Overcoming Chronic Illness - A Journey to Wellness with Colette Brown

Have you ever thought about the impact food has on your overall well-being? 

This week I was joined by wellness advocate and personal health pioneer, Collette Brown.

Listen in to hear Colette's empowering story of overcoming 20 years of chronic illness.

She reveals her journey from suffering physically on a daily basis to achieving vitality and the impactful changes that took place in just 30 days.

(0:00:00) - From Illness to Wellness
Collette Brown overcame 20 years of illness through functional medicine, microbiome, and diet changes.

(0:10:26) - Gut Health
Collette Brown and I discussed rebuilding the gut, antibiotics, prebiotics, probiotics, vaginal birth, breastfeeding, and FDA misinformation.

(0:18:56) - Healthy Eating and Mindful Food Choices
Mindful eating, switching oils, avoiding preservatives and fillers, understanding glyphosate and GMO, and healthy sugar intake.

(0:30:10) - Power of Healing and Healthy Minds
We discuss mental and physical health, intentional lifestyle choices, living in pain, and achieving optimal health and wellness.

(0:45:52) - The Connection Between Food and Intuition
We discuss tuning food, blessing it, setting intentions, being mindful of what we eat, and intentional choices for health.

(0:52:04) - The Importance of Supplements and Self-Care
We discuss K2, D3, MK7, Vitamin C, probiotics, oregano, zinc, magnesium, greens, and optimal health and wellness.

(1:09:22) - Podcast Interview and Self-Promotion
Intentional actions, affirmations, mindful eating.


It's an episode packed with insightful conversations and life-changing revelations, so join us on this inspiring journey!

Connect with Colette

Follow Colette on Instgram
Find out about Colette's Retreat in Turkey this October
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Transcript

