ATHE_Transcript_Ep 474_Traci Thau
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] Welcome to beginnings and breakthroughs. This is where I celebrate and coach people just like you, who are on a mission to heal their metabolisms, feel better, fast, and live their best lives. We will be walking through. What’s worked for them and what they’ve discovered on their journeys. And then I’ll coach them on their next best steps.
And if you’re interested in being a guest, stay tuned and I’ll be sharing how you can join me too. All right. I will be right back with our awesome guest.
Welcome to beginnings and breakthroughs. I am gonna be talking today to a long time member of our community. Traci, Traci has, was diagnosed 20 plus years ago with, with MS. And as she was growing up, like when she was second grade, she started having debilitating migraines and had IBS in high school.
College. Now has some of these. [00:01:00] Back again, she’d done all of our prograMS, which by the way, super cool thing. We are updating all of the prograMS. So I know people have gone. Where are the prograMS? They are like being renovated, updated, upgraded, coming soon. Just watch. Anyway, she’s done our detox.
She’s done breakthrough food intolerance. She did breakthrough carb tolerance. She had great results. COVID hit. And kind of took her out. Not that COVID itself took her out, just, just a lot of stuff that went on and she kind of got off track. So I said, consider this your virtual kick in the butt. And that’s what we’re going through is like, what do you need to consider when you have an autoimmune disease?
She’s looking at having surgery, how do you prepare for that? And you know, just what are some of the things that we need to do mindset. To get us to put ourselves first and realize that, you know, there’s not off days on days. It’s just, how do we, how do we make sure that we are doing what’s best for ourselves every day, while also giving ourselves some grace?
I will be right back with Traci and I I’m [00:02:00] really looking forward to sharing this interview with you.
All right, Traci. I’m, I’ve been watching you for years. You’ve been in the community. I’m super excited to have time to chat with you. Me too.
Traci Thau: Very excited about today.
JJ Virgin: So I’m just gonna do a little, like we’ve been talking offline, I’m gonna share some of these situations going on. And then some of the things that, that I would say are like top.
Top priorities. And so what you shared offline is that you got diagnosed with MS. 21 years ago. And you basically have been able to keep yourself pretty stable. And a lot of that was through diet and you did the my detox, which the detoxes are coming back. By the way, we are love those. Once we. Once we launched the new seven day swap to drop and the new 21 day breakthrough food intolerance cleanse into the, in the three month breakthrough weight loss [00:03:00] resistance program.
Then we are going to be doing the cleanse as well. So everything’s coming back. I’ve just been upgrading everything. So you’ve done all of those things. You’ve were like building on the success of each of them, then COVID hits and took you out. Not just cuz of COVID not the actual COVID itself, but cuz of a lot of confounding variables, variables, creating probleMS.
And then on top of that recently you’ve sustained pretty bad foot. and so what we’re gonna unpack here is we’re gonna unpack the foot and the MS. And kind of give you an inspirational Kickstart again. that sounds amazing. Yes. All right. And the first thing I’m gonna tell you, and, you know I consider Dr.
Terry Wahls, a, a good buddy, and I think she is like the hero for MS. I’m not sure if you know who she is. I did the Wahls diet. Okay, great. Cuz I think like when I look at MS. It’s, what’s interesting is when I [00:04:00] wrote the Virgin diet. and had people pull out the top seven. What I called high five foods. I wasn’t working in autoimmune at all.
I was purely like, I’ve always focused on weight loss, resistance. That’s my jam. And what was crazy that started happening was people who had autoimmune diseases. We’re coming and going my autoimmune disease. I I’m off medication. Like it’s reversed, like crazy. And so. You know, when you hear this stuff. And I remember, you know, I just did something with, with Dr.
Terry Walls. And she was saying, you know, I was doing all these supplements really kind of like looking at the mechanisMS of actions and the deficiencies and everything else. And then when she dialed the diet in, plus the supplements, she goes, it was like a week and everything changed crazy. So the big thing I’m gonna tell.
is with your health. You do not have the margin of error. Now the reality is if you’re 40 plus. [00:05:00] You don’t have a margin for error anymore. Like what we could do in our twenties and thirties was one thing, but you know, now we don’t, and especially with you with kind of chronic irritable bowel syndrome stuff that happened when you were in high school and now is resurfaced and chronic migraines since second grade.
And, and this autoimmune disease, which diet is always gonna be a massive trigger. You just don’t have. The luxury of going, yeah, I’m gonna have a cheat day. First of all, I hate cheat days. Can we be honest? Like I like hate cheat days and more. I look at it and go, instead of thinking cheat days, which gets into a whole weird diet mentality of being good or bad.
