High Performance Starts With This One Overlooked Habit | Grow With Kepo Ep. 8

High Performance Starts With This One Overlooked Habit

In this episode of Grow With Kepo, host Kepo sits down with Robin Barrie Kaiden, a nationally recognized expert in nutrition, wellness, and functional health. Robin shares the truth behind so many wellness myths that keep high achievers stuck, unfocused, and burnt out. From the real impact of skipping breakfast to the surprising role of gut health in brain fog and fatigue, this conversation is packed with practical insight. Robin’s story of shifting from pre-med to personal wellness, and her transformative work with clients like Kepo herself, offers a fresh path to clarity, energy, and focus.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Clarity, energy, and focus are the non-negotiables of high performance
• Skipping breakfast can sabotage mental and physical energy
• Bottom-heavy eating leads to fatigue and brain fog
• Balanced meals with protein, carbs, and fat support hormone regulation
• Gut health impacts everything from skin to mood to focus
• Functional testing can reveal root causes like parasites or inflammation
• Under-eating can actually cause weight gain and stress the body
• Magnesium is essential for restful sleep and mental clarity
• Stress relief practices are as important as food and fitness
• Strength training is vital for long-term health and metabolism

BEST MOMENTS
00:01:23. “We are going to be busting some myths.”
00:04:06. “She went to every doctor on the planet... but that left her with a really unhealthy gut.”
00:07:21. “What are some of the common symptoms that people tend to just accept as part of life?”
00:10:23. “First thing you could do to start on your health journey is number one eat breakfast.”
00:13:35. “You don’t want to spike your cortisol and then crash.”
00:16:55. “What happens is you spike your cortisol, you put your body in a state of inflammation.”
00:20:07. “Your body can’t relax... you’re just tired and wired.”
00:24:25. “People that stay up till midnight, their bodies start to work like shift workers.”
00:35:03. “The test tells me so much and allows me to help people on a deeper root cause level.”

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Transcript

0:00

As a high performer, you need three things. You need your clarity. You need energy, mental and physical energy. And you need focus. First thing you could do to start on your health journey is number one eat breakfast. It has to be a balanced breakfast. You have to have the appropriate ratio of carbs, fat, and protein in order to keep your blood sugar stabilized. People come to me and they're like, this is going to get worse before it gets better, because if so, I don't want to do this. And I say, I don't know if you're going to get worse before you get better, but my treat isn't going to. Here is something you need to hear. You're not lazy. You're just misaligned. I'm careful. I help high performers get unstuck by taking bold, aligned action. And this is grow with Keppel, where we speak with influential trailblazers who've made their mark and found the clarity that changed their lives. This is where we get clear, realign, and move toward a life that actually feels like yours. Welcome to the show. Hello, everyone. Welcome to this special guest episode. So I am so excited about this one. I know I say that about all the shows, but guys, you know, I bring joy to the joyless fans, but this is actually a lot of joy. And the reason I'm excited about this is because we are going to be busting some myths. I cannot wait for you to meet our special guest. We're going to be talking about how to actually really improve your clarity, energy and focus to get things done in life and design the life that you really want. And hey, Robin. Hello! Welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you for having me. Thank you, thank you. So by way of introduction, everybody. Robin Barry. Caden, she she's one of the nation's leading experts in personal wellness, nutrition, physical fitness and weight loss and skin health. Robin works with various client clients, ranging from infants through, adolescence all the way to adulthood. I am actually one of her clients. Believe it or not, we'll get into that later on in the show. And her focus areas include nutrition counseling, personal training, virtual services, weight loss, weight gain, online programing, supplements, and many other things. I'm really excited to get into today's topic because I think something that is a burning desire for me is to bust the myths, right? A lot of people who want to be high performers or high performers, they have some beliefs that are just not true when it comes to optimizing your health. And that is all of the things that we're going to be getting into in this show. And Robin is going to help us to bust those myths. So that you can stop living with trusted bad advice. Let me say this to you all. The only thing worse than bad advice is trusted, bad advice. And a lot of the myths that you believe are probably from things that you read online. Just because somebody slaps something on Google doesn't mean they are correct or something that you have trusted friend or family member told you. But here I'm bringing an expert to you. So here's all eyes open. Watch and listen. So very quickly, Robin, just tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into this whole health journey. Oh, sorry. So I'm a registered dietitian. I 25 years experience doing this. I went to Cornell and Columbia for undergrad and grad school. I study nutrition and exercise science. The reason I got into nutrition was actually because my mother was undiagnosed with parasites for ten years before she had kids. She went to every doctor on the planet, every health not, and learned so much about health and nutrition until she was finally diagnosed with parasites. But that left her with a really unhealthy gut, which took her years to figure out and heal. But in the meantime, in raising us