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In her practice, Dr. Grace combines the best nature has to offer with the newest innovations in science, integrative medicine, nutrition and human physical performance to provide clients with whole body and mind rejuvenation and repair.

In this episode of Imperfect Thriving, Kathryn speaks with Dr. Grace about natural solutions for better health and living.

Meet Dr. Grace Hameister

She is a seasoned doctor and science lover who wants to punch through the status quo with unapologetic truth, scientific validity, experience, and laughter. She pokes at science, culture, and tech to open people’s eyes to very usable and valid natural solutions for better health and living. A Wisconsin girl with solid roots in nature and family, who has also lived in California for half of her life …so basically she’s a bit of a mix of an educated, sharp-tongued, cheese loving, Lake-life jock chick, with appropriately elegant champagne taste and style.

Check out Dr. Grace’s website here, her podcast here, and follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

In This Podcast

Summary

• 5 ingredients we must avoid and why
• Amazing patient outcomes
• The gut brain connection
• Cold lasers and hyperbaric chambers

5 ingredients we must avoid and why

The big five are: trans fats, Excitotoxins (like MSG and aspartame), corn, sugar, and GMO. They are the biggest gut killers and cause permeability issues. They cause issues in how you can absorb nutrients and in how you can eliminate toxins.

They also create malabsorption issues, so you’re not even properly absorbing the nutrient dense foods that you need. Then you’re also filling your body with empty calories that have no nutrient value.

The best way to avoid these 5 ingredients is first and foremost, read labels. Rather than looking at calories, sodium content, the numbers of milligrams or percent daily value, skip down the ingredients list. Ideally, it’s a very short list and not several lines long.

Amazing patient outcomes

Terrell Owens broke his leg and tore a ligament in his right ankle 7 weeks before playing in the Super Bowl. He was given a hyperbaric chamber and laser as part of his treatment. Not only did he play in the Super Bowl, he played a lot and well.

Dr. Grace also treated a 4 year old girl who was having speech issues. Her parents brought her in under the suspicion it might be autism, but weren’t convinced that was the whole picture. Dr. Grace used the laser to stimulate certain areas of the girl’s brain while reciting different sounds that were correlated to that part of the brain. The next morning, the girl was able to enunciate a word correctly. After three treatments she strung together a sentence.

We’re getting a lot more respect for our scientific knowledge base and for our results and for our approach to using noninvasive, organically sustainable, earthly sustainable, and bodily sustainable techniques.

The gut brain connection

The gut-brain connection has been huge for not only people to learn about in society, it’s also more relevant in literature right now.  The whole gut-brain access is the buzz in functional medicine because 70 to 80% of your immunology and your neurology is in the gut. Avoiding the five ingredients listed above is important because excitotoxins and trans fats are highly addictive. We continue to go back thinking we’ll get something from them, when in actuality they are just deteriorating the brain and the gut even more.

Cold lasers and hyperbaric chambers

A cold laser basically gets you to heal like Wolverine from the inside out. The technology connects with the body at the cellular level by making mitochondria produce more energy in a more efficient way so that cells and tissues come together with quantum speed. It is particularly useful with wound management and wound care. It has helped heal burn victims without even touching their skin, which would otherwise be extremely painful.

The implications of hyperbaric uses goes beyond scuba diving or helping those who suffer from the Bends. It has a giant impact on neurology, meaning it has helped with stabilizing Alzheimer’ and autism. It helps with tissue repair so effectively that major sports athletes have used it for the purpose of accelerated healing. Hyperbaric is great for immunity because a pathogen, like a bacteria or virus, can’t grow in an oxygen rich environment. The more alkaline our body can be and the more oxygen that is physiologically viable, the more solid immune system.

Progress over Perfection Program

Do you struggle with procrastination? Do you have trouble getting started? Do you compare yourself to others? Do you feel like you must do things perfectly?
Well, I get it. I am a recovering perfectionist myself. I struggle with perfectionism for most of my life and finally figured out how to stop letting perfectionism control me. I want to help you let go of perfectionism so you can move toward a more satisfying, less controlling life. Click here to start my free “Progress over Perfection workshop”-5 bite size videos with very short assessments before and after each video. Start with the quiz to find out once and for all if you are a perfectionist (1 in 3 of us are). Then you will learn what it is costing you in your life and 3 steps to let go of perfectionism. Start now!

Click here to get started.

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Useful links:

• Do a Day with Bryan Falchuk | IT 042
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• Imperfect Thriving on Instagram
• Imperfect Thriving Free Email Course (Your Blueprint To Thrive)

Podcast Transcription

Kathryn:

Welcome to the show Dr. Grace, I just can’t even tell you how happy I am to have you here. And you can see that I like left out your last name of the introduction so that you can pronounce it for me properly.

Dr. Grace:
My last name is Hameister, but that’s exactly what I go by. Dr. Grace. I have for years.
And so it’s a good staunch German name, but a lot of people all around the country who don’t have German backgrounds, don’t really get it. I get everything from hamster, haimister, hemister. So it is Hameister.

Kathryn:
Oh my gosh. That reminds me of the part. Did you ever see the Pink Panther? Like the newer pink Panther with Steve Martin in it?
Dr. Grace:
Oh, not yet.

Kathryn:
Oh, okay. Well there’s a scene in that is just hilarious. He’s trying to get to pronounce hamburger. It is so funny.

Dr. Grace:

For me, it was when Rob Schneider was on Saturday night live, he had that SNL skit where he was the copy guy.
And he’d be like, Hey, it’s the Rick, Rick and Rooney, Rick Ross, whatever the name is. I’m like the Hameister, that’s when people finally actually got my name. I actually met him and told him this, which was hilarious. And he was laughing. I’m like, yeah, thanks for making my life completely miserable and hilarious all at the same time.

