After a 6 week long hiatus, I'm excited to be back with my cousin and long-time health coach - Claire Cook.  I get a lot of questions about healing my thyroid. How do you get off of your thyroid medication?What does that healing look like? Why are you doing it? Why does it matter? This has been such a long process for me, and I didn't do it alone. I did it with a lot of support and I'm still in it.

Here's the truth: women are suffering. Whether it's brain fog, infertility, thyroid issues, or hormonal imbalance, we're all looking for answers. And people like Claire really lead the way in grounding us back into the basics. We'll be touching on nutrition, of course. But it's also about mindset! When we can take the time to truly celebrate every small win, we can integrate the changes more sustainably.

I'll be honest, the past year has been incredibly hard. From divorce to job changes to personal tragedies, I've never been so grateful to have built up healthy habits with Claire. I've been navigating weight fluctuations publicly, and let me tell you - it has been nothing short of traumatic. But I've had the support of people like Claire and my healthy habits to keep my head above water.

I'm constantly hearing from people who say they've tried everything: the fad diets, the workout routines, the mindset hacks, and still, it doesn't feel like it's enough. That's why incremental change is so important. This past year, I had a hard time getting myself to go on walks routinely. But I didn't take that as a failure! Instead, I did a few squats every hour. With a personalized approach, you can make your wellness routine work for you and leave the all or nothing ideas at the door.

In today's episode, we're talking about

• How I healed my hashimotos
• Navigating weight fluctuations without feeling like a failure
• Tracking macro and micro nutrients
• The small-wins mindset that will change your life

Episode Links:

Work with Claire: https://www.claireityconcepts.com/

Read the shownotes -> HERE

Mentioned in this episode:

Toothpillow

Head over to www.toothpillow.com and use code 'WENDY' at checkout for a FREE virtual assessment!

  📍 📍 All right, friends. Welcome back to   📍 the Toxin Freeish podcast. I just had a six week hiatus from the podcast  and wasn't even quite sure if I was gonna be coming back. But here we are. We are coming back. The podcast is coming back. I have a lot to share. And you know, one of the things that I have not really dove into and talked about at length, but something that I do talk about on 📍 Instagram questions, I get a lot of how do you get off of your thyroid medication?

What does that look like? What does that healing look like? Why are you doing it? Why does it matter? And also, you know, that kind of mixes in with my Hashimotos and healing my Hashimotos and having my Hashimotos in remission. And this has been such a long process for me, and I didn't do it alone. I did it with a lot of support and I'm still in it.

I'm still in the thick of it, and I think it's important to talk about the messy, middle, thick, hard pieces of this conversation, in order to do it justice. So I brought Claire Cook back onto the podcast. You were here two years ago. We had not this exact conversation two years ago, but we had a related conversation two years ago.

You are my cousin, my best friend, but also for a period of time, and have continued to be my coach, my life coach, my health coach, my macro coach, all all of those things. My, my cheerleader, my support system. And I just didn't feel like I could have this conversation without also. Having you here to kind of talk through your perspective on a lot of this stuff, using your experience with how many people and clients that you have taken through the weight loss process specifically, because when we start talking about Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism, a lot of times with women, other than brain fog, the number one thing is weight.

It's weight gain. They can't lose the weight. They're doing everything. I was doing everything. There's a lot that happens when you start messing with your thyroid hormones. So, Claire, welcome back. It's been two years.

Aw, I'm so excited to do this with you. I can't believe that was two years ago. 'cause I feel like we just did it. But holy cow. What's happened with you me personally with business, what I've seen from clients over two years? I'm just, I'm so pumped to talk about this. 'cause I feel like I can bring so much more to the table now.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Some of your client wins are unbelievable. Well, I'm gonna start off, I'm gonna, I'm gonna kick off and talk a little bit for people who are not familiar with my story. I have had hypothyroidism most of my adult life, learned that I had hypothyroidism when I was dealing with some infertility.

Had a miscarriage figured out, oh, okay, I have hypothyroidism. Was finally able to get a full thyroid panel to figure that out. And by the way, 📍 📍 episode number six. Is all about why everybody needs a full thyroid panel. The majority of endocrinologists and doctors in this country will not volunteer to do a full thyroid panel.

They're only gonna check your TSH or they're gonna check, you know, one other thing. And that is total BS. And it's the reason why I went undiagnosed for years and years and years. So please get a full thyroid panel. So I dealt with my hypothyroidism for many, many, many, many years. I was taking medication and I think it's important to say this because the synthetic medication did not work for me.

Synthroid made me sick. I gained so much weight and so much inflammation. I finally landed on Armor Thyroid, which is a natural desiccated thyroid that worked great for me. So that's what I've been on all of these years. And my hypothyroidism was so bad that my thyroid basically didn't work at all. Like I was taking what my doctor considered the highest amount of thyroid supplement that she had prescribed to a single doctor, because that's how, like literally just my thyroid gland did not work at all.

And it wasn't until years later. That I learned, I had Hashimoto's, which most people that have hypothyroidism and this afflicts women so much more than men. Most of them, not all of them. Most of them have an underlying Hashimoto's disease, which is an autoimmune that impacts and attacks your thyroid.

