paleo magazine - podcast episode 4 · 2019-02-21 · podcast episode 4 {music} host: welcome to...

Podcast Episode 4

{Music}

Host: Welcome to PMR, Paleo Magazine Radio, where we bring you Paleo

nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle perspectives from both the experts and the

everyday. PMR is brought to you by Paleo Magazine, the first and only print

magazine dedicated to the Paleo lifestyle, and is hosted by Tony Federico.

{Music}

Tony Federico: Hello, everyone, and thank you for tuning in to PMR. My name is Tony

Federico and I’m your host on this journey of modern-day primal living. This

is our fourth episode, and I’m excited to be talking to my friends, Keith and

Michelle Norris. They’re the organizers of PaleoFX, an ancestral health

symposium centered around the idea of bringing theory to practice. We’ll be

talking about last year’s event, as well as what they have planned for

PaleoFX13, which will be held this March in the wonderfully weird city of

Austin, Texas.

In the second half of the show I’m going to be speaking with Brenda and

Chad Walding, two physical therapists who hope to find some ancestral

momentum of their own by attending PaleoFX12.

{Music}

Tony Federico: Keith and Michelle, welcome to the show.

Paleo MagazinePodcast Episode 4

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Michelle Norris: Hi. Thank you for having us.

Keith Norris: Hey, yes. Great to be on the show, Tony.

Tony Federico: Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s great to be talking to both of you. Now, the last

time we had a chance to hang out was at the Ancestral Health Symposium in

Boston, and I just wanted to take a second to kind of get some insight from

you as far as what it was like going to an event, and having planned an event

—sort of, what was the experience like on both sides of the fence?

Michelle Norris: A vacation {laughter}.

Keith Norris: {Laughter}.

Michelle Norris: Totally different. It’s nice to not have to be running around like a chicken

with your head cut off at an event that you – it’s a little bit surreal. Of course,

we were sitting in the crowd when they had the problem with Robb’s

presentation. You know, it was a little bit of a gut check. You know, we were,

like, oh, my God. You know, got to do something. And then it was like, oh,

wait a minute. No, we don’t. It’s not our baby. {Laughter}. So, it was kind

of interesting. So…

Tony Federico: So, you almost wanted to jump in and help.

Michelle Norris: No, it was – initial thing of feeling like it actually was our problem to take

care of. And then it was like, oh, no, wait. We don’t have to worry about it.

It’s their deal. So, it was just that initial thought process. Because, having

been on that other side – and, you know, we’re really good friends with Aaron

Blaisdell, so we’ve spent a lot of time talking to him and going through all of


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that, and those feelings. And unfortunately, Aaron didn’t get to come to

PaleoFX. We’re hoping he gets to come to PaleoFX13. So, he doesn’t know

what it’s like to be in the crowd, and not having had to do that {laughter}. So,

it’ll be nice for him if he gets to come to PaleoFX13 and not have to do any of

the work, and all of that. So…

Tony Federico: Now, I want to talk about PaleoFX. But before we get there, I wanted to find

out a little bit about your own story. How you came into this Paleo way of

life, and at what point did you decide, hey, we’re going to put on an event?

We want to take what we’ve gained, and give an opportunity for people to

come together, and talk and learn, and to do all that kind of cool stuff?

Keith Norris: Well, I can tell you, Tony, having been either an athlete or trained athletes my

entire life, I’ve been involved in athletics since playing Pop Warner football as

a child and, you know, being at the age where you had to hold the football up

and down, because it wouldn’t fit in your arms otherwise. And this Paleo way

of eating, even though it wasn’t called Paleo at the time—that was just the

generally accepted baseline diet of what an athlete would eat. So, I rolled

with that for a long period of time. And I started probably 2005-ish, some

time around in there, reading some of Art De Vany’s work, and really started

to look at the health aspects of the Paleo diet. And that’s really what led me

down this path.

So, it went from being a – more of a performance issue; you know, and as I

got older and a little bit more concerned about my health, then it turned into

less of performance issue and more of a health-related issue. So, that’s kind of

what led me into this path.

Tony Federico: And what about you, Michelle?


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Michelle Norris: Well, for me, I became Paleo by default.

Tony Federico: {Laughter}.

