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hello good day greetings wherever you are in the world thank you for joining true hopecast the official podcast of

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true hope Canada this podcast true Hope cast takes a deep dive into mental

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Health's many physiological and psychological aspects this is the show for you if you're looking for knowledge

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motivation inspiration and solutions and that is really what we're all about here at true hope Canada true hope Canada is

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a mind and body based supplement company dedicated first and foremost to promoting brain and body Health through

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non-invasive nutritional means for more information about us you can visit truehopecanada.com today I welcome

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Charlene ebden and Haley Dickinson to the podcast now Charlene and Haley are both registered holistic nutritionists

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who graduated from the Canadian School of natural nutrition Haley started up her nutrition and lifestyle coaching

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programs under the name optimized coaching and Charlene joined her there they look at each person as a unique

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individual and create custom programs to best suit their needs and to get to the root cause of their primary health

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concerns today we're going to be discussing many topics in the wonderful world of nutrition enjoy the show

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okay Charlene Haley welcome to True Hope cast thank you for being with me today how are you both doing what is going

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well we're good I think I think it's a beautiful day it's like a nearly a new

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snowstorm outside um Haley came over to my place in Cedar and we've just been uh it's quite the

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mission getting ready here uh super excited to get on this podcast I've been listening to some years they're awesome

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so we're really uh happy to be here awesome that's I'm glad to hear it that's great well why don't you just as

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an introduction let us know who you are and what it is you can do I don't know Haley you want you want to kick off and

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then Charlene you can come in after absolutely um yeah well we're both holistic

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nutritionists uh we went to the school of or the Canadian School of natural nutrition

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um graduated in 2020 I think yeah we actually graduated right one like the pandemic was starting and everything was

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getting locked down so that was kind of stressful to say the least yeah

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um and yeah yeah um we've actually known each other for a very long time believe

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it or not we went to high school together we went to the IU together uh and then we found ourselves at Canadian

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School of natural nutrition together um we even lived together at one point so only made sense to start a business

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together as well um so we are yeah we're doing pretty well it's been a really fun ride

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um a little bumpy start trying to figure out how to be an entrepreneur but we were really lucky that we ended up in uh Dave our boss's lap uh at optimized

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nutrition and now we work for optimized coaching and help a lot of clients

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along the way beautiful well before we talk more about optimizing nutrition

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tell us about your journey into the truth like why nutrition I mean both of you you've your friends for a long time

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went to high school together you end up going to nutrition school together did you just make this bond to just always

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be together or do you have these separate stories and what you know why nutrition like what's this what's the

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backstory there I mean for me at least I was lucky to be raised

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kind of in a family that's always sort of been pretty health-conscious and stuff um you know I was always doing

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sports growing up and that kind of thing and so it sort of goes hand in hand um I got really into working out

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probably a couple years before I actually started the school and then

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um for a while I just honestly I mean I tried the regular University route

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um was just trying to figure out what I wanted to do but nothing was really clicking and then basically I found like

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this little ad in one of like the wellness news papers uh for the school and so I went to like their open house

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and I was like wow this is totally just up my alley and everything and I started

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that and then I told Charlene all about it and she was kind of doing the same thing as me we were both just confused

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you know 19 years old don't know what we're doing at all and then she decided to give it a go so she was the semester

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behind me but we were kind of doing it together throughout I guess you could say and

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um yeah I don't know it just sort of made sense for me at least I think she just copied me but

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it worked out well that's uh such a great Arena to get

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into when it comes to nutrition and you know when I study nutrition I studied at Pacific Rim on the island and

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there were so many different ways that I thought that my night nutrition career could go especially like who do who are

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you gonna help who are you going to support the best because I think probably a lot of people at the beginning they just they think that it's going to help everybody and it usually

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doesn't work out usually knee sharp and so what was your what was your guys's particular Journey when it came to like

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your nutrition training you can tell me about that fruit for example was it a two-year course three year course and

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and what did that um how did your desires and goals to when you wanted to

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start a business how did that change through that training man well uh Canadian School of natural nutrition

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um trains us to be a holistic uh registered holistic nutritionist that's our title it is a two-year program but you can do

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it in a sped up one year so that's what we did um it wasn't tough there's a lot of

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information um but the bright side is that it wasn't like regular universities very Hands-On

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like for example I had eight people in my class we can ask all the questions we needed

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um we were a community very tight-knit with the teachers we had a lot of attention so

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um when it came to learning it was actually quite easy and um despite the overload of information

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we managed to get through and um

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yeah well it was a great experience and then after graduating we weren't really sure

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what we wanted to do that being said that we said before it was the beginning of the pandemic so yeah it was a tough

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time I mean we learned a lot but we didn't necessarily learn how to start our own business

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um or anything in that realm really so that's why we were kind of mentioning that we're very lucky to have started

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working for Dave at optimized nutrition um because he actually went to the same school but a couple years prior to us so

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all of our ideas and values and everything were just totally lined up together and then basically since you

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know he already had a business presence he just kind of helped us get going with that and I mean we're still figuring

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things out we don't actually know what we're doing we're doing all right yeah

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that's pretty funny um yeah I think that across the board in nutrition schools I think that business

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element is is lacking like I could talk all day about how amazing Pacific Rim College was and is and I'm sure you

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could do the same about um the Canadian School of nutrition but um certainly not equipping students with

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how to actually take that training take all that theory and create a business

