Magnesium soak: Use coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com
Highlights:
Ann Louise Gittleman is back on the show to talk about her new book Radical Longevity. Ann Louise has written so many books about health and nutrition, and the focus of Radical Longevity is how to become a super ager. She shares how to have a healthy brain, skin, and sex drive.
Intro:
Hello, true health seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. You’re going to love learning from today’s guest. Ann Louise Gittleman has been one of my heroes in the holistic health space since I was a teenager.
I had her on the show back in episode 284, so I recommend going back and listening to that. She’s written 32 books in her career and quite an amazing woman. She is absolutely the expert when it comes to learning about detoxification, supporting your organs like the liver and the brain, healing the brain, and also parasites. I read her parasite cleanse book back when I was a teenager. My mom and I did her parasite cleanse and it was very effective. We got tested before and after, and I’ve been fascinated by her work ever since.
I also recommend you guys listen to episode 348 and episode 349. I had her husband on the show, James Templeton. His story that he tells is just mind-blowing. He had cancer and he was in really bad shape, and he tells the story of how he actually escaped the hospital when he realized that they were going to kill him. The therapy was absolutely… well, you just got to listen to the story. But in the middle of the night, he escapes the hospital and says I am never going back to doing that kind of chemo and all that stuff. And then he discovered more and more holistic ways of doing things and he healed his body.
He wrote a book on how he did it and how he’s been cancer-free for many, many years. Doctors did not think he would live for five years, and I believe it was something like 25 or 30 years ago. He ended up finding his now wife who has been a holistic hero for going on 40 years, and together they’re such a powerful team.
One thing that we talk about in one of our interviews with him is that he has a YouTube channel where he interviews other people who are survivors of cancer and how they did it, interesting. Not every therapy works for every person, but you learn a lot of new holistic methods, or maybe they’re new to you, but they’re not new by any means, so just really beautiful, inspiring. Both of them love to focus on education and spreading this information which is my calling too. I definitely know that you’ll enjoy listening to those episodes and then following them as well.
And Louise mentions magnesium, and she does have a really great oral magnesium supplement she likes. Now, if you’ve been a long-time listener, you’ve heard me share about how much I love the magnesium soak from Living the Good Life Naturally, and that’s just another way to get magnesium into you.
What I love about that is it bypasses digestion and so you actually absorb. She did tests of the water of the magnesium soak and we absorb 20 grams of magnesium while we’re soaking for one hour. You soak your feet in a bowl of water, any temperature you want, just as long as the bowl is not plastic. It could be metal, ceramic, just any glass, wood I suppose, or you could put it in your bath as well. It’s safe for children, it’s safe for everyone, and it’s natural. That the body absorbs as much as it needs, which is great. You can’t really overdose when you’re absorbing because it’s through diffusion.
We’ve had over 2,000 listeners purchase it and try it, and many of them have purchased it again. You have to comb through our Learn True Health Facebook group, which you can use the search function to do that. We’ve had over 200 listeners over the last few years share testimonials and stories about how the magnesium soak has helped them.
People have reported migraines going away pain. Aches and pains going away. Better sleep, more energy, restless legs going away. I love it because my son who is so energetic and never wants to fall asleep, it calms him down and helps him sleep. I notice that I just overall feel better. It’s also really helped me through supporting my liver and doing the heavy metal detoxing that I’ve been doing for the last few years. I’ve noticed that it really did support my liver and calm it down, and I got better results when I incorporated it in terms of my detoxification.
Plus I notice I just feel better—more vital, more energy. Not that I was getting a lot of restless legs, to begin with, but I did notice a few times that I’d have that sort of itchy feeling in the evening, my legs just kind of itched. The muscles just were like, it’s an indescribable sensation but restless is a really good way to describe it. I was already taking a very good oral magnesium, and then when I got into the magnesium soak, it completely went away. I thought that was really interesting.
But listen to my episodes. I’ve had Kristen Bowen on the show several times. She’s the founder of the magnesium soak that I absolutely love. What I love about her, she has a health journey. Just to give you a little teaser, she was 97 pounds having 30 seizures a day in a wheelchair almost unable to talk, that was her 15 years ago, and today she’s very active, very healthy.
I’m not going to say this is a magic bullet, the magnesium soak, but it was one of the biggest contributing factors to her recovery after she had had surgery to remove some things inside her. Just go listen to the first episode, the magnesium foot soak episode with Kristen Bowen and you will be amazed at her story. So listen to the episodes with Kristen Bowen and learn more about the magnesium soak. You can listen to episodes 294, 341, and 381, those are my three episodes with Kristen Bowen. Definitely go back and listen to episode 294, it’s her story, it’s quite amazing.
Now, to get the listener discount, she does give us a discount. Use coupon code LTH at checkout when you go to livingthegoodlifenaturally.com and then click on the magnesium products and grab the magnesium soak. I also love the magnesium cream and the muscle cream as well, but really, the magic is in soaking in the magnesium. So that’s coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com.
I also interviewed sort of the magnesium doctor, Dr. Carolyn Dean. It was a very, very long, detailed, lots of information in that interview. It was over two hours, and she shared something very interesting. Now, she’s a naturopath and an MD. She’s been practicing medicine for over 40 years and is very well known in the holistic space as the magnesium doctor. She says that magnesium is the most important mineral of the body. It is used in 1800 enzymatic processes in the body.
