Patient Empowerment, Prevention & Real Health — with Dr. Ann Hester

What if you had more control over your health than you’ve ever been told?

In this powerful and eye-opening conversation, I’m joined by Dr. Ann Hester — a double board-certified physician in Internal Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine (a distinction held by fewer than 1% of doctors worldwide), with over 30 years of clinical experience.

Dr. Hester is the Founder & CEO of Inspire Health, author of Patient Empowerment 101, and a passionate advocate for prevention, health literacy, and helping people take back ownership of their well-being.

Together, we explore:
✨ why so many people feel overwhelmed by conflicting health advice
✨ the truth about prevention and lifestyle medicine
✨ how simple daily habits can prevent and even reverse chronic disease
✨ what patients are often not told — and why it matters
✨ how to feel more confident navigating your health and the healthcare system

This conversation is a beautiful blend of science, practicality, and true empowerment — reminding you that your health is not something outside of you… but something you can actively influence every single day.

Dr. Hester’s work has been featured on CNN, TIME, and Newsweek, and through her teaching, writing, and courses, she continues to help thousands of people simplify health and create lasting change — without extremes.

🌿 Learn more about Dr. Ann Hester

https://www.everydayhealth.com/authors/dr-ann-hester/ 

✨ Start your own journey

Take my free Ayurvedic Imbalance Quiz:
https://www.ithriveforhealth.com/ayurvedic-dosha-quiz/

🤍 Let’s connect

Book your free 15-minute connection call:
https://tidycal.com/ithrive/connection-call

🔍 SEO Keywords

lifestyle medicine, patient empowerment, preventative health, chronic disease prevention, holistic health, health education, functional wellness, mind body health, Ayurveda and lifestyle medicine, healthy habits

If you send me her exact website + socials, I can plug them in cleanly so it’s fully ready to paste.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome to my podcast Up Your Total Glow. I'm so excited that you're here with me. And I've got something very special today. I'm speaking to a remarkable woman. I'm speaking to Dr. Anne Hester. And Dr. Anne is double board certified in internal medicine and lifestyle medicine. This is a combination which is held by fewer than 1% of physicians worldwide. She has more than 30 years of clinical experience, and obviously brings a rare depth of insight into prevention, chronic disease, and the everyday behaviors that shape our long-term health. Dr. Hester is the founder and CEO of Inspire Health, the author of Patient Empowerment 101, a course creator, educator, and a passionate advocate for health literacy. Her work has been featured on CNN, Time and Newsweek, and her mission is clear. People suffer unnecessarily because they don't realize how much control they actually have over their own health. In our conversation today, we explore what true empowerment looks like, how to navigate an overwhelming healthcare system, and the simple daily choices that can transform our well-being. I'm so excited to share this interview with you. Let's dive right in. Welcome to the show. I'm honestly so excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

So where to start with such a remarkable woman? Let's start right at the beginning, shall we? I would love to hear where in your early career as a clinician did you feel most unseen or unheard? What drove you to then explore another path of empowering people?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Very early in my clinical career, I noted a huge gap between how we think and our patients think. And that gap did and does lead to a tremendous amount of unnecessary suffering and sometimes even premature death. And so, as far as being unheard, the issue is more that we have not adequately taught the public how to communicate with us on a level that we could really be partners. Patients deserve to be the center of their own healthcare team. But often they are pushed to the side and then they come in not equipped to really talk to doctors in the best way to expedite their own care. And so I've been on this mission. I've been a physician on a mission for decades, just trying to help people understand because you don't have to go to medical school. You don't have to be a nurse. All you need is a few tools to understand what you can do differently to have a significant impact on your life.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

I absolutely love what you're saying. This is what I so believe in. It's what I'm hearing is really empowerment and allowing us to really take good care of our bodies. And I feel, and I think I speak for a few people here, that this is what our modern healthcare system is really lacking. Um, it's completely taken from us, and this is a huge problem. So I'm so excited. Tell us how how are you empowering people? How are you giving people simple tools so that they can take care of their own health?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

