This podcast episode features a deep dive into the holistic approach to health and business with Dr. Christy Matusiak. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the body's signals rather than simply treating symptoms, advocating for a holistic perspective that considers emotional and nutritional factors.

Kristin and Christy share personal anecdotes that highlight the connection between emotional well-being and physical health, illustrating how stress and unresolved issues can manifest as physical ailments. The conversation also touches on practical self-care tips, such as prioritizing diet, hydration, and quality sleep, which are essential for overall well-being and success in both personal and professional realms. Listeners are encouraged to take charge of their health and explore their own paths to wellness, reminding them that progress, not perfection, is key in their journey.

Takeaways:

• Holistic approaches to health emphasize understanding your body's signals rather than treating symptoms alone.
• Self-care is essential for maintaining health, enabling you to care for others effectively.
• The quality of the food and water we consume has a significant impact on our overall health.
• Finding joy in life is crucial; it often requires conscious effort and intention.
• Eating nutrient-dense foods can help prevent health issues before they arise.
• Mindful consumption and intentional choices can lead to a healthier, more vibrant life.

About Dr. Christy and how to find her:

Dr. Christy Matusiak, is a holistically-driven chiropractic physician practicing in Glenview with Elevate Health and Healing. She has spent the last 15 years helping her patients thrive and live their best lives by overcoming dozens of health challenges without surgeries and pharmaceuticals! She uses many modalities to get a detailed picture of what is going on with each of her patients and focuses on identifying the root cause of these conditions, addressing all areas of health (physical, nutritional, emotional, and energetic).  

She is the host of YouTube channel Dr. Christy Cares where she shares videos with secrets on living a naturally healthy life. She is also the author of book Coordinating the Chaos – Through Birth and Burnout (2021) and contributing Amazon best selling author of No Problem Parenting (2023), Finding your Purpose (2023), and upcoming Bringing New Words to Your Body Conversation (September 2024). 

Dr. Christy has been married for 19 years and is a mom to 3 beautiful boys, ages 14, 11, and 8. She remains active with them and is committed to her own health, fitness, and personal growth. 

She loves connecting with your body's cues, and helping you identify where you can create more balance in your body, so that you can achieve everything you want in your life, and your business!!  

Her Practice and books:

Elevate Health and Healing

1939 Waukegan Rd

#107-109

Glenview, IL 60025

224-382-2440

www.christymatusiakdc.com

Author of Coordinating the Chaos - through birth and burnout

-ideal gift for new parents, looking to support themselves and their growing family!  

https://amzn.to/3JvUxKY

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my podcast.

I'm Kristen Crockett, and this podcast is courageous destiny.

Build a business and life you love.

And I am so excited to welcome doctor Christy Matusiak, who is just an incredible holistic.

I'm going to call you holistic healer, chiropractor.

You're going to tell us all about you.

She has a company called elevate your health and healing.

And recently, I had the honor of seeing Christy give her a special talk on the holistic approach to your business, aka you.

And I thought, my podcast is build a business and life you love.

Wouldn't it be cool to have Christy on to talk about this holistic approach to your business, aka you.

Hello, Christy.

Welcome to my show.

Well, hello back to you, Kristen.

Thank you for having me today.

I'm so excited to be here and share whatever I can with you and your audience.

This is awesome.

Oh, awesome.

Would you spend a few, just a few moments and tell my listeners about, you know, who you are and what your specialty is and some of your mission here on earth?

No pressure.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

No pressure at all.

Right?

It's just our life.

It's.

Everything's normal.

Yeah.

No, so I'm you.

Did you introduce me beautifully.

I'm a holistic chiropractor.

And so, in my world, what that means is people who would normally go to their western doctors for any health complaint that you might imagine under the sun, if they come into my office, we do so with holistic methods, which means no drugs, no pharmaceuticals, no surgeries of any kind.

And I often tell people, western approach is to assume that your body is broken when you have something going on.

Let's say you have high cholesterol, you have a headache or something.

Their approach is something's wrong with you.

Let's give you medications to fix it.

And then there is an alternative approach, which still sometimes actually believes that your body is broken, does so a little bit more holistically with herbs or vitamins and things of that nature.

But to me, the true holistic approach is to actually step back and assume maybe your body's not broken and wrong.

