Episode 115 of the Fit Mother Project Podcast is about identifying the toxins causing chaos in your body and how a full-body detox can change your life. 

In this episode, you’ll meet Dr. Wendie Trubow of Five Journeys, an integrative and functional wellness practice focusing on physical, chemical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual journeys to health.

As a functional medicine gynecologist, Dr. Trubow is passionate about helping women optimize their health and lives. 

Through her struggles with mold and metal toxicity, Celiac disease, and other health issues, Dr. Trubow has developed a deep sense of compassion and expertise for what her patients are facing. 

She is also the co-author of Dirty Girl: Ditch the Toxins, Look Great, and Feel Freaking Amazing, which shows you how to ditch the toxins and finally come clean.

No matter how healthy we try to be, we are surrounded by toxins — in our food, water, cosmetics, cleaning products, and many other things in and around our homes.

Dr. Trubow found a way to get rid of those toxins, and she’s here to show you very practical ways you can, too!

In this episode, you’ll learn about: 

• How environmental toxins cause weight gain, hormonal disruptions, rashes, depression, and more. 
• How to identify and eliminate toxins. 
• The cosmetics, cleaning products, and more that you should use — and which you shouldn’t.
• How to evaluate whether something's clean or not. 
• The importance of high-quality water and organic food.
• And more!

So, to get the most from your health and fitness efforts, listen to this episode on performing a full-body detox, take some notes, and check out FM30X! 

More From Dr. Trubow:

• Some special gifts from Dr. Trubow that will help you live a toxin-free life!
• Dirty Girl: Ditch the Toxins, Look Great, and Feel Freaking Amazing on Amazon
• Five Journeys Website
• Five Journeys on Instagram
• Five Journeys on Facebook
• Five Journeys on LinkedIn
• Five Journeys on X

What is FM30X?

FM30X is a simple, sustainable, specific weight loss program designed especially for busy women over 40. With short metabolic training workouts, an easy-to-follow meal plan, and an accountability team there for you at every step, FM30X can help you lose 30, 40, or even 50+ pounds!

Click here to see what you get when you join the FM30X program today!

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[00:00:21] Your body will shut down.

[00:00:58] And certainly this [00:01:00] is some of the toxic relationships and toxic thoughts, but today we really dive into the environmental toxins. The stuff like the pesticides and heavy metals in our food and our water. All the chemicals in our cosmetics. The cleaning products we use. The stuff we have in our homes. It turns out this stuff can really make us sick.

[00:01:39] And she realized that is. Despite really trying to be healthy and doing a lot of the right things, she was super toxic. And it was actually these toxins that were at the root of her health problems. And she figured out how to clean them up. And so my promise you is this, you listen to this conversation, you're going to be inspired certainly by the power that you actually do have to clean up your home and your family and your food and your [00:02:00] inputs and do it in a very practical way.

[00:02:23] So it's a very practical conversation. I know you're going to get a lot out of this. So enjoy today's conversation with Dr. Wendy Trubeau. All right, Wendy, welcome officially to the Fit Mother Project podcast. I'm so happy to have you here.

[00:02:36] Anthony: So let's kick into it. And I think there's this discussion about environmental toxins and it can kind of seem like a big looming scary thing.

[00:03:03] Yeah,

[00:03:26] I had irritable bowel by the time I was 15. But don't forget as, as a 53 year old, this was in the 80s and we didn't talk about that stuff there, right? This was just how life was. So fast forward to my 20s, I, I really had irritable bowel and I just thought that was just what was normal because again, we didn't talk about it and there really wasn't the internet the way we think about it.

[00:04:05] And so I did, and he diagnosed me with celiac when I was 35. And that was my entry into functional medicine. So I went gluten free and then because I went into functional medicine a few years later, I really had the tools and the ability to start treating myself. So I treated my irritable bowel and candida and I thought everything was going really well.

[00:05:02] They think, okay, my thyroid's off. I have access to these tests, so I test, and it was totally fine. And then I'm like, well, I'm perimenopausal. So it's obviously my hormone. So I checked my hormones and they're great. Okay. So now I'm like going back to basics. All disease starts in the gut. Let's do a stool test.

[00:05:43] And that makes sense. Well, guess what? I spent a week right at Notre Dame. And I remember saying, God, it's so dusty here. And I read this report and I say to my husband, holy smokes, like I got, we all got it, but I got a lead exposure and I'm sick from it. So I [00:06:00] then tested my lead and it was 25 percent higher than it had been before.

