Jacquie Nelson Walburn – Overcoming Illness With Nutrition Transcript

Listen to the audio for this podcast here.

Host: As we are well into the new year of 2020, we've all made promises to ourselves that we are going to better ourselves. And that's a great promise to make and it's an even better promise to keep. Welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast where we talk to wellness professionals from so many walks of life from around the world to get their insight into living healthier. I’m your host, Wes Malik. Today's guest is very special. She has gone through quite a bit and has battled many illnesses and the way she has overcome those illnesses is a story to behold from our guest herself. Her name is Jacquie Nelson Walburn, she has a BS in Nutrition and she went through a particularly hard time with her health in her life and she healed herself naturally and through study and natural remedies. And that's why we’re going to talk to her and have a conversation about how she did that because now she teaches others how to do the same in our mission to help them find their own healing journey. Hi Jacquie! Welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast. How are you today?

Jacquie: Hi! I’m fine, thank you. Glad to be here.

Host: Alright. It's really nice to talk to you in the new year and I hope you're having a good new year, thus far. You have lived a very full life and experienced many things over the years and you've applied the learning and knowledge that you have. You have a Bachelors in Nutrition, BS in Nutrition. You've taught students and you help people all over the world through your website and through your social media and digital media of, you know, creating wellness in people through nutrition and health. But you, yourself, personally went through a lot of things. A whole bunch of things that you fixed or you healed yourself through nutrition and I like to learn a little bit more about that.

Jacquie: Okay. Well, we can make a long story short. I was actually started having health issues at around age 10, manifesting out at age 12 with asthma, allergy and the strangest thing was arthritis.

Host: Oh! At a young age?

Jacquie: Yes and that expanded and continued for years and years. I ended up spending forty years in pain, accumulated all sorts of other things. When I hit menopause, I blew, my weight ballooned out of control. I took on 15 different conditions at that point.

Host: Wow!

Jacquie: And it was like Western medicine had nothing to help me. And so it was like, “I'm going to have to do this myself” because basically everything I was reading online said I only had like five or six years to live at that point. After all, my kidneys were crashing. I had a chronic kidney disease that was reaching up to Stage 4. And according to my research, it said that basically Stage 4 is where you start dialysis and you start looking for a kidney transplant and the average lifespan on dialysis is five years.

Host: That's very…You went through some very serious conditions and all this in your mid to late 40s.

Jacquie: Yes. So yes, and so I just, started doing all this research and finding all this stuff and figuring out what was going on and it was like I couldn’t believe what I was reading because it was like against everything I learned in nutrition. I mean, I was doing everything right based on the education that I had only to find out that everything I learned was no longer valid or going to be nice.

Host: So, a couple of questions come to mind. First of all, what did the doctors tell you about all your conditions that you’ve had since you’re 10 or 12, asthma, arthritis, after menopause, kidney problems, all the issues that you faced? Did doctors give you or prescribed surgeries, dialysis, medication? Did they put you on medication?

Jacquie: Oh gosh! If you go all the way back to when I was young, they wanted to do, at the age of 12, they wanted to do surgery on my feet, which is where my arthritis was and I said no. And they said, “Well you can try something new called Podiatry where they make you orthotics to correct the way your feet” because they told me my feet were deformed from growing too fast and that was what brought it on, which was totally not true. But anyway, then they offered me pain medication, they offered me allergy medication and I was doing a lot of, I was on inhalers, I was on antihistamines, I was on all sorts of different drugs, I was doing large dosages of aspirin, ibuprofen, stuff like that which again perpetuated my problem. And so in high school, I started looking for alternatives. I don’t have any idea why, but I found with orthotics were helpful, but I still had pain, I still had chronic injuries. As far as I was a high-performance athlete for many, many years and so I became the queen of pain and found all these alternative things that I could do for my pain instead of taking all their drugs. But again, as I perpetuated into things they said, “Oh well, you know, once you hit the mark for diabetes, we can put you on diabetes medication”, “Oh well, you have fatty liver coming on. Well, there’s nothing we can do about that”, “Oh, your kidneys are failing. Well, there’s nothing we can do about that but put you on the list, a future list for a kidney transplant”, “Oh, you have depression. Let’s give you anti-depression drugs”, “Oh, you have anxiety, let's give you anxiety drugs”, Oh, you have systemic candida. Oh well, you should be in the hospital and put on IV, you know, antifungals and all this other stuff.” One doctor told me to go to the emergency room now when I told her I had a systemic candida infection. And I’m like, “No, I’ve had it for like 40 years. I don't need to go to the emergency room” and so she said, “Well, then I can’t be your doctor”. And so I was like, “Okay, fine. I’ll move on.” (laughing)

Host: Let’s talk about being forced into a second opinion.

