Conquering Chronic Health Issues with Heather Gray

Ever wondered how childhood traumas and undiagnosed illnesses can set the stage for chronic health issues? Join us as Heather Gray from Discovering Health shares her transformative journey from battling childhood constipation, heat sensitivity, Lyme disease, and celiac disease to becoming a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner. Heather’s deeply personal story will reveal how shifting from conventional Western medicine to functional nutrition principles not only changed her life but also brought significant health improvements to her family.

Gain insights into the contrasting approaches of functional and traditional medicine, especially in interpreting lab results and understanding food sensitivities.

CONNECT WITH HEATHER: https://www.discoveringhealthfdn.com/

CONNECT WITH NIKA: https://mtr.bio/nika-lawrie

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Transcript

Nika Lawrie: 0:16

Heather. Welcome to the show. I'm so grateful to have you here today.

Heather Gray: 0:19

Awesome. I'm grateful to be here. Thank you so much.

Nika Lawrie: 0:22

Yeah, so I know we kind of have functional nutrition in common and we're going to kind of deep dive into some tests that I know both best look at for clients and support today. But before we get into all that stuff, can you talk a little bit about yourself, what you do and kind of what brought you to where you are today? Yeah, sure.

Heather Gray: 0:39

So I'm Heather Gray with Discovering Health. I am a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner. It is a mouthful.

Nika Lawrie: 0:48

It is a mouthful, but it's an important job.

Heather Gray: 0:52

I work with busy professional on-the-go women who have brain fog, moodiness and chronic pain.

Nika Lawrie: 1:00

So common yeah.

Heather Gray: 1:02

Very much my story. So I'm, I'm, I am my ideal client. That's I just. But I actually have a couple of teenagers I'm working with right now and a couple of men, clients that I would love to.

Nika Lawrie: 1:13

Very cool. Yeah, that's so rare the men clients, so it's a big deal when you get them.

Heather Gray: 1:18

Actually three, if you want to count my hubby. He lost over 65 pounds this last year and is sleeping more than four hours a night, so he's actually well congratulations to him and you for sorting him through that.

Nika Lawrie: 1:31

That's awesome.

Heather Gray: 1:32

Thank you. Thank you, um so story, yeah, I, I always start off at the beginning where I I tell a funny joke of you know I was basically born constipated. You know, I remember, at the age of like three or four, sitting on the potty and having my feet fall asleep because they were dangling for so long. I remember drinking that nasty thick, you know, whatever it was, that the doctor gave my mom to give me, you know, to just, you know, soften my stool Right. But at the time nobody was asking why is this three four-year-old so constipated?

Nika Lawrie: 2:07

Right.

Heather Gray: 2:08

Already throwing band-aids at symptoms like at the age of three. It's insane, you know, fast forward. I also, when I was a kid, I remember my mom would do my hair blow dryer and halfway through blow drying she'd have to stop because I felt like I was going to pass out because the heat I was very heat sensitive. Oh my gosh, age, um, which was kind of bizarre, but um, so all these like weird little you know quirky things, and then and then I got lyme disease. I got by 13, yeah, and um, my mom took it out the wrong way. You know it was old wife's tale that you're supposed to put flame to them, you know, to get them to back out, and actually they're finding out that that actually makes them regurgitate what's in them and it actually gives you a more chance, higher chance of getting Lyme disease.

Nika Lawrie: 2:58

Yeah. Oh man, I'm sorry, that's rough.

Heather Gray: 3:03

Oh, it's been brutal, absolutely brutal. Didn't start showing symptoms until two years later with my first suicide attempt.

Nika Lawrie: 3:11

Oh, my goodness.

Heather Gray: 3:12

When I was 15. It was a combination of early childhood trauma which I think set me up for being a better host for a lot of disease. Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. Also found out I had celiac disease that was undiagnosed, you know. So probably basically from birth, and that's why I was constipated.

Nika Lawrie: 3:37

Right yeah.

Heather Gray: 3:39

So those two things just kind of were like the perfect storm, setting me up to be a good host, you know so to Lyme disease, mold issues, you know there's some genetic components to it. And then the early childhood trauma. Like I just got done reading a research paper that said that early childhood trauma between the ages of like zero and seven will show up in autoimmune up to 20 years later.

Nika Lawrie: 4:06

Yeah, I don't think I've seen the report you've seen. But I've seen a lot of research coming out about the trauma and the degradation I didn't say that very well but you know of our cells and our, our able, our ability to kind of heal our bodies and how that affects chronic disease in the long run.

Heather Gray: 4:31

Absolutely, Absolutely. Yeah, and it's funny too, because you know this last year, so I take it back. So I I then went through. I finally got diagnosed with Lyme disease when I was like 32 years old. Western medicine God love them throwing napalm at the critters, right. I thought I was going to die. I seriously thought they were going to kill me because they did nothing to help support my detoxification systems. They did nothing to support all the other symptoms that had been down for having a chronic disease for over 20 some years, Right. So you know, my hormones were out of whack, my gut wasn't working, I had, like I said, still undiagnosed celiac Um, and so that's kind of when I decided to pivot and was like you know, if I'm going to get better, I need to start looking somewhere else, Cause they're trying to kill me. Yeah, Maybe not for a purpose, but they're trying to kill me.

Nika Lawrie: 5:22

yeah, maybe not on purpose, but but yeah they're trying to kill me.

Heather Gray: 5:25

so I heard then the um, ce or the, the founder of fdn, speak on uh, he was with sean croxton of underground wellness and they're talking about, you know, the principles of fdn and and how you have to support the gut and how you have to support your detoxification and you have to get your hormones balanced and you have to, you know, do all the things, things that FDN does to really support a person holistically Right.

Nika Lawrie: 5:50

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Heather Gray: 5:52

Those hidden stressors and get the body working like it's supposed to like. We're just not to. So then I go and I graduate from FDN and lose 55 pounds. I'm sleeping at night. I'm out of chronic pain. My kid is sleeping at night because I actually ran some labs on him at the time and he was having issues with his liver being congested and a candida issue at the age of nine and he wasn't being able to sleep.

Nika Lawrie: 6:17

Age of nine.

Heather Gray: 6:18

Oh my goodness, Well his liver function test came back the same level as mine and I was like 34 at the time and had been kind of a party girl when I was younger and used to drink and it did the standard American diet, you know, and here's my nine-year-old and he's got his liver functions are about just as bad as mine. It mostly had to do with a systemic candida infection and if you have bugs, bugs, poo, poo congests the liver. So FDN was such a godsend. And then from there it and I blew up my business, blew up my life and went on this like seven year kind of spiritual journey trying to find out what makes me tick and where I belong in this world. Right, yeah.