So I worked for many, many years to heal my Hashimoto's. I actually have a full episode about it, episode 73 if you wanna go back and listen to it. But right around the time that I got my antibodies down and healed my Hashimoto's, my doctor was like, okay, it's time to start weaning you off your medication.

I started that process and that is when I really started having the weight gain, the symptoms back, the inflammation back, because when you lower your medication, when you're on thyroid medication. Your body, you, you are purposely putting your body back into a hypothyroid state, so that it can trigger your body to say you need to make more of your own thyroid hormone.

'cause what happens when you're on a ton of thyroid medication for a long period of time, number one, there's long-term consequences to that, like osteoporosis and other things. But also you are telling your thyroid gland don't make anymore. And when you start to see your thyroid stimulating hormone go down.

That's when you know you're taking too much and your thyroid needs to start working again on its own. So I started titrating down little by little and started having symptoms and it was emotionally traumatic for me to kind of wake up after like a week and a week and a half, and not even kidding. And you know, I'm short, I'm like five, one and three quarters on a good day.

Put on like eight pounds on my like tiny frame. And. The mindset shift that had to go with, if I wanna get healthy and I wanna get off, I wanna stop putting all of these things into my body that my Bo body doesn't need, and I wanna like heal my thyroid gland, which would then help with so many other symptoms and other things in my life and other parts of my body.

I needed to be okay with having some periods of time where I weighed more and still love myself and love my body and think about the long term. Where did I wanna be in three years? Not what, what's happening this week? And so I hired you. I worked with you. It was incredible. People can go listen to that conversation.

I learned, I thought I knew how to be healthy. I thought I knew how to eat. I thought I knew how to work out. I thought I knew a lot until you, like, I just learned so many different things that I think most people don't realize about. The food we take into our body, our macro, our our protein. I wasn't eating enough protein.

I was eating way too much fat and not the right fat. I was either way over exercising or I was starving. I was like maybe hitting a thousand calories a day and that was also not a good thing. So we worked together. I got into incredible shape. I got strong and I, the biggest thing that came out of that was my mindset.

I learned how to have a long-term, day-to-day mindset and not allow my scale or allow a bad eating day, or just thi symptoms, things not going right that no longer became. Something that threw me into like an emotional spin. So I wanna start there because I do wanna kind of just update people on now where I am.

Over the last year and a half, two years since we started working together, as I continue to go through and bring my thyroid medication down and a lot of the ups and downs that come with that, that I think people should be prepared to be prepared to do. I also have to say I'm not a doctor. None of this is medical advice.

This is me just sharing my own experiences and what I went through, and then how I supported myself through it. So can we talk about mindset for, for a minute? For a few minutes actually.

Absolutely. I think we have gotta talk about the elephant in the room, which is culture. I think for so long and for so many decades, women have been told directly like, must diet skinny is what's popular and that's what you should do because you'll get more attention, going through the no carb diets to the higher fat.

Only to the ketos. To the paleos. And this has just been running rampant, just, it depends

Diet culture. Yep.

stuff. And it's like you just, the goal through all of it is to be skinny. It doesn't matter what that means. It just means that's the goal. And it's so detrimental. And I, I've been guilty of that, right?

Like I'm 42 this year and I remember in my twenties thinking that, and of course all of the ads, and that's the only women that are in there, right? So as women, I think we're like, yeah. It's there whether you know you want it to be or not, but that's just the culture. So it's fighting against the culture and I think when it became, when I, I lost.

You know, I had my second baby and I was in the thick of like, well, how do I eat? Well, like, I'm still figuring this out. This is so frustrating. And I learned about macronutrients and I learned about how important it was to have balanced meals all day, but getting the right amount of nutrients, throughout the day for me and my lifestyle and my goals.

'cause everybody is so different. I had to think of food completely differently and then it became. Oh, well, I wasn't getting enough protein. And that's most people, carbohydrates are our friend, especially if you're super active, you

Yep.

them. in a Hashimoto situation, yes, the, the amount may look different, but again, different for everybody and everyone needs good and and proper fats, but what does that look like?

And so I started to shift the mindset. I have never eaten more in my entire life.

Same. Same.

Yeah. Same.

fascinating and still got results. And more importantly than that, I dived into my own journey. So experience is huge. And I went through my own homeopathic doctor who ran every lab under the sun for me to really understand.

How is this food affecting my actual hormones? it was fascinating to learn where I was deficient and why, and what were we gonna do to combat that naturally, and where could I pull it from food instead of having to rely on maybe even some supplement. And it just became this like. Whoa. Internal journey.

And now I am so proud to announce that I just had gone to like been two and a half years in the making involving thyroid. She said, Claire, I don't think you need to take your NP thyroid anymore. And in addition to all these other deficiencies that I fixed. But it was a lot of work. But I had to shift my mindset around food and understand that these things are important.

All categories, protein, fats, carbohydrates are very important to the body. They all do something very different,

Yeah.

but so many people have to get out of that mindset of, well, carbs are bad and fats aren't good for us, and I don't want fat. It's just shifting around and kind of. Ignoring what culture has said this entire time and doing our own deep dive and figuring that out too.

And that's what I love to help people do.

And really shifting the mindset from the short term, like I think.

man.

Like you said, diet culture. 'cause when I first started working with you, I weighed myself every day. That sucked. Um, but then I loved it because then I realized when you realize how much your weight fluctuates from day to day, even just on a normal day, it kind of starts to be less of a big deal.