Maybe it's just trying to communicate with us.

And so if we take an approach to actually back it up and say, what's your body trying to tell us and why is it doing what it's doing?

I think we can have a lot more success instead of just kind of bandit ing symptoms and holding things back, which then ends up creating a dam, so to speak.

And then, you know, further symptoms abrupt in different areas of the body.

So that's part of what I do and what I love, you know, and.

I'm listening to you, and I'm thinking about, you know, how many times do we treat a symptom, you know, one symptom, but is it the cause of something that is deficient?

And actually, our body's doing a great job getting a headache.

That's what I'm hearing in what you're sharing.

Is that accurate or.

Absolutely.

And it actually requires a little detective work on my part to figure out what's a symptom and what's the cause.

Right.

So cholesterol tends to be one of the easiest examples because somebody might assume high cholesterol is the symptom and the problem.

But maybe stress is the problem, because cholesterol is the raw material for your sex hormones, for your stress hormones, in order to make your vitamin D, your body uses cholesterol.

In order to keep your cell membranes intact, your body uses cholesterol, and so on and so on.

And so just because one has high cholesterol and a regular approach would be, oh, that's a symptom.

That's a problem.

Let's fix that.

That's actually more of a symptom of a bigger issue, to really do the detective work, to see what's really underneath it.

Same thing with a headache.

The headache could just mean you're dehydrated.

Okay, so let's give you water, and it's all over.

But sometimes it's more complicated than that, because if somebody comes in with back pain, you know, there's emotional based reasons.

There's nutritional based reasons for that.

There's, you know, maybe you fell down the stairs or your kid hit you with a bat.

There's a thousand reasons that it could be manifesting in that way in your body, but really just backing it out to figure out the why is is what I do.

And it's not always black and white.

You know, it's interesting, like, you're sharing this, and I was thinking about something that recently happened to me, so I was in a bit of a hurry, and I'm getting ready to go out to a seminar.

So I'm, you know, brushing my teeth, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, I got to get out to Rosemont.

to make it there by, you know, and I was, like, running really quick, and I pulled a back muscle.

Like, it just.

I heard, like, a pop, and I'm like, oh, that hurt.

And then all of a sudden, I could breathe.

And so I'm sitting there with both hands on.

On the.

Both hands on my sink, going, oh, boy.

What's going on?

What.

What am I doing?

What's happening?

And, you know, I woke up.

My boyfriend, had him massage my back.

I got to the point where I'm like, okay, I can walk again.

It's a little late to the seminar.

Took a couple of Advil, and I got to the seminar okay.

And I was moving kind of slow, but I'm like, I'm okay.

And I sit down, and they open up with a meditation, with a forgiveness exercise.

This is the most fascinating thing.

So they say.

They open this up, we're doing this forgiveness thing.

I put the person in front of me that I needed to forgive and, you know, had this meditation and this experience, you know, forgiving this person.

Got done, went to lunch, was just so enthralled with the seminar.

Had a really great time at the seminar.

And then I realized I'm like, wait a minute.

My back doesn't hurt me.

I'm not walking around anymore.

All weird.

Fascinating.

Yeah.

And it was.

And I realized in that moment, I'm like, oh, that was emotional, because right before that happened, that person that I needed to forgive had text.

Right.

And then I heard the pop.

Then my back hurts.

Right.

And so when, you know, I'm.

I'm a huge fan of this kind of work because I know that it's real.

So many of us think it's not real, but it is real.

We don't have to pop pills for everything.

We don't have to go to a western doctor for everything.

Right.

You know, some of it is in the emotional work, as well.

So I love what you do.

I love that story.

I mean, that's just.

That's the quintessential nature of everything that I do and everything I stand for.

It's why I'm so passionate about it.

And sometimes the, you know, the dominoes, so to speak, line up like that where you can pinpoint it back.

Oh, that person texted me.

Five minutes later, my back popped out.

And then when I went through this forgiveness exercise, suddenly it was magically gone.

Sometimes people have that experience where they can really trace it all back and logically.

See, wow, this is exactly how this all went down in my body.

Other times is much more nebulous.

You know, sometimes people come in and have no idea.