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from it with your own particular individual skill set and and passions and and desires you know I found that to

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be quite a core piece that was missing for from that training and I think a lot of people unless they stumble across

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like someone like you know the um your boss like unless you you come across somebody like that who can you know has

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something set up and can offer you like a platform and a basis to work with a lot of people who who

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graduate as nutritionists maybe fall through the cracks and don't necessarily go into nutrition right away because

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they don't actually have the ability to figure out how they can take all this amazing training and turn that into a

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business because obviously between between that and the end user there's so much to think about like marketing and

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all those types of things so with the a lot of benefits when it comes to your

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your score were there any things that you wish were different

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myself as an entrepreneur and kind of what that entails um how to I mean there was a bit of

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touch on it but there wasn't necessarily more than a business book that we read and you know a few stories from here and

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there and what people have done but I think that's because it's also such a new career yeah I find it's really

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breaking out now in the last few years it's been a thing for a long time but it's becoming a lot more popular and you

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know with social media and influencers and personal trainers it's really hard to find the line of where you fit as a

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nutritionist and how to do it so I think that's kind of what the school had a hard time kind of explaining but

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how can they tell the future and how to do something that is so fresh and new good answer like that that was good that

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was very conservative that's right down the middle I like it um can you tell us a little bit about

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um optimize is it Baltimore's nutrition or optimized coaching well both

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um so we're kind of the official business that Dave has supplement store and that's optimized

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nutrition um so then when we so optimize coaching is kind of like our branch of things I

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guess so it's like both of us still we work in the store we sell supplements help

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people uh face to face that way and then we also work with clients like on the

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side as well so yeah we're doing lots of stuff but and whereabouts is optimized nutrition

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what type of what type of health food is it like a health food store is it Supple is it more driven towards like like

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bodybuilding like what kind of what type of store is it uh it's it's supplements I mean we do have a

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little bit of Health Foods um there and but it's definitely a mix of like the bodybuilding Sports

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Nutrition and holistic nutrition so yeah it's like basically 50 50. we cater to

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kind of everything everything yeah yeah pretty much everyone comes in we can at least help especially that you know

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Dave's got his history and bodybuilding um and um Nick the manager as well he's

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got a lot of experience um in the fitness industry and sports supplements a lot of knowledge in that

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area and as well as Haley with her history we all kind of know everything but with the holistic aspect

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um we can really help with the herbal supplementation vitamins and minerals um uh mindful help all that kind of

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stuff when clients or customers come in for questions our light went out unfortunately yeah so good yeah that's

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huge to be able to have um people on the floor in these stores that are able to

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um speak to customers about like the wide world that is holistic nutrition

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because you know some people might come in with a specific question about something but if they're not taking into consideration their ability to digest or

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their stress levels or things like this you know then then you're not really covering the full the full piece and I

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know in Victoria I lived there for a long time and there's some amazing health food stores that you know they're very very particular in regards to the

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individuals that they hire in regards to the qualifications and their background and their and their education

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and um it's just awesome that you guys are able to facilitate and support and have the um

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ability to help people come in with nutrition so is that where the majority of the optimize coaching clients kind of

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come from through the door of the of the store other than that I mean we have the odd

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person who just finds Us online um because they searched it up or whatever um but yeah a lot of people usually we

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just get into a good conversation and it's sort of like okay do they want to spend three hours in the store and going

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over everything or do they want to take our card and then you know we end up setting them up with a program on their

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own to kind of address all the aspects that they're looking to you know work on

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and do you have both have like a particular type of person that you would specialize in or is it really Broad

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we're pretty well we're still pretty broad um I mean we're starting to kind of pick up on different Trends

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um a lot of I'd say the last year or so it's been a lot of like women in their

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middle age and stuff that are getting to the point where you know what they were doing their whole life just isn't

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working anymore and or whether they've had health conditions come up and they

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need to address that so that's kind of becoming a theme but I wouldn't say it's necessarily our only focus I mean

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yeah like I said we are still pretty broad we don't have like a set Niche yet but maybe eventually yeah it's very fun I

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mean I find big things that come up as like weight loss um weight gain um digestion support yeah um and like uh

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just general um understanding around what we eat and

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how how to eat it and like kind of like finding structure and a little bit more knowledge about nutrition

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so it is quite General yeah because I mean even a lot of people especially actually these days with

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um social media there being so many people out there who are giving advice and whether they're qualified or not

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um and it's almost like you know of course you can go on Google and search whatever you want to know but you're

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probably gonna get about 25 different answers so we're finding that just overall people are really just they're

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just confused um and they just need some direction because they don't know what Avenue to

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take to address whatever their goal or health concern is so that's kind of

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another thing where we tend to debunk a lot of myths and stuff like that so

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yeah I think that the amount of information that is available with just your smartphone is actually doing a

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disservice to customers there's so much out there so many opinions and it can be

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quite difficult to find but the references or resources that people are making these claims on and

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like is this person even qualified to make these claims so it can just be like just you know people to drown in informations but it also really serves

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and benefits these like local health food stores where people want to go in and actually have conversations with human beings and you know recognize that

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what you're telling them is you know kind of packed with with Education and Research and Science and that

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authenticity as well like just you would be able to gauge that from being one-on-one with a person rather than

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just trying to read this read this post or something so I think that that oversaturation of information on social