So I have an internal medicine hat. I practice internal medicine for decades, and then I have a lifestyle medicine hat. After I spent decades practicing typical medicine, then I pivoted. And now I am more of an educator, a health coach, and so forth. So to do it one at a time, as far as the classic internal medicine approach to helping people, I wrote a book, Patient Empowerment 101, more than a book, it's an adventure. And it teaches people how to think like we think. It teaches them how to talk to us on a level that will help us throw certain things out very quickly as far as what we're thinking it could be, and zone in on the most likely diagnoses. And what that does is it decreases the need for extra tests that can be painful, expensive, and sometimes dangerous. It decreases the need for ordering medication. Ah, this may work. Let's give it a try. But that costs somebody some money, and it can cause somebody side effects. And so my focus in that book was to teach people in a fun and engaging way. Like you're sitting down, my next door neighbor just happens to be a doctor and explain to me what I need to know. So it's a very down-to-earth, easy read that teaches people how to navigate the healthcare system. I'm an American, but these tools can be used any place. Because the bottom line is if you can go into your doctor's office and give your doctor like a one-to-two-minute elevator speech about what's going on, the doctor does not have to ask you question after question after question or order a lot of extraneous tests. Because by the time you finish your last sentence, the doctor has already figured out a short list. If you say belly pain, initially the list is like this. But once you give the doctor this elevator speech, so to speak, then he's already ruled out all these other things and he may be focused on one or two things. So that's how I empower people from the internal medicine standpoint. But the lifestyle medicine standpoint to me is so much more powerful now. A lot of people don't know what lifestyle medicine is. It is now in, I think, 57 countries and likely growing. But lifestyle medicine is based on decades of research into ways to prevent, treat, and potentially reverse a lot of diseases naturally. Modern medicine deals with the band-aid. Okay, the disease is here. What pill can you take to live longer or to have fewer symptoms? Lifestyle medicine uses no pills. It deals with six pillars that have been shown to help decrease the risk of getting most chronic diseases and potentially reversing some of the diseases and even treating some of them purely without medicine. And even if you need medication, if you follow these pillars, there's a strong chance you'll need less medication.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Shout it from the rooftops. And I feel I can see that, and it's awesome. And I feel if it's coming from someone like you who really um has explored both paths, there is so much more credibility as well. And I feel this is a huge chance also for doctors to learn something from you. Obviously, we need both systems, but I feel the one system has become so overpowering that the other system is not being recognized as much or used as much. And also, as you say, there are certain things that yeah, we need medicine for, and other things. You can absolutely treat it and reverse things with the lifestyle. So thank you for sharing that. And it's absolutely intriguing to me the book that you wrote. I think this is brilliant because what I heard above many things is that I feel it will decrease fear. Um, I see that often that there's a huge fear around going to the doctor because, yes, and I can speak for myself, I don't feel I have anything to say there. I'm getting shut down straight away. Nutrition doesn't mean anything. What I do anyway is, you know, they don't believe in. So I feel this is a problem because I love to have a conversation, or I would love to have a conversation with my doctor and you know, really explore. I'm not anti-medicine at all. And I know that for certain things, other things are just more practical or powerful and effective. So I absolutely love that you combine the two. Would love to hear, is there more of a personal journey as well behind your passion? Because I can feel that's a huge passion coming from you doing all of this.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

I have seen so many people pass away from diseases unnecessarily. I'll never forget when I was an intern. I was working in the intensive care unit, and there was a gentleman who was overweight, he had diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. He must have been in his mid to late 40s, and he died. And I remember when he had a cardiac arrest, his heart stopped, and we did everything that we could to try to revive him, but we could not. And I had to go to the waiting room and tell his wife, I'm sorry, we did everything we could do. But your husband passed away. She fell on the floor screaming. It was uncontrollable grief. And I knew this did not have to happen. There's no reason that he had to go down that path. That is one of the things that will forever stick in my mind. Because decades later, I can still remember that day. I can still remember where I was standing and where she was standing when she fell on the floor screaming. My desire, my mission, my goal is to empower as many people as possible so they don't lose a loved one. So they are not that next statistic. Because we know, at least in America, eight out of ten visits to the doctor are for diseases that are lifestyle related. People are passing away, having heart attacks, strokes, certain forms of cancer, diabetes, amputations, blindness, kidney failure. So much of this could be prevented. And we need to do better. Putting this information out there, and I think the public now is much more hungry than in the past. At one point, it felt like people felt, well, my doctor would take care of it. I'm not going to worry about it. And now I think people are saying, hey, I'm the center of my healthcare team. I need to know this. What is there I can do other than take this pill? And they deserve that. They have that right to be educated and empowered on ways that we know can decrease the risk of developing these diseases.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Absolutely beautifully said. And how beautiful would it be if we lived in a world where everyone knows these pillars and takes great care, or as much care as they can in their circumstances of their bodies, and prevent so many diseases before they actually happen, or if there are already some symptoms are able to reverse. And this is my own story. I know that this is absolutely possible. I know you are not making this up, I'm not making this up. This is the truth, and it's beautiful and it's powerful. So talk to us about the pillars. What are the pillars? How do we go about this?