And I, all that stuff makes me nuts. Instead we look at okay, if we know with what you have going on between the IBS, autoimmune and migraines. And I would say to me, Those are all intertangled, they’re not, it’s not three separate things. There are three things together. We, what we need to look at is how we can really [00:06:00] support the best gut ever the best microbiome, you know, you know, really reducing inflammation.
How do we support that and how do we first start? Diet and making sure that we pull any triggers out. And if there are things like you, you set offline, I wrote it down. I’m like, okay. And I went back into diet Coke. If I could think of the worst thing I know for migraines. And I’m like come on. But here’s the thing.
there’s a great swap for that. Now, is it, is it better than, you know, like would water be the best thing? Yes. But can we be in the real world and say, okay, if you really are like, I want a diet Coke and I get it. The hardest habit I ever broke was diet Coke. I swear. I used to drink like two liters a day. And I was like, you cannot do this.
And this was decades ago that I finally broke free of this, but Zevia which is stevia sweetened Cola. Is your swap for that because you cannot have these artificial sweeteners. Like you cannot have them. They’re just a big [00:07:00] they’re, they’re bad for you on so many levels. Right? They’re they disrupt the gut microbiome.
They can trigger different kind of neuro excitatory issues. Right. so it’s like, I go, Ooh, no, we can’t have that. But Zevia literally Zevia Cola, grape swap for the soda. Okay. And that’s an, and this is, this is what I wanna really look at is go, okay. My biggest goal is for us to learn how to use diets, therapeutically, to grab the stuff, learn what works for us, and then figure out how this is just how we live.
We’re never offer on something we’re learning and implementing and learning and implementing, and then we’re kind to ourselves. We’re not gonna be like, you know, there’s enough people out there who will be mean to. Let’s be honest, maybe not you specifically, but I’m, I mean, like I’m always amazed at like how mean people can be.
like, especially about diet, right? Oh my gosh. Yeah. You know, God forbid I say something about a scale. I get attacked, but the deal is. We don’t need to be mean to ourselves. There’s [00:08:00] plenty of other people who will be mean, you know, don’t listen is my big advice. We need to be kind to ourselves and use in a lot of grace.
And so if you’re going all right, you know, I just got tired of doing this. I just said, heck with it instead, go, okay. Let’s let’s retract and go, where am I now? What do I wanna ensure that I’m how I’m doing? My gut feels healthy. I’ve. Great mobility. I’m able to do the things I want to do. I don’t have headaches.
And what do I need to do to do that? How do I need to take care of myself? and put myself first to do that. And then what are the things that I’m like going, oh, I really miss this. Are there ways that I can do a different version of that? Because you mentioned, and, you know, obviously if you’ve got MS and gut probleMS, like gluten free dairy free corn free soy free peanut-free are non-negotiables and doing a very autoimmune.
Paleo type of diet question mark would be to see if you react to eggs or not. I know you’ve been [00:09:00] incorporating them. I’d still wanna see because they can be a trigger for autoimmune. So we have to check it. And that’s where really looking at Virgin diet, the paleo style, which I have in the cookbooks, like what are the more paleo means?
That means legumes come. And also I would pull all night shades out. Cuz you talked about having a potential interface there and I always have people do the Virgin diet and then depending on how you feel right there, do we need to go deeper? Do we need to look at night shades? Do we need to look at oxalates?
Do we need to look at histamine? The reality is why do we start to have those issues? We’ve got a permeable gut. We need to calm all that stuff down. And if you can see a trigger when I eat this, this happens like that is your body trying to go, Traci hello, pay attention. Right.
Traci Thau: I’m actually very interested in, we have to say about oxalates too, because I’ve developed kidney stones, little ones.
Which I never had before, so I’m not quite, I read what oxalates are, but I don’t really, [00:10:00] I think I, for a while I think I was eating too many vegetables. And is that possible? Can you eat too many vegetables or too much of the right food?
JJ Virgin: You can eat too much of high oxalate foods. And one of the ones that I see where people can get in trouble is they just, but I’m putting spinach in my shake every day and I’m like, don’t.
You know, rotate these things. It is why we need to eat seasonal, local, organic, and rotate and not get into. I’m just gonna eat this all the time. Now. There’s things that have a lower potential for becoming for us becoming intolerant to them, but things that are really high in an area like, you know, oxalates, not all vegetables are high in oxalates, right.
So can be problematic. And with what’s going on with you right now, you are going to be best, really rotating your vegetables and eating. Them cooked. All right. So when I look at you going on right now with some IBS issues, migraine issues and an autoimmune, you have no margin for error on the, I’m just gonna have a little pizza that’s done.
