4 Top Wellness Doctors Share the #1 Way to Elevate Your Well-being

Trevor:                    Hi. Welcome to the Spa Dr. podcast. I’m Dr. Trevor Cates, and I have something different and exciting to share with you today. I’ve been at an event with some of the top wellness experts from around the country. And I pulled four of them aside, four amazing women doctors, that I think have a really important message to share. And I asked them the number one thing that was most important to help people elevate their well-being. So I want to share with you these four interviews that I put together. They’re each five minutes or less, and they share the one thing that they think is the most important.

So I have Dr. Kellyann Petrucci. She’s known as Dr. Bone Broth. She’s a New York Times best-selling author, one of my dear friends. I also have Dr. Amy Myers. She’s a New York Times bestselling author. She wrote the book “The Thyroid Connection,” so you probably are familiar with her as well. And also Dr. Joan Rosenberg. She is a highly regarded psychologist, master clinician, consultant, and speaker. You may have heard her TED talks. And also Dr. Izabella Wentz, who’s known as the Thyroid Pharmacist, another one of my good friends. She specializes in Hashimoto’s and is a number New York Times bestselling author.

So I hope you enjoy this collection of four of some of my favorite women doctors and the messages that they have to share with you, and you really take them in and, and take them into your life, and enjoy them. So here they are.

I’m here with Dr. Kellyann Petrucci, my good friend. And I wanted to ask, Kellyann, what is the number one thing to help people elevate their well-being? The number one thing.

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    Well, she knows I’m Italian. I’ll go on and on forever. That’s why she says, “One thing, Kellyann. One thing.” And the truth is, for me, and in my practice and in my whole career, I found shortcuts. And the best shortcut I’ve ever seen, in my life and in my world, my personal life, has been bone broth. But you all know I talk about bone broth. I’m the author of the New York Times bestselling book, “Dr. Kellyann’s Bone Broth Diet.” But here’s what I did. I found the best way to use bone broth to get you slimmer, younger, faster and that’s through a mini-fasting.

So what I do is, I have people use bone broth in a system in which they actually comfortably fast, if that even sounds possible. It is. So you use this in a system. You use bone broth. You sip on it two days a week, two nonconsecutive days a week. You sip on the broth during the day. You have one light meal at seven o’clock, and you get the same results as you would if you didn’t eat at all or you just did a water fast or you just did a juice fast or all these other types of fasting, but you’re not hungry at all. It’s the best thing ever. So my one thing is bone broth, using it to mini-fast.

Trevor:                    I love it because it’s so hard to do a strict fast, like a water fast or a juice fast. And a lot of people, I don’t think … they just aren’t in the place where they can do that. Their bodies aren’t able to handle that kind of a fast. So I love that you figured out a way to do this in a way that helps support the body and then still gets people results. And I know you’ve been doing it on the Dr. Oz Show, right?

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    I have. Dr. Oz loved it so much that he actually had mini-fasting on Dr. Oz. We did four segments back-to-back on just this, so catch that if you can. And I have to tell you, I love what you do. All your skin products, amazing, fantastic. Can you imagine a little bit of bone broth, Dr. Cate’s, her program, her skin care program, you are going to look smoking hot. You can’t help yourself. You just will.

Trevor:                    So tell us some of the results that you’re seeing. What are the things that people are saying after doing this kind of fast, the bone broth fast?

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    So I really am very passionate about the whole theory behind slimmer, younger, faster because that’s what people want. So what people are finding is that, oh, my gosh, those fine lines are starting to actually diminish. They’re starting to diminish. I have to tell you, I also use Dr. Cate’s, her products as well. So the combination of using that, the collagen … really amazing for the skin. Ingesting it, putting it on topically. All the products make a difference, a huge difference in getting you younger. So people are saying, “Wow. I wasn’t happy with the way I was aging, and now I feel so much better about the way things are going. They seem to be going backwards instead of forward.”

