Organic Olivia!

The following podcast is a dear media production. I post on my Instagram like an hour ago that you were coming on the podcast in every with like, this is such a big deal. That's so sweet. Like my close friends were like, whoa, me, and I was like, thank you. What an honor. Yeah, everybody was really freaking out. So welcome to the podcast, Olivia. I'm so excited to have you here. We have a lot of parallels in our health journey. Yeah, a lot. So I'd like to talk about, I mean, what it was like 10 years ago, you kind of started on this half of, I don't need you to put me on an antibiotic anymore. So, yeah, tell me about like what was going on with you 10 years ago. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor to be on the show and be able to talk about this wild journey that we've both been on. And interesting, you mentioned antibiotics. I think in many ways, antibiotics are sort of a gateway for me to connect the dots in my health journey because I dealt with really intense skin issues as well as really intense gut issues. So I had cystic acne all over my face. Do you want to constantly or monthly or like, I would have probably every month constantly constantly on like forehead, cis, chin, and my, I still have crazy scars on my back, like intense. Whoa, that's your acne? Yep. It's like, key light scars that you had, they key lighted. Wow. Yeah. And so, and like, I still have like, just like chest, I like cold or you at this point. I must have been, I mean, I started getting acne, I guess, around the time that I was 14 or 15. And it got really bad by the time I entered college and my first year of college, I just had so many health issues. And I ended up going into a pre-med program because I like, I'm really interested in health and why I have so many different things wrong with me. I was on a lot of different medications at that point. And to circle back to the antibiotics, again, I had the skin issues, but I had IBS as well. And I saw a gastroenterologist and all of these different, you know, specialists and whatnot. And they kind of all said IBS is just a syndrome. And here's an anti-spasmodic drug for when you're having pain. And that's all you can do. And so, I would go to a dermatologist who would give me doxycycline for my acne, which is an antibiotic. And I would notice, of course, that like, as I was taking this antibiotic, not only were some of my gut issues getting better, but of course, my skin was clearing up as I was taking this antibiotic that was killing off certain bacteria in my gut. And then I would stop taking the antibiotic and I'd get a yeast infection after about my skin would get worse again. And I just said to myself, why there must be a gut and skin connection if this antibiotic that's killing off certain pathogens in my gut, good and bad, is changing my skin temporarily. And then when I no longer have the antibiotic in my system, whatever's in my gut, it's kind of growing back. And so that led me to the world of the gut microbiome. I'm like, the gut skin axis and the gut brain axis, because I also had a lot of mental health challenges. I was going to say, how was your mental health at that time? Yeah, I was on, you know, like a range of medications, SSRIs from a pretty young age and always tried different ones. And I was someone that was they didn't really work for. I would have a really good response in the beginning when I was on like a five milligram dose of Lexapro, which is subclinical really. It's not a therapeutic dose. And then they'd bump me up to the 10. And I'd be like, I feel terrible again. And then they'd bump me up to 20. And that was way too much. And I was getting like serotonin syndrome. So I could never get meds right. And SSRIs weren't helping for me. And there are certainly certain people that SSRIs helped greatly. But I wasn't one of those people. And so I was feeling really let down by the conventional medical industry. And again, as I would notice, when my gut or my skin would flare up and I would have about as I suggested issues or breakouts, I would also have a really bad flare with depression and my mood. And I'm like, this has all got to be connected. And at the same time, I'm in pre-med, you know, learning the basic sciences and going into this field where no one believes that they're connected. And so I had this internal conflict. And I was having a certain flare that my doctor said to me, you probably have an autoimmune disease. But we won't know it for another 10 years until it shows up on your lab work. So because I was having swollen lymph nodes, my liver enzymes were elevated. I was really going through a hard time of like mystery chronic illness symptoms. And my doctor just said, well, I was like, yeah, you probably have an autoimmune disease. I guess it won't show in your blood work for a while. So I don't know what else I can do for you. Just keep taking the antibiotic, yada yada. You probably have a bacterial infection. That's why your lymph nodes are swollen. So more and more antibiotics. And I was in my chemistry class and I'm sitting there. And I'm like, just absolutely filled with like this heat and this rage and this sadness that my body was failing me. And I was so like, I was so constipated that day. And I had like drank prune juice before class in the morning. And like nothing was happening. You know, when you're constipated, you're angry again, like that gut break, the heat building up. And I was sitting there and like, my skin was like itching because I had these elevated liver enzymes. And like, I was like, a little bit yellow. And I'm like, oh my God, like something's really wrong. Oh my God. Yes. I was unwell, like on unwell. So I ran out of that chemistry class, like a panicked, ran to my car, went to my phone and went on Yelp because this is 2011. I don't know, 10, 2011 went on Yelp and was like, Chinese herbalist or acupuncture is near me. Yeah, good. And I had never, I had never been exposed to Chinese medicine, of course. So it's interesting that that was the first thing maybe I had driven past some before. And that's why. But that was the first thing I could think of. And I was like, let me just go and see if someone else can help me. And I would not raise a ball turn to medicine. Like my parents were ride or die Western medicine. We were all on a lot of pharmaceuticals. And you know, I would make fun of like my friend who was crunchy and who had like rice milk and her cereal and stuff. Like, I thought it was weird. And so I found myself driving to this acupuncture in the sky. And I walk in and I was like, can you help me? And he's like, stick out your tongue. My great. Classic. Please stick it out. And he's like, oh my God, your liver heat. He's like, your liver, your liver. And I was like, yeah, my liver enzymes are elevated. How do you know that? And he's like, your liver has so much heat and stagnation. You have so much yeast and like fungus in your gut. You have like parasites and some gut stuff going on. We need to clear up your gut. And you need detoxification support. And I was like, what the heck is that? But I believed him because I knew that I was an antibiotic. And I knew I had these liver markers in my blood. So I was like, this guy is magical. And he gave me some different now what I know are beautiful liver supporting alternative herbs that aid your elimination channels and getting rid of waste and helping your lymphatic system. He gave me this blood. He actually gave me fluorescence. Have you ever taken it? No. fluorescence. It's a really great like concentrated herbal tea that they sell. You can find it at like Whole Foods or Erawan or whatever. But it's highly medicinal. It's like a very specific medicinal tea. So he was like, only take two ounces of this tea with cranberry juice. And here's some like, you know, herbal capsules for the yeast in your gut. And then here's this other thing and go home. And I was like, all right. And so I did that. I took the fluorescence with the cranberry juice. I took the pills for yeast. And that week, it was like, not only did my lymph nodes just totally go down and we're no longer red and hot and angry and inflamed. But my back cysts started to flatten and they weren't like hard and painful and red. And I'm like, what did this wizard do? And from that day on, I had to know everything. And here I am. You guys have heard me talk about parallel before because it's a huge part of my vitamin routine. 