we had navigated this whole journey together. And I feel like one of the things I love about being his parent and being a parent is the reflection of who he is. And so watching what he's interested in and then amplifying that so even when he was a little kid, if he picked up a book on architecture and started looking through, we'd go to the library and I'd get more books on architecture and just put them on the coffee table. It's the principles of unschooling, what is your child show interest in? And how do you just like feed that interest? And we did that all the way through with finding the right High School finding the right college, the whole process, I just think has been really fun. And I feel like he appreciates that he trusts that if I'm giving advice. It's not based on my wants and needs, but it's a reflection for him. So that to me You reflecting your child back to them is just I love that in terms of things I would have done differently. I think it's knowing when to let go and back off and being able to read the signals, and finding the ways to stay connected that work within the context and the confines of what is happening there. I have friends who have younger sons than I do that might say, what is that I have my daughter, and she calls me every day. And my son never wants to talk to me. And I keep a little list for what are the things I want to talk to Gilbert about because I don't get to talk to him every day. That's not the cadence of our relationship on his terms, I would talk every day. So I think it's just knowing when to back off and let go and know that letting go doesn't mean cutting the cord, it just means it extends longer and longer. Yeah,

I hear that a lot from women that are in this season of parenting, where it's either leaving the house or going into college, or even before then when there's just like this new space of hanging out with friends more or things like that,

riding their bike around the block, you know, the first time you're like, wait, I can't see that. Like what

I can imagine that I'm going to have a hard time with that. But what I have recognized and tried to implement already at this point for myself is when we have more for us, it makes that easier. When there's so much space that the only thing in our world, it makes it so challenging when their world becomes a little bit bigger, and you become less of it. Yes. How have you prioritized yourself? What are some even just super tangible ways that you have fun, and really focus on you so that it's not all about Gilbert? Yeah,

it's definitely not all about Gilbert. And I think that's a dance that we do with each other for sure. I always say we're really good parallel players, because we might be in different floors of the house when he's home at different times. But he lives across the country. Now, I think it really is. And I know you've talked about this on the podcast before but carving out that time, like I said, making sure I had the time that was my time, whether it was waking up early, making sure I'm doing the things that take care of me nurturing what is interesting to me. And I think my work life actually forced it. Because I was building a business, I was putting myself back through school when he was little working full time. So I'd be reading a story book and then saying one more chapter. And then I need to go study, it was always this poll. There's ways in which I think we think of my business as the other a needy child, because he's not a needy child. But growing a business and building a big business that started small and grew and grew and grew, demanded that I was focused on things other than Him. And also focus on myself because as being a business owner is in some ways, the most spiritual journey ever, because you confront your obstacles, which are you? And so your only obstacle is yourself. And you have to look at it and see like, where am I getting in my own way. So I think it was forced on me in a way that I didn't ever go into that my identity is being a mom, only. It wasn't ever like that. And it's almost like they both grew. At the same time. It is like my second child. I don't know if that's helpful, but it was like it.

I think it's really helpful and wired. Yeah. And I think that actually is true for motherhood too, right. But the problem is when we make that growth journey of motherhood, only about the title of mother and not just about who the person is behind mom. Yeah, because you don't have to be an entrepreneur to have that same very deep spiritual journey. Entrepreneurship puts like this huge flame underneath of it. But I think motherhood does too, in the sense of all of a sudden, you're a new version of yourself, that's never going to go away. Yes. And it's really navigating what you want that to mean and how you want to do it. But it has to be about this person behind all those titles. Get AI is really what you're nurturing. So I think that's so beautiful. Before I get my final question for you, where can everyone connect with you? Where can they get into your world and the best places for them to head to?

Yeah, thank you. And your questions are so good, Kelsey, they make me think about a million other things that I want to share. So I will cut it there and say you can always find me at Andrea and akiyama.com That's my personal website. There's writing that's more Asian focus there, lots of podcasts. And then that also leads you back to functional nutrition Alliance, which is the company that I founded where I do train practitioners, coaches, clinicians of all different backgrounds who want to add functional nutrition to their practices. And we also have a virtual clinic. So if anybody wants functional nutrition support, we offer that there as well.

Amazing. Now being in this transition in this season, and whether it's focusing on yourself or your business, or anything else, what is something that's really lighting you up right now a goal that you have something that you're working towards?

Yeah, so I am a student of Narrative Medicine. And I'm really passionate about the intersection of Narrative Medicine and functional medicine. And if I were to put that succinctly, because people are like, Wait, I didn't know what functional medicine is, what the heck is Narrative Medicine? I will say it's the qualitative and the quantitative. So how we really embrace more of our own stories as a method of healing? How do we ask ourselves the right questions, and get deep into that listening deep listening with ourselves, to be able to ignite more of what we are moving towards and seeing, and that's really informing the book that I'm writing, I do have a book deal, it feels like it's going to take forever to write it because this is a very interesting intersection. And people want the quick fix. And this what I'm talking about is more about the deeper journey that brings us into our true and whole selves and how that helps us on our path to healing.

Oh, my goodness, that's so exciting. I can't wait for the book to come out. Andre, thank you so much for your time here today. I can't wait to have you back and talk about all those other things that are coming to mind. But you've done such a beautiful job in the journey that you've been given. And I just love your story. And there's so many things that I can't wait to implement it into our own life. So thank you.

Thank you so much. You

your story and what you have to offer this world builds me up. I want to meet you join me on Instagram at this is Kelsey Smith. And let's create a ripple effect for mamas with goals together is better