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Dr. Joel Rosen: Alright, hello, everyone and welcome back to another edition of the truth about your health podcast where we teach the truth about your health to exhausted men and women so that they can get their energy back quickly. And today I’m joined by the biohacking babes, Lauren and Renee, who have a biohacking podcast called biohacking babes.
And their aim is to create insight into the body’s natural healing ability. Strengthen your intuition and empower you with techniques and modalities to optimize your health and wellness. They’re both health coaches, and I’m really excited to dive in with you guys today. So thanks so much for being here.
Renee Belz: Thanks for having us. Yeah, I’m so excited to connect.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, well, I what I want to do is I want I’m excited to and I want to we talked a little bit earlier about your own health journey. And so I know that I would think it was you, Renee, that may have had adrenal fatigue, and maybe Lauren had mono. So maybe talk about where you were starting off in terms of why you became a health coach. And then we can go through the evolution of that journey and all the tools that you’ve learned along the way so our audience can get amazing value. So maybe we’re in a why don’t you start with your own health challenges that led you into the profession that you do now?
Renee Belz: Yeah, absolutely. I’m happy to share my story. I find a lot of practitioners in the space. You know, a lot of us come to it, because we had our own health challenges. And that was certainly the case for me. So in my early 20s, I hit a wall, you know, whatever you want to call it adrenal fatigue, burnout, I was wired and tired. to a tee. I mean, every list of adrenal fatigue symptoms I had and was a long time coming for me. I mean, in high school, in college, I was sleeping four or five hours a night, I was taking as many credits in school as I could, I was working a full-time job go finally decided to study abroad in Spain, and I got mono when I was overseas. And my life changed.
I would say forever from that point. I couldn’t get enough sleep. I was sleeping 14 hours a night, I don’t know was that the mono was fatigue, what was going on? And I went to a lot of traditional doctors at the time, and they were like, Oh, just keep sleeping more, you’ll be fine. You know. And you know, there are only so many hours in the day that you can spend sleeping unless you just quit your job and do nothing. So that led me down the path of trying to figure it out on my own. And Lauren and I are fortunate enough that we grew up with our mom and dad who are very into holistic health, or a dad is a holistic biological dentist.
So I went to them and I’m like, Who do I need to talk to you to figure this out? And so I went to acupuncturists, massage therapists, chiropractors, naturopaths, herbalists, I’m like trying to get all the pieces, put it together, and figure out what was going on. And the big game-changer for me was I went to a chiropractor who ran a four-point cortisol salivary test on me. And my cortisol was completely flatlined. And that was the big eye-opening thing. Okay, there’s something going on with my adrenal HPA Axis dysfunction. I went down that rabbit hole, it ended up being so many different things. And this is what I always tell people. Even with adrenal issues or fatigue, it’s not usually one thing that’s going to fix it.
As for me, I had mercury toxicity, I had the Epstein Barr Virus that was reactivated in my body over and over again. I wasn’t sleeping, I was stressed out, and I wasn’t eating enough to support my blood sugar. I was overexercising, right. It’s in all the things. And that led me to be a biohacker. Really, I had to put all the pieces together and figure out what would make me feel my best and stay healthy. And I think I’ve connected with a lot of clients on that level, too. I mean, this is super common that people are getting burned out. And yeah, so I like to think that my journey was a good thing. It got me to where I am today at 35. I’m much healthier than I was at 25. So a lot of learning lessons. And here I am.
Dr. Joel Rosen: For you, Lauren. What’s your background story?
Lauren Sambataro: Yeah, similar, I guess the endpoint is burnout. So then I’ll work backward. Similarly, I went to college, and I was a dance major in college was performing so it was always really in touch with the physical body running I grew up dancing, and I continued it into my early adult life. And I started studying pulse checks through the exercise world. And then I was like, Whoa, he teaches other things like it’s not just about fitness, it’s about holistic health and, you know, stress reduction and supplements.
So that opened me up to a world of you know, connecting all the pieces and our whole family went through the check educational system. You know, I started performing I went on tours really tough on my body. I became vegetarian because that was the propaganda at the time when I was in New York, and I was a sucker for it. So got sucked into that I was vegetarian for seven years and my body just broke down.
Like I was getting sick all the time, I was severely fatigued, and I had no energy. And I was like, how on earth could this not make me feel good? Like I’m avoiding meat meats bad, right? Oh, gosh, so silly to say this out loud. No, but I started eating meat again. And it was like magic is a magical pill for me. And you know, it’s not the only thing it, it funneled me into this discovery of the self-healing body. And it was so great to hear our model when you read it at the beginning because we hear it all the time. But it’s sort of on autopilot. And it’s nice to hear you read it. We do have self-healing abilities.
And I think Renee and I both sorts of got into this pattern of not questioning anymore, you know, you get conditioned to take the path of least resistance. You don’t listen to your body, you listen to other people’s opinions and advice. And if you can tap into your own intuition and your body’s innate intelligence, there are a lot of answers. So eating meat again was like the first step back into rediscovering myself. And so it was a rocky path after there after that, I did experience adrenal fatigue because I was teaching dance cardio stuff seven days a week, just so much exercise, and again, not listening to my body.