And the issue, the other issue is you’ve got pizza with tomatoes. So what I [00:11:00] would look at it and go first, we have to see. is egg a problem for you? You either pull it out for three to four weeks, like we do on the Virgin diet and then go back and challenge, or you can do a food sensitivity IGG4 and see if your, your body’s throwing out the anti antibodies on it.
Right? Those are the two ways we’d look at that, depending on that then. And the reason I’m saying this is that will depend the type of pizza crust you can have because there are of course, cauliflower crust, almond crust. If you can eat eggs, Capellas makes an amazing almond crust pizza. You can’t use tomato.
And you’re not using cheese, but holy smokes, there’s great. You can make a cheese free pesto. My son just made one. That was incredible. And you could use some almond ricotta from kite hill and things like, you know, little sundried tomatoes, and basil and stuff, and make a great delicious pizza. I
Traci Thau: love Capellas.
I get the naked one and just put veggies on
JJ Virgin: it. Yeah. So you can do that and you [00:12:00] can use a, you know, a clean. Dairy free cheese. And we gotta look at the dairy free cheeses, cuz some of them have better. I’m like this is, you know, it’s one of the challenges I see in the health food store that makes me nuts because you go into the health, food store feeling like.
I’m safe in here. And then you look and you go, wow, they’re using canola oil. They’re using sunflower oil. So for you, these damaged seed oils that are rich in omega-6’s are pro-inflammatory, they’re bad for you. They’re gonna be problematic. And also for you, the agave that they’ll use to sweeten things, or the apple juice concentrate are problematic.
So because it will make your gut leakier. So we’ve gotta be really vigilant on all these things. And as excited as I am that over the last decade, all of these great alternatives have come out to gluten and dairy and soy. I’m also like freaked out because a lot of them are what I call the posures you know, cuz you really flip the label and, and I’m amazed how many, how [00:13:00] many products have.
Soybean oil or canola oil in them. It’s it’s crazy, you know, or just have sugar in them. So that’s the big thing to be aware of. Cause when I look at this right now, your diet sounds like it’s 85% of the way there, but it can’t be 85% of the way there. Like you just because any little bit of that is a trigger and you don’t have the room for the trigger.
Traci Thau: And I’ve noticed the difference. The more I slip up with these extra foods, I’ve noticed, I feel worse. I mean, the fatigue is outta control. The shakes, your shakes are amazing for fatigue. When I do them, like regularly big difference in energy levels.
JJ Virgin: Cool. So like, let’s do ’em regularly.
Traci Thau: I know I have them.
I have a whole cabinet filled with JJ product, so it’s just in there shaking them to see what I need to get. Okay. Like to reorder. I have what I need. I think I might need extra stuff, but. Like it’s like, I it’s, like I needed today to [00:14:00] like, get back on track. Like, look, this has to be out. This needs to begin.
It’s
JJ Virgin: my podcast kick in the butt. It
Traci Thau: did. That’s what I, I, I was listening to a couple that I got sent new one.
JJ Virgin: all right. So I just needed a little kick in the butt. I am happy to give you one. It is so funny, Traci. I had someone. Sent I had a doctor send me client years ago and he goes, she just needs a cheerleader.
I go, I am the farthest thing from a cheerleader. I am like tough love with love. I am not gonna beat around the Bush. Like if you’re doing stuff, you know, someone could soft say, oh, that’s okay. It’s not okay because you wanna have, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60, more awesome years. And you won’t, if you’re, if.
Give yourself a little leeway on this stuff. Right. See, that’s
Traci Thau: why I like you straight shooter
JJ Virgin: you. What I mean? So I have my, my fans and my non-fans for that very reason, but it’s, but it doesn’t help you to say, you know what? It’s totally okay. Traci have to diet Coke in the pizza. It’s totally fine. No, it’s not.
It’s not gonna help you. And that’s the bottom line. [00:15:00] So we’ve got to really build a life that you love. And it starts with finding food, things that you love. Like I just had a smoothie and I just have like, nailed how I love them. And I look at it and go, if we could start your start, that break that fast with a smoothie.
Preferably the paleo inspired one, not the P that’s what I use. Right. Okay, good. Because I don’t want the P is not paleo and we need to go paleo and then add into that. The leaky gut support product that that’s now called. We, we have had an identity crisis for the last soothing gut elixir it’s soothing gut.
elixir is changing to healthy gut support. Oh, okay. So it’s had multiple name changes. You know, I was gone a little bit, they did like weird names. We’re moving it back to healthy gut support. That’s what it does. And I’d also add in collagen. Now you’re gonna get a little collagen from the paleo inspired shake.