Jacquie: Yeah, well again I had already been working with a Naturopathic doctor for my candida overgrowth. That was a long journey and I finally beat that and when I beat that, I mean basically, when I change my diet everything started to heal. Everything started to go away. All the chronic fatigue, all the adrenal issues, everything. I mean, all the anxiety, the panic attacks, the depression, everything. All my energy, everything came back. I feel better now than I have since I was 10 years old.

Host: Wow.

Jacquie: I mean, it’s just amazing, the journey. And I had no idea that food was actually causing this. I really had no idea.

Host: Your research started when you were in high school. So what did you start researching and what did you learn?

Jacquie: Well, I learned about different ways to deal with pain and I learned about different natural remedies. The main thing I was using for all of my chronic inflammation was something called DMSO, which actually was not legal for human use. It was only legal for horses.

Host: Oh, my Lord.

Jacquie: And so, I had to sign a waiver saying I wasn't going to use it on myself but there was all this research out there that all of your Olympians and high-performance athletes were using it under the table and so I got a bottle. I signed off on it and I started using it and it was instrumental throughout my athletic career for over a decade being nationally ranked that it was a lifesaver to be able to do that. And then I found some natural things like white willow bark is natural aspirin that has no side effects. And then I found Devil’s Claw, which is like natural ibuprofen.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: And so, those are things that I could start taking instead of all the other prescription or over-the-counter drugs that they were trying to push on me at an early age. So, but that’s where it started. And my research actually continued to the point of which is accelerated when my Dad got sick and he got diagnosed with a whole bunch of different conditions all at once around 50 years old. And so I wanted to help him so I started subscribing to all these natural newsletters and e-signs and things and I started accumulating a list and that list turned into my book.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: And so I have a book on what would technically turn green medicines. So, instead of taking Over-The-Counter drugs, it gives you the natural stuff. Instead of taking prescription drugs, it gives you the natural remedies and all the research behind them. And then I recently updated it to include everything I learned about food. So now I have all the food cures or things that you can do with the way of food and nutrition that will actually help reverse things like diabetes.

Host: So, you have a book of alternative green medicine, meaning it’s natural? I'm assuming this is all-natural stuff?

Jacquie: Yes.

Host: Where can we find this book? What’s the title? Where can we get it?

Jacquie: Well, the title is Heal Thyself Naturally and it is self-published on amazon.com.

Host: Okay and of course Jacquie Walburn, right?

Jacquie: Yes.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: Or Jacquie Nelson Walburn, actually.

Host: Jacquie Nelson Walburn. And it includes food as well, which helps you heal. Now that's the whole crux of our conversation. You healed yourself through nutrition and your journey has been a long one and I didn’t know it extended to medicine as well and you found alternatives to chemicals, I guess. What do I call them? What do I call them? Fake medicine? Chemical medicine or what’s the difference?

Jacquie: The NASTAD’s, which are the non-sterile Over-The-Counter drugs, and then there are the pharmaceuticals.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: So those are all chemistry. They’re treating your body as a chemistry lab and providing you with Band-Aids without looking at any root causes. And so the problem is, with most of these drugs, they classify under the definition of being toxic, which means that they disrupt the natural processing and biochemical pathways in the body, in the cells, in the tissues, in the organs, in the organ systems and they cause harm.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: So, the natural stuff does not. So, for example for diabetes. The number one prescribed medication is Metformin, but there are side-by-side clinical trials, double-blind studies using Berberine, which is a natural botanical that actually outperforms Metformin straight on side-by-side trials in reducing blood sugar and fixing the body for its diabetes.

Host: If I have a condition that requires that medicine and I want to get that alternative, is it available at my local Walgreens or CVS?

Jacquie: No. It’s available at health food stores or online.

Host: And is it common? Are these things common or they’re a little bit hard to get?

Jacquie: Oh no, they’re everywhere. They’re everywhere. There are huge numbers of brands. If you look at Berberine on Amazon, you would find 20 different companies producing it and it’s cheap.

Host: And it’s a natural alternative and it’s cheaper.

Jacquie: Yeah, it’s cheap.

Host: Wow! This is amazing knowledge. You've given two or three examples already. I should be writing this stuff down. I should be writing notes like one of your students, but I think a better thing to do is to get your book and read that.