So there’s been some bumps along the road, but each step of the way, it was like, Oh, wait, I can make a different choice. Oh, wait, I can listen to my body. And as Rene said, like we just started to put the pieces together. And it’s a lifelong journey. Like, I’m certainly not done. And I will tell that to my clients. I don’t know everything. I mean, no one knows everything. But it’s interesting and helping clients, I find that I attract people that have similar issues and challenges, which is really awesome because it’s not just from a textbook perspective, that I can share wisdom but from an experience.
And also, you know, from a sympathetic, empathetic, compassionate standpoint, I can align and relate to these people. So we can hold hands in a sense because I’m not going to have all the answers for you. And so that’s the mission behind the podcasts, we’re empowering you to figure out what the best way forward is, and what’s the best path? I can’t meet you and say you should eat this, this, and that exercise that way? I don’t know. But I will certainly help you to find the answers.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, I think that transparency is really key. And three things I think about with both of your journeys as the first one, that first thing that the quote from Ben Lynch that I got when I used to go to all his webinars or his actually his conferences, was that health was a verb or cancer was a verb. And I was like, that’s a great saying because it’s not something you do one time. And it’s definitely a verb, as practitioners, for our own healing and as practitioners for healing our clients.
Secondly, I think about David St. Clair and aging and his book longevity. And really aging is defined as the breakdown of communication, right. So if your cells aren’t communicating at the cellular level, then if you’re not getting the message across at the 30,000, view, foot level, it’s all synergistic in that there’s a breakdown of communication and someone’s zigging when you’re zagging, and there’s not a coherence going on. And then the third one is, is that I love the transparency in terms of clients, or patients, or whatever you want to call them. They, they, they don’t want they I think they appreciate that we approach it as we don’t know it all.
And that at the end of the day, no one understands the body like the body understands the body. I was once told that we had trouble with having twins, and we had a doctor that was helping us. And I asked Dr. Lawless a doctor, when do you know that we’re going to be out of the woods and you know when we’re going to be okay, and he goes, You know, I can learn about the body. But I don’t know as much about the body as the body knows about the body.
And I think being transparent like that and telling your clients look, I don’t know, and I don’t have all the answers, but I’m gonna figure it out for you. And that’s our job. I think that all of that is approached in a healing way that clients are missing in traditional approaches. So thank you for having that. As far as the biohacking now and the podcasts that you do.
And the tools of the trade if you’re well, I always like to start off with, I guess, what’s your initial starting point? I’d love to hear both your opinions, Rene in terms of okay, they come and they approach you, and what’s the typical type of person that approaches you? And then ultimately, how do you set the blueprint? How do you explain how do you do I guess, an elevator pitch the workup to explain what’s going on and what your game plan is? I think that’s helpful for people to hear from the beginning?
Renee Belz: Yeah. Um, I mean, as far as the type of client I get, it depends, I would say where they’re coming from. And my big thing is, I always want to meet the client, where they’re at. And quite often, you know, they’ll come to me and say, um, I want to lose weight. That’s my number one goal. But when we really open up the can of worms, it’s like, oh, but actually, they’re tired.
They have digestive issues, they have brain fog, right. So and I know the three of us are really big on getting to the root cause. So my thing is, what will make them feel better quickly enough that they can start making changes, right? Because we know when we’re exhausted, and we’re burned out, we don’t feel like going to the grocery store and cooking and going into the gym and doing all these things. So what can we start with to get them feeling better quickly, but then match that with getting to the root cause? So running labs, I’m a big fan of doing the touch panel for hormones gi map, looking at what’s going on in the gut, maybe some blood chemistry, and then putting the puzzle pieces together for them.
And then also bringing in the biohacking piece. I’m a really big fan of using something like the aura ring or the bio strap if they’re willing to invest in that because I think that empowers them to see what’s going on in their body every single day. Right, the labs that are only once every three months, six months, something like that. But something that’s looking at their heart rate variability, their body temperature, their resting heart rate, respiratory rate, sleep all these things every single day, empowers them to learn faster about what their body needs.
I think when you wake up and you see your morning data, say your readiness score or your recovery score on one of these, that empowers that person to say, Okay, what did I do yesterday, that was different, that made me sleep better, sleep worse, or recover less, recover more. So kind of putting those pieces together, right, getting them to feel better, hopefully quick, looking at the labs and the root cause, and then bringing in a little bit of the biohacking with that data quantification. And coaching them with that.
Dr. Joel Rosen: That’s awesome. And for and for you, Lauren.
Lauren Sambataro: Yeah, I would say definitely like one big needle mover, you want to just give them something that they can hold on to and make them feel better immediately. And for me that sunshine, and from there just catapults into so many other things like if you can just get outside and get morning sunshine, you’re probably going to be motivated to breathe a little deeper, you’re probably going to be motivated to move a little bit, it’s, I dare you to stand on the sunshine and not feel an elevation in your mood. So we just start building these lifestyle practices while we’re doing you know, all the hard work. But we can run all the blood chemistry, organic acids, the touch panels, but like if you’re not doing the basics, and it sounds really basic, but really, that can move the needle just getting outside.