And the other thing is we get a lot of that intestinal bloating, that bloated feeling that people get all the time. The fasting helps with that in a big way. And if you’re one of those people that have Crohn’s or you have colitis or you have any kind of intestinal and even skin problems, the gelatin in there, the collagen, all of that makes a big difference in healing your gut, which is a big precursor in solving a lot of these problems.

Trevor:                    And when you’re doing fasting, that really gives, especially with the collagen support with the bone broth, it gives the digestive system a break, gives it a chance to really heal. And so much of our health issues have to do with the gut, right, like [inaudible 00:05:31], leaky gut, all of that. So I love what you’re doing with that, just giving the body a chance to heal and reboot.

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    Well, here’s what I say, is if you get sunburned, what you want to do is you want to put aloe vera on that burn. It soothes it. It heals it. So I want you to think about gelatin much in the same way. So gelatin is cold collagen. That’s what you get in the bone broth, so when you eat bone broth, the gelatin goes in there. Just as is you’ve got sunburn and the aloe vera heals, gelatin does the same thing to those 25 feet of intestines that all coiled up right here. It goes in there and heals and it seals. It gets that wall, that intestinal wall, super tight, and that’s what you want. That’s when you start improving things like all these inflammatory-type problems that … having a lot of theses skin problems that we have, that as you [inaudible 00:06:22] that inflammatory base.

Trevor:                    Not all bone broth is the same, right? People can make it at home. Got a recipe in my book. You’ve got recipes in your book. But you also have found a way to shortcut for people because I know you probably have a lot of people saying, “I just don’t have time to make bone broth.”

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    “I don’t have time to make bone broth.”

Trevor:                    So tell everybody about your bone broth.

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    Yeah, so I actually carry bone broth on Dr. Kellyann.com, and it’s frozen broth. And I shipped that to Dr. [inaudible 00:06:46] daughter, loves it, right? And she’s-

Trevor:                    One of my patients. Yeah.

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    [crosstalk 00:06:50] patients. And it’s a really quick and easy way to get a high quality source, so important, a high quality. You want that to really get gelatinous. That’s the key. So if you don’t have time to throw stuff in a pot and to put it in the refrigerator and to worry about all of that kind of stuff, that’s the best way. I also have packets that you can rip open, put in a cup, pour hot water, a little mix up. I’m very diligent about making sure the quality always remains.

Trevor:                    Yeah. I think it’s so key to do that because there are a lot of different ways to get bone broth, but you want to do it the right way too.

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    And look at us. We’re traveling this week. We’re at this conference and we’re trying to learn more to teach all of you. When we’re away, it’s a lot. We’re going from early in the morning to late at night, day after day. We’ve got to have those shortcuts.
Trevor: Absolutely. Well, Kellyann, is there anything else you want to share with everybody before we end?

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    Yeah. So just start somewhere. If you’re thinking, “Oh, I don’t want to put this in a program,” or “I don’t have to read your book. You’re great, Dr. Kellyann, but I’m not reading your book.” Just start somewhere. Have a cup a day to start. I always say, if you don’t want to do a program or you don’t want to do the diet, do two cups of bone broth a day. That’s a really good prescription to get in there and start healing that gut and to really make some big changes in becoming slimmer, younger, and healthier.

Trevor:                    Oh, thank you so much.

Dr. Kellyann P.:                    Thank you. You know I love you. My girl, here. Thank you.

Trevor:                    I’m with Dr. Amy Myer, and we are … We just want to share something with you about one way that Amy recommends to elevate your well-being. So what’s the one thing, Amy, that you think is just so important, that’s really helped your followers, your patients.

Dr. Amy Myers:                    I work mostly with autoimmune patients and women with thyroid conditions, which most of those are autoimmune in nature. So if I were to think of absolutely only one thing you could do, if you had a thyroid condition or an autoimmune condition, and that would be to give up gluten. And your followers may be thinking, “Well, we’ve heard that and, Amy, this is a fad and that’s ridiculous. Everybody’s just on this gluten-free wave.” Well, actually, there is something called molecular mimicry, which is sort of a case of mistaken identity. And it’s real and it’s in the literature. And what happens is, when you have a leaky gut, that gluten can slip into your blood stream and then your immune system goes on to attack the gluten. But it can inadvertently attack some of your tissues because they look very similar. So that’s the real scientific reason why you should actually give up gluten if you’re dealing with autoimmunity, thyroid conditions, or really any chronic health condition.