kids, she always fed us super healthy because she learned the hard way. So that's how I got into it. I was also a dancer growing up, always very active and into health and into medicine. I was actually pre-med undergrad, but I was really into the nutrition aspect of everything. So that's how I ended up here. Wow. Okay. Amazing. And, you know, you could have you said you had pre-med, right? You could have gone. He was pre-med. Yeah, you could have gone and done, you know, the traditional, you know, full on modern medicine. But I know even from working with you, you don't just go and just treat the symptoms right. Like, yes. No, I love doctors. Doctors are great. And please go to a doctor if you have an issue. Absolutely. But there is something about treating the symptom versus going to the actual root cause. So what? What would you say informed apart from your mom's story? And thank you for sharing that, by the way. One that I think a lot of people probably relate to, that maybe they don't even know that they're walking around with a lot of parasites. And I was like, yeah, they're more common and more easily diagnosed, but still not in traditional medicine necessarily. So they're still hard to get if you're not going to an integrative or functional practitioner like myself or somebody else. Was there any other thing that informed your decision to focus on that, like functional nutrition, which is really, you know, going to the root cause apart from, you know, your mom's story, for example? Yeah. So when I was an undergrad, it was it was a pretty traditional nutrition education and learning about proteins, carbs and fats and exercise and vitamins and minerals, which is the foundation of nutrition. And as grad school, I felt was like a repeat for me. But I didn't learn until, like, I was on the job and helping people and taking continuing and courses and meeting other practitioners didn't really learn about like root cause and minerals and vitamins and all the other like the holistic approach. I mean, I definitely lived a and breathed, holistic approach because I was a personal trainer and a nutritionist. I believe that both are important, but I definitely got into more of the functional and holistic type of treatment later in my career and probably started. So I worked in the hospitals as a hospital dietitian, and that was pretty basic. I mean, it wasn't basic working like with cancer patients in the ICU. They were there was some challenging cases that required a registered dietitians expertise, but just treating the, average human who wasn't hospitalized but getting to their root cause, it was, you know, sometimes a mystery. And like, what can I do more of? And I just kind of learned along the way with taking my own continuing ed courses and learning from other practitioners and just following research. And I kind of forged my own way. Thanks for sharing that. I'm curious, you know, you said when it comes to those people who are not basically under intensive care, right? It's a mystery. So what are some of the common symptoms that people tend to just accept as part of life? That is something that they should actually look into that might be, you know, be caused by fungi or parasites or some kind of, you know, bacteria in the gut, for example. So it could be inability to lose or gain weight. Something's definitely going on, if that's the case. Brain fog, constant brain fog, inability to concentrate, things like that. Constant bloating, GI distress, a lot of stomach ache, and of course, skin. Because I do acne, eczema, psoriasis, any skin condition, any of the above that I just mentioned. There's usually an underlying root cause or multiple underlying root causes that you have to treat in order to feel better. Yeah, and honestly, as someone that has worked with me and I, I'm still working with you actually to clear my own skin, you all I can 100% testify that while Robin is saying is just pure fact, if you are somebody who maybe as a high profile might want to be a high performer, you need three things, right? You need your clarity. You need energy, mental and physical energy. And you need focus. What Robin is telling us is sometimes you could you could have all the great habits in this world, you know, get up and do affirmations and meditations. But it sounds like Robin here is saying that there might be some, even some underlying issues, right? That you don't even know that might be causing brain fog, you know, causing you to be sluggish and all of that. So where would one start from? Like if they were presenting, presenting any of these symptoms like we can't sleep well, for example, they're bloated. And when you're bloated, you know, maybe because of that you don't have as much energy. Let's unpack that a little more. How they can test for those issues and maybe just unpack moral what that actually feels like in their day to day life. So first things first. When I work with any client, we start with the basics. And that means I talk about when do you wake up? When you go to sleep, how much? What do you do drink? Do you exercise and what are you eating? And maybe what supplements are taking or what medications you're taking. So that's the baseline. And people don't realize how important the baseline is because think about your car. Your car needs fuel, right. It can go on regular fuel. What if you have a diesel engine or a sports car engine? You need specific fuel. So we start with the fuel the macronutrients proteins, carbs, fats, and how much you need and when you should be eating them. So I know that like intermittent fasting is really popular, but I personally don't like intermittent fasting because you have an engine, you have a brain, you have a body that needs to work as soon as you wake up. Not providing your brain with in your body with fuel in the morning is a mistake. So first thing you could do to start on your health journey is number one eat breakfast. Number two, it has to be a balanced breakfast. You have to have the appropriate ratio of carbs, fat