When Brenda Wollenberg faced a health crisis, she turned to epigenetics and personalized nutrition, uncovering the profound connection between our genes and the food we eat. Her transformative journey not only revitalized her own health but also reshaped the well-being of her entire family. This episode is a deep dive into Brenda's story, a vivid illustration of how our environment and decisions echo through our genetic expression, potentially paving the way to optimal health. Brenda shares the wisdom gained from embracing change at any age, the joy found in family connections, and the enriching experiences that layer our personal development. We talk about the importance of self-compassion and the courage to embrace the unknown.
Connect with Brenda
www.inbalancelm.com
IG @inbalancelm
Connect with Heidi
Work with Heidi
IG @realheidisawyer
If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review!
Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
When Brenda Wollenberg faced a health crisis, she turned to epigenetics and personalized nutrition, uncovering the profound connection between our genes and the food we eat. Her transformative journey not only revitalized her own health but also reshaped the well-being of her entire family. This episode is a deep dive into Brenda's story, a vivid illustration of how our environment and decisions echo through our genetic expression, potentially paving the way to optimal health. Brenda shares the wisdom gained from embracing change at any age, the joy found in family connections, and the enriching experiences that layer our personal development. We talk about the importance of self-compassion and the courage to embrace the unknown.
Connect with Brenda
www.inbalancelm.com
IG @inbalancelm
Connect with Heidi
Work with Heidi
IG @realheidisawyer
If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review!
Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
I'm excited to bring you this interview with Brenda Wallenberg. Though we talk about epigenetics and the work she does with personalized nutrition, we also talk a lot about life, and Brenda shares a lot of wisdom from her own life and her own experiences. One question to consider as you listen along is have you believed that genetics were more of a sentence or a predetermined outcome than something that could potentially be changed through environment, nutrition and other means? I hope you enjoy this conversation with Brenda and that you get a tremendous value out of it, like I did. Brenda, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Heidi. Really fun to be here, I'm imagining.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit about you before we dive in.
Speaker 2:I am specializing or focusing in analyzing and interpreting genetic profiles, so people's raw data that they would get from something like 23andMe or Ancestry, for example, and the reason I do that is to help develop a very personalized holistic wellness program that kind of covers body, mind and spirit. So when people get me they get a social work degree and years in that experience. They get currently a holistic nutritionist and then a little digression along the way for 20 years of co-leading of face to community. So they really are getting body, mind and spirit evaluation of what they're doing, which is, last I checked, the only way you can move forward. We're not isolated parts. So really, you know, having people get a good sense of wellness for each of those areas I think is going to really blend together well. So, yeah, that's a little bit about what I do then working with my clients now.
Speaker 1:I'm dying to hear your reinvention story. Tell us what that rock bottom moment, that choice point what did that look like for you?
Speaker 2:You realize when you ask that you get to hear people's worth times right.
Speaker 2:It's not the shining star of what you want to put. But actually so I was practicing social work at the time, working with a very challenging adolescent, loved my job, but was you know coming home pulling a stick on the couch at four o'clock right after work, fueling all throughout the day on bad government coffee? And we also had an honor box in the staff room. I don't know what. You know what those are. They come in and fill it full of sugary treats every week. And then you, you know, you put money in the thing and like literally half my paycheck would be going to peak frame packets and you know all of these kinds of things and just super low energy. And I remember I wasn't leading the faith that time my husband was, and one of the young adults came to me and she became a friend of mine and she said, like I'm really worried about you. Like you, you know your, your energy is in the tank, you just your moods are all over the place. And she said, frankly, I think he used to be a lot smarter. Thanks a lot. And she said, no, I really I think you need to see my boyfriend and I'm like who the heck is your boyfriend? And she said well, he's really smart, he's a member of men's and he designed supplement formulations for some of the big companies in Canada. He's also master herbalist and you know, I think you should book an appointment with him. And I was like who, who, who, who? That sounds like something I would be running away from. But I mean, I already had an ulcer, I already had thyroid issues, I already was carrying around way more weight than was a good size for my bones and my body. And so I said, yeah, so I'm quarter Irish.