They don't necessarily know what you know, and they can't necessarily piece those things together and recognize that one thing has an impact on the other, and that's where, you know, neuro emotional work that I do comes in, and we just run through the body and figure out how and why it's communicating in the way that it is.

You know, I love.

I love what you're saying, christy.

And I love when you're saying that you're a detective, right?

There's not an answer.

Like I always say to people, too, like, in somebody's courageous destiny, you might not want one another client of mine once.

You might not.

And it might not be the same pathway that another client uses to get there.

And as long as we learn how to guide ourselves and learn how to care for ourselves and learn how to make what we really want important, I do know you will get there 100%.

So what are some of the things that you would want people to be aware of?

Like, if you could have a magic wand and you've got this magic wand, and you go, pew.

I got to say something, because this is audio.

They can't see me pointing the magic wand.

So.

Pew.

Pew.

And every person knows these.

These three things.

What are they?

Oh, geez.

You're going to narrow me to three.

Yeah, you can.

I'll let you go to four or five if you have to.

And we're not going to quote you on the best of any of these.

Okay.

All right.

I'll see what I can do here.

So.

Well, I mean, self care and just, like, making sure that we take care of ourselves and our bodies is just, like, one of.

To me, it's like, one of the most important things that I quote, unquote, preach to every patient that walks into my office and specifically every mother.

I didn't mention this in my little introduction, but I also wrote a book called coordinating the chaos, rebirth, and burnout.

And that book is more driven towards the early postpartum mother whose life is just turned upside down, and they don't know left from right or up from down, and they're trying to care and nurture this little, small human while also simultaneously trying to find their new needs and take care of themselves.

And so the most important chapter, I feel like, that I wrote in that book, and quite honestly, it's called coordinating the chaos through birth and burnout.

And there's gonna be a series, because, as you know, with triplets, the chaos doesn't end in the first, you know, year or so of life.

The chaos.

Exactly.

Just changes and gets bigger, quite frankly.

So there's gonna be a series for, like, different stages of life.

And everything.

But no matter what stage of life it is, the self care chapter is the one I talk about the most and the one that I really make sure if you don't.

I mean, from motherhood to business, no matter what category of life we're talking about, if you don't take care of yourself, there's nothing left of you to take care of other people or other clients or whoever it might be otherwise in your life.

Right.

Your relationships.

And so it's that stupid cliche, the airplane air pressure goes out of whack or something.

Who's the oxygen mask do you put on first?

Right.

We have to put our owns on first.

So to narrow me down to three, I generally have the seven best doctors list that I run to.

So I'll try and consolidate it to three or four.

Um, no, we can go seven.

I say, hey, what do you guys vote?

I go.

I vote we just go seven.

Okay.

She's got her magic wand.

I don't want to dim the magic wand.

Awesome.

So one of, like, one of the number one is diet.

I mean, if it's garbage in, garbage out, I often tell my patients, right, if.

If you are a high, high class.

I don't know, I'm not a car expert, right?

But, like, Ferrari or, like, one of the high end Bugatti.

Like, my kids really want a Bugatti someday or something.

Would you put diesel fuel in a car like that?

I'm not a car expert, but probably not because the engine would explode or something horrible would happen to it.

Treat your body the same way.

It's like, people tend to take better care of their cars than they do of their bodies.

And we can replace car parts way easier than we can replace human parts.

And so the conversation of garbage and garbage out really fuel your body with nutrient dense foods.

Now, everybody has an opinion on what the best diet is.

You know, across the board.

My bottom line is eat real food, so you can't go wrong.

Right?

Like, you can't go wrong with just eat real food.

Like, you know, I'm not going to jump on a vegetarian bandwagon or paleo or keto or any of those kinds of things.

Like, I'll share with you my personal opinions on that, but I believe each person, each person's body requires something a little bit different than the neighbor anyway.

And so really finding what works best for you, as long as you're getting real food and real quality nutrients in your system, that's what's most important.

So number one would be diet, two would probably be water quality and quantity.

Yes.

Say something about the quality of water.

What do you mean by the?

There's so much on that.

I could do an entire podcast water alone, but personally, I like to either have spring water or really good filtered water because I've literally actually found that if one drinks tap water or just like a Brita filter or something that doesn't take all the impurities out, it literally takes almost twice as much water to hydrate you as it would a.