Heather Gray: 7:15

And kind of stepped back into this world about a year ago. But during that hiatus I kind of went back to old ways. I went back to drinking for convenience and I gained weight again. I was back in pain again. I was back being moody and reactive again. And it was actually an argument with my new husband last year and he kind of looked at me he's like I'm not going to be married to an angry person anymore. He's like you need to figure this out. Yeah, kind of.

Heather Gray: 7:42

When I put my money where my mouth is and I redid food sensitivity testing, I re-looked at my hormones. I did you know parasite GI map. Recently I did a metabolic plus panel, which is like the newest thingy that I'm into, looking for pyro disorder, copper excess and under methylation and man, you talk about low hanging fruit. If you've got somebody who's got a history of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, horrible periods, like a lot of times it is linked to one of those three things. And the beautiful part is is all it takes is a little bit of supplementation to kind of reverse those deficiencies. Like it's crazy.

Nika Lawrie: 8:20

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. You know, I'm really excited to talk to you about all the tests today because there's so many things that we can identify from them that people can quickly address and make some alterations in their diet and lifestyle that can make huge impacts on the way they feel. But before we get on, I just want to thank you for sharing your story. That's so just heart-wrenching one, but then like powerful in the same sense, and I mean I just blown away by your ability to keep going, your resilience and then your your compassion to help others do the same thing, to feel feel better. So thank you for sharing that story and thank you for what you're doing too.

Heather Gray: 9:02

Wow, thank you.

Nika Lawrie: 9:04

Yeah, so so I know we talked a little bit about kind of functional nutrition. We have that in common, but I think it's important. You know, I think some of the listeners understand functional nutrition because I talk about it. But for those who maybe are just finding this episode or don't really know what it is, can we talk a little bit about functional nutrition and diet, lifestyle change, functional medicine and and what it is and why it's a useful tool? You know you gave the example of, you went to the, the, you know the American medical conglomerate that. You know there there's a bunch of little moving parts to it and, while I think they are well-intended, many, many times and they really are doing the best they can, they're looking at band-aids opposed to root causes and so so that's where functional medicine comes in From your perspective. Can you, can you elaborate on what functional nutrition is, what functional medicine is and what the approach is?

Heather Gray: 9:58

Absolutely. You hit nail on the head right there when you said you know, looking for root cause like that is the basis for functional medicine is we're looking for root cause instead of band-aids, because the band-aids are only going to hold up for so long Right Age, you know you're going to need band-aids for those band-aids, for those band-aids, and it's heartbreaking when I see these 60, 70, 80 year old you know, on 20 fricking prescription pills and then those are interacting with each other and causing other issues.

Heather Gray: 10:28

Yeah, so anywho. So yeah, functional medicine. We're looking for the root cause. The other way that functional medicine is different is our lab ranges are different.

Heather Gray: 10:39

So absolutely normal range on a test. You know when your doctor comes back and says all your test results look fine, when you feel anything but right, you know a functional has a different lab range because they take into effect, to account, that the majority of the population is not well. No sampling 2000 people for these normal lab, you know results. 80% of them are not well. So you the numbers in the wrong direction. So it's going to look normal when it really isn't normal. So actually functional medicine folks have found out long time ago that if you really want to get people better, you know. So like, let's say, a functional lab range of vitamin D, for instance, they actually say 30 and above is ideal and functional medicine. Actually I know that 30 is garbage and really you need to see that upwards around 60 to 100 type of thing in order to get people performing optimally.

Nika Lawrie: 11:43

I can give you a personal story that really kind of started to lead me down the functional medicine side of things. I had gone through a difficult time dealing with my daughter's father. We have a fantastic relationship now, but it took a process to get there and in that process I was very, very stressed out. Same thing I wasn't eating very well. I was eating a lot of sugar, just kind of going through life, just kind of the day-by-day thing, and I knew I wasn't feeling well, I knew I was kind of struggling and so I decided to do some basic testing just for myself to kind of get an idea of where I was. And I did my A1C. And first time I ran at my A1C and, mind you, I'm, you know, at the time I was early thirties. I was otherwise healthy, you know, I had a good body weight, no real red flag signs of any issues, but my A1C came back at 7.1. And I was like, oh my God, this is diabetes level. And so I really started to, you know, change the way I was eating and kind of focus more on reducing sugar.

Nika Lawrie: 12:49

And a few months later I went to my primary physician and I asked her to run my A1C and I had to convince her because she didn't have. You know, she was looking at me. She's like you're, you know, skinny and young and all in all healthy. Why do you want me to run this? And I told her I had done my own and it came back as 7.1. And she was like there's no way, she's like you're wrong. I mean, she straight called me a liar, which is fine, but not. But you know, she called me a liar and and so finally I convinced her to run my A1C again and when it came back, that time it was 5.6, I think, or 5.7. So I'd been able to drop it pretty drastically. But she was saying, oh, you're totally fine, like that's not an issue at all, when reality is is that's pre-diabetic by the A? You know the AMA standards, that's pre-diabetic. So me again, healthy in my thirties. She's like you're totally fine. You know, in functional medicine standards I have full blown diabetes at that. You know, at that point, and so, understanding those points of like you can look totally healthy on the outside, the American medical association or system can tell you that you're healthy and you have nothing to worry about. But in reality you may be on a track to have serious health concerns down the road if you aren't addressing it. So you know, that really lit the fire under me. I was like this is not okay. Yeah, absolutely run through the test.

Nika Lawrie: 14:40

But I would love to do is kind of address four key questions, which eat with each of those tests. Um, those questions being what is the test? Obviously, um, how do we go about getting one, because sometimes it's not as easy as just asking your physician to do it. Uh, to what does that test tell us? And then, how, most importantly, how do we use those results to heal our body? Are you comfortable with doing that for all these tests that we're going to go through? Absolutely Awesome. So let's talk first about food sensitivity. You'd mentioned that earlier and I think this is a key one that a lot of people are starting to get more curious about. Um, what are your thoughts on it?

Heather Gray: 15:20

So it's awesome to help people get bigger wins faster, right? I have found that almost everybody that I'm testing these days are going to have food sensitivities because they've all got a leaky gut.

Nika Lawrie: 15:36

Yes.

Heather Gray: 15:37

Period, end of story. If you are eating grains and the standard American diet and you know GMO foods and on prescription drugs and taking antibiotics and half stress, you have a leaky gut. Yes, periodic story. Yeah, the food sensitivities I you know, I love them and at the same point I'm kind of phasing them out a little bit, only because I've seen a pattern. Now enough to where I'm kind of just starting off.