Speaker 2:I remember telling my husband okay, I'm going to see this guy and do what he says for two weeks and I'm going back to eating peak frames and dynamo bars. And first week was I don't think they've ever done any kind of a get off sugar thing, but it was not fun and I thought I was cursing this guy's name practically. By the second and the second week I said to my husband Marcus, I don't care what you do for the rest of your life, but I am eating and some variation of this. I feel like I've got my life back. Well, after you, I've got my life back. I don't remember ever doing this good for the past 25 years. So that was like the oh my goodness rock bottom. I can't kind of go on like this and then I'll give you a little cheater one, but then fast forward probably another, maybe five, six, seven years after that and Learned that, okay, I was eating well but I dragged my family along onto a vegetarian Kind of a diet because, you know, I did my research on this research junkie, so this was death from the planet, death for us, completely ignoring the fact that my husband is six to, he's German, with a football player and you know, school and that's mobile, or like I'm gonna fuel this guy who's thighs are the size of my waist on a vegetarian diet.
Speaker 2:What's great for some people within, we did for a dystopian year and he was clunky, irritable, you know again, weight is not a big deal but it can be an indicator and he's put on a bunch of weight. He was just not his self and the school called the stand was one of our kids, you know, having some potential issues, potentially ADHD, potentially looking at medication, and I thought, time out, the support in the road, I'm doing something wrong here and that was the first hint that not only should you be well but you might need to be well personalized to you, to your body type. But yeah, those are my kind of two big ace epigenetics, the genetics of them, the last five years.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and that's a deep dive of going into epigenetics. Can you explain that for those that have never heard of it? You'll probably be able to explain it better than I have.
Speaker 2:So epigenetics epi Comes from the latin or Greek root, either one, and it just means over or above. So genetics is your DNA you got from your biological mom and dad.
Speaker 2:The field of epigenetics looks at the way environment so what you eat you know, how you sleep it's a movement you do, how you manage stress, how, how you supplement, how all of those things can impact gene expression. You can have a talent in genes but they don't necessarily need to be expressed if you are doing the right environmental things that can keep a Gene, say, dormant, or can really help support one's expression. So yeah, just deep diving into that, which is, of course, a very new field of human genome. It's only not 20 years ago, so have not been around for very long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember years ago reading the book the biology of belief by Bruce Lipton oh my goodness, yes, yes, and that really blew my mind because I thought, okay, there's so many and we do this to ourselves anyways. We all walk around with a story about what we think our life is or what our limitations are, and there's so many people that I had Come across in my life and you know, even family members like this is genetic, this is something you may experience, this is something you're likely going to To have. Yeah, and then when I read that book and I realized we can actually turn on and off genes through environmental factors, like what you're saying, it really blew my mind open to think Okay, nothing is set in stone, we're not predetermined to that level, and I think it's really Empowering and that's why one of the reasons why I was excited to have you on here, because I thought we do need to look at people individually, because we are all so different and Having that approach, I think, is really important. So what were some of the? The breadcrumbs or the clues along the way? You mentioned going to this practitioner Cleaning up your diet, realizing sugar was it sounded like contributing to brain fog and all kinds of Issues that you had going on.
Speaker 1:Were there any other clues that led you? What led you to the epigenetic side of things?
Speaker 2:the last 20 years as a nutritionist I've been already Doing something called body typing or metabolic typing. So I've people do survey. You know some people need more protein. Some people are more sympathetic, dominant, more more wired to fight or flight than to the parents, sympathetic Western group, redemptive. So I would already tailoring plan to that kind of an approach. Five years. I have a nutritionist friend that's also a PhD Biologist and five years ago she said you have to come to this workshop and I said I have not taken biology for a lot of years and she said no, no, no, you need to come. And my only saving grace, in the middle of this whole day workshop where I was going like oh my goodness, like I am way over my head, was looking at her, a PhD biologist, and she was going oh my goodness, I'm a bit over my head, I was like yes yes, so the crumbs were kind of oh, my goodness, we can personalize things even more if we actually come up at raw data.
Speaker 2:And then it's interesting what you said about Bruce Winston, because that literally was the book that it inspired this when I read it, because he talks about the fact that I'm gonna probably quote this really badly. But you can all almost create a little sheet that gets pulled over a strand of DNA by your choices so that that does not have to be expressed. And that was what I wanted to do for myself and my family and my clients was let's look at where some of these challenges are. And Already I joked that I reset a lot of my genes working with that Herbalist all those decades ago, long before the human genome was even mapped Simply by the environmental things that got put into place. So I find the biggest thing for the people I work with, number one, is hope, because, like you said, we get this story. Well, everyone in your family has arthritis or you know, we always get two types of diabetes or whatever you know. And well, no, we actually don't have to follow in that pattern. So hope is a big one.