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Number one, a whole food, plant-based, plant-predominant diet. I'm not saying you can't ever eat any meat, but think about going into a beautiful field of flowers. Just imagine you walk into a meadow with all these different colors, all these smells. The birds are chirping. Just envision how beautiful that is. When you eat, your table, your plate should be that beautiful. You should have all these different colors. Different fruits and vegetables have different colors. These different colors stand for different things, different phytonutrients, different things that decrease cancer risk, different vitamins, different minerals, all of these things together make up a healthy plate. And if you focus on whole foods, I don't mean the ultra-processed foods that you're going, you have to open a plastic package to get to. I mean the whole foods, fruits, vegetables, grains, herbs, seeds, nuts. If most of your plate is filled with the different colors of all of these natural foods, there's not going to be too much room left for the other things. Now, a lot of people think if you do that, you don't get protein. That's not true. Nuts are full of protein, but they're high in calories. So you don't want to overdo it. But beans, you could eat beans regularly, like pinto beans, black eyed peas, so forth. How are packed with protein? Enamami. One of my favorite lunches is the enamami with some extra virgin olive oil and some sea salt. I mean, I could eat that every day. Packed with protein. There's so many ways you can get protein. And so you can still have preferably healthy meat like salmon or chicken breast or so forth. And I'm not gonna say you can't ever eat red meat, but we know red meat is classified as a carcinogen, meaning it can increase your risk of colon cancer. And so you want to minimize that. That should not be part of your everyday life. And also things processed meats, sausages, hot dogs, all of those things, they all have the potential to do harm. So go as natural as possible. A whole food plant-based diet is the only diet known to man that can reverse heart disease. By that I mean they've done a study. I believe it was Dr. Dean Ornish did the study, and you had two groups of people, and they had blockage of the arteries that go to the heart, the coronary arteries. So one group followed lifestyle medicine and followed this diet. The other group did not. But they still took the standard of care medications. So fast forward a few years, they repeated the study. And those who followed the whole food plant-based diet were into lifestyle medicine, they actually had less blockage than day one. And those who did not had more blockage. No other diet has been proven to do that. Also, this diet can decrease your risk of dementia, various forms of cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, so you name it, it does that much. The next pillar is meaningful.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Can I just interrupt you for a moment? Because this is just so beautiful what you said. And obviously, it's so true. Thank you also for sharing this study with us. Um it's a very powerful study and it speaks for itself. And I love that you started to speak about protein because this is about what everyone is talking about now at the moment. And um yes, protein is important, and it is for our Westerners in our Western world so hard to undereat in protein, I believe, because protein is pretty much in everything, unless you truly eat only um processed carbs. Obviously, there is hardly any protein in. Um, but this is not my experience, this is not what I see in people. And because of the focus of protein, I actually see a lot of damage that there is protein overeaten and fiber completely missed out, and that is not serving our bodies either. So there's a huge misunderstanding, and we do have the um we like to go big and huge and exaggerate in the things we do, don't we? So if someone says, oh, this mindful of protein, we like go and make everything protein, and you know, it's that's not what our bodies need. So I really appreciate that you spoke about that and spoke about plant-based protein that also contains fiber and is just so incredibly beneficial for our health, for our gut, for our glow. And yes, absolutely able to reverse disease in a delicious way, healthy. Absolutely. So thank you for sharing that. And also, I wanted to add um, we are nature, so it makes sense to me that nature, the way you described it, beautiful, colorful food from nature, is healing to us and it's nourishing to us. That makes to me complete sense. Yeah, okay, thank you. Thank you. I just needed to say that because it was just beautiful. Your pillar two.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