Kathryn:
That’s awesome that you got to meet him and have that conversation. So tell me a little bit about your background and how you came to practice uncommon medicine.

Dr. Grace:
Yes well taking it back really far. I was the first Olympic level rhythmic gymnast in my state. So I did a sport that didn’t even exist really in the mainstream awareness factor.
There was no college educated scholarships for it. It just was something that, fell in my lap. And I would just became really good at it, I guess I was kind of designed for it. And then from there I went on to becoming a professional water skier. I worked at Sea World in San Diego and Cypress gardens in Florida.
I won the world championships in doubles doing that, in 1993. And then, that took me into the world of athletics and elite performance. And I was exposed to that. I went to live at a training center when I was 12 years old, flying to go there from my competitive days. And that was in Colorado Springs.
So I had at a very young age been exposed to some very uncommon things that people my age would see. And so it shaped me, it brought me awareness to excellence and integrity in ways that still carry with me today. When I was water skier, that’s when I decided to go into alternative and chiropractic alternate medicine, which I have focused to be, a sports oriented career, as well as a concierge career.
So I travel with people on site, on set backstage. I work with senior executive management teams and CEOs quite a bit and handle their healthcare. So from my athletic background that took me into becoming, super geeky scientist through college, which I really adored doing, which took me into using both of those worlds to tie it together and create the kind of practice that I have now.

Kathryn:
I love that how you took the things that were so specially unique to you and the way that they all tie together in the package that is you as a person and sort of did what you did with the gymnastics and created this new thing. You’re doing that with your work.
Dr. Grace:
It’s a blessing and a curse. I’ve been a trailblazer since day one. I use technologies that a lot of people still don’t know about that have been on the market for 15 or 20 years. And I’ve been in practice for 20 years now. So I graduated from, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Got my degree in psychology, a double major in bio and did a year of cancer research and immunology before moving out to the West coast to become a chiropractor and specializing in functional integrative medicine in sports.
So through all that, that’s definitely kinda carried me through to what I’m still doing now in my practice.

Kathryn:
Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about some of those practices that even though they’ve been around a while you use, but others haven’t really come around to.

Dr. Grace:
Sure. Well, what’s been intriguing me recently is ways to help with your immune system.
I mean, that’s always been forefront of my mind and of my experience level. Tissue repair and immune immunity have always been high on the list of kind of things that I approach from a nonsurgical and non-pharmaceutical level. So, I have a cold laser that I use that helps with your neurology.
I do a lot of pharmaceutical grade supplements. It’s called orthomolecular nutrition and functional medicine. They’re more concentrated and they’re super pure. They’re designed for healthcare practitioners to use so that you can get better results at the cellular level. And so the gut-brain connection has been huge for not only people to learn about in society more it’s more relevant in literature right now.
It’s kind of like the buzz in functional medicine, like the whole gut-brain access. And that’s because 70 to 80% of your immunology and your neurology is in the gut. So between the laser and the supplements, and then I do other things too, like looking at diet.
But one of my favorite things also is ozone therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And those are two that people haven’t heard much of either. And actually none of them people have heard of. Certainly not in the Midwest, which is why I decided to return to Wisconsin where I grew up. And, I was practicing in California for almost 15 years and I came home to see my mom for her birthday and I realized there’s like a giant gap that I can feel here with the knowledge base that I have.
I was ahead of the curve in California. So coming here, I’m like a freaking unicorn.

Kathryn:
I’m fascinated. I have so many followup questions to what you just said. I know I won’t even be able to remember them all, but I do want to know more about ozone therapy and hyperbaric chambers, what that can do for us.

Dr. Grace:
Well, there’s a lot about locations for both of them. I was first exposed to hyperbarics I would say back in 2004, at that time I was working with Erchonia medical, which designs the cold laser that I was just referring to they truly have the best product in the market for that. And at the time I was just out the gates as a doc myself, and I ended up getting hired by them to help them do lecturing and sales.
So I would travel around every weekend to someplace in our United States and teach other doctors how to use this device. And I would learn from the best minds in the world who were doing the lectures. And then I was in the back helping to do the clinical parts of things and then sales.
So, we do lots of trade shows too. And at the trade show is when I first came in contact with hyperbaric and I was blown away by it the implications of its use. I thought it was just for scuba diving and for people that get the Bends and that kind of thing, it’s so much more than that. It has a giant impact on neurology, meaning it helps quite a bit with stabilizing Alzheimer’s, with stabilizing autism.
It helps with tissue repair and we had some pretty major sports athletes that were using it for the purpose of accelerated healing. In fact, one of them was Terrell Owens at the time. It was like three weeks before the super bowl and he got a really bad ankle injury. And he was given a hyperbaric chamber and our laser, and three weeks later, he played in the Super Bowl.
And I think their team won if I’m not mistaken, but don’t quote me on that one. I just know how to fix it. You know? Like I love athletics. I’ve always have, and now it’s just like, I look at a sport and like, okay, what are the common injuries there? And then I’m like, bam, here’s how it fix that.
That’s where my brain goes with these things. So hyperbaric is also really great for immunity because a pathogen or a bad guy, like say, a bacteria or virus like we’re dealing with right now, cancer cells, none of these things can grow in an oxygen rich environment. So the more alkaline your body can be and the more oxygen you have that is physiologically viable, like if you get too much oxygen that can be damaging too.
However, if the right balance and the right higher doses, just like taking vitamin C, right. I mean, you could take up to 50,000 milligrams, especially if you’re doing IVs.
If you’re not, you’ll just be pooping a lot. That’s the trade off. So the same goes with how you’re looking at oxygen too. So in the case of hyperbarics, it’s definitely one of the first places I go for helping my immune system stay solid.

Kathryn:
Okay. That’s awesome. So, and now I’m wanting to know, since the cold laser sort of started you down that road, what does the cold laser do?

