The Wellness Mama Podcast

Latest Episodes:

23: The Importance of Bone Broth Dec 01, 2014

Show notes

I guess you could call me a broth snob! Our family drinks bone broth often and I make it at home all the time.

I’ve perfected my own broth recipe and absolutely love it, so it is a big deal when I say that a broth is the best I’ve ever tasted.

Chef Lance Roll has been a chef for over 20 years and he has an amazing chicken broth that he ships all over the world. I’ve tried his broth multiple times and it is incredible, so I asked him to come on the podcast and talk about all things broth.

In this episode, we talk about the benefits and importance of bone broth and how it affects the body. He also explains how you can make your own nourishing and delicious broth and home and his special process for creating his highly concentrated and nutrient dense broth.

Lance is so passionate about real food and spreading the message of the importance of broth. He sells his own amazing broth at TheBrothery.com but he also hopes that everyone listening will start consuming broth whether it is his or their own homemade broth!

Some of the Benefits of Bone Broth

Helps maintain or improve gut health
Aids digestion
Great for healthy hair, skin and nails
Rich in vitamins and minerals
Contains beneficial amino acids proline and glycine
Soothing and calming

Broth Resources We Mention

TheBrothery.com – source for superfood broth
Nourishing Broth Book
Article: Homemade Bone Broth Tutorial (Wellness Mama)

Read Transcript

Katie: Hi, and welcome to the “Wellness Mama” podcast, where I provide simple answers for healthier families. Did you know that there is a reason that homemade chicken soup is a first line of defense in an illness and that it’s served in hospitals? Though unfortunately, a lot of hospitals have switched to the artificial MSG-infused versions. But broth or stock has a long history as a nourishing super food that supports joint health, skin and hair and nails strength, gut health, illness recovery, and so much more, but we’ve lost this traditional food in our culture. Today’s guest and I are here to talk about why we need to make this super food popular again.

Chef Lance Roll has been a professional chef for 25 years. He’s the owner and president of The Flavor Chef, which was founded in 2007. It’s an organic catering company and farm-to-table company in brothery that uses only local and organic ingredients and sustainable food products. And I’ve had the pleasure of eating his cooking before and it’s also absolutely delicious. So, Chef Lance, welcome and thank you so much for being here.

Lance: Thank you, Katie. I’m so excited to talk to your audience today about this amazing product I’ve been making and dreaming about for a long time.

Katie: Yeah, well, and I’d love to jump in with that because I know I became a huge fan of broth when we did the GAPS protocol and reversed my son’s dairy allergy, b

22: What Is Really In Your Food? Nov 05, 2014

Show notes

In this episode of the Wellness Mama Podcast, Vani Hari, the Food Babe, and I talk about what is really in your food that you might have no idea you are consuming.

Vani and her website FoodBabe.com have become incredibly popular for her work in exposing the dirty secrets of the food industry, especially chemicals that are added to foods in the United States but banned in other countries.

She has successfully launched petitions against many food giants and has gotten them to remove artificial dyes, colors, chemicals and even antibiotics from their foods.

Vani shares her own story and health journey from being an over-stressed and over-worked corporate employee with a poor diet to being a crusader for real food.

Her transformation began with an appendicitis attack and a resulting investigation into the foods she had been eating that led to her poor health. Vani’s research revealed many problems in our current food supply and she set out to expose these problems and educate the world so that consumers could make informed choices.

Listen to the whole interview and find out what foods you may be eating that contain ingredients you would never knowingly consume!

This interview is a replay from the Wellness Family Summit, a seven day event that brought together experts in health and wellness who shared the common goal of working to create a healthier future for our children.

Read Transcript

Katie: Hi. Welcome back to the Wellness Family Summit. I could not be more excited about today’s guest. She is a personal friend and an incredibly inspiring human being. Vani Hari writes at the wildly popular blog, Foodbabe.com. She has been on every major news outlet and has successfully petitioned major companies to change the ingredients in their products, with the help of her massive Food Babe army. What’s even more amazing is that this all started as a personal journey for her, and then now she’s this amazing activist to help so many other people. So Vani, thank you so much for being here, and welcome.

