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Transcript
- 01:21 Tip of the Day: Iodine
- 03:11 About Amie Valpone
- 07:56 Being the CEO of Your Own Health
- 11:06 Getting to the Root Causes of Health Issues
- 14:32 Switching to Clean Eating, Clean Living
- 16:38 Detox
- 20:04 Clean Recipes
- 21:12 Suggestions for Starting to Eat Healthy
- 24:14 About the Book: Eating Clean: The 21-Day Plan to Detox, Fight Inflammation and Reset Your Body
- 26:19 Lyme Disease
- 27:58 Underlying Root Causes of Autoimmune Diseases
- 29:49 Learning to Say No
- 36:57 Detox Protocols
- 41:30 Closing Thoughts
- 43:39 The Most Pressing Health Issue in the World Today
- 45:19 Where to Find Amie Valpone
Wendy Myers: Welcome to the Live to 110 Podcast. My name is Wendy Myers. You can find me at myersdetox.com. And my healing and detox program, you can find that at MineralPower.com. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
Today, we’re going to be talking to Amie Valpone. She’s got a great book out now called Eating Clean: The 21-Day Plan to Detox, Fight Inflammation and Reset Your Body . And she is going to be talking to us about the underlying causes of chronic illness, how you can begin eating clean, and lots of little tips and tricks. We’ll go really deep today on this podcast.
Before we begin, I just want to let you know that this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Please keep in mind that this program is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition and is not a substitute for medical advice. So please consult your healthcare practitioner before engaging in anything that we may suggest today on the show.
Wendy Myers: And my detox tip today, I want to talk a little bit about iodine. It’s really, really important for everyone to supplement with iodine because it’s one of the most common nutrient deficiencies. My favorite form is detoxadine by Global Healing Center. I have that in the store.myersdetox.com, in our Live to 110.
I take it every single day. I take about seven to eight drops per day of this nascent iodine. It’s really, really helpful to kill bacteria in your body, kill bacteria and other infections that may be in your thyroid.
I personally believe that even if you have Hashimoto’s, which is autoimmune thyroiditis, that you should still take iodine. This is controversial. A lot of studies show that if you take iodine, it raises your antibodies, your thyroid antibodies. But of course, it does because it’s killing off the infection in your thyroid, and your body will produce antibodies as a result of that happening. But then, eventually, the antibodies again dwindle down and your thyroid can heal.
So, that’s just my two cents. That’s what I do when I’m working with my client population. It’s pretty much across the board. We have everybody on iodine.
Some people have an adverse reaction to it. Some people, their hair might fall out. Some people, it just doesn’t work for their body. So there isn’t one supplement that will work for everyone. But iodine, very, very important to help detox the body of infections and other problems of the body.
Wendy Myers: So, let’s get to our guest, Amie Valpone. She is the editor-in-chief of theHealthyApple.com. She’s a chef, culinary nutritionist, professional recipe developer, food photographer, writer and motivation speaker specializing in simple, gluten-free, soy-free and dairy-free clean eating recipes.
After visiting countless doctors and the Mayo Clinic with no results, Amie was able to heal herself from a decade of chronic pain and multiple illness including Lyme disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome, hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, leaky gut and heavy metal and mold toxicity.
Amie cooks for a variety of clients, including celebrities and people with busy lifestyle who enjoy healthy, organic whole foods. Her work appears on Martha Stewart, Fox News Health, WebMD, the Huffington Post, the Food Network and PBS, and in Glamour, Clean Eating, Self and many other magazines and media outlets.
Amie splits here time between Manhattan and New Jersey.
Amie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Amie Valpone: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.
Wendy Myers: Why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about your story and your background.
Amie Valpone: Definitely! So, when I was about 22, I was working in corporate America, and my legs started swelling with about 20 lbs. of fluid every day. Doctors had no idea of what was going on. It started going up to 40 lbs. of fluid every day.
And so, I went to the emergency room one day, and I was like, “I don’t know what’s going on. I have all this water retention.” They did my bloodwork and found that my white blood cells were chronically low. It looked like I pretty much had leukemia, so they rushed me to a cancer hospital here in New York City.
Literally bending over, they gave me a […] biopsy. And that started ten years of a crazy, crazy cycle of chronic illness.
From that point on, I was put on steroids, pain killers, water pills, you name it. I was even given morphine and was given 24 hours to live at one point with C. diff colitis.
And so it seemed like every year, every few months, something else would spring up. I remember when I was given 24 hours to live, I was on a morphine drip, I remember saying, “If I survive, if I make it, I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to helping people figure out what’s wrong with them and get to the root cause.”
I thrived and decided to quit my corporate job. I started the website called the HealthyApple.com. And I’ve been doing it now for seven years. I healed myself and now I feel like it’s my joy in life to really help other people and inspire them.
Wendy Myers: And so what was your outcome? Did you end up having leukemia? What was your diagnosis?
Amie Valpone: Yes! So, I did not have leukemia, thank goodness. But I had, let’s see, undiagnosed Lyme disease for about 15 years, I had polycystic ovarian syndrome, heavy metals, mold, fibromyalgia, Epstein-Barr, leaky gut, candida—you name it, I have it—hypothyroidism. It was crazy!