The, the, the number on the scale doesn't really stall us. Bother you anymore because it's not about the number on the scale. And you did such a good job of keeping me focused on my goals, which were feeling better, not having flareups, not having the brain fog, having the energy to get through my entire day.

And all of those things started happening before the scale went down. And by focusing on those things that matter. 'cause when I talk to women, especially women with Hashimoto's, 'cause I have such a huge Hashimoto's audience, they're exhausted all the time. And so in order to combat that, they're like, what should I be taking?

What supplement do I need? And I'd be like, listen, I'm not bashing all supplements, but we also have a supplement culture problem where we think that if we just take supplements, that's magically going to heal our bodies. Right. And that's

not the case at all. And in fact, we're finding that the supplement industry is.

So whacked out that people are getting liver disease because they're over consuming and taking all of these supplement supplements and they're, people are destroying their livers over it. So, I, I, I'm very pragmatic when it comes to supplements, like only when necessary and when your blood work shows that you need it and you're, you know, using it under the care of a doctor.

But I really also started to think about. This isn't like for next week. This isn't for a vacation I'm taking in three months. Although that was, you know, going to Bali and knowing I was gonna be in a bikini was definitely a motivator. I'm not saying those things aren't motivators, but it became about taking care of myself and my wins started to look like.

Oh my gosh. I had energy all day today. Like I didn't wanna like take a nap in the afternoon and like chug a bunch of coffee, which would then keep me up and keep me sleeping. My winds were, I slept eight full hours without waking up in the middle of the night. That was a win. My wind was going to the doctor and doing my next thyroid, you know, panel and her saying, okay.

You're awesome. You're, you're no longer hypothyroid. Your body adjusted and is healing itself. So now let's go down to the next level. I started counting those winds as more important than what I look like in the mirror, and that was so important for me.

Thousand percent. It's the mindset around food, right? And then it becomes the mindset around time. fact that the goal is when we're 80, 90 years old. What do you want that to look like? And if you wanna be a self-sufficient person that's not having to, you know, be at the doctor every single day, you're able to move around.

Like it becomes a lifestyle mindset shift. things like we've, some of us have learned over the course of 20, 30 years with the information or the message that's being said, it's hard to undo. A lot of that takes time. With the brain to almost rewire and think of things differently. And then when you do, it's not an overnight, oh my gosh, decision, I'll say the energy can be almost immediate because you're fueling differently.

And that has almost an immediate effect, just like it does if you have pizza and two hours later you're ready to take a nap.

Mm-hmm.

has the, you know, reverse effects. So that's immediate. But in terms of the body composition changes and, you know, seeing those wins, like it does, it's a, it's a marathon and not a sprint, but then that's what's making it sustainable.

Whereas all of these other cultural things that have been told to us is, well, this is a quick fix and you can lose 30 pounds in a month, and then you're okay, but you're not fixing the habit structure, you're

Yeah.

the mindset, and if you're not doing that, then it's not gonna matter. And then you've done more damage.

The yo-yo, right? If you think about how many women have been on the, yo-yo. So I actually wanna dive into what you just said about the habits, um, and get a little vulnerable for my audience here for a second, because, you know, I'm very, I'm, I try very hard to be authentic and open and honest online, but I also.

Really keep my personal life kind of personal. Um, but I do think that this, this conversation is important and you and I talked about it ahead of time and I said I want to have this open conversation with my audience because I feel like there might be so many people out there that feel the exact same way that I do, or maybe in the exact same position that I have been in.

And I want them to know that like. Even if you are in a place in your life where you have a lot of chaos, where you have a lot of emotional stress happening, where you have a lot of just stress in general. And I do feel like, especially on the internet right now, there are so many people who are spending time online, glued to the internet.

With all of the divisiveness and all of the negativity and all of the black and white content and all that short term content that like rots our brains. And I found myself in a position where I had just gone through a terrible but absolutely necessary divorce and had to move immediately followed by.

Having to make the decision to leave my job because I wasn't gonna move, move my family back to San Diego, and then making the decision to work for myself and do this job full time and pretty quickly realizing that what that meant was spending all of my time online. The emotional detriment of what that did to me, of realizing and, and having a job that I did every day, that I had kind of told everyone, I love this.

This is all I've ever wanted to do, and it was, it was all I ever wanted to do. I just wanted to do this, and then when it happened, I don't wanna get emotional when it happened, instead of me being happy and grateful. I started to really kind of spiral emotionally because being online all the time and dealing with people saying awful things to you all the time, and having to block bots and having to get fed this algorithm that's super negative no matter what you do.

When that becomes your daily environment, it becomes really hard to. Wake up and go for a walk and spend time outside. It's hard to make the homemade meal, like, like those stressors start to bleed out into your self-care and bleed out into your thoughts, your, your negative thought patterns, your negative food patterns, like it all becomes hard and so.

Part of the reason why I'm talking about this is because I have people in my inbox that are regularly saying to me, I, I don't have time. I don't have time to take kids. These are moms mostly. I don't have time to take care of myself. I can't imagine waking up one more hour earlier to like go to a gym. I can't imagine home cooking every single meal.