Michelle Norris: And actually, Keith went – was Paleo sooner than he actually remembers. So,

I’m really good about remembering stuff. I actually became Paleo in 2005; he

was Paleo in 2004. So, he was Paleo for a year. My specialty as a chef was

Italian, prior to becoming Paleo. So, for a good year I made homemade pasta

and pizza, and he was not touching any of it.

Tony Federico: Really?

Michelle Norris: Yes. He was not eating any of it, which he had always, you know, scarfed

down previously. And I had all of these issues: stomach pains after I ate; the

whole – you know, just everything. IBS. You name it; I had it. And so, he

kept saying very subtly – Keith’s not one of those that beats you over the head

with anything. So, he was very careful. When I would say, gosh, my stomach

hurts, he’d say, I really think you have this celiac thing. I think you ought to

get it checked out. And he would say it here and there, not pushy, not

anything; but he would just keep saying it.

And finally, after about a year, I was making pizza and pasta for the kids,

because that was their favorite. And he didn’t eat it again. And I said, are you

seriously never going to have my pizza or pasta again? And he said, no. And

then he said, I really, seriously think you have this celiac thing. I really think

you need to get it checked out. So, I did. And the testing for celiac, of course,

has changed quite a bit. But I came up negative for it. The doctor was telling

me, well, you know, what we can do is, do a biopsy of your colon to check for


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it and everything, if you really feel like you have it. As he’s telling me this,

he’s falling asleep. So, I tend to believe that he had some issues with

(inaudible)…

Tony Federico: Low energy…

Michelle Norris: Yes. And I thought, why is the next step always this invasive surgery? Why

not just – you know, how about I not eat that, and see how I do there, instead?

Tony Federico: It would seem a little simpler to go that route.

Michelle Norris: Right. That’s what I did. And, like I said, I became Paleo by default. I wasn’t

happy about it. I was pretty irritated that this was what I had to do, to be

healthy and to not have stomachaches when I ate. And so, I didn’t come to

Paleo in a happy way. And I wasn’t happy that, okay, well, I’m healthy now,

and so, let me find out everything I can find out about Paleo; I didn’t do that.

I wasn’t one of those people. I was writing for other people on a website and

doing cooking blogs and that type of thing. And I usually stayed mainstream.

I didn’t switch over and go, hey, everybody needs to do this, because they’ll

get healthy. It took a while for me to finally get there. So, that’s kind of my

story {laughter}.

Tony Federico: And obviously you did come around, and you guys kind of did that in a big

way, because you’re integral to last year’s PaleoFX event happening. So, tell

me a little bit about how you decided to take your lifestyle and turn that into

an event.

Keith Norris: We went to the initial Ancestral Health Society convention that was held in

Los Angeles, and we loved it. We loved how that event was put on. We loved


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the very academic nature of the program. But on the plane ride back from Los

Angeles to Austin we were talking about how great the event was; but we kept

talking about, now, how are we going to distill this information and put it in

front of the people that we work with, day in and day out? Because there’s no

way they’re going to grasp all of this. There laid the seeds for PaleoFX: okay,

so, let’s take this academic knowledge – and a great wealth of knowledge, too;

but somehow, let’s distill this down so the average person can grasp it and

actually put it to use in their lives. And so, that laid the groundwork, and then

we were off and running on that journey.

Tony Federico: And from what I understand, it was a pretty quick process. It’s not like you

deliberated for a huge amount of time. You decided you were going to do it,

and you guys were rolling pretty quickly.

Michelle Norris: Yes. It was very quick. We had initially decided what we wanted to do was

do a smaller version of PaleoFX. We were convinced to go bigger, and we

did, and…

Tony Federico: Go big or go home, as they say.

Michelle Norris: Yes. We had wanted to do a bigger event at a later time. But we were told,

no, no; do it right away. You need to do it. So, we did. We moved forward

with PaleoFX. We’re not sorry about that decision. It’s been a lot of work but

it’s been a lot of reward. I think that we’ve brought a lot of new voices to the

forefront, and that’s probably one of the biggest things that Keith and I are

proudest of, and probably one of the biggest pushes that we plan on having

PaleoFX be a foundation for, is being able to find those new voices that need

to be heard and that people want to hear. So, I think that’s a big thing for us.