And so I need to learn how to really be the CEO of my health and just start to navigate this group of doctors. What I was finding was all these functional medicine doctors were wonderful, integrative medicine doctors were wonderful. They were getting to the root cause of what was going on. But I was doing everything from detox to chelation to herbal supplements. None of them were talking. I felt like I wasn’t getting better. I was just getting worse.
And so I had to start to be like I go to this person for my thyroid, this person for Lyme disease, this person for my gut. I really had to find functional medicine, like I said, who specialized in those certain areas, and then I started to heal.
But it takes you actually being your own doctor to get better. I always tell my clients—I’m very tough with my clients, but I always say to them, “You’re not going to get better if you just listen to your doctor every single day and what they’re doing. You have to challenge your doctor. You have to go in with a group of questions. You have to go in and not leave until you get your answer.”
You’re paying them big bucks. They’re not on a co-pay here. You got to be able to work with them and find the answers and the solutions. But you’ve got to be a part of this too.
And I found that no one doctor helped me. They all gave me ideas, and they all gave me hints like getting to the next step. But no one figured it out. I really had to put all the pieces together.
And so that’s really my mission, to tell people, “You’ve got to take charge of your health.” And you have got to put those pieces together.
Wendy Myers: I really like what you said about being the CEO of your own health. I think that really hits the nail in the head because a lot of my clients come to me, I’m only one person on their healthcare team. I specialize in detoxification. But you’ve got to get your medical doctor to read diagnosis and get stuff as much as you can, covered with health insurance. But you’ve got to go to specialists to—ideally, functional medicine doctors like you’re going to—because no one person knows everything.
And I think people are really conditioned to think their doctors know everything. And they don’t!
Amie Valpone: Yeah!
And even under the thing of just detox, I know every doctor understands a little bit about detox, but I had to learn—I’m sure you’re doing it the same way, Wendy. I’m learning every day, and so are these doctors.
So, some of them did one approach to detox. I did chelation with some. And then I did the Byron White protocol. Everyone’s got their own. I did infrared sauna, I did coffee enema. I mean, everybody has got their own thing.
So, what I did, I said, “Here’s what I’ve learned from everybody. Here’s how I’m going to do this. I’m going to figure out how to do this.”
Even with supplements, I was on a hundred supplements everyday for five years. It got to the point where I went to one doctor and he was like, “Are any of these working?” I was like, “I don’t know, I’m feeling good.” He checked my bloodwork. I was on Xymogen IGG 2000. He’s like, “Well, has your IGG improved?” I was like, “I don’t know. No one ever asked that.” I was like, “Why didn’t I look at that?”
So, we looked at my IGG, and it had not improved. And I’ve been on it for three years. They’re like $150 a bottle. I was like, “I just wasted a thousand dollars, and this did nothing.”
I’m not saying I would do nothing for anywhere else, but the point is you don’t even know if you’re absorbing some of these things.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Yeah! I try to communicate to people you have to do what works for you. People are going to tell you all the great kinds of things, but you ultimately have to listen to your body and what works for you.
And like you’re doing, you test—test, not guess—to figure out what’s working for you and what’s not.
Amie Valpone: Yeah, it’s true. And what I found too is—and I’m sure you see this with a lot of your clients. There was one point when I was working with way too many people, and I literally had wanted to cry every day (I think I did cry every day) because I just didn’t know what to do first, and I was just so overwhelmed with stuff—and then, my job.
But there was also a point—like now, coming out of illness, I’m going to all these different energy people. I’m doing to acupuncture and doing NAET and Reiki. I love all these different stuff, and I’m seeing what resonates with me.
Whereas some people are like, “You’ve got to do acupuncture, it’s amazing!” and other people are like, “You’ve got to do this.” But I know people that go to the things that worked so well for me, and they’re like, “I felt nothing.”
So, it puts that lightbulb on your head, and you’re like, “We’re all so different.” And we all have different problems. Even if two people with hypothyroidism, one is caused by one thing, one’s caused by the other.
So, it’s really kind of trial-and-error, right?
Wendy Myers: Yeah, you have to try a lot of different things—different supplements, et cetera.
Wendy Myers: How did you eventually get to the root cause of your health issues and symptoms?
Amie Valpone: So, what I had to do was I went to a doctor that actually figured out that Candida was causing a lot of it. And so this actually was figured out after I handed my book in, so this is going to be my next book because I was perfectly normal and healed until I handed my book in. And then, I lost my menses again, and they put me on progesterone cream. They overdosed me on it, and I gained 70 lbs. in five days and my whole endocrine system shut down.
So, what they did is hormones bring up yeast. I had chronic muscle pain. They thought it was meningitis. You couldn’t even touch the bone behind my ear, everything. And my hair went from blonde to brown within five days, and my whole body changed.
I’m still losing some of the fluids. I’m still not myself, but it’s slowly coming off.
But yeah, it’s been quite a road.
Wendy Myers: Wow! You’re very sensitive to have that kind of reaction.