Vani: Hey, Katie. It’s great to be here. Thank you so much for having me as part of this summit. It’s amazing.

Katie: Awesome. So most people know that you are widely known as the Food Babe, and you’re doing some amazing things in spreading awareness of food ingredients. But can we start at the beginning? Have you always been interested in health and real foods? Or was there a pivotal moment in your life that started this journey for you?

Vani: Well, I was actually more interested in candy and fast food for the majority of my life, to tell you the truth. This healthy lifestyle has been minority in my lifetime, if you can believe it or not. I grew up as a typical American child, but I had two immigrant parents that didn’t know how to cook American food. So they relied heavily on processed packaged foods, fast foods, and really wanted me and my brother to really fit in with everyone else around us in Charlotte, North Carolina where I grew up and where I live now.

So they basically allowed us to eat whatever we wanted. As a result, I had so many issues as a child. I had eczema, asthma, allergies, always had stomach aches, never felt well, never felt like I had a lot of energy, didn’t ever really feel like I could really concentrate in school, and didn’t really understand that food was actually affecting my body negatively until I started to change my diet after a health scare in my early 20s, where I was working for a big s

21: The Problem with Sitting: A Solution Oct 14, 2014

Show notes

Chad and Brenda Walding join me on today’s podcast to explain how sitting can be one of the most harmful things you do each day.

You’ve probably seen the headlines…

“Sitting is the New Smoking”
“7 Ways Sitting Will Kill You”
“Sitting is Taking Years Off Your Life”

…and you may have hoped it was media hype.

Sitting is Worse Than Donuts…

It isn’t hype. More and more studies have come out proving how bad sitting is EVEN if you work out regularly.

Here are three important studies about sitting…

Study One: Sitting causes premature death (especially in women!)

Alpa Patel (PhD), an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, tracked the health of 123,000 Americans between 1992 and 2006. The men in the study who spent six hours or more per day of their leisure time sitting had an overall death rate that was 20 percent higher than the men who sat for three hours or less. The death rate for women who sat for more than six hours a day was about 40 percent higher.

Study Two: Daily Exercise Doesn’t Reduce The Threat Of Sitting

Marc Hamilton, Ph.D, Professor, and inactivity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, has published 12 studies on the topic of sitting. Each one has proven how dangerous modern sitting is. Here is a summary statement on why typical exercise isn’t a solution…

“People don’t need the experts to tell them that sitting around too much could give them a sore back or a spare tire. The conventional wisdom, though, is that if you watch your diet and get aerobic exercise at least a few times a week, you’ll effectively offset your sedentary time…this advice makes scarcely more sense than the notion that you could counter a pack-a-day smoking habit by jogging. Exercise is not a perfect antidote for sitting. Sitting is hazardous. It’s dangerous.” — Marc Hamilton

Study Three: Sitting increases risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome risk factors, and obesity.

In an extensive study (2007 Nov;56 (11):2655-67. Epub 2007 Sep 7) the evidence concluded that sitting was a “…potentially major clinical and public health significance…the dire concern for the future may rest with growing numbers of people unaware of the potential insidious dangers of sitting too much.” (Emphasis Added)

Scary huh?

If you’re like most people, sitting isn’t really something you can just stop doing.

But here is the good news…you don’t have to.

Today’s podcast guests, Chad and Brenda (Doctors of Physical Therapy) have spent years behind the scenes working on a solution for their patients. It combines the positive studies of Activity Thermogenesis and their expertise in Physical Therapy to gently reverse the negative impact of sitting inside your body…and it works even if you HAVE to sit all day!

They are sharing their solutions on this podcast episode and I know you’ll learn a lot from them.

Resources We Mention

Standing desk (this is the one I use)

20: Exercise, Movement & Pelvic Floor Health Oct 04, 2014

Show notes

Today I’m joined by Brianne Grogan of FemFusionFitness.com for a great discussion about female health, pelvic floor health, and when Kegels aren’t a such a good idea.

