A Day in the Life: The Wellness Way of Ada

In this Day in the Life episode of Chamber Amplified from the Findlay-Hancock County Chamber of Commerce, Doug Jenkins talks with Dr. Todd Gillfillan and Alicia Weaver from The Wellness Way of Ada about what it’s like to work in the wellness and health restoration industry.

The conversation covers chiropractic care, inflammation, lifestyle change, immune health, common misconceptions about wellness clinics, and why many people look for answers when they’re told everything looks normal but still don’t feel their best.

Todd and Alicia also discuss how wellness-focused care and modern medicine can each have a time and place, why health restoration is often a step-by-step process, and what people should know about maintaining better long-term health habits.

This episode is part of our monthly Day in the Life series, where we highlight different Chamber members and industries from across the Findlay-Hancock County business community.

Music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Transcript

Welcome And Day In The Life

Doug Jenkins 0:04

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of Chamber Amplified, brought to you by the Finlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. I'm your host, Doug Jenkins. Each week here on the podcast, we're talking about things that matter the most to local businesses and organizations. Whether that's workforce and leadership development, it could be marketing, IT issues, really just the everyday realities of running something that serves our community. And of course, once a month we're doing a feature called A Day in the Life. Real creative, I know, but we're stepping into different industries and how they're represented by different chamber members. So just a reminder for these episodes, we're picking industries and members at random. I just kind of draw an industry out of a hat, and then I draw a name of a member that's in that industry out of a hat, and that is how we pick who shows up in these episodes each month. And these are going to continue towards the end of each month, giving our listeners a regular look behind the scenes at different businesses and industries in Finlay and Hancock County and beyond. This episode features the Wellness Way of Ada with Dr. Todd Gilfellin and Alicia Weaver. The big theme of this conversation about wellness is that it's not about one quick fix. It's often about looking at the whole picture, whether that's inflammation, your lifestyle, immune health, chiropractic care. I know I get a big benefit from chiropractic care. All of those things that go into your overall wellness picture. One thing that stands out is how they talk about modern medicine wellness, not as enemies, but two pieces of the puzzle, two tools that you should be using to make sure you're feeling that you're best. The conversation also gets into a pretty relatable idea. A lot of people are being told that everything looks fine on paper, but they still don't feel fine. And that's where businesses like the Wellness Way try to dig a little bit deeper and find some different solutions. You'll hear about misconceptions around chiropractic care, health restoration, inflammation, maintenance care, lifestyle changes, all of that. We're even going to talk about tick season because that's been in the news. And it's a good example of how chamber members aren't just selling products or services. They're often helping people solve some very personal everyday problems. So now you know what's on deck. If you enjoy the podcast, don't forget to leave us a rating and review and share the podcast with others. We're also on YouTube. So if you really want to share the message, it's as easy as sharing the YouTube link. Be sure to do that. Now let's get into it.

Meet The Wellness Way Of Ada

Doug Jenkins 2:27

And joining us on the podcast now as we uh talk about our different members and just get a day in the life of what their particular industry is like. We have the wellness way of Ada and Todd and Dr. Todd Gilfellon and Alicia Weaver joining us. Guys, thank you so much for one being a part of the chamber and two agreeing to do this.

Todd Gillfillan 2:47

Yeah, no problem.

Alicia Weaver 2:48

Absolutely.

Doug Jenkins 2:48

So we wanted to talk uh a little bit about wellness. Uh, we see a lot in that area over the last, I would say, five to ten years. It has been a very, very growth-minded industry. And uh see a little bit what your day is like. But before we get into that, let's just talk a little bit about the wellness way in ADA and everything that you do there.

Todd Gillfillan 3:11

Yeah, so I mean, I guess the way we would summarize ourselves, kind of our elevator pitch, if you will, is we're part of a network of health restoration clinics that think and act differently to solve the health challenges others can. So, I mean, the wellness way, it's not just us here in ADA. A lot of people don't realize that. There's a whole big group of us um originally founded almost 30 years ago by Dr. Flynn. Um, he's he is a chiropractor himself and uh doing all sorts of things. I mean, he's currently working on his master's and eventually PhD in immunology at Harvard Medical School, but uh just uh it got founded by him, started by him, and grew as stories got out. Of course, that was before social media. Um, but as the stories got out, the the company and the brand grew, and now there's a whole big group of us across the U.S.