Amie Valpone: Oh, my God! I think the universe just wants me to learn all these different things and help people. So yeah, I learned about fluid and weight and hormones. I mean, my normal weight is 100 lbs., so I never had to really worry about weight. And the funny thing is, now, I went from 100 lbs. to 170 lbs. in five days. But it had nothing to do with working out or what I ate. You could eat nothing and work out, and it wouldn’t move.
And so I started to think, “Wow! There are so many people that can’t lose weight. They’re calorie-counting, and it’s doing nothing.” So, it sparked something else in mind. I have some great ideas for my next book and how I’m going to do it.
But I really started working with someone that understood the body completely in terms of looking at it. I’ve been to over 500 doctors, but I listen to what every person had to say, and I took a piece of everything. But there’s one doctor had mentioned that Candida was at the root cause of the muscle, and I was like, “There is no way.” But once we cleared up the Candida, everything—my thyroid, enzymes and my liver—everything started to normalize.
But one of the biggest before that—it’ll probably be the next stage in my next book. But what I focused on the last book was the detox portion of it because what really helped me was detoxing my cleaning supplies, my personal care products and my food. And no one ever taught me that, the chemicals that are in our tap water and in our toothpaste and our sheets and our mattress. It’s like we’re bombarded by toxins every day.
And you know this just as well. This is what you do on a daily basis. Everyone is like, “Oh, your organs are meant to detox. We don’t have to detox it.” It’s like, “We’ve been bombarded by this much food and plastic and car exhaust and tap water and all these sunscreen, Chapstick and shampoo. All these stuff, these are chemicals. And it’s all being absorbed. And now that we’re having all these health issues, we’re trying to put a band-aid over it. No one’s correcting the underlying imbalances.”
So, as you know, it’s not easy to correct the underlying issue. It’s not a quick fix. I shouldn’t say, “It’s not easy,” it’s not a “quick fix” like a drug is. And so it really takes looking into the body more.
So, that’s really what I had to do. I shut out a lot of things for my life. I had to turn a lot, start saying no to a lot of things, spend time alone and start to really heal my body.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I think when the lightbulb first goes off and you’re thinking about detox, you’re like, “Argh! I need to live in a bubble.” Everything is toxic. “I would throw out all my cleaning products. I would throw out all of my make-up.
One thing at a time. There’s quite a learning curve you have to go through to figure out what’s toxic, what’s safe. You got to clean house—eat cleaner diet, your personal care products, your cleaning products, et cetera, et cetera. It could be quite a task, and it could be expensive. Any thoughts on that?
Amie Valpone: So expensive! It’s ridiculous! I eat organic food.
So, that’s why, in my book, I just wrote—it’s taken me seven years. I just got an organic mattress and organic sheets and towels. But that was the last thing.
I mean, start with what you are interacting with everyday—your hand soap, your laundry detergent in the clothes that you’re wearing, your toothpaste, your Chapstick, your make-up, things that you’re coming into contact with, your shampoo and conditioner, things that you’re coming into contact with every day, and just looking for inexpensive sources.
I even put some recipes in for natural beauty products like using coconut oil for your eye make-up remover and for your moisturizer and for your toothpaste. It actually ended up being cheaper than buying products.
But yeah, I just had to learn to cut corners at different places. And even food, I buy a lot of bulk, but I eat all fresh foods. So every day, every two days, I’m at the food store. It adds up, but I get sick if I eat processed foods. I literally cannot do it. My body will hate me.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, it does, it does. It takes time. You have to devote time and make a choice. You’re carving out that time for preparing fresh food, for shopping for fresh food a couple of times a week at least because real food goes bad fast. Real strawberries are dead in three days. And so it takes time.
Wendy Myers: So, let’s talk about—outline what detox means to you and what you talk about in your book, in your new book, Eating Clean: The 21-Day Plan to Detox, Fight Inflammation and Reset Your Body.
Amie Valpone: Thank you. So, I compare it against a cleanse because a lot of people think a detox is a cleanse. But a cleanse, like a juice cleanse, it’s more like starving yourself on a juice cleanse for a few days. You’re not eating any amino acids. So all the toxins are getting circulated throughout your body. And so you start to feel toxic effects like the headache and exhaustion.
But a detox is not that at all. It’s really about eating organic, skin brushing, Epsom salt baths, infrared saunas, oil pulling. Say no to toxic people, getting the bad thoughts out of your mind and taking more time to just do your own thing.
Eat clean and not do what everyone else is doing because a lot of that is what gets—I feel like the social media and the comparing yourself and all of that gets people wrapped up in this whole negative spiral.
And so I really felt like detox to me was pulling out the toxins in my life like living and eating clean. And that’s really, in my opinion, what detox is.
Eating organic, that’s an awesome step. Why is that a great step? Because you’re not eating pesticides and growth hormones and antibiotics on a daily basis.
Your liver, your poor liver is getting bombarded by these antibiotics, the growth hormones, the pesticides, all these things, along with your toothpaste and your Chapstick and your tap water and the car exhaust, whatever it may, the Windex that you’re using, things like that.
And so you want to lessen the body burden on your body on a daily basis.
