Beyond Medication: Rethinking Your Approach to Health

Are you struggling with chronic health issues despite taking medications? Do you feel like you're just putting a band-aid on your symptoms rather than addressing the root cause?

Many people rely solely on prescription drugs to manage their health conditions, without realizing the powerful impact that nutrition and lifestyle changes can have. But there's a better way.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• What nutrigenomics is and how it can personalize your health approach
• Why the foods you eat have a direct impact on your genes and overall health
• How to make simple changes to your diet that can dramatically improve how you feel

Dr. Tamar Lawful shares her journey from traditional pharmacist to nutrigenomics specialist and health coach. She reveals how understanding your unique genetic makeup can help you optimize your nutrition, reduce medication reliance, and take control of your health.

Chapters

• 0:01 Nutrigenomics and Personalized Health Strategies
• 12:07 Impact of Nutrition on Health
• 20:50 Achieving Balance in Health and Wellness

Transcript

Dr. Tamar: 0:01

In those studies is where I came across nutrigenomics, where there was like one sentence that our genes are affected by the foods we eat, and decided that this is a tool that I can use to help people stay on track with their health, because it's their DNA telling them what they need to do. If you want to break the mold of traditional pharmacy and healthcare, you are in the right place. Welcome to the Pivoting Pharmacy with Nutrigenomics podcast, part of the Pharmacy Podcast Network. Here's a little truth bomb. We're all unique, down to our DNA, so it's no wonder we react differently to the same medications, foods and environment. Here's a million dollar question how can you discover exactly what your body needs, which medication, what foods or supplements and which exercises are right for you? How can you manage chronic conditions like diabetes without more medications? How can you lose weight and keep it off? How do you tap into your genetic blueprint so you can stop surviving and start thriving in health and life? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. I'm your host, dr Tamar, lawful doctor of pharmacy. Let's pivot into genomics and bring healthcare to higher levels.

Dr. Tamar: 1:23

Welcome back to Pivoting Pharmacy with Nutrig enomics, the podcast that's reshaping the way we think about pharmacy and patient care, as well as your health. I'm Dr Tamar Lawful Dr Pharmacy, and I'm going to be your guide on this journey to a healthier, more sustainable approach to medicine and health day to day. Today's episode, I'm sharing insights from a powerful conversation I had on the Femininja Project podcast. Now, if you're tired of merely managing symptoms and ready to uncover the root causes of health issues, you definitely want to listen in, because we're going to look at how nutrigenomics can transform the traditional approach to health, and we're going to uncover the fascinating relationship between the food we consume and our genetic expression. And I'm going to share practical tips on how you can adjust your diet to significantly enhance your health. So, whether you're a healthcare practitioner or someone dealing with chronic health problems, today's episode will enlighten you on making impactful changes that go beyond conventional medicine. So let's explore how understanding our unique genetic makeup can be a game changer in personal and patient wellness. Listen in.

Cheryl: 2:42

Tamar, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Cheryl. It's my pleasure. I just love what you're doing. I don't know if you are familiar with my background, but I call myself a recovering physical therapist and I was also a respiratory therapist in my first career. So I love the fact that you're taking traditional medicine and tweaking it a little bit to make it a little bit more natural.

Dr. Tamar: 3:06

Yes, indeed, tweaking it just a little bit. It's something that's definitely needed because with traditional medicine I've learned and I practice as a pharmacist over the past 20 years that sometimes it's more of a band-aid for the conditions that people have. So I wanted to find a way to not so much provide a band-aid but provide a solution to help them improve or prevent having certain medical conditions.

Cheryl: 3:31

So describe to us what nutrigenomics is and how you became interested in it.

Dr. Tamar: 3:38

If you break the word down, we have nutra, which is nutrition and genomics, which is dealing with our genes, our DNA. So it's actually the study of how food affects our genes. And so, when we think about it, anything that we eat or put into our body produces an effect. So we might no longer feel hungry, we might get bloated, anything could happen but it also affects our genes, and those effects that it has on us is because it's affecting us down to our DNA. So genetically we have our standard, what I'm going to call like spelling or genetic code. But then we have variations, which are changes in this spelling in our DNA. And those little variations, those little spelling changes, will then signal something to happen that maybe shouldn't happen normally.