Heather Gray: 16:06

People, paleo, to be quite honest, everybody is testing for you know, wheat, dairy, gluten, corn and grains and um, and then I'll do like a. So this is a zoomer panel. I like the zoomers because, unlike other food sensitivity panels, they're just looking at a whole food. You know to where the zoomers are looking at a lot of different peptides in the food. So all different parts. So like, well, not myself. My stepson is not a full blown celiac but he is, and he's not even sensitive to gluten, but he's popped hot for three different parts of wheat and the wheat germ and two other parts of wheat Right, so by standards he's gluten-free and he could eat gluten-free stuff, but not if it actually contained wheat, like wheat grass, like a lot of the super green drinks and stuff like that. So that's where it gets kind of tricky with folks. And so I love, love, love the zoomers, because they break it down into, like I said, the different peptides, and so you're not missing something from a food. And then I'll do like another, just a smaller panel that comes with the zoomers, looking at oddball stuff like shrimp and different fruits, you know, like the 50, 60 food panel type of thing.

Heather Gray: 17:23

We have a leaky gut, stuff that's getting out of our gut that we eat on a regular basis, right, and into our bloodstream, where it doesn't belong in. The immune system is going hey, apple, you don't belong here. And it's putting on a full blown war with apples, causing inflammation which then causes collateral damage around it. Right, what causes a leaky gut? So, yeah, yeah, I love, love, love the zoomers. Um, for folks that really have a hard time because to gluten and dairy both have a protein, uh, with morphine in it, yeah, we add a morphine and casein morphine, right, so are like I can't go off my brands, I can't go off my pizzas. It's true, they're addicted to it. It is morphine. Um, so I find that if I have clients that are not going to be as compliant and just listen to what I say they need something in black and white Like these labs are awesome for that, yeah, or you save yourself $400 because they also can be kind of pricey, and just start with me and, and, and you know, we're going to rotate your diet and I'm going to put you on a on a paleo type diet to start Now. If they don't like, show results within the first couple of weeks, then we might revisit that of having to go back and look at that.

Heather Gray: 18:39

I've always gone by like two different schools of thoughts when it comes to the testing. Because FDN's model is test, don't guess, great, because now I'm not throwing band-aids at symptoms. But I've also found after getting into practice that not everybody can afford to pay me and these labs, right, yeah, absolutely. So I've started seeing some patterns, you know. So, as I said, so, if somebody can be compliant and they, you know, don't want to spend the money on that, you know I'll go ahead and bypass the food sensitivity test. But if you do have the money and you're curious and you and you really want to get it dialed in, right, because, say, you are reacting to apples, right, that's not going to show up on a paleo diet for a paleo diet, but I don't think it's going to cause more problems. It just might take you losing, you know, a little bit more weight or getting less inflamed. It might take just a little bit longer, if that makes sense.

Nika Lawrie: 19:33

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes you know, once you you make the shift and you clean up the diet and you start to heal the gut, you don't have those same sensitivities. So maybe if you are currently, you know, sensitive to the apples, even if that hasn't been identified as issue yet, once you've cleaned up the system, that sensitivity, um, is kind of mitigated, it goes away, and so there's there's a lot of value in just taking the steps to clean up the system first, yeah, I think, and then, and then, absolutely once you, once you are further along in either the elimination diet or paleo diet, or however you approach that, if you're still struggling, then you know the great point is doing the food sensitivity. Maybe you can identify something else For sure.

Heather Gray: 20:17

And yeah, it's a great point you don't a lot of the food, the general food panel that I'll run. You know that stuff is never supposed to be taken off for forever. You know the mindset you're supposed to. You know heal the gut and get everything sealed back up and then the immune system's calmed down. But there are more offensive foods out there and that's why I do the paleo. So, like wheat and dairy corn, they all have molecular mimicry, they all look like each other, they all, you know, give a response. And and your immune system? For some reason, with these guys we call them the big bad, because they are usually the heavy hitters that are contributing to the leaky gut.

Nika Lawrie: 20:55

Yeah, yeah.

Heather Gray: 20:56

Those, those types of stuff I never have people add back in. But yeah, stuff like if they had sensitivities to pepper or coconut or almonds or apples, you know absolutely, at some point we'll end up adding those back in. But yeah, you see the big bads If you've got an autoimmune disease and you've had chronic health issues for so many years, like it's just, it's just part of the program these days it's like exactly, yeah, and it takes time.

Nika Lawrie: 21:20

It's a hard. It's a hard shift at the, you know, at the forefront of starting it. A lot of times it's because that you know the addiction. It's the dopamine spikes that we get when we have that cheese or we have the bread or whatever it is. But over time you are able to, um, change your relationship with those foods and change your taste buds. Really too. It it does. It does end up not being as desirable in the long run.

Heather Gray: 21:48

Absolutely. It's funny, so I follow Dr Tom O'Brien.

Heather Gray: 21:51

He's like huge in the autoimmune world and healing world and he was saying I heard him on a podcast the other day talking about how it took him eight years after going gluten-free, to stop eating his mother's Christmas cookies. You know, because they're just food for us, is tied to culture, it's tied to celebration, it's tied to so many things, which is kind of what got us into trouble to begin with, because we stopped eating for fuel and we started eating for comfort and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, it's so. It never ceases to amaze me at you know how even some of the most educated people that I know, who can still struggle, you know, so, intellectually, we know that this isn't right for us, right, right, yeah, we're still not able to, you know. So, just any other kind of addiction, this is, you know, kind of right up there with them. But yeah, funny to hear him say it took him eight years for him to stop eating his mother's.

Nika Lawrie: 22:45

But in a way it's, it's a, it's a um empowering tool too, because it makes you feel less guilty about when you slip up. You know these, these experts who are world renowned in their specific area, whether that's autoimmune or um. You know uh, dr Mark Hyman talks about that kind of stuff too that he's struggled to change his diet and it took years, and now he's kind of the diet guy, and I don't mean diets, I mean like eating clean, healthy food, yeah Right. And so you know, you look at all these experts and they're struggling with it too, and so it makes you feel like it's okay if you're not perfect, as long as you're continuing to work towards that healthier option.

Heather Gray: 23:26

Absolutely, and we all get to some sort of a snapping point where it kind of brings us back. You know, I found even in my own story, you know, when I told you I kind of fell off the wagon for years, you know, and then I got back to all my old inflammation, overweight, angry and reactive, and now I don't slip up, like I just don't. It's important to me and I the the side effects. You know I found out I have some genetic issues with like detoxification and histamine stuff, and so when I slip up I pay for it, like it's major yeah.

Heather Gray: 24:00

Yeah, I've just gotten to the point where I just don't want to pay for it anymore. It's not worth it to me. So when a person gets to that point, then they're able to, like, really, you know, dial it in.