and protein in order to keep your blood sugar stabilize, which will which will dictate hormones and hormones, dictate a lot of other things and keep you going to fuel your brain and body until the next meal. So that's a basic that a lot of people don't do. Don't take care of coffee and maybe a muffin or coffee and a banana. And I think they're good to go, but that is not ideal. So that's one of the basics that I start with. And same as lunch. I mean, a lot of a lot of busy professionals going out to eat. Well, what are you eating? A lot of people are going out to eat. What are you getting off the menu? If you're having a burger and fries and shake, that's not going to sustain you and keep you clear the rest of the afternoon. And are you snacking? If you're going multiple hours between meals, like if you're going more than like 4 to 6 hours between your meals, you're going to need your snack again to keep your brain and your body functioning. And then dinner. A lot of people, especially Americans, I don't know who's listening out there, but we do typically bottom heavy eating and what that is, it's like the typical American diet. So imagine a pyramid right. So people eat little or no breakfast maybe a little bit more calories for lunch. And then the rest of the calories come at dinner. So bottom heavy eating bottom of the day. That's when you're having your drinks your appetizers, your extras, your desserts. And then what happens at the end of the day you go to sleep. So all those excess calories that you're placing at the bottom of your day, your body doesn't need them. Then your body needs them more at the beginning of the day. So I like to teach a more rectangular approach to meal scheduling. Maybe like for separate eating times, but equal in calories. That's where I started. Wow, that is just a start. I love this and you've already given us so much. Go! Okay, you hit on something that I know a lot of listeners and watchers are like, what? Which is the intermittent fasting? I want to talk more about that so that it really hits home. It's coming from an expert. You all because I'm also learning as well. And then number two, this culture of I just need my coffee first thing in the morning. You can have your coffee, but have it with or after your breakfast. Why? Because you don't want to spike your cortisol and then crash. That's what happens if you have your coffee first. We do have a natural cortisol spike in the morning, but we don't want it to spike real high and then crash. We want we want the normal, the normal increase and then the steady decline. That's how it's supposed to go. Right. And and I've found that and these some people that I talk to, what happens is they go for the next cup of coffee. Right. If instead of actually addressing the the main problem. So what about the intermittent fasting because you types and then and I know that a lot of people skip breakfast is like well I'm not a breakfast person. I promise anyone that says that that if they try it, they'll find that it works. So here's what happens if you skip breakfast. It's really hard to number one, everyone's talking about protein these days, so it's really tough to get enough protein to begin with. A lot of people have trouble doing that. But if you're skipping an entire meal, how are you getting your protein? You're going to have a snack, maybe. And then and then what also happens is you skip breakfast, you eat lunch, and then you're starving. So again, that leads to that pyramid eating. It's really hard to get your nutrients where you're supposed to if you're not eating that first meal, because then your body will tell you, like, I'm starving, but your body's not going to be like, I'm starving for my 500 calories. Your body's going to just be like, I'm starving. And before you know it, you're into a bag of chips and you're finishing a bag of chips, and it's not balanced and wrong. Nutrients and just not healthy food. Not the good fuel that your body needs. Right. And so sometimes what I'm hearing from that is, you know, for example, in the bag of chips example, maybe you don't have a snacking problem, maybe you just have a not eating well and enough or you don't. You have a no breakfast problem, right? Yeah. Right. So I want to go even a touch deeper into that. Maybe talk about the other people who just my even pyramid, they just maybe we should call it pencil because it's. Through our Sony. Okay. Because people and this what I've heard and you can tell me because you've worked with thousands of people. What is the general thing around this whole. Or if I want to lose weight, right. I want to lose weight. I'm trying to burn my belly fat. That means I need to eat less. Eat less because less, exercise more, and then people just end up not eating enough at all. They don't want to care. I mean, stuff, they just. I don't know what that's not. That's another extreme. Yes. Yeah. So can we talk about why you see in that area and how it relates to the amount of focus and energy that they can either have? They live on that kind of diet? Sure. So if we're talking about younger people in their 20s, most people in their 20s, if they eat a little bit less than exercise, they can lose the weight, right? So if we're talking about women around late 30s and older, we hit the, the big P, the big perimenopause. It's a big buzzword today, but it is actually a thing. You could absolutely change nothing and start gaining weight, and you're not going to be able to lose it, because it's just that your hormones are shifting and your body's reacting differently. Well, so putting that aside, that's a whole nother topic we could unpack or we could put in another podcast. But let's just talk about the purely not eating enough. What happens is you spike your cortisol, you put your body in a state of inflammation and you can't. Two things either you're going to lose weight, you're not going to have enough nutrition in you. You're not going to be able to function highly like you would like to. So there's that. There's