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Tony Federico: And as somebody who attended both PaleoFX and the Ancestral Health

Symposium, I can definitely tell that you really did take the idea of putting a

practical slant on everything, very seriously. Because I really could feel that.

Everything was kind of built around usable knowledge. And like Keith was

saying earlier, it’s important to have the theoretical basis of understanding,

you know, these principles, and scientifically what’s actually going on. Why

is it working? Why is this a valid hypothesis? But then, ultimately, you have

to, as you said, distill it down into some useful pieces. So, I wanted to talk a

little bit about what you distilled down from your experience of PaleoFX12,

and what you’re going to then do for the upcoming event, PaleoFX13.

Keith Norris: One of the big pushes for Paleo, and this is something we’ve discussed quite a

bit, is that all of the individual benefits of Paleo—the looking better, feeling

better, performing better—all of those are fantastic, and all of those are

attainable on an individual level.

One direction we want to push Paleo, is into a sustainability direction. In

other words, there may come a point at a certain time in the not too distant

future, where we may know exactly what to eat and exactly what to do; but

the problem will be, not being able to get our hands on that stuff. And our…

Tony Federico: And we’re seeing that problem with seafood stocks declining, and various

things of that nature. So, that’s a real concern.

Keith Norris: Yes. It’s a real concern, when you look at the demographics of how small

family farms are beginning to evaporate. And that’s just going to accelerate in

the near future as the current farmers – if you look at the demographics,

there’s an overwhelming percentage of these people who are at the retirement

age, 65 or above. And there’s an overwhelming percentage of these people


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who have either no heirs to pass this farmland on to, or no heirs who are

interested in going into farming at all. Which leads, you know, the only entity

to, you know, accept that influx is just going to be Big Ag. So, part of our

push is going to be towards the sustainability side and towards trying to

generate interest in local farming, local ranching, and these issues. And that’s

going to be a huge push for PaleoFX this year.

Tony Federico: And that’s interesting. Do you guys see some of this bringing some attention

to things like helping school lunch programs? You know, I know some

schools have actually started to grow gardens and things like that, to get fresh

produce, but there’s various issues and, you know, bureaucratic red tape and

things like that, that can complicate that. Do you see the Paleo movement

being able to help and kind of influence, maybe not necessarily getting the

world to be quote-unquote Paleo, but moving at least a step forward in a

direction of, you know, eating more real food and less processed, less refined,

and less junk food?

Michelle Norris: Absolutely. That is probably one of the biggest pushes for us, is trying to gain

that common ground with other food movements. Say, vegans, vegetarians—

for them to try to take that bipartisan {laughter} – you know, cross the party

lines, across the aisles, and say, you know, we need to start coming together

and realizing that we have far more in common than we have not in common;

that we want some of the same things. We want that animal husbandry,

respect for animals. We want a lot of the same things: that people need to

have a lot less processed foods; that we need to have better foods, and we

need to have real foods. We need to have a respect for the land.

All of those things need to be brought together, and realize that we need to

work together so that we can kind of overtake the Big Ag, and kind of realize


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that that is not what’s sustainable. That is not what is in the best interests of

not just people in general, but this country and this economy. It’s just not.

I think for PaleoFX, for Keith and I, what we want to see this becoming – and

we feel like the movement itself – to make the movement relevant, is to see

the movement take an activist role and take a role of sustainability, and to not

just health and wellness, but more sustainability. That we need to partner with

– you know, though we don’t see eye to eye about eating animals, we do see

eye to eye about respect for them. So, we need to take that common ground as

much as we can, and start trying to partner with some of these movements, so

that we can start making the moves towards getting rid of some of this Big Ag

and factory farming.

Keith Norris: We would love to see Paleo just become a natural consequence of smart and

sustainable agricultural practices. That’s ultimately what we would like to

see.

Tony Federico: Uh-huh [affirmative]. Absolutely. And I’m really glad that you brought up

that point, because I do agree. And I think that, although it’s kind of fun to

sort of poke fun at vegans, vegetarians – you know, obviously it’s kind of like

an easy target when you’re in the Paleo community and, you know, flashing

bacon and things like that in their face. But I do that we have more in

common. We’re both intentional about what we’re eating. We’re both

considering the impacts on a societal level, on an economic level. So, I really

do think that there’s more to be gained from looking at that common ground,

and looking to common ground, and trying to further what really everybody’s

hoping to do, which is to have a healthier future for our kids and for

generations to come.