Nika Lawrie: 24:11

Absolutely For sure. So now we've talked about, um, uh, food sensitivities, let's talk about the next one, and this one, I think is really important, um, especially, you know it's it's kind of gross to some people, but we're going to talk about stool testing, and for me it's, it's really important looking also at toxins and making sure that we're you know, we're um, our body is naturally detoxing all of these things as well, and so can you talk a little bit about a stool test, what it is, where we get it, what it tells us, all those good things.

Heather Gray: 24:45

Gotcha the stool test where you can get it, probably a functional practitioner like myself. Most doctor's offices aren't using the GI map and the GI map is really they call it the gold standard as far as stool testing goes, and it's been amazing. So it's looking for parasites, bacteria, yeast, how much good bacteria you have in your gut, what's your immune system like in your gut? Do you have any blood in your stool Like? It is such a comprehensive. It's got so much information in that one test. It's amazing. And so many markers for other things. You know, fat in the stool which could be issues with the pancreas. You know, it's just so.

Heather Gray: 25:30

Why is it important to look for these things? It's because stress is stress is stress on the body, right, and you know, we all know about our outside stressors, but some of our inside stressors can be parasites, bacteria, yeast, gut dysbiosis, um. So that's one of the ways that I kind of help relieve the immune system right, get the hidden stressors off the body, so then the body then can heal, right, do it and take that deep breath, yeah, but it knows what to do. You know so with, like me, when I did it, when I first started uh, fdn, I had blastocystis hominis, which is a little parasite that's quite common with people who have animals and it caused extreme painful bloating in me.

Heather Gray: 26:13

I used to tell people that I felt like violet off of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I would eat and my stomach would just expand and it was so painful and it was all the time. And then it kind of gives you head issues, you know, towards food. It gives you an unhealthy relationship because you know food now eating equal pain right Now I wasn't wanting to eat, Right. So blastocystis hominis, you know, recently I had a client who had chronic diarrhea for forever. Doctors couldn't tell her anything. She had C diff, you know, and put her on this reverse titration of Sacbillard's, you know, it's a lot of pills over a couple of weeks but for the first time in a long time she no longer has C diff and that caused her some bloating and pain as well.

Heather Gray: 26:59

And then you know frequent urgency, you know to go to the bathroom because of her loose stool, and so she's, you know, free from those shackles you know and that can be, you know, life-changing.

Nika Lawrie: 27:10

We think about. You know we always think that we talk about these big chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease and diabetes, but something like you know irritable bowel or you know having constipation or diarrhea issues. I mean these are really detrimental to people's lives. They interrupt our daily activities. They create self-conscious issues and self-worth issues. It can play a role in all kinds of mental health struggles. They're really big deals.

Heather Gray: 27:38

Sexual dysfunction. Back when I was constipated and having issues with my gut and being bloated and gassy, you know I I wasn't in the mood to have sex with my partner, like gross. That's the last thing I'm thinking about. I'm all kinds of funky down there and sorry we're not going there, you know. Yeah, yeah, I mean it does. People don't realize how much that that kind of stuff can affect all different aspects of your life, but it does. It absolutely does. It's a really great point.

Nika Lawrie: 28:04

Absolutely so. So, um so, talking about the stool samples and stuff too, um, you mentioned you probably going to a functional nutrition doctor. Is there anywhere else that we could access these kinds of testings that you know of?

Heather Gray: 28:18

No, so the, the GI, I mean possibly like DHA labs, and I know like a typical person can get their own account with DHA labs, but you don't necessarily get a consult. So you really don't know. You know what, you can get the labs ran, but then you don't know what to do with the information when you have it, you know. So that's why I say it's great if you can find, you know, a functional or a coach, a coach, health coach of some sort, who are versed in these types of labs. So that way I see it all the time on some of these Facebook groups I belong to, they're like I have these lab results but nobody told me what it meant. Can I just book a consult with you to have you go over the labs I already had ran? I'm like, absolutely.

Nika Lawrie: 29:01

Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. It's amazing.

Heather Gray: 29:04

It's amazing how many you're saving money by not getting the consult. Whenever you talk to somebody about that, don't just order the labs, because otherwise you're not going to. They're not going to be worth anything, You're not going to and you won't know what changes to make either.

Nika Lawrie: 29:17

It's to really address the specific issues you may be struggling with.

Heather Gray: 29:21

Absolutely.

Nika Lawrie: 29:22

Yeah, so let's talk about Dutch hormone testing. I know this has become a lot more popular over the last couple of years. I've talked to a couple other people that are really starting to focus on hormone testing specifically. Can you kind of give us the overview of that?

Heather Gray: 29:35

Absolutely. This is one of my favorite stories of myself when I was going through this. So when you get your hormones tested by your doctor, it's a blood test, and a blood test is just a snapshot moment in time, right, I went in after having my kid and I was having some postpartum depression and some other issues. No, libido couldn't lose weight, my hair was falling out, um, you know. And then the doctor just looks at me and was like, oh well, you just had a baby. You know, like that it's normal.

Nika Lawrie: 30:04

These things are not normal, right.

Heather Gray: 30:06

So, um, I found out later, after I did my first Dutch um, that I had a food sensitivity that I was eating earlier in the day, so I was having a sensitivity to almonds and I was putting almond milk in my uh tea, right? So when you have that food sensitivity, your body is now stressed out and it spikes the cortisol which then brings up all your hormones like a normal level, right? So when I had that blood work done, my hormones look normal, but a Dutch is taking it over, you know a 24 hour, 48 hour period, and it's a couple of different samples and it's looking at a rhythm, right, cause we have a rhythm with with our hormones, with the cortisol, with all that fun stuff. And so I got to see that spike first thing in the morning, like that, and I was like oh, oh, food sensitivities, you know, and then it would take and then I would have nothing else in the tank for the rest of the day. So it was a no wonder that you know my, my most mode nothing else in the tank for the rest of the day.

Heather Gray: 31:04

So it was a no wonder that you know my, my most mode. You know the most productive I was between like 10 and noon. That was it Right. Two hours a day and then the rest of the day. I was just flatlined.

Nika Lawrie: 31:12

Yeah, it also.

Heather Gray: 31:13

That's such a common story for so many women, absolutely, and it also taught it also will tell you if you're having issues with your liver. It's got some, you know, with how your pathways are doing and, um, you know like right now, I ended up having to have a partial hysterectomy two years ago, sadly, uh, endometriosis just got way too bad and I didn't know then what I know now. I could have probably saved it. Yeah, anywho could have probably saved it. Yeah, so you know estrogen has been so demonized and though it's also needed, yes, so, so so many people are automatically wanting to decrease that estrogen, which is great if it's in. The bad stuff is an excess and you do have a history of, you know, cancer, estrogen dominant cancers. But, like in myself, I was having some really crappy feeling symptoms because my estrogen was low, and so I'm actually supplementing with a little bioidentical hormones my bestest friends in the whole wide world.

