[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Alcohol Tipping Point podcast. I'm your host, Deb Masner. I'm a registered nurse, health coach, and alcohol free badass. I have found that there's more than one way to address drinking. If you've ever asked yourself if drinking is taking more than it's giving, or if you found that you're drinking more than usual, you may have reached your own alcohol tipping point. The alcohol tipping point is a podcast for you to find tips, tools, and thoughts to change your drinking. Whether you're ready to quit forever or a week, this is the place for you. You are not stuck and you can change.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Let's get started.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you. I want to take a sec to invite you to the next alcoholiday. It's a monthly dry group where I help people practice not drinking. This is for you. If you feel like you're struggling, if you feel like you're stuck, if you feel like you're broken, you're never going to get it. I want to just support you and arm you with lots of different tools to battle cravings.
Work on your thinking about drinking. Be more kind and compassionate to yourself as you're doing this. You know, drinking is a habit and it's probably something you've done for years or decades. Even so, it takes a while to unwind it. And that's why I'm so passionate about focusing on practicing, not drinking, working on progress, not perfection. I love the saying focus on the direction, not perfection. And I think it's important just to have these types of groups, programs that just give you a safe place that has no shame, no judgment. A safe place where you can just learn new tools and just start unwinding the habit so that it gets easier and easier for you to drink less or not at all. I would love to have you join the next alcoholiday. It starts the first of every month. As a podcast listener, you always get 20% off by using the code love love and it is hosted on a private platform. It is a HIPAA protected platform. It's really important to me as a nurse just to have privacy and a safe place for you. And what you get is daily emails, lessons, accountability. You get lots and lots of tools to battle cravings. You get a really detailed guidebook journal to help you out during those 30 days, 31 days, whatever the length of the month is. And then you get downloadable audio meditations. Just something to go to when you're feeling a craving. We also do weekly group chats, weekly group support calls led by me and another sober coach twice a week. And then there's also a private chat where you can just share with others, support others, and it's just a great place to practice not drinking. The cost is $89 us dollars. That is so. It's less than $3 a day. Plus use that lo v e code to get your discount. And just a little background on me. I have been a registered nurse for 20 years. I'm a board certified health coach. I'm a smart recovery certified facilitator, an addiction certified mental health professional. I'm a mindfulness instructor. And then you all know I like to call myself an alcohol free badass. I've been alcohol free for almost four and a half years now, so I would love to see you in the next group. You can sign
[email protected] alcoholiday and join there. I also will link it in my show notes. Wherever you are with your drinking journey, just know that I am rooting for you, that you are not broken and you can change. Thanks so much.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Alcohol Tipping Point podcast. Today on the show is Samantha Lander. She is a functional diagnostics practitioner, certified personal trainer, and holistic lifestyle coach. Samantha's desire to do functional diagnostics came from her own health problems. She discovered when she learned she suffered from adrenal fatigue, food sensitivities, pathogens, leaky gut, and lots of hidden stressors. She spent a good portion of her life struggling with weight despite working out and eating a perfect diet, and knew it had to be something more. And I am just interested to have Samantha on the show just to have like a different approach to. Okay, what happens after you quit drinking? What is alcohol doing to your gut, to your hormones, to your blood sugar? And then what are some other ways we can heal ourselves after we quit drinking? And Samantha, I know you have kind of a unique story of your experience with drinking, with addiction in general. So welcome to the show. First of all, thank you for being here.
[00:05:26] Speaker C: Hello. Thank you for having me. Of course.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Well, what would you say? Just go ahead and introduce yourself who you are and what you do? I kind of did a little blurb there, but what would you add to that?
[00:05:41] Speaker C: I feel like I do a lot. But anyway, yeah, I'm Samantha Lander. I'm a single mom. I have a seven year old boy. I'm from St. Louis, I've lived, I went to University of Michigan, then I moved out to LA and that's sort of when shit got real. Hardcore for me. But, you know, I work with women.
I have a lot of men. I don't really advertise men, strange, but I have a lot of Mendez. But I help people just sort of, like, regain their health after just years of just feeling like shit and being told over and over by doctors and health practitioners and everyone like, oh, everything's fine. Your labs are fine. This is fine. You're just bloated because of this. It's just, go get a probiotic from Walgreens. It's in your head. Go on birth control. So it's like this constant, like, let's throw medication at it solution. When you. I kind of get to the root cause and check out what's going on deeper inside the body and do a whole body approach. I also was a personal trainer. I still kind of am for over two decades, I would say. I'm slightly retired. I am. I just started a contrast therapy company. So if anyone does not know what that is, it is amazing for people who. We have a lot of, like, just sober, curious, sobereze, health minded, kind of like people who are really into it. It's really cool. But it's a. It's a tray. It's a wood barrel sauna on top of a trailer. We just put on there, and then we have cold plunges. And so we do a breath work session, and then you do cold plunge, then you do sauna, then you do cold plunge, then you do sauna. And it's incredible for just mental state. Anxiety, depression, inflammation. Yeah, it's. It's. It's badass. So I just started that. So we're driving around town.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Oh, so it's a mobile trailer.
[00:07:34] Speaker C: It's literally, we put the wood barrel sauna on top of a flatbed trailer.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Okay, I got. I was like, when you first said it, I was, like, picturing, like, a trailer, like a trailer park trailer, and then there's, like, a sauna, like, something on top of it. So thank you for clarifying it. So that's.