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media and on Google is actually yes doing is doing a disservice to the customer but it's driving people for answers and answers to their questions

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which is a really positive thing that people are becoming more um skeptical and inquisitive about their

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own health so they're coming in and asking these questions which I think is just amazing that you guys are there to be able to do it how long have you been

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working in the store because I think over the last let's say a couple of years through the pandemic I think a lot

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of Trends and a lot of common questions have probably changed people are coming in with maybe a theme of like maybe like

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mental health over like what's what's happened all over the last couple of years so have you seen like the the type

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of person the type of question that come in change due to like the circumstances over the last couple of years

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yeah um yeah a little bit I mean I guess I've been there I started working at the

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store a little bit ahead of her it's only two years I guess about two years now so yeah basically like the thick of

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the pandemic is when I started and um yeah I'm trying to think really

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well I mean a lot of people were talking about covid and a new health and stress

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um I think that's still a common theme yeah yeah to be honest um but I think uh there was a transition

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where people really tried to take a hold of their health as well so um there's a lot more questions and a

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lot of new people coming in being like wow I need to like do something I want

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to I want to try and jump on the bus and do something for myself and work on change and I didn't really think about

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this kind of thing and they maybe even a lot of people at time off work too so they had time to think about it and they

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had didn't know what to do with their time so yeah stress is definitely huge um I don't know if that's really gone up

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or down it's kind of just a steady constant problem that we see um that and then yeah Digestive Health a lot of

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people because actually I've been noticing even like you know the mainstream kind of news and media and

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stuff they're even starting to talk about like the microbiome and everything so a lot of people are jumping on that and going and going oh well you know

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this and or whatever the case is and then you know they're all interested all of a sudden whereas for a while nobody really

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thought about that unless they're like legitimately having major issues right so also mushrooms yeah that's a huge one

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yeah because I think nowadays um a lot of people are hearing her and seeing studies about the psilocybum being used

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for depression anxiety and such um and then also learning more and realizing there's more than just

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psilocyb mushrooms there's lion's mane there's turkey tail there's Rishi um all these things out there that

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people didn't realize now they're learning about them so that's really exciting I'm very fascinated with them

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myself so when a customer comes in and asks about it um uh delighted to like explain what

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each one can support you and which way and there's a lot of Brands there's a lot of options so that's another one I love that yeah

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the more questions people are ask the better and I think yeah the pandemic has probably caused you know more people to

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get Maybe sicker or maybe more overweight due to like lockdowns and things like that

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which you know is going to drive people to hopefully um recognize that they might need to make changes and they might need some

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support doing that whether that's with an individual whether that's from supplementation or just like new regimes

17:46

or protocols and then there's a group of people that really took the ball by the horns you know that there's this big

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opportunity right now for for me to take my health into my own into my own hands

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and the fact that we can see just from the data that you know they're kind of the healthier people are the more robust

18:04

your immune system is the the more diverse your microbiome is the you know the better your body is going to be to

18:10

um you know fighting off viruses bacteria whatever and yeah like so I do a lot of the um I do all the blog posts

18:17

and stuff for True hope and the stuff that gets like ridiculous amounts of reads and hits is about covid and olive

18:24

leaf extract covid and nascent iodine talking about these like antivirals like these things get read and shared 10

18:32

times more than you know everything else so it's clearly like a trend that people are like looking for like more natural

18:37

options things that they can go to a health food store and purchase and have

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like kind of on hand and they would probably recommend to consume those things on a daily basis especially during the like the darker colder months

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vitamin D being a big one of those so yeah it's just um it's just an

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interesting time that we've got um a lot of people asking a lot of great questions and people are just genuinely

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um want to have their questions answered and they're they're out there looking for this type of information and and the

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fact that we've got you you guys and and so many other amazing retailers across the country that you know are well

19:13

versed in nutrition and well versed in mental health and you've got these like you know amazing products and tools like

19:19

our range here at true Hope on hand to support people through that like we're just doing such an amazing service and I

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love that you mentioned about uh like debunking myths I really I want to know

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like what are the key ones that come up and which ones like really like make your eyes roll as nutritionists oh

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spot of course I can't think of any examples

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yeah I think um

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one um actually vitamin D that's something

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that uh has come up a lot of people have been told like you know only to take

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like 400 IUS a day because yeah

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because 400 I use wow I'm told that it's uh fat soluble so therefore it's going

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to build up poison them and you know cause death

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whereas the only possible case I've ever heard of where somebody's had some

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issues is when they were taking like 50 000 IUS a day which I think most of us

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are safe from that it's pretty extreme yeah yeah there's a good one there's people who are like oh dude don't you have anything lower than

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a thousand and I'm like no take this you'll be fine you'll feel better so that's a good one and then yeah I

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mean rather than just uh myths but um also just people are confused so like people

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asking about cardina and people asking about the emulsifiers or sucralose or just ingredients in general wondering

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those kind of things um and of course we can pull up the studies and explain a little bit oh it's

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been linked to this or whatever but um necessarily we don't like working in a fear tactic by any means we don't I

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mean you can tell them the information but um we also believe in Balance sure as

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well so um just being honest and real with people um I think people get really afraid of

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the information that's online and they're like oh soy is gonna you know yeah completely change my world and

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throw my world upside down but then we just remind them we'll just look at quality yeah um and uh balance you know don't have

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too much of one thing yeah it's funny even with like Natural Health we still have this human