Nika Lawrie: 32:14

My mom said the same thing yeah.

Heather Gray: 32:17

Um yeah, um squirrel. Where was I going with that? Um yeah, um squirrel. Where was I going with that? Um, but yeah, no, I mean, that's about the Dutch, wrapped up.

Nika Lawrie: 32:28

I think you know, talking about the estrogens, I think it's an important thing too.

Nika Lawrie: 32:36

You know, I always have this sense of relinking things to toxin exposure that we have just cause.

Nika Lawrie: 32:38

I focused on that so much and, and one of the things I think you know, people really demonize estrogen dominance and all the concerns that come with that, and that is absolutely true and a huge deal that we need to be aware of and focus on, but also understanding that all of the places that we're exposed to uh, endocrine disrupting hormones you know, in our makeup, in our body, uh care, personal care products and our shampoos, you know all these, oh, all, like a breeze and the breeze.

Nika Lawrie: 33:07

All the scented candles yeah, you know, and the ads are teaching us to, you know, spray everything in our home light. The candles have the sense in our car and people aren't realizing like this may have helped contribute to your endometriosis. It may be causing issues with PCOS. It may be, you know, playing a factor in breast cancer and ovarian cancer and all these other cancers that you know both men and women are facing, are facing. This isn't just a female problem, this is also a male, you know, infertility and testicular cancer problem too, and so, yeah, I think it's really important to be aware of different exposures to the problems.

Heather Gray: 33:48

Yeah, yeah, I had a client back when. So when I graduated FDN, I was still working as a hairstylist, uh, part-time and I remember I had a client a new client come in and she just reeked of perfume just head to toe. And then she just got done telling me how she had surgery, just like two weeks before that, for breast cancer, and if not, my head was going to snap. And I was like, did you go in there with that kind of perfume on? Like, didn't anybody tell you that? And she was like what, Looking at me, like I had two heads. Any of that can be linked. So, yeah, no, it's brutal. And those commercials on TV like it made me angry. Well, people hate shows with me because I'm just like what the hell?

Nika Lawrie: 34:32

Yeah, it's sad. It's sad. You know, I have a. I have a dear friend who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, probably about a year ago or so, and, and, um, I asked her if anyone had talked to her about, uh, you know, estrogen dominance, about her hormones. If anyone talked to her about toxin exposure and nobody has she had no idea what I was talking about, nobody had said anything to her about it, and that was just heartbreaking to me, you know, and it's, it's this, um, under-recognized, serious, serious issue.

Heather Gray: 35:08

Yeah, absolutely All the way around. I had a new client yesterday, a 16-year-old teenage boy with chronic nausea, vomiting lots of pain, can't focus having issues in school. He actually hasn't been in school in the last two weeks because anytime he eats anything he vomits. Mom takes him to children's guess what children's does Puts him on an anti-nausea drug and puts him on another drug that coats his stomach. As I'm talking to his mother about diet and watching, like her hearing this for the first time ever, it dawned on me I'm like did they've not talked to you about diet at all? Like he's having problems throwing up. Like the first thing I would look at is what's going in.

Nika Lawrie: 35:52

What's going in?

Heather Gray: 35:53

Yeah, what yeah, oh, yeah, no his diet's crap, it's garbage, it's it's sugar and it's flour, and it's this and it's that and I, I, I'm like yeah, it's, it's heartbreaking, it really, really is, and you know it can be, you know, instead of being on these medications for the rest of his life.

Nika Lawrie: 36:16

It can be simple, simple diet changes, you know, or it's exposure issues, Maybe there's a chemical in his house or that he's experiencing at school that's making him sick, Like you know it's. It's addressing those, those root cause, underlying issues, and it can be simple things sometimes.

Heather Gray: 36:34

And I and, yes, I love the way you use the word simple because, yes, diet changes is fricking simple, like regardless to you know, opposed to surgery and a lifetime with another disease and another disease and another disease, another disease. Like diet, it really it's a learning curve, just like anything else in life. Those couple weeks are going to suck, it is not easy, but now it is second nature and me and my husband have you know, I've really worked hard at my new hubby that's why he's new hubby At being a true partner with me. Right, both work 40 hours a week. Right, then I shouldn't be the only one doing food prep, I shouldn't be the only one mapping all this stuff out and he is, but he's so appreciative about the time and the care and love that I put into our food that he absolutely he will. He has no problem helping me in the kitchen.

Nika Lawrie: 37:28

But do you know what that comes from? Is that the education? It comes from the knowledge of understanding why these things are important. When you have these conversations with people who may not know upfront, those aha moments go off. I always tell my fiance once you know, you can't unknow. When you start to learn about these, you know the toxins or all the issues that we're facing with stuff in our food or whatever. It is. Like you know I'm always going off on my soapbox about some issue, but I'm like you have to understand, like once you know what's really going on with our health as as Americans and really people across the planet. You can't know and then and you're just like fired up to want to make changes, to have a healthier life and to support your family really too.

Heather Gray: 38:15

About eight or nine years ago, there was this show called Adam ruins. Everything is like a YouTube thing or something and he would do a lot about like what I would do, but I it should have been my show. It's that, that's me. I have the soapbox. If I ever started off with something, with saying, did you know? Yeah, because what's coming out of my mouth next is going to change your life, right?

Nika Lawrie: 38:36

Right.

Heather Gray: 38:36

Yeah, it's going to. Just it's going to disrupt it or it's going to piss you off and you're going to put your head back in the sand. You know one or the other, but yeah, absolutely.

Nika Lawrie: 38:44

I know it's my. I do a weekly Facebook live in one of my Facebook groups and I feel like every time I go on live I start to say okay, I know, I scared you to death, you know when I say it multiple times, but it's like these are the things that we need to understand, that we're not educated on, and it's so, so important to our health.

Heather Gray: 39:05

Yeah.

Nika Lawrie: 39:06

So we've completely digressed and I think it's okay because it's important information, but I want to talk about a couple more tests with you, so I'm going to combine two. Can you talk about vitamin D and vitamin B12 testing and what both are and why they're important for us?

Heather Gray: 39:21

Gotcha Um the uh. So yeah, uh, the reason I test those is because everybody I test is absolutely deficient in them both.

Nika Lawrie: 39:34

I think it's like 80 or 90% of Americans are low in vitamin D. It might even be like 95%. I don't remember the exact number, but it is startlingly high yeah.