And you take one habit, and hopefully, we can stack and we’re a huge fan of just as many free bio-hacks as technology bio hacks, I mean, we have plenty of high-dollar high-ticket items. But if you’re not getting essential if you’re on grounding, if you’re not moving your body, you know, the other stuff isn’t going to really move the needle. And I think for burnout and something like adrenal fatigue, the personality that goes down that pathway is someone that’s doing too much and not being enough. So like how much downtime Do you have? How much reflection Do you have? How much space do you have for nothing?
And standing in the sunshine, even though it’s a checklist item, I think really brings you into that space of being. So it’s really, you know, the motivation to get into the mindset to allow all the other stuff to settle to set into place. Because we can just throw supplements, are you but you know right?
Dr. Joel Rosen: No. It is I like the answers in terms of which we’re going towards and in the intuitive and knowing your body and knowing thyself, but at the same time having objective markers because people want to see black and white objective markers because I always find that how would you know if you were better? If you were better? What’s your benchmark? What’s your lighthouse, that you’re deciding you’re better and objectively, we want to have numbers that we can show that and that’s what’s great about data-driven health and labs and so forth. But at the same time, I think it’s important to benchmark your subjective goals with things that you could be doing now, or things that you’ve forgotten about that you haven’t even thought about that are your ultimate goals and what you want to achieve. So I think you have to balance the two.
And it’s not an easy thing, one more comment I wanted to make is I remember watching an interview of one of the initial aura producers or he made the ring, and he was being interviewed on his show. And he was talking about some of his AHA said he was having and it was funny. I laughed out loud when he said well, I realized that my heart rate variability and my readiness score went up when I was on vacation, and I was like Yeah, no shit like you know when you’re on the Education, you know, at the end of the day, the common sense is not so common, right? I mean, we forget to remember about, if you’re working 10 hours a day, or you’re just constantly on your phone, and you’re getting exposed to electronics, and you’re eating in your car, and you’re, you’re just not putting your feet on the ground. I mean, common sense is not so common. So with that being said, I guess it would shift over into when you do start working with, your clientele, and they’re dealing with the massive amounts of problems. And I think we’d all agree that the people we see are sicker and sicker and sicker.
Right? There are so many things going on, you don’t get the easy cases anymore, right? There’s no, I mean, unless, and especially the deeper to your point, one, the deeper you go with your health. And the difference AHA is that you get the universe has a way of telling you, that you don’t know it all. And we’re gonna send you all these difficult people your way to figure it out.
So I think that it’s one of those things where you start attracting really complicated cases, combined with the fact that there are so much more complicated cases than there’s ever been, right. So I guess, how would you? What are you seeing that, that they’re not being told that that’s commonly right in front of their very eyes, that the doctors are missing? From a traditional point of view? I know, it’s kind of a tough question. But are you seeing any like, how do they miss this? Like, why don’t they see this they may not be testing, it may not be on their radar, it may have been tested, but it wasn’t interpreted correctly, correctly.
But are you seeing any of those things or with people that are coming to you with more complicated presentations that you can identify right away? And you see these things that need to be addressed that you’re shocked that no one’s told them about?
Renee Belz: Oh, yeah, there’s a tricky question. I think the jump in, if you Yeah, I’ll say, I’ll say one thing, and I’ll let you jump in. I think just personal care products, and like cleaning products and toxic in your toxic environment, indoor air pollution, I think is a huge one that most traditional doctors aren’t talking about. Like, come on, we see a lot of clients that are like, I’m eating the perfect diet, and I’m exercising and I’m sleeping, and I still feel like crap kind of thing. It’s always a question, is it really a healthy diet?
Right, we have to dive deeper into that. But I think something as basic as just too many toxins in their environment, going into their body every day, all day. I see that being a huge factor, I mean, for fatigue for, you know, not being able to lose weight affecting their hormones, even EMF pollution, right, traditional doctors are definitely not talking about EMFs and radiation being a problem.
And the thing about most of those is, once you do clean them up, you’re usually done with that, right? You’re not having to like replace those things on a daily basis and clean your environment all the time. Once you get all the new clean products, you’re done. So I think that is one big missing piece. I’ll leave it at that. Lauren, if you want to jump in with something.
Lauren Sambataro: Yeah, no, there are huge environmental inputs, but I was just going to give a specific example something like thyroid, which is traditionally not really run by your PCP, maybe a little on your TSH, maybe or free T four, but like, we’re not seeing the big picture there. And so a common very common thing that I see with my clients is oh, my doctor tested that and everything is fine. It’s like, well, yeah, okay, maybe your TSH is fine for a while and traditional range. But like, what about the big picture? I mean, there are so many nuances there. And I’m not faulting them like traditional medicine is brilliant.