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mentality of like this one thing that's gonna make me feel incredible like I'm just gonna drink kombucha all day and

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I'm gonna feel awesome right it's such an interesting um I don't know if it's just been it just been manufactured by our like

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kind of addiction to going to the doctor and getting a drug and that completely fixing us right like this like one thing

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this one pill for every ill you know like I don't know if we have that mentality switched over into Natural Health but it's uh it's so it's

22:07

interesting because obviously you know a solicit nutritionist you know you studied for two years and you know you

22:12

can you could go on and study for another decade and not have all the information at hand right because it's

22:17

so complex it's so complicated and you know everyone's absolutely so yeah never ending and everyone's so beautifully

22:23

unique um that you have to take so many things into consideration so yeah it's a bit of

22:30

a wild world out there for for the amount of information that there is when it comes to like weight loss because I

22:36

think weight loss is a is a big topic I think that will never ever change in regards to like what a lot of people

22:43

will come in and ask questions about and what people will search for on the internet and you know why most people go

22:49

to the gym is so they want to lose weight and are there any like conventional misunderstandings with like

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diet and weight loss that you see maybe like consistently consistently in the practice or in the store or you just

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kind of see like trending out there like do you see anything um major in regards to that weight loss

23:10

diet piece because clearly diets most diets don't work because they've been around forever and everyone's still you

23:16

know most people are still like overweight so it's like what's going on there what's your what's your opinion

23:22

about that um well anyways

23:28

um yeah I mean there's always going to be a new fad diet we have a lot of people that come in for you know kind of like

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you were touching on as the magic pill or the magic supplement that's going to burn all all their fat off

23:41

that's always a good one it's like no sorry it's a money maker for sure yeah

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um but yeah it's usually we see a lot of just the new diets um or people that are just you know

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they're going to the extremes or um you know whereas when we have somebody

24:00

for example like a client and they want to lose weight well we try to find the most sustainable

24:05

path for them to really follow right we don't um and it's going to be individualized because one person might

24:10

lose weight one way and one person might not it's just you know it's more than just about numbers and macro counting and all that kind of

24:18

stuff there could be underlying factors as to why people can't lose weight like

24:23

it's actually very very complex um and I think another thing is

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the last few years I've seen um how big macro counting has become

24:34

and which isn't necessarily wrong it's just that it kind of in my opinion sort

24:41

of simplifies things down to like just viewing your body and yourself it's just kind of like a set of numbers that you

24:47

need to follow whereas like so it's just not the most natural in my

24:53

opinion um not that you can't count like you know how much protein like if you want to do that go ahead but for most people

24:59

they're not gonna stick with it and um you can probably find a way to sort

25:04

of transition into more of like a intuitive eating approach like that's kind of what you're yeah

25:11

your mindfulness book is kind of sort of Preparing People to get to that point because I mean realistically we've only

25:18

had all these major I shouldn't say all of them but you know a lot of these major health problems and you know the

25:24

Obesity issue that we see in the last you know Century or so really and I

25:30

don't think prior to that everybody was weighing out all their food and you know putting everything into a

25:36

tracking app and that's why we didn't have these problems like no there's there's another element there you know

25:42

you gotta look at like food quality and I mean I could go many different directions with this topic but yeah what

25:49

have you seen what have you actually seen that actually works for weight loss like you know a lot of people if they've

25:54

not if they're not trained they would assume I need to do a diet I need to I need to eat less I need to exercise more

26:01

like you know these really old paradigms like they're still massively ingrained into the minds of people because I don't

26:07

I don't know why um but I mean I mean it's been not everybody's gone to school for three

26:12

years to study nutrition I suppose so maybe I should be a bit more empathy for that but still like it's it's still like

26:18

you should you should be able to maybe take a look at the last 10 years or 20 years of your life or you've maybe struggled with a particular area of your

26:24

health and really assess that rather than thinking I need to just like take out one thing or just do this like one thing

26:31

so what have you what have you seen like been successful for um for yeah for

26:36

weight loss um I mean in the overall I mean it always kind of depends on where

26:43

someone's starting point is why they're overweight whether they've been overweight their whole life or not

26:48

um whether maybe it's just you know they kind of let it slip and they've been eating too much pizza because it was a lockdown or something like you know kind

26:55

of depends on the scenario but a lot of the time it's really just eating Whole

27:00

Foods I mean obviously yes the amount you eat is going to matter you know to an extent but

27:07

um you know avoiding all the chemicals and the stuff that's in our food that we don't even like our body doesn't even

27:13

recognize that as an actual food ingredient right um and you know we see all these diet

27:19

products out there and everything and it's just literally the ingredient list is just chemicals

27:26

so I think avoiding that kind of stuff and you know giving your body a chance to actually function in its sort of most

27:33

natural state is gonna allow you to kind of find your healthy weight and everything when there is another things

27:39

going in there and disrupting everything from working like you know your liver and other things I could go away into

27:45

but yeah it's it's it's interesting it's

27:50

complex but it's also just kind of like super simple really at the end of the day I think that we touched on it we've said it a couple of times already that

27:55

like so many people are just like chronically stressed all of the time whether they're conscious of it or not um whether it's just through screens or

28:02

through work or just through like just you know the everyday stresses that a lot of people experience and the body

28:07

does quite remarkable things and can keep function keep functioning pretty well with this High load of stress coming in

