[00:00:06.780] – Laura Cicholski

I am Laura Cicholski. Welcome to the finding balance in your business, career, finances, Health and Life podcast. Today, we are thrilled to have Jenn Malecha as our special guest. Jenn supports busy health minded professionals and taking back control of their health by giving them access to the right lab tests and resources so they can find the missing pieces of their health puzzle and get back to feeling like themselves again. Using over a decade of personal training, experience, training and functional diagnostic nutrition and transformational coaching.

[00:00:41.850] – Jenn Malecha

She creates personalized health rebuilding programs for clients that are sustainable for long lasting results and empowering clients to be the boss of their own health. It seems like a really good thing.  If you’re ready to look at the big picture of your health to embrace healthy as a way of being, then Jenn has some amazing ideas to help you. Jenn, thank you so much for being here today. How are you?

[00:01:03.000] – Jenn Malecha

I’m doing great. It’s a beautiful Tuesday like we were just talking about. And weather here in San Diego is amazing. So I’m excited to share all of this wonderful information with people so that they really, truly can feel like their best selves because that’s the most important thing in life. Right. Let’s get through life feeling good and not struggling every single day to make the most of it.

[00:01:24.480] – Laura Cicholski

I agree. And I love how you in your bio, how you mentioned Jenn, you have some amazing experience, will let you tell the audience in a minute about that as well. But I love how you talk about how important it is to not accept the fact that there might be issues we’re going through a health wise, but that doesn’t have to be the way it is. It even if that was like your past, that doesn’t have to be your future going forward.

[00:01:42.960] – Laura Cicholski

Right? It doesn’t have to be your story. You can find out different things like through your I know you do testing that you’re going to tell us about, which is exciting. But there are ways to kind of get healthy again so they can, like you said, focus on their family, their careers, their lives, the things they want to focus on versus just worry about their health, correct?

[00:01:58.530] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. I think it’s so interesting how in society we’ve just kind of like somehow gotten to this place of just settling for feeling less than good. You know, it’s like we’ve been conditioned to think that, oh, this is the natural aging process or it’s part of our genetics. And what we’re finding really is that it’s not that we your lifestyle, like how you choose to live your life, basically dictates like 80 percent of how you’re feeling, like we do have genes that have been passed down to us.

[00:02:31.650] – Jenn Malecha

But we know through the study of epigenetics now that like gene expression is definitely dependent upon our lifestyle. And so this is where there’s a huge opportunity to implement, you know, good habits and healthy, supportive habits that actually can reverse, like the aging process in some ways, if we want to call it that way. And you can feel like you’re twenty at the age of 40 or feel like you’re 30 at 50. I mean, I know that sitting here today at the age of thirty eight with you, I feel better than I ever felt in my twenties.

[00:03:06.000] – Jenn Malecha

And that’s because of a lot of things that I do that I practice that we’re going to share today.

[00:03:10.980] – Laura Cicholski

Right. That’s amazing. I know they’ve come so far, haven’t they, with like the different genetic testing and everything that they’re doing right now. And it’s interesting because a lot of times, like you said, you can’t you genetics, you can’t get away from that. Right? We have our genetics and that’s part of us. And that’s fine. But I love the fact that there’s hope that we could also do lifestyle changes, like you mentioned, and that you’ve been able to feel better than you did in your twenties is amazing.

[00:03:32.490] – Laura Cicholski

So I think you’ll be able to give hope to a lot of our audiences, not only health care providers and anyone else listening, but we’re hoping you’ll be able to give some hope to them today of how to have a better life and be even healthier.

[00:03:42.690] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah, I definitely think we’ll be able to.

[00:03:45.450] – Laura Cicholski

Now, you talk about there’s something talking about is it metabolic, Taiping? Am I saying that right, that you deal with?

[00:03:51.150] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah, it’s a it’s a diet kind of assessment. It’s actually like a metabolic or metabolism assessment that helps to direct you. And what types of foods are most ideal for your body. So you can kind of think of like it does. It’s almost like a genetic assessment in a sense. What it’s looking at, it’s looking at are you more parasympathetic or sympathetic, driven and then are you a fast oxidizer or slow oxidizer? And so I know since we’re talking to health care professionals, a lot of them probably are familiar with some of these terms.

[00:04:23.700] – Jenn Malecha

Right. And to break that down, it really is giving us insights of how do you metabolize food? Like do you do better off of fast burning fuels like carbohydrates or slower burning fuels like fats and proteins? And it even gets down into the granular aspects of like, well, which proteins are best for you? So, for example, this was a game changer for me because I studied kinesiology, fitness, nutrition and health. I was going to pursue a degree in physical therapy and turned a corner through college.

[00:04:58.050] – Jenn Malecha

But ultimately the. Is that I say nutrition, and when I got into this field originally, I was a personal trainer, so I was eating boneless, skinless chicken breast and broccoli all the time, which we can all agree are healthy foods. However, I wasn’t feeling like my best self. Like I struggled with my weight. I struggled with energy. I had cravings all the time. And when I did this metabolic typing assessment, one of the things that it showed me was that I actually do better with dark meat, chicken like chicken thighs over chicken breasts and making that little like change in my diet.