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Keith Norris: Absolutely.

{Crosstalk}

Michelle Norris: Right.

Tony Federico: Well, Keith and Michelle, it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for

talking with me today.

Michelle Norris: Oh, thank you for having us. We appreciate it.

Keith Norris: Thank you very much for having us on, Tony.

Tony Federico: If you’d like to attend PaleoFX13, be sure to visit therealpaleofx.com. After

the break, we’ll be talking with PaleoFX12 attendees, Brenda and Chad

Walding. I’m Tony Federico and you’re listening to PMR. Be right back.

{Music}

Tony Federico: Welcome back to Paleo Magazine Radio. Brenda and Chad, thank you for

coming on the show.

Brenda Walding: Thanks for having us.

Chad Walding: Thanks for having us, Tony. It’s good to be here.

Tony Federico: So, we met at last year’s PaleoFX, and you guys told me your story, and I

thought it was very interesting. So, rather than me tell it, I just wanted to give


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you both an opportunity to kind of describe to our audience how you ended up

at PaleoFX and what you’re looking to get out of going to that event.

Chad Walding: I guess I’ll go first. You know, we had started living this lifestyle about five

years ago. Around that time, my wife got very sick. She started breaking out

in chronic rashes; lost a lot of weight. Things didn’t really make much sense

to us. We went to conventional doctors, took a lot of steroids and drugs and

whatnot; and things kind of went away, and then they would come back and

they would get a lot worse.

Around that same time, we started hearing things about, like, Weston Price,

and started getting into CrossFit. Learned about Robb Wolf. And we were

just kind of blown away that there were people living in a certain way in the

past who, I guess, were more aligned with nature, who did not have all these

diseases that we have today. So, we kind of just restructured everything in

terms of the way we ate. It didn’t happen at one point. We kind of started

making changes over time. But, slowly but surely, my wife was able to heal

herself. And we just got very, very passionate about food and this whole

movement.

And we found out about the PaleoFX symposium last year, and it was a no-

brainer for us to go to it. We live in Austin, so it was like, we have to go. It’s

right here. And it was all the people that we had learned from, you know,

listening to podcasts and reading books—guys like Robb Wolf, and Mark

Sisson; Chris Kresser; Nora Gedgaudas. And it just kind of goes on and on

and on. So, for us it was just a good way to be more a part of that movement,

and continue to learn from those people, and then also meet them at the same

time. So, it was a great experience.


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Tony Federico: Your professional background kind of makes this a little bit different than I

guess you could say for the average person. It’s not like you were illiterate in

terms of health and wellness and science, and things of that nature. Could you

talk a little bit about what your day job is?

Chad Walding: Yes. So, we’re both doctors of physical therapy. We started out treating

mostly the spine, like neck pain and back pain, and outpatient therapy. And

that’s kind of what we were doing for the first three or four years of our

career. And then we moved to working in home health. So, that was a huge

wake-up call, because we were going to people’s homes to treat them – these

were people who could not get out of their own homes because they were so

sick, or just didn’t have the strength to get out of their home, basically. And

these are people with cancer, Alzheimer’s, you know, diabetes, multiple

sclerosis, Parkinson’s. You know.

So, the interesting thing about that was, we were able to go into their homes

and then see the environment that they were living in, seeing the foods they

were eating, the toxins they were surrounding themselves with, and how that

was contributing to their problem. But they didn’t quite see that and

understand that, because they were still operating under, I guess you could

say, an old mindset, that still to this day, most people in our culture are still

operating under that mindset.

But it was an interesting thing for us. Because we’d drive around all day

listening to podcasts all day, for four hours a day, about nothing but health—

about how to eat. You know, where disease comes from, and how that – the

food that we’re eating, the toxins in our food, the chemicals, the toxic fats –

how it’s so problematic and contributing to these problems. And then we

would go directly into those homes and see those people with those problems.