Jacquie: It's cheap, too. (laughing) I made it inexpensive so anybody can have it. It’s like a combination of three big giant books all in one little compacts synopsis. I just gave you the actual remedy and then give you just a one-paragraph summary of the research paper I read so that you can see what their conclusions were for that particular botanical or that particular nutritional. I mean, let me share with your audience the three main categories of all inflammatory chronic conditions. One is Nutritional Deficiencies because our food is totally devoid and our diets are horrible. Number two is Toxins, which medications fall under that, as well as heavy metals, pesticides, things like that, and your Over-The-Counter stuff. And then number three is Low-Grade Infections, which would be like my candida overgrowth. It was a low-grade infection that was causing me symptoms but yet not discernible as an infection with what we think of. So, there are lots of low-grade infections like IBS, which is Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is a low-grade infection in your intestines. SIBO, which is Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth is also a higher level of bacterial infection in your gut. But these are the kinds of background stuff that actually interferes, it interferes with other things and you have multiple symptoms. Now, if you have a leaky gut, and we can get into that, what happens is all these infections and all of these inflammatory and all of these toxins can actually move out of your intestinal tract and into your bloodstream and go anywhere in the body, including crossing the blood-brain barrier which is what happened with me. As far as having depression, anxiety, panic attacks was because of these things crossing the blood-brain barrier and getting into my head. So, by detoxing my body and changing my diet, and beating all of these low-grade infections, I actually reverse all of my conditions, including all my brand stuff.

Host: What was your diet before and what did you change your diet into?

Jacquie: Well, okay so the Standard American Diet is also called SAD…

Host: What an apt of the name! (laughing)

Jacquie: Yes, exactly. Basically, I mean, it’s usually some form of gluten lace cereal or muffins or something or bagels for breakfast.

Host: Got it.

Jacquie: Sandwiches or something for lunch and then pasta or pizza or something like that for like dinner.

Host: Sounds pretty standard, yeah.

Jacquie: Yeah exactly, but part of what I found in my research was that, I had no idea that for probably my entire life that I have been gluten sensitive.

Host: I see.

Jacquie: And so when I removed gluten from my diet, just wheat, just American wheat, okay? When I removed that from my diet, I reverse my diabetes, I lost 20 pounds in 30 days and other things started to go. So, as far as my allergies, my asthma, and my arthritis, forty-something years of pain in arthritis just vanished when I gave up wheat.

Host: Incredible!

Jacquie: I know. I know. And then I just said okay if this works, because that was like totally against everything I learned in Dietetics, you're supposed to get the food pyramid with 6 to 11 servings of grains a day, you know, that kind of thing?

Host: Four basic food groups, etc.

Jacquie: Yeah. Well again, that also. That whole food pyramid is a farce.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: It's totally a construct that we were led to believe had scientific background on it and it didn't. So, gluten actually causes an immune response in 100% of humans. An immune response inflammation, leading to damage to the intestinal linings in 100% of humans. Science is definitive and there's no argument any longer. It’s a problem. Now it's not so bad, the gluten is not so bad in other countries because our wheat, of course, is hybridized and they double the amount of gluten in it thinking that that approaching that would help feed the world cheap.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: But not realizing that that much gluten was going to cause issues. They didn't do enough research to understand it before they did it. So now your heirloom wheat that you can get in other countries is lower in gluten and causes less damage but is still causes an immune response and still causes inflammation in the gut. It’s a question of whether or not it gets out of the gut. So cause and exposure, eventually, your body’s not going to be able to keep up with the repair and it’s going to cause things some leak out into your bloodstream. So, for me giving up gluten was a huge factor, and giving up all grains I found out that there is gluten in other grains so I gave up the other grains and I lost another 20 pounds in 60 days by giving up the rye, barley, oats, corn, and rice.

Host: Really?

Jacquie: That also has gluten or gluten mimicking proteins in them. So, I had to give those up.

Host: Jacquie, you’re kind of scaring me. If I want to do this, I'd have to give up eating completely. (laughing) I would have to give up breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I did that.

Jacquie: You know what? They say the healthiest diet in the world is the Mediterranean diet.

Host: They do?

Jacquie: But the thing is with the Mediterranean is, of course, they are using heirloom wheat but they’re not eating it every day. They’re only eating it like once or twice a week.

Host: I see.

Jacquie: So, we have become carb junkies.

Host: We are, yes.

Jacquie: Yes, we are. So, no, basically if you just change your paradigm over to what you think of as a normal food for different meals like for breakfast, instead of cereal, I like to just take a couple of tablespoons of almond butter, mix in a tablespoon of flaxseed, mix in some, I make homemade organic applesauce, stir it in and you can warm it up so that is like a warm cereal if you want to and just sprinkle on some crushed nuts. It’s fabulous. Absolutely fabulous! It’s like having a bowl of cereal but it’s warm like oatmeal but it actually doesn’t have any grains in it. I like soup for breakfast. Oh my gosh! I mean, what a nice warm healthy thing to have for breakfast! I actually like having, I make my own bone broth vegetable soups and I love having them for breakfast. It’s quick and easy. I make my own grain-free bread. So, I like to just toast that up and put an egg on it and have that for breakfast. Eggs, of course, are beautiful for breakfast. There are all sorts of things that you can do with eggs. A lot of times if I’m in a hurry, I keep hard-boiled eggs in my fridge all time and I just cut them up, add a little Paleo mayonnaise to it and some mustard and then scoop it out with celery and eat it.