28:14

right but the end of the day like your body can't digest food brilliantly and

28:19

manufacture all the necessary tissues to make you feel awesome if you've got this like chronic low-grade frequency of

28:27

stress just continually just going like your body can't be in parasympathetic and sympathetic all of the time so maybe

28:34

could you touch on that a little bit for us like maybe give us a little bit of a an idea about like what's the connection

28:40

between your ability to digest food and yours and your level of stress and how

28:46

that's gonna look complicate things well I mean if um the curse heard of the

28:54

fight or flight mode that our body can go into um which uh you might think is like a

29:00

panic attack but at which it can be of course but sometimes it's very minor and

29:06

you're under the state your body is in a stressed State um your blood pressure can be off your

29:12

blood sugar levels can be off um your mind is not thinking a straight I mean this could be all just very tiny

29:19

things over a week um over a day and then when you eat in this stressed State you're more

29:25

likely to experience like acid reflux loading gas just because things aren't

29:30

moving as comfortably like your sphincters and your peristalis stalsis

29:36

isn't you know moving as smoothly as it should because it's kind of in like a crunched up state

29:42

so I find like one of our biggest things our clients are struggling with bloating or anxiety and I'm like you know working

29:50

those connections together and working with sometimes that is the root cause in

29:55

reducing stress and then the digestion can release and you can relax so it's definitely interconnected I

30:02

think that's one of the number one questions we ask in the store as well and with our clients how are you feeling

30:08

like what's going on are you doing okay yeah what is your daily life like yeah

30:13

yeah and uh really you know it seems simple but that's one of the most important things is uh working on

30:22

yourself and your mind because it controls everything and it's really interconnected to your digestion to your

30:29

cardiovascular system to your detox system everything it was completely synergistic

30:35

so yeah that's such a big question to ask anybody really as a friend or a family member or especially as a you

30:42

know as a nutritional therapist or whatever like so I I found in my like what six seven years of being a nutritionist that

30:48

um the clients that do the most miraculous things are getting more of a therapy session

30:56

out of your one-on-ones right like they're actually like having someone listening to them for an hour or even

31:02

two hours in an initial intake and they've never had that before and it can

31:07

be so um it's so difficult because we just hear this word stress stress stress we

31:12

hear this word and we don't really know what it means anymore because I think that because it's so internalized and we

31:18

can't see it we can't feel it we can't touch it we can't taste it it doesn't get as much um it doesn't get as much

31:25

maybe connection or I'm not sure what the world I'm looking for it doesn't get much attention that it should do but

31:31

like if you've got like your diet where you've got your food and you've got your fridge that we can see and you've got your shopping list that you go and do

31:36

like these things are visible to you you can you can maybe make a connection or maybe that Foods maybe it's the food

31:42

that's like not doing but it's not my stress because I can't see it I can't visualize it I can't really do anything

31:47

I don't think I can do anything about it when obviously you can but it's such a difficult thing to get over because like

31:53

we just deal with stress on a daily basis is like a normal thing some people

31:58

end up dealing with so much more than you know the next person might might deal with but we don't have a lot of

32:04

amazing um maybe oh offerings or guidance to deal

32:10

with that but when somebody comes in to see you guys and they sign up for sessions then they're literally signing

32:15

up to start really kind of investigating the real root cause of their like

32:21

distress and it's usually stress based it's usually psychological to begin with

32:26

because your body's never going to be able to lose weight it's never able to heal it's never going to be able to start you know doing start making you

32:33

feel good which is designed to do if your body's just constantly like pumping out stress hormones and you'll never

32:39

you've never got any energy or blood or resources within your digestive system to like you know break down your food

32:44

and you know utilize that outside into your body so it's a really tricky thing and yeah if you have you found that that

32:50

that conversation piece that therapy piece that comes with having a one-on-one consultation is like a really

32:56

big thing for your clients uh yeah definitely um some of them are actually well some

33:04

of them sometimes you know will have a consultation let's say it's our initial meeting or even just the discovery call on the phone and they've already kind of

33:10

started to make that connection um usually they kind of it's actually kind of funny usually they're sort of

33:17

like hesitant to really say it and then I'm like right on there I'm like no you're absolutely on the right track and

33:23

stuff and they're like relieved because you know they feel like it's yeah like

33:28

you said they can't see it so is it really there or maybe it's not um the

33:33

kind of stress that is happening in a very acute way like you know

33:38

you know something went wrong and now you're having like a meltdown basically like it can just be that low level of

33:44

subconscious stress right just because you're always on the go or maybe you've been you know having terrible sleeps for

33:51

years and you didn't even really realize and you just got this like level of you know cortisol release or maybe now you

33:57

don't have enough and that's a whole other issue right and um yeah so it's definitely a huge thing and

34:04

I would say every single client regardless of what their goal even if they just you know want to put on 10 pounds of muscle like I'm going to be

34:11

addressing that as much as they are willing to let me I guess you can say because some people still don't really

34:18

want to hear it or address it but I mean that's okay yeah absolutely everyone's on their own

34:23

journey and everyone's you know some Sometimes some people are just um not ready to you know maybe make the

34:28

necessary changes or hear those particular things or ask themselves those types of questions and yeah it's okay I think as a as a

34:35

nutritionist to you know say that you know that that person's not quite ready to put their foot in the game yet so but

34:41

when they're when they are ready you know you'll be there and you know ready to support them through it can you tell