[00:07:53] Speaker C: It does look pretty insane. Well, you can go to. It's a. It's plunge. Underscore a. You'll see a picture of a video of it. It's crazy. Oh, I. Once we put that trailer on the thing, I booked, like, six events within, like, an hour.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: I could. I could see that. Yeah. Because people keep hearing about cold plunges and the benefits. And so you call this contrast therapy.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: Or than just cold plunge. So we try to push away from this thing. We're plunging or whatever, but you do do a cold plunge with it. Correct.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Okay, we're gonna have to talk about that. I feel like we have a lot to talk about.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Um, usually getting two parters on podcast.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: We should do that. Definitely. Well, let's talk about your story, like your experience with drinking. I know it was more than just drinking, but can you share a little bit about your background with that?
[00:08:47] Speaker C: So my, my kind of using drinking journey, I mean, the first time I drank was in 7th grade. No. Aha. Moment for me. I was all, I mean, I would say I pretty much was always a blackout drinker. And so I never really liked it. Like, I just, it just did not do what I wanted it to do, I guess. Like, I wanted to be in control and awake and remember things, but I did like something about it. I just like that it was a mind altering substance, I guess. And so, I mean, I drank, I definitely abused it a bit in high school, and then I stopped and I drank again pretty very heavily beginning of college, and again was like a super blackout drinker again at that point. And I just couldn't control it. Like, I never had a lot of control over it unless I was started like coupling it with like cocaine or something to like, keep me awake. And I didn't like cocaine, so it just, then, I don't know, I eventually stopped drinking and I got heavily, eventually got heavily into using drugs and I found kind of my perfect cocktail for a very, very long time. And that's when I started using GHB, meth, ketamine, ecstasy. Those were kind of my go tos. And that's when I was out living in LA and I, I was a DJ out there. So I moved out to LA and that's, you know, when my, my drug addiction went full for a course I, my job fell through when I bought two turntables and decided to become a DJ out there. And at the time, I was also, senior year of college, I started selling drugs there. So I would bring drugs back or have them shipped from LA to Michigan, and that's when I got into. I've kind of always been a serial entrepreneur. So if I see an opportunity to make money, whether it's illegal or not, I'm probably going to do it. I've just, just always been a hustler, always been really dependent, always had a lot of jobs, worked really hard. And so I was doing that and that sort of business became a larger business and I got, that's kind of when I got myself in a lot of trouble with, I had a SWAT rate at my apartment, I had a la county case. I had a federal case.
I ended up with two years of our 27 months of federal time. That's a whole long story. But it's so, though, that's kind of my drug journey, and I want to throw that in there. I did get sober in. I don't know what's going on. In 2006, I went to rehab April 19, 2006, and that was sort of when. I haven't touched any of those drugs at all. So fast forward to get into my real drinking career. I would say I was sober for 13 years, and I had a baby, and it was. You might as well have pulled the rug out from under me. Like, I wasn't working. And as I said, like, that's what I thrive off of. Like, I feed off work and being successful in that area, but I wasn't working at the time. I was in a pretty toxic marriage. My husband, who had 23 years sober, started drinking and using when I was pregnant, which is not, you know, I don't. I can't. I'm in charge of my own self, right? I have the choice to drink or not to drink, use drugs or not to use drugs. And so does he. You know, he got sober at 16, so I probably would have drank again, too, you know, I mean, I don't know. Like, I would have. Like, if I were him and I got sober at 16, I don't think I would have stayed sober for 23 years. And so what I.
And then there was some infall infidelity. And what my tipping point was was I was in a breastfeeding class, and I was having a really, really hard time getting, like, you know, breastfeeding, just getting. Producing milk. And they said, just have a glass of wine.
And I called my mom and dad and kind of ran that by them to see what they would say, right? Just, you know, make sure. Cause, I mean, I was a drug addict. I was in the program. Like, I went to rehab. Like, I know that drugs and alcohol are all the same to me. I've always known that. But, you know, I stopped working a program. I stopped putting it. My sobriety as a priority. I thought that I could drink like a normal person, I guess. And I ended up. They didn't say anything. So I started drinking, and it was okay for a while, and then it just. It's. It progressed, and my marriage was falling apart. And at one point, I said, it's either, you know, we get a divorce or we get sober and we try to do this. And he said to me that I'll stop right now, but I can't say forever. So to me, that's like, you're fucking blowing smoke up my ass, you know, like, you're not going to stop, and I need to stop. Like, I just see where this is going. And I stopped for a while and then Covid hit and I'm like, the biggest extrovert you'll ever meet. Like, I love people. I thrive off people.
I.
So I started. So I started drinking again. You know, I had, like, a really horrible fight with my ex and I was really struggling with my kid. I had him full time during COVID I mean, all the things with COVID And I started drinking it, and that progressed quickly to just drinking more and more. I was. I was definitely blacking out. I. It was socially acceptable, so nobody said anything to me. You know that mommy wine culture, like, that's what we're supposed to be doing, right? We drink, we get anxious about our kids and we drink. I've trained. I was a personal trainer and I trained women and I heard it all day, every day. That's what you do. And I started drinking and my anxiety got worse. And I never, even though I'm a functional, like, health practitioner and all the things, like, I just. I either didn't. The disease was being cunning and baffling, telling me, like, oh, no, it's not that. Or, you know, it was my hormones or it was this or it was that. And I've done extensive research, definitely now. But my anxiety. Anxiety, my crippling anxiety that started to happen in the panic attacks is 100% due to my drinking. And it didn't matter if it's one drink or a million drinks, that that's what sort of, like, started to happen with that. But then you drink more to try to relieve the anxiety. And then I'm also an alcoholic, so I drink more because I'm an alcoholic because the disease basically caught up with me and I just couldn't stop. Like, I couldn't stop. I was going to meetings. I was chairing a meeting. And, yeah, like, I, like, I was going to go into outpatient and then I was like, maybe I need to go to inpatient. And there was no, like, every day, you know, you wake up with that guilt and that shame and it's like, fuck, I did it again. And every day at 04:00 it would start, like, again. I promised myself all day, like, I'm not going to do this.