Host: Awesome.

Jacquie: I mean, I can do that for lunch, too, and it’s great to have something like that for lunch. You can do that with chicken salad just use cucumber slices to scoop it out and eat it plain, lettuce wraps. I mean, there are all sorts of ways around everything. I love food and I have just worked out all the details of how to get everything I like but to do it right away.

Host: So with all the medical conditions that you had since age 10 and especially them erupting during menopause, you had a lot of weight gain, you mentioned. Then, with your study and with all the things that you unlearned and then learned new things, you limited to gluten, wheat, and then you went further by eliminating rye, barley, any kind of gluten including corn and rice, which is interesting because usually you think that rice and corn don't have gluten at least is presumed. A layman like me will presume that they don't have. So you mentioned one side effect and the side effect was immediate and in 30 days you lost 20 pounds and you lost a further 20 pounds in 60 days when you eliminated the other things after gluten. What other conditions or what are the things, diabetes, other things happened? What other effects happen when you deleted these from your life?

Jacquie: Well, my next step after losing those 40 pounds was to go Ketogenic.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: And so that was to reduce my carb load and of course that did a huge continuing to further to bring down my diabetes and remise my diabetes and my blood sugar issues and I lost another 20 pounds doing that. And then the last thing in my research that came up was cow dairy.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: I don’t know about you, guys, but here in the United States they have hybridized cows. So that they actually, crossbred two different species of cows and the cows here, what they did in the process is, actually changed the molecular structure of the protein casing so that it is no longer recognizable by the body and is seen as a foreign invader that causes an immune response. So, it was really hard to give up cow dairy because my favorite foods in the whole wide world are cheese. So when I finally went completely dairy-free, cow dairy-free got into the alternative milk, the vegan cheeses, things like that. I lost 30 pounds in 60 days, another 30 pounds in 60 days. I lost a total of 90 pounds on my journey in just over a year because I did it as an experiment. I did each step along the way and stalled and then waited for 60 days before I did the next step and then stalled for 60 days and did the next step. So, it took about a little over a year, but yeah, losing 90 pounds and maintaining it now for four years, still free of all chronic conditions, more energy than I can remember ever having in my entire life. I mean, I’m like the Energizer bunny. I mean, I can just go all day and is like, “Oh! It’s time for bed. Okay, I better slow down.” (laughing) It’s pretty funny. I mean, I had no idea, I don't remember how it felt to feel good. I don't have any recollection of that in my life span until now.

Host: So now, what do your doctors say about the conditions that you had and you were getting treated by doctors? What do they say now when you go to them?

Jacquie: “Oh, it’s a miracle! I don’t know what you did or understand what you did but keep doing whatever you're doing because I have no understanding or explanation of why you have cured yourself or why you have healed yourself.”

Host: Right.

Jacquie: That’s my conventional doctors’ answers. Yeah, they have no idea and they think it's a miracle. Don’t know how you did that. One of my other symptoms was that my knees were bone-on-bone.

Host: No cartilage?

Jacquie: No cartilage, totally gone.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: And now I have the knees of a 20-year old. I regrew it all.

Host: Okay. Now, let’s get into the interesting stuff. Jacquie, wow this is fantastic! I have to say we’re on a video call so Jacquie and I can see each other and Jacquie looks really fresh. Like, I mean, you got such a warm smile, your skin is glowing through the screen. It's fantastic. You really do look great. Now, let's talk about healing through nutrition and give us the lowdown. You told us what to not eat, you told us about bad nutrition, toxins, low-grade infections. We spoke about having a gluten-free dry diet, it worked for you. I don't know if it worked for me or listeners out there if they have any health problems or issues. You do have a book that defined alternative medicine to over-the-counter drugs and pharmacy drugs with healthier alternatives that you can get from the health store and which is cheaper and your book has a second component with food as well. Now, let's talk about healing yourself through nutrition. You say and you’ve experimented on yourself, you believe it's possible. Give us examples for our listeners or myself. How can I start healing myself through nutrition?

Jacquie: Well, let us start with a statistic. Dr. Mark Hyman is one of the leading functional medicine doctors here in the United States and according to his statistics, of the people that come to him in his clinic, going gluten-free and dairy-free reverses all conditions for 88% of his clients, of his patients. That’s a huge statistic. Now, everybody out there agrees on no matter what kind of diet you choose to follow whether you do Paleo, whether you’re doing AIP (Autoimmune Protocol), whether you're doing Primal, whether you’re doing FODMAPs, it doesn’t really matter what dietary protocol you're going to be following, even Vegan. It comes down to that to get the good nutrition that you need for your nutritional deficiencies, it’s almost impossible to get it all now from our food system. But they agreed that you have to go organic because the soil is depleted in every other form. You have to bump yourself up to 8 to 12 cups of vegetables a day.