Heather Gray: 39:45

And a lot of times in my own practice I like to, I like to give the quick wins, I like to do the low hanging fruit and if somebody has got a really low level D, you know, little supplementation, a little more time out in the sun, you know with exposed skin, you know can can completely change a lot of things very quickly. Yeah, they're now finding out that vitamin D isn't a vitamin. It's actually closer related to a hormone right.

Heather Gray: 40:08

Right, you know, if you didn't have enough of your other hormones. How do you function, you?

Nika Lawrie: 40:13

know, right.

Heather Gray: 40:14

Well, so it's the same thing with vitamin D. It, it, it absolutely, uh it pivotal for folks with depression, anxiety, adhd, schizophrenia, you know, um, they're showing that, um, you know, um, they're showing that, um, the incidences of people who live further away from the equator and how all these schizophrenia, depression, autoimmune diabetes goes through the roof because of their lack of vitamin D. Um, so that. And they're inexpensive, and so when I need to just kind of spot check, if I need to figure out you know how somebody is coming along, then that's why I like testing for those two is because they're usually inexpensive, they're usually low and they're easy to kind of help turn around a little bit too, because, one again, everyone is low in vitamin B not everyone, but the vast majority of Americans specifically.

Nika Lawrie: 41:11

But also, I think it adds to our energy levels and understanding why there's so much fatigue going on.

Heather Gray: 41:17

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, and then just the cycle of you know, so I'm tired, so I'm going to grab for more coffee, but the coffee's going to cause additional issues, which are going to cause these other issues which yeah, it's this, this horrible vicious cycle that Americans, especially, have gotten into.

Nika Lawrie: 41:34

Yeah, so how do we go about getting vitamin D or vitamin B testing, and do you recommend testing before supplementing?

Heather Gray: 41:42

Oh, absolutely. I love to have a baseline of, of where someone's at, because then how do you know where the goal is, you know how, how much to do with the supplements If I don't know how low you are? Um, your doctor can actually run vitamin D, vitamin B levels very easily, so I always start there, especially if you have your insiddle cover, that type of testing.

Nika Lawrie: 42:06

Awesome, yeah. So the last two ones I want to get into DNA testing. I think it's really become popularized over the last couple of years. People are starting to look more into genetic connections to things. What are your thoughts about DNA testing? How do you use that?

Heather Gray: 42:24

I am just getting started actually using it in my own practice. I just ran my husband's and I have a client who sent hers in a couple of weeks ago, but mostly because. So I went paleo I'm celiac, done all this stuff to heal my gut and in about two months ago I was in pain again, I was showing signs of constipation again, my belly was hurting again, my brain was foggy again and I'm like what the hell? And I was talking to a super smart friend of mine who does DNA testing and he I don't know how we got on the subject, but he's like I'm like, oh, I've got my raw data. And he's like, send it to me and I'll blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he didn't right off the bat. He's like you have got, um, genetic mutations in your histamine breakdown and your detox pathways, and so basically I had to go on a low histamine diet, which I've been ever in a million years, because I'm I'm Western, a price, kind of trained, and um, and and paleo, which they kind of conflict a little bit. But um, uh, where was I going? Oh, the histamine. So, uh, weston, a Price, big time into fermented foods.

Heather Gray: 43:36

Dr Tom O'Brien, big time into fermented foods because in a normal, healthy person that doesn't have these genetic mutations, fermented foods are phenomenal for the gut. Right, right, if you've got a problem with histamine, like I do, it's absolutely horrible and it causes inflammation, it causes fire in my body, and so I had just I had been making my own kombucha, I had been making my own ferments and then I just got these water kefir grains, just starting to make kefir, and so I was consuming now like three different types of fermented foods. Plus, some of my diet was actually pretty high, oh, and leftovers, so it was like one of the big things, so I would always cook a big dinner to have leftover for lunch the next day. Right, that's how I planned ahead. Yeah, actually, a person that has the histamine issues that I do really shouldn't be eating leftovers, because they say within 20 minutes of a food starting to cool down every 20 minutes, like the amount of histamine that's on that food like doubles leftovers and people with my kind of issues are are a no, no.

Nika Lawrie: 44:41

I think another big one is avocado oil too, cause I think you know a lot of times, um uh, people are on paleo. I know I usually suggest avocado oil as a healthier alternative, but I know it can cause some histamine issues too. It tends to not be recommended. Am I incorrect with that? Cause that's what I've I've heard.

Heather Gray: 44:59

I've not heard that and I've not noticed any issues with that's all I use. Is it? Well, I and animal fats, um, but to cook with? But yeah, it's avocado oil, Um, but I did start taking some supplements to kind of help with that part, and then I cut so much out from other parts of my diet. So the little bit of avocado oil I might be getting might not be a big, might not be?

Nika Lawrie: 45:21

Yeah, I don't know. I've heard. I'm not an expert in the histamine diet by any means, but I've always heard that avocado is a inflammatory oil in that specific diet, so I don't know.

Heather Gray: 45:35

I've seen it on both of the lists. That's the only thing I've seen on both of the lists. But if you have high histamine issues, this food is good for you avocado and then I've seen it on another list of being a high histamine food. So avocado is one that's still kind of confusing to me, and I've just been listening to my body. It's so far.

Nika Lawrie: 45:51

Maybe that's yeah, just to the bio-individual kind of focus on that.

Heather Gray: 45:55

Well now, that I've got the inflammation down enough. I can actually sense reactions because I was also told that the longer something has been fermented, the less histamines that is left right oh interesting. Fermented, the less histamines that is left right, oh, interesting. So my water kefir, that's what tipped the scale. My water kefir was a 24 hour fermentation process. My kombucha is a three week fermentation process. My ferments are a three month fermentation process, so the three month ferments. I'm not having any problems with Myjucta. I had a little problem with the kefir, completely kicked me off.

Nika Lawrie: 46:30

Yeah, interesting. I didn't know that the histamines were based off of time and fermentation. That's a really interesting fact. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah. So back to the DNA stuff. So what else can we learn from it? What are some of the things, the important things, that you've seen?

Heather Gray: 46:51

Oh, my gosh. So much. I mean it can help you sometimes with targeted supplementation. It can help you understand if you're going to have an issue with a certain type of prescription drugs. It's going to help look at your predisposition to mold and Lyme disease. It helped me.

Heather Gray: 47:11

I just recently got over COVID and I think that's part of what brought it up is because he was telling me about a COVID loop that people have in their in their genetics and that it takes this one part out and if you already have a genetic mutation in that cycle, then really you're going to be affected greatly by covid, right?

