The Dx2 Podcast
Two sisters discuss what they are learning about having a balanced wheel of life that rolls along as smoothly as possible.
The Dx2 Podcast
Get to know Debra
What happens when your greatest obstacle becomes your most powerful teacher? This conversation with Debra reveals the transformative journey of turning personal health struggles into a mission to help others heal.
Debra's story begins with childhood health issues that evolved into decades of weight challenges. Unlike her naturally slim family members, she constantly felt like an outsider, receiving painful comments about her size that created deep beliefs about her body being "too much." Rather than accepting conventional wisdom, she questioned everything – even walking out of college nutrition classes she felt taught flawed information.
Her determination eventually led to losing over 120 pounds through healthy methods, culminating in winning a fitness competition against 50,000 participants. But the journey wasn't linear – setbacks including toxic exposure and menopause created new challenges that continue today.
The heart of this episode reveals how Debra transformed these personal struggles into professional purpose. As a nutritional coach using live blood analysis, she helps clients overcome complex health issues that mainstream approaches often miss. Her recent successes include helping a 5-year-old overcome persistent skin issues and a 12-year-old conquer debilitating stomach pain.
Perhaps most inspiring is Debra's philosophy on choosing happiness regardless of circumstances. "You choose your lens," she explains, demonstrating that we always have agency in how we respond to life's difficulties. Her practical advice – properly hydrate with electrolytes and deliberately look for the good in life – reflects an approach that addresses both physical wellness and mental perspective.
Have you experienced a health journey that taught you unexpected lessons? Share your story and join our conversation about finding purpose through personal struggles.
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Funny story.
Speaker 2:So this past weekend Tom and I we went camping by a reservoir and one of my things was I wanted to be at the reservoir so I could go on my paddleboard in the water. And I had gotten Tom like a two-seater pool float and he wanted to go in the water too, but he was all kerfluffled because he didn't have a paddle. So I hooked my leash from my paddleboard onto his float and I paddled him all around that reservoir. Oh my gosh. Well, he just lazed around on his float, but there's like a mesh thing where you where that, where you sit. So he was like in the water a little bit and there's a little cutout where he could put his feet in the water.
Speaker 2:So he was in the water, at least partially, for most of the time and I was on top of my paddleboard working as I hauled his 250 pound body around the lake and he couldn't figure out why I was sweating and it was. It was really something. So I had fun, but I worked pretty hard and it was so funny to me how many people stopped us and they were like that is such a genius idea and I thought we are like the living example of the redneck yacht club it was pretty funny.
Speaker 1:That is funny. He's living his best life.
Speaker 2:He was so hard and he like I was trying to make sure I got, you know, not burned or anything, and his belly is pretty red because he was just lays back with his hands behind his bed and full body to the sun the whole time.
Speaker 1:That's pretty funny. Yeah, all the things we do, huh, yeah, that's awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that. You guys had a good relaxing weekend. Oh it was time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was fantastic. We were unplugged most of the time, so we got like a technological reset. Really nice weather. I took very good food for us so we had like steak and shrimp and asparagus. You know good food, fancy camping, but we cooked it on the grill. So you know it was nice. Good time together. Yeah, good.
Speaker 1:Good, good to hear, but you, what's been up with you? Good to hear, but you, what's been up with you? Well, my husband went camping too, but without me. He went with the youth in our church and they hiked 50 miles in 16 hours without stopping. That's insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So they didn't have a good time, none of them. The reports back were not very good. That's fast A long way fast. Well, they traveled like about three miles an hour, so just walking, but walking for a long time, yeah. And they had rain and they had a hailstorm, they saw a couple of bears, they saw a deer. They got a story to tell, they sure do. They hiked through the night, beautiful country, but it was not super enjoyable for them. Yeah, not like my ultra enjoyable for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not like my ultra relaxing camping trip.