I appreciate that. Okay, pillar number two, it's meaningful movement. You don't have to run a marathon, you don't have to be extremely active to the point of passing out, but you have to move regularly. Even sitting down for 30 minutes at a time does something to the enzymes that impact your cholesterol. You can be very active four or five days a week. If you spend the weekend on the sofa watching television, you negate some of those benefits and you still have a lower life expectancy because you do that binge movie watching or whatever you're doing, just sitting around. Even if you work at home, which I do now. I don't do clinical medicine, I do administrative medicine, coaching, and so forth. But I'm looking at my treadmill that's under my desk. I'm looking at the little desk that I can lift up. So I can lift up the desk, I'm typing on my computer, I put the treadmill underneath the desk, and within 30, 45 minutes, you know, I've gotten a good workout in. The endorphins are flowing, my brain is clear, I'm really retaining more information, and my heart and my health are a lot happier. And so even if it's a matter of five minutes here, 10 minutes there, it's extremely important that you exercise regularly. And in America, our the guideline is 150 minutes per week of moderate activity. That's like three miles an hour walking, you're walking with your friend, you can talk, but you can't sing. Or 75 minutes of vigorous activity. So you're jogging, don't try to talk or sing, or some combination of those two. And two to three days a week of strength training. So that is the national guideline here. And I'm sure other countries have you know some variation of that.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

So um, yeah, it's very important that we keep it moving, so to speak, at all costs. Just get up. Sometimes I'm in the kitchen making food and I'm just swaying back and forth. Just do something to stay moving. You don't want to gel. You don't want to sit at your desk for hours at a time and your brain just kind of flips off and you're trying to stay awake, and you're just drinking coffee to stay awake. That is not how you want to fuel your body. You want to fuel your body with endorphin, with all of the hormones, the energy that is going to keep you healthy. So that's pillar number two.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

And so that everything is flowing, yeah, that you keep your cardiovascular system um flowing, that the lymph is actually um flowing. This is so powerful. And what I loved about it was that you mentioned, you know, it doesn't have to be necessarily super big. You can um take little Increments in time. You gave a few beautiful examples. Stand at your desk, walk into the kitchen. Um, I would like to add maybe 10 wall squads. Um, it's it's it's those little things that make a huge difference, and I feel this is doable because I also see that there's a lot of hesitation to restart if you feel you are unfit or haven't worked out in a while. It feels like this huge mountain of ooh resistance, and I don't know if I can do it. Um, start little, this is what you're saying, but keep moving. We are born to move, so our bodies need movement. Beautiful. Yay, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

And I would ask the audience to think about something that they love. Is there a song and genre? Do you like listening to audiobooks? What do you enjoy doing? So I have a teenager, and when I say exercise, she's not really thrilled, but I put her on the treadmill downstairs, I turn on a cooking show, and she loves to cook, and she's so busy watching that show that an hour goes by. Oh mom, I did 60 minutes. You don't really notice your exercise and couple it with something that you like. Do you like to dance? Dance around your house. What is it that brings you joy? And find out a way to couple that with exercise, and it makes it so much easier.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Beautiful. Yes. Thank you. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Okay. So we're going to go on to the third pillar, which is going to surprise some people, but that is connections. So when you have that love connection, and you can even have a connection with a puppy or a kitten, have something to love, somebody to love. When you have that love connection, your body releases this hormone called oxytocin. We call it the love hormone. It does various things, but one important thing that it does is it counteracts the harmful effects of cortisol, the stress hormone that has a lot of harm. And so when you have those relationships, those connections, you can actually live longer. So that's something people may not be aware of. So that's the first three.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

And it's so important because our cortisol levels are for most people really out of sync. Um, which has something to do with our daily rhythms, our daily lifestyle, this whole automatization being way too long on our devices, um, staying up for far too long, and and and um you might go into this later, maybe. Um, but yes, I absolutely love that you know, by having connection with someone or something, by cuddling your cat, your dog, um, making sure you spend beautiful hugs with your partner regularly, you can reduce your cortisol levels. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