Sian: 0:26

so welcome to the Vibrant Mind Vibrant Life podcast. Now today we have a very special guest. We have Colette Brown. Now Colette is a personal wellness advocate. Her passion for health and wellness was sparked after being unwell for over 20 years and her quest to find a solution worked. She resolved health issues and in doing so, her passion for embracing a healthy lifestyle was born. She's now driven to share her knowledge with others so they too can experience their own healing transformation. And not only that, she's also the host of the Limitless Healing Podcast where she shares weekly episodes covering stories from spontaneous healing, health topics around food such as medicine, sleep, stress. Fitness, toxins, natural living, and gives you actionable steps to improve your health. But most of all, Colette is a beautiful soul with a warm heart who really does care for people's wellbeing. So welcome Colette. Thank you. What a beautiful introduction and I think I'm gonna use that as my season two podcast introduction. It was so beautiful. Thank you. I really, so I'll send you the recording so much. No, it is a pleasure to have you here and I thought a, great place to start with your story is, At the beginning, because I'm guessing that you didn't always plan on working in health. So what is it that we need to know about you to understand your journey and what has led you to where you are today? That is a great question because everything begins somewhere and usually back in childhood. And in childhood, I was raised in a little town called Yakima, Washington, and it was on a kind of working farm and I was the second oldest of nine children and oldest girl. And what that meant was in addition to work living on this working farm and having to do a lot of work, change the sprinklers, get hay, feed the animals. There's dig fence posts for the animals not to get out there. There's just mow the yard. There's so many jobs. There is also inside the laundry, the cooking, the dishes, the housework. And so we, we were a little community amongst ourselves and I was mom number two. And In that, it was great and I don't resent that at all but what I, what happened was that I didn't get the required sleep that my body needed and I was sick all the time as a child. My fourth grade year, I had strep throat and tonsillitis seven times. in that one year. And I constantly had to take antibiotics. And my, mom would sometimes come to school with a bag of sugar and a penicillin tablet for me to swallow, because I would just gag when I was taking the antibiotic. And so flash forward, I left. This farm where I was receiving microbiome from the earth, from the animals, from my siblings, and I go into a college environment where it's sterile. And that's it. That is when my health just nosedived and I started getting cystic acne and imagine as a 17, 18 year old getting out on your own and going from clear skin to cystic acne. And then I started, I had lethargy, I had stomach pains. I was eating college. Dorm food, which is not really that good and ramen noodles because they were cheap and just. Not eating the best that I should have and that progressed through when I was a professional and it affected me and, I hated the cystic acne. I hated the stomach pains, but, and I went to different doctors trying to figure out and I was given topicals and. Antibiotics and medications. And then I developed arthritis and I was just falling apart as a young 20 year old. And so I went to esthetician school because I thought if nobody can give me the answers, I'm going to figure it out myself. And I went through the esthetician program, graduated and. Nothing. My skin was the same and I thought, this is really weird. Why? I know everything, but why isn't it working? What's going on? So it wasn't until right before I turned 40 that I wound up in the emergency room twice within one month. ER visits were very common in my life. I would have chronic stomach pains and I, they weren't, we can never explain why they were happening. And so this last time I went in and the nighttime interventional radiologist who did the imaging and said, you. You need your pancreas removed or your I'm sorry, your appendix removed. And then the morning they admitted me in the morning, the doctor said, no, you don't need that done. It's just inflamed. So you're fine. And I said, I want a third opinion. The third opinion walks in and he said, everybody gets their appendix out and it's going to be a quick procedure and you're going to be out of here. And his phone rang and. He answered it and he said, Hey, Joe, I've got a quick procedure. I'll be there. I'll see, I'll meet you at the game at one. And I just thought you, even if I do need it out, you are not touching me. That was just, it really upset me. And. I, knew at that point why I call myself a personal wellness advocate is I had done medical sales in hospitals and had worked with doctors and staff and saw that they were human. And so I decided in that moment, I have to be my own personal advocate and stand up for myself and I wouldn't let them operate. I left, but before I did a nurse that was there, she came over and whispered in my ear and said, Collette. I looked at your charts and I think you have something called leaky gut and it didn't come for me because I could get fired. If you're, if you tell anyone, but just go check it out. So that little thread, I call it, if you're looking at a sweater and you have a little thread and it starts to unravel, the whole thing can come undone. But that was my thread that unraveled all the mystery around what was wrong with me. And, it really is surprising that. So I find. I found a doctor that was a GI, but he was also a functional practitioner in alternative medicine and has an apothecary in his office. And I went to him, we did testing and all the results come back. And he said, Colette, you're going to be just fine. You're actually quite healthy. You just need to change your diet. You've got a lot of inflammation and you need to eat these foods. And for, 30, 60, 90 days. And that's it don't do anything else, don't deviate from this plan, take these supplements, and so within 30 days. Sean, my skin was clearing up. My, my arthritis was going away. My stomach pain was gone. My energy levels were up. My mood was my hair was shiny. My everything just started changing. I was so excited because my entire life I had been sick and without any explanation. And so I got so excited. I was telling everyone, you got to go see this doctor. It was like the snake oil. You got to go see him. He's going to save you and cure you and you're going to be a new person. And and anyway, so I I went through a divorce and. And my my last business consulting business had me traveling all the time and I needed to be home and I needed to reinvent myself and do something where I could not be traveling as much. And so I was talking to a friend and she said what is it that lights you up? What do you talk about all the time? And I said, how my body was healed. It's amazing. And she said, that's it. That's what you need to do. And I went and I studied functional in a functional medicine practitioner program and my journey began and it has been truly amazing. The one thing that just lights me up when I see people that are suffering and hurting and confused and tired of. looking for answers that they haven't been able to find. And then they hear these little things that they can do and they start making lifestyle changes and their world turns upside down. And it makes me happy. And I can keep going, but I that's, where it got to me, where I am today, being a personal wellness advocate, taking all my business skills, being an entrepreneur and just pouring everything into my mission on sharing with people how they can make a difference in their lives too. I love that. And yeah, what a journey you've had for such a long time as