34:46

us a bit about mindful nutrition what is that um um well it's bringing mindfulness to

34:55

your data days um as we are holistic nutritionists we obviously think more just about the

35:01

food and what you're eating we think about a little bit of everything so your mind body and spirit as well

35:06

um and that's different for every single person so that's something that's uh really originating with me is the

35:12

mindful aspect because I've had a lot of stress in my life like we all have so finding a gateway to

35:19

deal with that um and kind of uh how to calm yourself down

35:24

and as we talked about touched on earlier about digestion and anxiety or

35:30

digestion depression if you're experiencing any mental health issues General stress digestion might be

35:35

compromised other things might be compromised so mindful nutrition is a a

35:42

way of grounding yourself and it can be done in so many ways um one big one is coming to your senses

35:50

and really remembering to breathe to taste to smell to hear to feel

35:56

so returning to your senses is a big thing I find that can really help bring

36:03

um awareness and presence to you know your daily practices it can be

36:08

more than just what you eat but how you get up in the morning when you go to the bathroom when you drink your water

36:16

um where you eat your food I mean there's so many things that come to it

36:22

yeah I think just becoming conscious in general is probably should be a goal of everybody becoming conscious more often

36:28

um you see some crazy stats and some some research in regards to like you know for a lot of people 95 of what they

36:36

think feel and do is like you know unconscious just like programs just running constantly rather than you know

36:42

like trying to think more about the thoughts that you have that might you know lead to emotions that you don't want to have which might lead to

36:48

behaviors that you don't want to do so absolutely like a huge piece with that and yeah I find I find the conversation

36:54

around like sleep hygiene and like Food hygiene starts um

37:01

creative ideas in people because I never really thought about like the the state that I might be in when I go to sleep

37:07

like maybe you know binging stranger things for four hours before bed might not be the best thing for my nervous

37:14

system to engage in pre-bed you know I might just I might pass out and just fall asleep immediately but like I don't have that like falling asleep which is

37:21

like quite an important um sleep pattern and obviously with food as well like do you like encourage

37:28

people to you know maybe avoid distractions when they eat especially if they've got like like bloating and other

37:33

digestive issues like actually like slowing down with their food and trying to be present rather than just like

37:39

thinking of it as like this thing I have to shove in my mouth because I have this minor sensation of hunger yeah yeah

37:46

definitely um you know we really try to encourage people not to be you know as much as

37:51

possible obviously sometimes things happen but you know driving down the road and you know scarfing down a

37:57

sandwich at the same time and they're not really paying attention to it so um or just you know being in a really

38:03

stressed out State and you know maybe whether it's whether it's causing you to choose you know maybe not the best food

38:10

or not um is one thing but also just eating in that stressed out State like we said you

38:15

know your digestion isn't working properly um so at that point it kind of comes down to even less of what you're eating

38:23

it's you know how you're eating and you know what kind of environment you're in and all that kind of stuff so is

38:30

basically just as important as you know what the contents of your food are sometimes

38:35

yeah what do you think about like people's relationship with food in 2022 like do you think that that is that's

38:42

obviously has a big part to play in regards to like how we eat when we eat

38:47

and what we eat do you think that our our relationship with our food and our

38:52

food systems like do you think that plays a part in regards to our unconsciousness when we're trying to consume food

38:58

absolutely I think um I mean we're lucky here on the island Vancouver Island we've got

39:04

access to a lot of fresh Local Foods um in Canada um I mean there are some places where

39:09

there's like food deserts present or in the states I mean all these things come into play so it depends on where you're

39:15

living um and your your access to money um all these things have a play but in

39:23

the generalized uh uh in Canada I mean there's a lot of fast food as well that's been growing

39:29

and growing has been forever I mean I'm sure many people have seen Super Size Me yeah that's an impact on anyone everyone

39:36

from since I came out but people do actually live that life a little bit um to an extent and uh convenience and a

39:44

busy work schedule busy life schedule social life all that stuff is more prioritized at times than what you eat

39:52

and where you eat um and then you know 30 years later there some people are in this place

39:57

where they're like oh my gosh what have I done and I feel horrible and uh I think just um

40:04

yeah grounding yourself and realizing that it's in our control every day it can be harder for some than others

40:11

but um I think here in 2022 um there's yeah definitely some

40:17

Detachment and uh yeah I have noticed that well I mean basically I guess when

40:23

you look at like the online community and just let's just take Instagram for example I have noticed like

40:28

sort of a better Trend I guess you could say I mean of course there's still a lot of extremists and people promoting fad

40:35

diets and everything but I've been seeing a lot at least in the last couple months of people you know even people

40:40

like us and stuff and they're really just trying to promote that like balance and positive attitude towards food

40:45

rather than you know demonizing certain things and you know of course we might seem like we do that when it comes to

40:51

like processed foods or something like that but overall like I mean we don't perfectly you know of course we know how

40:57

to eat perfectly but um it's not really about that it's about just finding balance and you know what

41:03

works for your body and actually serves you best right rather than trying to just achieve whatever you know body

41:11

ideal is you know popular at that point or whatever the case is so it's kind of

41:17

it's sort of a bit all over the place it might be yeah the overall attitude towards food is kind of different for

41:23

everybody absolutely yeah I mean I think I think the the convenience of I mean in

41:29

most cities let's say like you know there you can there's just food everywhere like you've got apps you can have it you don't have to do anything