Some resources we mention in this episode

Other episodes to check out

Thanks to all of you for joining me and listening to this week’s podcast episode. I’m really enjoying recording these podcasts and hope you are as well and are leaning a lot from them.

You can stay in touch with me on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, @Wellnessmama. I would also really appreciate it if you would take a second and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or Stitcher so that you’ll be notified of future episodes. Please leave an honest rating and review as well. Ratings and reviews really matter in the rankings of my podcast and I greatly appreciate every review and read each one.

Read Transcript

Katie: Hi and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast, where I provide simple answers for healthier families.
A random fact for your day. Did you know that researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine used FMRI machines to monitor brain activity while women and men listened to a passage from a novel? While most of the men showed activity exclusively on the left side of their brain, which is typically associated with listening and speech, most of the women showed additional activity on the right side of their brain, which is usually associated with creativity and expressiveness. So this could be why women are usually credited with hearing what’s left unsaid in the conversation, and it also speaks to the very vast difference between men and women on a lot of things. With today’s guest, we’re actually going to be touching on the difference between men and women when it comes especially to movement and fitness and health. I couldn’t be more excited. Brianne Grogan is a doctor of physical therapy, with a specialist in women’s health. She writes at Femfusionfitness.com and had a program designed especially for women to learn how to move their bodies correctly for optimal health. She’s reversed her own IBS and anxiety, and she’s just such an inspiration all the way around.
Thanks so much for being here, Brianne.

Brianne: Oh, thank you, Katie. I’m so excited to be here. I’ve been a fan of yours for years. So it’s fun to be on your podcast.

Katie: Oh, and ditto. I’ve been your fan for a long time too.

Brianne: Aw.

Katie: Well, to jump right in,

Sugar does contribute to tooth decay- just not the way you think it does — **19: The Real Causes of Tooth Decay** Sep 17, 2014
Show notes

I’ve been fascinated by oral health and it’s connection to whole-body health for a long time. I’ve looked for answers to questions like “Can teeth heal” and “What really causes tooth decay” and this podcast episode addresses those same questions.
What Really Causes Tooth Decay?
Will Revak of OraWellness.com and I talk about the relationship between food and overall health and the health of the mouth. With statistics like “98% of adults in the US have some form of oral health problem,” it is time to start looking more deeply into the relationship of diet and lifestyle to oral health.
The cultural understanding is that sugar sitting on the teeth causes tooth decay and that brushing, flossing and maintaining good oral hygiene is the key to good oral health. Turns out that the data doesn’t really support these ideas though. Consider this:
Women are more likely to suffer from oral health problems when pregnant and a pregnant women with oral health problems is more likely to struggle with pregnancy complications
Times during our lives where our oral health is affected can affect the body in other ways. For example, teething babies often exhibit symptoms like fever, rashes, diarrhea, earaches and trouble sleeping. This indicates that what happens in the mouth can affect other parts of the body
Patients with certain cardiac patients have to be extremely careful getting dental work done and are often counseled to take antibiotics even for routine cleanings to prevent a life-threatening heart infection.
All of these facts points to the idea that there is a deeper cause to tooth decay and oral health problems than just what happens to the external side of the teeth. On the flip side, these points also indicate that problems in the mouth can affect the body in deeper ways.
The Research
Will points out that if we step back from our cultural assumptions about tooth decay and really evaluate the data, a much different conclusion emerges. Looking at research like:
The book Cure Tooth Decay
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by dentist Dr. Weston A. Price
The work of Melvin Page
The studies of Drs. Mellanby
Dr. Steinman’s studies on blood phosphoris and dentinal fluid
The connection between diet and oral health
The Root Cause
The research reveals teeth are not solid as we assume. They are made up of time tubes called tubules and each front tooth alone has up to 3 miles of complex tubules running

You couldn't wreck your day any more than by having a lot of carbs for breakfast — **18: Thyroid Health & Autoimmune Disease** Sep 01, 2014
Show notes