also you're going to not lose weight and still you're not going to be able to function because your body's in a state of inflammation. Your cortisol is up, your body's inflamed. It's going to hold on to all that weight because it's kind of like a fight or flight response. And it doesn't know when the next food is coming. It's kind of like, ancestral process to protect us, like, like, you know, when we're hunters and gatherers. And a tiger was chasing us and we had a move, and we didn't know what our bodies didn't know when the next food was coming. So it's going to hold on to that weight as a protective mechanism. But it's not so protective in this day and age when food is very readily available at all times. So you don't want to do that to your body. Under eating is a stressor on the body and can actually keep weight on. I know it's counterintuitive, but that happens a lot. Wow. I hope you all listening to this because people I personally in my life, I know some people who they tell me what they eat, like what did you have for lunch? Oh, I had Greek yogurt and blueberries. Like what? That's all you had for lunch? Not even. It's not even a breakfast. I mean, maybe that's 250 calories. So imagine you had three meals a day. At 250 calories, that's 750 calories for the day. That's no way near enough calories for an adult human to survive. Tell us about how these types of habits affects sleep, because I know that that is something that comes up quite a bit, you know, the whole sleep versus food. But I want to I want to learn more from you about that. I don't like intermittent fasting, but I do like gut rest. And that happens letting your gut rest overnight because, you know, there's a period for being awake. So I based everything on the circadian rhythm. Right. But the sun comes up, you wake up, you should be eating when the sun goes down and you're winding down for the evening, you're not using a lot of calories in the evening. You should not be eating. And for our guts to be healthy, they need to rest and reset overnight, just like we need to rest and reset overnight. So I recommend because your body's not digesting food while you're sleeping. So 2 to 3 hours before you go to bed, you should stop eating. That's what I recommend. So sure, if you eat dinner, let's say it's 6

or 7: 19:36

00 and you go to bed at ten, that's great. So and if you're not eating breakfast again till seven, there, you've got your 12 hours of fasting, which is great. So that is the fast I believe in the overnight fast. And that's why breakfast you break the fast. Yeah. You break fast. Breakfast. So that's my recommendation on eating sleeping. But if you're not getting the right nutrients, your body's going to be stressed and your body can't relax. And you may not be getting enough micronutrients and you're just tired and wired. So you've heard that term stressed out. Your body's tired, you're awake and thinking, and you can't relax because you've just literally have boss stress and not getting the right nutrition and nutrients can add to that. Exacerbate and make sleeplessness worse. Is that why some of us wake up like we go to bed and then we just get up at two in the morning and we just can't sleep, like, well, wired and tired. So, like, why not sleep well? Sleeping? Yeah. You may not. Be. You may be missing some micronutrients. Magnesium is a huge issue and a huge problem. So magnesium used to be found in our produce because magnesium is in the ground and produced, grows in the ground and in these Americans, we used to have good magnesium in our food supply. But here, because everything's so over farmed despite everyone's deficient magnesium. So taking magnesium after dinner before bed is something that people have told me is a life changer. Game changer, super saver and can help you sleep. The different magnesium. From different types of magnesium, magnesium, glycine is kind of a calming version that can help you sleep. However, if you have anything going on with gut health and constipation and digestive issues, I. I recommend magnesium citrate because that helps with digestion if you're experiencing both. Sometimes I combine the two. You have to treat the body as a whole. We pick and choose, but general recommendation magnesium glycine 1 to 2 capsules before bed should be helpful. 1 to 3, actually, if they're like 160 milligram capsules. So magnesium isn't a medication. And it also kind of builds up in your body over time. So anytime after dinner, it's not like I said, it's not going to make you pass out. It's not even like melatonin. It's not going to make you sleepy. It's just a mineral that a lot of people aren't getting enough of. And by adding it, it can help with their sleep. What about people who don't go to bed until midnight, for example, or 1 a.m. because sometimes work just calls for such long hours, right? How do they manage? There's a lot of studies on sleep, and one thing you definitely need is at least six hours of sleep, or else that can affect your weight. So anyone who wants to lose weight or is gaining weight if you're not sleeping for at least six hours, that can be the culprit. Also, seeing other research that if you're up for more than two hours after £0.10 pm, it's just not ideal and it can affect everything. So sleep is so, so, so important. I can't stress that enough. I get it because I am a night owl and as a busy working mom, I really like the evening time when everyone's quiet and sleeping like I go watch TV, unwind, read a little bit, but I'm always fighting the clock. It's like, oh my gosh, what time is that? I have to go, but I have to go to bed. I know I have to go to bed because it's really, really, really hard. And I'm not the type of person that really is good. Waking up at 5 or 6 a.m., but I'm thinking I may have to because that that would still give me the quiet time and nobody bothering me. And it won't be the me staying up too many hours after 10 p.m. it's really, really tough. Sometimes it is, but it's so important and you really should be going