Healing Anorexia with a Carnivore Diet: Valerie Anne Smith's Inspiring Story! 540

Anorexia. A word that conjures up images of skeletal bodies, gaunt faces, and a life of self-imposed starvation. It's a terrifying disorder that slowly eats away at a person's physical and mental health. But what happens when someone diagnosed with this illness decides to take control and embark on a journey towards recovery? This is the story of Valerie Anne Smith, a woman who suffered from anorexia for a staggering 34 years before a dramatic dietary change towards a path of healing and self-acceptance.

Imagine the courage it takes to shut those voices out and reclaim your life. Valerie did just that and more. Not only did she face the harsh realities of traditional anorexia treatments, but she also opened up about the debilitating impacts of her mental disorder, shining a light on the importance of addressing mental health alongside physical recovery. With raw honesty, Valerie delves into her experiences with self-harm and starvation, her struggles with traditional treatment methods, and the turning point in her journey when she discovered the healing properties of protein and saturated fat.

Fast forward to today, five years into her recovery, Valerie has found pure joy in life, reconnecting with her family, and most importantly, learning to love herself. She's a living testament to the power of resilience, hope, and recovery. Her inspiring journey from self-starvation to self-acceptance is laced with challenges, triumphs, and a newfound appreciation for real food. Valerie's story serves as a beacon of hope for those battling similar demons, proving that it's never too late to choose life over a disorder. Join us as we explore Valerie's incredible transformation and how she uses her experiences to challenge the narrative around anorexia, and recovery with the carnivore diet.

Find Valerie at-

TW- @ValerieAnne1970

IG- @valerieanne1970

Valerie's Case Study with former podcast guests Dr. Nick Norwitz and RD Michelle Hurn- Animal-based ketogenic diet puts severe anorexia nervosa into multi-year remission: A case series

Boundless Body Radio- SPECIAL EPISODE- Dr. Nick Norwitz Interviews Dr. Chris Palmer and Brett Lloyd! 123

0:24 Intro

9:40 Challenges in Anorexia Treatment

19:33 Recovery Journey From Starvation and Self-Harm

35:15 The Devastating Health Journey to Recovery

50:37 Healing Through Dietary Changes

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Hello and welcome to another episode of Boundless Body Radio. I'm your host, Casey Ruff, and today we have another amazing guest to introduce you now. Valerie Ann Smith was diagnosed in 1984, at the age of 14, with anorexia nervosa and suffered for a total of 34 years. Initially, from 1984 until 2018, she experienced four short periods of being weight restored, but she understood that weight restoration did not equate to healing from her mental illness. Standing at 5'9 tall, her lowest BMI was 11.8, and she spent most of the 34 years weighing 80 pounds.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Throughout this period, she faced various complications, including a lack of a menstrual period for 10 years, anemia, major hair loss, osteoporosis diagnosed through a dexis can, a heart murmur, life-threatening complications after a tonsillectomy that required four surgeries in six days at the age of 31. Major triple organ prolapse that necessitated an 8-hour surgery at age 40, OCD cutting, severe vaginal atrophy, depression, anxiety, three stress factors and multiple tendon and joint injuries. Finally, she discovered the evidence supporting the importance of protein and saturated fat in healing her brain, which were the exact foods that she had avoided for 33 years. This newfound knowledge marked a massive turning point in her journey. You can find her on Twitter or Instagram at Valerie Ann 1970. Valerie Ann, what an absolute honor it is to welcome you to Balanced Body Radio.

Speaker 2: 1:49

Thank you, casey. I'm overjoyed to be here. I'm looking so forward, looking to talk to you.

Speaker 1: 1:54

It's such an honor to host you, so thank you for being here in more ways than one. When we read through all of those things in the introduction, like you could very easily have not been able to be here with us and be here with your family. You mentioned off air that your best friends with your mom and that relationship must be absolutely wonderful now that you've been able to find some healing.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Yeah, I'm thankful every day that I survived. I shouldn't have, I really shouldn't have. My weight was so low, the organ problems that I had, the internal problems that I had, the surgeries and the length of time that I spent at that such of a low weight I really shouldn't have survived. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Very thankful. Yeah, so glad you did. We've told some dark stories around here. We've had Michelle Herne on. She's told us about her anorexia and how she found a carnivore diet to help heal. That is a registered dietician, brett Lloyd, obviously with deep suicidal depression, fixing his depression by using a carnivore diet. We've had James Lehman on, who you've been on his show. Absolutely love that guy. Leigh R Keith, former vegan vegetarian for about 20 years, and all the suffering that she still goes through. I would say that your story is probably up there with one of the darkest stories we've told on the show, and so what I want to do is just let's give the ending away. Let's spoiler alert right now Tell us all that this is a good story with a good ending.

Speaker 2: 3:26

It is. It's a life-changing, transforming story. It is a story that I never thought I was going to have the privilege to tell, because doctors told me that I would be disordered for the rest of my life, that I would never be completely well, and after four decades of living it, I didn't. I really. I mean, you always have hope, but after that long and being under traditional treatment and nine psych meds and hospitalizations and all of the schizoaffective voices that I heard in my head 24 hours a day, I really didn't think that it was possible to actually be free and be healed and be well At the very least. When I embarked on this journey with Carnivore, I hoped to just be a little better, which was better than anything I ever experienced. So, yes, it's a very happy ending joyful, happy, completely transformative ending.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Yeah, it's not going to feel that way in the next few minutes as we're going to tell your story and as part of kind of what you said and we alluded to a little bit in the introduction, there was obviously a lot of physical ailments that you were dealing with and that must have been absolutely miserable. But when I hear you describe you know the voices, like you just mentioned the mentality, that to me almost sounds like a vastly greater pain than any kind of physical pain. Would you say you agree with that?

Speaker 2: 4:55

It is the mental anguish that goes along with mental illness, and especially if you're hearing audible voices, you can't turn it off.

Speaker 2: 5:04

I mean, if you're in physical pain, you can try to comfort yourself, you can try to take pain beds, you can try to deal with the physical pain, but the mental pain that goes on, with the schizoaffective voices, you can't turn it off. The only time, 24 hours a day for 35 years, that I escaped it was to sleep. That's the only time it ever went away. It was like I liken it to when you watch action movies and someone is trying to get information from someone else and they blare music or they blare lights or they blare hard rock music at someone down in a pit, and it goes on for hours and hours, and hours and you see the people in the movie holding their ears and they're trying to get away from it.