Good quality, because water, is that created equal?

Yeah, it's definitely not all created equal.

And you're getting impurities and toxins in from regular tap water.

And so then in order to flush those out, you need more water, and then you need to flush more out from the more toxins you're putting in.

And it's just much easier and simpler if you just get a good quality water off the top of the head.

What are some of the best quality waters as far as spring water is concerned?

I like ice, mountainous, any spring.

Like, I just, that ice Mountain is the first one that came to my mind.

And then there's, I think Kangen water filter Berkey is another really good one that I use, and I'm blanking on one of the other ones.

But like, we're really just talking like high quality filters that are not cheap, but they end up being much worth it in the long run.

No, I think this is really good for people to know because this is something that I'm like, well, I use the, you know, I get the big jugs of the stuff from Walmart, you know, and I put it in my machine and I think I'm doing really good.

But it's not spring water anymore because you can't buy the spring water anymore.

Right.

Well, I, the one I have in my office, I get one of those five gallon things, too.

And it's, I get ice mountain specifically.

That was the one I sought out to make sure I was getting something I believed in.

Beautiful.

But you have to seek it out.

Like, if you're not an educated consumer these days, you're going to end up paying for it, because literally, like, whether you're talking to your doctor, like, if you don't ask the right questions and do your own digging, like, you're going to miss out on a lot of valuable information.

It's unfortunate for sure.

So what's three, four?

What are the other ones?

Sleep.

Quality and quantity.

Okay.

And then exercise, of course.

Quality and quantity.

And once again, just like water, just like food, not all exercises created equal.

I really talk a lot about this one, too, where it's like, you could.

You could.

Exercise is intended to be a stress reducer, and so it's be healthy for your body, but you can take it to an unhealthy degree if you work out too hard or too intensely.

And so I always say, like, you'd rather exercise, be a stress reducer, not a stress creator.

So being mindful of that.

And that differs for each person, of course, as well.

Um, was that five?

What number we on?

Yeah, we had diets.

Diets.

Garbage in, garbage out, and then we went to water, and then we said, sleep, quality of sleep, and length of sleep, and then exercise.

Got it.

Then we have fresh air.

Ooh, fresh air.

Your vitamin d.

Well, sunlight is the other one.

They kind of go hand in hand.

But even in the middle of winter, when there is no sun out, getting outside is still life changing.

I don't care how cold it is.

I get my happy butt outside and take a walk almost every single day, even in the winter.

And the fresh air, no matter how cold, is so invigorating and grounding to your body.

How long is your walk in the winter?

Let's just give people an idea that.

What would be healthy, same as it is in the summer months, 45 minutes ish.

Okay.

So bundled up?

Yeah.

Just wear layers.

And believe me, I'm probably like your teenagers.

I don't like coats.

I really hate coats, to be honest with you.

It's just they bother me.

They don't feel natural, and it's just.

They're annoying.

But I layer, so I will.

I will be one who puts on, you know, a tank top, a long sleeve shirt, another long sleeve shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt and a hat.

And I'll make sure I'm bundled, but I will not work.

But I'll get out there.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

And then the last one of the seven is joy.

And it's highly underrated.

I'm sure you talk about this with your clients.

I talk about joy all the time.

Yeah.

It's so simple.

But for most people, it's not easy.

And I was just having this conversation with somebody earlier that just because something is simple and obvious doesn't mean it's easy.

We have to make intentional, conscious choices to keep our minds out of the gutter, to keep focus on what we know is right and healthy for our mind, body, and soul.

Right.

A lot of these things doesn't necessarily come naturally, but sometimes we got to force it.

Well, and I think one of the things like, if you don't have the right amount of water in your body, so if you're dehydrated, normally, you're going to be tired.

Like, so one of the first things I always do, I'm like, if I'm tired and there's not really a reason for it, I mean, sometimes I've, you know, lost a night of sleep for whatever reason, but most of the time, the first thing I do is I drink a glass of water, you know?

And so if you do those things and your body and everything you've been taking care of, your body, joy will be a lot easier thing to create and generate 100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I truly believe that my premise is courageous destiny, that is creating everything that you want in your life.

Simply put, right.

I always say courage core is the, I want to say latin derivative.

It's not.

It's the french derivative for love, right?