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And when we're in balance in our body, we can be in balance in our lives. They even offer a 30 day risk free trial. So there's no reason not to try it. They have really cute loafers. They have really great sneakers. They have really cute mules. I mean, there is like absolutely something for absolutely everybody. Use code best at checkout and get some free shipping at www.vionicshoes.com. How soon after that did you drop out of pre-meds? Yeah, that was I finished out the year because I loved the science as I still do. And I still incorporate the science that well, the science that I still incorporate science into my life and love, you know, to spend way too long on PubMed till the middle of the night and look at studies because I think it's the scientific method is so highly valuable. But I definitely switched out at the end of that year and I went on to study psychology because I also wanted to understand again, my mental health. That was one of my biggest struggles in life. And really just now at this time in my life, do I feel like I've found my toolbox? I had the same, I mean, by the time I was 14, I was on like a prednisone, but like Alexa from my depression and I had an ovarian cyst rupture. And then I my constipation was like really like it was like clinically bad. And I kept going to a gastroenterologist. Nobody really had any answers for me. And like then they put me on birth control. So I was on like birth control and then like some sort of like steroid and then Adderall and because I was so tired and couldn't focus, but I had felt like that for so long that it was just because I was in like there was I had so much brain fog. And then that would give me anxiety. And so they gave me Xanax, but then they also gave me select because they were like, Oh, maybe you're like bipolar two. But I was and I just kept thinking to myself like I don't think I'm by the way, there's nothing absolutely nothing wrong with being bipolar. But I was like, I don't I know the markers of bipolar and bipolar two. And I didn't have like those serotonin uppers. I just was sad a lot because I didn't feel good. And I had no my body had no way to like if my gut was that inflamed, like it's not sending any yummy messages to my brain. You know, and so now it's like so crazy. Some 36 I have a daughter and I think about how much like how lucky she is that like I'm going to be able to be on top of anything. You know, she has like little things happening to her now. And like I'm so proud of how I'm advocating for her and not in like a weird extra hippie way. I'm like right down the middle, like I talked to two kinds of doctors and I'm like, cool, like somewhere in the middle, this makes perfect sense for her because everybody is different, you know, so absolutely integrative medicine that you can't throw the baby out with the bath water on either side. They work so much better together, so much better. I have a friend who lives in New York whose daughter is going through like, she's really young. She's going through some issues and she had like a flare up of what's going on and she literally talks to two different doctors and the one doctor said, oh, I don't stare right away. Another doctor was like, I think this flare up is being driven by her anxiety. Why don't you like give it a minute and she gave it a minute and it went away. And I was like, see, it's so nice to be just like informed on both ends. You know what I mean? And then just find some way down the middle. My God, it's so true because if you can rule out those root causes like anxiety and the nervous system and the HPA access absolutely being connected to our inflammation and immune system, that's how the body works, right? If you can rule that that root cause out of the way and avoid something like prednisone, which can be, you know, your body can get a bit dependent on it or you can have withdrawal from a steroid, that's best case scenario. But then if you can't roll that out and you need the prednisone, better to know you made the right choice, you know? So it's, let's pull from the toolbox every, the toolbox every which way that we can and come to that place of what's best for me or my child as an individual. So you, you know, at the same time as you're kind of going to, it's so funny. I feel like the fucking word journey is just like everyone's like, my health journey, my fertility journey, my way to it. But great work. But your great word journey was really being documented on your blog, right? And like, is that really? I mean, like, that's how this, by the way, like I had a blog in 2005. It's so funny. So many things really, and I feel like people want blogs now because Instagram is so crazy. People just want this like landing page hub of information. Yes. And I think a blog is still highly valuable. It's kind of like a diary of your life. I'm so glad I wrote so many blogs because I can go back and be like, Oh yeah, I already did the research around this thing. I just need to go pull from my source. Oh god, that's so cool. But um, yeah, I was, I was cataloging everything on my blog. I remember I talked about oil cleansing in like 2012 or something and was like, this is kind of helping with my acne. This is so interesting. Have you heard of oil cleansing and people like, what do you mean you're washing your face with oil? Like, are you all right? And now it's different time. Very different time. But yeah, I was cataloging like, Hey, you know, um, I learned this from my acupuncture and I'm starting to eat warmer foods. And did you know that your digestion is strongest when the sun is the highest in the sky? And I became really fascinated by Chinese medicine and kind of shattered my acupuncture before I ended up going to herb school and studying TTM as part of my curriculum. And I, yeah, I would just kind of share whatever I was learning on my blog so that I could also remember it because the best way to learn is to teach. And it comes really naturally to me. And I loved it. And I was like, if this information was not out there at the time, so I'm like, let me be a resource for people. And it ended up building such a beautiful relationship between myself and my community. How was it being? Were you being like, well received or were people kind of like, did the snake oil comment? No, I mean, it's funny. There was like, there were certain camps at certain times. Like, yeah, when I really started talking about GMOs, right, and genetically modified crops and corn and BT toxin and glyphosate and Monsanto, like there are people out there on the internet who are paid by Monsanto and like, you know, big agriculture and they're paid to sort of be online trolls and to fight this, what they would think is disinformation. And so I'll never forget, I some of my blogs got into like a big ag group and people were like, what is she talking about? Chinese medicine, the kidneys, I'm like, it's not those kidneys. It's the Chinese medicine kidneys. I don't mean your physical kidneys, but people just would like, yeah, sometimes. But for the most part, I think I found a really cool community of like fringe people at the time. I think those of us who gotten to wellness that early were also little weirdo