However, when you put those three things together, collagen’s amazing for helping your. and then the healthy gut support soothing elixir whatever it [00:16:00] is at the moment is gonna really help your gut microbiome and help with gut permeability. So those are key, critical things for you to be doing. Cause we’ve got to put the fire out there.
We’ve gotta like everything we possibly can do for your gut. We need to be doing,
Traci Thau: I didn’t know. You could put the smoothing gut elixir stuff in the smoothie.
JJ Virgin: Yes. Mine just sort of sits
Traci Thau: there cause I don’t know what
JJ Virgin: to do. Oh, put it in the smoothie. So I just throw everything into a smoothie cuz otherwise I don’t take it.
Traci Thau: Well that’s so I’d sit in there. I think the label’s still, still, I gotta crack
JJ Virgin: it open. Yeah. Crack it open. Now it has this peach, like someone said tastes like peach snappple I go, how do you know what peach snapple tastes like? You shouldn’t but it has a little peachy tea flavor taste to it. So, you know, I mean, but I’m totally fine.
So throw that in there too, cuz that is like that you wanna have one of those, every single. Okay. When I think of really mission critical supplements for you, cuz I see that shake as a supplement. Right? I look at that. I look [00:17:00] at KQ 10 as another key one and probably like 200 milligraMS of it. I think mine’s a
Traci Thau: hundred.
So I gotta up that
JJ Virgin: double it. And which brand are you taking? What are you. I
Traci Thau: kind of go back and forth between pure and doctors
JJ Virgin: best. Okay. I love the I’ll give you a little hack. It’s the most inexpensive one you can find. It happens to be the company that I work with on all my products made a ubiquinol product, du canal product called Coq 10.1.
It’s on Amazon and it is super high quality. Like the best you can get. And it’s the, it’s like a deal, especially when you buy multiples. So that’s the one in 200 milligraMS, obviously you’re taking magnesium, right? Yeah. I take
Traci Thau: magnesium. I don’t know how much it’s in here. 200 milligraMS,
JJ Virgin: 200 milligraMS.
So that’s all you take one of those. Oh, that’s not even, not even cutting it. And that’s probably [00:18:00] part of the issue. Like I take, I use, I have a product, my magnesium body calm. And I take three of those every night. Now with chronic migraines, right? You are gonna want to like 500 to me would be a. Like beginning dose, and you’re gonna be somewhere between 500 and a thousand.
You want to edge it up to see what’s going on with your gut. Now it’s a fit magnesium glycinate, you know, there’s different types of magnesium. If you’re constipated, magnesium trait, oxide, or awesome, cuz they will make you go. But if for the rest of us, like what you wanna use is a little the glycinate or the three and eight.
And it might even be interesting for you. With the migraines to, to look at the three and eight. But for now, since you have that one, let’s go to. Make sure your GI track is like, I’m good. Then go to three, sit with three and see how it starts to help with the migraines. Now we have confounding variables, cause we’re also tightening up your diet and taking out things like diet [00:19:00] Coke.
But you know, let’s just watch that because magnesium such an important thing. And in fact so much so that when you get a migraine, what I would have you do is open up capsules and, and put it under your tongue and let it dissolve. I never heard of that. That’s pretty cool.
Traci Thau: Under tongue, I looked at your, your magnesium, but it has doesn’t it have melatonin in it?
Oh, I thought there was something in it. I couldn’t have, I’m very confused about what I can have and can’t have because of my own immunity and because I have SPH lipid syndrome, like a blood clotting disorder. So I’m
JJ Virgin: always very, it should have been, it was probably my vitamin D with K if you have a blood clot disorder.
Oh, maybe that was it. My magnesium is magnesium. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that was probably the D cuz you definitely wanna make sure your D is optimized with an autoimmune disorder. Yeah, I take 5,000 milligraMS. Well, it’s all based on a lab test. Like for me, cuz of my genetics with vitamin D I have to take 10,000. I use a day [00:20:00]
Traci Thau: when I took 10,000, I got up to 85.
So they dropped me down to 5,000 and I kind of hover around
JJ Virgin: 60, 65, anywhere between 50 and a hundreds. Good. But I push you like I’d rather see you on the higher end, not the lower end. What you could just do is take one, one day to the next, see the cool thumbs by it’s fat soluble. So you can, you know, it’s not water soluble where you have to, you sustain it, right.
You have to take the same each day. This one you can rotate.