[00:05:31.160] – Jenn Malecha

I now started to feel more satiated and stable. After each meal, my blood sugar was more stable and that ultimately helped to create this greater foundation for better health. Right. So that’s how it can be, really. Eye-Opening for people. And one of the things that I like to say is that there is there’s a difference between eating healthy, eating right for your body. So I think there’s this misconception out there. Like what? I’m eating healthy and eating fruits and vegetables and eating this ans

[00:05:57.350] – Jenn Malecha

eating that. But there’s a difference between eating healthy and eating right for your body because you’re eating right for your body will incorporate healthy foods. But not every healthy food is right for your body. And if you take a banana as an example, I think we can all globally agree that a banana is a healthy food. There’s a ton of potassium, vitamins and nutrients in there. However, for a pre diabetic or a diabetic, that banana is not necessarily healthy food because of how it spikes  blood sugar or if you have a sensitivity to that food and it’s not a healthy food for you.

[00:06:29.790] – Jenn Malecha

So we really want to apply this like bio individual approach to even dietary concepts and our health concepts as well to figure out what really works for a person’s body.

[00:06:41.660] – Laura Cicholski

You’re totally right. You’re bringing up some great points. And you’re right. Like my even my own daughter, she has some, like, allergies that they tested around, like environmental allergies. And then the doctor had told her allergist had said, well, your daughter might have some sensitivity to foods like bananas. And we thought, no, that’s not true. You’re right, Jenn. She is. She whenever she eats a banana, she gets a stomachache, but she likes them, so she’ll eat them.

[00:07:01.670] – Laura Cicholski

But then she’s like, oh, mom, I know I’m going to suffer after. So you’re hitting so many good points. So let’s talk about it then. And we’ll talk about sleep a little bit, too, and different rhythms. But it’s so interesting. We talk about food. So how do they figure that out? Because that’s not something that traditional doctors test for, right? Is that something you test for what they want to find out more about?

[00:07:21.080] – Laura Cicholski

What is their type and what types of foods should they have?

[00:07:24.470] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. Or do they actually like? So the greatest part is that it’s a noninvasive test. It’s actually an online assessment, which some people might kind of balk at and say, well, then it’s not scientific. But the questions on there are very scientific. So like it’s asking questions like are you’re the pupils of your eyes dilated on a regular basis, which would pinpoint to the fact like that’s a sympathetic type of response. Right. And so it’s asking you about your body’s natural nature.

[00:07:55.640] – Jenn Malecha

And like we know like, ah, when we’re in a sympathetic response, like our heart rate might be elevated or certain things are happening. And so it’s asking these it’s looking for these cues and clues which are overall evaluating then if you’re more parasympathetic or sympathetic, driven, and then also asking you about your experience with food in some way. So like when you if you eat a meal primarily made up of carbohydrates, are you hungry right afterwards or do you feel satiated?

[00:08:27.650] – Jenn Malecha

Which gives us insights about the fact that you might do better with carbohydrates as a fast burning fuel. That’s what your body’s adapted to. And what it kind of goes back to as well is we can look at this from an ancestral standpoint also. And knowing that, like, if we look at if we boil it down to the most simple aspects, we can categorize people into like protein types on one end of the spectrum. So these are people that do much better off of higher fat or higher protein diets.

[00:08:56.300] – Jenn Malecha

And we have carbohydrate types which are on the other end of the spectrum. And then you have mix types which are kind of in the middle. And if we look at, again, like so indigenous ancestral total opposite of that is like South America is. If you look at something like South America where you’ve got the rainforest, you’ve got a lot of fruits that are growing like just totally abundant and that’s closer to the equator. They also eat lighter proteins like fish is one of their primary protein sources down there.

[00:09:24.110] – Jenn Malecha

So we could say that’s a great example of a body that’s evolved  that deals better with carbohydrates and lower fats and and protein contents. Right. And if we really look at migration patterns, a lot of the migration patterns of our ancestors actually came through that northern hemisphere area if we really track back. So that’s where, you know, in the work that I do, I would say that this is true statistically, that about 80 percent of the population does better off of a little bit higher fat, higher protein, lower carbohydrates.

[00:10:00.080] – Jenn Malecha

And then we’ve got some people that do better on a mix, like a blend right in the middle and the small portion of people that do better off of the carbohydrates. And I think that’s interesting. If we even look at what’s going on in our health care system right now, like how many people are pre diabetic and diabetic? Yeah, it’s not just because our standard American diet is laden with carbs and sugars, but it’s also because the body can only handle so much and doesn’t process them very well.

[00:10:26.210] – Jenn Malecha

So I’ll even have people that come to me that are eating a paleo diet, which is seen as very modern, day like healthy. It’s an evolved type of diet. And even in that paleo diet, they’re eating too many carbohydrates in the forms of vegetables and fruits than what their body can tolerate. Like that macro nutrient ratio or balance is often when we shift that to what is more ideal for their body, they actually get better results and feel better, too.

[00:10:54.980] – Laura Cicholski

So interesting isn’t that I think our doctor always talks to us about the paleo diet. Isn’t that like the seeds in the nuts and the fruits and vegetables? Is that the fish? Is that what it consists of?