Dr. Tamar: 4:28

For example, a lactase gene.

Dr. Tamar: 4:29

If someone's lactose intolerant, when they drink milk, it produces an effect in their gene to start making this enzyme, the lactase enzyme.

Dr. Tamar: 4:39

But if they have a variant, a variation, a spelling change in their genetic code, they're not going to make that lactase enzyme to be able to break down the milk. As a result, those people are lactose intolerant, so they're not going to be able to effectively break down milk and they're going to have the bloating, they're going to have the diarrhea that's a result of a genetic variation. So nutrigenomics identifies those variations and then lets us know what we can do about it, because maybe people don't know that they're lactose intolerant, or people don't know that they might have an issue with their cells producing enough energy for certain functions. This type of genetic test nutrigenomics, will help them identify that and then give them a solution, not a Band-Aid, but a solution as far as what types of foods you can eat to make your genes or enzymes work more effectively, what type of lifestyle changes, lifestyle habits exercise, environmental factors to avoid, and also supplements that they might need so that their health can get back on track that they might need so that their health can get back on track.

Cheryl: 5:46

I love the focus on food, and I have recently spoken to a couple of people who, you know, turned their lives around by just looking at food. I think that we don't realize what happens on a cellular level and how much it does impact our health and our disease states too, because, as you say, if it's changing our genetic code, then it can lead to all kinds of different diseases. Correct, correct?

Dr. Tamar: 6:10

And then I want to clarify because we're born of our genes, our genes are the way they are. We can't, we're not changing them. We're identifying them in this kind of process and then working with them. Now that we know that this is how we're genetically coded, what can we do about it? And, for example, we might have a gene that makes us more likely to develop diabetes type 2 diabetes and it's not a life sentence. It doesn't mean you are going to have type 2 diabetes, but you're more prone to it because this gene is present. There are things that you can do to prevent the development of type 2 diabetes, so that test will help us identify and pinpoint things like that.

Cheryl: 6:54

So is that part of the nutrigenomic system? Is you do the testing first, of course, before you continue on? How does that work?

Dr. Tamar: 7:03

Yeah. So in addition to the health and wellness business consulting to teach other healthcare professionals how to use this type of testing, I do health coaching and that's where my heart is so for my health coaching clients. I have them do the test if they choose to. Some choose not to because genetics can be a sensitive topic for people, but I do go over the privacy assurance and concerns with them. But they do test about four to five weeks. The results come back. During those four to five weeks, I'm working with them already and educating them on what healthy nutrition is, what is healthy food.

Dr. Tamar: 7:36

Forget what you learned on Google. You know we're going to start from scratch. I call it a mental detox. You're detoxing what you knew already about food, about exercise, anything growing in your health. We're just going to ditch it and we're going to start from scratch. And so I work with them while we're waiting on those tests and results to come back, to just learn the foundations of nutrition. Helping them work on other aspects of their life as well, like sleep is number one, it's so important. And then when that test comes back and the test is a cheek swab it goes to their house the testing kit. They do it at home on their own. A swab on each cheek, put it back in the container that it comes in and in four weeks you know they have those results. And when I get those results in on my dashboard I make an appointment with them to go over it with them. And now we can actually personalize and make precision health goals and steps and action plans for them to improve their health.

Cheryl: 8:35

So, in a nutshell, the test is neither invasive or intrusive. It definitely is not neither.

Dr. Tamar: 8:41

It's been. No blood is drawn. No harm, it definitely is not. Neither it's been. No blood is drawn no harm.

Cheryl: 8:46

Okay, and you know I love the fact there's so much confusion about nutrition and it shouldn't be that way. It should be more simple. But when you look at what we think is healthy food and is advertised as healthy food, I think that's where a lot of people just get off track, because we have a tendency to believe well, if it says you know this healthy whole food, and then if you flip the package over and start reading the ingredients, it's like I don't think so. I can't even pronounce half of these ingredients. That is so true, cheryl.