Zinc is second most important at 800 enzymatic processes. So if you think about it, if you’re deficient in magnesium, 1800 things in your body aren’t able to fully function and are unable to fully do their job, and then the body starts to display symptoms. Symptoms are the smoke, not the fire. Symptoms are the body saying to us, hey, I don’t have the raw building blocks I need to maintain. Just like if your car was overheating or there was some weird smoke coming out of your car, you need to pull over. The check engine light comes on, you need to pull over. You need to get that belt changed and get the oil changed. There’s maintenance, there are things the car needs, and the body is the same way. The body needs a certain amount of all these nutrients to function.
If you’re zinc deficient, there are 800 things that can go wrong in the body, one of them is losing your sense of smell, losing your sense of taste. I know a naturopathic physician here locally who told me that one of her patients came into her after going to all kinds of doctors, doing all kinds of tests, and they told her it was in her head. She couldn’t feel her entire body. She touched things and her fingers were numb, her hands were numb. She didn’t feel pressure, her entire body didn’t have a sensation of pressure. My friend who’s a naturopath said, you know what, I’m going to get you on some zinc. And sure enough, it was such a severe zinc deficiency that her nervous system could not function properly.
That’s how important these minerals are, and there are actually 60 minerals the body needs. So if you’re deficient in one, you’re usually deficient in several because it’s really hard to just isolate, eat food that only is missing one nutrient. If you have any symptoms of health issues, typically it’s a mineral deficiency because there are 60 minerals the body needs, and we’re usually deficient in a bunch of them. We have to supplement because we’re not getting enough in our diet.
We talked about this with Dr. Joel Wallach, I had him on the show a few times. He’s one of my mentors. He’s mentored me for the last 10 years. He has a degree in soil agriculture, a naturopath, and he’s a research scientist. He’s published so many things and what he saw was that there’s a deficiency in our soil because of the farming practices, and there is a direct link between that and 900 diseases. Over a 12-year study he conducted that was actually federally funded, he discovered that 900 diseases across species lines are linked to 90 essential nutrients the body could be missing. If you’re missing a handful of them, then you could have several diseases. Now the good news is we can reverse them through diet and supplementing the diet with specific nutrients.
So the good news is we can heal the body. The body isn’t a pharmaceutical drug deficient, it’s nutrient deficient. Ann Louise Gittleman talks about this today. She talks about some nutrients that we can make sure that we’re getting.
I also recommend checking out takeyoursupplements.com. These health coaches are absolutely amazing. They give their time for free, they help you to determine the right supplements for you, and I have been working with them. They’re really, really great health coaches that help you to pick out the right supplements for you that are based on the symptoms you’re having. The symptoms tell us what nutrient deficiencies you are experiencing. So check out takeyoursupplements.com and talk to them about how you can reverse the symptoms you’re having by addressing those nutrient deficiencies.
Excellent. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing the Learn True Health podcast with those you care about. Enjoy today’s episode. It is chock full of amazing, really, really great information. Have yourself a fantastic day.
[00:12:21] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 459. I am so excited for today’s guest. I’ve actually been a fan of our guest since I was a teenager. Not to age you, but you know what, given the topic today—Radical Longevity—you do live what you teach. Back when I was a teenager, I think I was about 15, my mom brought home a book called Guess What Came to Dinner. We did our first parasite cleanse. My mom was big into health and holistic medicine, and I was right there with her. As a young child, I remember going to the health food store with her.
Well, we got on a parasite cleanse and we actually tested positive for three parasites. That’s what they could test for gosh knows what we actually had, but it was amazing. That blew my mind that why isn’t everyone talking about parasites? We all have them. If you’ve been to a different country, if you’ve had cats or dogs. There are so many ways that you can get them, and so I’ve been a big fan of yours forever.
Then you came on the show in episode 284, so listeners can go back in and listen to that one as well. Today, you’re here to share about your new book that just got released, so it’s fresh off the press, and of course, the links to your book are going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. Radical Longevity: The Powerful Plan to Sharpen Your Brain, Strengthen Your Body, and Reverse the Symptoms of Aging. I look forward to learning how you’ve been doing that because you’re in amazing health. We’re all going to live to be 120 reading your books. Welcome to the show.
We have the genetic potential to do it, why not? Let’s do it. Welcome to the show.
[00:14:28] Ann Louise Gittleman: Absolutely.
[00:14:29] Ashley James: Welcome back to show, I should say. I’d love to hear what motivated you to write this book?
[00:14:37] Ann Louise Gittleman: That’s such a good question, Ashley. This is my 37th book.
[00:14:42] Ashley James: I love it. I love your fire and I love that you have helped so many people for so many years. It’s just wonderful.
[00:14:53] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, in that regard my dear, and I’m so appreciative of your kind words. I’ve written about parasites, Guess What Came to Dinner. I’ve written about weight loss, detoxification, men’s health, women’s health, hormones, premenopause, post-menopause, menopause and beyond, so there was nothing else to cover except for the concept and the arena of longevity and anti-aging. Although I don’t like the term anti-aging, that’s really what we understand today to be the next frontier, so to speak. I’m 70 years young, so this was the time. This is like enlightened self-interest.
I figured I had a conglomerate, everything I’ve ever learned, researched, and studied and put it into a book for my fellow compatriots and people coming before us and after us.
[00:15:40] Ashley James: Why don’t you like the term anti-aging?