Speaker 2: 6:02

And that's what this feels like. That's what these voices feel like 24 hours a day, and it does not turn off, it does not lower. It doesn't matter what you do, what psych meds you're on, even the ones that say that they're supposed to help audible voices. It just makes you a tired zombie who hears voices. Nothing helps Nothing.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Wow, I think some of us recognize like we've got our puppy brains that kind of run around in circles, and that would be fine if it was saying like hey, Casey, you're doing really great today. You look awesome, your hair is great, Like that never happens to hardly anybody, and it's especially to the degree that you were experiencing that. So let's jump in. How did this?

Speaker 2: 6:45

whole thing start. Okay, I was clinically diagnosed when I was 14. But before that, even before that, as a younger child, I was very anxious, very people-pleasing. I would cry at night thinking that my homework wasn't done perfect enough or if someone didn't like me. I was diagnosed at 12 with an ulcer. That's how bad my anxiety and my nerves were.

Speaker 2: 7:13

I had an estranged relationship with my father, which made me turn a lot of things inward, that there must be something wrong with me, that I was flawed, that I was broken. My parents divorced when I was very, very young and I felt abandoned, and so that childhood trauma made me have a lot of self-hate, constantly believing that there was something wrong with me. And so what started out? Kind of innocent, but kind of not. Around age 12 or 13, I began to think that if I lost a little weight, maybe my dad would pay attention to me, maybe boys would pay attention to me, maybe I would get the attention that I felt like I needed, felt like that I wanted. But it quickly turned very, very deadly. It took a hold of me and within six months of time and I turned into someone that I didn't recognize anymore, emotionally or physically. I was always honest, I was always pleasing people. But throughout this disorder where I started dieting and started skipping meals, I started lying, I started stealing laxatives, I started being manipulative in order to be isolated and to not eat. So it changed me very quickly.

Speaker 2: 8:54

By the time I was 16, my weight had gone down enough for family to notice. I was never what you would consider overweight, like you said in the intro in 5.9. And I think at 14, 15, I started out as somewhere around 135, 140 pounds. It's a start of adolescence, puberty. Things are shifting, the hips are getting bigger, the female womaness is coming out and sometimes you don't like how that's proportioned at the beginning as a teen and you feel awkward. So I thought my answer was maybe to lose some weight, even though I wasn't overweight.

Speaker 2: 9:40

So by the time I was around 15 or 16, and I had gotten down to about 110 pounds and I was starting to have problems in the family because they knew by that time that I was skipping meals. It was no longer easy to fool them. It was easy at the beginning I'd skip breakfast and say, oh, I'm very late to school and innocent kind of things like that that you could play off and not be suspected that you're skipping home meals every day, all day long. And I began getting addicted to exercise. I get home from school. I had a single mother who was working full time to try to support us, and so in between 3 o'clock and 5 o'clock I was running myself, ragged up and down the stairs, cardio running, just trying to run off anything that I possibly could, even though I hadn't eaten anything. It was obsessive, extremely obsessive, and it took hold fast.

Speaker 2: 10:41

So at the time I was 16, my family placed me inpatient. By that time I was around 105 pounds and it was very clear to see by anybody that something was wrong. The voices had started at this point and they were screaming at me that I didn't deserve to live, I didn't deserve to eat, but the goal here is to die. That you deserve to die. You don't deserve to have a place here on this earth. Just constant screaming of those messages and those tapes, just dark, evil, awful, 24 hours a day. I felt like I was going insane. I really did, because I didn't understand what was happening. But I was placed inpatient.

Speaker 2: 11:41

The first thing that they do if you're coming in on an eating disorders unit and you're not eating, is to place you on a feeding tube, an NG feeding tube. That's what was done. I look back on it now. Anorexia treatment in traditional treatment centers has not changed at all since the 38, 39 years since I was inpatient.

Speaker 2: 12:03

What goes in that feeding tube is toxic. It's brain-enflaming, anxiety-producing toxicity. It's not nutrients. It's three ingredients canola oil, high fructose, corn syrup and soy. That's what's put through a feeding tube. You don't have to be on an anorexia unit to get this. This is what is given to infants in primarily. In some formulas this is what's given to toddlers who aren't on the growth chart. They give them children's insure a bottle to drink. Anybody who goes through surgery or throat issues that need supplemental nutrition that's what's put through in our geriatric wards and our nursing homes. If our elderly people aren't eating whole foods, they put them on a feeding tube. That's what's in it. You start out in eating disorders unit, completely behind the ballpark. They're following the food pyramid guidelines and they're being paid by food companies big food, big pharma. This is where they get their money from. They think that this is. They call this NG total nutrition. There's no nutrition in that. It just makes you worse.

Speaker 1: 13:31

It's crazy to think you've got a mental disorder going on. They're trying to put weight on you and that's a priority, but they're not trying to fix the mental disorder. It's like a disaster fire. You're just throwing extra cans of gasoline on with all these pro-inflammatory ingredients. It's madness. You said none of that has really changed. If I were to go into an anorexia clinic today, that would still be the case.

Speaker 2: 13:55

Correct. I have firsthand experience with that. I have several families that I'm counseling not including the adults that I counsel that reach out to me on Twitter and Instagram. But I have several families in my community who have teenage children who have been in the eating disorders unit within the last six months and I've gone to visit them During the five feeding times.

Speaker 2: 14:21

When this is put through their feeding tube. I saw it. This is what is still being pushed through the feeding tube. It's not about nutrition.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Nothing has changed in the protocol of how this is approached in the hospital. The nutritionists, the dietitians, the nurses, the doctors, psychiatrists all believe that the mental illness goes away when we wait. Restore you. If we get enough weight on you, this will go away and you will be well. That's not what happens. It sounds absurd. It's not what happens when you get taken off the feeding tube and you're expected to eat the tray of food that then comes three times a day, plus three snacks that's delivered from the hospital cafeteria. You're expected to eat it all and there's hardly any, if any, protein.

Speaker 2: 15:23

A lot of the hospitals in my area are from the Seventh Day Adventist type church.

Speaker 2: 15:30

There's definitely absolutely no red meat. There may be a little bit of boiled chicken once in a while, but most of it is plant-based and most of it is packaged muffins, pancakes, cake, pies, pudding. The whole treatment behind this is that if you can prove to us that you can eat these things, that you fear the pies, the cakes, the muffins, the pancakes if you can eat those things, we'll say you're well and let you go home. All the while, nothing is being repaired, nothing is going into your system. That's actually healing your brain so that you can think clearly, so that the brain fog goes away, so that the depression goes away, the anxiety goes away. They just pump you full of more sugar and carbs and when you get to a certain weight that they feel that you're not in a danger zone anymore, they send you home with a meal plan that's the same as what they fed you in the hospital and you have to follow, or supposed to follow that meal plan, which, of course, is not going to happen.