freaks, still am a weirdo freak. But I found a really cool little community who was like, yeah, we're not getting answers there. So let's help one another. And now I think the world is so much more comfortable with the unexplainable, which is so much of traditional medicine. We don't have studies for it yet. So we have to just kind of be like, cool, let's see the theory. Yeah, absolutely. And it's going to take a long time. And I do think that people, I always say like, it's not like somebody's telling you to try some weird drug. Like if you just cut out certain things or like maybe take a herb and it makes you feel better, there's really no harm in that. It's not like anybody's telling you to do anything that's like super toxic. I think there's a good balance. I had an interesting conversation with like a family member's boyfriend recently who grew up in, I think like Nebraska and his family grew corn. And we were hanging out kind of like drinking and I was getting to know him and he was like, yeah, I can we grew corn and soy. And I was like, oh, wait, so I was like, to your family, did you spray those crops with Roundup? And he was like, oh, yeah, like, what a gift. Like, thank God, because it's how our crops were able to grow. And that's how we were able to make our money. And, you know, I was able to like go to college and go to school. And like, so that's like really like, I think where things get really intense in this country is like, they are certain things and people who live in different places who have who think what we're saying is so wild because it's such a norm to them. And there are, you know, benefits to Roundup in that specific instance for their crops, right? But I was like, totally think about like, how that affects you or like, so I was like, were you in my head? I was like, so would you like be on the field when they were spraying this stuff? Like in my head, I was like, how often have you been like breathing this stuff in? Like, yeah, you know, and there's, I mean, there's big lawsuits now with one film on people who've had these severe cancers. All I have thinking about. All I have thinking about was like, and I think it's you're touching on something that's in a city. And it's safe people. Now that you're touching on, on nuance and why this conversation is so difficult and why it's not black and white here, because a sick society needs remedies for sickness, just like, sick soil needs chemicals for pests in a way, you know what I mean? Totally. So, and I am using the word sick a little bit dramatically, but let's say a modern society, right, that is consuming, someone who's consuming all processed packaged food, standard American diet, you know, Reese's Puffs cereal for breakfast, pop tarts for lunch, whatever it is, they are going to perhaps need medications for diabetes or heart disease, etc. And they're going to need to be maintained and their life would need to be saved by those medications because of their diet and their lifestyle and what they're eating and perhaps what they have access to and many times it's not their fault, right? Absolutely. So in that instance, that person shouldn't be taking herbs and like just taking a daily walk for their severe type 2 diabetes, right? Like they're going to need life-saving medication. Same way with the soil, right? That our soil has been so decimated. Our soil microbiome has been destroyed for years. Zach Bush talks about this in a very eloquent way that I can't I love the way that Zach Bush talks about. I think it's very beautiful and I always, every time he talks about it, it always makes me emotional because I think like Mother Nature's grace to heal herself is just divine. It makes me believe in God. I'm like, look at what he can what can rise up from something that's so dead, you know? Yeah, but yeah, it's what he talks about is that that soil is so destroyed. We've never let the land rest. We have absolutely we're not planting symbiotic crops. We have no idea of an ecosystem. We're just doing monocrops in one piece of the country over and over again that's taking the same nutrients from the soil. We're not rotating. And so of course that that soil is not healthy. There's no intrinsic factors that are going to help those plants fight pests. There's no symbiotic plants that may be a tract, good pollinators. Maybe you got to use Roundup in those situations, but does that mean that that's what's best for our long-term future? And can we get to a place where we don't have to rely on that? I don't know, man. It's hard. So it's such a nuanced conversation. And that's again why I never throw the baby out with the bathwater. When you look at bags of dog food, you see pictures of bright carrots and juicy steaks. But when you open the bag, all you get are burnt, smelly pellets. Dog food needs some fresh thinking big time. Eating processed food for every meal is just not healthy for anybody. And we all know that. And kibble is subject to multiple rounds of high heat processing, making it an ultra processed food. And so sometimes it's just time to try something fresh. Dogs, we eat anything. She was toilet paper garbage and even kibble. So just because they'll eat it, I don't necessarily think means it's healthy for them, right? Why does dog food have to be dry food or wet food? It should just be food. We shouldn't have to have these like weird choices. And that's why we love the farmer's dog. It's real. It's fresh. It's healthy food with homey and veggies, gently cooked and humid, great kitchens to preserve their nutritional value. I cannot tell you how much our dogs love this. And it's catered to them because when you order it online, you say like Nutella has super itchy paws and Nina has really dry skin. And it makes the little perfect, pre sized meals with their names on it, their pre portion, they're ready to serve, they're conveniently delivered on your schedule. 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Nothing feels more like summer to me than the perfect Jenny Kane sweater. Find your forever pieces at jennykane.com. Like I said, our listeners get 15% off your first order when you use code best to check out. So this is the perfect time to get something from your mama for mother's day. That's 15% off your first order at Jenny Kane. That is J-E-N-N-I-K-A-Y-N-E.com promo code best. Mamas, this is your mouth. Go for it. Yeah, I think it really is nuanced. I just bring you that because once I started really deep diving into this conversation and having it on my podcast so often, like every once in a while, you hear people that'll say things that like, well, this is a privilege thing and it is, but I just think it's important to address it because I think that's our main problem in this country. It's like being over prescribed these things and putting band-aids on symptoms and not really understanding what's going on in our whole body health and how much that really connects with our mental health. And I know that you've gone on a big spiritual journey, which I would also really like to talk about if you don't mind because I feel like that must have also, there must have been somebody upside to that spiritual journey for your physical health too. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I think what you touched on is also really important. There is so much privilege on how we're having conversations about health, especially in the wellness industry, and especially in the consumer-focused industry around health and wellness, because at the end of the day, herbalism, for example, and the way that I was taught herbalism through my teachers and generations and lineages, that's your birthright. And herbalism is learning how to be human again and be in relationship with plants and the plants that grow around you and the medicine that's offering itself to you. It's not buying a fancy herb powder at Erwan. And I say this as someone with a supplement line, right? I'm fully aware of that. And I'm going to make those tools, but I'm also going to balance that by trying to share as much education as I can around, hey, dandelion that's growing in your yard is on the decimal plant. How can we use that as food and medicine? How can we connect with the red clover down the street? Look, cleavers are growing by your house in the spring. That's a wonderful spring cleansing lymphatic remedy that's totally free. Here's how to make a tea with it. You know, that's your birthright is to meet the plants around you and to understand that health doesn't have to be really fancy supplements. It's also the tiny little habits and the spiritual journey to your point of learning how to be human again and coming to a place of self-knowledge, self-awareness, and community. Absolutely. And you really have such beautiful community. It's because when I, like I said, when I told people you were coming on the podcast, people were like, oh, I mean, even you saying that you had to like say goodbye to caffeine, you know, that's something that's so hard for people, but like I gave up caffeine or I gave up coffee. I'm still drinking mata, but I gave up coffee three months ago. And I've never, my period is the best it's ever been in my life. It's so good. It's wild how it can impact your hormones. And that goes all the way back to again, your nervous system really is the foundation of your health. And even that in itself is essentially like a privilege to have a faith and balance nervous system because there are so many stressors in life that are beyond just, you know, let me do a meditation that are very real financial stressors, you know, massive things that people are dealing with on a daily basis. But it just goes to show that something as simple as adding a stimulant into your day. That's what, you know, the coffee plan is it contains a stimulant, right? But that's too much for our already overtaxed overstimulated stress out nervous systems. And your HPA axis, right, your hypothalamus and your brain talks to your pituitary gland, talks to your adrenal glands. And then those adrenal glands talk to your ovaries and your thyroid. And so often people who are having thyroid issues and hormone issues, it's being driven by the brain. It's not your ovaries fault. Your ovaries are doing what your brain is telling them to do because of the way that your hypothalamus is perceiving stress. God. Because there's so many women right now who I feel like have these, you know, I mean, how many women do here every day have PCOS? It's that's my biggest interest. And that's what I'm starting to specialize in because I think it's exploding for reasons that are very much lifestyle stress diet based. And I feel like that's a woman that's an area where women can really take control and become empowered where they can really do something about their health on these basic levels before even seeing an advanced practitioner who's been going to dig into their gut health and all of that. There's like basic foundational free medicine and lifestyle changes they can make. But yeah, I mean, it's a hard thing. Let's talk about those. What are those like, I mean, I've gone, I've been able to do enough from home that's like really changed my life recently. So I'd like love to hear like baseline. What are good things at home that a girl who was, because I get messages so often I have such a small following compared, and this is what you do. So I can't imagine the messages you get, but I get messages all the time being like, hey, Jessica, diagnose the PCOS. And then, and they're like, I feel relief, but then it's like, where the fuck do I start? Yes. And I do want to just share the message before I dive into the root causes of PCOS that, you know, when I said so much of what our ovaries are doing is cause my stress in the brain and you're saying like, Oh, like that's so like hard to hear. I also want to share that on the flip side. It is our brain's perceived stress, right? So much of the stress that we have nowadays is, Oh, you know, that person texted me and I didn't like their tone and are they mad at me or, you know, a lot of our stress is so my doctor always says somebody like snatted him because he said it on my podcast. He was like, stress isn't real. But like, they're obviously stress, but he was like, yeah, you have to understand you have to be able to get to a point in the human being nowadays where when things are coming at you, you have to know how much of this is real, what's my response here? You know, and so it is this like perceived, and by the way, that's a triggering thing to even say, because those are real reactions seeing a tax or thing it happened to me this morning. I looked at a comment on Instagram and were like, good. And I love this call bar action, but it's I also have to say, and let me say that's not our the stress is real. The triggers are real. These things are real and they have an impact. But we do have the power to trans. We do have the power to transmute them through our perception, right? And we can never make the stresses stop. We can never wish for an easy life. And even if we did, and even if we had a billion dollars to buy an easy life, it wouldn't happen. So all we can do is make ourselves stronger. That is all we can do is make ourselves mentally tougher, practice experiencing pain, choose pain, right? Choose hard workouts, choose being bored, choose sitting with our emotions, choose having hard conversations, practice pain on a daily basis so that when pain comes about when a hard comment is left on your Instagram or a friend does something that makes you sad, you're primed to handle it. Your brain isn't constantly trying to go back to pleasure. It's comfortable in a place of controlled pain. That's really, and that's like really number one when it comes to PCOS, right? If I was going to go into the root causes. So number one is perceived stress for sure. That's the biggest thing. Again, your HPAOT access is this negative feedback loop within your endocrine system and your glands. And your brain is going to constantly be talking to your ovaries and perceived stress is always going to raise your cortisol, is going to affect your thyroid function, perhaps down regulate your thyroid hormone, or make your active thyroid hormone go reverse and not be able to get into the cell so that you don't have energy because thyroid conditions and PCOS go hand in hand. They're very often comorbid and overall it's just going to really throw off your hormone. So I would say a huge part of PCOS and any hormone condition is going to be practicing nervous system regulation and working with the right practitioners or online breath work facilitators, spending time reading books, spending time alone, practicing sitting with difficult emotions, doing EMDR. It's going to involve a lot of modalities that are purely about mental health and nervous system health because that's always going to be your foundation. And when your body is stressed by other factors that we'll talk about like blood sugar dysregulation, having that nervous system that's used to being in homeostasis and equilibrium and knows how to get back there is going to expedite the reregulation of those hiccups in our modern life when we have a cookie or a cupcake. Number one's perceived stress and there's so many modalities around that that we can chat about. But number two is of course going to be insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction. That's really the main driver of PCOS especially for someone. There's perhaps different types, right? Someone who on their blood work is going to have really high cortisol and high DHES and low thyroid function and high reverse T3. That's going to be more of a picture of someone whose