The thyroid is a small butterfly shaped gland in the neck that is intricately involved in body temperature, proper digestion and cognitive function and hormone health. In other words, when the thyroid isn’t happy, the body isn’t functioning properly.
I know firsthand the frustration of living with thyroid disease and how difficult it can be to get the body back in balance. I saw many doctors over a period of 7 years before finding answers and I wanted to bring my doctor on the podcast to help shed some light on thyroid disease and autoimmune disease.
Dr. Alan Christianson
Dr. Alan Christianson is a Naturopathic Doctor who specializes in natural endocrinology with a focus on thyroid health.
He read his family’s entire set of encyclopedia’s before he went to kindergarten and has always been highly intelligent.
In grade school, he struggled with epilepsy, poor coordination and obesity and after being made fun of in class one day, he resolved to get healthy. He read a lot of nutrition and health books, became interested in fitness and became the fastest runner in his class.
As a naturopathic doctor, he now helps thousands of people a year (including me) with his specialized approach to nutrition and natural medicine.
He founded Integrative Health, a practice of physicians in Arizona whose philosophy is to “Provide smart, safe, primarily natural and scientific solutions for the entire family to live in good health.”
Dr. Christianson also is a competitive unicyclist and enjoys mountain biking and rock climbing.
Thyroid Health
In this episode, we really delve into the topic of thyroid health and Dr. Christianson sheds some light on topics such as:
Why so many people are having trouble finding answers for thyroid problems
The holes in conventional testing and why “normal” lab results don’t necessarily mean there is not an issue with the thyroid
What Hashimoto’s disease is and how it differs from regular thyroid disease
Common symptoms of thyroid problems
Factors that must be optimized to help the thyroid get back in the balance
The unusual test he used to help diagnose my thyroid disorder
Why iodine can be harmful in some cases
How stress and sleep can have a bigger impact on thyroid health than food
Adrenal Health
Dr. Christianson has also done a lot of research in the area of adrenal health and he provides some unique insight on important factors to get them in balance. He is releasing a book in December about Adrenal/Thyroid health, but talks about some of the core concepts.
I found it fascinating that there are 60 animal species experiencing similar rises in rates of obesity as humans (even in situations where calories are controlled). Dr. Alan talks about his research into longevity and risk of death and how cortisol patterns were a better predictor of risk of death than common factors like smoking, heart disease, obesity and diabetes. In other words, someone with disrupted cortisol patterns would have a higher risk of dying from all causes than a smoker with heart disease.
He talks about unique factors that are not often suggested like maki

17: Reversing Infertility & PCOS Naturally Aug 28, 2014

Show notes

I’ll never forget talking to a friend after she suffered a miscarriage. It was her third.

She and her husband struggled to get pregnant for years and suffered through hormone treatments, surgeries and much more.

They finally conceived and then lost their little one. Then another, and another.

She was at her breaking point. Her marriage was at a breaking point and she felt like her body was betraying her.

Her struggle was part of what led to my focus on reproductive nutrition. It didn’t make sense to me that women’s bodies should need hormones and artificial treatments to conceive.

Fertility is a sign of health, and as I discovered, infertility is usually a sign of a deeper problem that needs to be addressed. Often, artificial hormones can make things worse. Thankfully, my friend did go on to have a beautiful baby (and two more after that), but I was forever affected by her pain while she was struggling with infertility.

Today’s guest, Alisa Vitti, has been through the same struggle of hormone trouble and infertility and she also found natural solutions and managed to conceive naturally (she is set to welcome her little on in the next month!).

I was so excited to talk to Alisa because she has helped thousands of women restore hormone balance and beat infertility by teaching them how to naturally support their own bodies. In this podcast, Alisa and I talk in depth about:

The causes of infertility and how to overcome it
PCOS and natural remedies that can help
PMS and menstrual related problems
Endometriosis
Fibroids
Many other aspects of hormone health

Alisa has also written a book, The Woman Code, about achieving hormone balance naturally, and she blogs at FLOliving.com about all things hormones. She is offering three great hormone related freebies for Wellness Mama listeners and you can get them here.