[00:15:43] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, because I’m pro-aging. I really think that aging is a privilege, and I want people to really stop and appreciate that. It’s a privilege. Not all of us are going to have the opportunity to live long enough to say that they’re a super ager, so it’s a privilege. It’s denied to too many people. When I was looking at all the people—my friends, my associates, my compadres that had passed on before me and before their time and they’re all in the acknowledgments—I thought to myself, what were they missing? I wish they had this book in hand because maybe they’d still be with us.
[00:16:17] Ashley James: Super ager, I love that. I want to live to 120. I want to be a super ager, but also be very healthy through my golden years, which is the point, right? We want to be able to get out there, live, and be alive.
[00:16:34] Ann Louise Gittleman: That’s the point. We want to extend the youth span. I talk about preserving the youth span, extending the period of life when you have vitality, grace, gratitude, and resilience. We want to do this with resilience so that we learn to bend and not break.
[00:16:49] Ashley James: And the older we get, the wiser we get. We wish we had all these lessons when we were young, but what we really want to do is maintain a vital, youthful body throughout our life so that we can at least take advantage of all this wisdom we’ve been collecting so we can go live.
So let’s talk about the first part, which is to sharpen your brain. What are some things that you teach that keep us mentally youthful, mentally sharp?
[00:17:25] Ann Louise Gittleman: To keep mentally sharp you have to keep physically active. Whether that means walking daily, it could mean walking up and down your stairs if you’re in an apartment or in a condo and can’t get outside because of the weather. It means moving your body. It means dancing on a daily basis. It means being physically active because that helps the body, mind, and spirit, so that would be number one.
Number two, what helps the brain is physical contact, connectivity, which we don’t have because of the pandemic in this day and time, but hopefully, that will change. You want to have relationships with your family, with your friends, with your loved ones. It could even be virtual relationships, but connectivity is one of the traits of those super agers that we aspire to be.
And then you want to have a purpose-driven life. You want to wake up every morning with a purpose. Whether that’s being a volunteer, whether that’s still working as I do at the age of 72 and going on, well I’ll be 72 in June so I guess I’m 70+. But it means really having a passion for what you do. Never give up on the joie de vivre of life, and that’s exceedingly important.
Of course, eating properly, taking certain supplements, which I cover at length in the book. And then I think the other aspect that’s important is really having a spiritual, mental, or religious practice.
[00:18:44] Ashley James: You just listed the fountain of youth, the keys to life. That is exactly what people need to do. So many of us get caught up in the minutiae of life and we forget to move our body in a way that brings us joy every day. We forget to really make those meaningful connections. I love that you brought up volunteering because there are so many studies that show that people who volunteer do live longer and have less depression, less suicide. People who are depressed who go into volunteering end up having an increase in their mental health. That there’s something about serving and being part of a community, of being of service to others that actually rewards us more than the effort that we put out.
Volunteering isn’t about you sacrificing or being a martyr. It’s actually you get more out of volunteering than what you give, and that’s so cool to be part of a community where you’re getting so much mental health, emotional health, and as a result physical health from volunteering. What kind of volunteering work do you do?
[00:20:01] Ann Louise Gittleman: I volunteer on Facebook all the time. I’m answering questions 24/7. I consider that a divine volunteering job quite frankly because I’m helping so many people. At least point them in the direction of their health. If I can’t answer them directly online because that becomes a little dicey giving that kind of advice on the people that have such severe issues, at least I can point them in the right direction. Give them the tools, give them the website, give them the book, give them the supplement, and then they’re on their own. So that’s what I consider my divine passion.
[00:20:33] Ashley James: Oh, I love that. That’s so great. You said that you cover in-depth the supplements and the diet, can you give us a few pointers, really, really important pointers around diet and supplements?
[00:20:50] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, the thing that I discovered that was the aha moment in writing the book was really the chapter on the brain and the chapter on minding your minerals. I think we call it misbehaving minerals. There are two minerals that can stockpile in the brain if they’re not the proper form of the mineral or the proper cofactor, and that is the iron and the copper. You have to make sure that your levels of iron and copper are kept in the minimum amounts. Taking a ferritin test on a yearly basis would be very important for those people that have a history of Alzheimer’s because stockpiling iron in the brain has been dramatically connected to all kinds of cognitive disorders, so that would be number one.
Get a ferritin test immediately. It’s got to be under a certain degree. I give you the levels of what’s optimally healthy and what the typical lab is going to show, but you want what’s optimally healthy. the healthiest people in the world have low serum ferritin levels, so you want to approximate what the long-living populations have of the blue zones.
[00:21:53] Ashley James: Yes. In the last year, they just published a study, I thought it was fascinating, that said this could be the reason why those who eat a more plant-based diet live longer because they have more managed, not deficient, but managed lower iron levels because they’re not you know over-consuming animal flesh, which contains high in iron. It’s sort of a very oxidative form of iron. They saw that people who had lower iron levels lived longer.
[00:22:27] Ann Louise Gittleman: They do, but if you’re a meat-eater or a carnivore, if you’re a paleo kind of person, there’s help involved with that because there are ways that you can circumvent the iron by eating iron blockers, and we talk about that, whether that’s red wine. See, red wine is healthy because of the fact that it’s a blocking agent to iron. That’s the secret of the Mediterranean diet and the French paradox. It’s the blocking effect of wine, which I go into the blocking effect of certain types of dairy foods, the blocking effect of tea, the blocking effect of coffee.
