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Wendy: Yes, it was so great meeting you at JJ Virgin’s Mindshare Summit in San Diego. That was just such a fulfilling experience to meet all these other health entrepreneurs that are in the same industry as us.
Kerry: I know. And as you and I were just talking right before we started this interview, it’s so fun, because a lot of us have worked together before, and we’ve collaborated and supported each other. And to see each other in person and that energy of having us all in one place, it put another spin to it. It was really nice. It was cool.
Wendy: And it’s such a wonderful lesson about the power of community because for you and for myself, it’s so important to get our message about health out into the world. And these kinds of summits help us to help you listeners to just improve your health and your life and your weight.
Kerry: Right, yes, definitely. And it’s all connected, right. So you, I’m sure, have other experts on this summit that are specializing in something else, maybe the cardiovascular system, maybe the endocrine system, different things. But when you really come down to it, when you boil it all down, we’re holistic beings.
And if you have digestive issues, that could be affecting your weight. And your weight could be affecting your cardiovascular system. So it’s all tied together. So our approach over here at kerrytepedino.com is to really take a holistic approach, where you’re not just zooming in on one thing, but you’re looking at even mindset, emotional mastery, your relationship to yourself, and then marrying it to the science aspect, the nutrition, the exercise, detoxing, supplementation.
If you focus in on only one thing, I haven’t seen a lot of people get long term success. What I have noticed is it’s really a holistic approach. It’s the full picture.
Wendy: Yeah, so tell us about yourself. Why are you so passionate about the work that you’re doing in helping people to lose weight?
Kerry: Yeah, so I, like many of us who go into the health industry, I’m driven by my passion for this because I, myself, had a really dark chapter with my own health. I was overweight. I had an eating addiction. I had a body image disorder. I didn’t feel good about who I was. And I’m a smart girl, so it’s not like I didn’t know what to do. It’s just that the follow through was lacking because the self-esteem, the self-love, the confidence was lacking.
And I didn’t have my mindset where it really needed to be. And it was hard. It was a really hard way to live. And it was painful. And for myself, personally, I was a binge purger. So I was bulimic. I went through stages where I could, I guess, probably be classified as anorexic at certain points because I was so controlling and consumed with calories and weighing my food and all of that stuff. Sometimes I overexercised. “Oh,gosh, I can’ t believe I had the birthday cake.
I’m going to exercise two hours tomorrow.” So I went through different stages with all of that. And there were a few defining moments where I really had to have a serious talk with myself, where I had to say, “Okay, either you stop what you’re doing, and you decide to heal and change, or you keep doing this. But you are literally slowing killing yourself.”
I remember one time I had just binged and purged. So what that means is I had thrown up all the food I had just eaten. And my heart was just racing because of course my electrolytes were imbalanced. And it was a scary moment for me because I realized that I was affecting my body in a much deeper way than just oh, let me eat some food and then throw it up. It was something that was starting to really have an effecton my organs, on how my body functioned.
And it was a wake up call. And so I really dove into healing. I dove into the holistic approach, using food for medicinal purposes, supporting my body with supplementation if needed. I dove into meditation. I dove into yoga. I dove into breath work.
I dove into all of that to find myself. And that was over 15 years ago. And through that. I’m now where I am today, thank goodness, which is happy, healthy, in love with my life. And now I help other women do the same, have that same journey and the same results. It’s really exciting.
Wendy: I really identify with what you’re saying because I suffered from bulimia for many years as well. I used to model and obsess over my weight. And I was 40 pounds lighter than I am today at that time. But yeah, it’s really one of those things where you can hate yourself into losing weight, and you can love yourself and nurture yourself into losing weight. And maybe that second aspect of it is a lot better.
Kerry: Yes.
Wendy: But it takes a lot of work to get there. And you need coaching. You do. So let’s talk about your health history. What’s been your own history with your health? And how do you help others and coach them in weight loss?
Kerry: Well first and foremost, we always start with the mindset because even if you have the most perfect nutrition plan, even if you have the most perfect exercise plan or supplementation protocols laid out for you, if you haven’t done the mindset work, eventually most people will throw it all out the window because life will throw them a twist, a loved one gets sick, or they lose their job or bankruptcy, or the house needs a new roof, or the children are being unruly or whatever.
Stress is going to happen. And if you don’t have the mindset in place and your relationship to yourself in place, then most people have a tendency to slide back into old or bad habits, which usually means neglecting themselves. And so we really start with that piece. So it’s neuroprogramming. And it’s really working with the individual to create different talk tracks in the mind so that instead of thinking to yourself all the time, “Oh, I’m never going to get healthy. My mom and dad were overweight. I have no hope. This is in my genes. I have such a bad sugar habit.
There’s no way I can get away from it.” Instead of letting your mind take you down the rabbit hole, we really help women have different inner conversations. Instead of a toxic conversation inside, have a conversation of gratitude and focus.
And so it sounds something more like, “Okay, well I’m not where I want to be yet. But I’m excited thattransformation is right around the corner. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get me from point A to point B because I know that I’m worth this. And I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. So I’m going to do whatever it takes to make this happen.” And then from there, then we start getting into the let’s look at how your endocrine system is functioning.