Doug Jenkins 3:58

So Alicia, let's talk a little bit about some of the services that you offer and uh and everything that goes into that.

Alicia Weaver 4:06

Dr. Todd actually has offered chiropractics for a lot,

Why Inflammation Drives So Much

Alicia Weaver 4:10

like even before he started with the wellness money. So he's been a chiropractor. Um and so we offer that service, of course. And then we also offer our health restoration services. Um, and really what that entails is sitting down with us and going over any test results that you've had done in the last like six to six months to 12 months. We go over them with you. Uh, a lot of the times people bring that stuff in and they're like, Well, they told me everything looks great, but I don't feel great. And so we sit down with you and really discuss like what we see in that, but then also like where where we could find triggers for inflammation. So understanding where inflammation is coming from is our biggest thing that we do here.

Doug Jenkins 4:55

Inflammation really seems to be an area that people have uh drilled down on here over the last few years, too, is the kind of the root cause of a lot of just chronic conditions, it seems absolutely, absolutely.

Alicia Weaver 5:09

I mean, that's one thing that all like no matter if we have somebody who disagrees with us um in the like healthcare field or whatever, um, no matter where you're at in the healthcare field, everyone agrees that inflammation is there and has to be there in order to have a condition, a symptom, or a disease.

Doug Jenkins 5:30

Yeah, and just reducing inflammation altogether. I think, you know, I get inflammation in the elbow, knees. I'm getting older, is what I'm saying. And uh reducing that would be great. Uh Todd, let's talk about just an average day uh at the wellness way. What does the day-to-day look like for you?

Todd Gillfillan 5:47

I mean, for me, it kind of varies a little bit by day as far as the combo, but it's it's you know, the the weighted combo anyway, but it's usually a combination of some chiropractic adjustments, and then just throughout the day, send down some people for what we would call like consult type appointments or follow-up appointments where we're going over everything Alicia just discussed. So it's just a combo of the two and working with people on whatever their health goals are.

Alicia Weaver 6:12

Alicia, pretty much the same for you as uh when you come into the office each day, then um, I don't actually currently I do not come into the office every day. I am here um two to three days a week. And then um kind of whenever whenever is needed. So, like let's say um like currently we are trying to hire a front desk staff, so kind of filling in wherever wherever necessary and but same, like when I meet with people for their consultations, like we are going over what they what their goals are. Do they want to lose weight? Do they want to get pregnant? Um, are they struggling with infertility? Are they struggling with insulin resistance? Like all of those things we sit down and talk to them about.

Doug Jenkins 6:51

What do you see as the biggest misconceptions about your

Daily Work And Big Misconceptions

Doug Jenkins 6:55

industry? That you or if you wanted people to know one thing about your industry, what would that be? That was the magic of asking two questions at the same time. You guys can pick which other one you would like.

Todd Gillfillan 7:06

Then maybe we get to choose two answers then.

Doug Jenkins 7:08

Hey, you can go for it.

Todd Gillfillan 7:12

One, I I I'll I'll throw two out there, and then Alish, you can throw yours out there. But I think I would say one that it's not all or nothing, meaning it's it doesn't have to be all our way or modern medicine's way. The two can work together. A lot of people think we're going to be very anti-medicine. We're not. Um, we actually, I mean, we have posters in the office kind of illustrating that concept, you know, as to how modern medicine can be great in some circumstances and can do some fantastic things to save lives and all that. Um, but then there's a time and place for people like us. So it's understanding that we both do have a time and place. And, you know, in our opinion, neither one of us is great at everything. You know, uh, we can't help in the crisis situations. Um, but if a lot of the things being done in today's world were making people healthy, then people like us, people people wouldn't be seeking us out if everyone was healthy. You know, so it's just time and place for both. And then the other thing that I would say is just one step at a time. I think some people can get overwhelmed in the beginning, but it's one step at a time. You walk a mile one step at a time. You know, it's not you're you're not gonna have everything by you know figured out by five o'clock that night when you come home. It's just it's a process. So those are my two.