Speaker 1:No, very, very different. But my husband came back with lots of blisters and very sore and about two days later he says I think I could do that again. I know what I did wrong. I think I could do that again. You'm like that's, that's. You know. Women say that after having a baby, but like after a couple of months, not like two days later.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, that was funny. Yeah, very funny. Did you just say I'd like to see you do it again?
Speaker 1:No, I know. No, I thought he's crazy, he's crazy. That's no, I thought he's crazy, he's crazy. But if he wants to take somebody else and do it with us, he's welcome to. Yeah, so that's my adventure story from the weekend Nice.
Speaker 2:Your adventure story was he had adventure and you had. I played nurse when he got back. A long time and nurse time, yeah, good, a long time and nurse time, yeah.
Speaker 1:Good. So today, debra, I would like to just find out a little bit more about you so that our listeners can get to know you a little bit better. Okay, I've known you for a long time. You've known me your whole life, my whole life. So tell us about where you are in your life, what are you doing with your life and what kind of got you to where you are?
Speaker 2:What got Well, I'm not going to start there. So, where I am in my life, I am coming up on a birthday, I'll be 55 this year. So you know I'm officially middle-aged I feel like I'm still, you know, early twenties but middle-aged married to my husband for 15 years, going on 16 years. He has two children. So I have two stepchildren who are adults and they both have children. So I have a couple of grandchildren.
Speaker 2:But we in our home it's always just been he and I, because his kids were old enough to be not in our house when we got married. So we've always been empty nesters. So we've always been empty nesters. He always has had a pretty physically demanding job since we've been married and I have changed courses a couple of times All my life. I was in health care. I planned from the time of like eight years old on becoming a chiropractor and partway through my education I diverted to go to massage school and be a massage therapist so that I could kind of work and put myself through chiropractic college, but in a compatible field. Come to find out you can't really do that.
Speaker 2:Chiropractic college is a little bit demanding. It's pretty demanding, yeah. So I did massage therapy and then I, you know, finished my pre education for chiropractic college, started chiropractic college and realized pretty quickly that even though I love the field, I believe in it, I love natural health, it wasn't the course for me to pursue. So I withdrew and then kind of thought, now what? And I reverted to doing massage therapy and also went back to school thinking I'd get a degree in something else. So I have a.
Speaker 1:You were a massage therapist for several years right.
Speaker 2:I was so often on but like I would do it and then I'd go to school and then I'd do massage and then I'd go to school. So I have like a lot of education with a lot of different emphasis, but I always reverted back to massage therapy and healthcare and I worked with dad in his clinic. So I did, you know, different types of exams and different like I did x-rays, x-ray tech work, and then after I got married and moved away and couldn't work with dad anymore, and after I got married and moved away and couldn't work with that anymore, I started doing massage. But I really was burnt out on it physically.
Speaker 2:It's like it's a great field, but it's pretty demanding on your body. Yeah, I really just felt like I had kind of worn my joints out. So I just got a job, and the job that I got was in the death care industry.
Speaker 1:Oh, you went from one end to the other.
Speaker 2:Completely one end to the other. So it was with a national like cemetery and funeral company and I worked in the cemetery end of the business for a while and then got a pretty hefty promotion into the funeral side of things and it was great. Like I loved the people, I loved this, like it's a necessary service that's provided and you can really be there for people in their time of need, like the hardest time of need. But my heart was not in death care, it was in health care. So after I don't know, it was probably seven years or so I was there. I resigned.
Speaker 2:I sound like a quitter. I resigned from this, withdrew from that, but ultimately it put you know, takes me where I'm supposed to be. So I ended up working in a hospital for a while until we moved to Idaho and then dad convinced me to help more people by doing what I'm doing now, which is live blood analysis and nutritional coaching. So professionally I do that Right now. It's my own business. I try to keep it mostly to part time and I've talked before about how you know I schedule it so that I have specific time off during the month and then I work really hard on that when I when I do work and I feel like I help a lot of people. In fact, you asked where I am in life. This week I'm celebrating graduating a couple of my child clients, oh nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's such a great win because a lot of people I work with are older. They've had a lot of problems for a long time, you know, whatever they may be, but when I can work with younger people. So one of these was is a five-year-old boy who was had just turned four when I started working with him, and the other one is a 12-year-old boy and I worked with him for about a year. One of them had significant skin problems where everything would flare them up all the time.