Get rid of the plastics. That’s a great form of detox. Use glass instead, little things like that.
I mean, the book is 400 pages. It’s a big book. Everybody goes, “How did you write this?” I’m like, “I’m really not sure. It’s really big.” And he had to cut a whole chapter which is the mind-body chapter, which now, I’m realizing, is a huge part of it. I mean, I put some mind-body stuff in there, but it’ll probably go on the next book.
But yeah, I just felt like there’s so much information. And then, I wrote all the chemicals that should be avoided in beauty products and personal care products and the chemicals that are—or the words that are okay to use in beauty products, and then the brands that I love for beauty products, for cleaning products, for food products, and how to make your own.
And then, every recipe in the book is detox-approved—all plant-based, no gluten, dairy, soy, corn, sugar, eggs, no alcohol, no caffeine. They’re very clean.No all-purpose flours, on xantham gums. You will not see any one ingredient food. It’s all whole foods. So, there’s chickpea flour, coconut flour, almond flour, things like that, just like very, very basic. It’s cupcakes and brownies and pizzas, six pizza crusts, and crackers, and a lot of grain-free recipes.
I was really happy with the way it turned out. I’m really proud of it. I just love sharing my story and what I’ve been through because so many people are suffering as you know. I mean, you’re doing incredbile things as well.
Wendy Myers: So how did you get started to clean the recipes for your book, Eating Clean?
Amie Valpone: Yes, I probably had a hundred recipes before I even started. And so I got the book deal, I pretty much had a hundred recipes that are ready. And then, for the other hundred, probably 225. There were like 225 I think.
I just got really creative. I had six grain-free crackers to a bunch of grain-free pizza crusts to brownies. I went overboard. I had everything from how to make your own condiments, your own mayonnaise, your own ketchup, your own mustard all without gluten, dairy and soy. So, I just really thought of every scenario—holidays, breakfast, picnics, lunch, summer or winter—and really started thinking about—
I had a cranberry sauce without sugar. I had a lemon recipe, I preserved lemons without sugar in them—different things, things that were just very out-of-the-box that were just fun and creative. I had a great paella. I had ratatouille without eggplant, different things that are really fun for people.
Wendy Myers: So, what are some of your suggestions in the book, so that you can jumpstart healthy eating? I think once people start getting their head around, “Okay, I need to start eating better,” what are some of those first steps, baby steps, that people can take.
Amie Valpone: Definitely! It’s really looking at an anti-inflammatory lifestyle, taking out the inflammatory foods—your processed foods, your glutens, your dairy, your soy, things that are just really not whole foods also. So anything like those condiments that you read on the back of your fridge, you don’t know half the ingredients—and the salad dressings.
Starting very basic, even a switch like going from table salt to sea salt. Table salt is refined and inflammatory, but sea salt is anti-inflammatory. And then, you take something like a peanut, which is high in mold and inflammatory, but you take something like a walnut which is anti-inflammatory and full of Omega-3’s .
So, really, understanding these swaps—and I do a lot of them throughout the book. There are tons of tips and things like that. Just making these small changes doesn’t mean you have to cut out all these different foods and drive yourself crazy. But just start daily making these little changes and seeing these results.
Amie Valpone: Yeah, it’s also where you go grocery shopping. I know, for me, I just made a commitment, I’m not going to go shopping at a typical grocery store. If you walk through these stores, it looks like the cast of Star Wars.
Wendy Myers: Oh, my God! I feel the same way.
Amie Valpone: People look sick because they are because of the food that they’re eating. And you go to like a Whole Foods or natural food store and people are glowing. They’re healthy and they’re trim. It’s just a whole different scene.
So, you can’t shop your typical grocery store and do the 100-calorie snack packs…
Amie Valpone: Oh, my God! I wrote about that in my book. I said 100 calories from a 100-calorie pack of Oreos and 200 calories of an avocado, one is inflammatory and one is anti-inflammatory. It has nothing to do with calories. Eat more fat, eat the whole food. You’re better off eating the avocado than 100 calories from a 100-calorie pack.
I agree! I was at a wellness event the other night. One of my girlfriends was talking and she was like, “My husband and I were on the subway. We’re on the subway. And everybody on the subway looks like a different species. They’re all eating 100-calorie packs and pizzas.” She’s like, “They look like a different species […].”
Wendy Myers: Yeah! And people don’t realize, inflammation is what drives weight gain and disease. It’s not the amount of calories that you take in and out. And yeah, if you starve yourself, you’re probably going to lose weight. But long-term, you’re eating foods that make you sick. And eventually, you’re going to gain weight and feel sick.
Wendy Myers: So, tell us about the book. What’s inside the book? What can we expect? What are some of the chapters, et cetera?
Amie Valpone: Yeah, definitely. It starts off with my health story—10 years of chronic illness, what I learned, the struggles that I went through. And I found through the comments on my website and on Amazon that people are really resonating with the story. All these women are like, “This sounds like my story. This sounds exactly like me.” It just made me realize how many people are really sick and how many people need inspiration and to know that they’re not alone. You’re not out there alone. There’s so many other people.