41:34

you don't have to get off your ass off the sofa you can just order food and it comes to you right so we have this

41:40

convenience factor which Skips a huge part of that like cephalic

41:45

phase of digestion if you're just ordering food off the menu on your phone and then it comes to you

41:51

on the door you're missing the you're missing the like the the smells and the and the and the tastes of and the

41:57

thoughts of like food look if you were going to cook for example I'm not saying everyone should cook every single meal but like we obviously have this big

42:04

large group large amount of people and a big generation of individuals that maybe don't know how to cook probably don't know how to shop properly properly

42:12

um I'm not saying like I'm perfect at that but it's like you know it's a big part of that I didn't I didn't learn it at school I don't think my mum really

42:18

taught me how to like cook but like it had been super valuable if I've known how to do that you know not just to be like a competent human being but like to

42:25

be able to make food for other people to maybe make a meal for a girlfriend or something you know like it's a super

42:30

super important life skill and just that you know coming into the I remember coming into the door at home as a kid

42:37

and the first thing I would do is smell what was cooking for dinner and that would immediately now you salivate right

42:42

your nervous system actually just like engages that nervous system to get you going to get you start

42:49

thinking about food and getting your like saliva getting your stomach getting all these like enzymes and acids all prepared for that food and we skipped

42:56

that very vital process when we just like order food or like yes you sell having a sandwich on the way to

43:01

work there's not a whole lot of food romance that goes along with steering wheel sandwich you know like that whole

43:07

that whole thing so yeah it's obviously a big piece and it also it just comes back to that foundational thing we're

43:14

talking about when it comes to like stress and distressing and trying to be conscious about these things like

43:19

it's yeah it's it's a big piece but for a lot of people I think it can be a lot simpler than we think that it might be

43:26

this huge big thing to overcome 20 years of Habitual habits that have led us into a state but like working with you know

43:33

working with a health professional like yourself and like taking things slow and being calm on yourself and you know

43:39

being you know being empathetic to yourself I think there's a really big the really big thing people can do just

43:45

by getting the fun those fundamentals right um I was going to ask you what's your

43:50

experience with true hope Canada and our products I know you sell a couple of them at the store but what's your guys's

43:58

um experience with that with our products with our company so far actually I used to

44:03

Supermarket as well getting a few of the Reps that would come by there and I enjoy actually

44:10

trying when I think when I was uh 21 or something years ago I was uh

44:19

trying on free minnows um because I was really into the gym at the time and

44:25

um uh we didn't actually have any sports supplements or not as much sport supplements there and I couldn't find any BCAAs or anything but I saw the

44:32

Spring Meadows product and I also was um going to school at the time so I had

44:38

some stress and um I was talking to my co-workers and they explained well I mean it's a great product you're getting

44:43

your amino acids and there's also the phenylalanine in there which was really interesting to help support my mind

44:49

focus and mental health um so I took that I believe I felt pretty

44:56

good I had a good experience with it but I actually just recently um attended your guys's training uh this last week

45:03

and I've ordered again so I'm looking forward to trying out the preminas again

45:09

and uh from experience in our store now we are

45:15

carrying the EM power and the freeminos we are probably looking into getting the

45:20

mayanostal as well uh but we actually just had a customer come in yesterday and she said that

45:26

she's been taking it and her kids for three years and her their life has changed her um her little boy's uh

45:34

temper tantrums and focus has completely gotten better and uh yeah we got into good

45:40

conversation about that so it was perfect timing I'm glad we got to hear about that uh

45:46

and uh yeah she uh stocked up again and um yeah so it's a good reviews

45:52

and good products good I'm glad to hear that and yeah and that product training is something that we you know you can do

45:57

as a as a retailer working in working in the store like we can we actually have something that's um that's available to

46:03

take it's like an online course you can take at any point but we also do these like live Zoom meetings as well so if

46:09

you're interested in doing that you can just connect with us at the website throughout canada.com just to finish up

46:15

I'd love to talk about your ebook Charlene can you tell us a little bit

46:20

about that and I think you've got a little offer for us yes I do so um I actually wrote this uh

46:27

ebook it's a four week mindful nutrition challenge I wrote this a few months ago and I

46:32

wasn't really sure what to do with it it all kind of happened in a spur of a moment of like a few hours yeah she just

46:37

randomly whipped this up and sent it to me I'm like whoa where did that come from inspiration spark of inspiration so

46:45

um yeah I got really excited and I thought um we need you know maybe some more

46:50

things that are more concrete that we can give to our clients um or offer out to people to spark some

46:58

interest and you know it's more than just a you know Instagram post of some notes you know this is a challenge so

47:06

I um yeah I'm really excited about it um it starts with week one

47:12

um I actually gotta quickly open it up here go for it I know

47:18

um it's got four weeks um and each week has a different

47:24

challenge uh so week one we start in like what uh

47:29

so what you're mindful to mindful food choices are so I um dive into like

47:35

encouraging food journal um some experimentation and reconnecting

47:40

with Earth um you'll have to read it to find out more uh and then we asked some questions at

47:47

the end of that to really hone in so I've made it kind of a template where you can fill it like a journal uh and then we go into how about mindful

47:55

eating and that will have other things so that's week two week three working on

48:00

connections so connecting with the rest of your body and kind of starting to after you're on week three you've kind of