[00:11:03.680] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah, it’s primarily like proteins and vegetables. Minimal fruits are involved in there. They do some seeds and nuts. It’s widely like grain free, like gluten free grain and also dairy free as well, too, like milk based products.

[00:11:22.580] – Laura Cicholski

It’s a very kind of healthy kind of back to the land type living type in food. Exactly. And stuff, which is nice with where our ancestors kind of lived. That’s so interesting. So then if they wanted to kind of get more of this testing, they could kind of contact you. Exactly.

[00:11:36.440] – Jenn Malecha

Like I said, it’s a game changer for a lot of people. And then I like to blend that with a food sensitivity test because the one thing that it doesn’t take into account are our food sensitivities. And so the food sensitivity test, we blend that with metabolic typing and then we can come up with this very, like, ideal list of foods for somebody to focus on and then the foods that might be better to be avoided. Which is great.

[00:11:58.730] – Laura Cicholski

It’s always good to kind of have a starting point, especially like you said in the beginning, if they’re not feeling well, there’s a better way, you know, I mean, there’s a way that you can kind of figure it out and hopefully get you feeling well going forward and kind of on your way. Now, you also talk about not only nutrition is being very important, but I know when I first heard you speak, which was amazing, a different interview.

[00:12:16.280] – Laura Cicholski

I heard you mentioned sleep and how important it was. And I then before I had heard you say this, I had never you know, we’ve always heard about get your seven, eight hours. And obviously, these wonderful hero health care providers probably aren’t doing that, especially when they’re working different off shifts. But I had never heard before, like the the hours you sleep are so important. So can you talk a little bit more about what happens in our body with those hours?

[00:12:39.050] – Laura Cicholski

And it’s and I went to school years and years ago and we just they never really talked about that.

[00:12:43.430] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. It’s so fascinating to me that we forget to tap into our own body rhythm sometimes. And I diet and exercise are important. But I say that you have to learn to value sleep more than diet and exercise because you can’t out diet or exercise poor sleep patterns or habits, essentially. And so this is always mind blowing for people because again, there’s a lot of like just confusing information. I think about sleep out there, like, oh, it’s you need seven hours sleep, you need eight hours of sleep no it is your REM sleep or your deep sleep, like there’s all these studies.

[00:13:17.660] – Jenn Malecha

And while some of these aspects are important, the thing that is actually most critically important is the time frame in which you sleep. And this is because of our our body’s natural circadian rhythm, which is driven by the sun and the moon cycles. And so this has to do with our cortisol as well to see if we and how our hormones all work together. So when the sun rises and the morning time and light and temperature increases, this is when that the body is then now signaled based on these light and temperature changes to release cortisol.

[00:13:53.810] – Jenn Malecha

So cortisol is our stress hormone, but it also helps to regulate blood sugar. It’s also a natural, inflammatory, anti inflammatory agent. But it also is what gives us energy. It kind of has like an adrenaline type of like that value to it in a sense. And if you do like a four point saliva or a urine test to test cortisol, you’ll see this rhythm in your cortisol pattern. And so about two hours after waking is when cortisol peaks this high.

[00:14:22.060] – Jenn Malecha

So you should have the most energy when you get up in the morning. So if you’re dragging ass, getting out of bed, then there’s probably something off with your cortisol rhythm and then it slowly tapers off throughout the rest of the day so that it reaches its lowest point in the evening time. And part of what signals the body to do that tapering is as temperature and light decreases throughout the end part of our day into the evening time. Right.

[00:14:48.800] – Jenn Malecha

So then based on this, there’s other things that are also in sync with this internal clock that we have, like, for example, when cortisol starts to decrease. And light and temperature decreases at nighttime, that’s also what signals the body to release melatonin, which everybody knows is asleep. It’s also what signals the body to release human growth hormone. So if we think about this, it makes a lot of sense. Like in order for our body to repair itself, we need to be in the parasympathetic state.

[00:15:19.070] – Jenn Malecha

So we call this the rest and digest it. And so it would make sense that if the body is going to release human growth hormone to repair cells and tissues, we want to be in that parasympathetic state. And this is happening as we go into sleep. Essentially, sleep is the ultimate parasympathetic state that should be happening. And then there’s other things like if you Google a Chinese medicine body clock, you’ll see some really great images of this, of like in Chinese medicine, they really have clearly mapped out like the what organs or what systems of the bodies are doing certain things during throughout the day.

[00:15:53.750] – Jenn Malecha

So like one of the most critical windows is between one and three. This is when the detoxification system, like the kidneys, the gallbladder, the liver, are doing their big work to cleanse everything out because again, these processes only can really happen in a parasympathetic state. Like we know that when we’re in a sympathetic state, all of our blood flow is directed outward to our arms and legs for quick moving into our brain, for quick thinking. When we’re in this parasympathetic state, all of our blood flow is directed inward to our organs for digestion and repair.

[00:16:28.700] – Jenn Malecha

So at night time, this is when these massive detoxification processes can happen. And so the circadian rhythm concept is so important. So the critical window of sleep is really from 10 p.m. to about four a.m. and every hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours of rest for your body, really. So this is where I meet so many people. They say, well, I go to bed at midnight and I get eight hours of sleep, but I still wake up feeling tired or not rested.