Trevor:                    So gluten is big. That’s number one. What about other foods? Is that really the only one that people have to worry about or are there other ones too?

Dr. Amy Myers:                    No, there are many other ones, unfortunately. But the biggest second culprit, and I know you write about this in your book, is dairy. Dairy is extremely inflammatory and, again, through that case of mistaken identity or molecular mimicry, many people who have a gluten issue also have a dairy issue with casein, the cheese portion or the protein in dairy. So those are the two biggies. I think you really can’t go wrong by giving up gluten and dairy for 30 days. Add it back into your diet. See how you feel. Add them both back in one at a time. Don’t add them in together because if you have a reaction, you won’t know … Is it both? Is it one or is it the other? So if you can do that. There are certainly a few other inflammatory foods, but if you can just start there, that’s the best place to start.

Trevor:                    Okay. And while you’re avoiding those foods, other things that you can do to help support your digestion, address leaky gut, that people should be doing to help make sure that when they reintroduce them that, if they do try reintroducing them, that they’re going to get the best result possible?

Dr. Amy Myers:                    Absolutely. So I follow something called the 4 R Program, which is really … what you’re going to do is remove … So one of the first things you are doing is removing the offending foods. We’re also looking at infections, like candida, parasites, small bowel bacterial overgrowth. You remove these, and then you go in and you start to begin to repair the gut with things like L-glutamine, bone broth, collagen, all these things that I know you talk about for fabulous skin. You want to go in and you want to reinoculate with good probiotics. I know you talk about that with skin.

And then you want to replace anything that might be missing, like digestive enzymes, stomach acid. A lot of people have low stomach acid and they’re not even really realizing it. So I follow that 4 R approach. And so you’re healing your gut and, again, the first part of that 4 R approach is to remove those foods. So it’s kind of those two things go hand-in-hand. When you heal the gut and you remove these foods, a lot of things improve, like your skin. Look at your beautiful skin. Your health conditions, like autoimmunity, thyroid conditions, pain, fatigue, all kinds of things.
Trevor: And you’ve seen this in your practice and your followers, too, that read your book, they see these results, right?

Dr. Amy Myers:                    All the time. Of course, you hope you come to see me in my clinic that you get these results. But I have people who I’ve never met that get these results because they’ve seen a video with somebody that I’m talking to or they’ve read one of my books, “The Autoimmune Solution” or “The Thyroid Connection” or done one of my programs. From literally all over the world, I’ve had feedback from people of how much help they’ve had. You and I are at a conference, right now, together and I’ve had a number of people coming up saying in their own lives or working with … using my programs, working with their own patients, that have seen results. So that’s always incredibly satisfying.

Trevor:                    Okay. And so, Amy, tell people how they can learn more about you, discover more about the different Rs, the foods, and your book, and all that.

Dr. Amy Myers:                    I have a special place that your listeners can go, which is gutrecipes.com. And they can download a free guide to healing your gut from me. And they have 35 gut-healing recipes. And then, also, you can come to my website, amymeyersmd.com, and all of my social media is amymyersmd.com.

Trevor:                    Perfect. We’ll have those links up, so you can check it out. Amy, thank you so much.

Dr. Amy Myers:                    Thank you. Love being here. Love seeing you. Thanks guys.

Trevor:                    I’m here with Dr. Joan Rosenberg. Joan, it’s so great to see you here. And I wanted to ask you to share with everybody, what is the one biggest thing that you want your followers, your people, and these people, to know that can really elevate their well-being?

Dr. Joan R.:                    The single most important thing is if you can experience and express unpleasant feelings, then where you get to take your life is limitless.
Trevor: Okay. Can you expand a little bit on that and how people can really embrace that and take it into their lives?