And there’s a reason why blood chemistry has been run. And there’s a reason we have medications. But what’s upsetting is that there’s a lack of curiosity and zooming out to see the bigger perspective. And that’s just a small thing. The plastics in our environment are out of control. And so you see something like estrogen dominance, and your doctors not talking to you about the plastics that you’re storing your food in, like your Tupperware in your fridge, like, that’s pretty preposterous, and I would say, exercise is a big one on that list. We just went to a Biohacking Conference.
And I don’t mean to rag on it. But like exercise was a huge missing piece from that conference. There were a lot of supplements. There were a lot of devices, not really any exercise like that’s the one free bio-hack for the vessel that you carry around day and night, 24 hours a day that stores information and trauma and is like a major communicator and we’re not talking about moving. It’s just a simple one. And you know, maybe it doesn’t belong in the doctor’s office. That’s why we have health coaches to bridge the gap. And there are functional medicine doctors doing amazing things like that, but there are so many boxes we have to check so many.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, for sure. As you say that I think about the fact that with the food and the environment we live in I do a lot of genetic tests. interpretations. And it used to be the perfect storm of the people that shouldn’t have all these crazy environmental epigenetic things, combined with their very weak linked, express expressed genotype that creates massive amounts of challenges. But now I’m seeing more people that don’t have massive amounts of genetic susceptibilities. It’s just that environment is so epigenetically triggering to express these things.
And that comes with the processing of foods and the glutamates and the glyphosate and so many things that are in there, that is a huge problem in terms of feeding the gut and supporting the liver, that 88% of our population is metabolically unhealthy. It’s just, it’s crazy. But to your point in terms of getting back in touch with the earth, and getting back in touch with the frequencies, and even if people think it’s woo-woo, it’s getting back to what man-made it in the lab versus what nature made it in on the earth.
That’s what’s healing for our body. So I guess the next question would be, do you find that you are met with a lot of resistance, or by the time they see you they’re so done with not being heard or trivialized, or just telling you that they’re not it’s normal and nothing’s wrong? Do you find that they’re really open to the information? Or the that there’s a mixed bag in terms of they don’t want to hear it? Or? I mean, what are you finding with that?
Lauren Sambataro: It’s certainly a mixed bag. And I think it depends on what we’re talking about. I personally see the most resistance when we’re talking about a plant-based vegetarian vegan diet versus more of a carnivore or paleo diet. When that topic comes up, people really fall on one side of the spectrum or another. So for the clients that are more plant-based, I find that tends to bring up the most like defense in the conversation, but as far as like sunshine, I’ve never had someone say, Oh, I’m not going to get morning sunshine.
And if they are resistant, I say just try it once. I’ve never had someone come back to me say that didn’t feel good. Do you know what I mean? So I guess it depends, like how big of a lifestyle shift? Is it? Like everyone has time for five minutes of sunshine, a little bit of movement in the morning, if we’re talking about a complete shift in diet and nutrition, might be a little bit harder, just depends where they fall in the spectrum.
Renee Belz: Yeah. Yeah, I would say so actually, at the beginning of my nutrition career, I worked at our parent’s Holistic Dental Practice, it was a great learning experience because that’s where I saw some of the sickest patients I’ve ever had seen. Because our dad is a biological dentist.
And that’s such a rare thing in the United States, especially what he does, most of the patients that will come in there, they were that person that had seen 1520 practitioners, they had flown around the country, no one could figure out why they were sick, they were coming there to figure out is the dental component, the missing piece, and quite often it was, but anyway, I would be there to support their nutrition. And I would say for those people, they were open to everything and anything because they were like I have tried it all I have been to every practitioner under the sun.
Tell me I’ll do a castor oil pack and a coffee enema and drink or whatever, at the same time. Just tell me what to do. And most of those people were they were so sick, they weren’t even working anymore. So their full-time job was to get better. So, unfortunately, and fortunately, they had all the time in the world to focus on their health. But it which is sad to see I don’t want anyone to ever get to that point where that is a full-time job. Right? Our health should be there to support us to thrive in our daily life. But not to focus on it. 24/7 That’s very debilitating.
Lauren Sambataro: Yeah, I said the other side of the spectrum, just to chime in real quick is like the average mother. So the working mother that has kids, maybe the pain point isn’t high enough yet. And she thinks she wants a, b and c. But the pain threshold hasn’t gotten high enough for her to really make changes because you know, she’s taking care of her family, and she has to work. There are other variables in there that very frequently put her at the top of the list.
So how do we meet in the middle there from the super sick patient to you know, not so sick patient yet, but we’re really trying to prevent and that’s where like the free bio hacks come in. Just start, just start slowly adding them in and see how it starts to move the needle. Because you’re gonna see shifts and biomarkers. And you’re also just going to see shifts in physiological symptoms. How do you feel about your perception of stress, which we know is actually more important than actual stress? Because stress there are so many ways to define that. And what is your stress bucket, but if you’re just perceiving your stresses less than like we’ve already moved forward.