Host: Really?

Jacquie: And they’re also, all recommending that you go organic with, of course, your vegetables and your fruits as well as your meat, your proteins. Grass-fed organic meat, wild-caught fish not farmed to be able to get all of the nutrients, all the essential vitamins, minerals, omegas, fatty acids, amino acids, profiles that are the way to go. I mean, Mark Hyman actually had a funny story about how he came up with, he was in a debate between a Paleo guy and a Vegan guy and he was the moderator for the debate and he said, “It sounds to me like we all need to be Pegan.” And basically, the combination of the two was a clean vegan, not doing gluten and dairy but then adding in the component of Paleo of the organic mixed seeds, nuts, and such that are there for us as your primary food sources and then being very limited going all good healthy fats sticking to avocado oil, EVOO or extra virgin olive oil, not produced in Europe. Those are actually finding testing showing that they’re tainted, getting away from all the industrial seed oils and vegetable oils. Coconut oil is another good one, especially if you’re trying to lose weight and if you're trying to kick sugar because again sugar is classified as a toxin, the white stuff. So, anything that has the white flower or the white sugar in it is considered toxic to the body. So go to natural stuff. Stick with honey, stick with agave, stick with maple syrup. If you have blood sugar issues, diabetes, and you want to go with stevia or monk fruit, or your sweeteners of choice those are the things. But otherwise, a Pegan type of diet. I know that I have a food pyramid from Dr. Mark Hyman for his Pegan pyramid that shows you where you are. But yeah, basically we’re looking at 8 to 10 or more cups of vegetables a day, 1 to 2 cups of fruits a day, and then normal protein. The technical calculation for figuring out the amount of protein you need is basically 1g for every kilogram of body weight for those of you on the metric system. And here in the United States that would be basically half of your weight in pounds, so basically half. So, it tells you how much protein to eat. Basically, to support your current muscle mass, organ status, etc., and to keep up all of your blood and your immune system, etc. So, for me, believe it or not, I’m sitting at 195 pounds and that’s actually pretty good weight for me being six feet tall and being a former studly athlete, you can see my muscles. (showing her bicep muscles)

Host: Wow! (laughing) Those are some biceps, Jacquie. That’s fantastic. Were you lifting weights? Yeah?

Jacquie: Oh, big time. I was one of the strongest women in the country back in college. I did two Olympic trials. I was a nationally-ranked javelin thrower.

Host: Good. That’s incredible!

Jacquie: Even despite all that pain and all those problems. Absolutely. But, you know, if I knew then what I know now…

Host: Yeah.

Jacquie: Oh my gosh! I mean, who knows where my athletic career would have gone to if I had actually known this.

Host: Right.

Jacquie: Anyway, back to where we were as far as food goes, I think. Where were we? (laughing) Getting sidetracked here. We’re talking about a proper diet.

Host: Yeah. I think it’s a great sidetrack and I think it’s fantastic. You tried this at a later stage in life and I think you can you try this at any stage in your life if you're young, in your teens, in your 30’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s even and I think it's a great thing. Are there any drawbacks? Anything I should worry about. Let's say, for example, Jacquie, I decide to go gluten-free and dairy-free starting from today. Is there any pitfall? Is there any negative repercussion? Is there any danger that could be is pose to my health if I do that?

Jacquie: Well, okay so that is a very good question. Thank you for asking that. Actually, if you went in cold turkey based on if you were eating the other stuff?

Host: Yeah?

Jacquie: Within about 24 to 48 hours you would start experiencing what they call die off because all your bad bacteria are being fed by all of your toxic food and your medications and your heavy metals and your pesticides. They feed the bad bacteria that cause you health issues. So when you stop feeding them, they start to die off and release all those toxins in your body. So cold turkey is not normally what’s recommended. You want to do it slowly over a 30-day period. And I normally recommend for my clients that doing a colon cleanse out the gate to get all the stuff out of you and then taking charcoal every night before bed to pick up the die-off toxins. Just activated charcoal will pick up the die-off toxins so that you don't experience any of the side effects. I slowly detox my body over a very long period of time. That’s where I started my journey because I tested positive for five different heavy metals and so my naturopath said I needed to detox for a while before I was going to be able to do anything else. And so getting all the toxins out of my body was very helpful before I started my journey. So it set me up to be able to be successful with my journey without any side effects. But other clients that I’ve had, I had them do the cleanse for three days and then start the charcoal and none of them experienced any side effects, whatsoever.

Host: And now if I do it with your method and I do it slowly to get gluten-free and dairy-free, what other things should I be aware of and be cautious of?