[00:23:02] Ashley James: Oh, that’s fascinating. I think there are a few listeners who are liking you even more right now.
[00:23:09] Ann Louise Gittleman: So here’s to some wine. Here’s to some vino. Healthy vino, not more than one small glass a day if you’re a female, maybe up to two if you’re a male because too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing.
[00:23:19] Ashley James: Right, exactly. And then also, just watching and seeing if you become stressed out. Some people have bad sleep and then that stresses them out the next day, and then that spirals downwards. We have to watch out. Some people can’t function properly when they drink any alcohol and they just have to check in with their body and see what’s going on. And listen to your advice because maybe they need to do some more cleaning up of their diet and killing parasites.
[00:23:49] Ann Louise Gittleman: But they’re easy fixes, this is not an involved program. I mean, it’s comprehensive because we talk about the brain, the heart, the bones, the sex drive, the hair, the nails, the skin. I’m not sure if I’ve covered just about everything there. We talk about all the major body organs and glands that people are concerned about, but the fixes are as easy as can be. If you want to spend more money, then go for that. You can as well. But taking that yearly blood test is a real key, and then of course the copper connection, which I go into in great detail is also important in checking the copper levels of your current water supply, which you can do easily online, and I give you the levels which are optimally healthy. Those that may be a precursor to Alzheimer’s.
[00:24:29] Ashley James: Is water the most common way we’re getting copper or are there certain foods that we should be avoiding?
[00:24:37] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, it’s the copper that’s the copper that you don’t want. It’s the divalent or inorganic. You see, what I learned from the book and it was because a researcher contacted me out of the blue, Ashley. I always think that the universe sends me messages and messengers when I’m writing a book. He is a researcher, his name is George Brewer. He’s out of the University of Michigan. He’s in the genetics department, and he called and said I think I have the key to Alzheimer’s. I said, oh my gosh, what is it? And we have a discussion. He’s written profusely and he believes it was the implementation of copper water pipes in Europe that started the Alzheimer’s epidemic. He’s correlated that in many of his different publications.
It’s the inorganic copper, the copper that’s in the food is food-based, that’s fine, and we’ve got plenty of it in the diet and the avocados. That’s the seeds, the beans, the shellfish, but it’s the inorganic synthetic copper that the body has no method of metabolizing healthfully. It doesn’t go to the liver the way the food-based copper does, it goes to the brain.
[00:25:41] Ashley James: Oh my gosh, that’s fascinating. I’m so glad you’re pointing this out.
[00:25:46] Ann Louise Gittleman: And nobody has written about it before, which just blows my mind. So the idea here is that if you’ve got issues with Alzheimer’s or want to prevent any type of dysfunction cognitively, you should get the book and read the chapter on the brain and on the misbehaving minerals because it will widen your eyes. It will open your eyes, it’ll open your mouth, it’ll be jaw-dropping as it was for me.
[00:26:09] Ashley James: I bet. Our brain’s the most important part. I liked learning from Dr. Amen. He helps people reverse aging in the brain, but it’s all about cardiovascular function, which your program is comprehensive. It’s treating the body as a whole. But that’s why I thought it was fascinating because if you can make your brain stay healthy, you’re actually making your heart stay healthy, you’re making your whole body stay healthy. So if you’re focusing on brain health, everything else falls into line. That’s why I love that you’ve given us this checklist—moving your body, that connectivity, eating healthy, the supplements, and watching those levels of minerals. Of course, I know that your book is going to be chock full of amazing information.
Now, you did mention skin health. I know that sagging skin and loose skin. We’re vain, we don’t like it. We don’t like it when our skin gets a little saggy, a little wrinkly, so I’m interested to hear about some skin tips for firming up the skin. And then you mentioned sex drive and I think all of us want to know how we can feel youthful and still have fun with our partner no matter what age we are. So give us some of those pointers from your book for healthy skin and for healthy sex drive.
[00:27:42] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, I’m not a big believer in collagen per se, I’d rather go to the vitamin c, which is the precursor to collagen. I’m a big vitamin c believer. The Vitality C that I talk about from UNI KEY Health is the C that I use on a daily basis. And the more that you can accommodate without getting loose bowels, the more that you need vitamin C. I go to 20 grams a day without an issue whatsoever.
I’m a big believer in vitamin C, a precursor to hydrogen peroxide. It’ll stop cancer from progressing, as you know from my husband’s book. I used to have cancer, and that is in addition to lysine. Nobody talks about the amino acid lysine or proline, those are the two biggest assists for great skin, and I can say to you that at the age of 72, I have better skin now than I did at 25.
[00:28:30] Ashley James: Oh, I love it. You mentioned your husband, James Templeton. I’ve had him on the show. I absolutely adore his work. I definitely recommend listeners go back and check out those interviews with James Templeton.
Vitamin C is really interesting because a goat will have about 16 grams of vitamin C coursing through its veins at all times, and a wolf has about 32 grams, and we don’t make vitamin c, but animals do. So how many grams do you think we should have? We’re about maybe the same size or bigger than a wolf, so taking 20 grams a day isn’t that unheard of, isn’t that surprising. It’s actually what our body needs.