[00:06:20] So I started the treatment, and I also tested for mycotoxins, which are the toxins that mold makes when it's in you, and I had five strains. And then I tested the other environmental toxins, that's things like flame retardants, nail polish, phthalates, styrene, all, all the things you can think of, and I had a whole long list of them.

[00:07:02] Yeah. And I'm really messy and so if I have this, what does everyone else have? So that's really why we wrote the book, right? To get the message out because we're all slowly being poisoned and we just chalk it up to getting older or having a thyroid disorder, but it's not. We're really all being poisoned every day.

[00:07:39] I want to ask, what are some of the most common Environmental toxins, that blanket statement, most of us are going to be exposed to that if you were to do some of these tests on people that would pop up on different kinds of

[00:08:04] And in this case, in this sense, I'm really talking about environmental toxins. I'm not talking about your thoughts, I'm not talking about overeating or unhealthy patterns because those can act as toxins. I'm going to set those to the side and really talk about what are the things we're being exposed to.

[00:08:42] That's really pertinent, especially for women, because by the time we sit down for our day, whether you're working or, or doing your life, if you go get ready, you've been exposed to, you know, up to 250, 300 chemicals, depending on the quality of what you're using. So that's nail [00:09:00] polish, beauty products, hair products, uh, shampoo conditioner, hair dye, makeup, all the facial things and lotions that we used so that we can feel beautiful in our skin.

[00:09:30] So I'm sitting on, you can't see it really, I'm sitting on this gorgeous vegan leather chair. Okay, guess what? Vegan leather is plastic. Yeah. So then there's air quality. We're on the recording studio. So there's EMFs from the lights. If we recently renovated, there's VOCs and harmful chemicals in what we used the furniture and the, and all of the fixings and furnishings are off gassing.

[00:10:15] So it's kind of everywhere. And I don't want, there is hope here, but it helps to understand that it is everywhere. I love,

[00:10:31] I'm going to ask you about specific brands for things you do, but I want to start with like the stuff we ingest and talk about food and water. Um, but I want to first start talk about water. I am a big believer that most people, every person, if possible. should be having some kind of whole house water filter system or at very least countertop filter system.

[00:10:59] Wendie: is [00:11:00] it? Super important. Actually, 1989 in Boston, this sticks in my brain because I'm in Boston. So in 1989, a Massachusetts study. found that approximately one in every six deaths was implicated in poor air or poor water quality.

[00:11:36] Everything's better than nothing. Do the best countertop filter that you can do. I think Berkey's fantastic. But again, so I'm not a huge fan of Brita, but it's very well known, but Brita is better than doing nothing, right? So always action is better than inaction. So do something. I am a huge fan of whole house water filters and I have one.

[00:11:58] Anthony: And that's a whole house reverse osmosis,

[00:12:14] So your pot filler, you're drinking, uh, we're actually in the process of doing our bathroom and we're going to be putting in a reverse osmosis because I drink a lot from the bathroom. Even though we filter the whole house, we're filtering at the point of use too. So we filter in the kitchen point of use and I encourage people not to use my fridge water.

[00:12:47] Anthony: them. Got it. Um, but you do have basically these countertop. These under these built in countertop filters as well as things like that. Okay, cool.

[00:13:15] Pesticides or they may have higher amounts of heavy metals, like let's drill. Drill into what sources people should be looking to absolutely eliminate or buy organic at all times. Just let's get into this food

[00:13:29] It's really triggering when I start having this conversation. People are like, I used to like you , you know? So, I think the first thing is, for me, I'm a huge fan of being pragmatic. What I mean by that is, I travel, and we went to Peru, and I said to my husband, I feel like I'm going to hell, because we drank from plastic water bottles for the entire time that we were there, because there's no water system in Peru.

[00:14:13] All you do is focus on the alcohol and that's something we put in our bodies. So alcohol is an easy thing to say, okay, and this is why I said you're not going to like me because I recommend that you either. Don't drink alcohol or cut down significantly. I don't drink at all. Just so you know. So yeah, I don't drink at all either.

[00:15:01] Yeah. As is coffee, so I don't have an intrinsic problem with coffee. Like I don't think coffee's bad. However, it can be very bad for you because it has either mycotoxins or pesticides. Or if it's decaf, they've done all kinds of things to it to decaffeinate it. So you want to make sure that you're drinking coffee that is high quality, mold tested,

[00:15:21] What are some good coffee brands that are good in your opinion? Yeah,

[00:15:34] Anthony: Okay, good to know. I've tried both of those.