well. I think that's the, kind of, for me, sitting here and listening, the bit to get my head around is from the age of 20, right through to 40, you were suffering daily, weekly with symptoms that were then solved in 30 days. I think the, as I'm all about mindset and changing the way you think, and the gut is... The second brain and the changes can happen as quickly, whether it's with your thinking or with your body. And I think that's the thing that sometimes that is overlooked, isn't it? Is that change has to take forever. Yeah. It's not the case. So to, take it back to when you were younger, you mentioned about your microbiome and eating off the land. And you also mentioned about having antibiotics now I don't know a great deal about gut health, only bits that I've heard from your podcast and things like that. So I'm learning. what do you think was the biggest cause for the inflammation that you were having? Did it begin with antibiotics? Was it completely food? What are the kind of factors that contribute to the inflammation that you were experiencing? Yeah. So back growing up, we ate really, we were in an agricultural. community. And we had we would raise cows. We would butcher one cow a year and that would feed our family. And so I didn't know at the time, but I was consuming grass fed beef and that's what we should be consuming. When you're consuming meat that is fed grain, soy. Antibiotics, then you're eating that and that causes a problem and that's not good protein. So being very mindful of that. So, I was eating from the garden, from our fruit trees that we had and eating this great, pretty good lifestyle. But what, happened was when you're taking the antibiotics, it's killing not just the good. And not just the bad, but also the good and the bad have a tendency to take over faster than the good. And I didn't know, and my parents didn't know that when you're wiping out your, gut that you need to rebuild it with your pre prebiotics, probiotics. And So I would just finish, I would be okay, I would get over my tonsillitis or strep throat or whatever it was and then I would just continue living regular and interacting with farm animals and the earth and the dirt, which gave to me, and it did sustain me. And. So going into the sterile environment, it stripped away that component of healing from me. So, you have your microbiome and you have ancestral DNA when you're born into the earth and to on the earth through the mom, you're going through the birth canal. And as a baby, you're swallowing the fluids. You're getting doused in your mother's ancestral DNA. And so we take that on. So it's really important to have vaginal bursts when possible. That's one thing I advocate for if you can't, I get it, but just to schedule it, for your own convenience is a little selfish because you're denying your child a cranial adjustment and all these natural fluids that they're getting through that. And So when, you, and then also breastfeeding and the colostrum and, your mother is giving you, it's making you the, all the antidotes that you need as a baby. She's giving it to you. So you're receiving this. So when you start taking antibiotics, you wipe all that out. And I don't mean just like once or twice for me, it was just. Repetitive. I don't even know how many times I was on antibiotics as a child, but I remember seven times my fourth grade year because I almost didn't pass that year because I missed so much school and I was so upset about that. But so gut health, we have to be mindful of rebuilding. Like when I had leaky gut, I had to figure out, okay, those tight junctions. In the gut lining that keep everything in that should not be leaching out into the body got loose. And so it creates a little pathway for toxins, cytokines that should stay in the gut to launch out in the bloodstream. And then they can travel up past the blood brain barrier. They can cause chaos in the body. And so how do you heal those tight junctions? How do you make sure that your body is not inflamed and what, types of food? Because in the States, the FDA is. putting out a lot of misinformation and we just don't know what's inflammatory and we think we know it's healthy. Eat your grains, get your dairy. And don't eat a lot of fat and it's, amazing. And there's a lot of these recommendations that are extremely inflammatory and people just don't know. Yeah. That's one of the things that I love about for anyone who's followed you on social media and you podcast is you talk about the things that in mainstream media we're told are really good for us. And these are the things that you should be eating and the labels look wonderful kudos to the marketing team on some of these brands. Yeah. When you actually look behind the label and the ingredients and some of the things that are in there, it's almost contradictory to what they're selling you. So with all of that conflicting advice out there for people who may be experiencing some kind of. Health problem, whether it's food related or playing out in something where you may not necessarily relate it to food, for example, like arthritis or hormone issues or anything along those lines where physically the body is suffering. What would be your, what would be a starting point? What would be a simple place to begin to become aware of how you can. Make those improvements or become aware of what it may be is that you're doing that you think is good for you. Yeah. Yeah. Having the opposite effect. Yeah. The first thing I start with every client is you have to dig into your why. You have to understand, why do I want this change? What is it going to mean to me? And I do an exercise where they have to dig in seven layers and keep asking themselves I don't just want to lose weight. Why do you want to lose weight? It's because I'll feel better. If you feel better, what would that mean to you? What's your third why? And you drill in and it's not, I want to lose weight. That's not it. It's, way below that. And usually you've got there when you start crying and, that's your why. And so when you understand your why, you're going to hold onto that because a lot of things that you're consuming and doing right now are really hard to give up and you have to have. This point, this pain point that you don't want to let go of. You do not want to miss out on your life in the future with your grandbabies traveling the world, whatever your why is. And it's knowing that and, then it's slowly. Taking the layers off start with your oils. Look at all the oils in your kitchen and are you, do you have vegetable oil? Do you have seed oils canola? What are they? They should be pretty simple. They should be avocado, coconut, olive oil. And if we're cooking at high temperatures, avocado, coconut, olive oil is not a high temperature cooking oil. Although I learned in Turkey that a certain type they, have a certain type of olive that they do high cooking temperatures with, but we don't know that. So the burn point is a lot higher in those two oils. Olive oil is great for salad dressing and different things. When you're consuming these oils that are oxidative, they're creating damage when they go in the body. So when you're going out to eat at a restaurant and you're having a salad and the salad dressing is really good and it's most likely restaurants are in the business to make money and they're not being mindful of using olive oil, a pure olive oil in the salad dressing. They're using a vegetable oil or something else. And again, they're trying to make a profit. Knowing that you can make a choice on where you're going to eat and you can ask questions. What kind what, is in your salad dressing that you're using? And you could swap it out and just say, please bring me olive oil and some balsamic maybe. And so you can make these little intentional choices. So start simple with olive oil. If you're cooking, one thing that always surprises me is that how many people