to bed at least before 1130 12 because people that stay up till midnight, their bodies start to work like shift workers. And when I tell you, shift workers that work, the evening shift have a really tough time getting their health to top notch and in check, because our bodies again, I mentioned earlier the circadian rhythm, our bodies are supposed to wake up with the sun and go to bed, wind down when the sun goes down. Now, if you're doing the opposite, it's really confusing and it's really tough to meet your goals and stabilize your hormones and get all your sleep in and get all your meals. And it's really difficult. Hey, quick break, I want to invite you to something powerful. If you're a high achieving professional who feels burnt out, stuck, or like you've checks all the boxes but still feel unfulfilled, I've been there. That's why I offer free strategies sessions to help you reconnect with purpose and get clear on your next bold move. I'd love to support you. Just hit the link in the description to book your call. Now back to the episode. And how does that affects mental energy and focus. When you're in night shift person, or when you don't get enough sleep? Well, when you don't get enough sleep? Because I hear a lot of people say, oh, I'm good. I like I've been getting five hours of sleep every day. As an adult. I'm fine. I'm functioning well. Let me I. Think there comes a point where catches up to you. I do think that some people need more sleep with others. I've seen it with clients and friends. Like some people just need like ten hours of sleep. I think 7 or 8 is more ideal and sufficient, but it's going to catch up with you. Your body needs to heal and restore and sleep. Our bodies were made to sleep. That's why we do it. And five hours just isn't enough. Like I said, minimum six. But seven eight is probably better. And in what ways would catch up with us as adults? Like, what are the symptoms that you've seen in people? Yeah, like I said, weight gain, brain fog. You know, just not not feeling well. Increase hunger, decrease hunger, affects your hormones, affects your digestion, affects it can affect everything. The any long term health risks as well like high blood pressure anything like or is it a myth again that maybe they're not all that connection? I think it depends on the person. Like if it's high blood pressure and high cholesterol doesn't run in your family. I mean, you're just not the type of person that's going to get that. It may not happen. It just if you're not resting and restoring your body, things could happen. It depends on everything else is going on. All the other factors in your life. Okay. So usually, you know, when I when I listen to podcasts like this, sometimes I make I'm so overwhelmed. Like where at what point do I get to all this and optimize all of these things before I even get some laundry and I have to do my dishes, and I have to actually do my work, and I'm building a side hustle, like, what do you tell your clients? You know what I mean? I don't know, 3 to 5 big hits. I was like, okay, if you can't do these things, everything else will follow. I work with people. That has to make changes in their lives, right? It takes 21 days to officially form a habit and change. So you just gotta start somewhere. And when I work with my clients, I also tell them if you change one thing per week or one thing per session, like from when you meet with me and I meet with me again, I'm happy because change is hard. So with regards to everything, we just talked about, the couple things that need to change in a lot of people's lives is, number one, eat three balanced meals a day. It's definitely easier said than done because there's a lot that's involved in getting the right food three times a day and making sure it's balanced. So but that's a priority number two, definitely sleep. Sleep sleeps up there. Your body needs to restore. And number three is water. We're made up of 7,075%. Water is not drinking enough. The cells in your body just aren't going to work. So a lot of people walk around dehydrated and it's really important to stay hydrated, too. Not me drinking my water, but I others do. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I don't have mine right next to me right now, but I usually I walk around with the bottle and that's, that's something most people can do. But you can't just walk around with a bottle because it shouldn't be plastic, because that's a whole other realm that we can get into. It's super easy to plastic. Yeah. Oh well, we have to work on that. Plastics are forever chemicals that can do terrible things to your body and the environment and the planet. So we really want to stick to glass or metal. They're just safer. Materials. Yeah. Because basically microplastics can leach into the water that you're drinking. You're putting them into your body. Okay. It looks like I'm going to have to change my water bottle soon. Yeah, yeah, actually, I just was I just as quoted in the article recently about toxins in our environment. I will put that up there soon. So okay. Anyone can check it out because world's so toxic. Don't even get me started. But yeah, keeping the products that you put next to your food or that you cook your food in is so important as well. So just decreasing plastic is really important. Oh wow. Okay. I mean I didn't, shots fired, shots fired. Oh, no, I know, maybe in our next session we didn't. We need to discuss plastics and. Yeah, yeah. Plastics and toxins in your environment. We'll go deep, for sure. So, you know about this water thing? I was having a conversation with a friend just a few days ago, and he was telling me how. Because I tried to drink a gallon of water a day, and I was like, well, sometimes you're drinking too much water. They are diluting, you know, your electrolytes or digestive enzymes, you know, depending on the climate or weather or whatever of where we live, how much electrolytes should we have in our water, or how much water should we be drinking? Because there's so much