The next thing is going into surgery. So one of the things I always do when I’m going like collagen for me, going into surgery is, is one of the key, most important things. Like when I do I’ve had a couple surgeries from old injuries, like crazy surgeries, like I’ve had five knee surgeries, one being a total knee from a 17, you know, when I was 17 and a hip replacement from a dog attack.
so just wild stuff. [00:21:00] and so surgery pre and post surgery can be everything, but one of the most important things to really start to work on and to watch, of course, we gotta watch your kidney stones here, but to make sure that you’ve got adequate protein, because you really wanna make sure that and, and where I’d really like you to focus now is using a scale, a bioimpedance scale, to be able to look at your body fat, your fat free mass and your visceral.
because one of the big things that you wanna make sure that you are doing now, you know, everyone’s focused on weight loss or fat loss. They’re focused on the wrong thing. They need to focus on muscle mass and building muscle mass and getting strong all over. Right. So, and I know right now you’ve got a foot injury, but that doesn’t preclude you from, you know, your abs from your, like, there’s still your upper body.
There’s still a lot of things you can.
Traci Thau: they started doing Pilates and physical [00:22:00] therapy to get me ready for the surgery for that knee scooter and the whole thing. Cause I don’t really have a lot of strength. So we, we are starting to work on the whole, like the hips and Pilates and the upper arMS, just so that I could do that.
Cuz it’s
JJ Virgin: it’s three month recovery. Yeah. And the big thing I would tell you right now is you wanna go in, like when I’m going into surgery, I train for. I go in makes sense to me as strong as possible. And so first thing is if you’re trying to hold onto and build muscle, you basically need a gram per pound of ideal body weight is your goal, right?
And that’s a gram per pound of ideal body weight, not the body weight you are, but the body weight that you want to be divided over. Meals. And that’s where, you know, you start the, the day you break the fast with that loaded smoothie with collagen, you can get 30, 35 graMS of protein just from that. Right.
So you can kick it up right there. And that’s gonna be helpful in trying to get to that, that level and even scoop up a [00:23:00] little bit more collagen, take it to 40. So you look at it and go, okay, I’m gonna need to increase my protein here. And really for you, protein comes first and focusing on things. Cold water, fish wild, because that is gonna help with the inflammation.
And then non-starchy vegetables that are cooked. Come second. Thinking about what, what types of fats you’re getting from both of those to see how much fat you need beyond that with a two to four servings of fat per meal. So if you had wild salmon and then let’s say that you did. You know, three servings of broccoli, cooked broccoli with olive oil.
You may actually have all the fat you need already. And then the question would be, do you need any slow, low carbs? If so, you gotta make sure that you’re going paleo on those. So, and not eating nightshades, which doesn’t give you a lot of options. no
Traci Thau: I’ve been doing, I, I, I got it from your book or one of your things I’ve been doing, you know, cause you always say low slow carbs.
So I was doing sweet potato.
JJ Virgin: [00:24:00] Or quinoa. Yeah. And quinoa’s not paleo. Oh, it’s not it’s it’s, it’s, there’s always a confusion. It’s like, is it a seed or is it a grass? Oh, so, okay. In true paleo oatmeal quinoa, none of those things would be considered paleo, like anything that’s kind of a pseudo grain grass.
Same like wild rice quinoa kind of on the fringe, because you could say, oh, they’re a grass. Oh, they’re, they’re a seed. But I think in the true paleo community, like, you know, So it’s, it may not be the best choice for you. Like if you really looked at and went, you, you have, you know, two servings of fruit a day.
Well, maybe you do one in your smoothie and then another one throughout the day, and then you have clean protein and some healthy fats and non-starchy vegetables. And then a little bit of a slow, low carb with testing out some squashes and sweet potato is probably the keys, the best ones that you’re gonna get.
you know, you don’t need a ton there, right? No, I just
Traci Thau: need, I feel [00:25:00] like I always need some sort of carb, whether it’s a half a sweet potato or I was doing a little bit of quinoa. I don’t use a lot, but like a half a, a cup or the wild rice or brown rice pasta or lentil pasta. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing.
Because my stomach doesn’t feel as queasy when I do that. Like if I don’t have that, I feel. It’s like when you have, when I have soup, my stomach feel swishy. It’s like, I need something.
JJ Virgin: To soak up the soup or something, I don’t know. Okay. So let’s try getting your fluids in between your meals, taking digestive enzymes.
I take belly meals. Great. And then using either let’s play with quinoa wild rice, because again, they’re on the edge and then squashes pumpkins, squashes, and they’re like the best food that like they get, I love them you know, they get the sweet cravings and then you can do beets. don’t like beets. Like yuck I like everything I saw the face was like, I was like, I was so with you.