And I wish that I had a book like this 10 years ago. I want to shortcut the journey for people and save them time, money and suffering, because otherwise, you’re lost.
And so, in the back of the book, I did three whole pages of every functional and integrative medicine test possible. I had it. Literally, it gave me a new life. It found my Lyme disease and it found hormonal problems. But those were all false negatives under other testing.
So, this three pages, I always keep saying, is worth $200,000 because it’s everything that I learned, but I had to put that in there because I was like, “These people need these tests. And they don’t even know they exist!” […] why they’re gaining weight or why their hormones […]
And so, inflammation is another one. There are so many different ways inflammation can come up—and so just different markers that people can look for. MTHFR, I talk a lot about that in my book—methylation and how you’re detoxing on a daily basis. Some of us, like myself, 35% of the population has a handicap to detox. Some people can eat McDonald’s and smoke every day and they’re fine. I can go eat something on a salad bar and feel like I’m dying or be exposed to mold and feel like I’m dying, but the other person is fine even if you’re living in the same house.
So, it has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with your genetics and your ability to detox on a daily basis.
Wendy Myers: And so, you mentioned you had Lyme. It’s amazing to me how many people have Lyme, and how it’s totally overlooked by so many doctors. I have clients coming to me, they’ve been sick for 20 years, going to doctors for 20 years, and not one person has checked them for Lyme.
If you’re sick, if you have chronic fatigue, multiple health conditions, you can’t figure it out, get tested for Lyme.
Amie Valpone: I know. But the thing is everyone gets tested for Lyme, and then it’s false negative. So they don’t even realize there’s these two tests. There’s only two labs that give you the actual result. I was like, “I need to put that in my book because I have false negatives for Lyme for years!”
Wendy Myers: It’s a huge problem. I do Lyme testing on my clients as well. And the problem is a lot of doctors don’t read the tests correctly. You can’t have a computer—the test results, you need a human being that knows what they’re doing interpreting the results.
Amie Valpone: And for me, according to Burrascano’s protocol, I had Lyme. I didn’t have all five bands. I had I think four bands or something. There were two doctors, “Well, you don’t have Lyme” and my regular functional medicine doctor was like, “According to Burrascano’s protocol, you have Lyme.” I was like, “Oh, my God! This is crazy.”
You just don’t know who to believe. Here I was, this 22-year old girl. It was sad. It’s heartbreaking.
All my events that I’ve done for my book and everything, it’s all young women suffering from Crohn’s and colitis and autoimmune disease and Lyme. I’m like, “No one is helping these people.”
The thing is the doctors don’t even know what to do, I don’t think.
Wendy Myers: What do you think is the underlying root cause? All these young women are coming to you, they have all these different autoimmune diseases, et cetera, et cetera. What do you think are some of the some of the main, underlying root causes?
Amie Valpone: Number one is our food system. I think that people, they don’t know. Everyone is confused. No one knows what to eat anymore. This magazine is saying “fat-free yoghurt,” this is saying “full fat yoghurt,” this is saying you need dairy, this is saying you eat meat, this one is saying don’t be Paleo. No one knows what to do. And so, people are getting 100-calorie packs of Oreos because they’re confused.
I also think it’s toxins. I think that we’re bombarded by more toxins than ever—our livers. A lot of people just are not detoxing on a daily basis or they don’t even know how to detox. We’re not taught how to take care of our bodies in school which should be a lesson because a lot of people are getting sick.
And number three is the mind. I think that social media and comparing yourself to other people and celebrity crap that everybody watches and television—everyone is looking for the perfect relationship, the perfect body, the perfect this and that. You listen to like Bruce Lipton and all these other doctors. You talk to yourselves on a daily basis.
So, if you’re constantly going, “I’m fat, I’m ugly. She’s so pretty, I wish I was like. Why can’t I have this?” and you find happiness on the outside, you’ll never find happiness. You’ll have to find it inside.
And it took me a long time to figure out, “Wow! All these stuff that I can buy and everything isn’t going to make me happy. You have to really do the work inside,” which is not fun to do.
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Amie Valpone: You start to look at your own shit. You were told that since you were a kid, you think it’s totally normal. But really, you’re like, “Oh, my God! This is totally blocking me from…”—whether it’s a man in your life, or for some people, it’s money, for other people, it’s for health, for abundance. It could be anything! And that’s why we’re all so different.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, yeah.
Wendy Myers: And for me, doing meditation was really key for me, emotionally detoxing and throwing up and getting rid of all the “I’m not good enough” ruminating voice in your head. That was really, really key. What was it for you?
Amie Valpone: I have to say, it was meditation. I mean, really, I’m starting to just read books about the mind-body and understanding breaking the habit of being who you were and all those old pattern and all that stuff you used to tell yourself every day and really witnessing your thoughts.
If you’re jealous of someone, if you’re bad-mouthing someone—I don’t talk about people at all. I have no drama in my life. But in my twenties, you would mention, and everyone chimes in. Your mom calls you and tells you about the gossip in your neighborhood. And now, I’m like, “I don’t want to hear any of that. It has nothing to do with me. Why are you even telling me this?” I’m just buying in situations. I never even want to chime in to talk about anyone anymore.