Let’s look at your colon health, your digestive health. We drive it down more to create supplementation protocols if needed. And then we also work on the other aspects, what are you eating, how are you moving your body, what are you doing for yourself, are you a martyr, are you a victim, are you putting everybody else before you and then saying, “Oh, I don’t have time for me,” which is really common for women, right?
Wendy: Yeah. And that’s so great because I think people get stuck in this rut with that evil devil on their shoulder speaking so negatively to them because really, people can only control their perceptions of situations and their responses to situations. And people need to learn they have control over that.
Kerry: Right, we have control every single moment. So one thing that I’d like to say is it’s not about perfection. Perfection doesn’t exist. So you also have to allow yourself to have a different level of compassion and patience with yourself when you really get focused on this journey. And you will fall. When women join our program, we say, “Okay, we need you to make a promise that you’re not going to quit. You’re not going to isolate. You’re not going to compare yourself.
And in the same breath, we don’t expect you to do this perfectly. We know you’re going to fall. But let us help you learn to fall forward, which means get the lesson when you fall so that you’re never in that exact same conversation again.”
Wendy: Yes, because Rome was not built in a day.
Kerry: Right.
Wendy: It takes time to practice these things. And I’m sure a lot of listeners are curious about, as a weight loss expert, what supplements you recommend. And do you use supplementation in your practice to facilitate weight loss?
Kerry: We do. For some people, we definitely do. Again, it depends on the individual. So what we do first is we come in with using food for medicinal purposes and looking at how they’re actually eating because a lot of people don’t understand that what they’re eating is causing a lot of inflammation in their system. And inflammation has a direct influence on people’s weight.
So we like to really clean up all the things on a more basic level first. And then what we like to do is we like to do a health assessment or a health evaluation with people because you can’t recommend one specific supplement for everybody.
That just doesn’t make sense because we’re all individuals. And our bodies are working differently. And so what we like to do is do a health evaluation, which has 17 different categories. Some of those are specific to men, and some are specific to woman. But in general it’s 17 categories.
And from that we’re able to really get a good idea for the individual how is your colon health working? How is your digestion? Do you have issues with your pituitary, with your gall bladder, with your adrenals? Are you hypothyroid? Are you hyperthyroid? Are you swinging between the two, which is possible, which a lot of people don’t realize.
We really think it’s important to look at all of that because, for example, there are certain supplementations that I think most people do need, which is like a really good multi vitamin, the omegas.
A lot of people do really well with some digestive support, so maybe some digestive enzymes at meals. So those are kind of like staples. Most people need that. But then from the health evaluation, we’re able to tell what else they need.
For example, we might have one woman who does our evaluation, and it’s clear that she has issues going on with her blood sugar levels. And so out of three different really great multivitamins that we might recommend to our clients, I would recommend a very specific one for her which is going to help with balancing her blood sugar levels as well. Another woman, she might have more of a hormone issue.
And so the multivitamin that we would recommend for her would be geared more towards that. Do you see what I’m saying?
Wendy: Absolutely. Are there any supplements that you regulate to control blood sugar?
Kerry: We do, depending on the person, depending on what else is happening for them. But another really good thing with blood sugar levels is make sure that you’re balancing them consistently. A lot of people don’t even understand that you should make sure to eat really good protein, a really good protein source.
If you’re a vegetarian, it doesn’t have to be animal based. But make sure you are having some protein at least every — it depends on the individual –let’s say every three to four hours-ish. That can even create some really good results for people because what happens for a lot of people is they go too long without eating, or they’re not eating properly.
And then that’s when they’re getting the swings, the massive swings oftentimes. Within our programs we use a line called Biotics Research. They’re physician grade, but they’re food based, science based. Some supplements, I’ll just say, you could probably get this at your local health food store. But a lot of them we like to do through Biotics because I’ve met some of the formulators. I worked very closely with one ofthe gentleman over there. And they’re just superb.
Wendy: Yeah, they’re a phenomenal line, absolutely.
Kerry: Yeah. That being said, you shouldn’t just go order from a third party on Amazon or something. When you’re adding in supplementation, in general it’s important to be under the guidance of a healthcare professional, whether that’s a holistic health practitioner or somebody else that you’re working with, instead of just ordering them from a third party because it’s important that you’re getting what you really need. Again, we look at the individual.
Another thing is, we’ve had people go and order just from Amazon from a third party. Number one, you can’t always guarantee the freshness of the product. So we always have our clients order straight from the southern California headquarters because I know what the freshness is there. I can guarantee that.
Some third party distributors are just buying up supplementation that’s about to expire and then wanting to flip it, wanting to sell it quickly and make a profit. So I always think it’s very important to order straight from headquarters to guarantee the freshness. I had two clients over the years that ordered from a third party distributor and then had a problem with them. And there was nothing that I could do. I couldn’t help them with the order because it wasn’t from headquarters.
So we’re just really clear with anybody that we’re working with. We want to make sure that they’re getting the proper support around any supplementation that they’re adding into their routines because it’s not a one size fits all recipe.