And then it was like, no. Cause when I make them, it
Traci Thau: was like, I killed someone in [00:26:00] my kitchen too. I
JJ Virgin: know. Right. They’re like, I, I only like them. I have one way I like beats and that’s it. And I don’t like ’em either way, but you know if you did a little beat beat medley with, with sweet potato. Maybe that will work cuz we gotta figure out I could try it again.
Parsnips… Anyway, so play around with that, but it’s just tightening up your diet and going, what, you know, what things would I love? And if there is something I’m craving, how do I make the right healthier swappy version of it? Because there’s always ways to make healthy swappy versions. There just are like I’ve, I’ve identified so many different things that I can mess around with.
And now with things like kite hill almond yogurt and kite hill, almond like there’s, I love kite hill. I love kite hill kit hill. You have saved my life kite hill. Alright, so there’s that I’d also look at with your gut making sure like a good probiotic I use yours. Okay, cool. And then. so that’s super important.[00:27:00]
And. What other supplements are you on right now? Well, I tried to be
Traci Thau: organized in case you ask me. So I’m on your probiotics, your ballet rescue the vitamin D and the cocuten the magnesium. I usually take zinc, but I just ran out of it. I was taking fish oil and I have a bottle of your omegas, but I haven’t taken them because I’ve been bruising a.
Because of the APS. I’m like, I take aspirin, I take plaque one. So these things, you know, do make me bruise more. Okay. So I’m always concerned about vitamin E fish oils to see if I, if there’s too much bleeding. So I, like, I just don’t know what to take anymore. Like, I’m very, what’s
JJ Virgin: interesting with fish oil.
And I don’t know if you know the story when my son was in the hospital. And they were not willing to push the fish oil up. And I was like, all right. Hmm. And they were concerned because he was on a blood thinner and you know, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I watched their protime every time they’re gonna go do a lab test, I shoved up his.
Fish oil more and it never changed a thing’s. And that’s one of the interesting [00:28:00] things to look at with supplements versus medications. Medications don’t have a floor, like they have no ceiling or floor supplements are balancing you out and normalizing you. So in general, like, you know, if you look at fish oil, it’s very interesting, cuz yes.
While it might thin your blood to what’s optimal, it doesn’t just keep. I see what you’re saying and their research there actually is no research showing that fish oil causes a success of bleed. right. So yeah, that totally makes sense to me. It’s just, so I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I’d be more worried about not having it in.
Traci Thau: I took it for years until about a year ago, and then I just stopped and you know what? My inflammation is worse and my said rate went up for the first time in years, years. So
JJ Virgin: I thought that was interesting too. Yeah. So let’s get, I, you know, between. Food. If you’re eating fish that day, then you could take a gram, but I, you know, probably two graMS a day is gonna be your best place.
Now, if you eat a eat a, you know, eat some wild salmon, then take a gram. The other thing that could be helpful here is [00:29:00] curcumin. A
Traci Thau: long time ago. I had. Curry or like, so something in it. I had a major allergic reaction, so I didn’t need it for years. They recently retested me cause I keep insisting, I’m allergic.
They’re like, you’re not allergic. So now I’m just afraid. So I I’ve got your chews in there that my husband’s been taking every day.
JJ Virgin: Yeah. So I have them, I love them. I’m so, so try, like when you were allergic before, what happened.
Traci Thau: My lips swelled up. My nose got wide. I had a lot of hives. This is years ago.
It’s like 20 years ago. We were making too many changes so he grabbed my husband, grabbed the wrong thing and we think it was either the cumin or, or the carry powder or whatever. So ever since then, I’m like afraid to go near anything like that.
JJ Virgin: Okay. But, but we don’t knows really good to part of the Curry was in there.
Remember what you’re doing is curcuminoids are out from turmeric. So when you talked about a spice with all of these things compounds the chance that it’s actually the curcuminoids within the compound. that you’re pulling out, right? [00:30:00] Yes.
Traci Thau: And the allergist test me for, how do you say it? Curcumin mm-hmm and I was fine.
JJ Virgin: So I just recently got tested. So looking at what’s the bigger concern, the inflammation. or the hives that would go away. If you did have a reaction and take benedryl.
Traci Thau: That’s true. I just need to try it again. And I have it too. I like it sits on my counter cuz I keep saying,
JJ Virgin: okay. Right. Cause we gotta get that inflammation down.
And the big thing that we gotta get going is that you need to prioritize both the, getting that protein level up and moving. And just getting your body strong surgery or no surgery, like your biggest thing. And in fact, this is, this is a call out for every woman 45 plus, and I am on like, this is gonna be one of my life’s missions is that we do not age gracefully.
