Expert Episode: Unlocking the Body's Secrets: Hair Mineral Testing and Personalized Wellness with Nancy Masoud from LockedIn Wellness

Uncover the secret language of your body as Nancy Masoud, a metabolic specialist and founder of LockedIn Wellness, joins us to decode the mysteries of hair mineral testing. Imagine peeling back the layers of your health narrative through the strands of your hair; that's exactly what we discuss in this episode. Nancy, with her expertise, walks us through how a simple hair analysis can reveal the intricate dance of minerals within us, reflecting our dietary habits, stress levels, and even environmental exposures. This conversation promises to elevate your understanding of your own body's needs and the subtle signs it uses to communicate imbalance.

Then, we delve into a story of transformation that's nothing short of inspiring—a journey from post-sleeve surgery struggles to remarkable wellness and weight loss triumphs. We examine how personalizing nutritional support, focusing on key mineral deficiencies, can turn the tide for those facing health and weight challenges. Join us and witness how the convergence of science and personalized care at LockedIn Wellness is not just changing lives, but redefining the very essence of health optimization. Nancy shares the strategies that have helped her clients not only shed pounds but also reclaim their vitality and zest for life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Poehler.

Speaker 2: 0:13

Hey everybody, I am excited to have a chance today to talk with one of our expert contributors. With us I have Nancy Massoud. She is a metabolic specialist and the owner and founder of Locked In Wellness in Alpharetta. Welcome, nancy.

Speaker 3: 0:29

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for having me Stacey today.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Yeah, we're excited. So today we're going to kind of talk about mineral testing and help our listeners understand a little bit more about what you do and how all of this can help them and improve their lives. So why don't you start off and tell us you know what hair mineral testing is?

Speaker 3: 0:50

All right, great. So hair mineral test is pretty much a hair tissue mineral analysis that we do at Locked In Wellness and what it does. It's a great indicator for metabolic processes that occurs within the cell. I call that the spark plug in the chemistry of life. So basically it is telling us what kind of minerals the body you have, that that your body's metabolizing, and how much of these minerals your body is depositing. So it gives the clear insight of what your body needs and what your body have too much of that could be impacting how you feel overall. So which that's why we call the spark blots.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Yeah, and why would you use the hair and not rely on, like old fashioned, blood tests?

Speaker 3: 1:46

would you use the hair and not rely on, like old fashioned, blood tests? That's a very good question because, first of all, the hair is not subjected to an hourly fluctuation. Um, just like the blood is influenced by, so blood can change. Um, because this is a current, but hair is more history. It tells us a little bit about history of the body, but also, when we look at stored tissue levels, it also tells us a little bit more about not just minerals, but it also tells us about toxic metals, heavy metals that are stored at a cellular level. But you know, and it's over a longer time frame versus just current, right now. Measurement of indication.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Why is it important for someone to test for minerals? What things are they going to learn?

Speaker 3: 2:37

Well, you know, the mineral test can often provide us with an early detection of health trends in the long, long before you know other methods, which you know we can look at a trend, risk factors for different health issues that we we can prevent long term and that you know, of course, with this, you know, by looking at mineral deficiencies or, like I said, mineral deposits, either one one side or the other can impact the overall health in different matters and can trigger, you know, issues or risk factors. So, and that's why we like to, I like to run the mineral tests versus anything else, because this will give us more of a longer understanding of how the body's functioning over time versus just, you know, a current incident.

Speaker 2: 3:37

What are some of the things that can cause a mineral imbalance?

Speaker 3: 3:42

Oh, so sometimes it's malabsorption. We, when someone you know having some GI digestive function issues or GI issues, then we look at malabsorption. You're not absorbing the nutrients that you're supposed to be getting from foods. Now, remember minerals. When we talk about minerals or nutrients, we're talking about nutrients that come from your food sources and of course your absorption happens in the intestinal lining. You know, metabolize them, but versus depositing them, then that's a major indicator there that causes, you know the, you know imbalances. So that's one. But then also we look at stress. You know people tend to.

Speaker 3: 4:38

You know we have stress, life stress, and when we're stressed we don't usually tend to think about what we put in our body because, you know, some people have, they're more of an emotional eaters, so when they're overstressed they focus on or target coping mechanisms or coping foods that are helpful to make them feel better, which you know, of course they're're not made.

Speaker 3: 5:04

They may, may not get all the nutrients they need for their body.