So when I heard that, I'm like, oh, love rage, destiny.

Let your heart rage, destiny.

I love that.

I'm like, that's courageous destiny.

So what kind of life do I want, and how do I create that?

Well, I love to help people build a business in life they love.

But I will tell you that if people aren't taking care of themselves, if they're tired all the time, if they're not, they're not eating whole foods and nutrient dense foods, if they're eating, you know, if they're not eating enough, all of those different kinds of things will contribute to our energy.

And if we don't have the energy to generate joy and generate the things that we love, even to dream, you know, it's difficult to do that.

So I always tell, especially so I have people that will hire me at times, for example, to make really big increases in sales.

For example, one of their sales actions is their self care, because if they're not taking care, you know, because a lot of the things that happen in sales departments, just to give you an example, I've been in corporate America, right?

That was where I started.

And, you know, one of the things that salespeople do, they take their clients out to eat, right?

Are they really eating?

You know, are they consciously eating?

You know, what are they consciously eating?

If they're consciously eating really big meals and whining and dining and all these things, and then they get really, really stressed out, and then, you know, escapism can be a big thing in sales, right?

So drinking and all of those different kinds of things happen, and then their energy plummets, and then when they go to sell.

It takes a lot of energy.

You can't have authentic, amazing, heartfelt conversations with people when you're just a little portion of yourself.

I like to look at that, like, almost like, do you remember that movie?

Remember that movie, Little Mermaid?

You've got a.

Your mom, right?

Of course.

And when people, when Ursula takes them in and, you know, casts them and they become like, these little new ugly things, you know, like, to me, if you're, if you treat your body that way, yeah, that's what you are.

But the second you start really taking on your body and your health, you start to be able to be able to swim again.

You start to be able to breathe life and color back into yourself.

So I love what you do.

I'm a huge fan because to me, it's okay.

Great.

Well, if, like, say, if I, if I go and I have a heart attack, you know, or something terrible, like, please don't.

Yeah, no, I know.

I don't even want to put that out in the universe because I do believe that words have power.

But say I have something like that, I could find out, you know, I could.

I could.

It could be a reactive thing.

Like, here I have this right now.

I have to change the way I take care of myself, you know, or I can invest in myself and in my self care now and prevent the whole kind of chain.

Yeah.

I'm so glad.

I'm so glad you gave that example because that's one of the examples I give frequently, like, is, and I do believe every aspect of medicine has a purpose and value.

Right.

If somebody has a heart attack, please don't come into my office in that moment.

Like, you need to go to the ER.

They will save your life.

They will do everything that they can.

However, backing it out again, coming into my office and taking care of yourself like we were just talking about prevents that from ever happening in the first place.

And if you didn't know what you didn't know, when you didn't know it, and you end up in that situation, then after the fact, we can make sure it never happens again or really do preventative steps to make sure that your health is where you want it to be and your life is where you want it to be, as opposed to rolling the dice and taking a chance.

It tends to be one of those difficult things, like, people just don't know what they don't know.

And western medicine, their version of prevention is early detection.

How often do we hear, get your mammograms, ladies.

Go get your colonoscopies.

And just go for your yearly once a year checkup where you get some basic blood work done, and.

And that's it.

And how often do we go to the doctor and somebody tells us everything is normal?

You're perfectly fine.

See you in a year.

And then you go, but I'm tired, and my hair is falling out, and I have no libido, and I have got this.

And you list all these symptoms, and they go, well, everything's normal, so you're fine.

Well, your body is talking to you.

Not everything is actually normal just because the paperwork says you're normal.

Like, if we could functionally look at what's optimal and change that entire narrative, we're not.

Prevention actually becomes prevention, not just, oh, well, now we're going to catch it.

When you get cancer early and then treat you, you know, for years and years and years with toxic chemotherapy and everything, like, it changes the entire dynamic of what healthcare really is.

And that's a paradigm shift that I believe is happening.

Like, a lot more people are waking up and realizing that, especially since COVID I think people are much more apt to realize, hey, my health is important.

How I take care of myself is important, but not everybody still sees it.

And I think it's just a really important thing to talk about.

You know, I saw something during COVID that really struck me as funny at the time.

Funny, not funny.