Dr. Joel Rosen: There are some really good points. I feel that that’s a great point, Lauren in terms of, they have to have the pain of not doing anything worse than pain than of doing something before they’re really on board. And sometimes that takes a lot of getting to the bottom of the bucket before they do that. And we see a lot of those like were the last doctor to the party and I find they’re met with their arms crossed, like, what are you going to tell me that I haven’t already done before.
And they haven’t done a lot of things, right, because there are so many things that they haven’t done. I just remember when I think you might remember this. I told it at the Biohacking Conference, I have my whole family, our real doctors, like surgeons, and doctors and anesthesiologists, and I’m like the holistic chiropractor. And I remember I mean, I have an exercise physiology degree of a psychology degree than a doctor of chiropractic. And I remember I was working part-time, just when I was graduating chiropractic, and explaining to as a personal trainer, and I was explaining to the people nutrition.
And while you’re really knowledgeable, like well, like oh, yeah, I’m, I’m studying chiropractic. And it was like, like, oh, like, sorry to hear that, you know, like, Well, what do you mean, like I didn’t realize, like, you know, I think that there’s a certain amount of I don’t say brainwashing, but there’s a certain amount of just accepting the status quo. And I think we’re seeing a shift. And I don’t remember who coined the term. But science advances with like, each generation because the old generation dies, and then the new generation is open to new changes.
So I think we’re on that paradigm shift. And I think people listening to this are already there. But at the same time, there are a lot of people that whether it’s they’re following it, because that’s what their insurance pays for, or they just don’t know otherwise, or unfortunately, the topic of it’s not covered. And it’s a big expense to look at as a big expense instead of a big investment that you should have a 10 to 100-fold return on.
So with that being said, I do want to transition into the data-driven information that you guys have learned because I have both the ring and the strap. And I’ve had a lot of aha hours as well myself. And there was a time when I was with my exhausted burnt-out brain fog, no energy people, I was making them do so many things. And it was just overwhelming to do it punching in there. My Fitness Pal or Chronometer plus on top of that, you know, logging this and that it just became too much. So I guess we would transition into the data tracking. I like that term better than biohacking.
Like data tracking and seeing the trends and understanding what really makes a difference. I guess with you, Rene, what are some of the things that you’re seeing? Aren’t the obvious that aren’t if you go on vacation? Or what are the things that you’re seeing that make the biggest impact on having a turnaround and health when you think you’ve done everything?
Renee Belz: Well, I think as far as data tracking for someone that’s new to it, like heart rate variability, I think is a great place to start. I think you can learn so much from that one measurement. As far as Yeah, what does vacation improve it? You know, the big ones are alcohol definitely destroys it for me, which for most people, it does too much caffeine, too many nootropics all kinds of stress. So mental, emotional, physical, and physiological, all of these stressors definitely impact HRV. And I think being able to see that day in and day out, you can really learn the nuances for yourself.
And it is different for everyone. Like I was talking about my husband with blue light at night, he can be honest phone till 10 no blue light blocking glasses on and get in bed and fall right asleep. For me, if I have any blue light for two hours before bed, my deep sleep in my REM sleep is terrible. So I think yeah, blue light, I think is a big one for some people. Alcohol overexercising. I mean, for me, I like to do high-intensity interval training. I like to lift heavy, which is great. It’s a great hormetic stressor. I’m not going to argue that. But I know that the next day my HRV is going to be down. But that’s okay.
And I think another piece of the data quantification is being okay with the data. Don’t let it upset you. Right, learn. We talked about this a lot. If it is upsetting you or stressing you out. Maybe you do need to take a step back from it. And you need to figure out if it’s supporting you or hurting you. Either way, trying to think what else Lauren, what would you say to any other big movers?
Lauren Sambataro: Well, my biggest takeaway, I think from quantification is I think the recovery piece recovering from exercise and realizing that if you do push, or don’t listen to your data, your score As you’re going to incrementally decrease or get worse, you know, not everything decreases as heart rate can go up, HRV can go down. Whereas before I started tracking, I thought, you know, it’s willpower, it’s just mental determination, I can push through this if I had been tracking exercise and recovery, 10 years ago, when I was working out like a crazy person, it would be really sad to see, you see that it’s not just willpower, that there are all these physiological systems that really working hard to make sure that you can get rest and recovery and show up stronger.
So my biggest takeaway is like, I don’t have to hit it hard every day of the week. In fact, I feel better, I feel more resilient, my HRV is stronger, and my overall readiness is way better when I do less. And as Renee said, of course, that’s different for everybody. But I also find, you know, there’s this roller coaster effect, if you do too much exercise, say I got like a 70 readiness score, which is not the worst thing on order, but it generally means to like to slow down a little bit. If I push past that, for the next four days, it’s gonna go down. And I see that also in blood sugar, like with CGM, because they do a lot of blood sugar coaching when you have that extreme excursion, which is a stress to your body.