Read Transcript

Katie: Hi, and welcome back to the Wellness Mama podcast where I provide simple answers for healthier families. I’m so excited to talk to today’s guest, who I got to meet recently, and who is just one of the most uplifting, positive, amazing people I’ve ever met. Alisa Vitti is an integrative nutritionist and her specialty is in reproductive endocrinology. So she teaches women how to use their hormonal and neurochemical patterns to create extraordinary lives for themselves. And she’s a best-selling author, she wrote a book called the “Woman Code,” and she founded floliving.com, that’s floliving.com, which is a virtual health center that helps support women with their hormonal, and reproductive health, and different struggles they have.

She graduated from John Hopkins University, in the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, and she’s the creator of the “WomanCode System.” And she’s also just such a go-getter and so amazing. And she’s been featured on “The Dr. Oz Show” and a lot of different online forms of media as “CBS,” “FOX,” “SHAPE,” and “Huffington Post,” and she has a popular TED Talk that’s been viewed over half a million times. So, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Alisa: Oh, it’s totally my pleasure. I am such a fan of the Wellness Mama community, so it’s a pleas

16: Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Aug 12, 2014

Show notes

This week, Reed Davis of the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Program and I talk about practical nutrition for hormone health, weight loss, bone health and much more.

Random fact: People with a lot of moles tend to live longer than people with a lesser number of moles. Also, one human hair can support 3.5 ounces. That’s about the weight of two full size candy bars, and with hundreds of thousands of hairs on the human head, makes the tale of Rapunzel much more plausible, just still fictional.

Reed is Founder of the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® (FDN) Certification Course. He is a Clinical Advisor at BioHealth Laboratory where he helps practitioners to interpret test results and develop natural protocols that restore function instead of just treating symptoms. Reed is one of the most successful and experienced clinicians in the world, having provided functional lab assessments to over 11,000 people for hormone levels as well as adrenal, digestion, detoxification, immune system, bone density and chronic, stress-related health problems.

In this episode,we talk about

What the endocrine system is and how it affects the entire body.
What happens when part of the endocrine system like the thyroid, adrenals, hypothalamus, etc get out of whack?
What are some of the most common problems that happen when the endocrine system gets out of balance.
Why conventional treatments don’t always work for hormonal and endocrine problems and what actually does work.
The role stress plays in hormone balance and health.
Practical ways to address stress and hormone balance
Some warning signs to look for when hormones are out of balance

Reed also delves in to the specifics of how to help conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, and infertility with nutrition.

Reed’s advice for a healthier life? Wake up with a positive attitude. He also recommends the book “The Richest Man in Babylon” as one of his favorite books.

You can find out more about Reed and his Functional Diagnostic Nutrition training program here. He also has a program for patients called FDN self care where you can get lab tests and specific help.

Read Transcript

Katie: Hi, and welcome to episode 16 of the Wellness Mama podcast where I provide simple answers for healthier families. I’m so excited for today’s guest, but a random fact for your day first. Did you know that people with higher numbers of moles tend to live longer than people with fewer and that one human hair can support 3.5 ounces which is about the weight of two full-size candy bars? And with hundreds of thousands of hairs on the human head, that makes the tale of Rapunzel a little bit more plausible, but definitely, still fictional.

And today’s guest and I are gonna talk about hormones and hormone balance which affects both skin health and hair health, so it’s gonna be a fascinating conversation. Our guest is Reed Davis who is the founder of the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition program or FDN certification. He’s a clinical advisor to BioHealth Laboratory, and I’ve taken a lot o

If you are pregnant or may become pregnant, you need to hear this information — **15: Hormones & How to Have a Healthy Baby** Jul 30, 2014
Show notes