And, yeah, and I couldn't. I just couldn't stop. And then I. December 23, there was a day where I drank, and I told the guy that I was dating, and he was sober, and basically, I knew that I was going to lose him, and I did. And then I lost a friend of mine sort of over it. I lost human beings, and that was my bottom. My biggest bottom. My last bottom with the drugs and stuff was. It was a pretty low bottom. But, I mean, I. It wasn't like this. Like, I've never hurt people like that and lost people in my life due to addiction or my behavior with drinking. And I feel like that's a. That's a real low for me. And so I think I would say that that's one of my biggest things that kind of woke me up. And I haven't. I mean, I haven't drank since I've had a craving or anything since. And all my panic attacks, all my anxiety, everything, like, within a week when I.
Wow.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you for sharing and your experience. And just, you hear a lot of people that do quit drinking or get sober in when they're young, and then they pick it up again later in life, like, well, maybe that was just youth. Maybe as an adult now as a grown up, I can drink like a normal person. And.
Yeah, you hear it again and again.
[00:17:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I can't. You know, he. My ex doesn't drink like an alcoholic, so I don't know. But he smokes a lot of weed. I don't know.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's one of the reasons why I, like, don't use the term alcoholic just because it is a spectrum. Like, it is, like, you know, alcohol use disorder, mild, moderate to severe, or some people, like, it just looks different for people. Right. And some people just give up drinking because it's. It's shit for your health, and it makes you feel like shit, too. Like, you don't have to have a drinking problem to give up drinking or change your drinking or anything like that.
[00:18:30] Speaker C: I think that's the biggest thing now is, like, I love that there's this, like, the younger generation is just, like, sober, curious. And I don't care what they want to coin it or how they even want to market it or whatever they want to do. It's absolutely incredible because it's. It just shows that they value their health. You know, there's definitely some things with the younger generation that isn't the same, but, like, they truly, like, they. They value their health enough to not just throw all those toxins in. It is how I see it. And alcohol is. I mean, if I always use the example is like, if you think of like hand sanitizer, like, you might use hand sanitizer to kill bacteria right on your hands, but you're going to go drink it.
So like, what do you think that's doing to your insides and your gut? You know, because gut health to me is like the most important thing. It's like your second brain. So if your gut's off, everything is going to be thrown off.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that is a good segue, though. Like how, how does alcohol affect the gut?
[00:19:36] Speaker C: So, you know, we have, so we, let's, oh, gosh, let's see how I started so we could talk about like a lot of people love to use the term leaky gut or intestinal permeability. And that's thrown around now by doctors and people. And it's sort of like this trending umbrella term for like a compromised gut. And basically what happens is you have all these like really healthy, like micro villi in your gut. And over time, if you're drinking a lot, stress medication, infections such as parasites, candida, bacteria overgrowth, something like that, you know, birth control, poor diet, high, high amounts of sugar are going to break those down. And when those break down, these nice little tight junctions that protect your intestinal wall become inflamed. And when they become inflamed, they pull apart. And when they pull apart, that's when you get a leaky gut. So what's happening is basically all the stuff that you're ingesting is going out into your bloodstream and you get highly symptomatic. So leaky gut is sort of like that umbrella term. So alcohol will cause your gut to be extremely leaky. When your gut is leaky, you're going to get a gamut of symptoms. It depends on everybody's are different. So that's where you start to see the eczema, psoriasis, weight gain, bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, you know, your, your hydrochloric acid alone in your gut, which is what digest your food, you start to burn that out by that high acidic alcohol. You know, the alcohol, the high acidity that you have in your guts, your ph is super off. You see a lot of people with Gerd and reflux due to drinking. So it does cause your gut to be incredibly leaky. And then when it's leaky, it's also a great place for parasites and, you know, bacteria and, and candida and all these little things to live and thrive. So you become an incredibly wonderful host to a lot of infections, which will then wreck havoc in your. Your health overall, you know? And I mean, your neurotransmitters, I always say, are made in the gut, too. So your serotonin, your neuronaprim, your dopamine, all those things that your brain balance. And we know that typically when we drink, your brain's probably not super balanced. Or, you know, maybe you're drinking because you have anxiety, so you went into it not totally on point, or you suffer from depression, and maybe that's why you have your one drink a day or whatever you do, but that's gonna, in turn, make it so the neurotransmitters in your gut are gonna be off, you know? So mental health plays a role a lot.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's super interesting. We've learned so much more about our gut in the last, like, 2030 years than we ever knew before. I mean, just like that whole. I think there's, like, 80% of your serotonin gets made in your gut, like you were saying. And you wouldn't think that because it's like, oh, that's a neurotransmitter. That's a brain chemical that. It's just so interesting how much they've talked about gut health lately and taking care of your gut and all of that.
Yeah, I have to go ahead.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: No, it's super important. And they. Maybe that's why the younger generation is just hearing it more. I am surrounded by that world. So sometimes I don't know if it's because I think it's like, everybody's doing it because I'm surrounded by so many healthy people, and that's just kind of my environment. But then I. Then I, like, will go travel and be like, oh, no. Other people don't know about, like, the sugar free matcha drinks that are available and the chocolate that doesn't have sugar. So I just, you know, I think it.