[00:17:01.760] – Jenn Malecha

Well, that’s because you’re missing that window of 10 to 12, right. So it’s it’s kind of very fascinating, Laura. Like I’ve had clients that have been they have said, oh, I’m a night owl, I’ve been a night owl my whole entire life. And then we really dig in. They feel wired but tired at night time, or they’re getting a second wind. And that can be a cortisol surge that’s happening due to some kind of like stimulant, whether that’s a food sensitivity, too much light exposure, even gut pathogens that are going on.

[00:17:33.530] – Jenn Malecha

And so we fix a lot of these things and they start shifting to this 10 p.m. cycle. Like I’ve had clients shift from sleeping at 12 a.m. to sleeping at 10 p.m. and it makes such a huge difference for them. I literally have had a client tell me before, like if I go to bed at 10, 15, I wake up feeling hungover and the morning versus if I go to bed by 10 pm, I’m asleep by 10 p.m. I feel refreshed.

[00:17:56.360] – Jenn Malecha

When we get into this circadian rhythm, we feel so much better and it helps to like instantly that afternoon slump. Well, I’m tired because part of that afternoon slump is because of dysregulation, usually in the cortisol rhythm. And so when we are sleeping during the right times, it actually helps to balance the circadian rhythm with cortisol and it helps to regulate blood sugar as well, too. So you find yourself craving less food or just feeling more satisfied throughout your day and you just feel more rested and then you can actually optimally hit that REM and deep sleep sections as well, too.

[00:18:35.480] – Laura Cicholski

Those are such great points. And I know I have heard before that they talk about if people are struggling, if they want to drop a few pounds just for their health and if they’re struggling to, a lot of times people will ask, the first thing is how much sleep are you getting? That has to do with our metabolism and resetting things. I love those things. So let’s talk let’s go back to health care providers. So obviously, a lot of them are probably working second, third shift.

[00:18:57.260] – Laura Cicholski

So even if you’re doing second shift, you’re probably getting home close to midnight. You’re probably still wired. The other ones are working during those critical hours. What do you suggest for them? And then can they catch up on the weekend as well?

[00:19:08.660] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. So I think it’s like whenever it’s it’s so let’s kind of break it down. Like people who are working late a later shift and they’re just getting home late. I mean, it depends on I think a lot of shifts are correct me if I’m wrong, but just having worked with some nurses, it’s like a seven to seven shift oftentimes, which is a nice one to have because you can still get home and eat dinner and then aim to get to bed by ten.

[00:19:31.730] – Jenn Malecha

I think sometimes in those areas, what I find, what happens with people, they’re like, I get home at seven by the time I deal with the kids, cook dinner, blah, blah, blah, I’m getting in bed later. So I always encourage you to say, OK, well, what things can you shift into the morning time or what resources or support can you put in place to ensure that you can get to bed by 10:00 pm?

[00:19:50.480] – Jenn Malecha

So like pre making meals earlier on different days in the week that you have off, for example, or meal and delivery services or like. Hiring help sometimes because, you know, our health is worth money. And so in bringing in some of those resources can be really helpful. Now, the for the people that work a shift where it’s impossible to get to bed by 10 p.m. because maybe you’re a 12 to 12 shift or like your 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., so you’re working full graveyard.

[00:20:24.770] – Jenn Malecha

Then when we when we do sleep, we do want to simulate the darkest point in nighttime as much as possible. So those graveyard people, when they come home, they want to, you know, assimilate basically darkness and for their sleep time as much as possible to help with that, with the body. And then for people that are just working into the sleeping hours, to your point on the weekends, that would be or on the days off, those are the time to like to really catch up per say on sleep and be asleep by 10:00 pm with a graveyard shift workers.

[00:21:00.950] – Jenn Malecha

We don’t want to totally disrupt the pattern. So if you’re great with the graveyard shift, we probably want to stick with the same pattern because in your body is going to develop a routine around that which still technically isn’t in alignment with you, with your your circadian rhythms. So like everybody has a different level of vitality. Some people are built to where they can tolerate graveyard shifts for long periods of time. Other people aren’t built the same way. And so depending on what’s going on with your health, sometimes we have to look at these things and recognize that, like, our work environment is not supportive of our health.

[00:21:40.970] – Jenn Malecha

Right. And I mean, I would say that, like long term graveyard shift work is probably not great for anybody in the long term, but some people can really tolerate it more. So what does that mean about setting up the optimal environment? Well, for anybody, whether you’re trying to set up a graveyard optimal environment or you’re sleeping during a normal sleep schedule, here are some key things that are beneficial for anybody. Sleep environment is one is making it absolutely as dark as possible because as we just talked about, like part of what signals a body to get in this parasympathetic mode for cortisol to be lowered, melatonin be released, human growth hormone, et cetera, is the essence of the temperature and light decreasing.

[00:22:24.620] – Jenn Malecha

And so, you know, on average, optimal, like sleep temperatures around sixty eight degrees. We want to learn a little bit brisk, a little chilly. We sleep better that way. And then secondly, as dark as possible, because this is kind of the problem with our modern day society is that we can create artificial light and artificial temperature settings. Right. And so these can mess with our body signaling system. So you can do things like blackout curtains.