Dr. Joan R.:                    Absolutely. What I find is if people can experience and move through roughly eight unpleasant feelings, sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment, and frustration, and allow themselves to sit with the bodily sensations that let them know what they’re feeling emotionally, then they can pursue whatever they want in life.

Trevor:                    Wow. So say I’m feeling vulnerable. How do I know how to feel that?

Dr. Joan R.:                    What ends up happening is that when we experience a feeling, the feeling itself, how the brain works is it fires off almost what people experience as kind of a bodily rush of bodily sensations. So it activates bodily sensations. And what I’ve found is that it’s not that we don’t want to feel something emotionally, we don’t want to feel the bodily sensations that let us know what we’re feeling. So if you can stay with whatever that bodily sensation is, let’s say it feels like it’s something in your gut or … One of my clients used to get heat at the back of her neck and that let her know she was angry. Or somebody else got angry by feeling the heat in their arms. If you can just stay with those bodily sensations for roughly 60 to 90 seconds, then you can stay with the emotional feeling, make your way through it, and then go on to the next thing that you need to do.

Trevor:                    So noticing it, being aware of it, helps you just work through it.

Dr. Joan R.:                    Absolutely. Absolutely.

Trevor:                    Glad I learned that.

Dr. Joan R.:                    So staying present, staying as aware of and in touch with as much of your moment-to-moment experience as possible makes a huge difference. And the beauty of this, once you can stay with the feelings all the way through, that’s when you get your insights.

Trevor:                    I like that. I think so much we get in our heads about the feeling that we have, and we’re feeling it here, rather than in our body, and it just takes it out of our head space.

Dr. Joan R.:                    Absolutely.

Trevor:                    But what if we have more than one of those feelings?

Dr. Joan R.:                    Well, you can have one or more. Many times, we feel angry and disappointed at the same time. Sometimes, we feel disappointed and relieved. So it’s not that you’re necessarily going to experience just one feeling at a time, what I like to say is if you can experience one or more 90 second waves of roughly one or more of those eight unpleasant feelings, that’s when you can go pursue anything you want in life.

Trevor:                    And tell me about the 90 second wave.

Dr. Joan R.:                    Well, again, the notion is, is that when a feeling fires off, the intensity of that feeling being activated in our body with those bodily sensations tends not to last anymore than 60 to 90 seconds, so the key is just be present for 90 seconds. You can do 90 seconds, right?

Trevor:                    Yeah.

Dr. Joan R.:                    So then that’s a-

Trevor:                    Yes. 90 seconds is definitely doable.

Dr. Joan R.:                    Right.

Trevor:                    One of the things that we’ve talked about before is anxiety, and how that’s not really a feeling.

Dr. Joan R.:                    I don’t think of it as a feeling.

Trevor:                    And so that’s really [crosstalk 00:16:35]-

Dr. Joan R.:                    It lives, but I tend not to think of it as a feeling.

Trevor:                    Okay. So if someone’s saying, “I feel anxious,” what’s really going on?

Dr. Joan R.:                    I think two things. I think both fear is misnamed. Anxiety is misnamed. And the key with anxiety is … I see it as a cover for those eight unpleasant feelings. So either you may be using the word “anxiety” when you’re feeling vulnerable, or you are using the word “anxiety” when you’re actually feeling those other seven unpleasant feelings I named earlier. And the key is, when you catch yourself using the word “anxiety,” check inside and see which of the eight you may be feeling.

Trevor:                    Oh, I love that. I love just going deeper with it and learning more, instead of just brushing it aside. I think there’s so much we can learn from that and experience from that. Thank you so much. Dr. Joan, where can people find out more about you and learn more about your information, your knowledge, that you have to share?

Dr. Joan R.:                    Well, there’s a couple places. I did a TED talk on this very thing. It’s called “The Gifted Wisdom of Unpleasant Feelings.” You can find that on YouTube, just type in Dr. Joan Rosenberg and emotional mastery. That will come up. And/or you can go to my website, which is drjoanrosenberg.com. And, if you wish, you can get something that’s about anxiety, strategies for dealing with it. In this case, it’s really just using words to change your experience of anxiety within you, and that’s drjoanrosenberg.com/anxiety-reset/.