And it was this picture of a guy in a hazmat suit going to the grocery store, you know, but he had, like, this full hazmat suit, like, all the things, you know, to protect himself from breathing in the possible germs and dangers.

And in his cart was, like, cheetos and beard, just like, these.

All these processed foods.

And, like.

And I just started laughing because I'm like, no, the biggest we have is what we put in our body and how healthy our body is when we do get something like that.

I actually saw somebody during COVID They had a mask on, you know, as we were all instructed to do, but they were outside, so they had it kind of pulled down, but they were smoking.

And I'm like, I couldn't look at it.

I'm like, it broke my heart.

Like, I don't say this with any judgment.

I just say it with, like, true compassion and, like, oh, my goodness, what are we doing to ourselves?

We're trying to keep ourselves healthy in one avenue but destroying ourselves in another, right?

And I will say with.

With all authenticity.

I have been there.

I'm not a perfect eater.

I have.

I choose pizza, usually every Friday night.

You are human, right.

And that's okay.

I believe there's a whole, you know.

There'S things that I do that aren't 100%, and I don't ever think it's about being 100%, but having that awareness to create for yourself, you know, health.

Right.

Really putting that consciousness to health and self care, we don't realize how big of an impact that could really have.

I think it has an impact, you know, on your quality of life, of course.

And that includes how much money you make, you know?

How much.

Yes.

How much money for sure.

Right.

Because how would I take on?

You know, I think about what I do a lot of times is I take somebody who has a passion, you know, like, has a real passion, and then let's go ahead and monetize a business out of that.

It's going to be from scratch.

Okay.

You know, we, you know, we're going to be going through all the things.

How do we set it up?

You know, all the things that you go through.

Do you think you can do that if you feel low, right.

If you don't have the right energy?

And one of the things take a lot more effort.

Yeah.

Whenever somebody says to me, man, I just had a.

I struggled this week.

I was on the struggle bus.

It's usually after a vacation when they were off of their routine and off of the way that they ate or a vacation or a vacation, or like, they were out of routine for whatever reason during the holiday season.

Right.

There's always reasons.

And then they're like, oh, that's when the mind starts going into the.

I'm doomed.

Yep.

I'm like, you're not doomed.

This is normal.

Your body's doing what it should be doing because you didn't feed it like you normally do and you didn't sleep like you normally do, and you didn't drink water like you normally did.

And so you're in the space, because you're in the space.

So you know what to do.

Let's get some great water in you.

Why don't you rest?

Get a little doctors.

Right.

You know, and I'm not a doctor, but I do know how important routine is and how important is when you're really going for success and big things in your life that you take extra great care of you.

I love that.

I've got two stories, actually.

Well, one's a story.

One is just something that struck me with something you said that I thought was really important.

So the first, the story when I was about seven months pregnant with my first son, we went on vacation.

We went to Arizona.

We saw some family there, and nobody's perfect, right?

I.

You know, I had my share of sugar, so on this vacation, I'm like, it's vacation.

I'm gonna eat whatever I want, not worried about it.

My cousins that were there were really on a different level of not healthy, though.

And, like, literally, the options for our breakfast, Washington bagels, donuts, ice cream, more sugar.

Like, it was just a.

It was a smorgasbord of sugar, basically.

And I was like, all right, whatever.

I'm on vacation.

I'm going to indulge.

I'm seven months pregnant.

But by the third day of this vacation, Kristen, I couldn't feel my sun kick anymore.

And I literally was like, you know, intuitively, in my heart, I knew nothing was wrong, right.

But at the same time, it was a little off putting to be like, all right, I should be feeling him move.

Like, you know, they tell you to count the kicks or whatever every however long per hour or something.

And I was like, it's been, like a day, and I haven't felt him kick.

Like, something's not right here.

And the first thing I thought of, I'm like, well, I'm off my routine.

I'm not eating what I normally eat.

I'm not even exercising like I normally do.

The family all went out for dinner that night, and everyone's getting pizza and pasta and this and that, and I'm like, I'm going to have some salmon and broccoli tonight.

And literally within an hour of making that choice, I felt him start moving again.

He was just kicking and jumping around.

I was like, I drug this poor child.

I basically put him in a mama.

I need my omega.

I was like, oh, my God.

And so that was like, one of the.