[00:29:14] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, it’s what my body needs is probably because of all the mercury fillings that I had years ago. But people are very individual. I believe in biochemical individuality. So I can say that what I can tolerate you might not be able to. But one scoop of the Vitality C gives you four grams of C plus D-Ribose for your heart, plus MSM for your skin. So my point being is it’s the best bang for your buck with this buffered vitamin C. And the more that you can tolerate, the more you need it. Some people can only tolerate one scoop. So for some reason, they just run through their system and they can’t accommodate it, but for those of us that can accommodate it, we’ll see a big difference in the collagen and the dewiness of the skin, the lack of wrinkles, and the lack of sagginess.
[00:30:00] Ashley James: Oh, I love it. Well, it’s so hard to get enough vitamin C from our diet because our food isn’t fresh.
[00:30:07] Ann Louise Gittleman: Impossible.
[00:30:08] Ashley James: You’re not going out into your garden and picking something right away and eating it yourself, and eating fruits and vegetables fresh all day long like we’re supposed to. That the food that you’re getting is weeks old, and the vitamin C is just not there anymore. We’re definitely, as a nation, not eating enough plants. So we’re not getting enough vitamin C from our diet, and that’s why supplements are so important because we are not eating in a natural way because we’re not walking outdoors and immediately eating fresh food. So we have to supplement in order to catch up with the modern diet.
[00:30:43] Ann Louise Gittleman: That’s a part of it, but modern-day stress will skyrocket your need for vitamin C. We’re all under stress. I mean, look at the news, that’s stressful. Seeing what’s going on in our daily political spheres is very stressful no matter what side of the aisle you’re on. So all that is going to be stressing us, plus getting older is stressing us, the pandemic is stressing us. There are so many things in the body that will respond to, and vitamin C, as well as magnesium and zinc, are lost because of a stress response. So you have to keep supplementing.
[00:31:15] Ashley James: That’s such a good point.
[00:31:17] Ann Louise Gittleman: But the other thing is for those of us that have had any kind of PTSD because we’ve had concussions and I’m one of them, the body needs more vitamin C because it’s an anti-stressor.
[00:31:27] Ashley James: What else does a body need to help heal concussions?
[00:31:31] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, that’s a good question because there’s one that had a near-fatal concussion back in 2007. One needs brain training. It’s not so much nutrients, it’s re-patterning the brain. So I’m a big believer in the brain training methodology that was pioneered by a group called Cereset. So I’ve gone and done the brain training myself. I’m out of PTSD to some degree, but once you’ve had the PTSD, you get re-triggered by any kind of life event, and then your needs for all these stress-related vitamins and minerals really go way over to the stratosphere.
So that goes back to the brain, and whatever you can do to heal that brain with all the things we talked about—the connectivity, the volunteerism, having a spiritual practice. But not getting triggered is very difficult. So you have to work on it on a daily basis. I personally take GABA 750mg morning, noon, and night. I live on Rescue Remedy and take a great deal of magnesium.
[00:32:26] Ashley James: Excellent. What form of magnesium do you take?
[00:32:30] Ann Louise Gittleman: It’s the one I formulated called Mag-Key, which has the orotate, the glycinate, the taurinate, and the threonate.
[00:32:38] Ashley James: That sounds great. I love me some magnesium. I’ll take all of it.
[00:32:45] Ann Louise Gittleman: As well as some Epsom salt baths. So whatever you can do. Stress is a big killer, but it’s very difficult to escape stress in this day and time.
[00:32:54] Ashley James: Right. So we got to keep working on ourselves and stay conscious. We got to take the supplements, like you said, have a spiritual practice, get outside and ground yourself or do some earthing. Walk barefoot on the earth and breathe in nature. Take time to consciously bring down the stress is so important.
Now, you talked about sex drive and we all want to know, how do we maintain those healthy hormones especially post-menopausally? How do we stay very youthful and healthy in the bedroom with our partner?
[00:33:30] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, I have one little tip in the book, which involves a particular vitamin which I will not give away to anybody until they get the book, and then we can talk about it then. But there’s one little tip that will heighten the intimate encounter. And then there’s an herb which I will tell you about called Tribulus which is a precursor to testosterone. Men and women can both take that at 250 milligrams three times a day. Very important for testosterone, which is the hormone of desire that goes south with both men and women once they reach a certain age and stage of life.
So using the Tribulus, using this little particular vitamin to heighten the encounter, maybe a little lubrication for women, as well as some natural estrogenic products I think is really the tip of the iceberg, and that’s the key.
[00:34:16] Ashley James: Thank you. Now I know you’re pinched for time. I was so happy to have you on the show. You’re definitely welcome back anytime. I’d love to have you. You’re a wealth of knowledge. We’ve learned so much in such a short period of time. How can we find you on Facebook to be part of your community to continue learning from you?
[00:34:37] Ann Louise Gittleman: Let’s see, where do we go? To Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., CNS, that’s the Facebook page. And then you can get the book at radicallongevitybook.com.
[00:34:48] Ashley James: Excellent. We’re going to make sure the links to everything you do are in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. We definitely want to all get the book, Radical Longevity. It would also be a great gift to give to our loved ones as well. Is there anything that you’d like to say or give us some homework to wrap up today’s interview?
[00:35:07] Ann Louise Gittleman: Well, I would say that the brain is very important, but so is the liver, and those are two organs that can regenerate themselves. So I put a lot of emphasis on the brain, of course, because we’re all afraid of Alzheimer’s, but the liver is the regenerative organ for metabolism, for metabolizing toxins, hormones, and all the poisons in the environment.