Trevor:                    Thank you. We’ll get all those websites, those links, everything up for people.

Dr. Joan R.:                    Awesome. Awesome.

Trevor:                    Thank you so much for everything that you do.

Dr. Joan R.:                    Oh, pleasure, pleasure. Thank you for your interest in my work.

Trevor:                    Okay. I’m here with Dr. Izabella Wentz and thank you for being here with us, Izabella. I just wanted you to share with the audience what is the number one thing that you think is super important to help elevate people’s well-being?

Dr. Izabella W.:                    Thanks for having me, Dr. Cates. I think one of the top things that you can do to elevate your health is to really be kind to yourself and give yourself that self-compassion that you really, truly deserve. If you’re on a health journey, don’t expect yourself to be perfect. Don’t expect that you’re going to be able to heal yourself overnight. This really is a journey. Embrace the journey. Be kind to yourself. Ask for support. Ask for help. Rest when you need to rest, and really nourish and treat your body and treat yourself as though you would treat somebody, a loved one, a pet, a child, a sister, a spouse, that was going through some health challenges. Oftentimes, we expect ourselves to be so perfect and to have all things figured out and we’re so hard on ourselves when we truly just need a little bit of compassion.

Trevor:                    Yeah. Absolutely. And we are at an event together. And that’s just such a perfect thing to say right now because we’ve been going for four days now, lots of meetings and exciting stuff. And one of the things that we’ve talked about is community, right, helping, getting that support with community, right?

Dr. Izabella W.:                    Right. And one of the things that I find is people who get better versus people who continue to struggle, there are different habits associated with that. And the people that really get better are the ones who have a sense of community. They have loved ones’ support, so they have, perhaps, a supportive spouse. For me, it was my mommy and my husband that were extremely supportive. Or they maybe have a community online. There are wonderful groups out there. I know, for the Hashimoto community Hashimoto’s 411 is a great group. They just embrace every person that’s going through their journey. My website and social media, Thyroid Pharmacist, we’re there. We’re all going through the same thing. It can feel very, very alone to be [inaudible 00:20:36], to be chronically ill, to be sick. It just feels so isolating and that can actually make us worse. All this stress going on, social isolation, social disconnection, can actually make us sicker. And when we’re out in the community and we have the support of loved ones that’s when we truly begin to [inaudible 00:20:54].

Trevor:                    I think that so much these days we feel alone because it’s a digital age. We’re so much online and we’re on our computers, on our phones, and we forget about connecting with people. I think you’re so right. There are these online communities like Izabella’s, and also if you begin meeting with people in person as much as you can and that’s such [crosstalk 00:21:23]. Tell people how they can find you, learn more about you, what you have for a community too.

Dr. Izabella W.:                    Yeah. My website, thryoidpharmacist.com, so this is where I share all the best resources and tools and tips from my own health journey from supporting thousands of other people in their health journeys. I’d love for you to come and visit thyroidpharmacist.com and just come say hello. See what we have going on there. And our Facebook page is Facebook.com/thyroidlifestyle. We’re a group of like-minded kind of going through the health journey and showing each other love and showing each other support.

Trevor:                    Great. Thank you so much, Izabella.

Dr. Izabella W.:                    Thanks for having me. Thank you for the work that you do.

Trevor:                    Oh, thank you. Okay. Bye-bye. I hope you enjoyed these four brief interviews with some of my favorite women doctors. And you are really going to help incorporate these into your life today because there are simple tips and things you can start doing right away that really make a big difference in your health and well-being. And, also, I just want to remind you, please join the Spa Dr. community. Subscribe to the podcast. Join us on social media. And if you haven’t taken the skin quiz, it’s a great way to find out the root causes behind your skin issues or ways that you can even help have an even healthier glow from the inside out. Just go to theskinquiz.com and get your free skin assessment. And I’ll see you next time on the Spa Dr. podcast.