And these are people who are in distress in a stressful situation, and I want them to know that. It's not black and white. You can do really small things that make a really big difference in your home. You don't have to go to a gym for an hour a day. You don't have to home cook every single meal. You don't have to like, it's not black and white and it's not all or nothing and everything.

Over the last year of my life. That has been so hard and so stressful, including even the last few months of dealing with personal tragedy with my son. It's a girlfriend in their family and another child who potentially had some serious health issues that I was stressed about to insurance, you know, issues and had a great job offer.

Do I take the job and I make this? Go back to the thing I love, like. I am not living on an island where I'm the only person with emotional stressors or family stressors or health stressors or kids stressors. Like we all live this life of stress and then we spend time online where we get more stress.

And so I wanna talk about the small things that people can do to write their shit. Because I have to say, and I told you this the other day when I asked you to come on so we could have this conversation. Over the last year, all of the emotional stress that I have been going through behind the scenes, with all of these changes in my life, the one constant was all the things you taught me.

And so I didn't slide back. I didn't go back to my old habits, which were overwork, workout, and undereat. I didn't go back to another old, even older habit, which was emotional eating. Like I didn't fall back into any bad habits, even through a really hard year. And so I wanna talk about those, those small things, those habits that people can adopt that can make a

huge difference in their overall health.

Well, I'm proud of you, by the way. Because it has been a hard year and like you said, there's no one that's perfect. And I think that's the illusion online gives. Everyone has their stuff, right? It's just. People don't always air it, so I commend you for being vulnerable. It's important for that.

The habits, in my opinion, when I worked with the clients I've worked with are hands down more important than talking about food. When I work with people. 90% of our one-on-one sessions is about, what did you do this week? How'd you feel about it? How'd you do on those baby action steps? Because if they can master them week after week after week.

happens? Well, it becomes natural. It becomes secondary, and then when life hits hard, not like, it just becomes, Nope, this is my life now. I'm used to this now, and things might get a little ravaged, but I'm not gonna go crazy and be, you know, in the detriment that I might have been in before. I love too.

Look at habits with clients, especially through the day-to-day lens of figuring out what could we do tomorrow that is 1% better than what we did today? if you're able to sleep an extra 15 minutes, that's a win. If you're able to get up and go for a 10 minute walk sometime in your day, that's a win.

And if you continuously have the mindset of. you know what? Today wasn't great, but this was actually pretty good and I didn't do so well here. And then tomorrow be like, okay, that's the one thing I'm gonna do better on. And you do it constantly with the mindset of 1% better. time, that massively compounds and you start to get changes and you start to get results.

Yeah, I, I think those little things and those little gratitudes of the things that we're grateful for, people don't realize how massive they are to your overall health and mindset. It can be the difference of you spiraling into negativity for the day or you feeling great, right?

Hundred

I'll tell you my small things that.

Have saved me in the last year because I have not had the energy to get into the gym. I haven't had, this summer I actually did great. I went out on my paddleboard every day, , out of really just emotional mental health necessity to get as much sunshine. That was a big thing for me this summer was like, be outside in the sun, get into the sunshine.

But for me it was, I went through a long period of time where I could not make myself walk. So I would do squats in my house. I have an alarm on my phone that goes off every hour and studies show 10 squats throughout the day. Every hour gives you the same physical benefit of walking like 10,000 steps a day, or I don't remember the exact study, if it was 8,000 steps or whatever they compared it to, but it is not that hard, even if you are sitting in a cubicle.

In an office or if you're sitting at home working or you're, I mean, no matter what you're doing, anybody can stop and do 10 squats, it's the easiest thing if you just set an alarm and that one thing. I do feel like that one thing for that long period of time that I wasn't really walking, kept me, kept my muscles, kept my mental health, like it made a huge difference in such a little thing.

Yeah, I mean, and that's not much of anything. Like you can work

Yeah. Yeah.

at the same time. So if your habit stacking on top and you're feeling like, ah, it's like you almost have to squat by itself, not necessarily. So I feel like finding little things like that where you can kind of blend what you do every day, or you're obligated to do every day and find something else that you're like, I really wanna do this.

But where do I fit it in or how do I make it work? We have to remember that these little tiny efforts are a massive deal and in a world where it's crazy, online life is crazy. So, you know, sometimes feels like our entire world is falling apart online or socially or whatever. We can only do what we can control, right?

So understanding too, that by doing that every day, like you just said, helped so much in the long run. And it wasn't anything crazy that you did. You didn't leave the house, you weren't paying $50 a month for a membership at a gym somewhere. Like you still made it work and it made a huge deal. So the all or nothing is one thing with clients.

I've really gotta work on a ton. People feel like if they didn't do it all. they were a failure. And I get to work with people on what are the main things that you're wanting out of this? Let's tackle that every single day. And every single day you have to tell me. 'cause I asked them to like thoroughly track their data.

You gotta tell me what was one thing you were really proud of? What are you grateful for today? And I force them to think about that. 'cause who sits around and thinks about that sometimes you're not. Asked to, so you don't do it. The accountability is a huge deal, right? But I also say, be real with me. me what didn't go well.