So that brings me to the next pillar, stress. So cortisol is your main stress hormone. And if the pit bull next door is chasing you, you want that cortisol. An acute stress situation demands cortisol, but you have to turn it off. Just imagine you have that dog that's chasing you. You can be really fast for a while, but after a while, you're gonna slow down and the dog's gonna catch you. So you need to be able to have the hormones acting when you need to and have them turn off or dial down when you don't. The problem is not cortisol. Cortisol is your stress hormone. You need cortisol. The problem is when it keeps itself at a very high level. So just imagine that you have a very expensive car and you hit the accelerator and you just keep your foot on the accelerator. You don't have any more oil. Imagine what that is going to do to the inside of your car. You would never do that because you know the damage. Elevator cortisol from chronic stress does much more harm than the lack of oil would do to a Lamborghini. Excuse me. So let me give you an example. Chronic stress shrinks an important part of the brain. It's called the prefrontal cortex, is right here. That is your brain's command center, your CO of the brain, your higher level thinking is from the prefrontal cortex. You do an MRI on a person, you put the person under chronic stress, you repeat the MRI, the brain is smaller. Another part of the brain, the hippocampus, deals with your memory, chronic stress. That's smaller, too. The part of the brain that you don't want to get larger and blossom out is the part that deals with anxiety. You know, you're anxious, you see a spider, you just go ballistic, your emotions are all over the place. That's the amygdala. Chronic stress makes that bigger. So you look at the MRI of a person before chronic stress and after they've been under stress for a long time, and you'll see the parts of the brain that we want are literally smaller, and the part that we don't want is bigger. So that's just the tip of the iceberg with chronic stress.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

And it's what we're seeing hugely elevated, like there's so much anxiety these days. Yes. Um, it's crazy. Absolutely. Um, so thank you for sharing that. Um, is there or do you have a special tip or habit or lifestyle that you suggest that will help us? Um I think it might come in the next pillar, but or in one of the next pillars that you suggest that is really important to help us with this chronic elevated cortisol.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Exercise is extremely important. Exercise releases these chemicals, endorphins, and other chemicals that impact your brain and relieve your stress. When your stress is better, then you can sleep better at night. So that's the next pillar is sleep. Yeah. That's also good for stress.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

And so can I just say something? Because I feel this is also sometimes misunderstood. Um that I also see some women are working out a lot and putting their bodies too much under stress. So it's really important to maybe have your cortisol levels checked, or if you notice that in the evening you are wide awake and you have trouble falling asleep, while in the morning you find it really hard to get going. Yeah, if this is once or twice the case, this is normal. However, if there is a clear rhythm, this suggests that you are under chronic stress, that your cortisol levels are not in the um way they should be, because they should be high in the morning. Um, that's normal, but then they get lower during the day if your cortisol levels are functioning the way we are meant to be and function. Please correct me if I've got this wrong. This is what I think I learned. And um, yeah, so I feel it is really, really important to also listen to our bodies and make sure we are not over-exercising and finding this range where really we support our bodies instead of just pushing, pushing, pushing. So, yes, you want to sometimes push your body, but I feel that is a fine line. What are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Absolutely, anything in excess can be detrimental. So if you're exercising so much that you are causing physical damage, that's not good. But if you're exercising so much that you know you have all these endorphins and other things, you're hyper alert and you cannot wind down to go to sleep at night, then the lack of sleep is going to cause more stress and it's gonna impact your cortisol levels and you can get into like a negative spiral.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Thank you. Yeah, beautiful. Okay, please continue with your next pillar that I'm very excited about sleep, because I feel it's for most people a very unsexy pillar. It's the pillar that I really value. I value my sleep above everything. And ever since I've started to do so, my whole life has changed, honestly. So for me, this is really important. So talk to us about sleep.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Well, in this world, we glorify people who can stay up all night or they can get by on three hours of sleep and still do things, but that impacts their life expectancy, it impacts their likelihood of diseases. We know that even shift work, people who they switch between daytime and nighttime work, that can increase the risk of breast cancer and other issues. Your body needs a good rhythm. You need to be in a rhythm, you need to sleep. When you sleep, a part of your system that's called the glymphatic system, around through the lymphatic system, but the glymphatic system goes to work. It's like your cleanup crew and it sweeps the toxins from around your brain. So you wake up the next day refreshed. When you don't sleep, your cortisol levels are going to get out of whack. Your hunger hormones are gonna get out of whack. You're going to likely crave junk food when your body doesn't need any more calories. But the signals that come from leptin, which is the hormone that says, I don't need anything to eat, you're not acknowledging those. But you are acknowledging the girlin, which is the other extreme, the hunger hormone that says, I'm hungry. It's like your stomach is growling, girlin means you're hungry. And so basically, you're eating more and more, and frequently you eat the junk food, which causes inflammation, and it just keeps going on.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