I think it's slowly people are learning, but I think it's because the younger generation is on social media, and there's more of that on social media.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: There's ads that are blasted through, you know.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Sure, sure. And I will, you know, say, like, a caveat. Just coming from the medical world, some of the.
I don't want to call trends. Well, some of things are trends, right.
Is not, like, generally accepted by the medical world. Right. And then there's the alternative world, and I was like, how am I going to balance this podcast? You know, because I'm a registered nurse. I work with dietitians, nurse practitioners, all that stuff. But then I started thinking about it, and I was like, you know, people, I, part of my tipping point podcasts and platform is to show, like, there are so many different ways to change your drinking, and there are different ways to heal. And I think people are looking for alternative ways to heal themselves after they quit drinking to get healthy. And like you said, you had said, like, in your bio that you spoke, spent a lot of time working out, eating healthy, and you were still having issues.
[00:24:45] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: So, yeah. Can you kind of share your experience with uncovering your issues and then how you healed yourself and then maybe carry that over to how, what can other people do? What can other people take from that if they're, if they're, you know, the whole, like, just eat right and diet, exercise, that's all you need to do, right?
[00:25:11] Speaker C: Well, you know, and I, and I would say, like, I was always a, I was a really sick kid. Like, I, and I wasn't sick. Like, I had a disease that was diagnosed. Like, I just always had stomach problems and I had horrible allergies, and I had chronic sinus infections, and I was on a lot of antibiotics. So it's not all because of, like, my using that caused my health be awry. You know, I was undiagnosed pcos, like, my whole life and just struggled with my, like, I just, I was chronic fatigue. And what, what happened was when I was a personal trainer, I was eating, like, perfect, and I had chronic diarrhea. I started to get my periods every two weeks. I was gaining weight, and I was working out. I couldn't have worked out anymore. I would do 2 hours of boxing. I would lift weights. I would. But then I just kept doing more and eating less because that's what shape magazine and that's what old school food pyramid and all that stuff tells us to do, right? Just cut calories and work out more and burn more. But I was like, my hormones were a shit show. Like, and nobody ever said, well, maybe it's your gut health, maybe it's your hormones. Until somebody one day. And this is when I started getting, like, a really holistic, like, living. Like, we're moving toxins from my home, and, like, I didn't put one chemical into my body, and you couldn't pay me to. And I had been to every doctor and fired by, like, three, you know, and told that you just need, like, a diuretic. You need to go on birth control. You need antidepressants. Like, I can't tell you how many scripts I've gotten, like, just written that are, like, that's not even why I came here. Like an antidepressant. Like, I'm trying to tell you I'm estrogen dominant and you're not listening. Like, I need something to fix that and it's not birth control.
So I ran a food sensitivity test, and that was the first test I ran and I had, so there's probably still. And I run over 2000 of these labs at this point and it was probably one of the worst ones I've ever seen. And within that first week, I felt a little bit of hope that I could feel like a human again. I mean, I was to the point where I would just cry every night. Like, every night, just cry. I'd lay on my forearm fly. I didn't know what to do. Like, I did not know what to do. It was a darker place than probably when I was, like, using drugs because I was doing all the right shit and nothing was changing. And that just opened up doors for me. And so then from there, I run a hormone panel and then I did a GI panel. I had a ton of parasites. I was super estrogen dominant. I got on a supplement protocol that was completely tailored to me. I removed all the food sensitivities, which then also helped me with, like, my binge eating at night, which. And it wasn't like I ate sugar. I wasn't like an addict, like pounding down sugar because I just got sober. It was more like, like I just rebing on, like, healthy food. But I couldn't stop. It was the strangest thing. But the second I got rid of my inflammatory foods, that stopped. And that's. And I realized, like, okay, this, there's so much more than, than working out more and eating less. And I, that's when I started just doing, like, certifications and trainings and everything to kind of do what I do now because I saw it in my clients, like, my personal training clients, I'd be like, you're lying on your log, you know, but they were so it's just, it's just opened up doors for me. And once I healed my gut and, I mean, I was, like, tiny, like, I mean, I just, like, shrunk. I didn't even have to worry about what I ate. I ate whatever I want. Like, you know, I ate normal for the first time ever. Like, I didn't have to stress about all that. And that's always my goal with my clients, is to heal your gut and get you to the point where, like, if you want to go have a piece of cake, you can have it, but you're not going to be double over in pain and hate yourself and regret it and crave sugar. I mean, it takes work to get there, for sure. But I do use, like, specialty lab testing to. And I get to the root cause of all that.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And I know some of the food sensitivity tests are kind of some controversial.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I double blind all my labs. I'm, like, psycho about it. I'm really picky. But, yeah, there are some. Like, I think you can buy them on groupon now.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: A food sensitivity.
Oh, okay. Well, can you talk about what. What it is and I. What it showed, like, for you and then how you adjusted your diet after that?
[00:29:46] Speaker C: So, basically, when I run a food sensitivity test on someone, that goes into their full, like, nutrition plan, but it tests for 175 different foods, and then it just kind of tells you the level of reactivity. I like the one that I use because it basically has a green, yellow and a red. Some of them have, like, green, a little green, yellow, kind of yellow. Yellow, yellow. Yeah, more yellow, kind of red. And you have no idea, like, what you're supposed to take out or not. And from there, we pull out all those reactive, inflammatory foods. So it just kind of gives your body an opportunity to calm down and not have so much inflammation. But it's always good to sort of check out, you know, if there's a gut infection in there, because it's typically. The infection can cause the gut become incredibly leaky. And then you get food sensitivities. I mean, everybody has them, but they get worse. You're more. Your symptoms get worse, so we remove them and we put you on. I put clients or myself. I put on a four day rotation diet, so I started rotating my foods a lot more. Because what happens over time is you start to create your own intolerance to the foods that you eat every day.