[00:22:51.020] – Jenn Malecha

I recommend for people to get almost all the time, especially like you want to take a look at your environment, like does your bedroom face a streetlight where you’re getting a lot of light in there even? Do you have devices in your room that are emitting light like cable boxes that are emitting a blue light or your TV or an alarm clock? Or what always gets me in hotel rooms is the smoke detector with a green light. So I actually travel with, like black electrical tape before I go to bed in a hotel room.

[00:23:22.850] – Jenn Malecha

I like tape. I put tape over all the light things because we not only absorb light through our eyes, but we also absorb light through our skin. I mean, this is this. If you think about how we make vitamin D, right? So we absorb and also and these these particular types of artificial lights in general can be especially harmful to our sleep. So things like eye masks are helpful as well, too, for some people. But ultimately, if you’re wearing an eye mask and you’re still getting light exposure on your skin, then that can negate getting a good night’s sleep, essentially.

[00:24:02.270] – Speaker 2

And then, you know, there’s things that you can do in your environment to make it more relaxing. Like I love diffusing essential oils. Like really common ones, like lavender, for example, are really great to use and doing so meditation or some deep breathing to get yourself out of that sympathetic state, especially if you’re coming straight off of a shift and try to get to bed. Like any time that we adopt the deep rhythmic breathing patterns of a relaxed person essentially automatically flips the switch in the brain, takes you out of sympathetic mode and puts you in a parasympathetic mode such as activities are really helpful.

[00:24:40.320] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. Before as a general rule of thumb, for if your room is dark enough is like if you put your hand about six inches to a foot away, if you can see it too clearly, then that means that it’s there’s still too much light coming into the room. So that’s a good rule just to check by which is good. So nightlights like in kids rooms should not use those either.

[00:24:59.500] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah, it’s probably not great. I mean, a night like you can do, there’s softer nightlights, so like what? So here’s a little trick for kids that might work and something that I do because we don’t I mean, you can’t be bumping around your room in complete darkness when you’re trying to get hurt. Right.

[00:25:18.730] – Jenn Malecha

One of the things that I do is we have salt lamps in all of our rooms and salt lamps have this nice soft glow to them. Plus salt lamps like purify air and like combat electromagnetic frequencies and mold and all kinds of stuff. So what I have is we have like a little timer that plugs into the wall that we plug the salt lamp into. So my salt lamp, like, I’ll get in bed in the salt lamp is on and at 10:00 p.m., the salt lamp automatically turns off and then the salt lamp will automatically turn on about five minutes before my alarm clock goes off.

[00:25:55.150] – Jenn Malecha

So it kind of starts to stimulate my body to wake up so that I’m ready when the alarm clock goes off, too. So that might be a good thing for kids that have trouble falling asleep with the lights completely off. You can do something like this with a timer and ultimately, like a softer light is going to be beneficial for them.

[00:26:13.960] – Laura Cicholski

That’s a great point. Now, Jenn, you’re talking about like the Himalayan salt lamps. I’ve seen those before, but I didn’t know. Now, like, if people have like, let’s say a fifteen hundred square foot house or two thousand square foot house, how many would they need in there? I would you just because there’s m what is the electromagnetic frequency every day. Homes nowadays.

[00:26:31.280] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. Essentially I have one and in each room that we spend a lot of time in, I have one here in my office. I spend eight to 10 hours in my office per day. Right. I have one in my bedroom because that’s the other place that spend the most amount of time.

[00:26:46.690] – Laura Cicholski

OK. OK, so if someone’s in the kitchen, a lot too are living in the area on the weekends for your kids, you might want to have one. That’s very interesting. I didn’t I’d heard about them, but I didn’t know that there was anything to the reducing the electromagnetic frequency. That’s neat.

[00:26:59.890] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. It’s a great little like hacker. A trick. I love it.

[00:27:02.680] – Laura Cicholski

It’s one of my favorite. Well, that’s kind of a good Segway to like, even toxin’s. I know I watched some of your videos and you always do such a great job of talking about sleep is important exercise, nutrition.

[00:27:16.800] – Laura Cicholski

Yeah, it’s becoming much more problematic than I think anybody really wants to acknowledge or address, and here’s kind of my analogy to it is that, yes, a lot of people will say, but we have a detoxification system, we have a liver, we have the lymphatic system, we have our skin, which is all true. And here’s what’s been happening, is that essentially since World War Two, there has been an extreme rapid release of toxins into the environment.

[00:27:47.110] – Jenn Malecha

So I think the last statistic that I saw was like over one hundred and fifty thousand toxins have been released since World War Two, which is a lot. Right. And and if we think about just how fast paced look at technology these days, like, you know, there’s a new iPhone every year and it’s like, how is it even possible to improve technology, this rapid rate, the same thing are happening with toxins. And so normally what our body does is our body would evolve to match our environment.

[00:28:17.070] – Jenn Malecha

Right. But it takes generations for the body to evolve and change. So if you and I know that our health care workers will understand, this is like if you look at different types of mammals that have shorter lifespans, then we see evolutionary changes much faster. But in humans, we have longer lifespans. So evolutionary changes take a longer time to happen. And so World War II what it’s been like, gosh, I’m going to totally be wrong about this, but 70 years or something at this point in time.

[00:28:48.830] – Laura Cicholski

Yeah, my grandpa was in it and he was born in 1912. So you’re probably right.