Speaker 2:But then, secondly, it's clarity. So, yeah, I've got this hope, but now what do I actually do? Oh well, this would be a great amount of protein for you to eat each day. You know what You've been trying to intermittent fasting. Your genes actually don't like intermittent fasting. They love three meals a day, so let's switch you to that instead. You know you're struggling with sleeping. There's probably three or four different reasons that could be, but now genetically you can look and start. So you just don't waste money on supplements or time trying, you know, vegetarianism or keto or whatever it happens to be, if you don't know that that is for you. So I think the hope factor on them, the clarity, is super important.
Speaker 1:I love what you're saying about sleep, because anybody listening who has ever struggled with sleep. You do not want to go longer than you have to dealing with that problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we literally and again, there's a lot genes aren't just like one gene that just does this, and there's lots of interaction between them. The couple that we look at and predictably do a sleep one has to do with circadian rhythm, and so people can have that in a very challenging way. And so there's some simple tools you can get outside, get sun in your face within a half an hour of waking up, help reset that. Get the light, get up to devices an hour or two before bed. Get the light in your house. You can actually help your body to reset the circadian rhythm, which is not just your wake sleep cycle, but in muscles and organs and all different places you have circadian rhythm. So, but if you know that you're, my clients are much more compliant when they know their genes are like well, I kind of have wonky circadian rhythm genes. I'm going to make an effort to sit out on my front deck and drink my morning coffee or whatever you know, so as much as me telling them that I can actually show them.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's just look here at what your genes are directing. As a good idea, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that. So you mentioned before I don't know if you mentioned this in your intro, but you told me that you have five kids, so I'd love to know how did this journey impact your entire family, because you said it took a little bit of experimentation at first with your husband and getting his diet tuned up. How did that impact your kids and your overall experience as a family?
Speaker 2:I am incredibly grateful to the graciousness of my children. Okay, so we did do some big bags along the way. That one incident you mentioned with my husband when I gave him the really the first or second time I'd ever done a metabolic assessment with anyone after me. I had him complete the test and I looked at this and I've done like hundreds of those in the last 20 years and I just said, oh, my goodness, I have to buy you a cow like this afternoon. And he was just like hallelujah, you know. And so then the children were, oh, I guess we're not vegetarian anymore.
Speaker 2:So, we had grass fed meat, of course, and all that healthy, real kind of food, as much as you can do. And then you know, along the way they joke. Now, as adults that are 28 to almost 40. They joke about oh yeah, I remember the time that mama tried to cure our pinworms with cloves and we all hated cloves and we were standing in the kitchen crying and I thought, oh yes, I remember that.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry, but, having said that, it's amazing to watch them now, super healthy, super strong, super fit, raising their children, probably not as type A as I was, but very much real food model, valuing routines, having their kids outside in fresh air, you know, getting them to bed at a good time. So, yeah, I see it, and I told my husband, when you do our kind of end of the year a little walk in, a died with the air and I said I want to die, I want to live for at least another 30 years. But I said If I died now, I would be happy seeing what we have contributed in the way these kids are living their lives, and not just that, but just the focus and all of the different things that we try to instill. So yeah, they've forgiven me for the glitches and have adopted a lot of it, so that's pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you said that.
Speaker 1:First of all, it's really powerful that you're doing that evaluation.
Speaker 1:I've found a lot of people set goals to begin with and I'm not a lot of people actually take the time to consider if their life is working out the way that they hoped and how to change it if it's not.
Speaker 1:But when you said that I could die happy right now knowing the contribution that I made, I think that's what we all want in life. We all want to know that we made a difference in some way, whether it's with our own kids or someone else that we've had an impact on, and I also love that you modeled that experimentation for them, because it is about finding your own way in life, whether that's in your nutrition and health journey or in your career. I've talked to so many women already on this show who made massive pivots in their career because it's like, hey, this just isn't aligned with who I'm becoming now, and they've given up things, relationships and careers and things that they worked really hard for and that meant a lot to them at one point. But then they realized, yeah, this actually isn't where I'm going, and so I think that's really powerful that you even just within the context of your nutrition and your health choices that you got to model that for your kids so they could become who they are today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, and, believe me, we modeled that in everything. We made lots of mistakes. We made mistakes, colleen and Faith community, we made mistakes, so it was like the kids could see that again body, mind and spirit. I think this is probably a big lesson I learned that we've passed on is that you don't know everything, and that was hard for me.