still use aluminum foil to line their pans. That you're cooking your food and that's going in your body. So swap it out for parchment paper. That's a really easy swap. Look in your refrigerator. I love salad dressings. It's really funny. I heard somebody talking recently about having salad dressing and looking at the label and it said, we don't add preservatives and he said he flipped it over and on the back there was three preservatives. He's wait a minute, flip it over. We don't add preservatives. He's flip it over again. And there's the preservatives. And so he asked somebody that he knew in the food industry and they said, they're right because they buy the salad dressing from another company who adds the preservatives, but they don't add them when they bottle it into their bottles. So they can legally get away with that. So, look at your pantry. Look at things that have the preservatives, have the fillers, try to eliminate fillers. Fillers are in everything. Watch your soy intake. Soy is, if you are eating it, you should have a very well sourced organic old school fermentation. If you're eating tofu or the miso and really be mindful of that because soy is in everything, especially in the States, try to get organic glyphosate. It's a pesticide that Europe, you don't have to worry about because it's not there. They've, eliminated it. Our use of glyphosate has risen. I think a hundred fold. And that's why we have GMO because the seeds could not withstand the glyphosate Just so everyone has a context was discovered in Vietnam. And they would use it to dust crop jungles so that they could eliminate vegetation really quickly so they could see the enemy. They could build their camps. And Monsanto said, this is a good product. They brought it back to the States. And they used it in a product called Roundup and Roundup is our pesticide that goes on an herbicide that goes on, the crops and it would kill the plants and they just couldn't stand it. So they developed GMO. To withstand the glyphosate crops are growing, but what's in the soil, it's that glyphosate that's sucking up it's on top of it and it's going up through the roots into the produce. And the tiniest amount in the lab, when they, put it they, they show it on the intestine, intestinal lining immediately damages it. So if you're eating non organic. Then chances are you're getting high pesticides. So try to figure out in your budget because organic eating is a little more expensive. Maybe you can grow your own look for sales plan ahead and, but really be mindful of what's going in your body. And those are just, a few I, I can keep going there. There's other things to grains. We need to be really mindful of because especially in the States they, pull out nutrients, they suck in like water nutrients and they pass it out as they go. So it's really not as beneficial as we think it is. And. And then everything in moderation. And another key thing is that women, 24, 25 grams of sugar. a day. That's inclusive of everything. Fruit, added sugar, processed food, anything that you're consuming. And most Americans are eating about 98 grams of sugar a day. Men, it's 35 grams. So That's another tip that you can start just looking at, just start, maybe make a food. Sorry to interrupt to give me a bit of an idea of what that would look like. Cause aside from having some scales in front of me and measuring out 25 grams, what would that look like on a plate if you were to use, whether it's or a piece of jam on toast or something? Yeah. For example, a banana has about 14 grams of sugar. Oh, wow. Yeah. A cup of blueberries is about nine grams. Berries are better. They're lower in sugar. But if you go to Starbucks and you have your mocha 35, 45 grams at a minimum and a little your nutritious little bars food bars that. Energy bars, whatever. Those usually have 25 to 45 grams. People do juice cleanses and they think, Oh, I'm doing it. I'm doing a cleanse. And every, container they're drinking six a day. Every one of them has 35 grams of sugar not, every brand. I'm just saying like some of the brands I've seen, like Costco had a special, they sent me and I'm like, I just want to look and see how many grams of sugar per bottle. So if you're doing that times six, you're on your way to diabetes and other risk factors. And so there's, so many things to look at and it's not just do this, not that. And it's, initially. It's doing elimination. I have people get rid of grains soy, sugar, alcohol and legumes for for four weeks. That's the initial. And then people say what do you eat? Why do I eat? I can't. What do you eat? It's eliminating 90% of most people's daily diet. And it's called eating whole food. And it's called doing a little prep work. So I do a whole cooking class and I, have recipes I've created and, you don't miss anything. My daughter's traveling in Europe right now. And, she's her biggest complaint, I think, is she's not eating my food. And when she was at college, but they I've fed my children very whole and people come for dinner. They don't miss a thing. They don't miss. They don't miss anything. I never have bread on my table. Not that you can't eat it, but I, can't, it really wreaks havoc in my gut till today. So I just don't, but I tell people everything in moderation. So once you do your cleanse, you're starting to understand how it feels to feel good. Then you can start or 90, 10, where 90% of the time you're eating that way. 10%. You're going to have your occasional, whatever you want, insert your little guilty pleasure here. And that's okay. And because we're not going to be a hundred percent all the time, but most of the time we should try to be that another thing really quickly, intermittent fasting, 12 hours a day, it gets your body into a state of autophagy where the cells are repairing. Once they can repair. So if you've ever fasted and your breath stinks and there's nothing you can do to make it not smell better, it's because your body's purging and it stinks because you're getting rid of the waste. Your cells are repairing. So if you're allowing your body to do that every day for at least you, it takes 12 hours to get there. So if you can get there 12 hours and you can push it a little bit more, maybe 14 to 16 hours, your body is going to benefit even more. By allowing it to take it a little bit further, but that's another thing people can start doing. And if you quit eating at seven at night, seven in the morning, that's 12 hours. It's not hard to do. Okay. Brilliant. So there's a few things that I want to go back to. First of all the, why having your reason, I love that you do that because I think whether it's to do with your health, to do with your goals in career, to do anything in life. If you haven't got a. big purpose for doing it, the minute it gets difficult, it's going to be the excuse to give up. And I see this so often with people that I've had conversations with that maybe want to achieve something yet. It's a short term view of something rather than that, that longer term. Why am I in it? Yeah. Am I in the long call? Is there something bigger than the immediate, say the holiday that's coming up? We want quick fixes. We want the magic pill. Yeah, that's it. And I think having the longer term view and knowing. The reason for doing it in the first place is what keeps you going and having it strong enough. So I love that you dig into that. And also one of the things that you touched upon, which I think is really important, is you mentioned about how people get used to they, suddenly know how it feels to feel good. And this is, again, I think there's so many crossovers when it comes to health and mindset because it's, just us as people, whether it's our thinking and our goals or our body or whichever way it plays out is people get so used to living in pain that they become numb to it. There's the analogy, isn't there? The frog in the. boiling water. So what is it you