Alicia Weaver 8:21

Actually, one of the common misconceptions I get um as a health restoration coach underneath um or working with a um health restoration uh chiropractor and doc. Um, sometimes I hear, oh, well, what makes you qualified for that? And so it's like, well, A, the experience I have with um what I like to call the um specialist hop, right, where you you like just keep getting recommended to the next person and nobody's like really finding answers for you or trying to figure out like they're trying to figure it out, they're just not figuring it out. And a lot of the times that that is frustrating in itself. And so um since I don't know, for as long as I can remember, I've been struggling with anxiety and depression. And then in 2021, when I found Dr. Todd over here, actually I went to a inflammation talk and um listened to him for an hour and a half and bowled all the way home because I had finally heard the things that I needed to hear. Like somebody was actually like, oh, well, this thing is connected to this. So don't forget about looking at that because this other thing can also be connected to the symptoms that you're having. And that was like everything that I needed. And then in 2023, I went to the One Us Way Academy, and it's a year-long program. So it is not short on all the things, and so if you like fail any part of that, you have to either redo that part of it or um you're done. Like you can't go on. And so they teach you from the ground up anatomy, physiology, um, herbal um recommendations, um, contraindications, like all the things. And so, yeah, it's that seems to be a common misconception that I

The Future Of Wellness Care

Alicia Weaver 10:03

get.

Doug Jenkins 10:03

Where do you see the industry going in the next five, 10 years? Obviously, there's an evolution to every business type that uh we see here at the Chamber of Commerce. Where does this roll from here?

Todd Gillfillan 10:16

I mean, I I think the industry as a whole is heading up just because there's a growing demand for it. More and more people are kind of realizing that again, there's a time and place for certain medical things, but there's also a time and place where it'd sure be nice to avoid them if at all possible. I mean, I mean, a lot of people are just getting frustrated with feeling not or not feeling good. So, I mean, to me, I think it's heading up. Um, you know, the the chiropractic, you know, a lot of people are looking for alternatives to surgeries and trying to avoid those too. So I I think both of them long term are heading up. It's just people have to get to a point where they're ready to do something about it because lifestyle change is hard. But you know, it as a whole, I think the demand's gonna grow.

Doug Jenkins 10:59

Todd, on the subject of chiropractic care, I know that myself, I used to be a person who would only go to the chiropractor when something was amiss, and then you would have to go several times over the course of a few weeks just to get back to a baseline. Once I started going just monthly to get realigned, uh, it was life-changing for me. And uh very rarely do I have to go in because something is is screwed up.

Todd Gillfillan 11:24

Right. Yeah, I I hear that quite a bit, and I mean there's so many misconceptions out there uh about some of those things. I mean, we're not all trying to get people coming in a hundred times, but I always tell new patients we're not magicians, we can't always fix it in one appointment, you know. But then um, you know, if you don't do anything for a long time, then yeah, we're gonna have to start over. I mean, you could you could use so many analogies for this, whether it's your car, you know, if you don't do car maintenance on it for three years, you're probably gonna take more work to get it back on the road, you know. Or I mean another kind of analogy you could use is like dental work. You know, if you don't go to the dentist for 10 years, you're probably gonna have to go a few times to get things under control, right? But as long as you do that routine maintenance type stuff, it tends to just play out that way. And it's kind of the same thing like with what you said. Like if if I wait till there's a flare-up, I have to go several times, but if I just go here and there, I feel better in the meantime. And and then, you know, if you really do the math, a lot of the times the the number of visits will add up to near the same, you know, what they're they're just clustered in the midst of a flare-up instead of just kind of gradually every so often, every so many weeks or something throughout the year. You know, and kind of another thing I like to put out there to new patients to get them to think a little bit is we've all got friends and family that'll say things like, Well, I'm getting old, I'm getting arthritis in my neck. Um, and you know, or low back, wherever, but to kind of counteract that thought process, my res you know, my response to them is, well, wait a minute, if it's because of an age problem and it's only in your neck, does that mean your neck is older than your low back? You see what I mean? That's a good point. It's all the same age. So the question is why is that area wearing out faster than the other parts? And that's where, you know, from our point of view, those adjustments can try to keep things wearing out evenly evenly, or ideally not wearing out, right? I mean, it's again another car analogy. The front of your car is not lined up right. Those front tires are probably gonna wear out faster than the back tires, even though they're probably the same age and probably have the same miles on them, right?