[00:28:53.220] – Jenn Malecha

So this is a perfect example of like so my dad, my great my grandpa like flew aircraft in World War Two. My dad was like my dad was born, I think in World War Two time. And and here I am, the third generation. So, like, there hasn’t been that evolutionary change of generations for me, my body to adapt to the current load of toxins now because these toxins have been introduced over time. So I kind of equate it to like think of like your liver was normally working like one hundred and forty hour or a 40 hour workweek.

[00:29:31.770] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. Yeah. And now it’s being asked to work one hundred and fifty hour work week. Right. So toxins are definitely becoming problematic. On top of that, we’re seeing there’s different classifications of toxins that directly impact your current health status. Like we’re seeing things like there’s a category of toxins called obesogens, for example. And these toxins, they actually cause cells that are supposed to become things like bone or stem cell or some other tissue. They cause them to become fat cells.

[00:30:05.340] – Jenn Malecha

And we actually store toxins in fat. And one of the most common places that we store toxins in fat is around the middle center. And what is a big thing that we have going on in our population is like everybody’s got this spare tire, this extra  that is toxins. Yeah, it certainly could. Right. OK, and then we have things we have another classification of toxins called and endocrine disruptors. So endocrine disruptors specifically disrupt the glands of the endocrine system, your thyroid, your pancreas, your parathyroid, your adrenals, your ovaries or testes.

[00:30:44.790] – Jenn Malecha

And it also disrupts the hormones here. So think about this. Like some known and endocrine disruptors are chlorine, bromine and fluoride. They actually bind the thyroid hormone and make it inactive. And where do we find those toxins in our water that we drink and that we shower every single day. So multiple times a day or like Alix’s upon ounces of water that we’re right.

[00:31:10.740] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah, every day. Right. And then another one is that it’s a little bit more well known, not by the term but by the source of the toxin is zino estrogens. So there are toxins that specifically will mimic estrogen in the body, elevate estrogen levels. And one of the most commonly known estrogens is plastic, BPA, plastic specific. But there’s a lot of estrogens in our environment, phthalates, parabens. There’s actually a fantastic book that I would recommend for people to read called Estero Generation.

[00:31:47.250] – Jenn Malecha

It’s written by a scientist and he’s talking about all the estrogenic types of toxins that are so like widely found in our environment, how it’s altering the sex of fish, that they’re finding phthalates and parabens and polar bears. He actually talks about how these estrogens are altering the male structure. So I think. What kind of men we find most attractive, usually it’s like the Brad Pits of the world and Matthew McConaughey and what do they have in common? They’re nice chiseled face structure.

[00:32:27.040] – Laura Cicholski

Yeah, right. Right.

[00:32:28.620] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. And so, like, we still have some of these, like, ancestral instincts, like women are going to find men with these chiseled faces like. That’s right. Actually like an instinctual thing for us to be attractive. And what the the author of this book points out is that one of the things that estrogens and studies have shown is that they do is that they’re actually causing men to have more rounded faces.

[00:32:54.160] – Laura Cicholski

Wow. That’s really interesting.

[00:32:56.250] – Laura Cicholski

Isn’t that fascinating?

[00:32:57.620] – Laura Cicholski

Wow, it is. I know we like kids and I we try to watch anything that is parabens or feel it somehow. That’s so interesting because I was like, could be they say it could be cancer causing. Now, what about soy? Is soy considered a weak astron, too? Because you hear some people say soy is good for you. And then other times I think I knew it was a weak estrogen. Do you recommend soy or not?

[00:33:16.800] – Jenn Malecha

I do not. I do so with estrogen and primarily, I mean, because it is a weak estrogen. And we look at the confounding factors of all the other estrogenic components in our world. It becomes too much of a load altogether. Right. So one of the things that we want to do, this conversation, we’ve mentioned a lot of things. It’s not ever one single thing, you guys. It’s the load that’s. So if we look at like, OK, if we compile like Horsely patterns with all the toxins that are going on with we’re not eating a diet.

[00:33:48.540] – Jenn Malecha

That’s right. For your body. That’s where the body really starts to break down. It’s not ever one single thing we want to address. Yeah, we really want to address all these things to really feel like our best self, if that is the goal, which is so interesting.

[00:34:03.810] – Laura Cicholski

You have so many great points, Jenn. You’re very well rounded on these subjects. It’s interesting. And I remember something that sticks in my head is they talked about uncle genes and so the genes that we don’t know if we have them or not, they were saying.

[00:34:16.260] – Laura Cicholski

And so they said if someone does have it, I was tell my husband this and like, don’t drink something with aspartame because I remember in school they talked about if you had the gene and you don’t know if you do unless you get tested, they would test for uncle genes. I don’t know. But they said it could they aspartame could turn on that oncogene and then you could have severe health issues from that. So to this day, I think about that.

[00:34:35.280] – Jenn Malecha

What I mean is that you could have yeah, there’s just different genes. And that’s the interesting thing, is we can turn them on or off the right based off of lifestyle factors. And I just want to go back to another point here about the toxins that we just talked about, the importance of sleeping and sleeping during this specific window of one to three, which is where our major detoxification process is taking place. So if you’re not sleeping during that window or if it’s disrupted sleep, then guess what?