Speaker 1: 16:41

You've just added weight. You still feel terrible and you weigh extra. Of course you're going to relapse. They don't see that coming.

Speaker 2: 16:51

That's the only thing that they have. They don't have anything else in their arsenal because they don't want to acknowledge that food actual, real food has any bearing on your mental health. They believe that all food is the same and that it neither helps nor harms. It's just a weight restoration and they don't equate any one certain group of food as helping.

Speaker 1: 17:25

That's crazy.

Speaker 2: 17:26

It's infuriating.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Wow, okay, so you're in the inpatient, they send you home. How long I mean? Obviously you relapse. How long does it take before you relapse? It sounds like day one. It would already start having the wheels come off.

Speaker 2: 17:42

Day one exactly.

Speaker 1: 17:44

Day one.

Speaker 2: 17:45

Day one because nothing has changed. Nothing in my brain was changed. I went into the hospital trying to die, trying to starve, trying to restrict, listening to these voices screaming at me, don't know how to escape, looking in the mirror and being plagued by body dysmorphia and seeing someone who's terribly overweight. Six weeks later, they released me from the hospital 10 pounds heavier. Same thing. Body dysmorphia is there. Voices are screaming at me. Can't wait to restrict and try to figure out how to skip meals and fool my family, and it just starts all over again. The only thing it did was keep me alive. It didn't do any. There was no improvement whatsoever, none, wow.

Speaker 1: 18:35

Wow. Yeah that's stunning. How were you able eventually to like start a relationship that must have been incredibly challenging?

Speaker 2: 18:44

It was At that point when I was inpatient. I was 16, I did not meet my future husband until I was 22. So in between there between 14 and 22, the relationships that I did have in school were either very unhealthy and very toxic or I avoided it all together. I just didn't want anybody around me. I didn't talk to anybody, I didn't want anybody around me, I just wanted to be left alone to start.

Speaker 1: 19:18

Yeah, that's terribly sad. Wow, Okay, so did we miss anything physically that happened in the time in between turning 16 inpatient and meeting your husband. Eventually Were there other things, kind of jumping off the cliff at that point, or was that later on?

Speaker 2: 19:33

Most of it happened later on, after I had decades of starvation.

Speaker 2: 19:38

The one thing that did happen there between 14, 16 and 22 is I lost my menstrual period, of course, because I was tiering right around 100 pounds, and so that was the first thing, and towards the end of that period I was told by doctors that I don't expect to be able to have children. You cut this off when puberty started and there's no way for us to know if you ever get your menstrual period back, if you will ovulate, if you will be able to get pregnant, carry a child to term. They told me that it probably would never happen. Thankfully, I was able to.

Speaker 1: 20:24

How were you able to.

Speaker 2: 20:26

Well, when I met my husband, he was the first man in my life that I felt unconditionally loved by and that love that he showed me helped me to try and, with the limited knowledge that I had, that helped me to try to eat more and put weight on so that, eventually, so that we could try to have children. So when I turned 24 and we got married, I was slowly putting weight on, but of course I still didn't know the importance of protein and fat. I was putting weight on by eating bread and toast and spaghetti and pancakes and a lot of pasta. It was all through carbs. So I still wasn't any better mentally at all, but I put enough weight on for my period to come back. And then we began to try to see if I could conceive Two miracles of being able to have both of my daughters almost seven years apart. But I was able to have a normal pregnancy. Normal in terms of she was healthy and not underweight, but not normal in the sense of what I experienced physically and emotionally. I spent a lot of the pregnancy very, very ill physically and these are the times when I can explain to people that completely factual, that weight restoration doesn't heal anything, it doesn't heal that mental illness because both pregnancies that I experienced I was not only of normal weight but I was gaining a lot. I wasn't restricting myself in order to keep my weight low. My priority was my unborn child. I mean, I already had a history of self harm. I already had a history of loathing myself, but it was easy to love the child that was within me growing. So I put all of my effort into that and I weighed quite a bit.

Speaker 2: 23:01

When both of my daughters were born I was up to around 170, 180 pounds. So I had gained 40 to 50 pounds with both of them. So they were very healthy, of healthy weight. Both of them were almost nine pounds. But the mental illness got worse during this time because I wasn't actively in starvation. I was hoping that the doctors were right that the more weight I put on and the more that I was not starving, that this would go away, that the mental illness and the anorexia would actually eventually go away with enough time. And it just got worse. When I wouldn't listen to the voices to starve, two things started that was never on my radar, that I never thought that I would be plagued with, and that's when I started cutting, and that's when I started hair pulling.

Speaker 2: 24:05

The hair pulling has a long scientific name, it's called Trichotellomania, and I was pulling hair out of my scalp, my eyelashes, my eyebrows and the cutting I was doing on my arms and my legs, and it was a very embarrassing, dark, shameful time at the time. I'm not embarrassed about it or ashamed about it now, but it was then, and so, in order to kind of pass out in public, I was using a lot of products to try to cover up what I was doing at home to cope with not self-starving. So I was using women's foundation liquid makeup on my legs and letting it dry and on my arms to try to cover up the wounds, and I was doing makeup on my eyebrows to make it look like I had eyebrows. It took me hours to strategically put my hair up in certain ways to cover whole bald spots that were probably two or three inches in diameter and fake eyelashes, and I would go to bed every night self-loathing about that.

Speaker 2: 25:24

That you have control over your hands. You can get up in the morning and choose to not do this. You have control over whether you cut yourself or whether you pull your hair out. This is crazy. You don't have to do this, but I was compelled to. I could not stop. I literally could not stop. I would get up in the morning and say, okay, it's a new day, I'm not going to do this, and I would find myself by bedtime that night. It would just all over again.

Speaker 1: 25:57

This is the part of the conversation I was absolutely not looking forward to. This sounds terrible and I was going to ask, like, when you're, I don't know what you're cutting yourself with. Maybe you could describe a little bit of that, if it's not too painful to revisit, like, are you thinking and planning? I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this in a half hour, I'm going to cut my arm right here, or is it almost like sounds like a twitch or something where you just like you get the urge and it just happens before you can do anything about it? Is that closer to what it feels like?