Dr. Tamar: 9:19

I tell my clients, if you can't pronounce it, put it back on the shelf. As a matter of fact, you shouldn't be shopping in the middle of the grocery store. Stop, shop around the perimeter, because I don't know if many people realize the perimeter of the grocery store is where most of the unprocessed foods are kept. You know the eggs, the milk, the vegetables, all that produce. Even at the deli where you have the fresh meats, it's not in the middle of the grocery store, it's on the perimeter. So shop the perimeter of the grocery store and you're so right. There's a lot of confusing information out there about what's healthy. There's a lot of confusing information out there about what's healthy. I go over with my clients how to read nutrition labels and what type of ingredients we definitely want to avoid because it can actually cause inflammation in the body or different things that could go on and work against them for the health path and health journey that they're on.

Cheryl: 10:20

I like to think of food as nature's miracle, of medicine, if we choose the right things. But we can't do that without the education, just because we've been so confused and so misguided, I think, over the years.

Dr. Tamar: 10:28

Yeah, that's so true. It's that food is medicine. Someone I heard I don't remember who I heard it from. The other day I was listening to a podcast and they said food is medicine, which I completely agree with, but it can be poison as well, as we know, if you're not eating the right types of food. So I try to help my clients use food as medicine. Use the food options. Select the food options that will be beneficial for them, to their health, rather than the ones that are detrimental to their health. So do you want to? Don't choose poison.

Dr. Tamar: 10:57

We don't want to do that Intentionally. We don't want to do that.

Cheryl: 11:00

Yeah, Okay, I'm writing that down. Don't choose poison Words of wisdom there. I really think, though some people might think if they're listening to this it's like oh my gosh, but you know that sounds very boring or unsatisfying or ungratifying. But actually the natural, healthy foods you're getting such nutrient, dense calories in your body that it's satisfying, it actually makes you feel better.

Dr. Tamar: 11:30

That is 100% true. But there's a process that has to happen first, cheryl, because especially when someone has been eating processed foods their whole life or for a long time, you know the takeout food, the chips, the sweets, the full of sugar, when they start implementing healthy nutrition, it is boring, I'm not going to lie. It's definitely going to be boring because it's not going to taste the same and those processed foods are made to be addictive, are made to have that sense of pleasure right away, to release that dopamine, you know, so that you want more. So in a way, you do have to detox from that. And then that transformation happens. When you start eating healthy food, it actually is satisfying. You don't crave the sugars and the salts and the processed foods like you used to. You actually crave and I want a fruit, I want some squash, like it literally happens when your body is cleansed from those processed foods and the chemicals that are involved with that, that work towards those cravings when you're eating from the earth.

Cheryl: 12:34

Yes, and that's the key word chemicals. And I didn't realize until like recently, the past few years, how many chemicals we really do have in our foods. And, like I said, it was shocking. It was probably 24, maybe 25 years ago that I really started looking closely at nutrition and I was in my early 40s and it's like, oh, I'm gaining weight and I don't feel good. And I started really looking at labels and it was so incredibly mind-boggling how much like sugar, as well as the chemicals and everything that was in our food. I didn't realize how processed it was. And then, it's really funny, my mother and some of the women from the church you know that I grew up in they wrote a cookbook together and it was a lovely little cookbook and everything. And of course you know this was probably again 30 years ago. And you pick up that cookbook now and I look at it and I just shudder to look at the ingredients that they put in some of those recipes. It was all processed food.

Dr. Tamar: 13:37

Yeah, they were eating heartily, oh yes, and delicious foods for sure. In the world that we live in now, the preservatives are everything, because you want food to last longer, produce mass production of food. So you have those preservatives so they don't spoil fast. But yeah, they're, they're harmful to us. A lot of my clients are shocked about when they do learn it. This light bulb goes off in their heads.