So taking care of your liver daily. Liver detox is not a seasonal event, it’s a daily event. So you’ve got to take something to get the poisons out daily. It’s not the fact that we’re accumulating poisons. It’s the fact we’re not excreting them that’s the key, and that’s where I like more fiber in the diet. I’m a big believer in psyllium husks, and that’s where I like some sort of liver-loving food, whether that’s artichoke hearts or artichoke chlorophyll. Maybe a little milk thistle and even Oregon grape root, but the liver is the key. It means long life. So keeping your liver will make sure that you enhance and ensure a long life.
[00:36:05] Ashley James: I am such a fan of taking care of the liver. My mom died of liver cancer, and I’ve had liver issues with detoxification. I’ve been working for the last six years now on supporting my liver, and I saw a huge shift in my health when I started doing that. So I absolutely, 100% agree with you. Which one of your books or maybe there’s several of them would you recommend we read for supporting our liver? Of course, Radical Longevity, but do you have any other ones that are more specific to liver health?
[00:36:34] Ann Louise Gittleman: Radical Metabolism.
[00:36:37] Ashley James: Oh, yeah. And that was the last book we talked about in episode 284. Excellent. Thank you so much again, Ann Louise Gittleman, for coming on the show. You’re welcome back anytime. We’d love to have you. I’m a big fan of your work. I definitely recommend listeners read all your books and continue following you. I can’t wait to interview you when you’re 120.
[00:37:00] Ann Louise Gittleman: We’ll see on the other side of 100, my love. You’re a sweetheart. God bless.
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https://www.learntruehealth.com/ashleys-update-for-the-learn-true-health-listeners
In this episode, I give an update about what happened during the last two months since the previous episode. I share how I’m coping with the loss of a loved one. I also share my COVID experience and how I recovered from it.
Hello, true health seekers, it’s so good to be back. I know many of you probably are wondering what’s going on. I took some time off. The last time I was posting episodes you may have heard me talk about how I was pregnant and I had a beautiful pregnancy. I was very healthy the whole time, as was the baby. And if you’re not in our Facebook group, then you probably haven’t heard but I lost our child during delivery. She was born still earlier this month. We’re still waiting for some answers, but it looks like perhaps the cord was interrupted right at the very last few minutes of delivery.
She had a very strong and healthy heartbeat the whole time, and everything was smooth right up until the very end. And then just at the very end, sometime in the last three minutes, we lost her heartbeat right as she was coming out. Dealing with that, facing the grief, obviously recovering from labor, postpartum recovery, and then I got COVID. That was an adventure.
So this last month has for me been about emotional, spiritual, and physical recovery and healing. I kept thinking about you guys, and I kept thinking about what I would say, how I would share, and how much I wanted to share my journey with you. I’m really wanting to get on the microphone. If you’ve been a long-time listener, you know that all of my experiences I want to share because I want everyone to learn as I am learning. I’ve healed so many illnesses and diseases, I’ve come so far in my healing journey, and I continue to grow healthier and stronger. It’s not all just physical, right? It’s emotional, it’s mental healing and growth as well, it’s personal growth.
When the paramedics were working on her, the paramedics came very fast. It was a home birth, and the thing is, this would have happened in the hospital as well because there’s nothing we could have done. Everything was going perfectly and then all of a sudden she was gone. There wouldn’t have been time for any kind of medical intervention.
As I was lying on the bathroom floor and the paramedics were working on her and the first words out of my mouth were God, if it is in your plan, if it is your will please save her. That surprised me. I didn’t go to anger, I don’t feel any anger about it. I mean, obviously, I grieved and I grieved and I grieved because I lost. I lost the life I was going to have as a mother to this gorgeous baby girl. My husband and I grieved, and all our family and friends around us who are looking forward to being with her, they’ve all shared the impact with me that this has had.
But I didn’t go to anger. Something in me trusted that my life, my fate is in God’s hands. And I’ve never had that level of faith before, I’ve never felt it. It was unknowing, it was a deep, deep knowing, and it’s something that I don’t think I could teach anyone to do. It’s something you have to go within and you feel it and it’s unknowing. I just knew. I have no control over this situation. I have no control and this is 100% in God’s hands.
And so that experience surprised me. I didn’t know that I would grow spiritually so much from this. So I’ve really looked to God, and that spiritual component is I think really crucial in terms of mental and emotional healing. Being able to just pray and say, okay, I don’t have control over this aspect of my life, I don’t.
There are things I can control. I can control what I eat. I can control how much water I drink. I can control the vitamins I take. I can control what kind of media I take in, which affects our mental and emotional health. I can control, for the most part, the people that are around me or the people I choose to be around. So there are so many things I can control about my life, but these moments like a car accident, a death, an illness, a sudden infection. You can control how you react, but you can’t control the outcome.
Now, how you react can sometimes affect the outcome when someone’s already gone, when someone’s already dead. Now it’s time to focus on healing and growth and focus on what we can do. And then it’s okay. I really got that it’s okay that I can’t control everything. That there’s some peace, some grace in handing that part of my life over to God and just being this is out of my control, it’s in your hands.