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So, it was just a huge wake-up call. And we felt very motivated to continue to

learn, but also share that with other people—as many people as we could,

really. So, we started sharing it with our patients when it was appropriate,

with our family and our friends. And from the whole PaleoFX thing, the thing

that we really took away from it was to be more proactive about that, and we

started a blog. And we’ve had a lot of fun with it. It’s blown up. It’s been

better than we ever imagined it would be. And it’s just great to see that more

people are trying it out and learning about this through things like social

media, and then seeing for themselves what real food can do for them. And I

think the more testimonials that we can get from people, and getting them to

buy in and live this lifestyle, I think there’s just great potential for change in

the whole healthcare system, and then just the health of our nation really.

Tony Federico: Now, I want to go back a second, because you were telling me about some of

the health problems that your wife was having. And if – Brenda, if you could

describe a little bit, what was your lifestyle like then? What kind of things

were you eating? What kind of things were you doing? What was the

transformation that you experienced?

Brenda Walding: Yes. Basically, I pretty much grew up thinking I could eat whatever I wanted.

I was a collegiate athlete in college playing soccer at TCU. Pretty much had

been eating fast food. I didn’t eat much vegetables. I – basically, dinner for

me was a sandwich or cereal, and I would eat out a lot. And I could always

eat whatever I wanted because I was thin and I was fit and seemingly

incredibly healthy, until, you know, like you said, four, five years ago, when

everything sort of just kind of came crumbling down. I became sick. Started

getting rashes, like you said. Started on my legs, and just started traveling all


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over, and eventually wound up on my entire body. And it actually didn’t

really go away for a few years.

Tony Federico: Wow.

Brenda Walding: So, there was also other health issues. It ended up being a severe leaky gut

issue. I don’t know if many people have heard of that, but basically, the

things I was eating, my stressful lifestyle, potentially medication (inaudible)

can cause your gut to leak and make your body incredibly toxic. So, basically,

my immune system was going haywire. And I not only had rashes all over; I

became very ill. Actually had to go on disability for a short time, because I

couldn’t get out of bed. That kind of thing. So, I went from collegiate athlete

to, I can’t make it around the block {laughter}. So…

Tony Federico: And you’re somebody who’s tasked with helping other people to get well.

Brenda Walding: Right. Right. So, I was trying to work, you know, covering up my skin in the

summer with long sleeves and pants, and trying to help others in my

profession as a physical therapist. And I’m quite a researcher. And so, when

this started happening, and I went to about twelve, at least, different doctors –

initially was going through the conventional medicine route—taking drugs,

steroids, antiviral medications, antibiotics, et cetera—and realized pretty soon

that they were going to kill me, giving me all these medications. And just

started researching, researching, researching.

And what I came across was – you know, it kind of dawned on me, although I

don’t know what’s going on with me right now, I do have control over what I

put in my body. And growing up, all the way through my college career, I

never once thought of how food, what I put into my body, could affect my


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health. I mean, I know that sounds crazy, but I always thought of food as,

well, I can eat whatever I want because I’m thin. And I think a lot of women

do that. And there’s thin women who just think of, well, I’ll just have a

Snickers and then I’ll go run it off. And so, I never really…

Tony Federico: Yes. Thinking of food as calories, but not really extending that to any

qualitative sort of assessment of what it is.

Brenda Walding: Right. I mean, if you think about it, food—that’s the basic building blocks of

our body. Our body is constantly renewing, repairing, and it requires certain

key components to be healthy and to continue growing and repairing. So, I

never once thought about my body and my health in terms of that. And so, I

started researching; you know, started to figure out, okay, well, what are we

designed to eat? What should I eat to heal my body?

And there are, of course, so many different ideas, and diets, quote-unquote,

out there. And what just made sense was, like Chad mentioned earlier, is just

looking back at our ancestors and looking at some of the work of Dr. Price and

others. There were civilizations that were largely unaffected by immune

system issues or diseases of civilization—diabetes, whatnot. So, I was

inspired by reading a lot of this work, and just really going back to the basics,

and started, you know, this paleolithic-type primal approach incorporating

nourishing foods like bone broths and fermented foods. And just really started

to get into that.