PCOS is mainly driven by stress but that's still going to have some impact on their insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction. But for them perhaps looking at their lab work I can deduce, okay, this person is a stress type of PCOS. But for a majority of people it's stress combined with a major issue of insulin resistance or prediabetes, right? Where blood sugar fasting, blood glucose is perhaps creeping up into the prediabetic range, fasting insulin is high and they are also experiencing low muscle tone. That's really a huge factor in PCOS because our muscle tissue is the most insulin sensitive tissue in our bodies. It's like a suitcase for the first time that I'm hearing this. What I'm sort of referring to is that lifestyle based as we enter our 20s and 30s we feel like, okay, our metabolism is slowing down but in reality we're becoming a lot more sedentary and we're losing a lot of our muscle mass, especially the muscle mass that's going to carry us into metabolic health as we age. So what our muscle tissue does other than looking good, it's a suitcase for glucose, right? It's literally a suitcase where your body can dump glucose in the carbohydrates you eat, essentially your blood glucose into that muscle stored in there so that high blood sugar or high blood glucose isn't hanging around in the bloodstream and you're not getting the inflammatory effect on the ovaries in the skin, etc. of high blood sugar. So muscle tone is incredibly important when it comes to reversing PCOS and looking at root causes. A lot of times we think that there's this obesity epidemic and my doctor always says that we're not necessarily over fat, we're under muscle. Muscle is really the organ we need to be looking at. Fat is more a symptom of that, right? And you can be whatever size you want to be as long as you have healthy muscle tone and are exercising and using that muscle, you're going to be healthy. So within certain grammars, but whatever. So anyway, that's another root cause of PCOS, insulin resistance. And the reason that insulin resistance is so impactful on our hormones and specifically when it comes to PCOS and ovulating, it's because our ovaries when we have long-term high levels of blood glucose and insulin resistance, our ovaries start to produce more testosterone rather than estrogen or progesterone, progesterone being our most helpful hormone and the lowest one in PCOS and even endo. It starts to produce more testosterone and also starts to lengthen our cycles and prevents this LH surge that the body needs to have in order to signal ovulation. So we want to have luteinizing hormone, this hormone that all women have. We want to have it at a pretty low stable level throughout the month and then right before ovulation, we need to have a demarcated surge or spike in LH so that the body gets the signal that we need to ovulate. What happens when you're insulin resistant is that LH is kind of a little bit high the whole time and never really has enough of a surge to signal to the body that there's a spike. So many women have an ovulatory cycles or don't get their period for months or even years at a time when they have PCOS and their cycles get longer and more painful. So as you reverse insulin resistance, as you start to balance your blood sugar, as you start to up your protein and make sure that you have high protein, healthy fats and carbohydrates in every meal and snack and you're not eating carbohydrates alone and you're making sure that your food is very balanced and you're eating at consistent times and you're eating breakfast, which is really important. I didn't eat breakfast for years. Every PCOS client that I see, I don't think there's one woman that I've worked with who has PCOS that eats breakfast or now they do but they... That was... It was like, I have to eat breakfast. I was like, that is dirty. I mean, it's like a horrible dirty thing I have to do and then I started eating breakfast and I was like, oh, it's okay. Yeah, but it also goes back to the stress piece, right? Because there's a reason that a lot of women don't feel hungry in the morning or they feel nauseous in the morning when they think about food or they're like, I literally can't eat eggs, Olivia. Like, it makes me nauseous, right? I hear so many women say that they feel so nauseous in the morning. It's because they're in fight or flight. It's because they are not having the parasympathetic mode, the resin digest mode where their body can secrete digestive fluids and make digestive enzymes to break down that meal, especially the protein in that meal because they're in a high stress state all the time. And I think that that's something that women, you know, women have always experienced stress in many ways, right? We've always been the ones to birth children and raised families and we've had a lot on our shoulders. But I do think on some woo-woo spiritual level that women have this unprecedented amount of stress now where we're expected to do that and be killers in the workforce. And do I think that women need to just be homesteaders and be kept in the home and kitchen and raised babies? Absolutely not. But I do think on a biological level, there is this, oh my God, how do I do it all? Yeah, the body hasn't caught up yet. Yeah. In the body. Yeah. And so it's really like, we also don't live in community anymore. We don't live with people who have. Yeah. Pounds and cousins and moms and our elders, there is not that village and it's really difficult because they're also just trying to survive. And we have access to this modern technology where we get to live far apart and call each other on FaceTime and we're like, okay, I'm good. And we're not. We're not good. No. We are not. I know. That's my husband's from Italy and people always talk about like, it's like, there's even, I mean, it's in Malcolm God to like in the outliers. It's like, it's like the first or second chapter where he talks about this group of Italian immigrants and like Pennsylvania or something who were like not having heart disease while it was like an epidemic in America for the first time. And it was like the only thing that outlier was that they were community based people. Absolutely. And I know, I think you had the gentleman who led the Harvard study on your podcast, right? Yes. Yeah. Showing that healthy relationship more than cholesterol. I mean, relationships are everything. And I just put up a real today about how relationships are also really hard. And the most important that is part of our nervous system regulation is engaging in those relationships. But also, we have to be prepared that by engaging in really deep, powerful monumental relationships, we're also going to have times where there's conflict that knocks us out of that nervous system regulation. And we have to make the commitment to seeing it through and being so honest with ourselves and that person about our needs in that moment and seeing if they can meet us there so that we can continue to be in relationship if it's a right fit because we only learn about ourselves in relationship to other people. Other people are our mirrors. They are everything to us. Our animals are our mirrors. We learn in community, not alone. Yes. Oh, so sad thing about how many people live such like lives of loneliness, especially young kids too. I've gotten away with not shaving as frequently in the winter. And that's a good thing, especially for me because I'm one of those like very quick, sloppy shavers that gets cuts all over her legs. 