Dr. Grace:
The first thing I always say about it is it basically gets you to heal like Wolverine from the inside out. So at the cellular level, the technology connects with your body at the cellular level. Makes your mitochondria produce more energy in a more efficient way so that your cells and your tissues just come together with quantum speed.

Like wound management and wound care. I mean one of the first lectures that I didv for the company back in the day. I was actually a chiropractor flown to a hospital that was a burn center and I was lecturing to three MDs and four PTs on how to use this technology to help with wound management for people who had third degree burns.

And so talk about integrative medicine. I mean, that’s about as integrative as it gets. And it was a real honor to be there to help them and just to help these people. It’s a technology that you don’t have to touch the skin in order to use. And obviously a burn victim has so much pain when you touch them.

So it was really an interesting thing to see. So for wound management it’s amazing. It’s also amazing for neurology. I personally had an experience that I will never forget. It was a little girl. Her parents brought her in to see me and she was like three or four and she was having speech problems.

They thought that she was autistic, but they didn’t totally believe it. They thought there was something else going on. And I had just learned about the applications of the laser for neurology. And so they brought her in to see me and we did what I call the ABC game, where I tried to have her say just little words like, “Ahh” and “Eee”, just to do things like this. And while doing that I would use the laser to stimulate part of her brain that was the place that would produce word. So there’s Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area in the brain. They’re like over here on the side and I was using the laser there and having her do these things the next morning, the mother calls me and she sounded like call me back kind of thing.

So of course, Oh gosh. Okay, this could be the really good or alright, well, we’re gonna need to explain why the laser did what it did, you know, but it’s been my experience that it’s always been positive. So it’s just that initial thought. You’re like, Oh God, what? I called her back and she’s like I don’t know how to explain this and I don’t know what else to do other than to tell you for the first time I heard her say the word cookie with a C, she actually used the “cuh” the cookie. And so we both just started bawling and then a week later after about three more treatments, the little girl actually said, I want to talk to daddy. So it was just so profound.

And this kind of technology is so consistent, which is what is amazing to have as a part of my tool bag as a physician, because it just gives me the confidence that I know I’ll be able to have a positive impact on people. It may not even be that profound every time, but it will make a difference.

Kathryn:
Yeah, that just gave me chills.
Dr. Grace:
I know I’m one of those people too, as a doc, when you work with me, you get me a thousand percent.
So like when somebody calls me like that and they’re crying, I’m just like sobs because it’s literally just the gifts that I’ve been given that I get to share and to be able to see that impact, it touches my soul. It’s just the coolest thing ever to know I can do that.

Kathryn:
Oh, absolutely.
I really want to hear more stories because the question that I had sort of in the hopper next was, what have you seen these uncommon methods do for your patients that common or Western medicine wasn’t able to do or that this did better?

Dr. Grace:
Exactly. And that’s exactly why talking the way I am and trying to get this word out even more so now that the podcast platform is becoming so much more mainstream, which I love, the uncommon aspect of it.
The reason I call it uncommon is I actually put that “un” in brackets because it was very common to me is unheard of mostly or uncommon to most people in Western medicine or sometimes even in Eastern medicine. Society in general. So the things that I’ve seen have been definitely profound in that nine times out of 10 when people are at their wit’s end and they don’t know what else to do. And they truly are just feeling like their world is going to just be upside down forever. Whether it be they have psoriasis that won’t go away or they’re in the beginning stages of diabetes or they have diabetes and they’re starting to get wounds and all the complications that come with that.

When I finally get to get to that place where they find me where they find me and I can do what I do, and you can see their body changing as you start removing the toxins from their system, be it from the environment, the foods they’re eating, or the excessive pharmaceuticals that they may have had at this point. Bringing their brains and body into balance, through mindful practices and meditation, and also truly actually attenuating neurology to work better.

I mean, I’ve had people, one person. I remember she was dizzy and have these spells where she would just have to sit down. For almost like five years. And she had been to a chiropractor, been adjusted before, but no one had ever done the full spectrum of the neurology, the machines like I have. And then also the teaching how to get your neurology to work in your favor, do specific things like exercises with your eyes that attenuate your cranial nerves.

And, you know, like there’s very special things that we could do with that. So yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people turn around that has been through the gamut or my favorite. I love this one, this is my favorite. It happens all the time. I do pre and post op work. I call it pre-op. So like somebody, for example, is getting double knee replacement surgery.

Right. So you’ll come and see me for about six weeks before surgery. You’re going to be working out. You’re going to get the muscles strong. You’re going to get your area handled that’s getting the surgery taken care of. You’ll be on a very specific supplement, protocol that’s going to help them to fortify your body with what it needs once that surgery happens, meaning you’re going to need more cells to help repair.

Right. So we’re going to need to amplify your body’s ability to repair. So we do this for about six weeks before then directly after then that’s when the magic starts too, with using cold laser and doing the tissue work stuff that I do. And even hyperbarics, if people have access to it, which is great.
And I swear to God like every person I work with this when they go back to their MD after about two weeks and they’re about to take off their bandages and it looks ridiculously good. And like the scar tissue has very little keloiding. It’s not lumpy and crazy, and it’s not all red and inflamed.

They’re like, wow, you heal really well. What are you doing? And they never believe that it’s actually like the technology that God forbid a chiropractor use rather than somebody that an MD, but that’s changing a lot now, too.
We’re getting a lot more respect for our scientific knowledge base and for our results and for our approach to using noninvasive, organically sustainable, earthly sustainable, and bodily sustainable techniques. So it just makes me laugh every time they’re like, Oh, you heal so well. I’m like, yeah, cause you worked on it and we just did stuff that’s scientifically valid to do it.