We age with power, like this whole aging gracefully to me says, frail. You know, , I’m like, no, I want you in there pushing the heaviest weight. You can handle not the little pink [00:31:00] dumbbells and you know, the heaviest weight you can handle right now might be your own body weight. right. It might be a push up against a wall.
I don’t care. That’s it’s, it’s the heaviest weight that you can do or, and it might be your body weight. Again, it may just be you, you know, standing and I don’t know what you can do right now with your feet. If you can even do a, a squat over a chair, they got me doing that, pilates. You know, it’s like, this is every day.
You need to be doing some movement and look at like, there’s a great thing for home called the TRX trainer. So you can be doing it’s 120 bucks. Like this is the COVID lifesaver thing. You can have a home gym for $120. We have got to be focused on your balance. We have gotta be focused on overall body strength, core strength, everything.
It’s gotta be a priority.
Traci Thau: I added the resistance bands, cuz I, I was heard you talking about that once and the recumbent bike, cuz I can do that
JJ Virgin: now. Cool. So, and are you doing bursts on the recumbent bike?
Traci Thau: Well, as of yesterday they [00:32:00] just added that. Well, I don’t know if they’re bursts they’re Hills.
JJ Virgin: Is that considered bursts?
Yeah. They added hard, easy, hard, easy, hard, easy. Yeah. Yeah. How many days are you going to physical therapy?
Traci Thau: And then three times a week, I’ve got this like home exercise routine to do, but I did it over the weekend too. I don’t
JJ Virgin: know if you’re supposed to, but work out every day, do something every day, move every day.
That’s what I’ve been trying to do. Push yourself. I say more energy too, and I’m walking better. Awesome. Let’s just prove everybody wrong. You know, when we were in the hospital grant, my son grant his dad said grant, prove everybody. And I go, that’s the best good advice, best prove all those doctors wrong.
You know, I mean, just strengthen up. I, I blew out my knee. I mean, tore my ACL completely. My, my PCL, I mean, it was just a train wreck and I was able to have that, like that for 25 years. because I just made everything so strong around it. Cause I thought, you know what, [00:33:00] I’m gonna put this off as long as possible because the science is getting better and , you know, like I’ll do it when I need to do it.
And
Traci Thau: so, so that’s really good to know. Cause I didn’t know if you could actually strengthen the ankles enough with the kind of injury that I have. To stabilize
JJ Virgin: without and not have to do surgery. Big question, who knows? Don’t know. Yeah. But I know one thing you need to stabilize you is whatever happens.
You need them as strong as possible. You need ’em as strong as possible going in and you need your whole body as strong as possible. we all do you especially do so whether you’re getting the surgery or not, you need everything surrounding it as strong as possible because you know, what’s gonna happen the minute they put you in a boot, you are gonna atrophy like crazy.
Like when I had to go in for my knee surgeries, even starting, when I, in my twenties, when I had them, I would train so heavy on that leg so that when it went atrophied, I had, I could afford to lose. I didn’t even think about the atrophy. Yeah. So, you know, there’s so much to do there. [00:34:00] So I would really be focused on working on that.
And I’d also see, like, is it a partial tear, a full tear? Like, what is it. The ATFL
Traci Thau: is just gone. So that’s full and the partial is the
JJ Virgin: tendon. Yeah. So what’s interesting with the tendon is if, either two, one of these two things and what you’d wanna find, like I have an amazing chiropractor naturopathic doctor who does this in Southern California for me.
And generally you’ll see this with sports docs. Physical therapists might, I don’t know if they legally can do it, but they are injections and there’s two different types. And one’s prolotherapy and one’s P R P. And so if you Google those and look for those, they’re inexpensive compared to stem cells, and this is basically one’s using kind of a glucose, a sugar water.
Type of thing. And that’s the one they try first. If that doesn’t work, they then go to P R P, which is basically platelet, rich plasma. They take your blood, spin it [00:35:00] and then inject it just like they do with vampire faceless. So. I’ve been able to get through a lot of injuries with that.
And so has my bonus daughter had a big shoulder injury from volleyball and got through it with that. So my brother did the prolotherapy. He loves it. Yeah. It’s to me back, you do every single thing you possibly can. And then if that doesn’t work, you, you, you know, have the surgery, but you know, the challenge with you is if somethings Torn it it’s gone.
None of those are gonna get it back. Yeah. So the question is, can you make it strong enough without it, and if you can’t which probably will be problematic depending on how big of a stabilizer that is. And if you can’t do it, then, you know, get yourself trained for it. That makes sense. Get yourself super duper, duper strong.