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This so easy to get caught up in what everybody else needs from you and never take a moment to think about what you need from yourself when it comes to being, you know, a family member or a partner or an employee or a boss, you know, you're giving away a lot of yourself to other people. And when you spend all of your time giving, it can lead you to feel stretched and burned out. And therapy can really give you the tools to find more balance in your life so you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind. You know, this can come by way of like boundaries or even just having somebody that you can talk to that you're not worried is going to judge you or they would use it to them to another friend. I have benefited from therapy from the time I was 12. If you're thinking of starting therapy, you should give better help a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient and flexible and suited to your schedule. So just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapist at any time for no additional charge. You don't have to get in your car. You don't have to leave your house. You don't have to worry about transferring from one therapist to the other with a bunch of paperwork. It's very easy to find more balance. Use better help better help dot com slash Pia will get you 10% off your first month. That's better help h e l p dot com slash Pia. Okay, so how did you go from the blog to turning into a business? So originally, I guess I started to sort of monetize my blog a little bit so that I could just supplement my income and all the time that I was spending researching and also in college by just doing affiliate links where if I was sharing the oil cleanser I was using from Amazon or like soap I was using, I would Amazon affiliate link it and I would make like 30 to 100 bucks a month. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then I had some ebooks like I had like healthy recipe ebooks and I would sell those for like $6 for the PDF. And like that was great. And I was working at an internship. And then I eventually actually started a jewelry company like I started to make jewelry because I had this Instagram and I posted about this like necklace that I made myself one day and so many people wanted it that I was like, okay, I love jewelry. I'll make jewelry and my my fiance and I started making jewelry while I was blogging and I was like, great, this can support my blogging. And then eventually I went to Herbs Boy attended Arbor by a school of traditional herbalism in Brooklyn and I did a three-year clinical program. It was the best decision of my life and I made my formulas and launched my line and it was just all up from there. I've just continued to make new formulas and now I have my podcast and just riding the waves kind of and trying to be of service to people. What's your top selling product? Our number one seller, I'd have to say it's between our liver juice, which is great for women PCOS because going back to those root causes, the last two are luggage liver detoxification pathways and gut dysbiosis. Yeah, I do know for my liver right now and that's my next, I was like, the next thing I really need to focus on is like liver stuff. Well, the most important thing for your liver is really nutrition because there's again two camps in the world of wellness information output where one is saying your liver detox is for you, stop doing these stupid cleanses and then the other campus saying, liver detoxification is everything. You need to detox twice a year, right? Neither of those are true, right? This truth is somewhere in the middle and your liver has these incredible detoxification pathways, especially in phase two of how it clears toxins and each of those pathways has a different nutrient requirement. So some of those pathways require the B vitamins, some of those pathways require amino acids from eating enough protein. So I tell people you want to start detoxing, eat more proteins because actually the amino acids from the protein that you eat are going to help you make a hell of a lot more glutathione, more than you'll get from a supplement and we're going to help you get rid of toxins. So that's number one, then of course you can do some beautiful herbs like burdock, rude and milk thistle and things of that nature, but nutrition is number one. So liver juice, which has like burdock, root and milk thistle and it is a top seller, people use it for acne, eczema, hormone imbalance, PMS, things of that nature, PCOS. And then our probiotic is a big one because as someone who dealt with skin issues, again for years and years, I was very fascinated when I found the gut skin access and I wanted to make my own probiotic that had skin specific strains. So I created this blend of its prebiotics, probiotic and enzymes and the strains are clinically studied to support skin health to lower inflammatory cytokines that are associated with acne and skin conditions and the amount of reviews that we have on our probiotic from people who've used it either alone or alongside things like liver juice or diet changes to clear their skin is amazing and it's my favorite product for sure. That's so I mean as somebody who suffered with acne, that must just make you sleep well at night, you know? Yeah, that's a big one. And I just launched Blue Gobidders recently, which has been sold out since the launch, but I've been trying to get it and as soon as you learn like 45 people said it to me and they were like, you didn't. I will send you someone we're back in stock. We just had a production delay because learning how to tincture an apple cider vinegar on a larger scale has been difficult, but we're almost there. I'll send you someone back in stock, but that's been amazing. I've already had people tell me that they got their cycle back. Those who had PCOS from utilizing Blue Gobidders and also my other tips like eating more protein and weight training to build muscle and making sure that you have a fat carbon protein in every meal. So give me a little rundown of an average day for you, like a realistic day of like things that you do that are kind of non-negotiables for you that you think you would hope that any of your clients or anybody listening could integrate into their life. So I like to have like movement as number one for me, right? Especially now that I've really gotten in touch with that side of myself and I feel more empowered about picking up a weight in a gym, right? It's a really long time to get here. That's a hard thing to get to. Yeah. Okay, you really want my doctor to hold me for years. You need to wait, train, you're getting to be pre-diabetic. You have signs of PCOS and I was like, I'll just do Pilates. I know, but I have a workout menu on my phone because not every day is going to be the same thing. And I think a lot of women like we are in the feminine, we're fluid. We want to be able to make our own decisions and not just have to stick to this rigid schedule because everything else in our lives is so rigid. So I have a little workout menu. I have like my six things that I know satisfy my quotient quota. That is my my quota for movement and are enough a variety that I can pull from each one. So I have like this ab routine that I do plus a walk. I have a gym session with a certain workout plan programmed. I have a jog around the neighborhood. I have a bunch of different things and I pick from that menu based on how I'm feeling. In the morning, I have to eat breakfast. That's like the first thing within 30 minutes of waking up. If I don't eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking up, then I have mood swings and blood sugar swings throughout the rest of my day. I tested it on my CGM for me and for a lot of other women, it just works to eat and set your nervous system right with fuel and say I'm safe within 30 minutes. What's an average? What's like a go-to breakfast for you? So this morning, I had steamed beef with four hard boiled eggs and tahini dressing as well as some leftover chicken breast on the side because I want to just bump up the pros and the best. Oh, yeah. Tahini with egg. Yeah, it's the