Speaker 3: 5:08

So poor dieting, of course, can be a main, main impactor here for our mineral imbalances. Environmental, you know, living in an area, maybe there's factories there that could be impacting the, you know the air quality, water can be a major one as well. Some you know people have well water versus you know regular water, filtered water, different things, people that you know only drink bottled water versus you know pH water and other you know electrolyte waters and certain certain you know different multiple levels of water, that different kinds of water that they use to help them with hydration. Um, but sometimes if your body is not getting all the nutrients, the minerals from the water itself also can cause an imbalance as well. Like I said, stress is a huge one that we see also a big issue, but also digestive tract People that have chronic diarrheas. They're not absorbing a lot of their minerals as well, so that also can cause an impact on their deficiencies, which you know. So that could be an impact on the mineral imbalances that we see.

Speaker 2: 6:33

And are some of the things you would look at in the mineral test, like vitamin deficiencies, things along those lines?

Speaker 3: 6:41

yeah, so we look at minerals. Um yeah, of course. Yeah, so the minerals and vitamins, of course they're the same. Um. So when we look at minerals, we're looking at different minerals that are in your vitamins or or in the in the foods that you're eating daily. Um, so, and and of course, with these minerals, if there are certain minerals that are depleted but they depend on another mineral for absorption, so you know that could be the imbalance that we're looking at. So some, so certain minerals, for example I'm just going to give you an example of magnesium.

Speaker 3: 7:18

If you have a magnesium deficiency, of course you know magnesium and calcium they depend on each other, so that may reflect deposits of calcium in the body. So then we look at that. And what? How is that impacting the body's, somebody's? You know symptoms or how they're feeling. But also we know magnesium is an essential for heart health. You know sleep, energy production, detoxification. So there's a lot, a lot of reasoning for you know the mineral, magnesium. Most multivitamins will have magnesium, will have calcium, will have potassium. You know vitamin B12 a little bit here and vitamin B6. So there are some. Most multivitamins will have those. It's not just the multivitamin itself that you're taking, it's what your body's doing with the multivitamin that you're taking. Are you benefiting from taking that? If somebody is like so adamant about taking multivitamins, which is great are you absorbing what you're getting out of those vitamins? So this is the main key component here. So we look at the overall picture of what your body is doing with the minerals that you're taking in, whether it's from your vitamin, the supplement, or your feed.

Speaker 2: 8:43

So if you know somebody isn't feeling well and they kind of been, you know, wondering about, you know, maybe deficiencies and things like that, they come in. You guys do the hair test. It's very painless. They come back in. What can they expect, like, what are the, what are the next steps and what things might they see in the report? And kind of, how would you work with those people to, you know, help them feel better?

Speaker 3: 9:10

So, yeah, when someone comes in when somebody comes in and they're there, of course they're they complain of fatigue, they have issues with weight gain, loss of muscle mass. They've been working out so much and they're like. You know, I don't know why my trainer keeps telling me I'm not gaining muscle but I'm more inflamed than gaining the muscle. I don't have the energy that I'm expecting. I'm taking this multivitamin. You know, I saw this advertisement about this certain supplement and it's supposed to help me with endurance and motivation. I'm not getting that from it. My life has. I'm under a high stress lifestyle. I don't know how my anxiety gets out of control and gets in the way brain fog. Sometimes they complain about joint pain, headaches, poor circulation, stuff like that. So when they come in and we ask those questions, then we run this test and we look at in the test what could be a trend or impact to their symptoms. So when someone comes in and says you know I, I, you know I eat healthy and very conscious of what I put in my body, I you know I I'm a vegan or I'm a vegetarian or pescatarian, so I'm very careful I don't eat a lot of grease, greasy food. I watch, I count my micros and macros, but I'm still gaining weight. I don't know what's wrong with me. Um, you know that. Of course, you know some of the minerals can be impacting their, their progress and and why they can't lose the weight. So then we look at those minerals. So we're going to look at, you know, of course, nutrients on one side, but then we're also going to look at heavy metals and toxic metals, also on the other note, to see if there's any impact and what can be an imbalance that could be triggering their weight gain or a plateau in certain ways. So that's one thing, of course you know.

Speaker 3: 11:27

When we look at energy, why somebody's fatigued, you know. You know I do everything right. You know I'm exercising five times a week. I do 60 minutes a day. So I'm doing what I was told that I need to do to help me with, you know, production of energy. Why am I not feeling it?