Speaker 2: 26:27

Sometimes it was both. Sometimes the stress would build over the course of a day, so much the drive to starve was so strong that I actually would plan the cutting late at night, whenever you know, when my husband was in bed and I was in the bathroom by myself, and the only way I can describe it is when you take a small blade or a knife, or tweezers, or, but there is a I know it's going to sound crazy, but there's a release. There is a calming release that happens when you cut and you see a trickle of blood come out of that. I know it's awful, it is, it really is. And, like I said, it was very ashamed of it then. I'm not ashamed of it now because I know that there are millions at least thousands, probably millions that do this and they don't have anybody to talk to about it.

Speaker 2: 27:44

But sometimes it was spontaneous. Sometimes it was I'd be shaving my legs and in the shower and come out and realize that I had nicked something on my leg and I would let it clot over. And then the next night, getting in the shower, I would see the scab there and instead of leaving it alone, that's all I could think about was pulling that scab off and seeing the wound open and for that brief second, the voice would I shouldn't say quiet because it didn't quiet and it would tell me that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, because this was the alternative to starving, that this is what I deserved.

Speaker 1: 28:40

If you're listening and not watching, you are not seeing me squirm all over the place in uncomfortableness. I am so grateful that you've wanted to talk about this because of the people that are probably still suffering out there. It must be incredibly challenging for you to revisit that time in your life, but to be able to want to do it, to share the message yeah, my heart goes out. It's really very uncomfortable.

Speaker 2: 29:06

And I don't want anyone else to go through what I went through and I know that they are out there and they don't know how to stop, because you can't force yourself to stop, you really can't. And as soon as each of my daughters were born, then those two elements the cutting and the hair pulling would subside and the self-starvation would rear its ugly head again. And this balance of when I was doing one, these two would slow a little bit and when I was trying to eat more and not starve, then those two would take precedence. And it was a nightmare. It was a torturous nightmare and I was under care all of this time. I went through at least a dozen psychiatrists, some who just couldn't help, some who basically fired me and told me not to come back because I either yeah, yeah, yes, what? Yes, if I wasn't going to sign a contract that I was going to gain three pounds a week.

Speaker 1: 30:18

he looked at me and said don't come back. That's not in your control. You don't have control over that. You're non-compliant.

Speaker 2: 30:24

You're a non-compliant, treatment-resistant client and I don't want you to come back. That happened at least three times and the psychiatrists that did keep me around for a year or two. They put me on all different meds. They put me on nine or 10 different psych meds which none of them helped. They all just caused a bunch of side effects and I eventually, on my own 10 years so 15 years ago, because I healed five years ago, so 15 years ago went off of the ones that I was still on because they weren't helping it. They just made me either sedated I was already not the mom I was wanting to be because of all of this and you throw in being asleep all the time or feeling like a zombie all the time.

Speaker 2: 31:24

I was less functioning on the meds than I was off the meds. I went off of them. I titrated myself off of them on my own about 15 years ago so I could at least be somewhat awake when my daughters were growing up as hard as it was. Anyway, I wasn't functioning, but I was more functioning off the meds, so it wasn't like I was in a hole somewhere and I wasn't seeking help. I went to see dieticians, nutritionists, I was under the care of primary care physicians and psychiatrists. I was under treatment all this time, but there was no help.

Speaker 1: 32:09

And it wasn't like your husband is shoving you into these places. You're walking in willingly, you're seeking help.

Speaker 2: 32:14

Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, it wasn't against my will. I wanted this to end and even though I was actively starving and was secretly liking my body and the low weight that it was at because that's just part of anorexia I wanted to be well. I wanted help. I wasn't kicking and screaming, refusing to get better. I just couldn't get better. I just couldn't, no matter what weight I was, no matter what my motivation was, no matter what kind of physical complication I had. After that, as I was getting older and I had things go wrong and I had surgeries and I had all kinds of injuries and illnesses. And who is a sound mind would take all of those things as a wake up call and say it's time to change some things so that I don't have that road to go down anymore. When you're mentally ill, it doesn't matter what happens to you physically. The driver is still there.

Speaker 1: 33:39

Yeah, you can't stop, yeah. And having the message instilled inside of you that you had to be a certain weight for everything to correct would keep you chasing your tail, trying to get all these different weights like you're talking about to see, like, well, is this weight when I'm supposed to feel better? Is this the weight that the voices stop, like you'd be running after the wrong thing?

Speaker 2: 34:01

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I can remember going into the hospital in labor with both of my daughters at 180 pounds and all I could think about was after they're born and I nurse them for a time. I can't wait to stop eating again. So the weight doesn't have anything to do. Of course the weight is important. I mean I shouldn't be here at down to 79 pounds and the BMI that it was. Weight is important, but in mental illness it's secondary and important to be permanent, because I gained and relapsed and gained and relapsed four times in the course of 35 years. So that's not the answer.

Speaker 1: 34:58

Wow, well, okay, so we've talked about some of the physical things that were going on. We mentioned a lot of them in the introduction. You just mentioned some. What were some of the most debilitating as far as the physical degeneration that you were experiencing?

Speaker 2: 35:10

All right. Thank you so much, dr Birdie. Thank you so much. The osteoporosis and the joint injuries, the bone pain that was difficult. I had more fractures than what I listed on there. I think I said three, but I actually had five fractures in five years. I was constantly in pain. I was always on crutches, always had braces on wrists, ankles, knees. I couldn't get out from under the injuries. At the time I knew it was from malnutrition, but of course I couldn't do anything about it and I was also over-exercising. That was painful, that was debilitating Because of my malnutrition, because of my emaciation. What would normally take four or six weeks for a stress fracture to heal took me 12. I was on the couch a lot. I was bedridden a lot. I was always on crutches. Those injuries were difficult, as difficult and long-term as that was what went wrong in 2009,. 2010 was actually even worse. In 2010, I was 40.

Speaker 2: 36:44

At that point this had been going on for 25 years. I began to have terrible internal problems. I wasn't going to the bathroom right. I began to have pain and a fullness feeling in my lower abdomen. I knew something was wrong. I tried to ignore it for as long as I could.

Speaker 2: 37:26

When my colon collapsed outside my body, then there was no denying that I needed to go get help. I had to go see three different specialists to diagnose all of the organs that had collapsed. The reason that this happened was I spent so many years being so skeletal. I not only had no fat or muscle visible on the outside, I had lost all musculature internally. I could not hold organs in place. My uterus, my bladder and my colon all collapsed at the same time. There was time there where they had to get several surgeons on the schedule together. They couldn't just rush me in for emergency surgery. I spent about six or eight weeks at home dealing with this while they were trying to coordinate surgeons together because it needed to be all the same time in the same operating room on a nine-hour surgery where one doctor would come in and do what they were going to do while I was opened up and the next doctor would come in. I needed a colon specialist, I needed a urinary tract specialist and I needed a gynecological specialist all surgeons who could go in through the same incisions that were made and either remove, repair, tack in place everything that they needed to do to try to fix me.