I’ve had some very spiritual experiences this last month since she’s passed where I know she was here with me. Very interesting and I’ve heard from other friends who have lost loved ones. A song will come on at a specific time, a rainbow will all of a sudden appear, or a lamp or a device will all of a sudden just turn on when no one turned it on, that kind of thing. So I’ve had a few of those and I thought that was very interesting. There’s a song that I chose to play at her funeral and that song came on the radio. It was Yo-Yo Ma’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and that song came on the rainbow the next day as I was talking with my husband about her daughter. What are the chances, right? It was really beautiful.
So I wanted to come on the microphone and give you guys an update. I am every day getting better and better. It’s just one step at a time. I know everyone listening has lost someone or lost something in their life, has had to go through a process of grief. I’ve lost both my parents and so I’ve experienced it, but each one’s different. Each loss is different, but the feeling of going through grief, there are certain stages that are similar. What I can say is I’m really happy that I haven’t gotten stuck.
When I lost my mom, I got stuck in depression for months and months and months and I didn’t move out of that. I didn’t move out of the anger and the depression really that first shock. I was in denial most of the time, just bouncing back between denial, anger, and depression.
This time because we surrounded ourselves with loved ones and we’re talking it through and we’re working on it, and I also believe in my faith that God has a plan. And I have those spiritual beliefs about where we go when we die. That there’s a purpose, there’s a reason. I think that really helped me as well. But of course, that still doesn’t help because I want her to be here, I want her to be with me. She was so beautiful, she is so beautiful. Join the Facebook group, I posted a picture of her. She is so beautiful, and she was very gentle in the womb. She had a calm, gentle, loving energy the whole time. Really a sweetheart.
So I’m learning a lot about healing from loss. With every loss, we become stronger. We can, we have the potential to become stronger. So I’ve learned so much about myself those last few weeks, and I’ve thought about how I could then take that and incorporate that into the podcast so that I can help you. We all learn from each other. That’s something really beautiful also about our Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group is that we are learning from each other and that we’re growing together.
I will continue to share the lessons that I’ve learned from this experience through the podcast as I find amazing guests to interview and have these great discussions with guests. If you’re new to the podcast, we focus on mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, and physical health. So there’s not a separation. When someone has a physical disease, they’re affected emotionally, they’re affected mentally. Sometimes, when people are in spiritual crisis, they experience mental and emotional health, as well as physical health issues. I mean, you can’t separate that.
You may have a diagnosis like diabetes, for example, and changing your diet and changing your lifestyle can reverse type 2 diabetes 100%. I did it myself. I reversed type 2 diabetes. My A1C is 4.7. I have amazing blood sugar, and I was diabetic for years. The point is though that those health changes weren’t just physical changes. I had to change my mindset, I had to do emotional work, I had to work on myself on a personal growth level.
So we enrich our lives by focusing on all areas, all aspects of health. That’s why the podcast is where I have doctors on the show, counselors, therapists, healers, and spiritual leaders on the show so that we can gain lessons from all these people. We can collect them all and apply what works for us.
So having COVID, that was really interesting. I used homeopathy, I worked with a homeopath, I worked with my naturopath. I got on all the natural stuff, and my body was just really, really worn down because of the grief and because I was postpartum. I was a few days postpartum. It hit me hard and I recovered fast. That’s what I’m so grateful for is that I was sick for less than 10 days. It was really bad. On day eight, I was very worried. It was hard to breathe, very worried for myself. But by day 10 I was totally on the road to recovery. Now I’m exercising. I’m a month postpartum and I’m back to exercising. I thank God. I thank God I don’t feel any of the effects. Some people experience long-term effects. I don’t have any of that.
I really contribute that to the fact that I eat clean and healthy. I take supplements. I’m not deficient in zinc. I take zinc every day. I did lose my sense of smell, and that was the weirdest because we have flowers throughout the house. So many people have given us beautiful flowers that are just smelling amazing as condolences for losing our daughter. All of a sudden I realized I couldn’t smell them. I grabbed my essential oils and I realized I couldn’t smell them either. I was like, oh no.
So I tripled up on my zinc. I started taking 90 milligrams of zinc a day and the zinc I take I really like this. Pure Encapsulations is the company, and it’s a zinc picolinate. It’s just 30 milligrams, and 40 milligrams is a very common safe dose for adults, so 30 is even less. But I decided to triple up on it. I took three, but not the same time—one in the morning, one in the afternoon, one in the evening. And two days later, I got my sense of smell back 100%. My husband had a similar experience, and then I talked to a friend who was also going through COVID and they were having a similar experience, but they lost their sense of taste and smell. I told them that I had increased my zinc, they increased their zinc and it came back right away.
I thought that was very interesting. I’ve had a suspicion, and we’ve had a few interviews about that last year. My suspicion is that we use up the zinc when we have viral infections, especially like COVID. So then we become extremely deficient. By increasing it, then we’re just addressing the deficiency. That’s my suspicion.
I took all the supplements that I knew that have been shared through the podcast and that also we talk about in the Facebook group. Those all helped a lot. You know what really helped was glutathione. I ordered some liquid glutathione through a friend of mine who’s a holistic practitioner and that really helped as well. So there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I’m back on my feet, and every day I am healing and growing stronger.