48:06

already you've been thinking about it more now you can kind of connect everything a little bit more and then week four is talking about

48:14

where your food comes from so I think that's a really important thing to tie into as well so wherever

48:20

you are in the world I do have a little bit more comments with Vancouver Island but um

48:26

these weeks they all have a little bit of a goal like I actually encourage you to get out of your house go hang out

48:32

with your friends have a potluck go back home cook a meal with your family

48:38

um I have attached a journal into it and a calendar as well

48:44

so I think it's a really fun way to kind of

48:49

send out something where people can be Hands-On yeah it's very interactive so yeah

48:54

that's great so it gives people some homework to do it sounds like an incredibly um conscious plan which you know it

49:02

sounds kind of gentle as well like rather than trying to you know do a four-week intensive diet plan where you

49:07

just change absolutely everything into you you know it's fun I think it's more of an intuitive thinking about where you

49:13

are at what you can do there's a little bit of goal planning in it as well um and that being said I did want to

49:20

offer the listeners um a free ebook so to anyone who is

49:26

interested um thank you for one it's my first ebook I'd love to hear from you and please

49:34

connect out whether that's some by an email or through our social media I will

49:39

send one out to anyone who is very interested who listens to this podcast and

49:45

um hear what you guys think um and maybe hear a little bit about your story share some of your

49:51

information how it goes with you because uh it's very interactive like I said so

49:56

beautiful perfect well I'll make sure that people have got the ability to connect with you through social media and email and websites Etc in our show

50:04

notes but final question to both of you I don't know who wants to answer first but what's one big

50:10

one big benefit of working with a holistic nutritionist

50:19

having time with the with us I think what we do um

50:25

we probably heavily undercharge yeah we're very affordable

50:30

um and I think um you know going to doctors they see them for 10 minutes or whatever you go to naturopath you have

50:36

to wait a few months um obviously they have their professions and they're much needed but um

50:42

we actually have a lot of information we can help you we can support you and

50:48

um we spend a lot of time on you because we care so I think seeing a holistic nutritionist

50:54

is um something that can really help someone uh we enjoy it and we do our

51:01

best to really support you the way you need that support as we said we're pretty Broad in what we do but

51:08

um yeah I think that it's worth it you can have new mindsets more understanding

51:14

you know it's worth a try um one thing I've even heard from you

51:21

know a couple people now you know feedback wise is that um they're just grateful to have

51:27

somebody who's actually like legitimately listen to them you know like actually it takes their feelings

51:33

about things into account with you know the recommendations we make and everything which it's really nice to hear um and then you know I've even had

51:40

people with you know various conditions and stuff you know I'm not talking about like

51:45

something like they need to be hospitalized for or anything like that but you know and I'm kind of like their

51:51

last hope in a way you know they've seen all these people and nothing's just really clicking for them and they're

51:57

like you know okay I'll give this a chance and yeah sometimes it just comes down to

52:02

actually being listened to and looked at as you know a whole and making different connections rather than just what you

52:09

know wants sometimes yeah just addressing One symptom at a time right so

52:14

yeah it's a massive shame that um holistic nutrition isn't like more of a

52:19

first line for a lot of people and you're not getting referred to by like doctors or you know psychiatrists to

52:25

work with somebody to help you with your um psychological relationship with with your food you know like it's a it should

52:32

certainly be a go-to it would save an absurd amount of money in regards to National Health Care costs it would be

52:39

ridiculous um and it would just you know just give people the ability to have you know not only like nutritional consoles but

52:45

having kind of like that therapy session being listened to is very important like how can you how can you tell your whole

52:50

nutrition story to a doctor in seven minutes you know like it's just not possible it's

52:56

just doing people a huge disservice but it's just amazing that you guys are out there and you're offer offering this and

53:02

it's just wonderful but can you just let us know like how can people connect with you because they're inevitably going to

53:09

want to do that and they want to know more where can they do it um well honestly we're pretty casual we

53:15

have our emails that are always open um somebody wants to message us on Instagram and ask some questions that's

53:21

fine too usually if somebody reaches out um we offer to do just a quick phone call with them so we can actually you

53:28

know officially speak one-on-one and then kind of see what uh what's going on with them and then so that way they can

53:35

actually determine whether we're going to be a good fit for them or not um and yeah so I'd say Instagram's good

53:42

email which uh you have our email so yeah we're under the name

53:48

optimizedcoaching.ca yeah uh our Instagram we're quite active as well of our Facebook so we share a lot of

53:54

Education a lot of recipes um and we're trying to be a little more active there with ourselves as well yeah

54:01

um and um of course we work in the store optimizenutrition.ca as well so that is

54:08

a supplement store located in Nanaimo BC we are also an online supplement store so search us up on Google

54:15

um we're just a phone call away or an email away yeah or you can even just come in the store and find us yeah

54:20

exactly beautiful well that's awesome thank you I'll make sure that all of that information is linked up so people can

54:27

connect with you if they've got questions or if they have no they want to get involved in this ebook I'll make

54:33

sure that people can connect with you but thank you so much Haley Charlene for coming on the podcast I really appreciate it today thank you thank you

54:41

so much awesome yeah well that is it for this episode of True Hope cast the official

54:46

podcast of true hope Canada um all the information will be in the show notes don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet you can leave us a

54:52

review on iTunes if you wish but that is it we'll see you next week thank you guys thank you

55:03

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