Speaker 2:I am why you're very sympathetic, dominant. I like to be right on an enneagram, I am a one and I don't like to be right so I can be right. I don't want to steer people wrong, like I want to do my work thoroughly, but that means it's very hard to learn that. Oh, it's okay to make mistakes.
Speaker 2:I don't get from A to G without going through a lot of alphabet letters along the way, and I think a big learning curve for me that then got passed on to our kids is that that has some peace with the process. Like you, if you're going to grow into this person who you're happy that you are with, then there's a lot of that ego self that is going to have to diminish in order for a lot of the true self of who you are to actually rise to the surface and start leading a little more. So, yeah, that totally was not fun and often you know like chagrin and all of embarrassment and all those kind of things, but just learning to roll with that and be glad for where you were getting to in the process, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we all, no matter what your personality type or how you're, you know you're wired genetically, all of that. I think we all have this preference to feel like we know what's going on, because it creates this sense of psychological safety for us to feel like we have the answers. But really the work that I've found is that it takes learning to be really curious and getting really comfortable in the unknown. We said there's so much that we don't know, and when we can surrender to that, then we recognize that there's so much to learn and that becomes the exciting part, Exactly.
Speaker 2:Oh, totally. I made up an infamous formula that I use with my clients. It's called the OCC formula and the first letter is for observation, so just neutral, taking a look at what's going on, whatever body, mind, spirit area we're looking at. The first C is for curiosity Get asked yourself some questions, like you said. Why would I be doing that? Why did I go and do that when that's not really what I want to be doing? And then the second C is compassion, because it's so easy to beat ourselves up when we realize that we have not followed through on something that we said was important to us, or we did something that doesn't serve us anymore and it's like that's okay, like this is a journey, and so exactly what you just said in the neat little three letter acronym.
Speaker 1:I love that, I think it's important yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love little acronyms and things that help us to remember and it is. It's that kind of that oh that observe, orient yourself to, I always think of. There's a Navy SEAL term UDA observe, orient, decide and act. You looking at, okay, what's going on, and then you orient yourself to who it is, that you are here to be and you know you make decisions from that place. And so I love that, just awareness and curiosity and moving from that place. I think if we all did that, the world would be a much better place. A lot of our problems come from people thinking that they know the answer and not being open to others' opinions and experiences. We can learn so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I agree, and I figure that we've landed and arrived. We don't learn ourselves, but we also judge others in a way that's not helpful for kind of the peace and harmony that we would like to be seeing. So I totally agree with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Anything that that popped up for you, that was a big lesson or surprise that you learned throughout your journey.
Speaker 2:It was a good surprise to learn, you know, that how I felt in my middle 20s did not have to be how I would feel for the rest of my life. Just that realization that you could really make some specific changes that shifted like everything, how you felt physically. Your thyroid numbers, you know, like tangible things, like your ulcer, your heart's filled energy to burn, went on to play really high level competitive racket ball. That's not a sport that gets played a lot today, but at that time it was like the ability to do a lot of these things and that continues. Like my husband and I did a fly-in canoe trip a couple of summers ago with friends of ours where they drop you off in a float plane up in interior BC like sat phones. We saw one other party the whole week that we were up there canoeing on this chain of lakes and it's just like, oh my goodness, like my mid-20s self could not have done this and my mid-60s self is doing this and not getting it out of the park and our kids are going like I'm not even sure, but I would have done that. Like that's really amazing. So you have the ability to, yeah, just do something different and put some steps into place that can have that happen.
Speaker 2:Now, having said that, I always have a caveat where my after-had and my social worker had, because sometimes people use that information to really almost browbeat or bash people who, for example, have a chronic illness or have a situation in life that's very challenging, whether it be economic or whatever. So that's not ever meant to be a pull yourself up by your bootstraps message when people are already doing everything that they can. I think we have to be really careful that we don't browbeat people with that. But within whoever we are, there's probably some measure of even if it's simply our control of our responses to a very challenging situation that we do have some ability to make changes in. So yeah, that was big for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what I'm hearing in that, too, is that it's never too late because, like you're saying, in your mid-60s you're having all these awesome experiences and adventures. And I think a lot of people get into even their early 40s and they think, oh okay, this is kind of my experience of life, this is what it's like. It's only downhill, it's. You know, I'm getting older, it's all going to be worse and worse and worse and worse, and that doesn't have to be the case. That doesn't have to be the story that you tell yourself there.