put him in the water and boil him slowly and he doesn't even realize he's cooking. And that's how so many people live their life, particularly when it comes to gut health, because you start out as a little miracle if you're blessed and everything functions well. And then slowly over time with the sweets and the junk food and the process stuff, it's only when you get to, in your case, age 20, where it got even worse things exaggerated because of your diet that it becomes. Painful enough. So I suppose When it comes to coaching and training, I tend to see people at the extremes. So either things have gotten really bad, they've gotten bad enough that it's like something needs to change or they have an experience where things are good and they maybe have that, week of understanding what having energy feels like or what life could be like. And they get it right. I can't go back to what was. I need more of this though. Is there a, do you ever experience a kind of a gray area of, I'm just a bit curious about something and tell me. I would say 95% of the, people I work with are at the end of the rope and they're the best ones to work with by the way. Because they want it. And the other 5% are putting their foot in the water. And they're, maybe they're doing something great that's working for them and they want to know if there's anything they could tweak and do a little bit better. But that's usually not the case. And I also want to throw out there that there's also another category of people that, They're having occasional flare ups and they're like, Oh, but Colette it's not really that bad. And, but I'm looking down the road when you hit 50, 60, 70. I know what your body's going to do. And it makes me really, sad to see people walking on the street, 60, 70, 80 hunched over sallow and shuffling. There's no reason for that at all. We need to, we're supposed to live until 120 with all of our capabilities and a sharp mind, a great body mobility. And there are so many trailblazers. Dr. Mercola being one of them that are just blazing through and they're showing us how to do it. And so I'm so passionate about it because you're right that you, just, that people get to a point and usually it's when it's so bad that they want help. And I was really bad. I went on forever and, thankfully I, figured out what was going on, but I was actively searching. And the reason I started my podcast was I, if I could have heard some words of help from other people that actually went through it and did this transformative work that I could have heard it, but I didn't, I was seeking and I couldn't find it. So that's why I do what I do because I want people to know that. They can achieve it too. And you're so right. What you said earlier about the mindset, because the mind is everything. And there's a lot of scientific research that shows if you're eating right and you're exercising and you're getting your sleep, but you're. You have a toxic mind and you're in a toxic relationship and you have constant stress. You might as well be eating junk food and there's a couple of things that I want to pull out of that. Firstly, I just want to tap into the purpose side of things, because you've touched on that a few times and your, reason for doing what you do keeps coming out. And one of the things that I come across a lot is people not knowing what their purpose is and thinking that it has to be this big grand mission. Where they're going to change the world. Whereas actually do what you did, which is exactly what I did. What do I talk about all the time? And it wasn't the work that I was doing. It was what I now do. That was any spare moment. That's what I wanted to tell people about. That's what I was reading about, looking for podcasts on. So I think that's a kind of insight into purpose when it comes to the, your life mission and that can change. It can come in many ways, shapes or forms, but to, if somebody is thinking, Oh, I'm listening to Colette, I wish I was that passionate. Where do I begin? That's a great starting point. The other thing then, which you touched on, cause I know there's, places in the world aren't there, the blue zones where people do live to 120 and they are riding bikes and they're having good health. So they're not just existing and deteriorating. They're living to 120. Yes. Versus. The many people in the UK and America that they get old and it's a painful experience. It's lots of trips to the hospital and the doctor and drugs and all that kind of stuff that comes with it. Is there a point where health is, I've got my own views on the mindset side of thing and the body's healing capabilities yet when it comes to food and using that as a tool, Is there a point where it becomes irreversible or is there always? Hope, no matter where somebody starting from, are there always improvements that can be made regardless of how much damage has been caused internally to the point that they're at? Yeah. Our bodies are miraculous, And one thing I've told my daughter since they were little, when they would get a scrape or a cut and I would just say, wow, you know what? Your body is designed to heal. Let's watch and let's see how fast your body heals. Isn't it? Isn't it amazing? So that they could see the correlation that you can get hurt, but your body, our bodies are designed to heal. And if you give them a little bit of love, they will give back to you tenfold. It's fascinating. If we just give a little bit, so when you're encompassing everything. And you're working on the mindset and you're getting the nutrition and you're getting your sleep and you are meditating and you have healthy relationships. Your body should flourish. And there's, I, my first podcast I released was with Dr. Redding, Reddinger of Harvard. And he has a book called cured and he opens with the story of a woman who had pancreatic cancer. Okay. So Sean, when you hear somebody has pancreatic cancer, what is your first response? Thanks. I can imagine that most people would think it doomed. It's doomed. Good. It's not if it's when, right? And so what, he, so he opens with a story, a woman, pancreatic cancer. She basically started reinventing herself and, thinking if I'm going to live for six months. I want to do the best, like I want to be the best I can. And so she started eating a little bit better, cleaning up her relationship. She quit her job. She just started just, she and her husband wanted to retire in Hawaii and she was thinking wouldn't it be nice, but I'm going to live now. And two years later, she's on a beach in Hawaii and she gets a stomach pain and she thought, you know what? Maybe now's the time I've been gifted two years. And I was, they gave me six months and she didn't go to the doctor cause she's I don't want to go and be told every time I'm dying and how close to dying I am. I'm just going to live. She goes to the doctor. There's not a trace of pancreatic cancer in her body. And so Dr. Renninger, he's at a conference and he, with doctors and he tells a story and he said, how many of you have experienced patients? With unexplained healing and, spontaneous healing. And he said, most of the hands went up. He said, okay, of all of you who raised your hands, how many of you documented that to a journal? Very few hands went up. And this he said is crucial not to give false hope to people, but to give hope that you're not doomed. And, you can heal and there are ways, and it's not a magic pill. It's not a magic wand. It's showing up in life and making better choices, educating yourself, not just taking my word for it, but take whatever you hear from me, go do your own research and find out for yourself. I just did a podcast about neurotransmitters and how they stimulate all these great interactions and messages in the body to create happiness and get you out of the anxiety. And don't take my word that go do your research and, see for yourself, read the labels. Listen to Sean, let