Doug Jenkins 13:19

Absolutely. And Alicia, I had I had kind of absolute accidentally interrupted you when you were getting ready to talk about the future of the industry. I know you had some thoughts on that as well.

Alicia Weaver 13:27

Well, no, you're fine. Um, actually, the thing that I was gonna comment on this uh this part of it was I think it's really interesting because people think, well, my back's out or something's going on, right? And I feel rough. And they're like, oh, I just need another adjustment, isn't is what it's like in their head, that's what they think they need. But we've all gotten an adjustment and it didn't do anything. And like that, and and it could be the best chiropractor in the world. I don't care how much um continuing ed they've been through, could be the best chiropractor in the world, and they're still gonna leave there, and they're still, it's still not gonna have fixed the issue, right? The root cause or root causes. And so that's where we come into play. We're gonna look at things a little bit differently, and we're saying, okay, well, instead of coming in for like if I if Dr. Todd adjusts you like three to four times a week, right? You don't need another adjustment, right? You might need to look into maybe putting down the soda or putting down something that is super inflammatory in your diet or even in your life. It could be a plother of things, right? Like being around somebody who's got stinking thinking. Like traumas, thoughts, and toxins all cause inflammation. And so our goal is to really figure out where they're coming from in your life.

Doug Jenkins 14:43

I don't want to brag, but I look at this. I've been drinking so much more water lately, just water. Doesn't mean I'm drinking less coffee. Maybe a less, but uh doing more water. That didn't make any sense to anybody just listening to the podcast. I just picked up my uh my 24-ounce water jug. That well, I drink a lot of those a day. Uh, but uh I do feel better than this last week I was on vacation and uh did not drink as much water and certainly felt the impact of that. So uh having getting into those good habits certainly goes a long way. I imagine that's part of the coaching.

Lifestyle Triggers And Ongoing Training

Doug Jenkins 15:20

You mentioned uh continuing education uh as well. That's something I I think that both of you take part in. Uh, this is not an industry that is static by any means. Right.

Alicia Weaver 15:32

No, no, it's not static. We are learning about all kinds of different things. I mean, um on the Wallace way side of things, we have a training every Tuesday, at least one training every Tuesday. And then sometimes like last week we had three trainings Tuesday, and then we had one on Thursday. So there's just and it could be a 45-minute thing, it could be an hour and a half thing, quarterly. We have one that's like five hours long. Like we're just all the time picking up things. So uh Lyme is a really big thing right now because of all the ticks and stuff like that around Ohio and so um around the world really, but um specifically in the United States, uh, the Wanasway is definitely trying to make sure that they know all the things and how that fits into what we're already doing.

Doug Jenkins 16:20

Let's talk about that real quick. Uh, we do know that ticks are quite uh active this time of year. It's been bad this year. Uh and that's actually not something that I realized that uh that you guys talked about. What are the things people need to look out for there? And if they were bitten by a tick, what do they is it bitten or bit? I don't know. It's too late in the day for me to consider grammar at this point, I guess. Uh, but what uh what do they need to know if they do get bit?