Jacquie: Well, okay, here's a good one. Actually, the problem that you will find in your stores is when they say gluten-free they’re only saying that it's wheat-free, that's all it means. It doesn’t mean that it's actually gluten-free. I know my naturopath said, “Okay, let’s start some, try some re-introductions for you to see whether or not you can now handle some forms of gluten. So, let's start adding something in. You choose what it is.” And so I chose to add in corn, organic corn. And so I had organic corn, I had organic corn chips. And when I went back to her after 90 days, she looked at my blood under the microscope and said, “Oh, my God! What have you done?” And I was like, what? She said, “What did you add?” and I said, “One of my favorite foods, corn. I wanted corn tortillas, I wanted corn tortilla chips, I wanted corn on the cob”. You know, organic stuff and she said, “No. It is completely tearing up your gut. You’re leaking again and you're setting yourself up for having all of your conditions come back. Go back off of it.” And so I went back off of it, went back to her in 90 days and she's like, “Oh, good. You healed again. Okay, great! So, no corn for you at least not at this juncture.” And so, I’ve still now completely all forms of gluten and gluten mimicking stuff I’ve been off of it now for a good period of time, two years. Hopefully, one of these days she'll tell me, “Okay let's try again and see if your immune system is calm down to see if your gut is healed enough that it can actually handle it.” But at the moment, you know, but yeah it's a problem where you go into the store you say, “Oh, I want to get off gluten.” You go, “Oh, this is gluten-free.” In the start of your journey, you can do that. You can buy gluten-free muffins, it’s got sugar on it, though. But you can buy gluten-free pasta and things like that. And they're making it from rice flowers…

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: Or they’re making it from Cornflower.

Host: But you mentioned those are also things that you’re off of.

Jacquie: Exactly, so I can’t eat those.

Host: Right.

Jacquie: But for someone who’s starting their journey, they can actually start with the gluten substitutes until they can get far along that they can get off of those two. So again just going off with wheat gluten, was 20 pounds in 30 days for me. But then, I was going off the other forms of grain glutens that I lost another 20 pounds over 60 days, a slower process but still an effective one. But yeah, if you're going to start your journey and you can't quite give up, you can buy a gluten-free pizza crust, you can buy gluten-free pasta, you can buy gluten-free bread. You can start there just to transition and then slowly find other alternatives out there. I like miracle noodles for pasta. It’s actually made from a Japanese yam that has 0 calories and 0 carbs, but yet it’s like fettuccine noodles…

Host: Really?

Jacquie: That you can eat, that you can swirl up and eat everything.

Host: Miracle noodles, okay.

Jacquie: Yeah. They’re kind of expensive, but you know, if I got an inkling for some noodles, you know, at least I have an alternative.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: And I zoodle zucchini and yellow squash and stuff like that to make noodles as well. But sometimes you just want something that seems like real noodles.

Host: I like to and before I get into an insight of what your day looks like in terms of eating, is it possible to maybe just cut back on gluten and, you know, instead of just maybe 20% or 30%. Will that help my body? Will that help my health or do I need to eliminate it completely or totally over a period of time?

Jacquie: Well, you know, some people are strong believers in what's called the 80-20 Plan. And for a lot of people doing an 80% clean and 20% occasional bad is okay for them and they have the health benefits. Those are for people who have, still have the ability to heal their gut because, with gluten, it's not a question of “If”, it’s a question of “When”. When does your body get to a point where you can no longer heal fast enough to prevent you from having issues? And so, it’s a question of, because heavy metals and pesticides get in the way of your healing process, slow it down and that's when you start having symptoms, spilling out from your intestines and having these issues. So, again, you can decrease it down, see if it does it for you. If not, you have to go all the way. According to Dr. Osborne, Dr. Peter Osborne, a naturopathic doctor who I consider to be the leading gluten guy, myself. Dr. Tom O'Bryan is also a gluten expert and they differ in their opinions of it. According to Dr. Tom O'Bryan, just getting rid of wheat, rye and barley are all you need to do to get past it and you can still do the corn, rice, etc. But, and of course, again, that did a huge amount for me. But according to Dr. Osborne, if that’s not working for you, you have to go after the other forms of gluten, which are going to be all the other grains. So, it’s a question of you can try doing it. But according to Dr. Osborne, if you have a gluten sensitivity one crumb will take you 59 days to heal on average, one crumb of wheat or gluten product. It causes that kind of damage and the healing that is slow for people who are gluten sensitive. So, I myself, would just like, “Why chance it? I’m not going to do it. I don’t care how good that birthday cake looks. I don’t care how great those cookies smell.” Walking through the mall with Cinnabons is totally an experience in itself. But you know what? I don't ever want to go back to where I was and I will not give in and sacrifice. And I've been 4 1/2 years, almost 5 years now, without any gluten whatsoever that I know of.

Host: How do we know we’re gluten-sensitive?