It was just so in your face.

Like, you can't deny how much what you eat impacts your body.

But the other thing that is important, you don't have to be perfect.

The important thing I heard and what you said is you choose pizza once a week on a Friday night or something, but you choose it.

You're not doing it by default when it's an intentional choice, and your mental balance is in your.

And your energies in a certain place around what you're choosing, it's a totally different ballgame.

Like, there's a literal difference in how your body metabolizes things and how your body responds to certain things.

If you're on vacation, like enjoying a donut on a balcony, looking over, like, a beautiful channel in Paris or something like that, versus having that same donut in your car on the way to work because you ran out of time.

Like, you can feel the difference in how your body's going to consume that.

And so, like, really being intentional with your choices, whether we're talking about consumption items like food and water and exercise and what we're consuming off the news and social media.

But really, it's all about the intention.

Like, if you're going in with a positive energy and positive grounded mindset, like, I'm consuming this because I'm in a good space and I want this to enhance my time or for whatever reason, it's just going to be a completely different response in how your body handles it.

I can really.

I can actually feel that as you're explaining it, too.

I'm remembering, too.

Like, I remember I went, I was on vacation and as well, I'm like, you know what?

Maybe I can get some little debbies.

You get some of these things that I had in childhood, and it'll be a lot of fun.

And what I found was just my stomach hurt, right?

And things started hurting and then I didn't, I couldn't, like, just go out and go and look at all the things and have the fun.

And I gave that up really, really quickly.

And, you know, you learn, it's like if it has a dip, when you're used to eating really great ingredients for your body, it's really not a problem to say no thank you to certain things.

So I love, I love what you're sharing because, you know, I don't do it anymore.

I don't eat healthy anymore because I want to make sure, you know, I maintain a size five figure, right, getting a big key.

And, I mean, those things are nice, don't get me wrong, and I don't judge anybody for them.

But I'm up to different things in my life.

I have different priorities than that kind of consciousness that would be required for that.

But I.

The way that we feed ourselves, the energy that we have, I'm like, that's what I want.

That's, that's where, where it's really at now, how do I maximize that, right?

And especially as I'm approaching 50 here in 25 days.

I believe it's 25 days, but I already, who's counting?

Because I'm doing, I'm doing a countdown.

So that's why I know how many days it is.

We should celebrate celebrating me a little bit every day and celebrating me, my life, you know, whatever I want.

And what I've noticed is my body just doesn't recover like it used to in my twenties.

It doesn't recover like it used to in my thirties.

But that doesn't mean I can't live a really high vitality, amazing, high quality life.

It's just a different experiment, and my body requires different things.

And I want to express the importance of self care and really wanted to share you and some of the things that I've learned from you with my audience, because I know how important this is and it doesn't have to be.

I'm going on a diet, and all my life is going to change.

I'm going to need to wait a month before I could go on a diet.

So I'm going to eat everything I possibly.

So between now and the time, I really changed my life.

Oh, my God.

I can't tell you how many patients have that exact experience.

And I myself had that exact experience for probably 30 something years.

It's like, okay, I'm starting on Monday.

Until Monday, I'm eating all the garbage that I can, right?

Does that make any sense?

And a health coach I worked with years ago, she had a brilliant saying, and it was every day, every meal, every bite is a choice.

And that one really stuck with me.

And it's like, wow.

So just because you have a bad day doesn't mean you need to have a bad week.

Just because you had a bad meal doesn't mean you have to have a bad day.

And just because you have a bad bite doesn't mean you have to ruin the whole meal.

Like, just breaking it down just on food alone.

And of course, there's so much more than just food that impacts our health and vitality.

But just talking about food alone, like, you don't have to have the whole bag of potato chips to experience the joy of having a few potato chips.

Like, I used to be a very all or nothing person.

And the coach I work with for business and personal work, she's really helped me, like, untwist and unravel a lot of that B's food conversations in our head, because that type of thing just.

It really.

The relationship with food, I think, runs deep for so many people.

I used to have it tied to beauty.

That was probably my biggest thing.

And so then if I didn't weigh what I wanted, what was I then?

I was ugly then, and it's not true.

And that's a story we don't really want to hold on to.

Yeah, we all really want to hold on to it.

But I'm like, it's not true.