And we know that over time if you keep adding that stress, your agency is gonna go up, you click oscillate glucose in your bloodstream, it’s really hard to recover from that. So we want to avoid those extremely stressful events. And so you start to see, you know, it’s not like, oh, I ate that ice cream last night. I’ll just start over tomorrow. Well, the sad news is that that actually did provide a stressor. So how are we going to take that, that experience that environment, and make it better? Like how do we actually recover? It’s not just starting over tomorrow, we have to actually damp and nourish that environment. And you know, that’s the rabbit hole of things. But I think learning that it’s not just about pushing through and are just like starting clean, there’s not necessarily like a start clean with your body the next day.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, those are those are really good points, though, in terms of starting off with getting calibrated, I like that word calibrated, or synchronized to the objective data that you may not think it’s that way, it’s a paradigm shift, or it’s a, you know, tipping over a sacred cow. And that’s one of the things that drives me crazy in terms of I heard you say this in an interview, Lauren, where you thought you had to have small meals more frequently because you have cortisol issues.
And that’s what they told you. And as a trainer, I’m a little bit older than you guys. But as a trainer, back in those early days, it’s like small meals more frequently, right? That’s what you did, I have an exercise physiology degree only to find out when you actually test it, you’re not hypoglycemic, and you’re actually hyperglycaemic. And on top of that, the EMF that you’re exposed to every day, and everything else drives that up even further. So I think being open to the paradigm shifts, that it’s not what you were told, or that’s what that person said, or that’s what the, it’s in the book, I think you got to know yourself, you got to test those things.
I think two of them for me was one of them was doing work at night, I mean, I can put the blue blocker lights on or not, and still fall asleep. But I would be doing emails and work really later into the evening. And my glucose would be at like 131 40. And I hadn’t eaten since six or five o’clock. It’s like, it just does not do well with me. The other one was a bit of a surprise, it was an exercise that I do with my clients where we teach them different brain exercises. So they have to do recall and follow things. It’s it trains, different parts of the brain and different parts of the lobes of the brain.
And I thought if I wake up tomorrow, and my scores are different, I know it was because of this. And I think my readiness was like at 96. It was like something I hadn’t, it was an all-time high of like, five, five years or four years of doing it. So it was kind of cool in that way. So it’s I think you got to test it, you got to know it. And then that way you can make objective changes.
So as far as instinctually or perceptually, you were talking a little bit about Lauren, and maybe we can start to go into that area. So what does that mean in terms of we’re getting more into understanding, knowing ourselves and the body and when to push and when not to push? Let’s kind of start that and what is what does that mean and how can we harness that to get better results?
Renee Belz: I think a good place to kick this off is maybe talking a little bit more specifically about women. I think Lauren is really an expert on this the female or masculine and feminine side of things. But I think sometimes women do shut out that intuition even though we have it within and a great example of this. We hear this all the time from clients women couple of days before their cycle starts right One of the blades, they were like, I’m craving chocolate, I’m craving carbs, I want potato chips and stuff.
And like, that’s your body telling you that you need maybe some more magnesium or more carbs, right? So how can we listen to our body and know our cycle and just lean into that? And so I think something like the aura ring is a great way to start tracking that, right, because it’s looking at your body temperature throughout the month. If you don’t have a device, just get a thermometer, put it by your bed in the morning, and start taking your morning temperature. I think for women, you need to know every day what part of your cycle you’re in, you can become Superwoman if you can lean into this.
So you know the first couple of days of your cycle, a great time to do more restorative things, we do better with fasting, maybe some more keto, higher fat, leading up to ovulation, a great time to put on muscle, go to the gym, lift heavy stuff, incorporate some more carbs, I mean, good, healthy carbs, and still follow your personal glucose control, whatever you need to do. And then the same thing at the end of the cycle when we can incorporate more carbs, listen to your body and combine that with the data telling you what part of your cycle you’re in. And I think magic can really happen there. So for women, I think we have this power of intuitive practice. Maybe maybe it’s a little bit easier, right? versus men, you’re on a different clock, right? You have your 24-hour clock, but you don’t get the 28-day to 32-day cycle that we do.
Lauren Sambataro: yeah, and I think as far as perception leaning into that takes away a lot of the shame from the conditioning that we’ve gotten from culture and society about what we’re supposed to eat what we’re supposed to do for exercise, you know, how much we’re supposed to accomplish, how productive we’re supposed to be. If we can lean into these, this monthly cycle, those carb cravings rather than saying, I’m bad, because I’m craving that or I’m bad because I chose to eat that. It’s like, well, no, I’m nourishing my system.
We know progesterone needs carbohydrates. So why is that bad? But we have been conditioned never to mess up, that everything is black and white, right or wrong. And it’s not like the body doesn’t work like that we’re dynamic. We’re constantly in flow, our hormones are constantly changing, and we’re not the same body we were a minute ago. So I think that’s where the data quantification and building an intuitive practice really shines because we take away the shame from that conditioning, and then it’s just about you and yourself. It’s about what your body needs.