Speaker 2: 39:26

On top of that. I'm allergic to all opiates. There was no pain relief. There was nothing that they could give me for pain. Part of what goes into anesthesia to put you to sleep for the operation is usually partially sedative and partially pain relief. Of opiates they combine those Since they couldn't put the opiate in there with it. I woke up in the middle of surgery. It was devastating. It was devastating. They quickly got me put back under and restrained my arms. It was devastating.

Speaker 1: 40:22

Your most sensitive part of your body. Yeah, it was devastating.

Speaker 2: 40:29

Of course, my family didn't know until after the surgery was over and I was in recovery and actually fully awake, that I had to tell them. I woke up during surgery the look on the surgeon's faces above me I'll never forget the shock and how desperately they quickly got me to try to figure out how to put me back under. I'll never forget that when waking up in pain, they tried to find things for me to take, but no one's really come up with anything really good apart from the whole opiate family. There's 14 or 15 different opiates and they were not convinced that I was allergic to all of them. Well, you haven't never had this one, we'll try this one.

Speaker 2: 41:31

Yeah, and that was devastating too, because they quickly understood that no, I'm allergic to that one too. So then they had to pump Benadryl through my IV to calm the devastating allergic reaction that I get when I have opiates in my system. So what had to happen was they had to remove 18 inches of my colon and reattach it and suture it to my tailbone internally, because there was nothing to suture it to, there was no muscle to attach it to and my uterus had to be completely removed. I made sure that I kept my ovaries so that I would still have a source of natural hormones in my system, and they did the best that they could with my bladder by trying to tack it back in place. They had to use a lot of mesh internally to try to tack it back in place because, again, there was nowhere to put it, there was nothing to attach it to, because I didn't have any muscle inside.

Speaker 1: 42:46

Valerie Ann, you couldn't make this into a movie if you wanted to. Nobody would believe it. I know this is crazy. I know, I know, I know.

Speaker 2: 42:56

Yeah, wow, it was very devastating and it took a long time to recover from that physically.

Speaker 1: 43:07

Wow.

Speaker 2: 43:09

It was hard.

Speaker 1: 43:11

Are we getting close to the good news? Yes, please. Yes, that's next. Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2: 43:22

So I recovered from that surgery and went a few more years. I had some more complications in there because my hormones were so low. They diagnosed me. The gynecologist diagnosed me as having vaginal atrophy, a condition called vulvidinia. I had extreme female pain and they told me that there was no cause, that this would be this way for the rest of my life and they could try to help the symptoms of the pain and the burning that I experienced all the time with estrogen cream. I tried to do the best I could by making sure it was natural, bioidentical, compounded pharmacy, but it didn't heal anything. I know now part of my happiness part that we're going to get to. I know now how it can be, but I think of the millions of women out there that have those diagnoses and they live the rest of their lives on estrogen cream and never really heal anything. It might take some of the symptoms away, but I'm here to tell it now that what those women need I guarantee you. If they're on it and they have those two conditions that I had, I guarantee it they're following a low fat, no protein diet. If they turn that around, if they flood their system with protein and saturated fat, it will heal.

Speaker 2: 45:00

I was on this estrogen cream for six years with no, and if I didn't use it every day, I was in pain again. I have not used it in five years. It's completely gone. It's completely healed. The healing part of this is around 2016,. I was back down to 79 pounds again. I had basically lost most hope. In order to go to the bathroom, I was taking doses and doses of Merillax every day. My doctors told me it was safe. I didn't like how I felt on it. I had a lot of bloating, but it was the only way to go to the bathroom. I hated being on it. I know now that I was poisoning myself because it's stupid.

Speaker 2: 45:59

Ethylene, it's a petroleum bride product I've gotten when you go keto you go carnivore, that part of your journey where you're starting question everything you put in your mouth. You start to question everything you're ingesting, everything that's in your environment You're looking for oh, that's toxic. Why was I taking that? I was doing the same thing with the Merillax. I discovered the same thing about the gas pills I was taking In order to mitigate the severe IBS that I had and the vegetables that I was eating, because that's all I was eating was vegetables. I was taking four gas pills every single day In my vitamin containers. It wasn't even just take it when you need it. I was taking them four times a day and doctors said, oh, it's safe, it's just symethicone. I didn't bother to look up. Well, what's symethicone? Well, I have done that now. I did that five years ago and discovered that it's saloxane polydimethyl saloxane. It's the same ingredient in silly putty and breast implants. Oh, my goodness, now would you swallow silly putty and breast implants? No, probably not. No, but I was swallowing four gas pills every day for five days. I was swallowing four gas pills every day for 15 years.

Speaker 2: 47:21

Like I said, our journeys into this nutrition we start questioning everything that we take. So in 2016, 17, I didn't have much hope I was 79, 80 pounds again. That's all I was eating was celery and green beans and spinach. Small amounts like maybe 100 to 300 calories a day. That's it.

Speaker 2: 48:02

I can't describe you how cold I was. It could be the middle of summer, 90 degrees, and I've got long pants, long shirt, jacket on and I'm cooking the celery to make it as hot as I possibly can so that I can put something in my stomach to warm me from the inside out. That's all I drank was hot water, hot tea, hot coffee, trying to warm up. It's a coldness that chills you to the bone. It's painful to be that small. From all of these years I knew that it couldn't be about weight. I knew that. So I started reading books and about what the brain needs. I already knew I was anxious. I had severe OCD. I already knew I was suffering from debilitating clinical depression. So I started researching is there anything For me? At that point it wasn't food, it was supplements. Are there more supplements that I can take, that I can swallow, that will help my brain?