Heather Gray: 47:31

So my son had it and he was like down for a couple of days and then he was like, fine, I got it completely knocked me on my butt. Yeah, I live a completely healthier lifestyle than my son, right, but he didn't have that genetic, this, have that genetic mutation in his co-phase cycle, and so he got over it faster. But thank God, I knew about this and there was a few supplements that I was actually able to take that's supposed to help that part of the cycle and help the detoxification. So there's, I mean it can tell you. The DNA test can tell you so much and help you with more targeted stuff, but at the same time you can't get caught up and and and just trying to treat the snips, because then you're kind of getting to be no different than a doctor that's throwing like band-aid to the symptom Right, can't just treat the paper.

Nika Lawrie: 48:21

Yeah.

Heather Gray: 48:22

Yeah, absolutely Equal correlation. There's a person's history and symptoms and stuff that come into play at a whole big picture.

Nika Lawrie: 48:28

There's a person's history and symptoms and stuff that come into play the whole big picture. I think that's a huge thing. I know I worked with the Alzheimer's Association years ago, for close to a decade, and you know one of the questions that I would always receive is the question about the APEO for genetic mutation. And you know, oftentimes we would tell people, don't test because you don't want to know, because originally people were thinking that this was predetermined, like you were going to get dementia if you had this, no matter what.

Nika Lawrie: 48:56

And the reality is is that's very far from the case is that even if you have that genetic precursor for it, there's no guarantee that you are going to get dementia. And there's no guarantee that, even if you don't have that precursor that, that you are going to get dementia. And and there's no guarantee that, even if you don't have that precursor that you aren't going to get dementia. Dementia is much farther um or closely linked to diet and lifestyle, opposed to that specific one, and there's actually only uh one or two families in the world that really have a very clear genetic link that if this person had the genetic marker for dementia, that person's going to get it. There's a huge family in South America that they study a lot, but it's really there's not a huge yes or no factor in knowing whether or not you're going to get dementia, even if you have that precursor.

Heather Gray: 49:48

You know I like the analogy that you know your genetics are the bullet, but your lifestyle is the gun.

Nika Lawrie: 49:54

Yeah, absolutely.

Heather Gray: 49:56

It takes both, you know and, and there's a whole nother science of epigenetics, you know. So the whole nother, that's the lifestyle and everything else that you know, kind of you know, interferes with these different genes from being expressed or not expressed, and blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, that's the only part. I have a hard time saying all the cool things that a DNA test can do, because it is quite fascinating, but it's just like anything else. It's a tool that needs to be used while looking at the whole big picture of the person. It's just not the one-all be-all.

Nika Lawrie: 50:30

Yeah, yeah, and I think this actually plays really well into my next and kind of last question in the sense of these tests for you, is toxin exposure is really linked to kind of the gun portion of this epigenetic kind of research and science. Is you know what kind of toxins are we being exposed to and are those going to turn on those specific gene issues? And so with that I want to ask you about your thoughts on a heavy metal and kind of toxin load testing.

Heather Gray: 51:05

Yeah, I've gone back and forth with it because, absolutely, I mean I'm reading this book right now called toxins by Dr. Yeah, I've gone back and forth with it because, absolutely, I mean, I'm reading this book right now, called toxins by Dr. I can't remember who wrote it, it's so good. It's not the first time I've heard about the correlation between diabetes, type diet, type two diabetes and heavy metal toxicity. It's like, yeah, that they actually the the heavy metals compete with the insulin receptors. Yes, you know, I mean here they actually the the heavy metals compete with the insulin receptors. Yes, you know, I mean, here we're looking at sugar, which sugar should be demonized.

Nika Lawrie: 51:36

I'm not saying as well, I totally do yeah absolutely so.

Heather Gray: 51:40

Yeah, so the sugar. And then, yeah, I got a diabetic client right now that I'm like trying to really get her to understand. Hey, I would love to do a four month heavy metal detox on you because, well, she's had a stroke and she's got type two diabetes, and even just putting her on paleo and getting her gut cleaned up, like her speech has come back better, Her movement has come back better and I just I feel like if I can detox her and detox her brain a little bit more, that I think she'll really come back online. But a lot of people just again look at me like I've got two heads. What do you mean? Diabetes is linked to toxins.

Nika Lawrie: 52:15

Yeah, no, I hear it yeah.

Heather Gray: 52:18

Yeah, I used to do an HTMA hair tissue mineral analysis tests because I found too that, like myself and a lot of people, were so low in electrolytes, so low in minerals, you know, and those are the spark plugs of our bodies, you know, and um, so I, you can. Only there's so many amazing tests out there, like I could geek out on tests all day long and I found that most people are already having issues with these toxins and already low in minerals. So, and I found a pattern. So now everybody gets electrolytes, everybody gets a multimineral, and we're going to work through some sort of a detox, right? Do you have mercury in your mouth and even looking at like external stuff? So I'm teaching them in my program about not eating crap out of plastic and not drinking out of plastic. Thank you, definitely don't heat up crap in plastic in a microwave and eat it.

Nika Lawrie: 53:17

For those watching. I got my glass, my glass straw and my glass cup here.

Heather Gray: 53:23

Yeah, so, yeah, and getting rid of the Febreze and the other crap in the drinking, filtered water and, you know, using a deodorant that doesn't contain aluminum, and it's a huge part of my program. I find that it's easy to kind of help detox people's lives right or in their lifestyle, and so I just kind of got out of the pattern of of of testing because, like I said, it was just one of those patterns that, yes, everybody's toxic. So let's you know, let's teach them how to do dry brushing, I teach them, you know. Coffee enemas, I teach them castor oil packs, you know.

Heather Gray: 54:01

So I have a infrared sauna blanket, cause I someday would love to have my own sauna, but I just can't afford it right now yeah it's not a blanket that I lay in and sweat, you know, twice a week, and epsom salt baths and you know there's a lot of great low-hanging fruit. And then I found a four-month full body and brain heavy metal detox through systemic formulas. And it's easy. They're they're they're supplement packets. They put everything together that all you need and you take them at certain times during the day and it starts off by prepping the body, the detox pathways first, and then it preps the body and then it preps the brain to move stuff through, because there's so many misguided folks out there with these detox programs, right like like with the doctors throwing napalm at the critters right, yeah.

Heather Gray: 54:49

You can't. You can't go in with guns blazed and trying to detox somebody. If you don't have these pathways open up, you're just going to make them sicker. I know reaching to the choir.

Nika Lawrie: 54:58

No, no, no I think.