Dr. Tamar: 14:03

Is oils, oils that you cook with. So typically it's like vegetable oils, canola oils but educating them on how that actually affects them on a cellular level and switching to healthier oils like olive oil, avocado oil, even ghee not necessarily oil, but ghee is a way of healthy fat as well or other alternative fat affects our body differently than the canola oils because when we learn how those are actually processed and ingesting them contributes to inflammation in our body and something we call oxidative stress, which is equivalent to it's kind of like your body's resting inside. Your cells are resting and getting older, so taking in those type of fat sources are actually harming our cells and if our cells make our energy and everything else involved in every process in our body, so if they're not functioning well, if they're rusting per se, it explains a lot of why we don't feel good, why people might be low energy. So just making a simple change in the type of oils you consume can make a huge difference on how you feel day to day.

Cheryl: 15:14

Yeah, I switched to avocado oil probably six months ago or so, after one of my guests gave me that rundown about the oils, and I was just absolutely horrified, ran upstairs and just cleaned out my pantry and one of the things he said was you know, the cheaper the oil, the more harmful and toxic it is. And he says you know, the avocado oil is a little bit more expensive. And so I went to the grocery store the next day and it was like, oh wow, it is expensive, but I absolutely love it. That's all I use now.

Dr. Tamar: 15:44

Yeah, it has a good flavor. I like the avocado oil, but of course the source is best right, going to the actual avocado or olives as well. So, yeah, and they're both tasty, very tasty, very tasty and healthy sources of fat.

Cheryl: 15:58

And every now and again I even use the avocado oil on my skin.

Dr. Tamar: 16:03

I never thought about that, but you can definitely use that on your skin. Yeah.

Cheryl: 16:07

Well, you know, I do live in Colorado and it's very, very dry here. So you know some of the moisturizers that I use. I like them, but then I think what's in here? You know some of the moisturizers that I use. I like them, but then I think what's in here, you know? And I start looking at those ingredients too and it's like, oh God, it's. All. These stuff is everywhere. It's kind of ubiquitous.

Dr. Tamar: 16:25

Yeah, and you know it can seem overwhelming, because when you actually start reading the labels and realizing like every product you have in your house has these chemicals in it and are toxic to you, it can be overwhelming. My recommendation will just be start somewhere, take one step at a time. So, whether it's the oil, or it's the type of lotions or creams that you use or makeups that you use, you know, just take it one step at a time, because it can be very overwhelming and, of course, expensive as well to choose healthier options.

Cheryl: 16:59

So now, what was the motivating force to go from traditional pharmacy to what you're doing now? I mean, was that just a gradual change or did you wake up one morning and say you know what, I just need something different. I need something you know, a different path.

Dr. Tamar: 17:16

Oh, my Cheryl, where do I start? Where do I start? I'm going to start First why I decided to become a pharmacist. I was about 15, 14, 15 years old. I was born in Jamaica. I'm Jamaican, grew up in New Jersey, been in the US since I was four, and my mom took my brother and I back to Jamaica to see my grandmother who was dying of lung cancer. She was literally on her deathbed and I felt so helpless. There was nothing I could do, you know, to help my grandmother get better.

Dr. Tamar: 17:44

And in that moment I decided that whatever I do in my life, it's going to be something to help people either get better or prevent them from getting sick in the first place and growing up from a Caribbean family, you know we use a lot of herbs I really had got sick when I was young and because my mom was home, cooked meals, fresh foods. So, keeping that in mind, when it came to my early teenage years and I had to start thinking about what I wanted to do when I grow up, when I finish, when I go to college, what I want to go to college for, my mom and I sat down and had a discussion and I said, mom, I want to help people. I want to help them from. I don't want them to be sick, I want to help them if they are sick. My mom's a nurse and I said maybe I'll be a nurse like you and she said no. She actually said you're not allowed to be a nurse. I was like, huh, but you're a nurse, she said you're not allowed. I said, okay, or what do I do now? So she had me talk to different people in the medical fields and in engineering and things like that.