Speaker 2: 49:14

And that's when I started learning about the different neurotransmitters in our brain GABA and dopamine and serotonin and how important those are for anything to get better, for any kind of depression, anxiety, to get better. So I read some books on that, and that was about the same time that we got our first smart TV and I learned about YouTube, and so I began to search for any kind of TED talk or any kind of podcast that might have to do with healing the brain, and that's when I found Dr Chris Palmer and Dr Georgia E and Nina Tysholes you know big doctors like that that had whole 40 minutes that I could listen to of how important the brain chemistry was and that nothing else would heal if your brain wasn't well. I still wasn't implementing food, but I was learning and I was researching every single day of what I could do, and I ordered some supplements to help those. I ordered GABA, I ordered 5-HTP, which is the precursor to serotonin. You know I went on magnesium to help with anxiety. I you know I did what I could at the time that I could do it, and then there were several videos in there that they started talking about the food components. That supplements are okay but you can't really heal anything permanently or really flood your brain with what it needs, unless you're consuming whole foods. And that's when I found Dr Ken Berry and Dr Sean Baker and I decided to try one last time.

Speaker 2: 51:16

And because of the starvation and this is why I disclaimer the people that I counsel and the people that I help that so many people can switch from one diet to another and they can see improvement in their mental health fairly quickly, you know, within a matter of days or weeks they can feel, hey, you know, I'm less anxious and my brain fog is lifting because they were already consuming enough calories, of carbs and whatever, that they could switch to that same volume of food with protein and fat and some vegetables. Well, I couldn't do that. I hadn't eaten any meat and definitely no fat for 35 years. So I started where I had to. I literally could not do more than what I did. So I made myself, I promised myself that I would give this the best try that I could, and I started with fat-free chicken. I don't hardly ever eat chicken anymore, but that was where I had to start and the amount was one ounce, two tablespoons.

Speaker 2: 52:29

And that first week that I did that an ounce every day, I sat at the kitchen table and I just weeped. The voices screamed at me to stop, that I was going to get fat, that you can't eat this, that you're worthless, that you're nothing, that you just need to go kill yourself. This is never going to go away. You're never going to get better. But I kept on and I promised myself that when I got used to that ounce, that I would double it.

Speaker 2: 53:02

So every week, every week and a half, I tried to put myself on a schedule that as soon as I got used to that, then I ate two ounces of chicken and then three and then four. And when I got to about eight ounces of chicken, that was when I was really watching a lot of Ken Berry's videos about what what king of nutrition is in beef. And so I attempted to switch from the chicken to 96% fat-free ground beef, and I was able to do it. It seems crazy now of what I had to do, but that was all I could do. So I switched over to the eight ounces of ground beef and I did that for six months.

Speaker 2: 53:54

I was eating a half a pound of ground beef every day for six months and at the six month mark things were changing. I could tell I was now not only looking forward to eating that and that it tasted good, but about 20 minutes into eating that there was an actual calm that would come over me that I'd never experienced before, and some of the OCD was lessening. Some of the anxiety was lessening. Part of my OCD was counting things, checking things, body checking cracking my knuckles a certain amount of times I had to do that.

Speaker 2: 54:43

That subsided on its own, without me forcing myself to try to walk away from it. And that's what was so different. Before, when I knew these habits were bad, I would try to force myself to stop, and I couldn't. This was different. This was I didn't need to do it anymore, and so that was encouraging. So at that six month mark I stopped the chicken and the ground beef and I bought chakros and put it in the crock pot, because I had done more reading about how much more these whole cuts of meat with the collagen and the connective tissue, and so I switched that out and I was able to do that. And at the nine month mark nine months in I had gotten up to about three quarters of a pound of red meat a day. And the screaming voices that were so loud and so incessant, they were still there. But the way I describe it is that they were now in another room with the door closed, and I'm like what is this that? You know I've never had a reduction, I've never had a fading or a lessening in 35 years, in my entire. You know most of my life, and so I knew I was on to something I knew, you know, and even if I never got any better, I at least had that. I at least had some lessening of my symptoms. This was the same time, at that nine month mark, that I was able to look At myself in the mirror for the first time and see what I actually looked like. The body dysmorphia went away and I was appalled at what I looked like. And this was also the timeframe that I stopped the cutting, stopped the hair pulling, and it wasn't something that I forced myself to do. I was able to look at those habits and say, valerie, what are you doing? What are you doing? And I was able to just walk away and say this is not serving me anymore, I don't need this anymore, I don't have to do this anymore. And at that nine month mark, I walked away from that and I've never done it again and I've never felt that I'm eating too. So at that point I decided okay, something you know this is healing me and I'm all in. I'm all in. I'm not doing adding an ounce anymore. I'm going to eat till I'm full. I'm just going to eat till I'm full. I don't care anymore how many calories it is, how many, whatever it is, I don't care anymore. I'm starting to feel good and that's what I'm going towards. I'm chasing my freedom now.

Speaker 2: 58:15

So, by the time I hit the one year mark from January of 2018 to January of 2019, that Christmas, that last Christmas before I hit the one year mark, that was the best Christmas. I've now since had even better ones, but that Christmas was awesome. I became a person that was joyful and happy and just overflowed with energy right at that one year mark and within a couple of months, at that one year mark, everything else left, everything. The voice that was in another room with the door closed was gone, completely gone. I've never known that, because, even as a young child, before the mental illness and before the anorexia took hold, I still had the self loathing. I still had messages that I sent myself internally and that was all gone. Also, I was liking who I was becoming and I was free For the first time in my entire life. I was free, but the joy just overflowed.

Speaker 2: 59:53

I had some worries at that point that this was too good to be true, that I would wake up and the road would be pulled out from under me and it would be back, that this can't be permanent. How can this possibly be permanent? And day in and day out, day in and day out. Over the course of maybe three or four months I finally relaxed. I finally said I don't have to look over my shoulder anymore and worried that I'm going to wake up in the morning and it's going to be back. It's not, it's completely gone. And I've just continued to improve, continued to heal so many other things physically, learn so many things about myself.

Speaker 2: 1:00:45

That was when I learned how damaging vegetables were to me. I know there's plenty of people out there that absolutely love vegetables and I do love them. I mean, I could sit down and eat a bowl of coleslaw and broccoli and Brussels sprouts and I actually love them. But I had to give them up. My IBS, being strict carnivore the first two years helped me to see how good I really could feel and I finally said when I would try to implement things back in again, add things back in. I finally said to myself it's not worth that, it's not worth to be, because it wasn't just a discomfort for half an hour and I'd be in pain for 24 hours and, of course, then be wanting to reach for those gas pills and I wasn't going to do that. So I had to. I kind of had to walk away.