out there, some say or two lead, some say your weight in pounds. I mean, please help us out. My general recommendations for the average person are 2 to 3l. More likely to because most people these days do exercise and sweat. You need to replenish when you sweat but half your body weight in water. But then again, it's person specific. Depending on your exercise and your climate and everything, electrolytes are important. If you're sweating a lot or if you're sick, you know you lose electrolytes. If you're sick, you lose electrolytes and sweat. But again, going back to our soil is not ideal. Our food supply is not ideal. And again, we're not getting enough sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium in our diets. So replacing electrolytes is pretty important especially for women heading into perimenopause. Oh wow. Okay. We're late 30s and older. Yeah. It's it's really important to really hone in. And that's one of the things it's a good idea to hone in too. Oh, I didn't know that. Why is that? Hormones change everything. Digestion, metabolism, everything. I'm going to get electrolytes because to be honest, I haven't really been using that, recently, or at least this year. I definitely need to get because I am that woman in her 30s. Okay, so there's some other things I want to quickly get into because I know that, like a lot of the people listening, you know, consider themselves high achievers, high performers. And there is something to be said about gut health. Right. And I know that we've talked a lot about we've fasted lots on different things. You know, in the beginning we start with parasites and all of that. And I still have that question for you about how to get tested. Where should they go? What should they do? So can can we go a little deeper into blood health? And how it actually does affects everything? I've even heard in some cases how the gut is actually the second brain of the body. All right. Let's start with the number one. Normal digestion and normal bowel movements. It's such an important topic because it's not discussed, but our gut helps us. Is a is a detox center of our body. And things that come in have to come out. And if they're toxic, they really need to leave. So going to the bathroom 1 to 3 times a day, having solid bowel movements is normal. Anything other than that is not normal, and it's a sign that there's a problem. I've had clients come to me on all spectrums of that. I've had clients come to me and say, I have explosive diarrhea after every meal, but I thought it was normal because my whole family experiences the same thing. That is not normal. You're not absorbing your food, you're not absorbing water. You are going to suffer the consequences of that in LA. Do I go to the bathroom once a week? I'm never hungry. Well, if your intestines are literally filled to the brim with toxins and they aren't leaving your body, there's no room for more food. You're literally filled up. So that is not normal if you have any. If anyone listening has either of those symptoms, it's really not normal. And then things run the gamut in between. Some people have both constipation and diarrhea. Some people go to the bathroom every other day, which they think is fine, but really it's not. It's not good enough. The toxins in your body need to be eliminated at least once a day. So let's start there. So what I do, I do functional gut health testing. It's a GI map stool test, and the testing that I do, you can find out so much you can find out if you have any bad bacteria. Is any of it overgrown. You can find out if you have good bacteria that can be overgrown as well, or you can be limited in the amount that you have and you don't have enough good bacteria. That can happen if you're not eating enough fiber and fruits vegetables, you may not have enough good bacteria. It also looks for things like a leaky gut, which literally a leaky gut can just make you really uncomfortable. And it's like, imagine a whole hose with holes in it. It can make you think your temporally, temporarily sensitive or allergic to certain foods that you're usually not can make you bloated. It can change your bowel movements. So having a leaky gut is not a good thing. The test also tells me if you have enough digestive enzymes in your body for digesting food. It tells me that you're sensitive to gluten and will also tell me if there's Candida in your body that needs to be checked out and eliminated. So there's so many things that this test tells us. If there's inflammation tests, tells me so much, and allows me to help people on a deeper root cause level. I honestly you all. I told you earlier in this show that I, Robbins clients, you know, I want to put up my before and after for my skin. And if you're looking at it, you'll see, like, what in the world? Like, I went to so many different people, you know, at first I thought it was a really topical program. Just breaking out. I just have acne scars. I just want to clear a few scars. But I didn't know that my God was actually just trying to tell me something. And I was fortunate enough to meet Robin, and we did this guy map tests. We did the old tests. It was a revelation. The things that are in my gut. And when we started clearing it out, it was one of those situations where it gets worse before it gets better, because that stuff needs to come out of you somehow. But let's take a step back here. Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't always get worse before it gets better. That's not the case. What happened was, if you don't mind me saying you went through travel and stress, that's why I got worse. It wasn't my treatment that made you were. So let's put that out there. Absolutely. Okay. Yes, yes. You've got worse before you got better. But for reasons that didn't have to do with my treatment. Okay, okay. Point taken, point correct. No. Literally people come to me and they're like, is it going to get worse before it gets better? Because if so, I don't want to do this. And I say, I say, I don't know if you're going to get worse before you get better, but my treatment isn't going to necessarily make you worse before you get better, because the skin and overall health as we're talking, you can see that there's so many external and internal factors that lead to just in general, overall health, whether it's skin health, whether it's body health, whether it's brain health, there's so many factors. It's what's in our environment and it's what you're putting directly on your body. It's indirectly affecting your body. It's what you eat. It's how you sleep. Exercise, which we didn't touch on which we can if you'd like. But yeah, so many different factors that absolutely affects overall well-being and overall health. And like you said, it feels overwhelming. You have to get to the gym. You have to use the right products. You have to sleep right. You have to eat right. And yes, it can get overwhelming and exhausting, but again, like I said, we start with the basics. And if you have someone like me to kind of hold your hand and lead you through everything, it definitely makes it easier and more manageable. And you kind of hit one thing at a time and you work on it slowly. The moral of this is for you who are listening, take an inventory of your day, your life, your sleep, all these things and how you're showing up by work. How are you showing up in life in general? What are the symptoms that are present in for you? For me, it was my skin. For me, it was. Skin, was your skin was screaming out and telling you I need help. Your body was saying, I need help. My detox pathway is not working and we're going to show up in your skin and show you that something's not going right. Yeah. And in full transparency, the way even other things that maybe were happening. But I wasn't paying attention to them. Right. And it was wasn't until is like, okay, well going to come to something that you cannot ignore. You can't ignore. This. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because I mean, you know, for me, I've become so accustomed to I just don't sleep well or, you know, people. Accept, people accept. I'm just a person that's not going to be skinny or I'm just a person who just is always bloated or I'm just a person I have. I have a bad stomach. You shouldn't have to settle. You should not settle. You just shouldn't settle because that's just a sign that something's not working right. And you should be working on it and fixing it. Absolutely, absolutely. The other common sign that you've touched on, and several other points in this talk, is that brain fog, you know, sometimes just, brain brain fog, as is personally, for me, presented itself in terms of just low inspiration or motivation, weren't, you know, things that normalize simple formula like, do this thing? Oh, it feels like a drag, you know? But then that's almost like depression. And that can definitely be related to your sleep and your food and your blood sugar levels. So whether it's, you know, clinical or subclinical depression that can be related to, wow, And, you know, some sometimes we are so quick to label ourselves as, oh, I have this or, you know, trigger responsible maybe. Just to fix it with a pill, right. Fix it with a pill. So what if what happened is set of finding me? You're like, oh, I'm low motivation, I'm depressed. So I'm just going to take an antidepressant that wouldn't have a bandaid. That probably wouldn't have helped. Absolutely. So on that topic though, how how can someone work with you if they want to work with someone like you? Like, how do they reach you? Where do you what do they start? All of that. So you can go to my website Robyn barry.com, our Robyn Variety com or on my Instagram. And you can book a consultation with me that's complimentary. And we talk and find out what's going on with you and go from there. Awesome, awesome. So we didn't you mentioned something that yes, we didn't touch on exercise and something that I want to actually touch on. Honestly, this topic is so big, I feel like we could even do a whole podcast on it really. But here's the general thing I ask my clients do you brush your teeth every day? Do you floss? Does everyone know if they have to brush their teeth every day? Right? Multiple times a day. Our bodies are made to move. You should be moving every day. The 10,000 step thing is just. It's just some very low barometer, like, we should be moving our bodies because our bodies are supposed to move, right. It helps circulation and helps build bone density. It helps mental health. There's so many that if it helps, the digestion helps with skin health. Exercise is so important for everything. I mean, yes, I can give you recommendations like general what we should be for cardio, what we should be doing for strength. Strength training is very important. A lot of people miss out on that aspect of exercise, but we need to be exercising. You need to find time in your day to at least walk and hopefully be strength training 2 to 4 times a week. General, general, general, it's so important. We we we you did you just say tank is this is a low barometer. Yeah. It's we should at least the beginning because some people now say 15,000, 20,000. What's ideal? We're talking ideal. But how many of us. So like for example, I don't carry my phone around everywhere, I really don't, but sometimes I'll check my steps. It's only really I only technically meet my steps on my phone when I go for a long walk, but every day I'm running around, I'm up and down stairs. I'm in a lot of my car like I probably do. I probably do meet my 10,000 steps a day, but I just don't have my phone on me. You can do something as simple as like if you have an Apple Watch, of course you can track on there. Men usually have their phone in their pocket. So like, my husband's is always like 20,000 because he's always he works on his feet. But, I feel like I need to get a pedometer. You can just clip it on to your pants or your shirt or anywhere. And that's how you can see how active you are at the moment. 