And so, I started to change. I basically went from fast food, sugar all the time,

to having to get off. And I also did take food sensitivity tests and, you know,

was sensitive to everything. A lot of times with leaky gut you become

sensitive to all kinds of foods; environmental stuff. So, basically, went from


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eating a lot of junk and not eating a lot of vegetables, and not caring about the

quality of my food, to really transforming rather quickly. And I kind of

viewed it as a life-or-death situation for me. So, I’ve been focusing on food as

medicine for the past five years, and I continue to heal, and continue to be

pretty strict on that. So…

Tony Federico: And so, you were able to address some of those health concerns? You

experienced some relief, I guess?

Brenda Walding: When I started to change the way I ate, I did feel better. But I was so sick and

my body was so toxic, that food alone did not help. But it was absolutely

foundational for me to improve my health. I did work with a few alternative

healthcare practitioners, and then really had to go into my lifestyle, my job,

my stress levels; and also, you know, being a collegiate athlete, I was 110% all

the time, training, training, training, and I had to dial that down, and really got

into yoga and working on sleeping eight to nine hours a night. And things like

emotional stress, and trying to deal with all facets of well-being, and really

trying to dial all of those things in; also working, like I said, with an

alternative medicine practitioner. And so, I see diet as an absolutely

foundational – for me healing, although it did take many different things on

my part to heal completely. So – and I’m still on that path {laughter}.

Tony Federico: Yes, absolutely. And congratulations. It takes courage…

Brenda Walding: Thank you.

Tony Federico: …to change and to have faith in trying something new. And I do think it’s a

really important point that, yes, diet’s very important; but there’s a lot more to

it, that go beyond just what we’re eating, but how we’re living, our stress


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levels, our sleep levels. In this past year – so, you went to PaleoFX, you

attended the event, you got to see people like Robb Wolf and Mark Sisson,

and all the various bloggers, in person. Was there anything at the event that

really sort of impacted you maybe more than something else? Was there

anything that was maybe more memorable or maybe had an impact over the

following year?

Chad Walding: I think for us personally, the big thing that we got from it was just a huge

inspiration. And that really started with that first opening talk with Jack

Kruse. I mean, literally, if you go back and look at the video, he’s, like,

looking right at us. And he told this story about, like, starfish; and I don’t

know what happened, but the moral of the story was, like, you’ve got to get

out there and share other – with other people about what you know, because

what you know can help them.

And we had known for quite some time with, you know, the story that Brenda

just told you, and kind of what we’re seeing with our current health system

model, that we have something – we have some knowledge that we have to

share with people. So, it really motivated us to do that, basically. Because we

had felt like we were kind of living a life with no fulfillment. You know, we

were kind of living and working in a system that kind of failed to get to the

root of the problem. And we wanted to be as much of a part of exposing that

root of the problem as we can, and helping more people realize that and

experience that.

So, the big takeaway from us was the inspiration, for sure. And I think that

was a bit of the intention of the whole thing, was about gaining momentum

with this whole movement, and doing more and helping it expand, basically.


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Tony Federico: And one thing just wanted to find out is, there’s two schools of thought. One

is, you need an alternative to, like you said, the medical establishment, and to

having a symptom-focused way of treating people; or, you work with that

system and you try to change it from within. In your experience, where do

you kind of fall in terms of that? Do you feel like there are opportunities

perhaps for you to work with the system? Or, do you think we really need a

valid alternative?

Chad Walding: That’s a good question. I personally believe that medical doctors have the

opportunity to start learning about nutrition. And I think this whole Paleo

Physicians Network is just an awesome idea, and a great way to get people

learning about that. Like, if you look at that first intervention, when

someone’s sick and they go to the doctor – and we saw this all the time with

our – just simple things like neck pain and back pain, right? So, like, as

physical therapists, we understand that neck pain and back pain typically

comes from poor posture and kind of living in this flexion-based society.

Right? We’re, like, always sitting, always bending forward. So, our bodies

get molded in that position. And we’re not designed to be there. We’re

designed to be upright.

So, people would go to their medical doctor with pain, and then they may get

prescribed a pain medication. You know. But the problem is not, they’re,

like, pain-medication-deficient. The problem is the way they’re moving. And

in the same way, someone can go to their doctor with, you know, some sort of

symptom, whether it be a cold or the flu or whatever. And there could be

something going on there with how they’re eating. Maybe it’s grains. Maybe

it’s conventional dairy. Maybe it’s too much sugar. But if that issue is not

addressed from the get-go, then the root of the problem can get bigger and


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bigger and bigger and bigger. And then, one little antibiotic becomes another

antibiotic, and it kind of goes down this sort of rabbit hole.