Kathryn:

That’s what I love so much about integrative medicine that I think Western medicine could really use catching up to.
And I have friends who are not integrative doctors. But it seems like the model is if you have these symptoms and you can check this many symptoms off of the list, then that is your diagnosis and this is how you treat it with medication or with surgery. And I love the integrative medicine approach where you look at every single piece of the puzzle, including diet, which I just don’t understand why more Western medical doctors don’t appreciate or don’t integrate that into their practice. What someone is putting into his or her body and how that is affecting his or her health.

Dr. Grace:
Agreed. I think one of the greatest and most gross gaps that we have in knowledge and in execution is nutrition is specialty in the hospital system. When you go into a hospital and you’re there for a few days and if you’ve had surgery or you’re battling cancer or anything else.
Nine times out of 10, you’re getting trans fats, excitotoxins, corn sugars, and GMOs. You’re not getting organic foods, food that is designed to alkalinize and to stabilize your immunity, it’s not designed to help with repair. It’s just designed to, I mean, my own dad went in for surgery here in Wisconsin. At the hospital he stayed at, he had had part of his colon taken out.
So his surgery was extensive and he had it what I call like a zipper scar from basically the bottom of his belly, all the way up to like the top of the xiphoid process, which is basically his whole belly, his abdomen was opened up. And so he had staples, the whole nine, you know what they gave him for his diet after he came out for two days? Popsicles. Popsicles that weren’t even made with real fruit. It was just it was like Cooley the sugar and dye and corn syrup. I was livid. I’m like, can somebody find some damn pineapple juice in this place?
Seriously, there’s gotta be something because pineapples have bromelain in it, which is a natural anti-inflammatory and Pepane, which is a natural way to be able to digest food. And since he can’t have solid food anyway, he also can get this nutrition, do this. And by the way, pineapple also, it’s kind of one of my secret ingredients.
I tell my athletes don’t eat bananas. Eat pineapples, because you’re actually going to get more potassium from them and you’ll have the digestible factor too. So you get actually more bang for your buck with a pineapple than a banana.

Kathryn:
Ok I love that. I steer clear of pineapples because I think they’ve got a lot of sugar in them, but I’m not seeing what they do.

Dr. Grace:
Yeah. Yeah. One banana has 15 grams of sugar or more. It has way more sugar than banana and there’s a lot less fiber. So the fiber gets broken down and eaten up more with pineapple. And also the pineapple has the other constituents that I just talked about. Like the electrolytes and potassium and the natural enzymes that help with repair.

Kathryn:
My son might be sending you a fan letter because he’s a swimmer two out of the three of my kids are swimmers and I try to get them to eat bananas, but he doesn’t really like it, but I’m like, Oh, you need the potassium. You need the this. Honey, he’s gonna love you because now he’s going to get pineapple for that.

Dr. Grace:
Well, even better coconut water too. I mean, if you really want to amp it up, but just realize that does have a lot of sugar. I would prefer coconut water Kiefer. Cause then now you get your probiotics in there too. And the probiotics eat the sugar that’s in the coconut, but you’re getting all of nature’s magic pill, basically. Like if anyone’s looking for a magic pill, it’s coconut, it has basically everything you need for repair and for sustainability, it does have high sugar content. So when you’re looking at the coconut water, so that’s why I like to have the Kiefer instead.

Kathryn:
But like coconut oil is a good fat.

Dr. Grace:
Oh God yeah absolutely.

Kathryn:
I put it in my morning smoothie every day, like so good.

Dr. Grace:
And even on top of that, besides coconut oil, you can use coconut mana is what it’s called. Or coconut butter is another way that people say it or that it’s marketed. And that is the oil plus some of the meat in with it.
So it kind of tastes like an almond joy butter, or an almond joy bar without the chocolate. The texture is thicker and deeper and it’s just less so that like oily, like kind of feeling, you know, that’s a good one too.

Kathryn:
Okay, I definitely want to go farther down that path about foods.
I want to know more about foods that heal. Like along those lines, tell me a little bit more about the gut-brain connection.

Dr. Grace:
Sure. do you want to know more about it in a neurological way or how to facilitate it working better through food?

Kathryn:
Yeah, let’s do that one. The second one.

Dr. Grace:
Facilitate better gut function through food?
Okay. I’m on it now. I’m like, let me put my brain in the right box to start to talk about stuff. Okay. So, first and foremost, You gotta look out for the big five and that is trans fats, Excitotoxins, corn, sugar, and GMO. Those are your biggest gut killers and cause permeability issues. They cause issues in how you can actually absorb nutrients and issues in how you can eliminate toxins.

So, and that first and foremost is your labels. So I don’t care how many calories something has. I don’t care how much sodium content it has when you’re looking at labels. I don’t care about anything in that number section, where it tells you the numbers of milligrams and stuff, I don’t care.
That’s not even where you’re going to look. The first place you need to look is right below that, which is the ingredient list, which should only be like about this big. And I know that this is podcast and you can’t see it, I’m doing it, but I’m making the little tiny symbol with my fingers versus what you see in most ingredient lists, which is like two or three inches long.
And that brings me back to the Olympic training center days that I had. And we had classes there. And I remember, our nutrition coach told us something that Jack Lalaine said. There’s two things that she said it stayed with me like till this day.
I still remember what she said at that time was in 10 years from now 5% of the foods you eat, haven’t even been invented yet. And I was like “Whaat?” I was a kid.

And you think about it, walk through your grocery store and look at the cereal aisle.
Look at all the new waters that there are now look at all the power bars and stuff that are here now that weren’t here 10 years ago. That is still true today. And what are all those things? They’re manufactured, unedible food-like products. Nine times out of 10. There are some things that are good that are out there that are being created now. For example, to help with the gluten issues that are more and more prevalent because of a whole other podcast we could talk about. But chips that are now being made out of casava and being made out of cauliflower rather than corn. So you can avoid corn also to not have wheat.
It’s it’s a combination. So those things are new. And so there’s a plus and a minus to this newness, but that was one thing that blew me away.