Speaker 2: 1:01:35

But I also learned that I could eat some fruit with no problem, and I know there are plenty of people out there that can do vegetables just fine, but they cannot do any fruit. There'd be sugar addiction, cravings, whatever drives them to the next thought after they eat a few blueberries. But for me I don't have that issue, so I can eat my second meal and be completely full of another pound and a half of meat and eat a bowl of blueberries or melon that's in season or and it doesn't leave anywhere else. I enjoy that and it doesn't just be as part of variety to my 99% meat diet and it doesn't trigger anything for me, so I'm thankful for that. If I had to give up vegetables, I can at least eat a few blueberries.

Speaker 1: 1:02:30

Oh, that's great. Well, Valerianne, I've got news for you. You didn't cure anything. All you did was trade one eating disorder for another eating disorder. You're limiting foods, you are completely restricting foods. The last thing we tell everybody like we said earlier, like you were talking about is that is another form of an eating disorder. What do you want to say to that?

Speaker 2: 1:02:58

Okay, that's one of the reasons why I collaborated with Nick Norowitz and Dr Retscher to be involved in the case series. I was patient number three under the suit and in the play. So that's one of the reasons that drove me to do the work and the documentation to be a part of that was to dispel that that lie.

Speaker 1: 1:03:21

I did not know that that's so cool.

Speaker 2: 1:03:25

So I had to be. You know, I had to stay quiet about it for a long time before it was entered into the Journal of Insulin Resistance. But when, when Nick, you know, was able to announce it when it was entered, I knew, I knew all along that I was going to reveal myself. I knew all along because I knew that there were people that were going to be very contrary, they were going to be very hateful and bullish and come at Nick and and you know, the anonymous patients and say that there's no way, there's no way that that you can heal by one eating disorder with another. So that's, I knew I was going to reveal myself and and say hey, here I am. You want to talk? Bring it on, bring it on. Okay, Restriction, this is not restriction.

Speaker 2: 1:04:18

Restriction is being bedridden. Restriction is schizoaffective voices screaming at you that and and and that you can't even go out to eat with your husband. And when you do force yourself to go out to eat with your family or your husband, that's all you can order is plain lettuce and sit there and eat lettuce. Oh yeah, that's a grand time of you know, and that's all you want to do is is go home and hide because you can't relax, you can't smile because you're so depressed. The voices are screaming at you. That's restriction. Restriction is is the fractures that I constantly had. That actually restricts your life. That physically restricts you and the mental illness that I had mentally restricts you. Eating this way is my freedom. There is no restriction in choosing the foods that make you feel your best. That's what I do every day. I don't measure anything, I don't count anything, I don't limit anything. I eat the foods that I crave and that I love that brought me this healing.

Speaker 2: 1:05:28

And there is no restriction in that freedom. There is none. I enjoy absolutely everything that I eat. I don't sit and wish and long for bread or bagels or carbs. I'm so completely satiated and over the top joyful after a pound and a pound and a half of beef at my first meal and another pound and a half at my second meal. Whether it be more beef or beautiful salmon or cod or some sort of pork roast, it completely fills me and satiates me and completes me physically and mentally that there is no restriction.

Speaker 2: 1:06:27

I have a life that I never had before, and if the haters want to call it a restrictive way of eating after I've explained myself, they can. I mean, if you want to argue about it, everybody restricts something. I mean, if you stop smoking, you've restricted your smoking. If you stop drinking, you've restricted your drinking. I mean, but you don't tell those people that they're disordered. You don't tell them that this has given me a life that I have never, ever known. This has given me a way to be a mom and a wife and a daughter that is truly complete.

Speaker 2: 1:07:19

That is making new memories with my family, with my husband, for example, going out to eat with my husband. He stopped asking for years. We've been together for 32 years and I wished all that time that I could give him what he wanted, what would have been a nice time out for us. But he knew how torturous it was for me. I didn't enjoy it. I sat there with a bowl of plain lettuce or argued with the waitress that my broccoli wasn't plain, that there had to be garlic or had to be butter on it and it had to be plain and had to be steamed. That's not an enjoyable evening out with your husband.

Speaker 1: 1:08:06

You consumed some spit from a few chefs, I'm guessing. I'm sure they were not too happy with your orders.

Speaker 2: 1:08:12

Exactly exactly, and I couldn't turn it off. There was nothing I could do about it, and so I began to just not go out anymore. It was just too hard, it wasn't fun, it wasn't enjoyable, it wasn't relaxing. And now, for the past five years, it is so much fun. We'll find a steakhouse or the biggest steak, or we'll go to where my daughter is a server and I'll get several burger patties big old half pound burger patties. We'll sit there across from each other. I'm completely relaxed. I'm completely animated, happy, joyful, engaged with what we're talking about. It's a brand new life. It's like just getting married, even though we've been together for 32 years. We're starting over and it's just.

Speaker 2: 1:09:10

Everything is new. Everything was like in black and white, and now it's color. Everything takes on new meaning. I used to look at a sunset or a sunrise and just feel sadness, just feel darkness. There was nothing there. And now I look at those wonders of creation or standing on the beach in Siesta Key with my mom and watching the ocean and watching the dolphins, and I can't wait to get in there and swim for four hours and lay out in the sun. That I never could do before, because I not only didn't have the energy. But who wants to see what I look like on a beach in a swimsuit? Everything is brand new. I have my first grandchild, do. My daughter is pregnant with her first child and I can't imagine she's seven months pregnant and I can't imagine my former self being able to enjoy how I'm enjoying it now. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have been able to be the mom to her and the friend to her that we are with each other now and actually enjoy each other and be excited over what's happening in her life. It just wouldn't be there. And the other alternative is that I didn't make it. That's right that I passed away.

Speaker 2: 1:10:46

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric illnesses 20%. One in five die, and they die for one of three reasons it's either starvation, organ failure or suicide, and I'm so thankful and so grateful to not only still be here but to be on the other side and be completely, utterly, 100%, well and healed. I don't want anyone else to go through what I went through, and that's when I knew that I needed to get involved. That's not. I've never been on social media before Because I knew that the current treatment that's out there does not help and the only way that we can help each other is to tell our story and to keep telling it and to keep telling truth and to get into heated debate with those that say that this can't happen.

Speaker 2: 1:11:53

Because, along the way, even bad press is still press Right and when someone argues with you, it still highlights the message that I'm trying to send out, and someone else may see that exchange on Twitter or on Instagram and be curious. So even when someone comes at me and argues with me, someone else might be out there reading it, someone else might be out there watching it, and I always say you know, reach out to me, I'll give you my phone number, we'll talk on the phone. I have about a dozen right now that I am, that I'm talking to through text, through phone calls, and they're all different. You know reasons. It could be mental health, it could be anorexia, it could be just straight carnivore, helping them on their journey to get started and help them with their macros and helping them, especially if they're women and they're under-eating.