So that. That repetition, you basically become intolerant. It doesn't mean it's forever, but it does mean that, like, for a period of time, you can remove it and then add it back in. So we do the four rotation diet. So, like, I always see on my second lab that I would run with someone, there's a lot less of them. It goes from, like, 20 or more to, like, seven to ten. Just by rotating your food. So, like, that's just if someone wants to take away is, like, start rotating your foods more. Don't eat the same thing every day.
So. So that's where I get. And then I. Yeah, and then I do a lot of work on, like, stabilizing your blood sugar with the nutrition plan and stuff like that. Did I answer question?
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Well, I was just curious about, like, what. So it's a blood test.
[00:31:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: And then what were, like, what were your food centers?
[00:31:45] Speaker C: Oh, okay. I had all. Oh, my first one.
Let's see.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: And then it sounds like they change, like, just because you're sensitive to them. Now, if you kind of take a break or rotate out, you can eat them later.
[00:32:02] Speaker C: You can add them.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Got it. Okay.
[00:32:06] Speaker C: Yeah. So I had spinach, almonds, carrots. I know I had that. I had coffee on there on the first one. Soy, corn, cow's milk. I'm trying to think of ones that just always come up on mine. I know sugar was on there. Rice was on my first one. And it was like, literally everything I was eating. But I would. I would always have, like, carrots and almonds and, like, a spinach salad for dinner or something like that with some sort of, you know, protein on top. And then I would, like, binge on carrots later and almond butter because I would have those inflammatory foods. And what it does is what I always tell people who are in recovery or addicts or have that. A little bit of that is on that addictive personality is what happens when you eat it. An inflammatory food, you get the same feel good feeling that you get when you have a drug or a drink or, you know, sugar or stuff like that. So it releases that dopamine, that serotonin and all those like that. You know, those feel good, you know, hormones and stuff and neurotransmitters in your gut. So then you want more because it feels good to eat them. Does that make sense?
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just so interesting. Like, that your list had healthy foods.
[00:33:28] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That people are like, why eat clean? I'm like, that doesn't matter. Like, those clean foods are probably what are causing your bloating and your gas and, you know, could be some of the inability to lose weight.
So, yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: So then, so what's the four on, four off?
[00:33:48] Speaker C: Oh, the four day rotation.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: So basically, well, really, it's like, just don't eat the same thing every day. So if you have, like, on Monday, like Sunday night, you have chicken breasts and whatever vegetables, and you make a bunch of it and you have it all the next day. So you have that for a full 24 hours. Try not to eat that for another four days. So the next day you can have salmon and a different vegetable the next day. You can add turkey burgers and a different vegetable. I know you probably eat like oatmeal and eggs every day.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: No, I'm actually, you know what I, what it reminds me of in a different way, but I wonder if it's similar like crop rotations because they.
Yeah, yeah, because they rotate crops because they're taking out nutrients from the soil. So they need a different kind of crop. I don't know why I went to.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: That, but it is. But if you do eat by the season, that helps. So like, you know, you have your squashes in the fall and then you have your fruits in the summer, but now everything's always available at all times because of, you know, farmers growing stuff with and within, you know, the green, the inside the farms and.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting.
[00:35:06] Speaker C: We don't have a lot of work.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: We don't have a lot of what.
[00:35:10] Speaker C: I'm just saying, like, it's like if you go by what the organic foods and when they're freshen, probably be the best way to sort of determine that.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, what if we go back to just people that are like, okay, I've been drinking a lot. I know it's bad for my gut. Now I'm taking a break or I'm done. Like, what are some things we can do to heal ourselves?
Just kind of general things where maybe you don't, you're not going to do the blood tests, but you're like, okay, what, what are just some go to.
[00:35:46] Speaker C: So I'm a, I'm a big test, don't guess, like kind of person. So, okay, so I have never had a GI panel come back with a new client completely clean. And what I mean by gi, like running a gut test. So testing for parasites or H. Pylori or worms or any of that. I've never had one come back clean. So in my opinion, why go and heal the gut before you try to remove all the infections? But this is also not saying you should run out to whole foods and go buy a parasite cleanse because a lot of times you're not healthy enough, like your immune system and your body and your hormones are not healthy enough for you to just start detoxing from a parasite protocol because it's really stressful. You're killing something in your body and it's, and people underestimate how stressful that is on the body, so they end up. That's why you see these posts, like, I'm doing a parasite cleanse. I'm so sick I'm, you know, it's because their body wasn't ready for it. Like, if you, if your liver and your kidneys and your gallbladder aren't working well, then you probably shouldn't just jump on something like that. However, if you want to work on healing the gut, that's just my little disclaimer, but if you do, bone broth is amazing. I think it's a great tool that glutamine is a good one, like the powder supplement. Collagen is great. There's a lot of supplements. I use one called GI revive by design for health. That I think is a great one. To feel the gut, you know, like a Great Lakes gelatin is a great, like, collagen powder. You can do, you can put it in your coffee. You can put anything. It heals the gut. So those are some things. Aloe is a good one.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: Yeah. What, and so your, your tests don't guess. So it's hard to recommend foods because some of those foods.