But I think where we can improve upon, is that first intervention in saying,

hey, we’ll give you a pill; that’s fine. But we want you to know that a lot of

the things that you’re doing in terms of your lifestyle could be problematic.

And I think getting there means educating more healthcare practitioners about

this. I think healthcare practitioners need to get healthy and set an example

for their patients. And then putting that platform out there, so people can start

to understand where these things are coming from, as opposed to, it’s all

genetics and there’s nothing I can do about it. And I think that’s the worst

mindset that we can have, and that’s the current mindset that we have right

now. It means you have no control over anything, and that’s just not the case

at all. You have a lot of control over everything; but you don’t know that

unless you start doing something different, or else nothing is going to change.

But I don’t like the idea of separating. I don’t like the idea of, you know,

here᾽s conventional medicine and here᾽s alternative medicine. There’s them

and there’s us, and there’s no cooperation in there. Because I think that just

creates more separation, and that’s not where we need to go.

I think we just need to start educating. I’d love to see a real whole food

nutritional class given to healthcare practitioners, and ask them to try it out.

Because I think if they did, they would realize some things. And if you see a

lot of the vocal medical doctors out there that have tried this out, they’re very,

very vocal about it with their patients, and they’re some of the speakers within

this whole Paleo kind of scene. And it’s just so good to see. It was so good to

see some of these doctors talk at the PaleoFX symposium. So, I believe that


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there’s opportunity to collaborate together and not create separation. That’s

what, me personally, I’d like to see.

Tony Federico: And within your peer group—you know, fellow physical therapists—have you

discussed these concepts with any of them? Do you attend conferences?

What’s the receptiveness within your particular profession?

Brenda Walding: Unfortunately, we’re – the way that things are set up in the home health

industry is that we basically are independent contractors and we work for

ourselves. We don’t really get a whole lot of time spent with colleagues in

this particular setting. But, fortunately, we spend more time at conferences

like PaleoFX, and, you know, nutritional conferences, and learning. We also

have continuing education, where we’re able to go to conferences. However,

in the past couple of years we’ve just been doing a lot of online study. So, we

haven’t had a whole lot recently of collaboration or communication with a lot

of our peers. But I think that it’s in the future, you know, as far as going to

conferences and things like that, that we’ll definitely be able to share, you

know, when appropriate.

But, as of right now, we haven’t had a whole lot of connections with our peers

in terms of physical therapists. Right now, currently, we’re kind of slowing

down our physical therapy and kind of moving towards wanting to coach,

train, do some nutritional consulting, lifestyle coaching, and teaching and

coaching, and I’m also – became a certified Taoflow instructor. So, it’s a

fusion of yoga and qigong. And so, we have really been inspired this past

year to kind of go outside of this physical therapy box and learn about other

things. So, we’ve kind of been focusing on that.


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Tony Federico: That’s really cool, and that sounds awesome. We’re coming to the end here as

far as our time is concerned. But I wanted to thank you both for talking with

me today. And hopefully, since you do live in Austin, I’ll be seeing you at

PaleoFX13, because it’s right around the corner. Literally, for you, it’s right

around the corner. For me…

Brenda Walding: {Laughter}.

Tony Federico: …a little bit of a flight. But it’s been a real pleasure, and again, I hope to see

you and to learn more about how you continue to grow and implement Paleo

in your careers.

{Music}

Brenda Walding: All right. Thanks, Tony.

Chad Walding: Thank you, Tony.

Tony Federico: That concludes this episode of Paleo Magazine Radio. I’m Tony Federico,

and on behalf of everyone at PMR, thank you for listening.

Host: If you would like to share your story on PMR, please visit our Facebook page

at facebook.com/PaleoMagazine. For full transcripts of the show as well as

exclusive online content, go to our webpage, paleomagonline.com. You can

also talk to us on Twitter at #pmradio.

{Music}

THE END


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paleo magazine - podcast episode 4 · 2019-02-21 · podcast episode 4 {music} host: welcome to...

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