Speaker 3: 11:48

So then we look at those minerals. Why these minerals causing them to feel the fatigue, the issue there that they're concerned about? So it's not always going to be about food intake. It's about what your body does with the food when you start to process that. So we look at different you know, minerals in the body to see if there are any one of them that can be an impact on their you know health and um, and of course, on their energy. So why their energy is not optimal, okay, um, and then of course, with that you know, we can figure out, all right, is it because they don't have enough of certain nutrients or minerals? That could be impacting that, or if there's too many deposits, that could be also an impact on their body adrenal insufficiencies. So there are lots of different trends that can be impacting that issue.

Speaker 3: 12:55

So we look at the imbalances and then we try to see is the multivitamin they're taking? Are they taking the multivitamin? Do they need a multivitamin to take to help them with that issue? What kind of multivitamin they may need? Does it have to need? Should it have more iron in it? Should it have less iron in it and so on. So, and of course, heavy metals, detoxing, I mean, do they need? Do they have a lot of exposures to heavy metals? That could be also an impact. So then we look at detoxing and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 13:27

So Can you share maybe a case study or an example, just to help people really understand you know, you know how you're able to sort of work through the issues and help some folks.

Speaker 3: 13:45

Yeah, so definitely. So I had a. She's a, she was, she's a female, I still see her. She had the sleeve surgery so to help her lose the weight. She did lose about 100 pounds on the sleeve, but with the weight loss, the 100 pounds of weight loss that she had, she did not feel well. She felt like you know it was, she wasn't herself, her energy was not great. She had a hard time sleeping. She, you know, she couldn't really do much of exercising. She kept feeling like she didn't have the endurance to exercise with that. So when she came in, she's like I'm not sure if you can help me. I already, you know, I've lost 100 pounds, I need to lose. She had to lose around another 100 pounds and then also on top of that she had a plateau. So she stopped losing after the hundred pounds that she lost. But she did have to lose another hundred. So you know.

Speaker 3: 14:54

So we, she came in and we, we, we did her testing. So definitely with the sleeve she lost a lot of nutrients. She did have lots of depletion deficiencies. So we started working on balancing these deficiencies. So especially, you know, with her calcium and her magnesium, her sodium, her potassium, you know, all of those minerals were off track Her zinc, her copper she had.

Speaker 3: 15:25

So we looked at, of course, phosphorus, and so we looked at multiple levels of minerals in her body and the impact on them, which, of course, with all the levels and deficiencies that she had, iron was really deficient. She was really deficient in iron, which is known with the sleeve in any gastro bypasses, you know, we usually tend to see that happening. So we looked at that and it was nothing had to do with heavy metals. She had no exposures or anything like that environmental or heavy metals, on that side note but she definitely did have a lot of deficiencies. So with these deficiencies we were able to help her take the right nutraceutical supplements that it will help improve her health and know health and make her feel better and help her maintain what she lost. And she continued to lose and she actually lost another 100 pounds. So after a year she was able to lose 100 pounds and she looks great right now, actually.

Speaker 2: 16:42

So that's amazing.

Speaker 3: 16:44

So just you know, by balancing the nutrients and the vitamins she was missing, you were able to kind of fix her metabolism yep, yep, so we do in the mineral test which is thanks for sharing that, or bringing that up In the mineral test, the mineral tissue hair analysis that we do. It also rates the metabolism. It gives us a it's called metabolic rate. So we are able to see where your metabolism is at based on the minerals that you have currently. So we're able to see that and then we were able to see what direction we need to go based on that. Okay, so what? You know, if it's a very slow metabolism, you know with depletions, of deficiencies, of course you're going to work on the two, but you know one helps the other. But at least it will give us an idea as a baseline where is the metabolism? And then we're able to enhance it from there based on the results that we see.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Sure, All right, that's all amazing. So if there's folks out there and you've been struggling with weight gain, struggling with fatigue, just not feeling like yourself, and you want to give Nancy a call at Lockton Wellness, can you share your contact information, nancy?

Speaker 3: 18:06

Yes, absolutely so. If you're interested, please give us a call at 404-809-4161. And we are located in Alpharetta. The address here is 5755 North Point Parkway. 5755 North Point Parkway, Suite 269. And again, we are in Alpharetta. So we love to see you, we love to help you feel better, optimize your health to the max and, as always and I always say that there's a no one size fits all, so everybody's different and the goal here is to help you feel better inside and outside.

Speaker 2: 18:46

That's awesome, all right. Well, thank you so much, nancy. It was great seeing you. Likewise Thank you.

Speaker 1: 18:54

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Milton More. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPMiltoncom. That's GNPMiltoncom, or call 470-664-4930.