Todd Gillfillan 16:47

Yeah, I mean there's several factors at play there. I mean, they might need to seek some medical care, you know, if it's a fresh bite or something like that. I mean,

Tick Season And Immune Resilience

Todd Gillfillan 16:55

there is a time and place for that again. Um, but you know, from our viewpoint of you know health restoration and those types of things, it's trying to maintain a healthy immune system to allow your body to support itself no matter if it's a tick bite or you know, the common cold, flu, um, the next pandemic, whatever it is. I mean, it all comes down to the person's immune system and how well it's able to fight those things, you know, because we're we're exposed to things all the time. Now, yes, some can seem to be more problematic than others from a chronic standpoint, but to us it all comes back to the immune system and just you know keeping the inflammation down. I mean, there's some there's some testing we do that you can dig a little deeper into the immune system from what a your your average medical doctor is going to test, just to get a little bit better feel of are you immune compromised or not? Should you be afraid of a cold or a flu or something like that, or do you have a pretty sufficient immune response to where your body should be able to handle it, and no big deal, life goes on.

Doug Jenkins 17:52

So if people want to learn more about this, what's the best way to get in touch with you guys?

Todd Gillfillan 17:59

Everything we do as a whole, the best way, I mean, I would say I would just refer them to the website, thewellnessway.com. Uh, there's so much information there. If you have um, you know, questions about a certain you know symptom or condition or things like that. Because like I said, the wellness way is not just us here in ADA. So there's a whole group of people that put those articles together. Um, you know, really you can find everything from there. I mean, our office and all the other offices are always active on social media. Um see Dr. Patrick Flynn, the founder that I mentioned, you know, usually it's him that every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Ohio time, he does what he calls ADP, stands for a different perspective. It's a show that's usually an hour or so long recorded live. Um, all the archive versions uh are on the website, some on YouTube, it kind of depends on the topic and things. But you know, you can go back, check out all that information, learn more about those subjects. Um, here in our office, we offer what we call a discovery call, um, which is just it's a free phone call where if a patient or a person is like, hey, I want to learn more about what you do, you know, they can get on a phone call with one of us and we can just kind of talk through, okay, what's going on. This is what the process would look like, and try to make sure it's the right fit for them, you know, and it's kind of what they're looking to get into. Because some people they want the magical fix, but they don't want to do the lifestyle change. And I mean, that's not really what we do. We don't have the magical fix. Um, we're trying to, you know, combine everything with lifestyle change and really trying to coach them through that. So if that's what they want, great. If not, then we can tell them that that's not what we do and they can look for something else that might be what they're looking for and whether or not it'll work or not, I don't know. But that discovery call, they can just call into the office, or there's ways just through online options that they various online ways that they they could schedule that as well.

Key Takeaways And Chamber Support

Doug Jenkins 19:41

Well, we certainly appreciate you joining us. I always love talking to our members and learning more about the industries that they're involved in and what's happening with their individual businesses, but also just as the industry as a whole. Uh, I think this has been really informative. Thanks for taking time to talk to us about it. Yeah, no problem.

Alicia Weaver 19:58

Thanks, Todd.

Doug Jenkins 20:00

So I think one of the big takeaways from today's podcast, wellness, it's a process, not an instant result. I think we all know that. If we don't, well, that's a good look back into it. Todd aNd Alicia emphasizing that it doesn't have to be an either-or between traditional medicine and wellness-focused care. In fact, pairing them together can result in very good things. The conversation around inflammation, really interesting because it does connect to so many different symptoms and conditions and lifestyle factors, and I really do believe getting that under control can be a big help for you. A chiropractic discussion, good as well. It's a reminder that maintenance can look a lot different than crisis care. Believe me, that is a lesson that I learned like 10 years ago, and it was a life-changing strategy for me. I never have to worry about not golfing now, other than when I injure myself in other ways. But it's never my back anymore, so that's important. Again, we're going to be doing these day in the life episodes monthly as we learn more about chamber members and the different industries that they represent in the area. And a big thanks to Todd and Alicia from The Wellness Way for stopping by and doing the podcast today. And that'll do it for another edition of Chamber Amplified. This is a free podcast available to the community, made possible by the investment of our members here at the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. If you're looking at ways that your business can get involved in the community, oftentimes the chamber is the best place to start. And if you'd like to learn more, just send me an email, D Jenkins at Findlay Hancock Chamber.com, and we can talk about how an investment in the chamber not only helps your business, but the business community as a whole. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time on Chamber Amplified from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.