It's not true at all.

Oh, my gosh.

I've so enjoyed.

You know, we're going to have to do another probably three or four of these because I know we could go on and on, but I would love to ask you two questions.

So I ask everybody who's on my podcast, what is the most courageous thing that you have done?

Hmm?

You don't give me, give people time to prep that question, do you?

No.

The best answers are the ones that just show up.

Honestly, the first thing that I think of is the practice that I'm in right now.

I just opened it six months ago, and I was literally thrown into it.

Like, it's always been on the back burner in my head.

And sometimes the universe throws you into things before you think you're ready.

And that was exactly what happened.

The universe threw me the bone, and I was like, well, I got to take it and run with it now because you sink or swim.

And it was pretty darn empowering to look back now and go, wow, that's been six months.

And I feel like it's just.

It's been a beautiful transition.

I love it.

I love it.

Everybody hear that.

By the way, before I forget.

And I want to do it because I think this is the perfect note to do it on, is Christy.

I'm going to have her information in the show notes.

So if you want to reach out for Christy, you've enjoyed this conversation.

You're interested in hearing more about elevate health and healing.

I want to encourage you to reach out.

She is just one of the most kind, approachable people I know.

There is no stupid questions, I'm sure, with Christy.

And I want to encourage you to reach out to her and start your journey.

Start your journey today.

Like, it doesn't matter how you've eaten your whole life or how you've treated your body your whole life, right?

You get a fresh start right in this moment.

And a really great action to do is to reach out to somebody who can help give you some direction.

So I want to encourage you to reach out to Christy, and so her information will be in the show notes.

And then I have another question for Doctor Christy.

And that question is, what is the most courageous thing that you have left on your bucket list?

Right.

There's thing left on my bucket list.

It has.

It's got some.

The only thing that's really strongly coming up is something to do with my kids, because like I said, we.

We can have an entire show around parenthood to.

Oh, we will.

We will.

That's a hot mess.

Just being real.

Um, but I think every step of the way, and this watching my kids go through, and I've got three boys, so that right there is courageous on its own.

Yeah.

But I think each step of a journey, watching them grow, I feel like it's pretty courageous.

And then it's like the process of watching them go through their own stages and backing off and then watching them go through the next stage and backing off, and it's not our journey to live.

It's not our life.

Any piece of that.

And the letting go process, I think, is part of what I've got in their prize.

That said, I'm going to throw one other thing in there in response to your first question the most.

One of the other courageous things I've done is have my second born in a car.

That was pretty awesome.

Oh, my God.

That can be its whole new life.

There's a whole story beyond that.

But I was like, oh, that's a good one to share.

Whoa.

Okay, we'll give it.

We're going to say that that trumps it, but I know that both are very different.

So thank you so much for sharing.

Thank you so much for sharing.

Yes.

Letting go of something coming up of our motherhood.

I completely agree.

I have triplets.

They're 16, almost 17 years old, and in two years, they're going to be off to college and their lives.

And I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's a possibility I could be like an empty nester.

Now, I know that there's a whole new thing and other podcasts I'm going to be doing on parenting adult child children.

But it is, it's, it is.

How do you let go and let them just be the people they were born to be?

Woo.

Another thing that's simple but not easy.

And, oh, my goodness.

So this is why we'll have Doctor Christy back on my podcast to help us with that.

And I just want to thank you so much.

I wanted to thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing authentically with me about the things that are important for us to even look at from a self care standpoint and things that we can all do now to help us feel better and feel great and really elevate our health and healing.

So, is there any words that you'd like to share with my listeners?

Last thing is just keep plugging along.

It doesn't have to be perfect progress, not perfection.

Every day.

Keep doing something that brings you joy and that sparks that excitement in you, and you're going to be getting ahead.

So thank you so much for having me, too, Kristen.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

And I'm going to add on to progress, not perfection.

And I've heard participation, not perfection, too.

That's another good one.

That's another good one for our listeners today.

So, everybody, I encourage you again, reach out to doctor Christie.

Thank you so much for listening to my podcast.

And until next time, I really do share incredible intentions for you.

Get out there and start building that business and life that you love.

You deserve everything you want in your life.

You deserve courageous destiny.

All right.

Take care, everyone.

Bye for now.