And I feel like that shame that guilt that rides on top keeps us away from our intuition. So it is a practice, it’s a monthly practice of saying, Okay, I’m going to expect this, you know, the cleaner I am and have less and less of these cravings for potato chips, maybe just more cravings for sweet potatoes or whatever it is that it does get easier, the cleaner that you eat, but also the more that you practice it, the more those intuitive signals are going to speak up.
They’re gonna voice themselves. But in our society, we have turned off intuition because it’s like when we’re kids, we learned that we don’t fit into society unless we’re following rules and doing as we are told and fitting into this box. We’re not meant to be put into boxes. So, unfortunately, that communication was dampened. So we’re like dusting it off and trying to find it again. Is there? It’s definitely there.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, like the approach and the paradigm shift of helping someone understand the rules of engagement for honing in on their intuition. Right as health coaches and looking at the data and seeing the numbers and then almost there was a movie I loved it was called Mumford. I don’t know if you ever saw the movie, Mumford exhibits.
You know, it was about this guy who was a psychologist, but he really wasn’t a psychologist, he was, he was an impulse and imposter. But the reason why he was so loved as being a psychologist was he just would listen to them talk. And he wouldn’t even really say much except one question and then go ahead and talk. And I think that’s kind of how we are as coaches is letting people hear themselves but asking the right questions, so that they can come up with the intuition of Oh, like, do you mean, when I am hungry, and I feel like awful and I want to put my finger down my throat when I’m eating way too much that that’s actually like in tune with my body. And I should embrace that. Yeah. And when you look at these numbers here that supports that.
So I love that area where I guess the next question would be where do you see that evolving to in terms of really changing up the way we practice? Do you feel that we don’t necessarily need as much testing per se objectively and get away from some of the more expensive testing and do a basic customized yet fundamental that everyone could do it with some nuances like where do you see it going in what direction?
Renee Belz: I think that’s a great question. I mean, I think I mean, technology, it’s just rapidly growing. I mean, it’s almost terrifying how fast things are growing. But I can see in the next couple of years, everyone having some device, I mean, even like the Apple Watch is now incorporating HRV. I think they also are doing respiratory rate, and blood oxygen. I mean, it’s happening really fast.
I think in the next couple of years, everyone will have a device that will allow them to at least measure, you know, maybe more of the foundational stuff like, Wouldn’t it be great if someone came to us, and they were like, Okay, I already have these foundational things in check, but I’m missing something else. And then that’s where we save maybe the fancy fun lab work for? I don’t know, because, at the same time, I think our environments getting more toxic.
Lauren Sambataro: So yeah, I think it was always gonna be a particular approach, depending on the scenario, I mean, inflammation and oxidative stress are not going away. They’re, they’re growing exponentially. So it would be hard to say that we’re never going to need it like when we’re gonna get organic acids, or stool testing, or whatever. I mean, blood chemistry, I think will always be a standard. As far as like, totally getting away from testing. I, I can’t imagine that.
But I think with data quantification, I certainly want to get off of my devices at some point. At some point, I’m going to hopefully learn and, and incorporate all of these things. So they are habitual and intuitive. So I’m not relying on my watch to tell me how my day is gonna go. And we’ve talked about that on our podcasts like, you should take some breaks from your data.
Because what if you’re just checking your data every morning without checking in with yourself? What are you doing, you’re actually dampening your intuition, you’re getting away from the whole point of it, you want to be able to feel our recovery or resilience. So I think that will go on more like a short-term timeline. But like, unless we fix our environment, I don’t know that we can ever get away from lab testing.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, I mean, I agree with both of you, it’s the best of the best and the worst of the worst. Now, it’s the were the best time for advancing new ways of thinking about metabolic health. But yet we also have this albatross of an environment and everything that’s going on with us that just as keeping our permanent button on, where I think might we can go is where third parties are more motivated for profit by, by incentivizing their clients, or their hope policyholders to be healthier.
And it’s just, it’s like one of those ships moving in the ocean, it just takes forever to do because pharma and the big money that’s in there, and then the educational systems. And then on top of that, the food bill, and governmental policy and lobbyists, I mean, that’s really what we’re fighting. But I think if you can get doctors aligned with what works, what works for their clients, and doesn’t cost them an arm and a leg to do it, they can actually free bio-hack it. And then insurance companies give back the money to the clients that they don’t have to spend $80,000 on to do some kind of radical surgery. It just, to me, it seems like why are we not doing that?
But anyway, that’s just an aside as far as, as far as anything that you guys have learned? Because I always like to ask like, the podcast name is the truth about your health. And I do have that feeling that a lot of things as a segue from what we just talked about, a lot of things are being hidden from us, for the profit and the industry. Well, I guess it’s kind of a tough question. But what do you wish? Maybe you knew then that you know, now that wasn’t necessarily true about health? I guess, maybe Lauren, you start that one?
Lauren Sambataro: Well, my brain can’t get away from what you said a few minutes ago, I’m thinking about the farm bill of the 19. Seven days, I’m like, if we could just get rid of that. We will be in a much better state like our government has subsidized crops that are cheap, toxic, and making our world sicker. Like what if we subsidize healthy foods, fruits, and vegetables, just start there.