[00:15:37] Wendie: My babysitter, uh, and my kids, my oldest likes coffee, so my babysitter and my oldest drink Purity. We have that in the house. Uh, and then you asked about how important is it to eat organic. Some of this depends on how sick are you, right? If you're listening and you feel freaking amazing and your body is the right weight and your [00:16:00] hair is robust and you, uh, you sleep beautifully and your sex drive is perfect and your gut is invisible, you don't notice anything and you really, you're amazing, then you can listen to this conversation with less of a hard ear than someone who might have fatigue or low sex drive or difficulty losing weight or any gut issues, female issues.

[00:16:40] And so I usually say to people. Aim for organic wherever possible. And if your budget is limited, go for the organic eating, eating the dirty dozen organic because those are the 12 dirtiest foods. Can you

[00:16:54] Wendie: of those right now? They change every year, but typically berries top the list, uh, strawberries, [00:17:00] peaches.

[00:17:20] And then there's the clean 15, which is if your budget is limited, these are the 15 foods that you can probably safely get not organic. Uh, there are things that you typically peel off like bananas and avocados where there's a rind that you're getting rid of. Those are often safer for you. non organic, not that non organic is safer, but if you're going to do non organic, that's safer than the dirty dozen foods.

[00:17:59] And so [00:18:00] my husband took on the shopping and he came home one week with non organic berries. And I was like, What are you doing? And he said to me, have you ever seen how expensive these berries are? I'm like, dude, yes, I do the shopping every week and, and food because we don't eat out. I have celiac and I'm super sensitive.

[00:18:34] And the whole experiment failed anyway, so I took it over and now all we do is organic. So what I say is do your best with the resources you have. And, and it's a gradient, okay? So I don't like being entirely black or white because you might not live my life, you live your life. So my recommendation is do the best you can with the finances you have and the resources you have.

[00:19:06] Anthony: Nice. What are the most toxic animal based foods that you look at? And you're like, man, I wouldn't eat that. Or, or even, and you can also answer it in the flip side.

[00:19:19] Wendie: Yeah. I think before we talk about animal food, because This stuff will make you crazy, Anthony, right? You're always like, is it the best and how do I know? So let's back up a step if you're eating food that looks like itself Meaning it doesn't come in a package and there's no nutrition label on it That's a step up and a higher order goal than eating something from a package that you have to decipher So sure my my goal is minimally processed doesn't come from a package Doesn't have weird stuff in it You know, my kids came home with this water that the school handed out and it was blue and my kid was like six and she goes, can I eat this?

[00:20:10] She goes, no. I said, then it's not food. Don't eat it. So. I really feel pretty strongly about, like, eat stuff that you know is food, and if it's not food, don't eat it. Um, all the stuff I grew up on in the 80s, that wouldn't qualify today as food. Yeah. You know, like, so, try to, try not to have packaged food, and then when you get to the flesh And you know, you do need flesh to have optimal phase two detox in your liver, like it needs the amino acids that you're getting from flesh.

[00:21:07] Um, I never quite understood eating organ meat, although I do eat it. It doesn't make sense in my brain because your liver is detoxifying. So if you're eating the liver of an animal, the liver is supposed to detoxify. Does it have a bunch of chemicals in it? In theory it should, but it is really healthy for you.

[00:21:51] So, you know, you have to take a little bit of the devil with you when you're, when you're eating.

[00:21:59] Wendie: Yeah, [00:22:00] so because I had such so when I didn't tell you that when I had The metals and treated it on the second round the numbers always spike So my mercury was mildly positive and when I retested it was five times higher So, I don't eat any, personally, I don't eat any high mercury fish, and I don't recommend people eat high mercury fish, especially for the people who I've tested.

[00:22:42] Well, guess what? We all store toxins in our fat and soda fish. They store the mercury in the fat. So that delicious tuna, ahi tuna is full of mercury, so, Mm-Hmm. . I usually say to people, uh, the smaller fish, the, the fish, they're not huge predator fish because they aggregate all the [00:23:00] mercury from all the fish that, that, you know, little fish have mercury too, but they just don't have as much because they haven't Mm-Hmm.

[00:23:18] Anthony: Hey, it's Dr. Ray. I want to quickly pause this episode to thank you so much for listening to this Fit Mother Project podcast. I am just blown away at how amazing this podcast has become.

[00:23:46] Let's get back to today's episode. I'd like to move on to some of the cosmetics and stuff we put on our skin. Um, there, we could talk about the tons of different kinds of toxins, endocrine disruptors and [00:24:00] stuff like that. But I really want to know, like, what are the, what are the brands and products that You go for or what do you counsel people when they're evaluating their cosmetics and upgrading their default options that they're putting on their skin or on their kids skin?