[00:37:33] Speaker C: Oh, for gut healing foods. Yeah. I would say, you know, you want to remove your inflammatory foods, but, you know, obviously, those were more like, those are all, like the kind of the gut healing stuff that I do. Like the collagen l glutamine, the bone broth. But as far as, like, just foods, cabbage juice is a good one for that. You know, obviously, eating a whole foods diet. So if you can handle dairy, you know, anything that has high probiotic and good bacteria on it is great for you to be eating. To help repopulate that. Take a good probiotic. You know, berries are great antioxidants. The leafy greens are great. High fiber will help pull out any excess, you know, toxins in your body and can help with, like, estrogen dominance. If you're high in estrogen, uh, organic carrot, not peeled, you know, raw is great. One or two of those a day for pulling out. It's just really high in fiber. It binds. A lot of bad bacteria can help pull that out. It helps with estrogen, too. I work with so many females, so it's a lot of, it's like, we got to work on the hormones before we get to the gut.
But, you know, stay away from sugar. Find sugar alternatives. Corn is super inflammatory for the gut. I, grains are super inflammatory for the gut. So if you, if you buy something, you know, just, when I say whole foods, I used to, when people say, just eat whole foods, I used to always think, okay, I'll go to whole foods. But, like, what do I eat? Like, I don't get it. But that mean, what I'm saying is, like, the less amount of ingredients in your food, the better. So a whole food would be like a piece of broccoli because it's just broccoli. Instead of buying a sticker broccoli pouch from the store that has some sort of spice with soy and maldextrone and sugar, and then maybe it has like a cheese sauce or whatever. So that would not be considered a whole food.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Just close. Closest to the earth. Whatever is closest to the ground. The earth, yeah. What about people who, like, during dry July or whatever, when you're first quitting and you do have those sugar cravings? What's some of your advice for that?
[00:39:43] Speaker C: Um, so you never want to eat a carbohydrate alone. So that's a big one. So whenever you're having a piece of fruit, a potato, a sweet potato, rice, anything like that, you always need to have a protein with it. And I would always recommend eating the protein first. So it's sort of a buffer for that blood sugar. And so an example is if I have a piece of cheese before I have an apple.
Okay, that's how you're going to buffer that. But always have a protein with your carb. That's going to help regulate your blood sugar. It's going to help with your mood, it's going to help with cravings. It could help with weight loss. And then what else? Stay away from, you know, you can eat every 4 hours as long as you aren't one of those that never goes to the bathroom. So I think it's important to try to eat every 4 hours. Eat breakfast, eat within 30 minutes of waking up, stop trying to starve yourself all day and eat less, and then you're just going to binge at night. So you're. You need to eat like an upside down pyramid, if anything, biggest meal in the morning. And if you're getting a lot of cravings before bed or you're not sleeping well, I would have protein, so, or fat. You can even do like a scoop of coconut oil before bed. Or you could do, um, some almond butter, some cashew butter. Make sure there's no sugar in it. Most peanut butter is roasted. And so I would try to get some sort of raw nut butter just because when you roast the nuts, the fat becomes rancid in it. So you want to have really good, healthy fats coming in. So just high fat and protein before bed. If your sleep is off since you stopped drinking or you're just craving you know, the sugar at night, which you did a lot of, but maybe, but that's also you got to eat breakfast and luncheon cravings and you're going to binge if you don't eat all day or if you.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for that. And would you say, what would you say, like, your tips are for someone with drinking cravings? I feel like they're so similar, the sugar cravings and the drinking cravings. Like, what's your take on that for.
[00:41:46] Speaker C: The, well, for the drinking cravings, you know, I would say also, like, make sure you're, you've reintroduced, like, the B vitamins, like all magnesium zinc, take a really good multivitamin because you are pretty depleted of all those due to your drinking. A lot of times, even if it's one drink, it's going to do it. One drink a week or two will definitely have a major impact on your hormones and your metabolic health. And, like, nutrients, you'll get nutrient deficiencies and your body can't absorb your nutrients in general, you know, when you're drinking and your guts leaky. So drinking cravings, well, you're asking someone in the program. So for me, I always say, like, you know, you can call someone, you know, go to a meeting, things like that if it's, if you're in that kind of situation. But, you know, again, I would say I drink some bone broth, have some protein, have some fat and then drink water is a big one. Electrolytes, a lot of us are really, really, a lot of us get cravings and we don't. We just need water and we probably just need, you can even put a pinch of like, really good, like, sea salt in there or I like Redmond's electrolytes. I have a lot of people who are just, you know, quitting drinking, though. I'll put some of the Redmond's electrolytes in there and they'll drink that and that's all they need. Like, they really, they were just dehydrated, you know, because you're craving that salt and that sugar and things like that. It's just your body reregulating and some of it's habitual.
You know, you're used to having a drink at that time. So I would say go for a walk or find something to do at that one time where you feel like you get the cravings. Make sure you've eaten and all those things. But if you're getting those cravings, you know, go take your dog for a walk, go out, you know, to a coffee shop for an hour and see what happens.
[00:43:30] Speaker B: But, yeah, awesome. Thank you.
Well, let's talk about that contrast therapy then. So what, tell us about that. What's the good about it? Like, what are the health benefits? Just kind of share about that.