Jacquie: Well, there are blood tests you can do, that are rather expensive, but it’s the only way to know for sure is whether or not it shows up in your genetics.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: Dr. Osborne has placed it on his site where you can order. It’s called the Zonulin Zoom Test, I believe it’s the name of the test, and it will actually tell you whether or not you have a gluten sensitivity genetically. But for me, it was just eliminated and find out. You’ll know within 30 days whether or not you have an issue. It’ll start showing up in other things and how you feel. If you keep a journal of all your symptoms and how you feel every day after everything that you eat and keep a food journal, you can start making connections to, “Wow, 3 hours after I ate this, I got a headache” or “Wow, 3 hours after this, I started noticing my heart rate increased.” It’s a real quick way to tell things in one way. An easy diagnosis to see whether, is if you put something on your tongue and your heart rate or your blood pressure changes, that will tell you that your body is already mounting an immune response because it’s sensing the molecules are coming. So, it’s an easy way. A lot of time, so after you eat a meal, check your heart rate before you eat, check your heart rate after and you’ll know whether or not you ate something. I notice for myself if I eat a meal that has too many carbs in it, my heart rate goes to the roof.

Host: Really? Okay.

Jacquie: I mean, my pulse rate doubles.

Host: That's a tell-tale sign of…

Jacquie: Yes.

Host: Okay. Alright, walk us through, you mentioned a wonderful breakfast that you like to have and how you make it. Walk us through a normal day in your life of what you eat and what things that you substituted when you got gluten-free and dairy-free.

Jacquie: Okay, so we just got a lot of static on that question. So, I'm going to venture that your question was that you wanted me to walk you through the day on what I eat.

Host: Yeah.

Jacquie: Okay. So, yesterday morning for breakfast I had a slice of my Paleo or my Keto bread, toasted in the toaster with a fried egg and some vegan cheese. That was my breakfast. Now for lunch, I’m a real big fan of smoothies but I don't like something that cold in the morning. So, I like something warm in the morning and so I do my smoothies for lunch. And so my smoothies, this is going to be a long ingredient list, but I’ll give you the basics. My smoothies have like five servings of vegetables in them. It’s like a whole salad in a blender.

Host: Really? Okay. (laughing)

Jacquie: Yes, yes, but then I make it taste good by adding other things. So, I put in spring mix, I put in arugula, I put in beets, I put in celery juice, I’m putting in aloe vera juice, which is really healing for the gut. I’m putting in flaxseeds, I’m putting in hemp seeds, putting in collagen protein powder, bone broth protein powder, putting in maca powder for my hormone balancing. Let’s see here what else. Oh, I’m putting in broccoli sprouts then I put in half a cup of frozen berries, and then I put in a scoop of 100% raw cacao powder.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: To make it chocolate. And so the frozen berries and the chocolate turns it into the whole thing. Oh, I put in maybe a couple of slices of cucumber in there, too, like a quarter of cucumber. There are lots of other ingredients I’m not thinking of.

Host: That's a lot of stuff to put in a smoothie.

Jacquie: It is, but it turns into chocolate frosty.

Host: Okay, Alright.

Jacquie: And so, it tastes fabulous enough that I’m wanting to drink it every day.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: And then for dinner, usually it’s some form of protein whether it’s a piece of fish or a piece of chicken or a piece of beef and then usually 3 cups of vegetables. So, if I’m going to do broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans. Or I'm going to do, I love to stir fry together a bunch of roasted roots. So, I grow turnips in my yard, I grow beets in my yard. So, you know, just plucking those out, save the greens for the smoothie, but then slice them up and then slice up some carrots and onions and I just saute the whole thing together in a pan and have that as a side dish. And you can buy frozen organic root vegetables that you can just saute up or throw into the oven. I don't like to microwave my food if possible. Those are my sides. Because I’m basically dairy-free Keto and I need lots of fats, I’m usually using either avocado oil or coconut oil, or MCT oil. I cook with avocado oil or coconut oil at least once a day. I’m putting the MCT oil, that’s another thing I put into my smoothies, which is just basically refined coconut oil that is very high in caprylic acid, which is very good for keeping candida down. So, I'm constantly making sure plus it's immediate energy it takes no digestion and it absorbs immediately so that you get the benefits of those fats for fuel.

Host: As a lifelong athlete, what is your exercise routine look like every day?