What was the one thing today that you were mad at yourself about? You were disappointed over? we talked through that too. And then we are able to come up with strategies of like, well, how are we gonna combat that so that when this happens, what's the reaction? Or how are we gonna be proactive? So it maybe doesn't happen. And I get to help people figure out time management or what is their day looking like, where they're able to insert things. 'cause I feel like an outside view can be really refreshing sometimes to someone who thinks they're drowning,

Yeah, and I think a lot of people feel like they're drowning and, and I actually, I don't know. I know that for a fact because I even have students that paid money to take my class and.

It's interesting, they, they want the material, they want to learn, but really they just want a non-judgmental space for support. I mean, honestly, like I feel like people are craving that so bad. I feel like something you gave me was like this non-judgmental space to be like. Yeah, I had like, you know, I like, I remember one time I think, I can't remember when I very first started, what my fat macros were, and that was the hardest thing for me was increasing my protein, but lowering my fat.

Because I was on the ancestral movement eating really nutrient, and I'm not, I'm not saying that to be, I didn't mean that in a sarcastic and bitchy way. I think real nutrient dense food is so important. I'm, I actually still eat very ancestrally, but I think that I went way too far on the fats. I was like, well, these are clean fats.

Obviously I can have all the clean grass fed butter I want, and I was cooking with my here I show and tell, right? I my chosen avocado because every other avocado oil is probably terrible and ranted, but this one is not. And it's amazing. But I, we were talking about this earlier, one tablespoon of this super healthy.

Avocado oil that I love is 14 grams of fat. And you know, people aren't just using one Dail spoon. They're like, I'm shaking it. If you can see this on, if you're not watching this on YouTube, you're missing out like drizzle. And when you started making me track my fat and told me I had a limit, I blew through that limit.

And then you and I argued for weeks because I was like, no, but this, these are healthy fats. You were like, yay, I'm so happy you're eating healthy fats. You're just eating too many of them. And since we're show and telling, this is the greatest thing I ever bought in my kitchen. This is a fla of salt, Olivia spray.

And I put my avocado oil in this and it missed it onto my pan so I can cook and it's like one 14th. Size, but it works just as well and it like helps me not use as much. So that one tiny thing that I fought you on for probably a month actually now that I'm thinking about it. Once I finally got to a place, where I got below the fat macros that you gave me, the weight started dropping pretty, pretty quickly after that.

And then I felt like a schmuck. I was like,

oh.

But you had to fix your mindset around it. And, and that's again, go bang back to culture, which is sometimes the thesis statement of this entire situation with like your thyroid situation. But. We live in a culture that doesn't really support healthy food and healthy eating and macros and in an easy way.

Everywhere you turn, there's a fast food restaurant. We, everything that we eat is like a lot of the processed stuff, right? There's not any aisles around the supermarket that contain the fresh things. In that process stuff is gonna be high fats and high carbs. And when you aren't aware of it, and that's what's easy because we're all busy and especially as a mother, I get it.

You're running from this thing to this thing and then it's like, well, what do I do? Well, it's better than nothing. But what then happens over time is we're not aware. We aren't really paying attention. It just tastes good. It's doing the job and the over consumption. Is there. And when we don't, I mean, this is just biology.

If we do not burn, least what we're consuming in a maintenance kind of way, we're gonna, our body's gonna store it. That's just what happens. So it becomes like, okay, those healthy fats in that bottle. Are essential. You have to have good, healthy fats every day, but the amount differs because of the person and everybody is so different.

Depends on their height, depends on their weight. It also depends on their goals. It depends on their digestive system. It depends maybe whether or not they do have a certain condition. And then it becomes, okay, well what is the healthy amount for me? And so we figure out, okay, well what are the better sources?

Because there are better sources. And then it's just becomes the education, which I love so much because when you know, then you're like, no way. just hadn't thought of it before. so I love being able to help people through the whole macros breakdown and what protein is really doing in the body and why that's literally the magic.

But then it makes sense. Not enough people get enough because it has to be fresh usually, and

Yeah.

expensive. So just not easy. And again, we are a culture of convenience and that's just, it's not there. But then I get to be like, okay, well try this and let's set you up for success here.

Yeah.

create meals that are really well balanced so that your energy is sustained, but that your body is genuinely getting what it needs.

And then

Yeah.

depend on just your activity, to be honest, but you need 'em because if you have a nice, gorgeous, healthy amount every day and it's day in, day out, what helps your thyroid too,

Yeah. My.

are fat created.

My doctor loved that I was working with you. She's functional, she's fantastic. She's helped people get off their thyroid medication and when I was talking to her about what I was doing with you, she was like, I'm so happy to hear this. And see, we could see it on my labs, like when I was fueling my body appropriately, the, the distance of time between when I would go down on my medication and then the recovery rate of my body.

When it started creating its own thyroid hormone again, and I was ready again to go down was wild to me because I could see in my blood work that the more I stuck to what we were talking about, the faster that that happened.

Yeah.

And so your body wants to heal itself, but it needs. Like good nutrient dense food, and you do need a balance of all of those things.

And I, I saw it firsthand,

Yeah.

um, how it works. And so I, I want this for everybody. Like I want, you know, the, these habits and the knowledge and the understanding of like what fuels your body. I want it for everybody, but I also want people to have that judgment free. Um, zone to learn, because I think what happens a lot is people go on the internet and it's like everyone's telling you to go to Carni for, by the way, this is not me talking crap.