I have no desire. There’s that voice in my head that’s just like, “Don’t do it.” It’s just negative. I’m just very in-tune with my body.
Even saying no to people, like girlfriends, a bunch of girlfriends are going out for dinner or I’m going on a date or whatever it may be, it just doesn’t feel—I’m just like, “I’d rather be alone or I’d rather be doing something different.” I have no problem now being, “I’m not going to make it.” I don’t even lie about it. I just say, “I’m not going to make it tonight.”
I think that we all feel guilty. We have to go to every birthday party, every bachelorette party, every wedding. It’s craziness! Especially in your 20s and 30s and everyone’s having babies. It’s like you can just fill your entire life with doing stuff for everybody else.
It’s like that Sex & the City episode where Carrie Bradshaw is like, “Okay, on my baby shower, everyone’s buying me shoes.” But it’s not even a selfish thing. I think it’s really just about starting to say no and listening to what really motivates you.
And I think a lot of people are miserable in their jobs. I think it’s a big part of unhappiness and depression in America.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I think, really, the key to loving yourself is saying no. That’s something I think a lot of people have trouble doing. They want to be at this church function and be the volunteer for this and that and that and that. They’re making themselves sick. They’re really not taking time for themselves and what-not.
I got to a point where I didn’t even want to socialize. I have nothing to say. I was always thinking about what do I need to do and how to help other people and taking care of myself. And I just want to stay home and rest.
Amie Valpone: Oh, my God! I can’t believe you’re saying that. My sister was texting. She has a lot going on in her life. I said, “Do me a favor. Take this summer and just be by yourself. You will grow so much.” She was like, “Thank you. You know what? You’re right. I’m going to do it.”
One of the best things about getting sick was I was alone the entire time. I became an introverted extrovert. I just admitted to everybody and they’re like, “You’re such an extrovert. You’re like the life of the party.” I’m like, “No, no, no. I used to be. Now, I would rather be home alone like resting. It’s lovely.”
Wendy Myers: I did the same thing. I was very isolated when I was in my recovery journey as well. I was married at the time. I had a baby. I stayed home for years. I’m not saying that’s the healthiest thing in the planet. Balance is good. But I stayed home a long time and just wrote and read and studied and cared for myself. And that’s just the best gift you can give yourself.
In the past, I thought, “Oh, that’s selfish. I need to be giving to other people. I need to be doing things for other people. I need to be there for other people,” but you’ve got to take care of yourself first.
Amie Valpone: And that’s one of those blocks we’re taught when we’re younger. You have to do everything your parents tell you to do or you’re not a good person if you don’t go to your bestfriends this or you miss a birthday party.
I missed all my bestfriends weddings and bachelor’s party. You know what? Some of them from highschool didn’t get it. They were upset with me. You start to realize who your true friends are. A lot of people got it.
You also start to realize once you do this work and you just start to heal and you start to focus inside, the most incredible people come into your life. I know I have the most amazing men and women in my life right now. It’s magical! And all the drama and all the people that were just using me for things are gone. It’s just really beautiful. Life is really beautiful.
Wendy Myers: And there are so many benefits to detox, I think, also. You’re on a physical detox where you’re getting rid of metals and chemicals out of your body. Your mind works better. You have this fog that lifts off of you. And when that happened for me, I left my husband. I realized it was very toxic. I was no longer in this cloud where I wasn’t thinking clearly.
And so when people detox physically, they also get this emotional detox and this centering and feeling of calm and relaxation. Their body is just working right, their brain is working correctly. It really can be quite profound, the changes people make in their life. You left your job and et cetera, et cetera.
Amie Valpone: Yeah. So many people leave relationships. I was just listening to a call last night over some spiritual thing. And they were saying, “So many people end up leaving relationships.” I’m reading this book right now called Sacred Choices and it’s all about we’re told you’re a bad person if you get divorced or if you leave a relationship after a few years because you really love them.
It’s like, “Who said that?” Your happiness is more important than anything! It’s not about being a good person or a bad person. You can’t listen to all that past programmed stuff that’s in your head from childhood. You have to do what’s right for you.
As women, we feel selfish. They’re like, “I’m being selfish.” It’s like, “You’re not.”
Wendy Myers: I have like Dr. Phil in my head. “You have to earn your way out of a relationship.” I thought, “Yeah, I need to do some work.” I did some therapy, and I was like, “No, it’s just never going to work.”
Amie Valpone: Just that alone! People always say, “Listen to your heart.” I was like, “What?” And now, I’m like, “Oh! I get it!” Now, it’s like, “Do you want to come out with us?” and I’m like, “No, I don’t want to go out.” Somebody else is saying, “Yes, that is so…”
I always say—and this will be part of my next book—“Is it a tonic or a toxin?” Every day, ask yourself is something toxic or is it a tonic and it’s lifting you up. Do what lifts you up. Don’t do what doesn’t. I still feel bad about cutting people out—not cutting people out, but moving away from people who I was friends with since childhood who bring you down. They just can’t be happy for you or they just can’t acknowledge anything. It’s been really hard for me to not want to keep that relationship going and feel like I have to be filling in—you know what I mean? It’s hard. But I think as women, we go through a lot more than men do.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Wendy Myers: So, let’s talk about some of the other things in the book. Do you have any detox protocols in the book that you recommend?