Dr. Tamar: 18:41

I learned about pharmacy. You can use these drugs to help people get better. But then I had some skepticism do they really work? Like, I'm going to go become a pharmacist. I'm going to go to pharmacy school because I want to see. I want to just prove this. I don't think these medications work. What are they really about? And um, plus, I want to see, I want to disprove this. I don't think these medications work. What are they really about? And plus, I want to learn. You know, of course, how they work and I can help people potentially. Okay, sure, so I go to pharmacy school.

Dr. Tamar: 19:04

Absolutely fell in love with pharmacy. Like that's my thing, and I still love pharmacy now, but working as a pharmacist, I was in a role where I actually had patients who had heart failure, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and I was really working one-on-one with them, going over their medications, telling them about their disease states and, before they go home, I educate them and make sure you're eating like this and you're exercising five days a week and it will come back to the hospital within 30 days. And I was like this isn't working, like they're still coming back and they're leaving on more medications. Their doses are being increased. What am I doing? It's that I want to help people get better and I feel like I'm just keeping them stable. So that's when I started really looking into how to help people.

Dr. Tamar: 19:53

So I went into health coaching and training and I learned about nutrition. It was a nutrition-based, focused program and I was floored, cheryl. I did not realize the impact, the extent to which nutrition really has on our health and it made sense that some of the things that I was counseling patients on you know. But now really understanding the extent to which nutrition has impact on our health, and in some of my studies I became a ketogenic nutrition specialist and in those studies is where I came across nutrigenomics, where there was like one sentence that our genes are affected by the foods we eat. I said what? So I studied nutrigenomics and decided that this is it. This is a tool that I can use to help people stay on track with their health, because it's not me telling them what they need to do, it's their DNA telling them what they need to do. So that's how I came across it.

Cheryl: 20:50

Well, first of all, I love your spirit, the tenacity, the you know well. I don't even think does this stuff even work anyhow, I'll just go to school and figure it out and have them prove it or disprove it. And the other thing I wanted to mention, and just in case the listeners are wondering, pharmacy school is really difficult. Yes, indeed, and it's competitive to get in, isn't it?

Dr. Tamar: 21:11

It is. It's very competitive. We have residency programs like medical doctors as well.

Cheryl: 21:25

It's very competitive. We have residency programs like medical doctors as well, extremely competitive to get into those as well. Yourself from the traditional pharmacy that role. Did you encounter any resistance, like any of your co-workers or colleagues? Did they say what? Why are you doing this?

Dr. Tamar: 21:45

Surprisingly, cheryl. No, they were intrigued. They were intrigued because they see it as well. Right, they see that these medications they're not really curing anybody. You know, the people are still on them for their whole life and we are taught in pharmacy school to, before a person is prescribed the medication, we need to work with them on nutrition and lifestyle changes. That's what we learn first, and then they teach us about the medication, right, but maybe one page, two page about lifestyle and nutrition. Nothing deep, nothing deep at all. So they're aware of that. So my colleagues were very supportive and then when I launched my business, it connected me to other pharmacists that were like-minded oh nice, on the same kind of course that I was. So I had that extra support as well and to this day I'm four years into doing this, but I still have the support.

Dr. Tamar: 22:39

I work in a hospital setting. Still, because it's more of acute. People are coming in. They need their medications. You know they had a heart attack, they're having a hypertensive crisis, so emergently, they still need those medications. But on the outside of things, let me figure out how can I help these people to control their blood pressure, control their diabetes, and actually hold their hand, walk side by?

Cheryl: 23:06

side with them to help develop these habits on a day to day. That really number one. It cheers me up, it gives me hope. I did not realize that your program included that and the fact that your colleagues understand that philosophy as well and understand the root cause of disease and illness. But without you know saying lifestyle, like I think sometimes people don't even want to reach out for help because they don't want to be either shamed or put down or whatever, because they have these habits of you know choosing bad, you know making bad decisions. You know it's like when I was a respiratory therapist and it's like, well, tell people not to smoke. It's like they know not to smoke. Right, you know they don't need me telling them.