Speaker 1:Like eczema type stuff or just rashes.
Speaker 2:Eczema, but also different kinds of rashes and bumps, like just different it would present differently. So we did a lot of internal healing and external avoidance and removal of things. And then the other one like, no matter what, whenever he ate he had serious stomach pain so he was to the point where he just never wanted to eat anything. He was terrified to eat anything. And the five-year-old no more skin issues. He's been able to reintroduce pretty much every food he's doing great like in a clean way, not a junk food way, but in a clean way, and he's thrilled. And then the other one he still doesn't want to eat any gluten because he's scared of it a little bit. He doesn't want to have any of that pain come back and I advised him on ways to try it and you know different things. But he's totally happy. He feels like he can do what he wants to do. He's got all the energy. He's no longer pale and like gray, sickly looking.
Speaker 2:He's just the picture of health and his mom is like she's so grateful and she's like I also feel like you've taught us enough tools where, if he does have a flare-up, we can get him out of it in a hurry and get him reset. That's awesome. So that's. I spend a lot of my time doing that and then just living my life with my husband, tom nice. Every once in a while I play grandma, but my grandkids live in a different state.
Speaker 1:It's so hard when they live far away, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a new one because my one stepdaughter is in the process of adopting a little boy. So she's had him since birth but I haven't gotten to meet him. She wasn't like it wasn't anything we were expecting. So I guess technically I have three grandkids now, but he's not official yet. Well, that's exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fun. Good, you said you feel like you quit a lot of things. You sound like a quitter.
Speaker 2:I did. I didn't say I feel like I quit. It sounds like a quitter yeah.
Speaker 1:So some people, I think, might feel like their life sounds like that too, like they go from one job to another, to another, to another. Yet each job is fulfilling and they play a good role in it and they learn a lot, right, do you feel like that was your experience, moving from education to education and job to job and do you feel like that, like you learned a lot and could contribute, and absolutely, yeah, like I know so at each, at each job I was in, I um like especially, let's go to the death care field, like I didn't know anything about the cemetery industry.
Speaker 1:That's not a wide one to know about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's universally needed, right? So I didn't know about it, but I understood people and I understood business and you know that kind of thing. So when I started I felt like a fish out of water, but very quickly I learned what I needed to learn and I was able to help them see how to implement different things, because of my previous experience, that they never would have had exposure to without me being there. So I made a difference for them, but they also made a difference for me and the people like sometimes it's just the association of the people, like some of those people. There are still some of my best friends, and one of them she was my assistant there.
Speaker 2:I have tried to convince her to quit and she is not a quitter. She has been there for over 20 years and she's doing exactly the same thing she was doing when she started. So she doesn't feel like she has had any growth and just every day is groundhog day for her. So when I think of that kind of thing and then my thing where sometimes I quit something to move on to something else, whether it's bigger or not or better or not, it ultimately is better for me. So I would rather change course than stay stuck in a deep, deep rut without any exposure to different people or different ideas or different ways of doing things.
Speaker 1:So some people really enjoy that career track where you stay with the same business for 20 plus years and there are people in my life that are like that, that's they could go do something else, but they're comfortable enough where they are and like it well enough, like the pain point isn't big enough to make them change yeah, jobs. And then there are people like you and I who like to move around to different things and and we're I I think the job is not as important as the people. For sure, like you said, you were in the funeral business. You helped people and could help comfort them and help them through that really trying time in their life. As a massage therapist, you helped people. As the nutritional counseling, coaching, the nutritional coaching that you do and the live blood analysis you do, you get to help people and that's really satisfying for a lot of people. I think both of us find great satisfaction in being able to help others, yeah, also.