[00:43:45] Speaker C: So I feel like the list, like, as I research more and more on this, like, because I'm creating content for our social, it's like the list is endless. So my business partner for him, I'll tell you a little bit about his story, is he was, he's in recovery, but he quit drinking. But he was put on a ton of, like, medications, like anti anxiety and antidepressants and all this stuff. And he started, he wanted off them. And I hear this story actually a lot and he wanted. Awesome. So he started to do breath work and realized, like, he can breathe through a lot of these things. Like, he just, he's trained himself where he makes sure he practices breath work and can get himself from a sympathetic state, which is when you're super stressed out. I always say people can't remember it. Sympathetic is with an s. So think about stress. And parasympathetic is when you're calm and you're like paralyzed and calm. So he wanted to be able to get, and this is our goal with the people coming in. It's like we want to show them and help train them to become highly sympathetic people into very parasympathetic people when, when they need to. And he started doing that and he then started cold plunging. And the combination of the two, he got off all his medication and he's like thriving, you know, no anxiety, no depression, like, like nothing. And it happened fairly quickly. And for me, I started to run events with another company where I would do the breath work and we do the cold plunge. And I was just like, well, I want to just do this. I want to have events for my clients and stuff. And I, let's see what happens. And then I saw the benefits of it. And for me personally, like, the breath work, I must always stress out. And so for me, it's still hard, like, in the time of stress to get myself to just stop and take a breath. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. But I started to feel the benefit every time I did it. I was like, it was like a release of like 8000 pounds of emotional, like, baggage. And the cold plunge, I could tell just the inflammation. And I liked having the community with me doing it. So I would bring a group of people together. Nobody knew each other. And I got to see, like, it was like this. Like, we became like a bribe by the end, like, cheering people on, and everybody was just, like, high fiving and. Oh, my God, you just don't see that shit, right?
I don't know. I just don't see that happen a lot in my life and in society anymore. And it was like summer camp, and that's where I was like, you know, I get addicted to anything, right? And I was like, this is fucking dope. And so I decided to open a company, and so I do. So now I do a lot of cold plunges, and for me, it just. It's, like, for my anxiety, it's. It helps me self regulate so fast, I. But helps with inflammation. So anyone having a lot of joint pain and inflammation in the body, it is a major player in that. But being able to learn to breathe through that highly stressful state in the cold plunge is a game changer. And eventually you get in and it's nothing.
It's a huge reset. And so I just wanted to be able to have. To have that to offer to, like, the community in which I live, you know?
[00:47:15] Speaker B: But. But now you're pairing it with. With the heat, though.
[00:47:20] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: Is that right?
[00:47:23] Speaker C: Yes. So it's just. It's going from that cold to the hot, the cold to the hot. So it just resets your body and helps you, you know, go from parasympathetic to sympathetic. So it's just that stress. So going more in the sauna is going to calm you down a little bit more.
But, yeah, it's. It's the hot and cold that makes it the contrast.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:47:43] Speaker C: Benefits, you know, same healing benefits for anxiety, depression, trauma. A lot of PTSD and trauma clients come in, so people struggling with that come in and do it.
Kind of like the list is analysts for this one.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: I know it is interesting. So it helps, like, in the short.
[00:48:04] Speaker C: Term and your cumulative effect. So the more you do it, the better.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: And when. When you're talking about breath work, because I did a breath work session, an intense breath work session, I thought it was going to be like the relaxing breath work, but it was like, like hyperventilating. People were having weird experiences. I was like, I didn't know this was breath work.
[00:48:32] Speaker C: So it is.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: Is that what breath work you are talking about?
[00:48:36] Speaker C: We do 15 minutes of it, and people come out and are like, I feel like I was just tripping.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: So what's going on there? What's happening with just.
[00:48:45] Speaker C: It's just how much CO2 you're getting in your body and taking out. So when you get that much oxygen in your body, you're not used to having it. So you're getting all that oxygen in your blood. It just can take. It starts to get the pins and needles and all that stuff. Yeah, your body's just not used to it, but it's really good for your body to get it. I'm not a super pro in it. You should have my, you should have my breath work coach on. He has a story in recovery. You would love him. He's great.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I just that more.
[00:49:14] Speaker C: He's my breath work coach. I just do the sessions. I'm actually in the middle of the course, so he is the one that will build it. He could fine tune all of that for you. This is not like I can talk about gut hormones and food and nutrition all day long.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I find it fascinating. And the nurse in me is like, oh, my gosh, I hope everyone's okay. People are gonna hyperventilate. We're gonna. And same with the cold plunge, too. I'm like, oh, my gosh, someone's gonna have a heart attack.
[00:49:42] Speaker C: Like, I'm just going to worry makers in there. And then we, we have, we definitely have a waiver.
[00:49:49] Speaker B: Oh, right. Because there is a. Some concern there. Okay. What are some other things you would share with people who are looking for a different approach, either to change their drinking or to heal their bodies? Like, what are, what else would you say to that?
[00:50:05] Speaker C: You know, I think that one, one thing that I would say, like, I think what, there's a time and a place for western medicine, but, you know, don't, don't underestimate the power of that one drink. You know, it can cause a ton of blood sugar issues, a lot of gut and hormone issues for the women out there. Your hormones, if you're struggling with that, definitely, I would always say quit drinking and see, see what happens. But I just. It's important for people to learn to take a whole body approach. So it's never just one thing that's creating your symptom and symptoms are your body's way of telling you something, you know? And I say, listen to those and start there. And always try to do more, like root cause, like, so the doctor may give you, you know, birth control to help with your PM's, right. But why are you getting PM's? Is it just a hormone balance that you could fix and some poor gut health? So why don't we just take some herbal supplements and fix the gut and heal it? And try to balance it that way than just getting on a medication, which really doesn't fix the problem. And I think that's the thinking. Like, I think when you have a UTI, go get antibiotics, right? If there's some supplements you can take. But typically if you have a UTI, I would say, you know, let's get you on antibiotics. We can work on the gut after. But, you know, if you're just having all these underlying symptoms, you know, joint pain is a big one that I see is just severe joint pain where, oh, I have Ra and I'm only 35, you know, I mean, I don't know. They say I have ra or rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis, yeah, I don't know. And I'm like, you don't? Like, I bet you don't. Let's talk about your diet. Let's start there. So I always start with nutrition and then I go to like, the hormones and adrenals and the gut health, but let's work on your nutrition and remove the inflammatory foods. And I just, there's people will be like, listen, I'll give you your money back. Just run this food test and they'll run it and they are off. That's fine. It all goes away. It's just so much inflammation. So their gut is super leaky. They're eating a lot of inflammatory foods. It's going through the leak, the gut intestinal wall into the bloodstream. And one of the things they're getting is joint pain and inflammation in the joints and water retention. And that water retention, that swelling is going to hurt your joints. And so right there, it's like, would you rather take a bunch of medicine? Because with Ra, you're going to be on probably two and continue to eat shit. That's fine. But it doesn't really give you a solution. So. Or you could just clean up your diet and like, probably hear your gut and then you're good. You know, these are just the ways to think about things that I think are important approaches to, to your health. You know, I think someone who just quits drinking is definitely get your nutrition in line. And a lot of people don't lose weight when they quit drinking and they think that's going to be a big thing that's going to happen. And they don't is because they're either been malnourished and they're probably absorbing in nutrients and maybe they're actually gaining some muscle now or they, you know, they were, they need them, they need that fat and they're gaining a little bit of weight, but their blood sugar is just so shy. Or they, or they replace it with sugar and they eat a lot of carbs and go, well, I'm not drinking. I can eat this.