I know people that have had incredible stories with all kinds of diets. So this is, this is me just talking about what works for me, in my experience. But people are being told with constant information. No, that's wrong. No, that's wrong. No, you're wrong. This is the only way you need to do it this way.

Then they feel like they can't meet up to it. They're like, watching these 25-year-old in fitness influencers who do not have children, and they're looking at them like, why can't I do what you're doing? Well, your life is completely different.

Yeah.

have a family and a full-time job and a husband, and you know your hormones are X, Y, and Z.

Like, you cannot compare yourself to what other people are doing. You have to figure out what works for you.

A hundred percent. think that's my favorite part. I mean, most of the people that I see, I can't say only women. 'cause I did just finish 24 weeks with an amazing man who desperately needed my help and oh my gosh, we just. Had so much success with him, but most of my clients are female and I would say they're normally in the late thirties to honestly sixties, by the way, with saying that there is no late start.

You get to change your, the trajectory of your health whenever you want. Please do not Again, culturally, here we go. Statistically, women, especially 40 to 50 years old. It is insanely rare that you wouldn't necessarily be gaining tons of weight. , Not really going to the gym. Muscle mass is decreasing.

Like this is seen as something that's semi-normal to do, but it doesn't have to be like, I'm 42, I have two children, and I work so hard with my nutrition, and not, anyway, I guess so hard, but it just becomes like, yeah, it's, you're mindful you have to be in order to get the right things to eat every day, but it's very doable to change and make your body do what you would like it to do.

For the most part, your food absolutely plays probably the biggest role in that, but again. What are your habits? So if you feel like you're just stuck and you're like, I've tried everything, and I hear that a lot too. I, this was, I'm usually people's last resorts, which I'm like, can I be your first? We work on just that individual person and you can train your body to do.

of really what you want, and if we can't fix it with nutrition, then we've got awesome data now to present to a doctor and say, here's what I've done, which is what I love the most about my program. People love to see the data. I'm not making it up on the fly. I am literally looking at, well, how was your sleep?

What did your digestion do this week? Because what you eat is directed directly connected to your digestion. How was your energy level? How did you actually feel? What about your measurements and your body composition changes? Because the scale and ladies we know. Rarely celebrates us like it should. We are a complicated organism.

We have lots of hormones. We gain water. Different parts of our cycle we're intense. But understanding and seeing those, again, 1% changes and hopefully increases in benefits over the course of the week, week to week to week, I know what to do.

Yeah.

I can adjust things based on what you're wanting and how you feel.

And it's just like, it's beautiful. You learn so much. And then my favorite word, it's sustainable. not gonna be the yo-yo dieting thing anymore. And you're gonna feel successful finally, and know where to come back to when you fall off track because it happens with vacations or life. not always able to stay on, but you at least have a guide now of what to do.

Yeah, I think the hardest part for me, and I think what I appreciated so much about the way that you approach this topic is, and this is for every, anyone out there who's trying to heal from something, whether it's autoimmune, whether it's PCOS, whether it's endometrial like. We women are suffering right now, like suffering.

I know very few women who don't have health issues. And obviously like clean living and toxin-free living plays a big part in some of that, which is why I do what I do, but also. The nutrition piece and feeding your body what it deeply and desperately needs to continue to heal itself. And one of the hardest emotional things I went through when I started doing this process of slowly lowering my thyroid medication.

Every time I would do that, I would gain some weight and I would have to keep the mindset, just stick with my habits. I know what Claire taught me, just keep doing what I'm doing and it will, it will fall off. The most difficult thing that I have done during that timeframe was that I had appearances. I had a podcast episode that was like such an amazing experience and I was in one of my flareups and I had put on weight and inflammation and I looked a lot bigger than I was on camera anyway, and.

I can't even tell you how many comments about my weight that I got on that interview. Like that podcast host blasted the interview. It was an amazing interview. I was so proud of it, and people were literally sliding into my dms being like, oh, someone's gained some weight, hasn't she? And I cried over it.

It happened again A few months later. I had an in-person event. I had obviously put on a little bit of weight. And the thing is like I felt the need. I wanted to go online and like defend myself and be like. I healed my Hashimoto's. I am healing my hypothyroidism like this should be celebrated. This process of choosing long-term longevity and health over what I look like in this present moment, in these in-between moments like this should be celebrated and it should be talked about.

But I was just too upset and hurt by like everyone talking about my weight online. It's very traumatizing. And I know people will say like, well, you choose to live a life that's online. It's still not okay. PS it's never okay to like drop into somebody. I even had people who genuinely followed me and liked me, say things to me and I thought, why would you even say anything to me?

But I want people to know that like, you can choose your health. You can choose to heal, you can choose when I'm 75 and 80. I'm gonna be so proud of how healthy I am and all the muscle mass that I have and how healthy my brain is, and how I don't have osteoporosis because I did lower my thyroid medication.

And I'm not judging people who are choosing to stay on it. That's not what this is. This is about my goals and what I want for myself and my own long-term life. And. Yeah, I just want people to know, like, you can choose you, you can choose your health. And I know that if it's not shitty people online, sometimes it's feeling like, well, I'm a mom.