air ones and you need dressing that has like mint and parsley and stuff in it and lemon juice. Tahini's so good for blood sugar too, right? So good. And it's rich in calcium. It's rich in so many different vitamins and minerals. So I just drizzle that dressing over the hard boiled eggs with the beef and the beef and eggs are like my favorite combination. But I'll also have eggs, toast and fruit with some butter on the toast or I'll have you do gluten free toast. Yeah. Yeah, I do gluten free toast. Unfortunately, bread block just in the first time. I am. Be all right. I'm like, what am I? Where am I? I have to go over there and just buy as much as I can and keep in my freezer because I think they're boarded up. Oh, it happened that. Yeah. Yeah. So I also like cocoa bakes, LA. They have a really nice gluten free sourdough and then like grocery store. Sometimes I'll get simple needs. Simple needs is a good like package grocery store sourdough that's gluten free. But I'm like, very, very gluten free for like eight years now because it was such a trigger for my mental health and my gut that I'm like, I will ask a restaurant. Is there contamination? Like I'm very well, you don't even have like a night where you're like, Oh, I'm just gonna go down. Oh, never, never, never. I will read it. It's there is a certain like mental reaction that some people have where I was talking to nutritionists about some live podcasts, but certain people when they have gluten, they experience the sense of like impending doom. There's a really, yeah, it's like a, there's a certain part of the brain that becomes inflamed and it really affects me mentally. And it also very much affects my gut like for weeks to come. Yeah, so it's not worth it. Yeah, not worth it. So many great gluten free alternatives. And I cook a lot at home with Whole Foods. So there's that. I do a different tea every day. I kind of have like a little tea ritual. I have a line of teas in my lines, but I also buy teas from many other herbalists and kind of just will blend some for myself at home as well. So like to take that moment to connect with myself at some point in the day. Are there any teas that like an average gal, you know, like peppermint, like I just started to ginger tea can't recommend ginger tea enough, especially for my PCOS gal. There was a recent study that compared ginger and cinnamon at therapeutic dosages. So this is like 1500 milligrams each of ginger and cinnamon per day to metformin, right? And then to a control group. And they found that the cinnamon group was as effective as the metformin group, right? In terms of the insulin resistance aspects of PCOS. Wow. And they found that the ginger group ginger was actually able to restore the LH spike and restore ovulation in women with PCOS compared to both the metformin and the control group. So for anyone out there as well. Again, as someone with a supplement company, I'm telling you right now, before you even buy a single supplement, drink ginger tea each and every day, especially the week or so before your period, if you want to ease your period and incorporate cinnamon into your food, meals, you know, yogurt, smoothies, etc. Cinnamon really helps with like prediabetes and diabetes, correct? Incredible. It's incredible. It helps with blending post-pranial glucose spikes. It helps with increasing the insulin sensitivity of yourself so that yourself can hear insulin better and kind of open up and receive glucose more effectively. It's anti-inflammatory. It's good for your gut microbiome. So ginger tea is like a, is like a daily non-negotiable for me. I have someone that gets ginger every time I go to the store because I want to be that girl that's just like screwing up my ginger all the time. And I never do it, but now hearing this, I'll be like, okay, because there's a lot of things I already do. You know what I mean? It's like, I'm like, how many more? And your body's called to that for a reason. You're having an intuitive moment there. It's like, a lot of really high-level ginger. Yeah, a lot of girls in the piece, you have to like, I love chai spices so much. I love warming spices. I love cinnamon and foods. And I'm like, there's a reason your body is talking to you. That's amazing. Oh, fine. Okay. So I'm a ginger tea girlie. Ginger tea and ginger juice, so like ginger shots, not the same. You need to extract the medicine into a warm liquid with heat and time to get all the phytochemicals. Can I juice the ginger and just add it to some warm water? Oh, shit. Oh, okay. You got to cook. You got to slice the ginger, put it in a pot in the stove, bring it to a boil, and then simmer it for at least 20 minutes so you get that really strong golden liquid. Okay. Thank God we got into that because I would know that's not what I would have been doing. Yeah, totally different energy. I'm going to do that right now. Wow. That's so fascinating. Okay. And then I really take time to check in with my people throughout the day. I think that's like a non-negotiable health experience for me. Try to call at least one friend or family member per day because otherwise I start to feel isolated and I can feel that at my physical health. And I try to spend time with my emotion at some point in the day, whether it's 10 minutes outside in the grass reflecting, whether it's some time before bed where I'm grooming myself or giving a little self massage or just kind of taking care and being with myself because for a very long time I avoided myself at all costs. And that was very much part of my health journey. How do you balance being someone who has, you know, depends on their livelihood from the internet and Instagram, but also knows how toxic it can be how do you do you have like what are your boundaries with the phone or are you looking at the phone all day? Do you have times of the day where you look at it because you know you have to be reactive and you have to be able to answer things. So like how do you balance those two? Boundaries of the phone is something that I really struggle with. That's like the the final, well not the final, but I could shop less. But that's like one of the final bices that I'm trying to work through right now. And I think it was like great, I gave up coffee, great, I gave up cannabis, great. Like I gave up like hyperpalible foods and binge eating sugar at night, like I'm healed. And then I was like, you're on your phone all day. Oh my god. I'm fucking bad too. So that's that's also a big issue over stimulating our nervous system. So I find that the more time I spend with people again, like in community face to face with somebody, the more I just want to be off my phone. So I try to schedule that in driving really helps me because I can't look at the phone. I'm just like sitting there with my thoughts, listening to some music, taking a drive. You know, I do things that kind of fill that space. And I'm also mindful that at night, could I just put my phone on airplane mode and just think a little bit of reflect on the day rather than listen to a YouTube video to go to bed? Like yeah. And I have to set that boundary and discipline with myself and an accent more often, which is something I've been working on. So that's hard. But yeah, with my job, I've just put really good systems in place. I've just really made sure that I have a killer team that's taking care of everything. And that my business also functions without me posting. So that I can I take two weeks off of Instagram every month. Like I don't I don't post away. Like, yeah, like you'll see like I don't like I'm making a lot of stories right now. And then I'm I'm radio silent for two weeks because I just I'm not a machine and I can't function that way. And I used to be miserable functioning that way. And my team was like, great, like let's make a plan. Let's have our brand Instagram. So shop