Jacquie: A-ha-ha. I'm not a lifetime athlete.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: You know, I actually, the part of my issues in my late 20s, 30s, and 40s was that when I retired from training for the Olympics, I took a desk job and I got caught up in the standard American lifestyle of sitting behind the desk and not getting much physical activity. I didn't really notice my issue until I had gained like 50 pounds. And then the struggle to try to get that off lost a lot of it, but I started going to the gym, I started playing racquetball and playing tennis and doing other things, trying to be a little more active, going for walks. Now, at this point of my life, then of course I bloomed way up in weight in my late 40s from menopause. But now my routine is basically yoga a couple of days a week, walking a couple of days a week, doing HIIT which is High-Intensity Interval Training, I do that with my walks which is a very simple way of doing it. I don't care if the neighbors stare at me. So, I’ll sit there and I’ll be up on my walk and I do High Knees sprint for like 30 seconds and then go back to walking. Or I’ll stop and I’ll do jumping jacks for 30 seconds as fast as I can and then I’ll go back to walking.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: And I’m hoping the neighbors will ask me sometime what the hell you’re doing so that I can explain the benefits because HIIT training is actually more effective than doing an hour's worth of cardio as far as stimulating your metabolism and stimulating fat burning. I love playing with kettlebells.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: After I do my yoga, sometimes I'll go over into the gym and I'll start swinging around the kettlebell. You know, putting it down on the ground and jumping up with it and going side to side and all this other stuff and just, you know, doing some lunges with it, stuff like that just to get a little more heavyweight, body lifting on me. I’m not really sure about going back and doing, I mean, I’m still a little bit concerned, myself, because when I was training for the Olympics, I blew out my knees twice and of course, wore up all the cartilage. And even if I have all the cartilage back, but I’m just not sure about doing squats or doing cleans or doing snatches. I’m not sure if I want to go that far anymore. I dislocated my shoulder doing inclines, heavy inclines when I was in training. My rotator cuffs, I mean I blew out my elbow, I mean I have so many precious things that I’m really hesitant about going back into any kind of heavy lifting, Olympic lifting, or powerlifting at this point. So, I’m actually pretty good where I am. I feel like I never lose my muscle mass because I didn’t do steroids or drugs when I was training. So, I didn’t lose my muscle mass, I still have it. I still have the same lean body mass when I did in college, which is interesting in itself. I don’t really feel the need to try to get bigger muscles or more muscles at this point so it’s just basically trying to stay toned and trying to tightening up my skin. Loosening all that weight has been a skin nightmare for me. It’s just now coming back, doing lots of botanicals to try to tighten up my skin. Anyway, hope that answered your question.

Host: It does. (laughing) Before I'd let you go I’d love to know once again about your website. How we can follow you on social media and where we can get your book? If you could kindly tell us.

Jacquie: Yes. Thank you, thank you. Alright, so the website is realhealthsolns.com is my website. I do have a membership page on there where people can join for free or pay for services to work with me. But the free membership, there is all sort of educational stuff, all the papers I've written. I’ve written over a dozen papers published and they're all on there in the free category for people to read what I’ve learned and read what’s there. They can find me on Facebook. It’s Real Health Solutions with Jacquie.

Host: Okay.

Jacquie: They can connect with me there. I have a LinkedIn profile under Jacquie Nelson Walburn. I’m on Yelp, I'm on Google, I’m on Bing. You can find me there if you put in my realhealthsolns.com into your search engine, whatever it is, all my stuff will come up under one place. As far as the book goes, again it’s Heal Thyself Naturally by Jacquie Nelson Walburn and it is on amazon.com. And it’s also, there is a link on my website to the book so that people can just if they go to my website, they can click on there’s a book button there I put there that’ll take them straight to it, tons of reviews on for my services as well as for my book. Well not tons, but you know, enough, some anyway. If they want to find me if they want to talk to me and I do free email consultations. If you have just one question and you just want some basic information, I can cut and paste out a section of my book and send it to you for free.

Host: Oh, wonderful.

Jacquie: So, yeah I have no problem with doing that so you can look at what’s there if you don’t want to do the whole thing, but the book is so inexpensive on Amazon. I think it’s $14.99 or something. And it’s got over 60 different conditions and over a thousand entries for different things. So, yeah, if someone just wants to know what's the best direction, “Okay, I have these five conditions or these five symptoms”, you know, “What do you recommend the direction I should go in?” I will email you back, too. It sounds like Paleo would be a good match for you or Keto would be the best match for you. Alzheimer's Keto, any brain issues Keto, candida Keto, you know, basically, you know, diabetes Keto, Paleos for just minor stuff if you’re just having a little bit of arthritis or something. Again, the dietary protocol that goes for each thing is pretty simple and I can send them a shopping list or whatever to with that so you would hear all of the foods you should try to eat. So yeah, pretty easy stuff.

Host: Brilliant! If you search for Jacquie Nelson Walburn on the internet, Jacquie is spelled J-A-C-Q-U-I-E. Jacquie, thank you so much for being on our podcast and, you know, sharing, first of all, very personal details about your life and about, you know, showing us and telling us how to heal ourselves naturally. And what an information-filled conversation we've had over the last hour, thank you so much for that.

Jacquie: Oh, it’s been my pleasure and gratitude back to you for you being here and sharing all this and putting out the world because that is how we make a difference.