And then it’s like we don’t have to worry about and we’ll always have to worry about health care. But you know, the insurance issue becomes a little bit easier health coaching becomes a little easier. We bridge the gap even more with traditional medicine, and functional health coaching. I guess what do I wish that I knew, I wish, I that I knew that it was just about my body. I wish that I knew that my body had the answers. And, you know, our dad taught us that at a very young age. I had that.
We learned that concept, but it was not fully ingrained enough that you know, given the right environment I was not vulnerable. When I went to New York, I was very impressionable based on thoughts and opinions that people had there, which is why I became vegetarian. I wish that that was so ingrained in my body that no matter what I knew that I had the answers and that the answer was not out there. And for so long, I was seeking searching looking for the magic pill. It’s like, Man if I had a mentor or a teacher that taught me that my intuition was stronger than anything else, you know, you can’t regret the path. But that’s what I hope to educate others on that they have all the answers.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, you need a Yoga.
Renee Belz: Yeah. When do you need them?
Dr. Joel Rosen: And what about you, overnight?
Renee Belz: Yeah. I think if I can give two answers, I would say, a more simple answer, if I could tell my younger self is how important sleep is. And I think that narrative is now changing. But when we were in high school, and college, it was doing whatever you got to do to get straight A’s and be in musical theater and dance company and work on the weekends and do everything. And I think a lot of that was I put that pressure on myself, it wasn’t my parents that were doing that. You know, the straight A’s in college doesn’t really matter anymore.
So I wish I could tell my younger self, I should have prioritized sleep or would have been in a much better, much better health than in my 20s. If I had listened to that. And in a more complicated area, I would say, iron and copper. You are my guru on this topic. Now. I struggled with anemia for so long. And I actually got to the point where I almost was about to do an iron infusion. And someone said, Try organ meats for six months, just wait on the infusion. And I did and everything kind of balanced out and I felt better. And maybe that was because of the natural copper.
I’m definitely gonna pick your brain. More on that when you come on to our podcast because I think that is so fascinating. But I think there is so much misconception about iron. Even in the functional medicine world, this was a functional medicine doctor that was recommending an iron infusion. So it’s not just traditional versus functional. I think there’s a huge missing piece around the iron deficiency. So thank you for the work you’re doing in that realm. And I can’t wait to keep learning more from you.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, well, I mean, it’s, you know, Morley Robbins wrote that book, and I was reading, I was doing so many rabbit holes, rabbit holes, and rabbit holes. And I’m like, What’s this iron thing, this copper thing? And then to read all the research, it’s just mind-blowing in terms of how are we not taught this? And why are we not taught it? Which is even scarier. So. But yeah, I mean, that’s a lot of awesome information, the podcast called biohacking babes. And how often just give us a little intro on that, because I’m sure more people know about it, that dome. But for those that don’t tell us a little bit about what you guys talk about, and, what the listener would gain when they listen to your podcast.
Renee Belz: Yeah. Awesome, Ben. Yeah. So we released one podcast a week, every Monday, we rotate different guests, and we try to bring on different guests in the biohacking realm. And just to educate people. I mean, we talk about everything from breath, work to the hormone, hormone balance, sleep optimization, cleaning up your environment, eating organic, I mean, we’ve really tried and covered the bases there.
And then every once in a while Lauren, and I’ll just do an episode just the two of us and share kind of what’s going on in the biohacking world and what we think is important at the moment, but we do our best to just bring as much education and information to the mass population as we can.
Dr. Joel Rosen: Awesome, man, I know, Lauren, you’re getting more into the entire intuitive work, maybe what tell us a little bit about how that’s we’ve done as well. Are there other things that you talk about that we didn’t talk about today on the show? Or with your own practice?
Lauren Sambataro: I would say that’s just sort of like a throughline in the podcasts. But yeah, definitely a big part of health coaching. And that’s just because I don’t, you know, I don’t have the answers for everyone. And I can run lab tests and do an extensive health history. But it’s Renee and I really feel strongly about empowering you to dig a little bit deeper.
And it takes some work, but we’re there to kind of push you and hold your hand a little bit and then encourage you to dig deeper because it’s their answers down there. So that’s a big part. I think just to add to some of like our topics, we do a lot of exercises and we’re starting to talk more about plant medicine and what can offer us as far as mental health personal growth, and spiritual development, which is just a fascinating topic to us at this time.
Dr. Joel Rosen: That is that’s a rabbit hole. I haven’t gone down yet but maybe at some point thank you ladies for so much for being here and sharing your wisdom and your time I really appreciate and I look forward to talking with you guys later and then I always keep it open if it’s okay if I did a good enough job for you guys to come back and share with me the new version of what you learned from the last time we talked so we’ll keep that invitation open but thank you so much and I wish you guys feature success and everything you do.
Lauren Sambataro: Thank you so much. This is awesome.
Renee Belz: Can’t wait to have you on Thank you.