[00:24:30] Uh, then there's also think dirty, which also has an app. I never use it. I use environmental working group almost exclusively. I've just, it's what I've grown up on. And then there's also Yuka. So there's a three apps that you can use to look at is what I'm buying safe. And I'll use environmental working group as, as the example, cause I use it the most.

[00:25:08] And even one is my goal. But, you know, again, this is a budgetary conversation. So if you're looking and you, first of all, don't look up stuff that you just bought. Use it up. And as you're ready to buy something new, that's the point to look it up. You know, I'm, I'm a fan of auto ship and multi multi month shipments.

[00:25:45] And makeup for skincare and makeup is beauty counter along with Burt's Bees for lipstick. I'm wearing all of this now. Purity Woods for skincare. And those are the three brands [00:26:00] pretty much that I wear and I'm using and I used this morning. And then I use a company called Vintage Traditions, which is, it sounds gross, but it's beef tallow.

[00:26:30] And then for the body, the everyone lotion is, is good for the body. Okay. So those are all EWG, either EWG certified or clean from the ingredients alone. Nice. And then I want to make sure we talk about home cleaning because a lot of people clean their homes. I don't want to derail though if you have other

[00:26:49] No, I definitely want to talk about it. I think that's good. I think there's some good brands. Just the ones that I jotted down is Beauty Counter, the Burt's Bees for the lipstick, Purity Woods, which was, Purity Woods [00:27:00] was,

[00:27:09] Okay. That's another brand I'll use for like under eye cover up. They have blush. They have, so for makeup, it's Burt's Bees, mineral fusions and beauty counter for facial care, purity woods, vintage traditions and beauty counter.

[00:27:34] We can do better on. That'll be really

[00:27:53] So when I went to look for air filters, I was like, Oh my god, there's so many. There [00:28:00] literally are so many, so let's, so I ended up actually can't remember the name of what I got from my house, but let's go for big picture. You want to get something that's a HEPA filter. H E P A. That's designed to take out minuscule particles that you're not even seeing.

[00:28:35] One is in the upstairs, one is in the downstairs. They're each good for like 2, 000 square feet. So I got two. The air filter guy said to me, get one for every kid's room. And I was like, I just Can't quite see doing that, honestly. Uh, so I got two each for the public areas and then they have all leave their doors open.

[00:29:21] Yeah. And then there's some things that not to do in your home. So if you're painting Don't use paint with VOCs. So Home Depot does not have paint without VOCs. So don't get your paint from Home Depot. Get your paint from like, um, Sherwin Williams. Yeah. Benjamin Moore. These are paint levels that have no VOC paint in them because it off gasses for months if not years depending on the, the, uh, air, air quality there.

[00:30:11] Then for cleaning, my favorite brand, and there's tons, so you don't have to use mine, but my favorite brand is Aspen Clean. And the reason I like them is because I'm a woman with no bandwidth and with a big family. So, they have AutoShip, which was like, okay, who has AutoShip? They're environmental working group certified and they have cleaner, you know, floor, window, bathroom.

[00:30:49] Anthony: Um, just on the candles, like I burn beeswax candles on occasion for a little like tea light candle.

[00:31:00] Wendie: it's fine. I think if you have a high quality air filter running, that's filtering out, you know, think of it. Candles make smoke. Smoke's not good for the air. Uh, gas stoves also put in like 50 chemicals into your air.

[00:31:35] I know if you're, especially as a human, right? We want to be perfect. You're not going to be perfect. Just like I put that order in for my laundry detergent and forgot to check to see if it was clean. You're going to make mistakes. So try to make a better choice, but don't make yourself crazy about it.

[00:31:53] Anthony: Nice. All right, let's put it back to shoes. So no shoes indoors. Do you take them off outside? Is everyone, everyone has shoes outside when they, [00:32:00] and they take them off when they come in? You can walk

[00:32:07] Those are the two places people come in and out, uh, in the back door. So the reason you don't want to wear shoes in your house is you, pesticides, insecticides. heavy metals, just flat, flat out grime. All of this is on the bottom of your shoes. And when you walk through your home, you track all of those chemicals through your home.

[00:32:43] He does not take his shoes off. He walks right upstairs, but he walks all over the house. So we're going to do a big deep clean after he leaves, right? So again, he comes in and I'm like, I'm not going to say anything, right? Just not going to go there, but you do your best. Mm

[00:33:07] I mean, on the skin, in the body, tell me more.