organic Lydia is where we make content for our brand so that that's always speaking to our community. And we're always giving them value without me having to come on stories every day. Like a robot when I'm not feeling it because who wants to watch me make manufactured stories that I'm not feeling that I'm doing content growth like I can't I can't do this. I can't not I don't post on my feed that much. So that might be a unique situation because I'm like grandfathered into the game and I have my community built. But it wasn't always like that. And I'm really glad that I spent a lot of years in a sense like glued to my phone and you know posting a lot because it helped me to build beautiful relationships and help people get to know me. But I think now I've found a much better balance with it. Well, it's it's honestly refreshing to hear as somebody who was also you know like I create content to fund my life and like now that TikTok went from TikTok being like this thing that we were all like, oh my god, like that's happening over there. Maybe some people had it but like you weren't and now it's like we all have to have these TikToks and I love TikTok. But like, you know, I'll be like, shit, the whole day went by and I like didn't video anything. And so to know that you are able to do all of that and take two weeks off is I think it's yeah, I mean two weeks off of like and not two weeks off of work like I'm on zoom meetings every day. No, I was saying two weeks off of your phone. And of course, no, I'm where you're not just all day like doing this because the phone really brings me away from whatever else I'm doing. Yeah, you know, so like, yeah, like I'll need to put a deck together and then I'll go to find a photo on Instagram and then 20 minutes later, I'm like, whoa, how did I end up here? You know, I don't know that you can do both and have a boundary. I think it's really, you know, it's encouraging for someone like me who also runs businesses that need the internet to function. I think people are excited about your content when you're excited about it. And when you're like, I'm posting this to hit a quota of I need to post on my grid every day, it like just has a different energy. And I think people appreciate it when you're like, Hey, I have something to share. Like, I'm excited about this. And it creates a different precedent, but also it doesn't the algorithm doesn't favor it. So you win some you lose them. It's not also the solution, you know, what do you think is next for you? Where do you like, are there new product launches? Or you do you like feel like maybe you just need to sit where you are right now and everything's going great? I mean, you're you are a guiding light for so many of us. I'm curious to see like what you have in store. We have a few product launches coming. We're restocking Gloozo Bitters at the end of May. I have some products launching later this year. I'm working on finalizing a PCOS formula, which I'm so excited about. Amazing. And then we're starting to do more events. So I have my first event in LA tomorrow, we're doing a medicinal dinner party, where each and every course is a wild weeds and wild herbs, but it's a very small dinner party. You love it. So yeah, we're going to do more events. I want to just meet more of my community in person and just hug them. So we're working on that. And I think for me as a person and a professional, I love to continue my education. I just did a classical Chinese medicine course. I'm going to start doing more courses on actually nervous system regulation and tools in that vein, because I'm starting to realize like, you can take all the herbs in the world and I'm always going to take my herbs, but it really comes down to the tools you have in your own body. And I'm very interested in the philosophical and like energetic part of health as well. So I think I want to grow as a practitioner to expand my modalities and hopefully in the future be able to work with women in that way. If there's anyone listening to this who has not fried an herb, who feels intimidated, who would like to reap the benefits of all the things that you discuss and talk about, is there like, you know, just somebody needs to be working with an herbalist. We need to do some Chinese medicine. Should we go somewhere or you like here, you can take, you know, what you're offering already. Yeah. Yeah. Again, plant medicine is your birthright. And herbalism doesn't mean taking a supplement. So just know that every time you order chamomile tea at a restaurant, you're engaging with herbal medicine. Just know that every time you're brewing yourself, ginger tea on the stove, or you're adding rosemary and infusing that into your food, you are engaging with herbal medicine. And there's so many amazing ways that you can make medicine in your kitchen. For example, I have some recipes on my Instagram, the brand one, Choppergannous Olivia, where we teach you how to make a cordial, for example, where that's taking different medicinal herbs and flowers like roses and hothorn berries that are good for digestion and calming the spirit. And you pour brandy over them as well as some like juice or water. And you kind of make this like water down liqueur or cordial. And after that infuses for six weeks, you can then use a little bit of that cordial and sparkling water and make these like digestive soothing mock tail where you can serve to your friends and family. So you can work with herbs in your own kitchen. And I think a great way, of course, I encourage people to work with practitioners. Yes, go to the American herbalist guild website, find an herbalist near you if you're feeling called to work with an herbalist on your health issues, see a licensed acupuncturist or a doctor of Chinese medicine who can work with you if you're feeling called to use Chinese herbs instead of maybe an herbalist who's trained with Western herbs more like I am. And also, yeah, feel out different medicines that herbalists like myself are making, right? Like I have some beautiful formulas in my store. I mentioned a few I have keys juice, for example, that's a really great like gateway or a formula just filled with nerve ions, like Kava, like skull calf that helps to just drop you into more of a state of relaxation. And everyone can use that. And then also, I have something called digestive juice, which is like a bitter blend that you can spray on your tongue before meals if you have digestive issues or bloating. And that's a very traditional way to work with very gentle plant medicine to start the digestive process off and experience what plants can do for you. Thank you so much for this. I don't want to take you if any more of your time where can people find you? You guys can check me out on Instagram at organic underscore Olivia or my brand is shop organic Olivia. That's where we have all the recipes and fun videos. And then my website is organic Olivia dot com. That's where you can find my formulas and all my blogs and my podcast is what's the juice. Thank you. There's like so much I want to talk about an hour is like not enough. I'm like, I know parents, we didn't talk about anything, but there's like maybe we'll hopefully we got a part two one. Yeah, that'd be great. All right. Thank you so much, Olivia. And good luck with your videos tomorrow night. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. We'll talk soon. Okay, bye. And that, ladies and gentlemen concludes this week's episode of everything is the best. I hope you enjoyed it. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that stuff. Maybe leave a comment, but remember shitty comments are for shitty people. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram at PiaBaronGenie and I hope you have a fabulous fabulous rest of your day. Love you. Tau. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.