And then the second thing is, and this going back to the gut and what helps serve the purpose of your gut is what Jack Lalaine said, which is if God didn’t make it, don’t eat it.
I mean, it comes right down to that. And that means too you’re looking at genetically modified things. Trans fats and excitotoxins are basically outlawed as much as possible. Like even McDonald’s has stopped using trans fats for crying out loud.
I mean if one of the biggest chains in our society that has some of the worst food on the planet and does the worst damage to the planet. Even they are taking trans fats out of there’s something to be said there it’s illegal. So that’s the first thing you need to do is, is get rid of those big five to get your gut function better.
Trans fats, excitotoxins corn, sugar, and GMO.

Kathryn:
Okay. So what qualifies as a excitotoxin?

Dr. Grace:
An excitooxin is MSG. They’ll say natural flavors, quite a bit on manufacturing products, cotton seed oil. What human on the planet is supposed to be eating cotton. I know you’re from the South, honey. You want to go up there and suck on that seed?

Kathryn:
Nope that hasn’t crossed my mind yet.

Dr. Grace:
Haven’t been seeding my potato chips. Why? It makes no sense. And if you want more information about this too, I do have, PDFs and shareables that people can contact me and get more information about exactly what to look at and the label.
And this is, these are programs that I do and have that can really get you to understand what to look for and how.

Kathryn:
Yeah and I’m going to ask you about all of that at the end. I want to make sure we have all of your information so we can get more great stuff from you. so. Why is it that we need to remove these five from our gut? What do they do to us?

Dr. Grace:
Well first of all the one that lot of people don’t know about or talk about, but I have been exposed to this and seeing the effects of it for at least 15 years now is corn. And here’s what corn does. I’m going to get a little sciency on you now. Okay. So here we go.
Okay. So in your body you have a feedback loop for pain. It’s called the arachidonic acid feedback loop. Okay. And what’s happening with this is that, you have omega 3’s omega 6’s. Omega 6’s has come in, like if you’re cut or have surgery or you have like pain in your shoulder or something like that.
Omega 6’s come in to signal your body, that there is a wound site there that needs to be fixed. And that wound site generally also has an acid component to it. It’s more acidic rather than alkaline. Okay. Now omega 3’s or the other part of that wheel that come in and help to repair that area.
And then bringing all of the soldiers that help with like macrophages and your white blood cells and all these things and scar tissue to build and all that kind of stuff. Right. So, when your body’s in a state of stasis, that it means complete balance where you have one, omega 3 and one omega 6 that’s complete balance.
Okay. Your body can handle up to four omega 6’s and still be able to function pretty well. For every one omega 3, you can have four 6’s and still function well, and some foods, I think I’m not mistaken. I think like sesame seeds have like six omega 6’s for every one omega 3. I have a chart on that.
I’d have to look at those again. I haven’t looked at it in a while. However, foods are biochemically relatable to an omega three and omega six balance. So depending on the foods you’re choosing to eat, you can eat a spike omega 3’s or spike omega 6’s. Corn for every one, omega 3 there is, there are 80. 80 omega 6’s. So you are basically adding gasoline to the fire for any inflammatory process you have. If your gut hurts, if your shoulder hurts, if your back hurts, if you just had surgery, if you have brain fog, all of these things are amplified 80 to 1. So for every one kernel of corn you eat every one piece of popcorn, every one tortilla chip that you have, you would have to have 80 omega-3 to balance out chemically what that’s doing in your body, biochemically.

Kathryn:
So when I have chips and salsa and I think I’m blowing up like a Blowfish because so the salt, it’s not probably the salt, it’s the corn.

Dr. Grace:
Correct. And you know, the salt has a factor obviously, but if you’re blowing up like that quickly and your joints feel kind of tight and achy and like maybe your jaw might hurt a little bit and your low back might hurt sitting in the chair a little while.
That’s corn, and that’s all happening in your gut first. So now fast forward to what the other guys are doing in there. Not only are you creating more permeability issues, like leaky gut, that creates a malabsorption issue. So you’re not even getting the good stuff that you need, but then you’re also filling your body with these empty calories that have no nutrient value. So take, for example, if you were to eat a Dorito, a Dorito is made out of corn. Sort of, and then the rest of it is part of that three inch long list of ingredients. Right? And the very first two are one is trans fat. One is excitotoxins and it literally has like all four components or assuming all five.
Cause it’s the corn that they use is also GMO corn, which is directly correlated to liver and breast cancer. Directly. If you are eating a GMO that’s corn based we are showing in science that they are directly creating cancer. So corn is my biggest number one, big fat, no, you got to get off corn.
And that means corn starch, corn chips, corn on the cob. Yes, it’s organic. I don’t care. It’s still corn because it’s still is going to be that biochemistry of 6’s to 3’s. Whether it’s non-GMO or not, it’s still messes up your inflammatory process and it messes up your gut.

Kathryn:
So I can tell you, I will not have any sort of corn product after today.

Dr. Grace:
When I saw the pictures of the rats that took, they did a study using corn that was produced by Monsanto and they actually were denied publishing that in the United States for awhile, it was just in France that you could see it. Because Monsanto’s here.
Right? So that particular study, the tumors that have grown on these rats were close to the size of golf balls. And it was so disturbing to see A. what the animal had to go through to prove that B we’re getting this shit in our body. I mean, part of me, but I call it like it is, it’s just shitty.
We shouldn’t have to even look at this stuff, but that’s just how the business of food is now and the ability to create food-like products that have a shelf life that are highly addictive. That’s the other thing too. Excitotoxins and trans fats are highly addictive. So you keep going back to them thinking that you’re getting something from them, but you’re actually just deteriorating your brain and your gut even more.