reprogram your brain. There's, steps that we can take and, I don't, I think that, nobody is beyond unless you're in hospice, obviously that's might be a little bit too far, but there's always room for improvement. And like for myself, my, my gut was too far gone. There's certain things that I just stay away from because they trigger me and I'm still working. I'm still working on healing my body. Maybe it'll be all the way back there, but why would I put things in my body that set me back? I don't want to do that. I, choose not to. Yeah, I think it's, something that I'm certainly looking into more of late, partly because I'm coming to that time of my life where hormones are changing. And I've always had the belief that my mental being, my emotional well being can feed into that and the beliefs. Society have that you, you get to a certain age and that's it. You turn into a tiger or whatever it might be. I've chosen to not take those on. And I also can feel physical changes within me. So I've been looking at intermittent fasting. Yeah, I recently read Dr. Mindy Peltz book about fast like a girl. So you adapt it. And I've only recently started experimenting with that yet. The. Aside from the hormonal changes, it's also looking at my dad, he's 66, he was, he's always had health issues, antibiotics galore, and medication, he's had back trouble, so he was given a drug that messed up his stomach, so he got given another drug, so it was putting plaster upon plaster, and roll forward 20 years, he's, early onset Alzheimer's, dementia. And I'm pretty sure, aside from the emotional stuff that he's had happened during his life, because I'm sure there's a lot of that's connected and that affects the chemicals in the body and the chemistry and our health as a result and his sleep and all those kind of things. I'm sure a lot of it also stems from his gut health because his gut has just, it's it's he's celiac, and then it's right, so you're celiac, eat these things, oh no you can't because you've got gastroenteritis or whatever, so everything seems to impact on something else, and it's, I think, even he now is looking at how can I just make some small, Improvements. But yeah, thinking, am I too far gone? Is it pointless? May as well. Shall I just give up and enjoy what I got left? And that true I'm trying to find, I just came across a doctor and I was trying to look for it. But anyway he's has a book called reversing Alzheimer's or something. But, yes, is it the first survivors of Alzheimer's? I do have. Oh, here we go. Not this. Is it this? This one? Dale? I don't know. Yes. Yes. That one. Yes. So he has a couple of books and, but one of the protocols is intermittent fasting doing the 12 hour intermittent fast. And by the way keto, I don't recommend, but a lot of times they were recommend keto for Alzheimer's patients and dementia. But I would I'm, going to start diving into his work because I, think. He's reversing Alzheimer's and yeah, in different stages, it depends on what type and, but it's, really fascinating but, yeah, but what if we can make those changes in ourself to show the next generation that they can be a little bit better and so, you're that next generation and, you're going to help. Your dad and, help him try to make some different choices so that maybe he can beat that. And but maybe, not but, if he's on board with you and, what he can and should be doing, then I'd be curious to see how how he comes through that. And yeah. Bye bye. So I want to flip it slightly, because as I love talking about creating your reality and how you do that. One of the things that I've heard recently, which I'm curious about, and I'm not sure if much about this, is food and how different foods have different frequencies to them. So my, own experience. when it comes to food and the way that I feel is when I eat well, I feel good. If I eat less well, then I feel the effects. And when it comes to things like alcohol in my life now, it used to be that I drank wine to feel good because I was in a pretty bad. place my, my vibration for want of a better word was low, so I would drink alcohol and I'd feel better, whereas now I feel good. And if I drink too much alcohol, I tend to feel it lowers the vibration and I feel worse. So I've got the very. I'm going to call it the dumb woman's view to this makes me feel good. So my vibration rises and this makes me feel, yeah, I feel lethargic if I eat this. Yeah. Does it go even deeper than that in terms of how food are grown? Does it affect the vibrational energy? And yeah speak, to that. Yeah, no, I think you're, actually I'm going to reprimand you for saying that it's not the dumb woman's way. It's actually the highly intelligent, intellectual in tune person that understands how they feel when they eat. And you can even take something that's not as organic or whole, and your intention is whatever nourishment that this food can provide my body, I receive. And so you're tuning the food instead of looking at it like, like that glass of wine saying, this is going to cure me. This is going to make me feel better. If you're having that glass of wine, this is something that I'm going to enjoy right now. I, want to experience the flavors and the region that it's from. And yes. And, there's also, I've recently heard people that tune their water. They have a glass of water and they just they just put a vibration into it because, water the, at the molecular structure, it forms these beautiful intrinsic patterns like snowflakes and bad energy, bad, like very harsh music creates kind of shards. And when they take that water and freeze it, so being very intentional and, even if it's not the best food, but you're eating it to nourish your body state that, which I think religion it has its, positives with they're, blessing their food. And if it's just blessed food, because this is what I have to say. And I've always said it growing up and that's what I've been told instead of. You know what? I'm very thankful for the hands that did make this and I'm appreciative of this food that's going to nourish my body and I'm thankful. So how are you looking at it? And, if you pray, if you don't pray, just setting a little intention before you eat. And that will make you mindful and it'll slow you down just a little bit. And so I do believe in that and I think you're very highly in tune for being able to fill that because a lot of people can't, they don't know what to look like. They don't know what it feels like to feel good or they don't know what it feels like when food comes in. That's what I try to get people to it's. So it's fascinating that you said that because a lot of people are like, how do I know how I feel? And I said, you'll know. You just have to start paying attention. Eliminate, everything that's making you feel bad so that when you add it back in, then you'll know just like the wine, was a mask and then now it can occasionally be enjoyed and and you're not consuming it to mask something and solve a problem and make you happy. That's not what it's for. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I think it is almost trusting your own intuition, isn't it? Which when it comes to. Bring it back around again because we're mind body connection is that when you start to trust yourself that plays out into whether it's your food choices, going on the date, going for the goal, whatever it might be. It's that almost releasing the limiting belief that you. You don't know yourself enough to know what to do next. So everything's interlinked, everything's connected. Hence why I suppose the, food, we're connected to it. So setting our intention for it. There's, it's the Japanese concept, isn't it? I can't remember what the... The name for it is where they've, done experiments where they look at I think it's water. I'm having a mind blanket. It might be water. It might be plants. It may have been both where they get a glass of water and give love to one. And neglect the other or the same with plants. So give love to one plant, feed it exactly the same, but the intention behind it is I give love and all positivity versus negativity. And the one plant died and the other one thrived and they were sat in the same environment, but the intention behind it was different. And it's the same when it comes to our body is rather than when you're maybe not where you want to be, it's easy to, for people to beat themselves up and yes. Yeah. But that's not going to change anything. So it's right with the, knowledge you have where you are right now, you've made the best decisions that you can. And probably with good intentions, a lot of the time I listened to your podcast the other day about milks. I was like, ah I've been doing the soya train, the oat milk, all these things, doing myself good. Yeah. Yeah. It's, really but, being mindful and then knowing that you can make your own and, just knowing that these fillers can disrupt the gut and how much sugars are actually inside of them and that almonds are, they're good, but in moderation, like six to 12 a day. And if you are eating gluten free with almond flour and you're having almond milk in your coffee and you're eating almonds throughout the day. They're, high in omega 6, which is inflammatory. So again, in moderation. So just knowing that, but how do you know until you're actively seeking and, you are on a thread of, okay, what is anti inflammation? What does that mean to my body and what foods am I putting in that create the inflammation? So it's, really interesting. Like when you start diving in and, it's out there, the information is out there. The other thing that I find myself included and friends get overwhelmed by is supplements. Are they a yes? Are they a no? I'm, personally at the point at the moment of, I could have a supplement and I wouldn't know why I'm taking it. Am I actually making it overwork in some ways by giving it stuff that isn't. So what would, what's your take on, or what would be your advice be? What would be your advice be? I do believe in supplements. I believe in well sourced supplements and trying to understand what they're for and how you should take them. And for example calcium is, really bad for you. And they've proven this in studies at the Mayo Clinic and they show that if you are taking calcium, you have increased risk of of, heart disease. And so if you're not taking calcium, what should you take? And you don't need to drink a glass of milk. That's not going to help you. So what they found is that. When cows are eating grass fed, they have their four compartments, the stomach. So they're eating it. They spit it up. They chew their cud. It goes into another compartment. Where it sits and then it ferments that fermentation process stores in the fat of vitamin K2, vitamin when we consume it. So if you are eating, drinking the milk of grass fed or eating the fat of grass fed, then you're receiving the K2 vitamin that can only come from, grass, like greens that have fermented. And so K2 vitamin, it calcifies the bones. And it decalcifies the veins. So it removes plaque, but it builds your calcium in your bones, but you also need to make sure that you have D3. If you're taking D3 alone without K2, your body's going to be imbalanced and it has to make up somewhere. So it's going to pull minerals and nutrients from somewhere else just to counteract what you're putting in. So having a well balanced. ratio and knowing what you're low on, what you're too high on and doing, some blood panels are recommended to make sure that you're in the right sweet spot. Is that what you would recommend generally? So if there's most of the, people that listen to this podcast are women between the age of 35 to 55 interested in. And maybe taking supplements at the moment. Is there a general list that you would say these are a must regardless or is everything, is it individual on all levels? It's individual, but I would say some good staples are your K2, D3 MK7. They'll have a mix of, those and make, again, making sure that it's well sourced and watching out for gummies. I don't recommend gummies because usually there's fillers and there's a lot of sugar or sweeteners in gummies. So try to stay away from those. And vitamin C is important and a good soil based probiotic. I, that's what I take and just one very simple and sometimes when I'm traveling, I won't take it because you're, you want to tease your body and not let it just get dependent on that. Eat a tablespoon of sauerkraut or some like kimchi, something that is fermented because that will feed, that's like your prebiotic that will feed the probiotic and your, microbiome will feed off of that and your microbiome creates vitamins that your body needs. So if your microbiome is depleted, then you have to work to build it up and give it those prebiotics, the probiotics and so those, are just a few I like oregano. I love zinc. Most people are deficient in zinc magnesium, really important to be getting that and and then just I, start every morning with a green drink of different grains. I mix it up all the time, but you, we need 30 to 40 plants per week. A variety of plants. So you can use herbs in your cooking but, try to get that whole food in your diet. One of the ways, easy ways to do it is if you do the green drink and you're putting it in your, you're mixing it up and you're drinking it first thing in your body and your body is getting all this influx of just deliciousness and good and, it starts craving it and you create this beautiful pattern where you're nourishing your skin. I just. I turned 50 and I feel better today than I did when I was in my late teens, early twenties. And it's not by. It's not genetic. It's by design. I, show up for myself. I exercise, I sleep, I put good things in my body. I, do take care of my skin. I'm important. I'm big into having routines and skincare routines and the water and healthy relationships and meditation and mindfulness. And, I want to be. That light to people to say, I can do it too. You don't have to die when you turn 50 or 60 or 70 and you can still be radiant and you can still show up and, so I want to be one of those trailblazers. That is let's do it. I'm going to show you how, so that's, my goal too, is just showing and providing content and information and, now a physical product, a food product that people can consume to help them when in that jungle of, craziness of not being able to have a grab and go that's healthy. I want to change that. And that's my next kind of big mission is to get it out there, not just beyond recipes and talking to you, but really physically giving you something that you can implement that's healthy. Yeah. So firstly, if you're listening to this, then head over to YouTube so that you can see that Colette's skin does glow through the screen. You look amazing. So you're like a walking testimonial for your own practices, which is wonderful. So yeah, talk to us about your product. Cause I know outside of. Your own personal care. You're also an entrepreneur, which is personal care because you're feeding your soul. So it's all connected still. And as well as working with clients one to one and your podcast, you've also got a product coming out very soon. You've got a retreat coming up. So tell us all about that. Yeah. So my product, it came from, again, a need and the need was people would say why do I eat? And then it was I don't know how to cook or I don't want to cook or I don't have time to cook. So what do I do? And, can you recommend stuff that I can grab and go? And there's not a lot out there. And so I just said, this is the universe telling me, Colette, you've got to step up. And in stepping up, the other thing that I learned is that children that are autistic Eat the way that I teach non inflammatory. And so there's a medical doctor in Newport beach that shared this with me. And