Amie Valpone: Yeah, totally! I have a 21-day detox plan. It’s over 200 recipes. They’re all detox-approved. I take you through a 21-day plan. But also, I take you through your cleaning supplies, your beauty products, your personal care products, all the toxins in all of those, how to detox them, what chemicals to look for, how to detox your home. Everything is covered in there—your water, things like that.
And then, I even break it down and talk about the detox practices that you can do on a daily basis without feeling overwhelmed of how you can support your body on a daily basis.
Wendy Myers: And do you talk about infrared saunas at all?
Amie Valpone: I do! Infrared saunas, I have an infrared sauna. Skin brushing, Epsom salt baths, all that kind of stuff.
Wendy Myers: So what exactly are infrared saunas? I talk about that in the podcast quite a bit. I love infrared saunas. I ended up taking a third of my living room…
Amie Valpone: Amazing! I love them! Sunlighten is the one that I have. I love it! It’s just amazing. Yeah, they’re great. So they help heat you from the inside-out instead of regular saunas that heat you from the outside-in. It helps remove the heavy metals and different chemicals and mold. It helps with Lyme disease, things like that.
Wendy Myers: It does! I mean, it’s amazing! That kills off any kind of infection in your body. It activates your immune system. It feels great. And you’re burning calories, which I like. I like that benefit of it.
Amie Valpone: It’s funny. Mine moved downtown. I gave it to my parents. I was sleeping on a biomat. I had too much medicals up. I was like, “I just want to be in my new apartment for like a year without any medical stuff because it sucks you back into the medical kind of world.”
But I still do organic enemas every once in a while for my liver. But I had to take from the saunas and everything else—the biomat, all that kind of stuff. But I’m near the point where I’m like, “Okay, I kind of miss my sauna.”
Wendy Myers: But you really need to take a break if you’ve been doing this very intensively for a long time. I did it four years gung-ho. I took about a four month break at that point. And then, I got back on the horse again.
It’s kind of natural. You have to listen to your body on what’s working for you at that time. But ultimately, every single day, you’re exposed to toxins. No matter what you do, no matter how tight that bubble is that you’ve built for yourself, you can’t avoid toxins. You have to have a daily detox plan for life.
Amie Valpone: Yeah! That’s the thing. It’s not a diet. It’s a lifestyle. And then people will say, “How do you do it? How do you do it?” I’m like, “I’m not telling you to follow my book or to follow what I’m saying because you should. I’m telling you because once you see light this way, you’ll never go back.”
You will never go back. Why would you not do something that makes you feel so amazing every day? Don’t you do what makes you feel good? So, why would you go get a cheeseburger at McDonald’s and drink a Diet Coke when you know it’s full of chemicals and then you realize how crappy you feel and how you’re breaking out or you’re constipated? Why would you do that to yourself?
Wendy Myers: You make those mistakes every once in a while.
Amie Valpone: Of course, of course. Totally!
Wendy Myers: “Pop tarts sounds really good right now.”
Amie Valpone: Totally! But I’m saying more like on a daily basis. You know what I mean? Or a weekly basis. That’s why I put brownies and cookies and all that kind of stuff in my book. Totally! And we go out and there’s holidays, and it’s summer. You have to enjoy your life. You can’t just feel like you’re living in a bubble and deprived.
All the kale in the world will not heal you. You could eat all the kale every day and still be sick. You have to enjoy your life.
And that’s why I wrote this book. I wanted people to see how delicious it can be to detox every day.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. And it can be delicious to eat a healthy diet that’s a toxin-free diet. It’s absolutely delicious.
When I make a meal, I just love eating this way. And in the past, five or six years ago, I’ll be like, “Argh! I have to eat a healthy meal.”
Amie Valpone: I know, right?
Wendy Myers: “I’ve got to make some chicken and broccoli.” I was just like, “Oh, my God! It’s so boring to eat that way.”
Amie Valpone: Your taste buds change. And now, I’m like—I mean, I drink Coke and Diet Coke in college. And now, I’m like, “How did I ever drink that?”
Wendy Myers: Yeah, yeah. It tastes like battery acid to me now. I’m drinking and I’m like dying.
Amie Valpone: Oh, my God! This is so great! We think exactly the same. The food store stuff, I’m like, “I know!” It’s pretty awesome. That’s so good.
Wendy Myers: So anything else you want to add to our conversation or anything else you want to tell the listeners about your book?
Amie Valpone: Yeah! I mean, really, the book is available. It’s on Amazon. It’s in the Whole Foods market, Barnes & Noble, Costco’s, Sam’s Club.
So I think, really, it just comes down to realizing that you’re not alone no matter whether you’re having slight migraines or bloating or weight gain or chronic health issues. You’re not alone, and there’s thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of people going through the same thing.
Just do what works for you. Stop listening to what everyone else is doing. That’s really when true healing takes place. As silly as it sounds, it’s really about what works for you.