Kathryn:
Wow. That was so helpful. I love having that knowledge now and let’s go further down that road. What are some common midlife issues? Like menopause for women, like thinning hair, like maybe growing around the middle. What can we do, or what foods can we eat that will help those issues?
And what foods do we need to stay clear of that make those issues worse?

Dr. Grace:
Sure. Well, before we even go into the food aspect of it, let’s look at lifestyle choice. First, this being another tentacle of the sphere of what needs to be looked at with humanity, with your health. It’s not just going to be chemical.
Or physical, it can actually be mental, spiritual, right. So, especially with women’s issues and I’m acutely aware of these because I just turned 49 this last year, like yay changes. But I kinda accelerated mine though, too. I had a really aggressive business failure that happened. And I lost a ton of money and it was super stressful.
I’m on the other end of it now and recovering from that both financially and physically. But it was a great adventure. I’m glad I did it. I have no regrets, it just stressed me the hell out. It really did. Like when everything was really, when the shit was hitting the fan, so to speak, it was hard.

And that’s where we’re at right now. Stress. So a lot of issues that are affecting women and men for that matter, but especially women, when you’re getting towards the perimenopausal area of your life, it will wreak havoc on your hormones. And the reason being is, is because of our fun little guy called cortisol.

And cortisol. It will be the one that will increase the belly fat. It is your fight or flight hormone. It’s the thing that happens when you are in a constant state of fight or flight, right? So you need to be able to calm down your immunity and your neurology, especially your neurology, by doing practices that help to bring down that fight or flight, and that’s going to help to stabilize the cortisol a little bit, but here’s what cortisol does.

And a lot of women don’t know when you have excess amounts in your body because of excess stress or you’re not working out enough to decrease it. Cause that’s the one thing that will help to decrease it is a good, solid, workout.
And that’s 30 minutes a day, by the way. So, cortisol actually pulls the same constituents out of your body that your normal hormones need to create themselves. So your estrogen, your progesterone, your testosterone, your Esther dials. All of these are produced from the same constituents that cortisol does, but cortisol because you’re in fight or flight shuts down those processes to make itself so that it can keep you in a state of being able to run away from that bear.

Right. Like that’s what fight or flight is you see? Oh my God, I got to run really fast or I will die. Right. Well, we don’t have bears anymore. We’re just in a constant state of stress though cause you’re sitting in front of the computer, dealing with all this stuff that’s happening in the world right now.
I mean, come on, look, what’s going on. We have our pandemic. We have a huge statement of social change that’s going on that needs to for racial and gender equality, all these things are bubbling to the surface that have been here for a long time, but they’re finally being heard and it’s stressful and it’s hard.

And if you’re not finding resources of community that can help you and that where you can find areas to get out of your head, the hamster wheel of fear and anger, that is what’s going to cause dramatic weight gain. It’s going to cause a lot of hair loss. It’s going to cause starting behaviors that are more addictive, like drinking wine more often, like binge eating, like grabbing for the comfort foods.
You don’t need to feel comfortable. You’re already uncomfortable. What you need to feel is your body working better so that you don’t have to be uncomfortable when you’re constantly tired, when you’re constantly in pain, you don’t reaching for those other things that are chemically-based is just going to feed the pain cycle.

It’s not going to help you get out to the other side where you can have functioning, optimal health. So that is where a huge, chunk of women’s health issues is being ignored. I mean, I do a lot of testing with hormones and more so now this part of my career than I did earlier.
But also thyroid, when I moved back to Wisconsin. This part of the country, I was shocked like in my little town, almost four people have thyroid cancer. I’m like, what is this? Why is this even happening so prevalently here? And then, when I would ask them to see their current labs, they had one marker of the lab that the MD would do.

I do 4, T3, T4, you want to have their TPO looked at, for sure. And then also like a full balance of the rest of your endocrine system. So when I’d get just the T4 amounts, I’m like, well, where’s the rest. How do you even know where this is coming from?
So I just feel that when it comes to women’s health and it comes to the hormone balance thing, there’s a lot more that needs to be looked at than just the blood test. You need to do salivary testing. You need to do cortisol testing. You need to do, full hormone panels that look at testosterone too, because like it or not, as we, like, I like to say, as we progress through time.

Kathryn:
Yes, lovely way to put it.

Dr. Grace:
Exactly battle every other day during it. As women testosterone decreases tremendously in our bodies as men too, but women even more and then like it or not, here’s, what’s really sucky about nature.
Cortisol increases in production naturally as you age. So now you need to fight your own stress with the fact that your body is just going to make it more anyway. So you need to do things to help reduce that cortisol. And there are supplements that I have that do that. and the foods that I talked about getting the toxins out and staying with, if God didn’t make it, don’t eat it.
I’m telling you getting those trans fats and excited toxins out and make a huge impact on how well your body can handle cortisol and get rid of it.

Kathryn:
Yeah. So that explains a little bit of the medical side also about how women will come into my office, complaining of anxiety in middle age that have never had it before. Increased cortisol can contribute to that. Right?

Dr. Grace:
Absolutely.

Kathryn:
So, are there any foods that we can eat now? I know that we need to, I need to address the whole package. We need to exercise. We need to find ways to distress. Are there any particular foods that can grow that can increase certain hormones that we might be low in?

Dr. Grace:
That, that one is very case specific. There are a lot of herbs and stuff and yes there are. For a question like that, though, if I start rattling off a bunch of stuff, I’m going to have a bunch of women go out there and start eating some herbs that they have no business eating right now. Cause they’re on one side of the coin rather than the other.
So. I love that question and it’s completely valid, but I mean, from a practitioner point of view, I would prefer to answer that on a one to one basis with people, because it truly does have an impact. I mean, I started doing one thing when I had my fight or flight hormone craziness was happening.