Speaker 1:And I also love what you said about you know, sometimes we are in circumstances that we're doing everything we can to heal from them, whether that's an emotional situation or a physical situation. But you think of somebody like Victor Frankel who spent time in concentration camps and the one thing that they couldn't take from him was his ability to create his own meaning around what was happening Exactly, yeah, and so I think that's important to remember when we're thinking of people who are in that situation is that, yes, your situation can change. It can and it is possible, but also you get to decide what you're making it mean right now while you're going through it, and that's power.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I agree, oh yeah, totally, and I you know you mentioned before about the five kids and whatever, and now this season of life, and like I actually am having so much fun right now with now that we have five kids, any second or any day now the next couple of days, we will move up to six grandkids and being able to run my practice in a way that I've been able to spend two days a week with grandkids watching them, one of them for four years now and that has been like the most amazing thing.
Speaker 2:I have a mastermind partner and I was relating something that happened with one of the grandkids one day and she said oh, brenda, so it's kind of like a baby, said God, and I said, no, actually it's kind of like God babysits you and I was like bingo being able to carve out space for these little ones. It just keeps me young and keeps me fresh in my work and able to do all of the things that are important to me. So you can have a lot. If you eat right, do all the things that can help you to set energy, you can get away with a lot of things, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So what's one piece of advice that you would give your younger self?
Speaker 2:I thought about that and I think the biggest thing would be recognizing that everyone is different. You know, I attended, like many wellness practitioners do. It's like, oh, I did this and I got well. Now I said teach all my clients and just do this and they'll get well. And I think you know, recognizing not only that there's obviously the three body, mind, spare parts that need to be attended to, but that how you attend to those, the order that you attend to those in, and the things that you do are going to be very different, based on, yes, people's genetics, but also their life experiences, trauma that they've experienced. All of those things are going to impact someone's wellness journey, and so I really, yes, everyone can change, but it might not look the exact same. So let's work together and figure out what is your best way to get healthier and better and feel better.
Speaker 1:If you think back to Brenda that was in the office drinking all the terrible coffee and eating all the snacks, what would you say to her?
Speaker 2:I would say to her you can change this. You can actually not be addicted to sugar. You can and that wasn't even good coffee, it was like bad government coffee. You can do this. You can take some steps that will change your life, your energy or mental clarity or mood. So I would just say to her don't be discouraged. Like it pretty much sucks right now and I know you don't like this, but it does not have to look like this. So I would just be like a shiny little beacon of light that would give her some encouragement that it could change. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's beautiful. And what are you reinventing right now in your life?
Speaker 2:I think it's not so much reinventing. At this point in my life I feel like I'm more layering, and so, for example, this epigenetics piece is a layering of the personalization I've done for a couple of years. You know, the fact that I get to do some stuff I carve out. Time for grandkids is simply a layering of when I went from not wanting to have any kids to having kids. Then I really embraced it, and so this is a layer of embracing this now. So, yeah, it's like an adding to these really pivotal things that have meant a lot and then being able to just really hopefully reach as many people as possible with that message of hope that things can change. So that's the conglomeration of my reinvention, of my layering right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the word enriching came to my mind. You're enriching your life through new layers of that experience, but also enriching the lives of others, and so I don't know if you pick a word for the year, but that would be a great one for you.
Speaker 2:I am getting boosted sometimes. I'm going to grab that one. We often do a word of the year and I haven't done one this year, so that will be it. Thank you very much, heidi.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, and where can people get in touch with you if they want to work with you and learn more?
Speaker 2:So easiest is through contact form on my website it's inbalancelmcom and if they want to just even know, if you know, maybe doing some epigenetic work would even be helpful. There is a free self-check. So in balance lmcom, forward slash, self-heightened check, a little document that you can just complete. Everyone likes to do the self-check questionnaires and it'll give you some ideas if it might be a helpful tool for you.
Speaker 1:Great. I'll put that in the show notes, the link to that, as well. Brenda, thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation, learned a lot from you and looking forward to sharing this with our audience.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. I loved your feedback and interaction and I took a lot away from this as well.