10,000 a day is kind of like the recommended idea of where you should be. Wow. 10,000 is the is the minimum you'll end in for higher, health within exercise, within exercise when people have to go exercise, a lot of times they don't they don't. They just gravitate towards cardio. Can you please talk about cardio versus strength training? How much of it they should be doing, you know, or energy for longevity? All of that. So the 10,000 steps is cardio like that's walking Walking's cardio. It's healthy for your heart muscle to get cardio cardiovascular exercise your heart. Your lungs are major organs. We need that. And most of us get that. If you're moving 10,000 steps a day, that's that's sufficient. Strength training is important. Building muscle mass after age 30, we can lose 10% of our muscle mass per decade, which is not good. So we need to maintain it. And how do you maintain that? Number one needs to get enough protein. Number two you have to do strength training. So that's important as you get older so you don't fall on trip. They need a hip replacement. So for health we need to maintain muscle mass so far to build muscle. And building muscle increases your metabolism and to help with weight loss as well. There you have it. You all. Okay, so, one more thing. One more thing before you go, supplements. Oh, supplements. Supplements for people. Yes. Big, huge stuff. We we can talk about this. Obviously you have. Where did you get it from when they should actually have supplements. Right. Or some kind of supplement. Your health. Right. You have to first eat well and all of that. Yes. Like I said, we always start with diet three meals a day, ideally getting most of your nutrients from food. But a supplement is exactly that. It's a supplement to your diet and I treat each person individually. I will never tell anyone that they need anything before I sit down, speak with them, do some tests and see what's going on. I don't think there's any one thing that every single person needs. I think it's a very specific individual basis. And just because all the influencers are taking, I don't know, greens or a multi or her name, another one that everyone's taking, that doesn't mean you need it. Maybe it could be helpful, but just because an influencer says it's helpful doesn't mean it's going to help you and doesn't mean that's your main issue. And you should take that. And it's going to be the magic. Nothing is a silver bullet. You have to check all the boxes. There's no magic silver bullet that's going to get you to where you need to be. What about those IV drips? Again, that's very specific. What are you getting it for? Did you go out and were did you either did you have a bad stomach virus or go out and drink too much? One nine okay, then maybe some I.V. hydration could be helpful, but just getting it to get it, to get it and not necessarily know why you're doing it or what you're doing not necessarily need an individual basis. So how do you know what you need then. You work with a professional that can help you. Like you maybe. Yeah. Okay. Oh this was really great. I hope you all learned something from this I definitely did, I did I mean, I knew I was going to learn something, but I didn't know they'll have to change my water bottle and get electrolytes and does I mean it's the thing really. We can talk about that our next appointment. I know okay. So Robin, before we close, is there anything that you feel I did we didn't touch on that. You know you want people to know for maintaining clarity. So not having brain fog, maintaining their mental and physical energy throughout and their focus is like from a gut. This is one thing that we didn't really touch upon. Stress relief. Ooh yeah. Exercise can be that for a lot of people. So a lot of people consider their exercise their meditation. But if exercise either doesn't do that for you or if you don't find stress relief from exercise then you gotta find something else. It doesn't have to be formal meditation. It can be whatever you find that you need to find some mental rest and relaxation at some point during the day. It can be watching a TV show. It could be anything that helps you calm down. Reading a book or doing a formal meditation, whether it's 30s or half an hour, it's whatever you need. Because again, if you're not doing that and your stress is up, it can cause everything else to go awry in your body. What are some things that you've found your clients use that help apart from meditation or exercise? Like I said, reading a book, TV show, calling a friend, journaling. Everyone's so different. I like to watch a TV show or I exercise. That's just me though. But I need mindless TV. Or I read or whatever you need that helps calm your brain and call your body so important. It's part of the holistic healing and hell. I totally agree with that. When I work with my own coaching clients, we have this thing called release meditation where it's just maybe up to 20 minutes, and if is only sometimes five minutes that you have just in between tasks or something. So just close your eyes and breathe and calm down. And it's just amazing how even when I do them like. Yes, even just even just like the the 4x4 breathing methods inhales for four exhale for for even just doing that. Studies show that that help calm people that are stressed. That is so huge. I was surprised with this. I didn't touch on the when we get in, but hey, that means a a nice. Excuse that I can use that with my kids. Sometimes I'm like, just breathe in and out five times with how it word so works. It becomes your body. It physically becomes your body, so calms your mind. All right. Well thank you so much. This was on episode chock full of so much. And I think maybe at this point we'll just have to pick one of the topics and go deep as, yeah, I'll do another episode on that one. Yeah. So thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. Thanks for tuning in To Grow with Keppel with this episode sparked something for you? Subscribe, share it with a friend and keep growing. Your.