Nika Lawrie: 54:59

But I think that's a really important thing to bring up because people think about all the time Uh, you know, it happens a lot with uh, with weight loss, people like they'll go get the lap band or something Right, and so they'll. They'll lose a huge amount of body weight very quickly and all the toxins that have been stuck in those fat cells for years then become loose in the body and if your detox system, your liver and your, your kidneys and you know all the parts that go with that your skin, breathing, all those things aren't working properly, there's nowhere for those toxins to go except for back into those fats. So a lot of times that's weight loss resistance sometimes is you'll see people bounce back very quickly and gain the weight back, one because of other health issues and maybe behavioral issues. But a big part of that is is the toxins themselves. The toxins are forcing the body to fill back in with fat because the body can't process the toxins, and so I think that's a huge, huge thing that people don't understand. Yeah absolutely.

Nika Lawrie: 56:04

Well, heather, this has been amazing. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to pull all this information out of you. I think you know just doing a kind of one-on-one review of these different tests and why they're important is a really powerful tool for people to just start taking, you know, health into their own hands. Be empowered in that sense. So I thank you for the time and the knowledge that you've shared today.

Heather Gray: 56:26

Thank you for the platform. Like I said, I, you know, most of us that have been down this path have got our cure because we have our own story and not suffer the way that I did for 30 fricking years. That it's, it's, it's worth it, right, and you're like holy cow, you've been through a lot, you know. Yeah, I have Hopefully, uh, like I said, it's, you know, part of God's plan that he put me here, put me through all that, and I'm here now to be a light to serve others, exactly.

Nika Lawrie: 56:55

Absolutely Well, thank you. So I have a couple quick fire questions for you. But before we get to those, before we wrap up, can you share? Where can the listeners connect with you? Where can they find you? What resources do you have for them?

Heather Gray: 57:08

Absolutely. Um. Uh, you can find me on YouTube, facebook, uh, instagram, all at discovering health FDN, which is what I am discovering health, functional diagnostic nutrition. So discovering health at the end website, discovering health left, the FDNcom. Um, right now I'm running a 20% off special for some of the packages, the health packages that I run. Um, so that way, uh, I do packages instead of one-offs, because one-offs have a tendency to be like the doctors throwing band-aids at symptoms. Right, it doesn't get the picture.

Nika Lawrie: 57:47

I'm in the same boat as that.

Heather Gray: 57:48

Yeah, band-aids at symptoms, right, it doesn't get the picture. I'm in the same boat as that. Yeah, I don't do a whole lot of one-offs for folks. I do packages and then the packages come with, you know, three months worth of couching because typically a person's best laid plans got them here. So to get them better, we need to go that way, right.

Nika Lawrie: 58:05

Right.

Heather Gray: 58:05

Yeah, and it's a lot of you. Lot of what toxins are in your environment. How are you sleeping? What are you eating? How much water are you drinking? The whole nine yards, Because that's the biggest problem. I find that a lot of folks why they prefer sometimes just to go to the doctors because it's easy to have them write a script, go pick out a pill and take it. It doesn't require a whole lot of work and there's no change in their lifestyle Absolutely. But if you want sustainable changes that are going to last for a long time, you've got to make the change, and that's what I help them do.

Nika Lawrie: 58:35

I love that. Yeah, it's so needed and it's so true, so I appreciate that. Heather, are you ready for the quick fire? Questions Shoot, awesome, okay. So what is your favorite or most impactful book, podcast or documentary, and why?

Heather Gray: 58:58

Oh my gosh, there's so many Right now. I guess I'm a big fan of Dr Tom O'Brien and I've been reading a lot for Dr Peter Osborne and all along the same lines of autoimmune, autoimmune and gut health, autoimmune and brain health, le and brain health leaky, gut leaky brain.

Nika Lawrie: 59:07

Yeah, absolutely yeah. The his, uh, um, his autoimmune fix book is is phenomenal and a great tool, if anybody's struggling with it, for sure and dr peter osborne.

Heather Gray: 59:19

His book is no pain, no grain yeah, yeah and it's right there, along the same lines with dr tom, although he goes a little bit further and takes people like kind of like I do. It takes corn off of corn grains, you know, and dairy for good, you know, just because I'm I'm seeing so much molecular mimicry with them both that I just Hugely, yeah, absolutely.

Nika Lawrie: 59:41

So you've kind of already shared quite a few in a sense today, but if you have one more, what is your best toxin-free or eco-friendly living tip?

Heather Gray: 59:52

Toxin-free, eco-living. Get rid of anything that is scented, that's not essential oils, including your freaking fabric softener. Get rid of that crap. Get a wool ball instead.

Nika Lawrie: 1:00:07

Yeah, okay, just for anyone listening fabric softener is wax. That's coating your clothes, so just throw it out. It's not making your clothes softer.

Heather Gray: 1:00:18

No, and it acts like a nicotine patch. If you think about it. Your clothes are on your skin all day long. Yes, you've got the fragrance and the scents and the blah, blah, blah. Now you're just seeping in that as you wear your clothes all day long. So it's it's hugely horrible for your endocrine, like I said, your hormone health.

Nika Lawrie: 1:00:38

That's a. That's a great metaphor. I'm going to. I'm going to steal that one from you next time I'll give you credit for it, for sure. So my last question for you today is what does living consciously mean to you?

Heather Gray: 1:00:54

You know, I love this because I'd love to see more folks do this.

Heather Gray: 1:00:59

I consciously kind of goes in the same line with holistically for me, right, not only do we need to be more conscious of how we're eating, what we're thinking, what we're watching you know the whole thing but also what we're doing to this planet. Yes, right, like that's the other part that kind of makes my head explode sometimes when I see some of these like health companies, but they're putting their stuff in plastic or they're putting their stuff in. You know some like some other horrible thing. You know some like some other horrible thing and I'm like you gotta be freaking getting me like no, no, no, no, no. You need to be good stewards of the earth as well as a good steward of yourself and of your neighbor. Like it all interplays and and we can't we can't take shortcuts on one area to get to another area, because it's just going to cause problems down the line. You think once we get a holistic view of it all, then I think we raise into a higher consciousness for sure.

Nika Lawrie: 1:01:52

Absolutely, man. I love that you said that. I ask people at the end of every interview what their thoughts on conscious living are and I always get different responses. But my whole thing, the reason I kind of started conscious living in the sense, is it's that connection between what's good for people, what's good for our bodies, also good for the planet. So if it's unhealthy for us, it's unhealthy for the planet too. And if we can really be conscious, be aware of those decisions we make, be conscious of what we're bringing into our homes and understand how they're affecting both us and the planet, we can make really big differences Absolutely Well, heather, thank you so, so much. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have you here, so I appreciate you coming on today.

Heather Gray: 1:02:37

It was a lot of fun, thank you.