Dr. Tamar: 24:45

Right, they know, and that's the truth. People know what they need to avoid for their health. Developing habits. Maintaining those habits is very difficult to do on your own, and that's why those patients that I counseled about you got to stop smoking. Limit your salt intake, limit your carbs. Make sure you're exercising 150 minutes a week. That's 30 minutes every day, mr Smith. That's doable, right? Yeah, dr Schmar, it's doable, but they don't do it. So actually implementing those changes and maintaining them is difficult without somebody by your side.

Cheryl: 25:19

So you've got your clients are so lucky because they have you as a coach and you can help them through that and give them the motivation. Do you ever suggest to your clients to have a partner like an accountability partner in the home or a friend or whatever, because I could imagine that maybe some people who are going through this transition might actually have family members or friends who are in the same boat. That is an excellent point.

Dr. Tamar: 25:45

I encourage them to have accountability partners. I only do group coaching, so within the group they can connect with each other. We have our private platform that I use, where we have our chat, and I am their number one accountability person as well, because we meet once a week but in between those sessions they can message me, ask me questions, me and my team. For example, I had one client. She was grocery shopping, shopping, and she decided she was thinking about getting a keto bar. So she takes a picture of it and says, hey, should I get this? And she sends it. So it comes through to me and I'm like, oh OK, I have a message from my client. So I said are you?

Dr. Tamar: 26:26

on keto diet. I don't teach diets like I'm a keto specialist, but we're not going to do that because it's not for everybody. So I said are you on keto? And she says no. And I said look at the fat content. She said okay. She says, but it's no carbs. And I said yeah, you're right, it's no carbs, but you do eat carbs, right? She says yes. So I say if you are not on keto, don't touch that, because what's going to happen is you're going to gain weight and your goal is to lose weight. So if keto, it's high fat, moderate protein, low carb, but it only works if you're doing keto diet. Now, if you're mixing a high fat content meal with a regular carbohydrate meal, you're going to gain weight. There's going to be some problems there. So, being on hand to give them information like that and also hold them accountable check-ins every other day or so to see how they're doing forms for them to fill out to update me before our next meeting but it does help to have someone in home that's supporting you.

Dr. Tamar: 27:27

And all my clients have been women, but interestingly enough, their spouses have benefited from my program as well, because, as they change their lifestyle, their eating habits, their husbands are now eating like them. Their husbands are now physically active like them. They've changed their sleep patterns. Their husbands have changed their sleep patterns as well. So I have clients whose husbands are diabetic and their A1C has come down. They have to go to their doctor to get their insulin doses reduced. They've lost weight as well. So it's just from my observation. It's just happened naturally, that their partners have become like their accountability and their support partners as well in their process.

Cheryl: 28:10

Well, let's face it, women are typically the ones who do the grocery shopping, do the cooking, you know, set the schedule. We kind of rule the world in some aspects. I think yes, but it must be so incredibly gratifying to you to work with these people and see these results, especially kind of like the collateral benefits, too, of the spouses and other family members that may be benefiting from this.

Dr. Tamar: 28:37

It is. And I'll tell you this I don't know why, but every time I hear they give me an update like, oh, I lost X amount of weight or you know whatever it is, I feel like it's like the first time I'm hearing it and I'm so happy for them. And I do get emotional because it just warms my heart, because this is my purpose. This is why I went this way right To help people make these life changes. So every time I get, they tell me those results and those improvements they're getting, it just it's like pulls on my heartstrings. I love it, yeah.

Cheryl: 29:10

So that brings me to another question, Cause I mean, I was feeling very heartfelt about those stories as well. But what do you think that your grandmother would say if she could see you now what you're doing? Oh, grandma now you're going to make me cry. I'm sorry.

Dr. Tamar: 29:29

She'll say well done, samara, I'm proud of you. Well done See. I'm going to cry tooara I'm proud of you.