[00:35:01.320] – Jenn Malecha

All these toxins, you’re not processing out either. So I really recommend there’s some great things that you can do to just help the body’s natural to the detoxification process all day long, like putting lemon in your water, eating more beets, incorporating dandelion in some kind of way, whether that’s the actual dandelion greens are doing like dandelion tea, castor oil packs or another at home remedy. Easy thing that people can be doing that help to stimulate detoxification.

[00:35:31.020] – Laura Cicholski

So are they pretty safe castor oil? I haven’t heard of that.

[00:35:33.810] – Jenn Malecha

Oh, yes. Super safe. Yeah. OK, very, very safe. It’s also very anti-inflammatory helps to balance hormones and all these great things too. And so there’s things that we can do to boost detoxification. And then and then you can’t live in a bubble. But there are ways that we can minimize toxin exposure. So like eating organic and GMO free, for example, to omit pesticides and herbicides and eating meat, that’s hormone and antibiotic free.

[00:36:01.470] – Jenn Malecha

And then looking at drinking only filtered water and high quality filtered water like a Britra filter is not enough. I’m sorry, sorry to say we want like a multi stage filtration, like reverse osmosis is one of the best. But there’s some downsides to reverse osmosis because it’s like it takes four gallons of water to make one gallon of drinkable water, which can be wasteful. And with reverse osmosis, you still need a pre filter for chlorine because chlorine will destroy a reverse osmosis system.

[00:36:32.880] – Jenn Malecha

So but it’s some people might have that system and it’s great. There’s other multi-stage filtration systems that you can get whole house or just under your sink or at a minimum, get a good countertop water filter for drinking and cooking water, something for your shower. So you’re kind of like, you know, I always prioritize it and tackle minimizing toxins from things that are going in your body first because that’s having direct impact. Foods, water. What is your food touching like plastic food storage containers.

[00:37:03.720] – Jenn Malecha

Are you seeing toxic like Teflon nonstick pans as well? And then we move out from there is like. So then the next thing to prioritize is what’s going on your body, like your lotion. Is your shampoo, your conditioner is your makeup, because those things all have toxins in them, too, potentially, and then they can absorb through the skin, your body still has to process them. And then from there, the third priority is moving out into your environment.

[00:37:28.300] – Jenn Malecha

So this is like swapping over your cleaning supplies, maybe putting some nice air filters in your house, looking at just the overall environmental aspects.

[00:37:39.240] – Laura Cicholski

You are giving us so many things to think about and so many questions going through my head, but I’ll try to ask all of them right now. So when you talk about the Britta water filter, you said it’s not a good option. No, we have one on our fridge, but then we also have one in the fridge. Britta, is that you just remember, that’s when you recommend getting the system underneath the sink or something versus the pitcher.

[00:37:56.830] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah, definitely.

[00:37:58.740] – Laura Cicholski

Now, what about obviously there will be people health care professionals going on vacation. So you talk about chlorine pools and we have a pool in our backyard and people go to the ocean, swim with the saltwater. What do you recommend? Because vacation’s important for rejuvenating, regenerating, relaxing. But obviously, pools I mean, the summer is coming up. You have chlorine. We have the saltwater pool, but there’s chlorine in it too.

[00:38:18.720] – Laura Cicholski

And then you have the ocean. What do you recommend for minimizing? Is that just taking a shower afterwards? Because we’re in our pool a lot during the summer. I know a lot of people probably are.

[00:38:27.480] – Jenn Malecha

Look, I’m a realist. Like we have to live life and enjoy the same time. So that’s why I like, you know, like 90 percent of the time when you’re not on vacation, you really are good and practices things. And then when we are traveling and doing stuff. So. One is that I always look to get really good filtered bottled water. So my favorite brands are our life water. And I think the other one’s called a scene is how it’s it’s like a black and red label.

[00:38:55.110] – Jenn Malecha

They’re both our reverse and there’s other waters out there too. But they’re both reverse osmosis filtered waters. They come in a BPA free plastic bottle. So there’s still just because it’s BPA free, by the way, doesn’t mean that it’s toxin free. But, you know, that’s about the best you can get unless you can find something in glass, which is great. So just trying to minimize, you know, I love to enjoy the pool. Saltwater pools are definitely better than chlorinated pools, right?

[00:39:19.860] – Jenn Malecha

The ocean is better than chlorine ultimately. So spend more time in the ocean. All the minerals and stuff that we absorb through that are really helpful. But this is where like, OK, if we just incorporate, like, daily habits that are going to boost detoxification, like, OK, then when you’re out to dinner, you’re going to order the salad that has the beets on it because beets can help boost detoxification. You’re going to put lemon in your water.

[00:39:42.450] – Jenn Malecha

You can do like a really great, like herbal liver support supplement, something that’s got like dandelion roux and milk thistle and artichoke roux and or something like that. That helps to boost that. You could if you want to take it a step farther, like when I travel, I actually take binders that help to bind toxins and pull them out. So things like activated charcoal, for example, or bentonite clay is when I hear the word charcoal, I think, OK, toxic.

[00:40:11.880] – Jenn Malecha

Oh yeah.