And depletion from minerals and vitamins at the same time, which then also can cause even more cravings. At least that's what I'm seeing. Yeah, beautiful, beautifully said.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

It can impact everything about you, impact your disease risk. Sleep is not a luxury, it's a must. And if you're not sleeping, then work on a regimen to do so. Something as simple as training your brain to say, okay, it's wind-down time. You don't want to have your cell phone scrolling, you know, near bedtime. Put it away, put it in another room, or just at least put it far from the bed. Turn the lights down some. You know, don't be in a room with these bright lights and watching TV and then, like, oh, time to go to bed. You turn everything off and expect to go to sleep. Give yourself a wind-down routine. Start dimming the lights. You may want to take a nice warm bath, lavender bath. Definitely doesn't hurt. Maybe some herbal herbal tea, chamomile, or some other sort of tea to help you wind down. Do something enjoyable, whether it's journaling, reading, you know, do something so your brain is in that I'm getting ready to doze off mode. And get in the habit of creating a wind down routine that your body gets used to. And so once you start doing these things, then don't turn back. Don't go back and turn on the TV. Just stay focused. Your goal is to get seven and nine hours of restful sleep each night. Most people do well with that. Some people they don't need that much and they still function well. But typically, seven and nine hours of sleep per night is what we're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Beautiful, absolutely. And I love what you said before, also creating this um wind-down routine because it is so true that our bodies, our minds like predictability that creates safety. And so if we have this routine and obviously filling it with those beautiful things that you shared, beautiful lavender bath or a beautiful chamomile tea, that is helping the body also to have this warmth and feeling of safety. All of this combined allows the body to you know relax and all is good. I can sleep now, instead of just going and pushing and then expect of our bodies, okay, and now sleep, perform, sleep. Yeah, thank you. It's beautiful and powerful and easy to do. Uh maybe not easy to do for everyone just yet, but it's simple, it's a simple step that I feel everyone can do, and then with some grace and some time, it may become easy.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Absolutely. So we only have one more pillar, and that is toxin avoidance. So most people know that tobacco is not good, and alcohol is a toxin as well. But people don't realize, for instance, for women, drinking a glass of wine a day increases the risk of breast cancer. Alcohol has an impact on so many organ systems, but getting past the obvious alcohol and tobacco, think about what you put on your largest organ every day, your skin. Do you slather on perfumed lotion that has chemicals that you can't even read? They're made in a laboratory. When you clean your home, are you using natural detergents or are you using chemicals that you can't read the label? Anything made in a laboratory has more potential to do harm. I'm not gonna say 100% of the time, but the vast majority of the time, if you use vinegar and water to clean your mirrors, that's a whole lot better than using something with 20 chemicals that when you look online, most of them are endocrine disruptors, which basically means your endocrine disruptors are these chemicals that mimic your regular hormones. And so they may latch on to the receptor on the cell that normally gets these hormones, but that leaves the real hormones ineffective. So a lot of the chemicals that are in products are what we call endocrine disruptors. I like the website ewg.org. You can go there and you can put in various products or put in various things and you can find the different chemicals. It doesn't have every product in the world, of course, but you can get an idea of what chemicals have been shown to maybe have an increased risk of cancer, cause asthma, eczema, endocrine disruption, fertility issues. So people need to be aware what they're inhaling and the detergents, the household detergents, what they're putting on their skin, what they're brushing their teeth with. Baking soda is my new toothpaste. Don't use it all the time. I use it pretty regularly. Um, shampoos, I mean you name it, that the new carpeting is gonna have some volatile compounds. Everything around you is gonna be replete with chemicals. So minimize your contact when you eat fruits and vegetables. And I can't speak to how things are in Australia, but there are plenty of herbicides and pesticides here.

unknown 39:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

And so if you can eat more organic, go for it. And when you have to choose, because it can be expensive. eWg.org also has a clean 15 and dirty dozen list, and that basically is based on the number of herbicides and pesticides grown on things in America. But there may be something similar, you know, in Australia. We do, but yeah. The bottom line. Great, okay. What's the name of that site?