Cheryl: 29:33

Yeah, well done. See, I'm going to cry too. Well, I am proud of you too. I am just so impressed with what you're doing, what you have done, and I really love the fact that you, even though you're doing something that's a lot more alternative health care, that you're still able to incorporate the traditional aspect of it in your background as a pharmacist, as well as this incredible wellness, health and wellness coach. So bravo, job well done. Thank you, cheryl. So I'm really curious how did you come up with a life balance, the acronym Okay?

Dr. Tamar: 30:06

So part of my story that I did not mention earlier was I was super busy and my health, like I was gaining weight like crazy after I had my daughter five years ago, almost six years ago she'll be six next month and I was busy. I was working full time, night shift, pharmacist, I was serving on the board of three nonprofit organizations in my community at the same time and so, yeah, that's a lot of stress on the body. I wasn't sleeping well and I had to step back and I thought about it. That's part of how my company first evolved and I said, you know, I need balance in life and I went with life balance L-Y-F-E. Then I said, okay, what does this stand for?

Dr. Tamar: 30:43

You know, I wanted to stand for something, you know, and I realized that it started with loving myself first, catering to myself first as a mother, as a woman, a healthcare professional. I was programmed to take care of everyone else before myself and that's what I was doing. I was serving the community, not sleeping. I was working, not sleeping, mothering, not sleeping. And you feel guilty Like, can I have a break? There should be no guilt around that. There should be no guilt around taking care of ourselves. So I said you know what I need to love myself first every day. And because I'm offering a service to others, I'm going to tell them love yourself first every day.

Cheryl: 31:25

So that's where that came from. Wow, I love it. That's just wonderful. So, and kudos to you, too, for being able to, you know, identify that you needed some self-care and that you needed to take better care of yourself, and giving you the space to do it and the permission to do it, because, as you said, that's really difficult. We are programmed to put everybody else first, yes, but if we don't put ourselves first and take care of ourselves, we can't take care of everybody else.

Dr. Tamar: 31:53

We can't. We have to fill ourself up first. Yeah, so we have something to give to others.

Cheryl: 32:00

So, Tamar, thank you so much for being here. I have absolutely loved this conversation and I love your energy and I just really as again, I can't tell you enough I love your spirit. Do you have any final pearls of wisdom that you would like to share with the listeners?

Dr. Tamar: 32:16

Yeah, for the listeners. Definitely don't feel guilty. I want to go back to love yourself first every day, whether it's your health, whether it's relationships, whether it's employment. That's a mantra that you can remember and should remember. There's nothing wrong with putting yourself first, absolutely nothing wrong with putting yourself first, absolutely nothing wrong with putting yourself first. And when it comes to your health, you have to put yourself first so that you can be healthy, so that you can be around to enjoy time with your family, see your kids grow up, enjoy life. It's okay.

Cheryl: 32:50

Well, once again, tamar, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been absolutely fabulous. It was my pleasure. Cheryl, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been absolutely fabulous.

Dr. Tamar: 32:55

It was my pleasure, cheryl. Thank you so much. I enjoyed it. That's all I have for you today, friend.

Dr. Tamar: 33:00

That wraps up our enlightening session here on Pivoting Pharmacy with Neutrogenomics. Thank you for joining me as we unpack some transformative insights from Neutrogenomics, inspired by my discussion on the Feminine Geprodcast. I hope you're leaving with a renewed perspective on how diet and genetics play a pivotal role in reshaping our health. If today's episode inspired you to rethink how you approach healthcare, how you're going to approach your health, either as a provider or a patient, remember the journey to better health is a marathon, not a sprint. It's about making consistent, informed choices that align with our genetic predispositions. So don't forget to visit our website, wwwvlifebalancecom that's V-L-Y-F-E balancecom for more resources and hit that subscribe button to stay updated on the latest in pharmacy innovation, patient care, health and wellness. We're here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to transform your approach to health, one gene at a time. Talk to you next Friday. Until then, always remember to raise the script on health, because together we can bring healthcare to higher levels.