It’s just not. And then also make sure that the quality of the supplements is really good. And so that’s how we work with our clients with that because as you know, Wendy, the quality of the supplements, sometimes people are using supplementation, and the quality is so bad they’re not going to get the support anyways. And it’s just like money going down the toilet.
Wendy: Absolutely. It’s crazy how cheap supplements or some brands have these binders that prevent them from absorbing. They just run right through you.
Kerry: Right, definitely. And there are thousands and thousands and thousands of brands out there for supplementation. So what I would say is always make sure you’re doing your research, everyone. Make sure you’re doing your research on the brand. If it’s something a little more in depth than just adding something basic into your routine, then I would say make sure you’re under the guidance of a healthcare practitioner.
Make sure that you’re getting what you need. And don’t just go buy the next fad supplement that you see on any TV show or on the internet or something like that.
Wendy: So how can some of these supplements that you’re using with your clients help in weight loss? Can you give us some specific examples of perhaps how supplements help with the thyroid or the adrenals or detox or how they facilitate weight loss?
Kerry: Yes, absolutely. So a lot of the women who come to us actually do have thyroid issues. So I can say something to that quickly. But then I also really want to talk about the digestive system because a lot of people don’t understand how important that is. So in regards to thyroid, there are some really common symptoms to look for if you think you might have a thyroid issue.
The thyroid is helping to regulate the metabolism. So let’s say you’re hypothyroid. I was extremely hypothyroid quite a few years ago, which means that my metabolism was running slower. My hair was thinning. I easily gained weight. I was always very tired. And I was moody, more like depressed. I was down moody.
And so I figured out that it was my thyroid. And with labs across the U.S., their markers are different for every lab. So it can be a little confusing. So I don’t want to say specific numbers. But my labs showed I was twice the levels I should be with my thyroid, which means I was very hypothyroid. I wasn’t Hashimoto’s, but I was very hypothyroid.
And so what I did was I shifted my nutrition. I shifted my exercise. I made lifestyle changes. And then I added in supplements that were like food for my thyroid, is a good way to say it in layman’s terms. They were like food for my thyroid. They nourished my thyroid. And it depends on the level of hypothyroidism or what you’re working with, but sometimes it’s so extreme that it could take a full year or more to help balance out. Sometimes it’s six months.
For me it was a matter of maybe two or three months that I started to feel better. I think I was fully myself again within six months. And then I put myself on a maintenance plan. Even when I was pregnant I kept that one up. So that’s a great example for thyroid. So there are different levels to protocols, oftentimes.
My thyroid needed to be more heavily addressed. And then as it healed, because I honestly believe the body can heal itself of pretty much anything given the right support and strategies, so as it healed, then I shifted my protocol, which is why it’s really important to be working with a holistic health practitioner or someone like that. I shifted my protocol. And I moved myself into a maintenance plan.
For the digestive system, a lot of people might get instant bloating after you eat, or gas. You just can tell that your body is inflamed after you’re eating food. And it might happen all the time. A lot of people don’t understand that that could actually be your stomach acid levels. It’s called hydrochloric acid. It depends on where your stomach acid levels are. So they could be too high, or they could be too low.
But if they’re low, then what can be happening is you’re not breaking down and assimilating the food that you’re eating. So then it’s just sitting in your system. It’s basically fermenting and becoming toxic. And it’s contributing to your weight. And if it’s too low for too long, it can create off gassing, which pushes the valve that is going up into your esophagus, the pressure will. And then your stomach acid kind of splashes up. And that’s when people get heartburn. They might eat and then feel that burning sensation in their throat.
The antacid business is a billion dollar business. Of course they don’t want you to understand that your body can basically heal itself of this because they want you on prescription meds forever. But if you have the proper supplementation protocol, then what can happen is you assist your body in healing itself of that because it truly can heal itself of that.
And then as your body’s healing, weight’s starting to melt off. You’re starting to get more energy. You’re getting an oomph back in your step. You’re excited about your life again. You want to connect with people. You don’t want to isolate and hide. You want to deepen into your relationships. You’re attracting more money because you’re happy. You’re confident. It’s just this domino effect. And that’s why we say this really is about addressing the whole person, the whole person. I know I’m just talking, talking, talking. You can tell I get so passionate about this.
Wendy: No, I know. And it’s just one of those things. There are so many different aspects to weight loss that I think people, they don’t know where to start. That’s why they need to work with a health practitioner, to help them go through the steps, A, B, C, D, supplements, food sensitivities, mindset, digestion, thyroid. And there are just so many different aspects to it. And each person has to be able to figure out what that is, what their roadblocks are.
Kerry: Yes, and I’m really glad you said that because it can be overwhelming. And so what happens for some people is if they get overwhelmed, they go into paralysis, right. They stagnate and quit. And so for all of our friends here who are listening to this call, my suggestion to you is to pick one step, even from this call. Pick one action item and commit to doing something with it within the next 24 hours. So you’re not that 95 percent of the population that gets great information and does nothing with it. Don’t be that person.