My kids have to come first. I don't have time for myself. I want you to know you do and you should make that time for yourself because your kids are watching you and being that person that you're modeling for them. I just feel this need to tell women like it is okay for you to take care of yourself and to choose your health like as a priority, because I just think a lot of women don't.

A hundred percent. I mean, I feel like we can go back to the cultural influence of, well,

Yeah.

to. It's okay to just like let yourself go. And that doesn't have to be a priority, but I look at it like this too. If you're not the best you, then you're not gonna be the best wife or the best mother or the best employee.

Like imagine. The ideal you and what does that look like and what would that do for you? I love getting to talk to clients about that. That's how we start. What is it that you're wanting? Yes. Most people come to me for weight loss. That's fine, but it's bigger than that. Like why? And then it becomes, well, I really wanna have more energy and I wanna be able to go up a slide with my children and feel that I can and be strong enough to carry my screaming 2-year-old over my shoulder and be ready for life, even if you're not a parent.

Like I love that I can go to Target and then I'm running to Trader Joe's and I'm literally carrying groceries without a cart and I'm able to like practically run there, but that's me. But I like that I'm able to do what I want to do in this life, and I feel really good about that we are often told just, no, no, you're, you have permission.

It is almost essential. Because if you're not gonna be happy with who you are and your confidence then what?

Yep.

like

Yeah.

have permission, so we give you permission. Sometimes you need to hear that.

Yeah. I think my favorite story, you and I have a. Mutual client, actually a client that came to me first and then came to you, and I hope to have her on the podcast soon. Who's really struggling with infertility and, between working with me and working with you, you know, before having, it was like literally the day before she was supposed to go in for her.

IVF, wasn't it? She found out she was pregnant naturally. , I'll never forget that phone call and. For her, that was, that was her dream. That was her goal. It wasn't like, oh, I wanna, I wanna lose weight or I wanna do this. It was, I want my body to feel safe holding a baby. And, yeah, I think that what you teach and the support that you give women allows them to have the space to embrace the things that they want and how they wanna show up in the world.

And, I don't know what I would've done if I didn't have. Your support along the way. And I hate to say that, like, oh, it would've been too hard to like, deal with the emotional part of it. , The yo-yoing and all of the things, but everyone needs support, right? I I, I would like to think I would've figured it out, but I definitely have been successful and am where I am and I am very close.

Very close to not needing any thyroid medication at all, and I am so stinking proud of myself that I have like stuck with that over the last few years, and I have. Dealt with all of the BS comments and I've just focused on like, Nope, I'm getting healthy and I'm doing it for me because my whole goal is I wanna be the fun grandma one day.

Like my kids are only teenagers, but I like, I want to have the energy to run around and I wanna be around for my grandkids for a very long time and I wanna be healthy for them. , And I also want to stop some of the generational. Health issues that I know that I, I got passed down to me and I don't wanna pass them to my kids and their grandkids.

And that's a big part of why I'm doing what I'm doing too, is teaching my kids to not do what I did when I was growing up because that did not serve me. So

I love that you just said that about your kids. I think one of my favorite transformations with my own journey of macros and like finding my best self within this last couple of years, my kids are little, like my youngest is four. I started to feed my kids so differently. And that has been a game changer for them.

I was a teacher for 17 years. I've seen what's going on in schools with what

Yep.

for lunch. I know that effect that it can have on them even in the classroom. And I've just been very like, I was really sad about that. And I left to do clarity concepts like full-time and I'm so blessed for that.

But it is crazy because I'm like, I have that control and I'm able to help even moms too, be like. Try to, you know, think about what you're gonna give your children for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Where is the protein? Where is the carbohydrate? Where is the healthy fats? Because it's so important for them. And now my girls who are seven and four can literally look at the plate and say.

mom, I, I need a little more protein here. They understand and then they genuinely feel better. Their digestion is better, they're sleeping better. It is everything, right? You can't put ketchup in a car and expect it to run. You have to give it what it needs, again, it's just feel, it's, it seems so common sense.

And when people do it, they're just like, this is actually just like basic stuff. We forgot how to do because everyone has told us to mess it up really bad. Make it more complicated when in actuality it's not like that. If we hydrate every day, yes, this is drinking water, walk, get really good rest, right?

Move it. It's just

I think that's the problem.

I think that, I think that mentally people are like, that's too simple. That won't work.

It can't work.

It can't work. What? That's it. So you mean if I sleep eight hours, if I get really good sunlight in the morning, I'm really big on that for, for thyroid health, for, for circadian health and hormones.

Getting that morning sunrise. You mean if I like, eat really good throughout the day and like, take care, do the, and drink enough water to stay hydrated. Like that's it.

Like, I'll, I'll just miraculously feel better. And people are like, no, no. What supplements are you gonna give me? What crazy thing are we gonna do?

We have this like idea that it's supposed to be something crazy

and it's not.

It's basics.

I mean, and you, I, it's funny you go back to caveman days, which none of us have to deal with, but the actual human organism as itself hasn't changed much. Our stress levels, it's the same. They were getting chased by lions. We are not, but our brain doesn't understand the difference. So when we're overly consumed with stress all day long, because

Yeah.

our cortisol levels rise, that has an effect on our hormones.