So jumping back into doing the podcast, I’m also in the process possibly of moving. We might have another disruption in podcast episodes, but I’m back. I want to start publishing weekly. I have some episodes I recorded before I gave birth. I’m going to be publishing those soon. If episodes, I might mention something about being pregnant so just a heads up. Those episodes were recorded about two months ago. They’re still very relevant, the information. So if that happens, just know that I am no longer pregnant currently. However, those were past recorded episodes, which I’ve been meaning to get up. I just got to the point in the pregnancy where I’m like, okay, my brain’s not working. I think it was at 38 weeks. I’m like, I need to take some time off.
Thank you guys for being on this journey with me. There are over 4000 people in the Learn True Health Facebook group, and you guys have been so supportive as I shared my experiences of having lost our daughter. Your support and your comments were so helpful. I read every single one of them. Often I read them to my husband, and often I cried.
There are so many listeners like me who have lost a child, either to miscarriage, to stillbirth, early infant death, or even later. You’re not alone. That’s something that’s really important to know. Surround yourself with loving people who make you feel like you’re not alone and make you feel heard and listened to, and continue to share. No matter how sad you are, how lonely you feel, or how upset you are around losing someone you love, especially a child, your impact on the world matters and you being here matters.
Vale, our daughter, was only here for a short time living inside me, and she had such an impact on my life. And then I heard that she had an impact on others. A few friends came to me and said that this whole experience has given them so much gratitude for their children and for their health. They were worried that that would sound selfish, and it’s not. It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s their experience. Of course, if you’re hearing that I lost a child, you’re going to want to go and hug your child, or hug your spouse, hug the person you love most. We don’t know how long we’re going to be here, right?
Sometimes we get so caught up in the minutiae of life, in the stressors of life, and that rat race of paying bills, coming home, and just popping yourself in front of the boob tube. We go unconscious, so many times in our life going conscious about what we’re eating or how we’re not taking care of our bodies, and then all of a sudden we’re 30 pounds heavier. We’re like, what just happened? Especially this last year with COVID, people changed their routines, they went unconscious, they started self-soothing with food, alcohol, drugs, and TV. It’s easy to lose sight of the people you love the most and the amount of gratitude you have for them.
So sometimes we need that wake-up call, that reminder, what is most important to us? Put down the remote control. I’m guilty too. I’m talking from personal experience. But put down the sugary, alcoholic beverages, or whatever we are using to sell soothe, and go be present with the person or the people that you love most. Have that experience where you’re in touch with the gratitude for those people.
I am hugging my son harder than ever before now. I’m so grateful for my husband and my son. That’s another thing I noticed that when I realized I’d lost her is I started to think about all the things I was grateful for. Obviously, I’m in deep sorrow. I was in absolute shock, and this was one of the most painful experiences of my life. But it absolutely immediately shined a light on what I do have. What am I grateful for, and that also really helped me is constantly thinking I’m alive. I could have died, right? There are women who in these situations, they die during birth along with the baby. I mean, I’m alive. I’m so thankful for that. I have an amazing son. I have an amazing husband. There are so many people I’m grateful for in my life, so many friends I’m grateful for. There are so many things I have to be grateful for, and I am. I’m grateful for the time I got to have with our daughter. So I keep focusing on that as well.
Gratitude is a healing tool. I’m not ignoring the sadness. I’m not ignoring the grief or any of those other emotions that come with it. I’m holding that, I’m honoring her in my heart, and I’m also getting in touch with the gratitude because that allows me to not be unconscious in my life. Stay on the path of taking care of myself, which is really important. I noticed both losing my mom especially and losing my dad, I stopped taking care of myself. I just went to self-soothe with food. Luckily, I was never one of those people that liked self-soothing with alcohol or drugs. It was more just sugar, which I’m not into anymore, thank God.
I would self-soothe with TV and food, go unconscious, and not take care of myself, not even brush my hair. That’s why I really knew I was in a hole, I was in depression when I lost my mom when I just didn’t take care of myself. With this, I watched and I made sure I’m still taking care of myself. I’m focusing on gratitude.
Keep listening to the podcast, join the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group if you haven’t already. Some amazing episodes, these interviews I did, like I said, before I gave birth. There are a few episodes I’ve got to post that are really good, and I’ve been looking forward to sitting down and editing them, getting them posted. And then I’ve got some great interviews lined up this whole month. I’ve got some really cool guests, so I’m looking forward to having you listen to all that.
Come join the Facebook group so that you can be part of the community and part of the conversations that we have about guests and about things that we learn together and just come be part of that. It’d be great to have you. It’s a very supportive community, and I just love being a part of that growing community of holistic like-minded people.
Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for being on this journey with me. Life is a blessing, and it’s hard. Without the loss, how can we truly feel the gain, right? I am hopeful for the future. Of course, there are moments where I just completely break down, but I’m just present in the moment with all the emotions.
I also have been doing some Emotion Code work. Oh my gosh, that stuff works. Go back and listen to that episode, it was a few episodes ago. A friend of mine who’s a mental health counselor, she’s been studying it, so she’s done some with me and it really works. I’m feeling it, which is really cool. I mean, I knew it would, but to experience it firsthand it’s very neat. It’s a very gentle process, and then all of a sudden you’re like wow, I feel different. I feel good, I feel better, I feel whole. I’m just noticing I don’t feel fractionated. It’s very interesting. So, yeah, check that episode out if you haven’t already, especially if you know you’ve got some emotional work that you want to release from your body.
All right. Well, I’m about to go in a few minutes and do an interview. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. Thank you so much for being a listener of the Learn True Health podcast.