I was doing other things too. Like I started taking DHEA cause I figured, Oh, I must need help with that. Cause there are some things, but until I actually did a salivary test and saw that I literally had zero hormones left, I had none. My menstrual cycle was so bad. It was like I was being murdered every month.

And it was more coming in and out like it wasn’t as precise as it was. And I haven’t been on birth control since I was like probably 28 years old. I did take it for about 10 years and then got off because it was just wreaking havoc on me with headaches and things like this. So my natural system is pretty natural at this point is what I’m trying to say.
And until I really looked to one of my colleagues and it was like, Hey, I’m clearly not handling this very well. And I am not functioning well because I’m bleeding so hard and I’m so tired and things are just crazy. I’m losing my hair. So a colleague of mine, their name is Tiffany Mullen and they have an amazing website called Vytal Health.

It’s vytalhealth.com. They created it before the pandemic, as a hub to go to for integrative and functional medicine that’s telemedicine-based. So anyone in the country can call them up and get help from them. And they also have a pharmacy. That’s the other partner, the business partner and the relationship there is they were both in the medical system in the hospital healthcare system.

And we’re just became so disenfranchised with it and, and frustrated working within the system because they couldn’t do everything they knew they were capable of and created this business. So I called on her and got bio identical hormones and there’s creams made specifically for me. We got on some supplements that were specifically designed to help my endocrine system because they’ve got glandulars in them. And they had herbs in them at its synergistic way like I was saying before with orthomolecular styles, pharmaceutical grade. So, yes, there definitely are foods and they’re definitely herbs and they are definitely very case specific I would say.

Kathryn:
I appreciate that answer. And so what I’m also taking away, ladies, that we really need to know is don’t just let your doctor test one hormone at one time of the month. Right? Get a full panel, the salivary testing, the full hormone panel, the TPO, the cortisol, all of that.
And find a doctor who will not only run those tests, but explain all of them to you.

Dr. Grace:
And give you a solution for them. That’s the thing I’m like, he can run tests all day long, but now what? It’s about finding that solution and that is what’s quite uncommon now is to get both sides of that picture.

Kathryn:
Yes. We have a wonderful integrative medicine doctor, Dr. McMahon, who I had on the show a while back, who I took my daughter to. And it’s just amazing how it wasn’t just, like you said, the test that he ran, it was the four pages of results, explanations and answers you had that he walked in. It’s just like a feeling of being heard and understood.

Dr. Grace:
Exactly and fortunately, there are a lot of doctors that practice like that now. Unfortunately a lot of it is not covered by insurance. So people tend to be turned back. But then now from my perspective, fortunately, a lot of insurance has super high deductible, so you’re gonna be paying cash no matter what, so why not go somewhere that is going to like for me personally, you can use your HSA cards. You can use your FSH cards, you can do all that stuff. That’s affiliated with your insurance. I’m not going to bill it, but I can give you a super bill that you might be able to get reimbursed for, or at least contribute to your premium, however, nine times out of 10, if you’re going to spend, $300 getting an xray and I can spend $300 doing a blood lab, but that x-ray will just be completely unnecessary for, why not get the information that will serve your purpose in the first place with the first shot.

Kathryn:
And what, what better thing can you invest your money in? I get it. If you are struggling to eat right now and clothing and put a roof over your head, that this is a privilege, I totally get that.
But if you have those other bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs filled. You’re safe. You’re fed, you have a roof. What other thing could you invest your money in that is more important as well, health and wellbeing, whether it’s mental, whether it’s physical, whether it’s the whole package. And I have that conversation with clients all the time, because as a counselor, I do not take insurance.
I get it, but really in the end, what is more important?

Dr. Grace:
And if you can’t serve yourself, you can’t help anyone else. And to that point too, that’s kind of one of the benefits that I have and enjoy about having my own practice too, is that I can do things like what I do, which is anybody who is in the military or a veteran.
Anyone who is in the hospitality industry, like hotels and restaurants, chefs, and servers those guys that, are being hit really hard right now. And any first responder that calls on me will always get $25 off every visit for life because that’s how I can give back. And I make that a policy in my practice to help people that need it.

Kathryn:
Oh, I absolutely love that. We need to include that in the show notes with all of your information for sure. So I know that you have doctor patient privilege to work around, but keeping that confidentiality in mind, I know that you’ve worked with some famous athletes, some famous celebrities.
Is there anything you can tell us, any names you can drop? Any thing you can tell us about who you’ve worked with.

Dr. Grace:
Sure, it’s funny in LA, we call it droppings named droppings. Anybody who’s doing this a lot. You’re like, Oh, they’re doing the droppings. I appreciate that I have had a very unusual career and uncommon existence with being a doc.
I have worked with some really cool people too. And I actually do have a video on my website and you’ll see it. I have a couple of people that have just straight up, just come up out of the goodness of their hearts that I did not pay them.
They just came in on a day that they were free and just talked about me and what we’ve done together. One of whom is Regina King. My homeslice.
She is just crushing it right now. I’m so proud of her. As you know, she’s won several Emmys now and now she’s got an Oscar grown. Her own production company. And I just am so proud of her. Basically once in a while too. I mean, I’m not in LA, so I don’t get to see them as much, which I hate the ones that I really love seeing I’ve missed them so much.
I really do. But, Reggie is one and, Michael T. Williamson, he played Bubba Gump in Forrest Gump and he was in Heat with Al Pacino. He was a cop. And now he’s done a bunch of stuff too. Kasi Lemmons. This woman, she is a game changer when it comes to just being able to speak to her as a woman, it will just, and to be able to call her a friend is just something that is just an absolute honor and privilege to me.
She is an actor, director and writer, and she just did the movie Harriet. Which told the story about Harriet Tubman. She did Eve’s Bayou. That was another one of her films and her husband Vondie Curtis-Hall was in both of those films as well. And now this last one, Harriet, her son was in that as well, and I’ve worked on their whole family and work with them and also just hung out with them and l they’re like family to me when I get to see them and I just adore them too.
So, that’s a pretty good list.