Wendy Myers: Yes, yes.
Amie Valpone: And I hope that I shortcut the journey for—that’s why I wrote the book. I want to shortcut the journey for someone to help them save money, number one, suffering, trauma. There’s a lot that goes into it. So, take time for yourself and be good to yourself. Stop pushing so hard. Stop working so hard. It’s not doing your body any good.
Wendy Myers: And I think definitely people work way too hard. I used to be definitely guilty of that.
Amie Valpone: Me too!
Wendy Myers: I love my health website, but I wasn’t taking care of my own health running my health website.
Amie Valpone: Totally!
Wendy Myers: I’ll be working 12 to 16 hours a day. I’m right to the point where I have to go to a physical therapist because my hands were locking up because I was writing so much and doing so much computer work.
Now, I’m like, “Okay, weekends, taking off.”
Amie Valpone: Oh, totally! Even like six o’clock at night. Today, all I did was go to acupuncture and I meditated. I just went outside for a walk. I need that. People are like, “Where’s your next book? Where’s your next book?” I’m like, “It’s not the time. I need time to take a break and have fun and enjoy my life.” I think we all need more play in our lives.
Wendy Myers: Yeah! The work will get done. It will get to where you need it go. You don’t have to work 12 or 16 hours a day. Ultimately, when you lose your health, that’s everything. That’s everything. So you have to take care of yourself to reap the health reward, so to speak.
Wendy Myers: I have a question I like to ask all of my guest. What do you think is the most pressing health issue in the world today?
Amie Valpone: Wow! I think the amount of sugar people are eating is insane. So, I think diabetes huge. But above that, I think everyone is looking for a quick fix. Everyone’s stressed. Everyone’s exhausted.
I had Lyme disease when I was a kid. My parents, they didn’t know. They didn’t know to go to doctors. They didn’t understand. They did the best that they could at the time. None of us know what we’re doing. Everyone is just guessing. Doctors are guessing.
And so you have to be the CEO and the owner of your body and take charge, or else, you’ll never going to get better. It could be a quick fix.
And a drug is not going to cure you. I think that everyone is just looking for an over-the-counter Advil or Tylenol, Tylenol Sinus, Tylenol Cold, […], Tums which are doing a negative thing to your […] and to your gut lining long-term.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I think it’s so important to bring up. Today, people, they want to feel better like that. They’re conditioned to just take this pill, take this medication. “I want to feel good. I just want to feel good.”
You have to work to feel good. You have to do the work. There’s no pill the doctors are going to give you that’s going to solve your health problems. It’s on you making those choices every single day.
Wendy Myers: And so let’s talk a little bit more about yourself. What’s your website? Where can people find you, et cetera?
Amie Valpone: So the website is theHealthyApple.com. I’m at theHealthyApple on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest. My God! Please don’t come up with another social media forum. I can’t handle another one.
Yes! I do update my website once a week […], sometimes twice a week. There are a lot of tips. I mean, there’s over hundreds of page on my website about health issues, my story, how to find a functional integrative medicine doctor, the functional integrative medicine doctors that I’ve worked with.
I’m redoing my website. So, the new website will be up in about a month and a half or so. But it will be a food blog style. It will be a wellness website with a lot more mind-body and food and energy work and things like that.
Wendy Myers: Okay, great. Well, thank you so much for spending some time with us.
Amie Valpone: Thank you. This was so fun. You’re amazing! I’m sending you a huge hug from New York City. Have a beautiful summer.
Wendy Myers: Ah, thank you so much. Thank you.
Amie Valpone: Thanks! Bye.
Wendy Myers: Well, that’s our show for today, folks. Thank you so much for tuning in. And if you want to do a complete detox of your body, I help people with my Mineral Power program which you can learn more about MineralPower.com. I’ve got a brand new, shiny website for you guys to learn more about my program.
With this program, I start with a hair mineral analysis, do a thorough health history. I learn a lot about your toxicities and where you are in your health and help you develop a custom, targeted, nutrient therapy program for you to detox what you have in your body.
Every toxin has a product that’s ideal to detox that particular toxin. So, it’s not always a simple thing to do. You can’t just go to your doctor and do IV chelation with DMSA. It’s not that simple. It can be quite complex. But that’s what I do every day. I can help to develop the custom protocol you need for you.
And it’s amazing what happens when you detox your body. We talked about some of it today on the show. It’s unbelievable what happens when you get rid of some of these metals and chemicals. Health symptoms go away, all these weird little things that people have.
For me, I have tinnitus, my lips were peeling all the time, GI issues. For me, my hormones, we’re being able to produce again. My thyroid issues went away. My thyroid is able to produce hormones again. My adrenals were able to produce my sex hormones again. It’s really amazing when you get rid of all these blockages in your body, metals and chemicals that were interfering with your body’s metabolism.
It’s really profound when what happens in your body actually starts working. You don’t have these blocks in your body. It’s amazing, the health that results from that.
And that’s why I love to do what I do every day. I wake up every morning excited to communicate this message to you of detox because of how it has profoundly changed my life and the differences that I see in my client’s health as well.
So, thank you so much for tuning in.