Speaker 2:So part of it too. Like with this switching of things, sometimes I feel like I've done everything I can do here. I've grown all that I can grow here. What's next? Right? So even if you, you know, are in a single track, career track for your whole life, staying with the same company, usually there's an avenue for growth. Yeah, usually there's an avenue for broader reach or broader exposure to something. Yes, and if that's the case, great, because that's still continued growth, just in a you know, on the path that you love. Yeah, yeah, nothing wrong with that, but there's, I feel like there should be some sort of growth or some sort of learning, because otherwise you just stagnate yeah, in any, no matter what you're doing in your life, there should be some kind of growth yeah, um, so that's your work, kind of history.
Speaker 1:What about your um health?
Speaker 2:history. I'm watching you, thinking. I think I know where you're going with your question.
Speaker 1:Your health journey has been very different from mine, yes, and I've actually had been a great benefit of that because you've helped me a lot, but tell us a little bit of whatever you want to share about your health journey.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I mean I could go back to the very, very beginning, but like, when I was young I had some like issues with eczema.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, she could never do the dishes.
Speaker 2:It worked to my benefit in some areas because I didn't have to do the dishes, but also I was cracking and bleeding on my elbows and on my hands and it was painful. Yeah, so you know from way back, and that was when I was a child, like I was seven, eight years old I had to dry the dishes and put them away, but I didn't have to wash them, but I had to become aware of how things affected me, but still, like I never, I wasn't smart enough, didn't know enough or didn't look enough. I was pretty young to pinpoint a cause for that. But then over time I started really, like from seventh grade on I feel like I started to struggle with my weight, Like I was in a family with two healthy parents, healthy siblings I mean there are a lot of us and everyone was like normal, healthy weight, and then there was me who was always a little bit chubby and so I felt like I didn't fit in, but also I didn't really know what to do about it and like I don't know if I should share this or not, but I will.
Speaker 2:It's a core, distinct memory for me when I was starting sixth grade, and no, it was starting seventh grade, starting seventh grade, and in my bedroom upstairs I was asked are you going to keep growing? Are we going to have to keep buying new clothes for you?
Speaker 2:In seventh grade In seventh grade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not done growing that was my thought is. Well, I'm still growing. So, yeah, I think we probably will. But the insinuation was are you going to keep putting on weight and are we going to keep having to buy big clothes for you because you're getting heavier? Ouch, yeah, and I just, you know, did what I could do, and most of it was try not to eat that much and just like, do what my siblings were doing because that was keeping them healthy. But there were times like mom took me with her to go to this diet group or that diet group so that I could lose weight. So I always have had this feeling of my body is too much. No matter what I do, I can't get to a healthy weight and there's something wrong with me because of it.
Speaker 2:So I started looking for answers on my own and through the course of my education, which was diverse and varied, very vast. I will never forget like taking nutrition class, nutrition at BYU, and I hated the class so much that I stopped going. Like I hated it. I felt like it was not at all correct information. But then I stopped going, so I had to retake the class so that I could get the grade. And then same thing happened, like I just couldn't stomach it what they were teaching. I felt like this is not leading anyone in a good path, but it's the accepted curriculum. So ultimately I took that class three times just so I could get a decent grade and it wouldn't kill my GPA. But I felt like I was getting a letter grade in false doctrine, degree in, or you know, a letter grade in false doctrine, yes.
Speaker 2:So anyway for myself, because I just kept like I would stabilize and then all of a sudden I would gain 10 pounds. And then I would stabilize and then all of a sudden I would gain 10 pounds, like with no change really in lifestyle or behavior or intake or anything. So part of what I know now and part of the reason I'm able to help people I do now is just because of looking for answers for myself. So I looked at things dietarily, I looked at things chemically, like what I'm putting on my body, what I'm washing clothes with, like just everything I could look at and over the course of time was able to piece things together enough for myself that I did lose weight. I did it in a healthy way. I lost ultimately over 120 pounds.
Speaker 1:It was so awesome to watch you.