Kathryn:
That is a great list, I love that.
I could continue on all day, but, what I’d like to do now is have just a little lightning round. And see what you say. Are you ready?

Dr. Grace:
Yup.

Kathryn:
It’s nothing difficult believe me. City or country vacation.

Dr. Grace:
Oh, dude. I don’t know. That’s both of me in a nutshell right there.
Like I can’t do vacation on the boat, I guess the city first. I want to go to Paris, but then I would go to Champagne right after
I’m a city girl at heart, but I grew up in Wisconsin. So I’m also, I love nature and that nature is very important to me. So. I’d say both.

Kathryn:
Okay. I specifically love that you took an “either or” and made it an “and” I loved that.

Dr. Grace:
I guess that’s me in a nutshell, right there. Yeah.

Kathryn:
Ray bans or Chanel?

Dr. Grace:
Chanel.

Kathryn:
Brussels sprouts or broccoli?

Dr. Grace:
Broccoli.
Kathryn:
Okay. Instagram or Facebook?

Dr. Grace:
Insta. I like pictures more than being told what to do and say.

Kathryn:
I love pictures too. I love artistic value of the pictures. Cross country skiing or downhill ski.

Dr. Grace:
Oh, downhill. I hate distance stuff. I’m not a very good like marathon runner distance. Nope. I’m a sprinter. Marathon when it comes to your health. But if I had to go outside and run, Oh my God. Just punch me in the face first.

Kathryn:
It’s funny. Before I realized that you were such a champion water skier, I almost did water skiing versus snow skiing.

Dr. Grace:
Oh, that’s funny.

Kathryn:
Lake or ocean?

Dr. Grace:
Oh, well, since I spent half of my life living on one and half of my life living at the other, I got to go with both again.

Kathryn:
There you go just water.

Dr. Grace:
I’m actually kind of gravitating more towards lake right now. Hust because I’m back near one again, and it is how I grew up in and like Lake Michigan is like the ocean.
It has a tidal system is just no salt in it. And you don’t have any fish that will eat you. So I kinda like that too.

Kathryn:
You can relax a little bit more. Well Dr. Grace, where can we find out more about it?

Dr. Grace:
Obviously my website is the portal that has pretty much everything and that’s sainrx.com
I came up with the name when I was working with some clients who are French speaking, they’re from Africa and I don’t speak French. So I wanted to know what healthy and wholesome means in French. And that’s where it’s sain actually. What I thought was really interesting was that it also looks like sane, but if you’re looking at it as a stupid American, who’s never spoken French before, which I’m saying about myself, not anybody else.
I had no idea and I just thought, how interesting would it be to have a more sane approach to prescriptions? RX. So that is where the name came from. And I am at Sain Rx Longevity Institute. And, I do telemedicine. I do travel that I still have the concierge service. So if you want me to come out to see you in whatever city you’re in we can talk about that too. I do anything from like five to two weeks, five days to two weeks that I would spend time with people and just rearrange your kitchens and show you recipes. I mean, I started Juice Bar. That was the actual, the business fail that I had. It was actually quite successful there.

The food was amazing. People were really embracing it. I was just in an area that had zero foot traffic in the winter. Because it’s a hospitality based area. So I moved the business, the juice bar to the nearest, closest town that had year round, foot traffic. And I was subletting from a space museum.

I was like the first thing you see walking into the museum and you can get my juices and stuff. Well, they hadn’t paid their rent to the tune of $105,000, which I didn’t know when I signed on and had just gotten licensed and moved my commercial kitchen and did all of this had to do. And I had to get all of these things out in two weeks, or it’d be seized and sold at auction.
So. That was an $80,000 loss. Oh, golly. However, what was awesome about that was my recipes are right and tight. I’ve got amazing stuff that I’m going to do again. I just need to just focus on Dr. Grace for a little while before I go back into the food industry. Yeah. But that being said, that is what I do for people too.

I do full meal designs. I do full meal programs. I can show you how to do it, what to make, what to get all that kind of thing and/or just have me come and cook for you for two weeks and learn it that way too. So those are all the things that are in my, what I like to call, in my Mary Poppins bag that is endless I keep coming out.

Kathryn:
That is some good stuff to have in your bag for sure. I’ve enjoyed this so much and I’ll make sure that we include your website in the show notes. I like to end every interview with the same question, which is what is one imperfect action that you recommend we all take today to move a little bit closer to our best lives?

Dr. Grace:
My personal feeling on that one is the imperfection of the unknown. Embrace the unknown, the less you’re planning for the outcome and just accept the outcome as it unfolds, the more magical, the more amazing, and the more exceptional the experience is. So embrace the unknown. And just jump when you know you’re in the right place and you feel it in your gut just jump.

Kathryn:
I second motion. Because when we let go of control of having to have control over the outcome of something, when we can be fully present in the moment, that is when That’s where the magic is. Those memories that you would overlook, the little joyful moments and really the complete saturation of life. Right?

Dr. Grace:
I like that saturation of light. That’s a good one.

Kathryn:
And I don’t know where that came from. I second that motion also be present today. Let go of controlling the outcome and just really enjoy the process of life. Thank you so much, Dr. Grace for being here.

Dr. Grace:
Absolutely. And thanks for having me and I look forward to helping out in anyway I can.

Kathryn:
Thank you so much. And y’all heard Dr. Grace go embrace the process, let go of the result and just have a fantastic day for yourself. And I will see you right back here next week.