she said, Colette we need this. We need you. We need your product because parents of autistic kids are just depleted and they're tired and they're giving all the time and they don't have time and they need these products, please. And, I was like, wow I, had no idea that, that, was a, niche or, a need, but we all need to be low inflammatory. My products don't contain grains or nuts. You get plenty of that out there or soy or fillers or bad oils, like everything. You're going to look at my label wherever it is in the store. I'm starting with granola and you'll know I can have it. You can grab and go eat it. Do not feel bad. You if you're going to eat 20 bags at once, you might feel a little bit bad, but again, in moderation. But I, so my, goal is to put products out that, that are non inflammatory, everything, good, clean, and. The other thing is women's retreat in Bodrum, Turkey, and I'm doing this again because it's been on my heart to create a space for women to come together. We work hard. We take care of others. We take care of our children, our alien relatives, our everything, pets, plants. And when do we. When do we nourish ourselves? And when you're in an environment where you just go, you need to remove yourself and you need to reenergize and, uplift and get yourself into a state of learning that we're going to have juice cleanse or. Or you can do a clean vegetarian eating for a week. And there's just there, you'll have to if you're interested in it, let me know. I can tell you more, but you're going to come back home, renew it, renewed, refreshed and showing up for your family, your work, your friends better than before. It's at a place called the life co in Bodrum, Turkey, and it's just magical. And it's right on the Aegean sea. You can see the Greek islands right out off the sea. It's just magical. And we're going to be doing wellness talks and I'll be there the whole time you meet with a. Yeah. doctor who's functional medicine and, we'll put you on the plan that's best for you. And we do check ins and so it's going to be great. And that's in October, right? Yeah. October 29th through November 4th. And we'll put all the links in the show notes as well. So anybody that's interested can have a look and it will be a fabulous week. I think it, it gives people that opportunity to get out of their environment, reset, create new neural pathways and knowledge that they can come back to their everyday life and home with and start to implement. And it's I think. Sometimes it takes that change, that shift in something to, make things shift internally. The outside world is a reflection of the inside world and vice versa. So if you're maybe struggling with the inside world, change the outside world and the inner will change as well and vice versa. So work with everything that's at your disposal. Amazing. So one more question before you leave. Which is it's, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask it because I'm curious. What is the worst, most common advice or tips that you see being given that people almost shout about? Is there anything that we need to know when it comes to health that... To give you one example that I'm seeing everywhere, which I know I've now activated my reticular activating system. So of course I see it everywhere, but it's like oat milk or something where it's on the, health bandwagon. And it's no, do not believe the hype. It's not true. Cut it out. The first thing. Yeah. The first thing in my head was Keto, flip over those packages. Read the labels. There are artificial sweeteners urethritol. It was. It's shown in a blind study to for, all kinds of health problems, but heart disease and the food industry, people that use it are kicking and screaming and calling it demonization of a sweetener. But if you look at it, why not just eat in moderation, stick don't, make your body demand high sugar fillings and content all day long and try to fill. Like it's numbing something within you, you should be able to eat your 25 grams, eat a healthy diet, have your fruit as your, candy. And and, what kind of oils are they using? They're usually really bad oils in the keto products and, it's not healthy to eat. Fat and protein all day long. It's not. So please, it's eating keto is not healthy. I, there, there's certain health conditions or if it's a very short time they, indicate it for it. But, as a lifestyle it's not recommended you got to make sure that you're getting those really good, long, slow burning carbs that are nutrient dense and just be mindful. It's not, that you can never. Just have a some meat one time and you don't you don't have something else with it. It's nothing's going to happen, but if that's a lifestyle then, it's not healthy. So please be aware of keto. Yeah. On a similar kind of. Bain is thinking that if you're eating gluten free, then you're doing well, but if you look at the packaging, because I see it with my dad's food being celiac, and you think the stuff that is in there is probably worse than the bread that you could have eaten. There's a brand here that's very popular and when, I was trying to eat gluten free before I found out what was going on, it was working a little bit and I was. It's flipped over the package, high fructose corn syrup in a gluten free and, yeah, it's bad oils, preservatives, fillers, and really poor ingredients. If it's rice flour, potato flour, oat flour, all these are not too beneficial for you. And then not flowers. And these are all high in Omega six, two pieces of bread contains all the Omega six that you need in one day. And, you don't even need that. And that's just two pieces of bread. And then you add and layer in are you eating a lot of almonds replacements? And are you getting drinking your oat milk every morning? And how, inflamed are you because of these things that people tell you? Yeah. Oat milk is great. Drink it. Yeah. Eat almonds all day long. They're really good for you and have your, bread and your whatever. So you just, you unknowingly. You're eating what you think is healthy and you're eating pretty healthy, but you're, really putting into your body things that if it's not affecting you today, it will tomorrow. So be mindful. I think that's it. Isn't it? If we were, if it was visible on our outside, the inflammation that's going on, then people may take it more seriously, but because it's hidden under the skin and maybe isn't having the immediate impact. That's, you could call painful enough. It's it can wait till later. Same with emotions, same with thought patterns. Mindset stuff it's in between our ears. It's in our body, so we can't see it outside of it. Yet, actually we can because everything is a reflection of us. Yeah. On that note, thank you so much. You've added to this is the vibrant mind, vibrant life and part of having a vibrant life is that wellness and being able to enjoy every moment of it and feel good and have the energy to really go out and achieve everything that you want. So thank you so much for sharing with us and spending your time here today. I could chat with you all day long. I know. And I just want to say for your audience. If you want to know more about Sean, she was on my podcast and it was absolutely amazing because I think as podcast hosts, we don't talk about ourselves. Often. And we're not interviewed. So if you want to see a different side of Sean, listen into that podcast too. And where can people find you actually bless you that's a, that's very Colette like to just bounce it right back and share. Yeah. So my podcast is limitless healing with Colette and you can find it on all platforms on Instagram. I'm. Thanks At wellness by Colette. And my retreat, if you're interested is travel with Colette and colitis spelled C O L E T E one L two T's. Amazing. And I'll put all the links in the show notes, but again, thank you so much, Colette. And yeah, have an amazing rest of your day. You too. Thank you, Sean.