Speaker 2:It was like I and you felt good and you looked good. I felt amazing. I like I felt like I could freely move in my body. Honestly, the description like I felt weightless, like nothing was holding me down anymore. And then I got exposed to some stuff that made me very, very sick and immediately I started putting weight back on and it was like 10 pounds a month and then 10 pounds a month and then I kept having like recurring infections and recurring courses of antibiotics just to try to get that managed.
Speaker 2:So again, I feel like I'm a little bit in a battle with my body, but not trying to battle my body. I've tried to work with my body because I'm heavier than I would like to be, but I'm still not anywhere near where I used to be. I feel like I can manage it and everything, but it's a struggle again at this point to get some of it off. But going through that time also, I went through menopause, which threw a whole nother wrench in the works. So I'm dealing with you know, trying to manage that and the weight that people generally put on with that and then get off some of that. I call it like in my mind it's the toxic weight from the exposure that I got and my body protecting me from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so your health journey has been very long. It started decades Pre-internet. Pre-internet, yes, like now, you can pretty much Google any information you want. But you had to go through a lot of things and learn a lot of things and search high and low literally to find answers to what was going on with you. But through that you really have been able to help a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's like I say that's honestly, the biggest blessing of my journey is because I am my own most difficult case. I know enough and have learned enough to help a lot of people and that's that and like even if I'm never my perfect, whatever physical body is rewarding to me to be able to help others with their struggles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's good that you like your perspective is a healthy perspective on that. Like some people would crawl into a deep hole, and maybe you have emotionally or mentally at times, but you have been able to help people and there's a saying that goes like this the obstacle is the way, and sometimes people let the obstacle be in the way and they can't move forward. They can't get past the obstacle and they just keep running into it over and over and over. But you made the obstacle the way and your life has been enriched and you've been able to bless other people because of that.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of fun. Thank you for saying that. That gave me chills, as you said that, and it reminded me I left out one little, big, little, big one point there that at one point during my journey it was about three years ago I actually won a fitness competition.
Speaker 1:It was so cool to see you.
Speaker 2:It was a fitness transformation competition and it was out of over 50,000 people and I was absolutely shocked when I got a phone call saying I was one of the finalists. That alone absolutely blew my mind. And then the final final wasn't going to be for like another nine months. So that was emotionally, mentally hard because I felt like I had to be absolutely perfect in that time. But I didn't let it get the best of me. But I will never forget what I said on stage. I can't remember all of it, but the bottom line was you are worth it. Keep going, no matter what. Keep going and that's my philosophy. Yeah, there have been times I'm absolutely frustrated. There's times I get discouraged, but I cannot stop looking, I cannot stop trying Like I can't. It's not in you?
Speaker 1:It's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm worth it. And like I'll tunnel under the obstacle, I'll go around it, I'll scale over it, like I'm going to find a way, and there may be different ways or different diversions, but I'm going to keep going forward on the path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Determined Stubborn, determined Tomato, tomato.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you have taught me something through observation that living your best life, no matter what's going on, and looking for the good things in your life, is more important than some other things like your weight or some hard relationships in your life or your financial situation, or whatever it may be, or that you don't like your job, you can still be happy and find joy in life.
Speaker 2:You still have a good time, for sure. Why not Like what? You can have a miserable time, or you can have a great time. Either way, we're going through it, true? So choose your attitude and I choose happiness. You choose to laugh, I choose to laugh, I choose to like. It's just. That's how I'm wired. And it's interesting to me because my husband likes to say he's neutral. He looks at things with a neutral perspective, but he really is pessimistic, like that's really what it is. And as we've been married, I like try to encourage him to look for the positive and not just see the negative, and it's really cool to see him actively look for the good. But you choose. You choose how you approach life, yeah.
Speaker 1:You choose your lens. Yeah, Whatever that lens is you get to choose it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we all have. We all have our challenges. For me it's been a very visible one with weight, because people can watch Right and like. I've even had people come to me or they were referred to me for nutritional coaching and they say, well, you're not like the picture perfect stick thin person. And I just say I'm not. But you also don't know where I've been.