Can't just because you're not drinking. I know when I quit drinking, I put on weight for sure, but I put on muscle. Like, I put on a lot of muscle fast. So, you know, those are some things is definitely start to work on that. Nutrition, movement is important. Mental health is obviously important. Did that cover some things?
[00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I really appreciate that. And I just want to say thank you for doing what you're doing and offering a different approach. And I like what you said. There's definitely a time and place for western medicine. And I know that a lot of people do get frustrated with western medicine. I'm kind of going through my own, like, investigation of my migraines right now, you know, and it's just like throwing other meds at it and. Yeah, so I appreciate that. Thank you.
[00:54:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm in it again. Like, I struggled with the whole western medicine thing for a while, but I'm in it again, you know, dealing with, like, I just had an ent try to put me. You wrote me a script for nerve pain management, nerve blockers, pain management and antidepressant. When I went in to try to tell him about some stuff going on with, like, I've had a lot of mouth surgeries and things and he. And I have a cyst in my sinus, I said, well, I think I want to get it removed because I think that's why I keep getting sick. It's like I can't drain. And he wrote the scripts and he said, I'm not going to remove it. And then told me that he didn't even look at the CT as I was walking out.
[00:54:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And you hear stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:55:00] Speaker C: Create it. Like bumble with, with your practitioners, your trainers, your breath work coaches. There's good ones, there's bad ones, you know, and find one that works for you. And, you know, your ultimate goal is like, heal the body. And I always tell people, even though I have been a full blown drug addict alcoholic and I have, you can hear your body, you can hear your gut, and you can heal your body.
If I can do it, you can do it, you know, and just don't give up your health. I mean, it's a vessel, you know, and I think a good thing to say is you want to get healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to get healthy. And I think weight loss is always a very big thing when people come in and I'm like, okay, well, we can get there, but let's just get you healthy, and then it'll just happen, and it won't be this. Running your head against the wall, expecting it to change by doing. Eating less and starving yourself.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:54] Speaker C: Sorry about your migraines. You should run a food sensitivity test.
[00:55:57] Speaker B: I gotta tell you, I'm. I. Because I have been skeptical, but now.
[00:56:01] Speaker C: I'm like, I heard people, we've.
Yeah, between that and between those food and. And. And hormones, like, a really comprehensive hormone panel could probably really help, but.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: Right. And as long as it's not hurting, you know, as long as you're, like, doing no harm. I think that's kind of, like, the caveat of, like, some concerns about supplements. Like, as long as it's doing no harm. You know, if sound baths are your thing, or if.
If. I don't know, there's all these kind of woo. Stuff, like.
[00:56:38] Speaker C: But I have more weird shit in my house. The other day, someone's like, what are you doing to your feet? I'm like, it's an ionic footbath. I'm like, I know. I knew if it actually does anything.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: But I'm doing it exactly. Like, even if it's not doing anything. Even if you're taking a placebo pill. Not intentionally. Right. Like, if it's doing no harm, that is worth investigating and we're worth healing ourselves, for sure.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your experience.
[00:57:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: How can people find you?
[00:57:14] Speaker C: I am all over social media, but Instagram, it's CFIT living, so it's sefit and then living, and then the contrast therapy company, I might as well. It's. But we're in St. Louis. But it's plunge underscore three d. And then I am. I'm Samantha Lander on, you know, Facebook. And then if you want to put the link up, I do a free clarity call. So I do a one on one clarity call with whoever wants to, and they can pop on and I can talk to them if they don't pay anything. We talk about your health. We talk. We do a big, big, big health history and talk about all the things. And I tell you what I think I can do or if I can't help you.
[00:57:53] Speaker B: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate you.
[00:57:57] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:58:01] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Alcohol Tipping Point podcast. Please share and review the show. So you can help other people too. I want you to know I'm always here for you. So please reach out and talk to me on Instagram at alcoholtippingpoint and check out my website, alcoholtippingpoint.com for free resources and help. No matter where you are on your drinking journey, I want to encourage you to just keep practicing.
[00:58:27] Speaker B: Keep going.
[00:58:27] Speaker A: I promise you are not alone and.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: You are worth it.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: Every day you practice not drinking is a day you can learn from. I hope you can use these tips we talked about for the rest of your week and until then, talk to you next time.