[00:33:33] Formaldehyde is what they use to preserve you when you're dead. So you don't really want that on your body. So I call him and I'm like, what are you using? And he's like, Oh, it's so great. It's clean, blah, blah, blah. And I, well, what is it? And he spells it out. I look it up. It's like the fourth generation formaldehyde.

[00:34:05] You might not put it on a high heat in the dryer, you might hang it, but you can launder it yourself because when you put that clothing on your body, you're absorbing the formaldehyde and it's yet another thing you need to detox from. I don't think we've really talked about hair dyes, they have ammonia, they have tons of chemicals in them and they're right on your scalp.

[00:34:40] Anthony: And on that, on that note, just because the scalp thing, do you, do you do a shower water filter as well?

[00:35:10] And so you're going to want to get that out. Uh, ours is removed. So you just, you just want to look to see how are you getting exposed and what's the quality of your water. The EWG also reviews water quality on its site. It goes by municipality. So if you have municipal water, you can type it in and see how is it rated.

[00:35:33] Anthony: nice. Really, really good. So are there any outside of someone coming in and working with an environmental doc like you and getting like actual testing, you know, the provocation challenges, all the environmental stuff. Is there any like just natural good?

[00:36:05] Wendie: Totally. And then I think what you're referring to is like what can you do on your own to take control and then what is the specialized stuff?

[00:36:31] And what do I mean by that? I mean, if you aren't sleeping, you're not pooping, you are a total stress ball, you're eating food that's unhealthy for you, your gut is messy, your relationships aren't intact, or you have toxic relationships, it's, you will not do detox, your body will shut down. So, and because you're focusing on survival, let's think of it like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where detox is the top of the pyramid and the base of the pyramid is survival.

[00:37:16] Actually, now it's really closer to like nine and a half hours in bed, which is shocking to me because I really thought that I was someone who didn't need a lot of sleep until I drilled into it. Mm hmm. More sleep. So you can't detox until you've fixed that, but you have control over when you go to bed, when you get up.

[00:37:53] So you obviously won't get a baseline test, but that'll help you bind, especially if you're traveling, you're in an Airbnb, [00:38:00] maybe you have water damage in your home, because one out of every two buildings has had water damage. I actually know someone who lives in Scottsdale who, every time it rains, her house floods.

[00:38:29] But they make a liquid form. And I thought for years I wouldn't like it. And finally, about three months ago, I tried it. And I was like, it's not offensive. So, you can do liquid. Cilantro and dilute it or you can do actual eat cilantro because it helps remove metals. Parsley also works similarly So add parsley and cilantro to anything that you can.

[00:39:10] You can take all this stuff, but make sure you're getting it from a reputable source. And in this case, I would not recommend getting it from Uh, Amazon because their warehouses are not temperature controlled and so you and a lot of things have been found to be bootlegged. So you don't want to be taking something unless it's reputable.

[00:39:48] Um, I wouldn't probably recommend doing Activated charcoal every day because you can deplete the body of minerals and nutrients. Uh, so if you're going to do that, you need high quality replacement. And then [00:40:00] clay, similarly, those things need to be taken, both the charcoal and the clay are two hours apart from food and supplements.

[00:40:27] Epsom salt soaks, um, there's these like weird things that you put on your feet. It's like charcoal. You can stick them on the base of your feet and you sleep with them overnight and it'll pull toxins out. There's also those detox foot baths, um, you can do ozone, you can do IV therapy. Those are now starting to move into things that you would do with a provider.

[00:41:11] All of these are things you have agency over.

[00:41:28] Like that seems like an easy kind of like no brainer and definitely get into the EWG seems like a great place to evaluate all the products. And so I know you have your book dirty girl, which is ditch the toxins. Look great. Feel freaking amazing. That's on Amazon. So I'm going to do a blanket recommendation for people if they want to.

[00:42:01] Wendie: further.

[00:42:20] So if you're going to come, don't come in February to Boston, unless you're a skier, right? Because there's probably going to be snow. Although there's no snow now while we're recording. So, um, That's the bricks and mortar. And then we have an online brand that's called drwendy. com and that's for people who can't get to Boston, but want to participate, want to get into the game.

[00:42:58] And it's also a [00:43:00] resource guide so that you can start leveling up because I did all this work so you don't have to, right? I went through it and captured it so you don't have to. And it's always about making a better choice as opposed to perfection. Just improve something.

[00:43:15] I mean, I learned a lot. I took a lot of personal notes for me and my family, and I'm sure if I did, other people are very much doing the same. So, Dr. Wendy, thank you for the work that you do in the world. We appreciate you very much, and thanks for coming on the Fit Mother Project podcast today.

[00:43:29] Great to be here. You're welcome.

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