SPEAKER_00 40:03

I don't know the site. Um, I have to look that up, but um just look up the um um clean 15 or dirty dozen, and you will you will it will spit it out for you, yeah, in Australia as well. Perfect. I can look up the site as well and link it.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Okay, all right. So clean 15 and dirty dozen, that's that's a a global term. Those are global terms. I see, I didn't know that. Okay. So just minimize, realize everything that you put in your body and on your body is going inside, is going to have some sort of chemical reaction. It can be good or bad. And what I really want to bring home, now that I've discussed the six pillars, is your genetics don't make your future. There are very few diseases that you have no control over. Your habits make your future. 90% of manifestation of conditions is habit related, 10% is genetics.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Thank you. Thank you for saying this. I would like to say something personal here. Um it's about my mom, and my mom is amazing, um, and she has a few health issues, and I've been trying to work with her for a while, and that has been wonderful. But she's been on a lot of medication, and all the side effects ask for new medications. And she has been put on two new medications recently. I spoke to her yesterday, and I asked her a little bit about it. Okay, so fine, if you feel you need those medications because you're scared, that's fine, let's use them as a bridge. But what can we do? Meanwhile, because it doesn't solve the issue, it's just a bridge. I'm not against the bridge if that makes you feel safer, and it will cause more issues, and your overall issue, your root cause isn't solved. So, what is the doctor suggesting? Nothing. He said that it's just my genetics. And I was like, I and he's a um well-known cardiologist. I'm like, okay, maybe he's older and doesn't know any better. Everyone absolutely the question of the doubt and or the benefit of the doubt, but you know, this is my mom we're talking about, and it's just my heart sank because I know this is not the truth. We absolutely can impact on our genetics. This is what I'm doing all the time. I've got very similar genetics, obviously, to my mom, and I know what my weakness is, and I can impact them, and so can you and everyone else. And I love, love, love that you are empowering others to do so. So thank you so much. And another very personal question because you mentioned you've got a teen daughter as well. I've got a set no 18 and 20-year-old two daughters at home, and about the toxins and about all the perfume and all the things that are so trendy on TikTok. What do you do? How do you empower them? Like, I'm trying, but I find it really hard, and I'm very, very aware of all this toxic load.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

I try to give them good alternatives. They're they are used to shopping with me, picking stuff together. Actually, I have two, two teens at home. They'll shop up, mom that has chemicals. Mommy's not gonna get it for us. Like, yeah, you're right. So they are training, you know. They know. Now we cannot avoid everything. So I do buy them some things that I'm not really thrilled about. But on the other hand, they are used to plenty of organic fruits and vegetables. Um, they even love broccoli. I don't know how my husband did that, but um broccoli and he buys their organic broccoli. So do the best you can to balance it out. There's no way you're going to protect them of all the toxins. You can't protect yourself. I can't protect myself from everything, but just do what you can to put the balance in their behalf. And as they grow older and they're used to, well, I'm used to mom getting organic this or organic that, or, you know, I'm I'm reading this, I'm learning this. They'll grow. You know, they they may make some mistakes along the way, but all we can do is give them the foundation and let them know I want you to do this because it's in your best interest and because it will decrease your risk of something bad happening. They're going to make the decision, but we can give them the tools, the seeds that they need to sprout.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Beautiful. Thank you so much for that. Now, very aware of your time. I do have two more questions. One, I would love to hear about your morning routine or evening routine or daily routine. Whatever feels the most um powerful to you, if you would like to share with us, do you have a morning routine or an evening routine?