And what is that heightened amount of cortisol do to the body? Well, it's a storage component, so that's going against the grain. But it's like, well, how can we find ways to better that? Back then it was just. You moved and you ate well, and you ate what you could and you got water

slept on the ground by, by,

and

fire, red, fire,

And Sunrise woke you up.

it worked like people survived and you know, they were probably, I mean, clearly they did pretty well 'cause they survived in crazy town, like animal land without electricity or anything, you know? So it's just fascinating and I feel like we forget that kind of stuff where it's like, just go back to the basics.

But

Yeah.

being able to help there too, because people forget what that even means

And they need the accountability where I'm like, okay, did you get your sunlight today? They need me to be like, good job. You know what I mean? Like they don't take Human nature, it doesn't change. We all want a gold star.

Positive reinforcement. Yeah. We live in a dopamine hit culture too. I mean, gosh, Yeah. Culture, culture, We want the quick fix. We want it now. We wanna know that we did a good job, but you know what? We're not doing enough of the good job stuff you're Yeah. doing probably better than you think, and I love to be able to.

Celebrate those baby wins too, because then you're like, oh, I did good. Yay. It. It's so powerful. And I mean I think that's the power of a coach too, is you get so much more than just macro education. It's like we're gonna shift your lifestyle Yeah. forever, and I love that.

Forever. Yeah. And that's it. Okay. So if you were gonna give somebody three things to walk away from this conversation, like if somebody listening to this is like, well, where do I even start? Yep.

What would be the three things that you would do?

Okay. So my biggest three things is protein. Most people don't even get it in general. So when you're eating a meal, go and make positively sure you're getting at least 20 grams of protein. How do you figure that out? Check the nutrition facts label when able, and you can literally get a baby kitchen scale it's $3 figure out where is my protein source.

If you can do that for every meal, that will be a game changer for you. 'Cause most people get, I think 50 or 60 grams a day, which is nowhere near what people need. The other thing I would say is make sure that you're drinking water even, salt water is great for the electrolyte piece, but

Yep.

definitely based on where you are geographically.

Hello, Phoenix, Arizona. So,

Yep.

we sweat a lot here, but water consumption, not coffee, not sodas, you know, not teas all day. Genuine water, I would say at least 75 ounces. And that can be probably blanketed across anyone even when you're, not depending on like what weight you are. I think that's a good blanketed amount.

And no one

Or do a bunch of squats.

Or do a bunch of squats, move intentionally. would be my three.

I love that and those are so easy. I'm, I'm gonna add a fourth, Okay. which maybe isn't like super easy, but maybe is also kind of a mindset thing. Avoid the things that bring you stress. I'll just share with my audience that I did take a job. I am gonna go back to work. I'm really excited about it because it means that this business, toxin Freeish, and the podcast and my time online, and when I have my toxin free in three course, it will be from a place of total incomplete joy because I want to, and not because I now have to spend all of my time online because I know myself.

As a deep empath, and I know I can't handle it and it's not good for me. And so I, I went and made a big decision that I was gonna do that. And that is something that I think people really should look at their life and say, are there things that are causing me a significant amount of stress? And is there anything I can do about it?

I just really think that people. Feel like they can't make big decisions in their life like that. And I'm here to tell you, you can move, you can change jobs. You can get out of a really terrible relationship. You can do hard things. And if you know that a massive part of your stress that's impacting your health is coming from something that you can change, I would encourage you to change it. Yeah.

Yeah.

that

And lastly, go hire Claire. I'm telling you.

I'm telling you.

taking new clients, I'm so excited. And

Yeah,

there's no better time than this season

yeah.

holidays is coming, right? Which

Yep.

the winter season, going through the holidays with some support, especially in a, in a food sense, right? Because it's everywhere. This is not the

It's food holiday coming up.

It's almost like hit it head on because then this will just set you up for the new year, which I know everyone loves to walk into the new year thinking, well, I'm gonna change this. It's like, well then like, let, let's go. Let's actually do

Isn't it like a stupid low number of people get past like day six?

No, because accountability, 90 to a hundred percent you're gonna

Yeah.

when you have accountability. And I think that's one of my favorite parts of what I do, and I think that's a lot of the reason why people keep

Stay.

me.

Yep. I know. I'm like, wait, we're done. No, no, no. Can we re-up? I don't.

it

And I know you have clients that tell you they don't wanna do it without

you.

and then eventually they fly away, right? Because that is what I want for them.

Yeah.

the goal. But I think that is, there's just something so powerful there, you know, and we just get to make a body transformation and a mind transformation, and it's the best investment that you could ever do for yourself.

I a hundred percent agree. I wish I could like bottle you up and like give you to 📍 everybody. my gosh, Like it'd be, it'd

be great. stuff. Getting any more advanced stuff? I'm in. Toast rod right here. I'll do

Just

No, that's weird. No.

I know. It's fine.

All right. Well, I love you. Thank you for being there for me always. And , yeah, I appreciate you.

I love you. I'm so proud of you. I can't really stand it.

We'll have you back. We'll do this like annual check-ins.

We'll see where I'm at. We'll see where I'm at in a

year.

Love that. But yes, if you wanna find me, clarity concepts.com. I'm on Instagram, but it's spelled like Claire itty.

Like your name,

Yep. Clarity

I'll link your website in the show notes so everybody can find

you

it's been

all.

Love today.

See you later.