Speaker 2: 1:12:48

So many women under-eat and they're not getting enough protein and I'm a big advocate of you need to eat all the protein that you need to in more pounds than what you weigh. In order to have enough extra to build muscle and to actually repair what's going on in your body and especially your brain, there has to be extra. You can't just eat the bare minimum to just survive. This life is not about surviving. This life is about thriving and being in optimal health and being able to live a joyful life. So I don't want anybody to go through what I went through, and if I can help even one person, I'm all in. You know just.

Speaker 1: 1:13:32

That's amazing. Wow, that's amazing. Speaking of Dr Norwitz, one of the episodes I've done with him, we did with Dr Chris Palmer and we also brought Brett Lloyd on the show. Again, you're very familiar with yes and I watched that episode.

Speaker 1: 1:13:44

Yeah he's fantastic. And Dr Chris Palmer. He made some fair points. He got some pushback from Nick and I but he was saying a ketogenic diet is very, very hard. It's very difficult for people to do, Some people don't have the education, some people can't afford it. And again, nick and I were agreeing with him but also saying you know what, it's really not all that hard. And they asked Brett the same thing If it was hard for him and he answered almost exactly the same way.

Speaker 1: 1:14:07

It is not restrictive to not feel depression and suicidality every single day. It is worth eating burger patties and bacon which are absolutely delicious and experiencing joy and appreciating the time with his wife and the time on the beach. Like you mentioned, it's. It's such a game changer, it's such an important message that the story I'm so glad ended on a good note, and a very, very, very good note. Again, to have the courage to go through some of that stuff with us today. Yeah, hats off to you. What a wonderful and very nearly tragic story, and that you're out there sharing your message now is absolutely wonderful. I hope this episode gets out to tons of people. Where do you want people to go to find you and connect with you and your work. So if again, if they need some help, they can find some answers.

Speaker 2: 1:14:57

Okay, I'm on Twitter and Instagram and they're both the same handle. Both Valerie Ann, 1970 and Valerie Ann is spelled V-A-L-E-R-I-E-A-N-N-E the E on the end and the year 1970, which is the year I was born. So both of those platforms you can direct message me, you can comment. You know, if you don't want a direct message, when you just want to comment and reach out to me, I'll direct message you, and I like to talk to people in real time. I mean, there's some basic questions that you can answer through a direct message, but if you're talking about mental health, you're talking about macros, you're talking about protein and you want to be able to have a back and forth conversation about, okay, tell me what you're eating right now.

Speaker 2: 1:15:42

Give me a couple of days typical of what you're eating, so that I can start to gauge and start to get a picture of what we need to change in order for you to feel better.

Speaker 2: 1:15:54

So I give out my phone number and we all set up a time to talk on the phone. We'll text back and forth and say what's good for you and I'll say what's good for me, and we'll carve out a time as quick as I can to talk for an hour or two on the phone and let's just talk about it all and I'll sit with a notebook and I'll write it down and I'll get back with it and it's not a one and done. I don't talk to you for once and then you're on your own. I'm in it for the long haul. I'm not going anywhere. I have people that contacted me back in March when I first stepped out on Twitter and said this can be healed. I'm still talking to those people today. I'm still checking on them. If I haven't heard from them in a couple of months, or they just randomly text me or call me or message me on Instagram and Twitter and say I'm just checking in.

Speaker 1: 1:16:41

This is what I'm doing.

Speaker 2: 1:16:43

Or I'm having this problem what do you recommend? And I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying put.

Speaker 1: 1:16:52

That is absolutely amazing. I can tell just how absolutely passionate you are. We offer our 30 minute consultations online. I always prefer to talk to somebody as well, and very often it drifts from 30 minutes to an hour and I always tell people look, this is our coaching call or whatever, but message me, Let me know how things are going. To have that support from somebody who's been on the other side must be so wonderful for people. You are an absolute saint, Valerie Ann Smith. Thank you so very much again for all the suffering you went through to be able to come out of it on the other side and be willing to be willing to learn how to use Instagram, If nothing else like oh my goodness.

Speaker 2: 1:17:29

I'm 53.

Speaker 1: 1:17:32

It's just, it's so inspiring and amazing and, yeah, I've kind of been on the edge of tears this entire chat. So, thank you so very much for everything you've done and thank you for taking the time to be on our show today. We really appreciate you.

Speaker 2: 1:17:43

Thank you. I'm so honored to be here. I'm just over the moon because I've watched almost every single podcast that you put out and my dream. When you contacted me, I walked around the house holding my phone, saying Dwight my husband, guess who just messaged me.

Speaker 1: 1:17:59

Oh geez, now I'm blushing. I was over the moon. Oh well, thank you for the kind words. It really was such an honor to host you.

Speaker 1: 1:18:07

Thank you so much, I appreciate it, and this has been another episode of Boundless Body Radio. As always, thank you so very much for listening to Boundless Body Radio. I know I say this all the time, but I really do mean it. It has been such a joy to make and produce this podcast and to watch it grow. Our business started in the pandemic in July of 2020 and we started the podcast in October of 2020. So it has been three years now and to see that we have generated over 400,000 downloads worldwide is just simply unbelievable. To me, this year in particular has been such a blast to travel to different health conferences and not only meet some of our amazing guests, but also to meet many of you, our listeners and supporters. We really just can't thank you enough. As always, feel free to book a complimentary 30 minute session on our website, which is myboundlessbodycom. On our homepage, there is a book now button where you can find a time to speak with us about health, fitness, nutrition, whatever you like.

Speaker 1: 1:19:16

We've loved chatting with people all over the world and many of you out there to bounce ideas off each other or to try to come up with plans to achieve specific goals, or even if it's just to reach out to introduce yourselves. We would just love to meet you and connect with you there. Also, be sure to check out our YouTube channel if you would like to watch these full interviews and also the shorter interviews on more specific topics that are taken from these full interviews. We've gotten really good feedback over there. It's also a really fun way to interact with people who comment. We read and reply to every single YouTube comment we get, so head on over there.

Speaker 1: 1:19:45

If you want to start a conversation and watch these videos, as always. If you haven't already, please leave us a five star rating and review on Apple. It really is the best way to make sure this podcast gets out there to more listeners. We've been able to keep Boundless Body Radio ad free for three years and really want to continue to do so, and so your five star ratings and reviews are the best way to support us at Boundless Body and support the podcast. Cheers, thanks again. So very much for listening to Boundless Body Radio.