SPEAKER_01 45:18

My morning routine is when my feet hit the floor, my knees hit the floor. When I get up, the first thing I do is pray because that is the source of my strength.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

And I read scripture. And it's like my feeling station. Because once I have that, that fuel, then it makes everything else so much easier. And when I am a rush and I don't really do what I typically do, I can feel it. And I try to get, you know, water. You know, I have I brought this all of these containers, glass containers. That's another thing. If you can't avoid plastics, do that. Glass of stainless steel. But I bring a lot of water up to my office. Um, I start my day now when I start working. I may sit down for a few minutes, but I'm up typically within minutes standing at my desk, typing. Because once I sit down, you know, I don't want to do that. I don't want to feel like I'm gilling. I'm just so used to just sitting down and everything. That that's not what's going to bring me energy. I keep moving. I've got to keep moving. I may just find a reason to go downstairs, find a reason to walk down the hall, just keep it moving. Sometimes I sit at my, I stand at my desk and I run a place. And or get on the treadmill, or I'll do Tai Chi walking, or I'll lift weights. But there's always something you can do to keep it moving, to continue to do those things to move forward. You don't want to get in the habit that you start work and you just sit there, and your mind jails, and your fingers are doing something mechanically for hours. That's not what you want to do. So that that's my routine in afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

I love it. Thank you so much for sharing. And my other question is what is the one question that I haven't asked you, but you wish I did?

SPEAKER_01 47:29

What is the one thing that I wish everybody would do after listening to this podcast? And my answer would be examine your diet. Food, um, poor food is the cause of so much disease. Ultra-processed foods are huge. Scientists know how to create foods with just the right combination of fat, sugar, and salt. So that when you eat those foods, the same pleasure centers in your brain that are stimulated with sex and opiates and lovely music, they're stimulated. So you want more because you feel good. And so it's like we're an experiment. The food companies are getting rich because we want more and more of the junk food because we feel good. And then Big Pharma says, okay, now you have this disease, this is the pill. I can help you with that. So realize that we are being manipulated, people are getting rich as we're getting sicker and sicker and dying earlier and earlier. So I want you to grasp that, teach it to your children, your significant others. And I'm not asking you to never have french fries again. I'm not asking you any of those things. I'm asking you to fill your plate with healthy foods, and then there's just not that much room left for the things that are not healthy. So that would be my take-home point.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Thank you so much for that. And it's the truth, it's not conspiracy. Everything you shared is the truth, and I know that there are people hired to exactly what you said, mix the right flavors, the right chemicals all together to hit your pleasure point, get you addicted to all those junk foods, and they don't serve you. Like you said, you can have them once in a while, but they don't nourish you, they make you sick. And yes, they are big companies that make big money while you are getting sicker. So thank you for saying this so clearly. I truly appreciate it. Where can we find you? And your work, your amazing work and your book.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Thank you. So the book is called Patient Empowerment 101, More Than a Book is an adventure. It's on Amazon and it's also available on Kindle, so that can be downloaded immediately. So Patient Empowerment 101 More Than a Book is an Adventure. My website is based on the pillars of lifestyle medicine. You're going to find some other courses like Cardiologist does the course, and other people do courses because I started off with traditional medicine trying to educate people. But then when I learned about lifestyle medicine, I flipped. So the top courses are based on preventing, treating, and reversing diseases naturally. PTR. So the website is PTRreset.com. And you can sign up and take a free sneak peek and look at various videos about all the pillars of lifestyle medicine. There are various mini masterclasses that are free. So I am just reloading them. I just reloaded some tonight and added some dates in the future. But essentially, things from brain health, you know, how do you decrease stress? Um, things along those lines. There are several topics, several times, different times of the day, morning, afternoon, evening, Sundays, they're free. And so that is like a free 30-minute session with me. Um various people, number numbers of people could be on it, but that is uh another resource that you can do absolutely for free.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

Wow, thank you so much for your incredible generosity and for your incredible empowerment. You truly make our world a healthier, happier, and better place. And I'm so grateful for you, for your time, for everything that you do. You are an incredible woman. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

That's so kind of you. I really appreciate that. Those words mean a lot.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

I hope that this conversation with Dr. Anne Hester left you feeling informed, inspired, and more connected to your own power. Her message is such an important reminder. We do have far more influence over our health than we are often taught we do. And we I do feel that knowledge is the first step toward real self-advocacy. So you'll find all the links to Dr. Hester's work and to my offerings in the show notes, as always. Thank you so much for listening, for being here, and for investing in your own health, empowerment and glow. Never ever forget, you are light, you are love, and you are already whole. Much love. Keep glowing.