Make sure you’re also getting good vitamin C because that helps build collagen. You need vitamin C to build collagen. Right? I don’t
Traci Thau: do any vitamin C or Calcium cause I don’t know if I’m supposed to with the autoimmunity. I don’t know what I, you know, can can’t [00:36:00] do those or what? My
JJ Virgin: two confusion points.
Well, vitamin C is that you can definitely do okay. You know, you’re getting it anyway in food. Yeah. So vitamin C is a, is a definite and I would do I have, I love my. Sparkling C I’m let’s say something. I’m dying to try that, but I didn’t know if I could, oh, you totally can. Yes. Vitamin C is a definite it’s so important for collagen calcium, the only issue with calcium.
I, I’m not sure on that one with you. I, I’m more focused on like calcium, rich foods. So if you are, if you are able to do sardines and like canned salmon, you are my hero, like ick, but God, me too. I live on broccoli though. Yeah. So because Vitamin D helps you absorb calcium vitamin K directs it to the right places.
And I don’t know what your vitamin K status is. And I, and with what you’re on, I can’t really say go take some. Yeah. So that’s, I’m
Traci Thau: allowed to have vitamin K as long as it’s I do the
JJ Virgin: same amount. Yeah. So if that’s the case, what [00:37:00] you can do is because you really, as long as, as long as they let you have the same amount, usually it’s the same amount in food though.
Make sure that they’ll allow you to do it. Supplementally that’s. Because you have to check with that. So that’s what I would do there. Those are like the big rocks and that’s what I always like to look at are like, what are the big rocks that can help you the most? And I think the big, biggest rock is we all have something , you know, everybody’s got something you might have gotten a little bit more dealt, a little bigger hand here than most on some of these things, but there’s so much that’s controllable with this.
Like. Massive. It’s massively controllable with diet and lifestyle. And the other thing I would highly recommend is doing some kind of. I personally love Dr. Joe Dispenza’s meditations on this, because he’s got these quantum healing meditations that are outta this world that really help you just kind of focus on your future self, how you wanna look and feel.
So that would be the other shout out I would [00:38:00] do is to check that out. He’s got you are the placebo and breaking the habit of being yourself. So some great information out there that really helps you. It’s what I’ve worked with with grant on. Right from the beginning of, of future pacing and putting em like, you’re gonna be 110%, what does this look like?
Because even now he had a second injury and they’re like, you know, oh, he’s got dementia. He’s got, they, they put you into the worst state and I’m like, no, we’re not there. We’re not doing that. Like , you know? Yeah, no they’re in here, you know? So you don’t wanna feel like you’re in this box, you need to like keep going.
So don’t so get out of the. Yeah, that’s not for you, but a lot of it, it is. It’s going to be the mindfulness stuff that you, where you put yourself into your future self and your future self MS is not an issue it’s completely at bay. Your body is stronger than ever. You feel the best you’ve ever felt. And you realize that you don’t wanna do anything to mess that up.
Right.
No
Traci Thau: that’s true. The best I ever felt is when I was the strictest with my [00:39:00] diet and exercising every single day, I don’t hardly
JJ Virgin: had any symptoMS. Good. Let’s go there. Yeah. so I know it can be done. you know that you’re doing it. Yeah. I have to do it. No, you’re doing it. I’m doing it. You are doing it.
And by the way, you don’t have to do it. You get to do it. How lucky are you? You know, when I have pity parties where I look at grant, and I think of, of the things he’s lost in his life, which is the just dumbest way to look at. Things and it inevitably every time I’m doing that and I’m, I’m seeing them, I see someone who passes by who’s clearly like totally paralyzed and, and got massive brain injuries in a wheelchair.
And it’s like, it’s like the universe reminding me be so grateful.
Traci Thau: sees so great that I think attitude is everything. I’ve definitely, always been like that one who just keeps like alright, that’s done. Let’s keep going. Let’s keep going. Yes. So cool. That’s
JJ Virgin: definitely my attitude. Awesome. All right. Well, here’s my big ask from you is I wanna hear how things are going.
I want reports in all. Okay. I’ll get
Traci Thau: [00:40:00] onto to the community page there.
JJ Virgin: Fabulous. Thank you.
Traci Thau: Thank you. Thank you so much. It was great to talk to you. You, you were so welcome. Valuable advice.
JJ Virgin: My pleasure, my pleasure now my excuse. No, that, well, that’s not even in, in your realm. Right. This is what you do and who you are.
That’s it. That’s it. I’m on this
Traci Thau: now. Cool.
JJ Virgin: All right. Thank you so much. See
Traci Thau: ya. Bye. Bye. Bye.
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