Speaker 1:True.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing with everyone, whether it's a difficult marriage or financial ruin or a mental challenge or an emotional challenge, like you don't know what people are going through. But no matter what the challenge is, you choose how you approach it. That's true. Yeah, good, I'm glad I've been a good example for you in that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Yep, yeah. Is there anything else that you want to share with us about yourself?
Speaker 2:about yourself, um you like to read.
Speaker 1:That's a lot. Yeah, like hobby wise, or no? Yeah, so I can be outside as much as possible, I do like to be outside as much as possible.
Speaker 2:I don't love it when it's cold. That's why I'm thinking about building a solarium so that I can be technically outside and have the sunshine and not the wind and the snow on me. But I can technically be outside, yeah, yeah, but yeah, I like to be outside, I like to play, I like to do different things. I mean we've talked like you and I go paddle boarding, you and I play pickleball.
Speaker 2:We don't usually go hiking together no we don't, but I do love to hike, I love to take walks, I like to read and I one of the things that's the biggest, one of the biggest changes in my life is I still read all the time, but I'm auto audibly reading. You're listening to audible, I'm listening to audio books. I don't use audible very much. I use the library apps because free books, free books, all of them all the time, um, but I used to read all the time and now I try to protect my eyes because it's more of a challenge, so I listen to the books and then I can do it while I'm doing other things.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you could do two things at once when you're listening to a book, instead of just sitting there reading.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, like the other day, I chose to go mow the front lawn because it needed to be done. It gave me a chance to be outside in the beautiful weather and I listened to a book the whole time I was doing it.
Speaker 1:You worked, you got sunshine and you listened to a book.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Total multitasking and it made me so happy. That's awesome. Yeah, good, I'm going to say the traditional woman hobbies of like sewing and knitting and crochet. I admire them, but I don't like sitting still to do them. I would rather be doing something physically active.
Speaker 1:You say traditional, I feel like that's more like our mom's era traditional things. I honestly think if you're maybe 65 and younger, that's not really your thing.
Speaker 2:But that's what I mean.
Speaker 2:Historically traditionally those have been the hobbies for women. And then the necessity of like cooking and that kind of thing. And like I love to cook, I don't want to have to do it and I don't want to do it that often, but I love to play around in the kitchen. You do, yeah, and that I mean. To me that's part of it. Like I experiment on myself, I try different things on myself, I experiment in the kitchen like everything's kind of an experiment or a game or a puzzle. So it adds interest for me, Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, advice. If I had one piece of advice, okay, that's a good one. If you had one piece of advice to give our listeners or anybody, what would it be? It can be two pieces.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I feel like absolutely that needs to be two things. So I'm just going to go like professionally, on a day-to-day basis. The one piece of advice I beg people to do but it has an immensely measurable difference in their life is to hydrate.
Speaker 1:I was going to say drink water.
Speaker 2:Drink water and use electrolytes with it because the water's not enough. But proper hydration makes everything in the body work better. It makes your energy better. It makes detoxification better better it makes your energy better. It makes detoxification better.
Speaker 2:Like it is so stupid, simple and practically free that I think a lot of people take it for granted. But even like going back to my weight, like that was the first thing for me, I was drinking a lot of water but I wasn't using it. So hydrating, not just drinking water, is crucial. So that's like a physical piece of advice. My other one is just circling back to what we were just talking about, of choosing to look at the good, choosing the happy, choosing the positive side of things, rather than getting stuck in the negative spiral, because it's easy to see the negative and all the bad in the world. But look for the good and look for the good in others and point it out to them. Compliment people tell them you like something, tell them you admire something. People Tell them you like something, tell them you admire something, and then it has a cascade ripple effect from there. So it spreads good just by you looking for the good.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Two good pieces of advice.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thanks, deb. That's all I got. That's pretty good. That's the best I've got.
Speaker 1:Those are pretty good. Yeah, thank you for sharing. Thanks for letting us get to know a little bit more about you.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Okay, my pleasure. Have a good day. See you next time. Yes,