Chris Kresser is a licensed acupuncturist and practitioner of integrative medicine. He researched to find his own health answers after conventional medicine wasn’t able to help his chronic disease and he now works to help others improve their health and their lives through better nutrition and lifestyle.
I’ve always been incredibly impressed by Chris’ research and work and I quote him often. I am so excited to share his research and work with you in this episode. If you are “pregnant or may become pregnant” this episode is incredibly important for you!
Natural Fertility
Chris became especially interested in fertility and hormone health when he and his wife had trouble conceiving and his research led him to unconventional answers about diet, lifestyle and stress. They went on to conceive and have a healthy (and beautiful) daughter and it is now a mission for him to help other couples do the same.
Chris created a whole course on this and I highly recommend it. You can find out more about it here.
Resources we mention
The Healthy Baby Code Course
The little known (but crucial) difference between folate and folic acid – ChrisKresser.com
Wellness Mama on Folate vs. Folic Acid
Chris’ Podcast Episodes: On prebiotics-You Are What Your Bacteria Eat: The Importance of Feeding Your Microbiome and mercury in fish and liver detoxification.
5 Reasons Why Concerns About Mercury in Fish Are Misguided (Chris)
Manage your Stress (Chris)
How stress wreaks havoc on your gut – and what to do about it (Chris)
Does Pregnancy Diet Matter?
Chris talks about the developmental origins hypothesis, or the idea that the diet of the mother (and father) before pregnancy and during pregnancy (for the mother) have an impact on the lifelong health of the child.
He talks about some amazing statistics on how birth weight and health at birth correlates to risk of heart attack and other problems. Babies with low birth weight were at increased risks for these problems, but babies born with a healthy weight and at full term had a lower risk.
We also delve in to a subject that I find fascinating: the link between the mother’s

14: Stop the Sugar Madness Jul 23, 2014

Show notes

Today, I’m taking a break from normal podcast interviews to step on my soapbox for a few minutes. I love doing interviews (you can check them all out here), but a recent experience reminded me of the importance of this issue and I didn’t want to wait for an interview to talk about it.

Any guesses as to what the issue is?

I’ll give you a hint- it is an addictive substance that is linked to various types of disease and is especially harmful to children who are exposed.

Nicotine? Nope.

Illicit drugs? Those too, but no.

Asbestos? Yes, but not today’s topic.

Another hint- It is molecularly similar to cocaine and harmful to the liver.

Alcohol? No.

Vegetable oils? Nope, but those are bad too.

Toxic cleaning chemicals? No, but I would recommend using natural alternatives to those as well.

Today, I’m ranting about SUGAR.

Why? Because I decided to count for a week and my children were offered refined sugar in some form 21 times! The scary part is that we avoid a lot of situations where they would most logically be offered it and these were just places like the bank, the gym (!!) and friends’ houses.

All things in moderation….

A little bit won’t hurt…

It’s fuel for the brain…

All justifications for consuming sugar in some amount. The question is: should sugar ever be consumed and if so, in what amount?

I suggest that refined sugar should be avoided completely. Not so sure? Consider this:

27 million+ people suffering from thyroid problems
66% of the population overweight or obese
Rates of cancer and heart disease skyrocketing
estimated 95% of the population obese in next few decades
1/3 of the population suffering from metabolic syndrome

Also, consider…

In 1700, average sugar consumption was 4 pounds per year.
In 1800, that number jumped to 18 pounds per year.
In 1900, this had more than quadrupled to 90 lbs per year.
Currently, Americans average one-half pound PER DAY—translating to a whopping 180 pounds of sugar per year! (or roughly equal to a person’s bodyweight in sugar per year)

I wrote about the problems with sugar in depth here, but a paper called The Harmful Effects of Sugar on the Body and Mind explains:

Many times, so much calcium is used to neutralize the effects of sugar that the bones become osteoporotic due to the withdrawn calcium. Likewise, the teeth are affected and they lose their components until decay occurs and hastens their loss. …Refined sugar is void of all nutrients, consequently it causes the body to deplete its own stores of various vitamins, minerals and enzymes. If sugar consumption is continued, an over-acid condition results, and more minerals are needed from deep in the body to correct the imbalance. If the body is lacking the nutrients used to metabolize sugar, it will not be able to properly handle and rid itself of the poisonous residues. These wastes accu