[00:40:12.820] – Jenn Malecha

No, it’s totally fine. I know a lot of like in the in the typical health care world, they use that a lot to, like, stop you up. You can actually take like charcoal and and and bentonite clay at a moderate level. It just pulls it bans toxins and pulls them out of the body or things like liposomal glutathione glutens, one of the most powerful like master antioxidants. It helps the detoxification. So you can supplement with that as well, too.

[00:40:41.010] – Jenn Malecha

So there’s definitely some supplementing options that you can do. And again, I think it’s just making sure that you’re practicing as much as possible at home. And then there’s also things like exercise, like movement is how we moving our body. Exercising is how we move the lymphatic system, which drains all the toxins and everything. So making sure that you’re being physically active, which hopefully if you’re out on summer vacation, that’s part of what you’re doing. You’re not sitting on the couch somewhere.

[00:41:09.090] – Jenn Malecha

Right? You’re like enjoying the summer.

[00:41:12.360] – Laura Cicholski

Go and sit for a little bit, but then also get out there and walk on the beach.

[00:41:15.900] – Jenn Malecha

Do exactly you know, you’re swimming in the pool, playing with the kids. It’s warm outside. You’re probably sweating, going for a walk in the morning time. Something like that is going to help also. And just being out in nature is, well, really helps to boost the body’s detoxification system also. So the more that you can be outside, the better always.

[00:41:36.330] – Laura Cicholski

And it reduces stress. So which is helpful for everything right. In our bodies to reduce the stress and calm yourself down. So you bring up some awesome points. So question, if you can, health care providers that are trying to maybe bring their own lunch to make it healthier versus going to the cafeteria or grabbing something when they’re in between patients, those plastic containers are easy to bring along. The glass ones with the little top are not easy. So what do you recommend for you said trying to get away from plastic, which I agree with?

[00:42:01.740] – Laura Cicholski

Is there are there other containers they can use or bring on or not?

[00:42:05.370] – Jenn Malecha

There’s definitely great stainless steel option.

[00:42:08.460] – Jenn Malecha

Oh, oh. Have you seen those stainless steel ones? One of my favorite food storage. Options is called statures, they make silicone food storage containers there, I think they actually just came out with some, like bento boxes where you can put stuff in them. But mostly what they have is like almost like it’s a replacement for the plastic black and the plastic bag. And they have all different sizes and stuff like that. But go on on Amazon, there’s some really great stainless steel like lunch containers or food storage containers if you don’t want to use glass.

[00:42:42.250] – Jenn Malecha

Well, some of these like stainless steel, kind of like lunch kits. They call them bento boxes. They actually have like a little they’ll have partitions in them. So there’s like a section for the sandwich and then a section for snacks so that you don’t need to wrap the sandwiches necessarily.

[00:42:56.800] – Laura Cicholski

All of that is nice and you have to use the plastic bag. Better for the environment and the oceans, too, right?

[00:43:01.270] – Jenn Malecha

Yes, exactly.

[00:43:02.630] – Jenn Malecha

A win for everything. That’s awesome. While you’re giving us so many amazing tips, where can our audience find you today?

[00:43:08.590] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah. So I am really active over on Instagram as the holistic health boss. Holistic is with a W just like Whole Foods or whole body. So that was a holistic health boss. And I also blog a lot about what we’ve been talking about today, have a ton of great resources over on my website, which is https://wholistichealthboss.com And if you head over to , https://wholistichealthboss.com,  Also see a little pop up for a twenty one twenty one day free program.

[00:43:37.240] – Jenn Malecha

It actually breaks it up into three weeks of going through these concepts that we discussed today. Like week one is really diving in, doing a little metabolic typing, like a basic assessment to understand are you protein, carb mix type and then tuning into your body and being able to match the macronutrients for what your body needs. And then week two is about diving into sleep, like we talked about so much today. And in week three is where I dove into exploring gut pathogens like bacteria overgrowth parasites, because that’s another very common thing that I see given to our modern day world and conveniences and how we’ve been living that we’ve become really good hosts for these things may not know it.

[00:44:20.080] – Jenn Malecha

And having a small amount of them is like definitely normal is part of our natural ecosystem and our health. But when they become an overgrowth is when they can become problematic and be causing some problems in there, too.

[00:44:32.000] – Laura Cicholski

So interesting. And you bring up a great point we didn’t have we might have to have you back to talk about just gut pathogens, because that’s just another topic. And I remember having a nutritionist for my stress relief series, and she talked about she said it’s interesting how probiotics are good for us. We have them in our gut. They help for immunity. Right? They help for digestion and absorption. But she said, you know what? She said that you also and you probably know about this, do they talk about functional medicine, doctors doing testing to see if you need more probiotics or less?

[00:44:58.030] – Laura Cicholski

So isn’t that interesting, too, because we’re always taught that those are good for you?

[00:45:01.270] – Jenn Malecha

Yeah, it is definitely interesting. It’s, again, just about that bio individuality. Like what is it based on their situation right now, which is. Well, it’s been great to have you with us today. And I know you provided our audience that our health care providers with great tips. Thank you so much.

[00:45:16.330] – Speaker 2

Thank you so much for having me, Laura.

[00:45:17.890] – Speaker 1

Great pleasure. Thanks, Jenn.