[00:00:00] Elizabeth Stein: Hi everyone. I'm Elizabeth Stein, founder
and CEO of Purely Elizabeth, and this is Live Purely with Elizabeth, featuring candid conversations about how to thrive on your wellness journey. This week's guest is Dr. Wendie Trubow, Institute for Functional Medicine practitioner passionate about helping women optimize their health and lives as a functional medicine gynecologist.

[00:00:25] Through her struggles with mold and metal toxicity, celiac disease, and other health issues, Dr. Wendie Trubow has developed a deep sense of compassion. An expertise for what her patients are facing. She's the co-author of Dirty Girl: Ditch the Toxins, Look Great and Feel Frickin Amazing, and has been regularly featured in MINDBODY Green and the Huffington Post.

[00:00:48] There's so much talk right now about the amount of toxins in our environment, and this episode we discuss everything you need to know about why toxins matter. How toxins cause health problems, tips on how to reduce exposure in our daily lives and ways to support our detox pathways for optimal health.

[00:01:07] Wendie shares her personal journey to becoming a functional medicine practitioner and emphasizes the significance of a holistic approach to health, encompassing aspects like food, exercise, relationships, and spirituality, which I absolutely love. We also discussed the potential health risks of mercury fillings, the benefits of various detox methods like Sauna and Wendy's, daily wellness practices, including setting boundaries.

[00:01:35] I think you guys are going to get so much out of this episode. Keep listening to learn more.

[00:01:44] Dr. Wendie Trubow, welcome to the podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on today and to finally connect after our schedules have been so crazy.

[00:01:53] Wendie: Thank you. It's great to be here.

[00:01:55] Elizabeth Stein: So, I'd love to start with your background, your story, your personal wellness journey that really led you to become a functional medicine practitioner and develop your practice.

[00:02:08] Wendie: Sure, you can stop me at any time. My mess essentially became my message because my husband was into functional medicine long before I was, and he said to me, You don't feel well, and before our insurance changes, why don't you go see my mentor? And I'm like, okay. And he did what at the time I thought was a massive, massive workup on me.

[00:02:33] And he did a ton of things and ultimately diagnosed me with celiac disease, multiple food sensitivities, leaky gut, and it just kind of went on and on. And that was my entry into functional medicine, and it transformed my life because I had been really sick.

[00:02:52] Elizabeth Stein: And what were those main, like sickness
you were feeling?

[00:02:57] Wendie: Yeah, so head to toe I had brain fog. I
had anxiety. I had hair loss. I had thyroid dysfunction. I had heart
palpitations. I had asthma. I had everything: irritable bowel, you could guess,
like bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, sometimes on the same day, just
sort of pick a number. I had bad periods, I had heavy periods. I had fertility
issues, I had wasting. I was like, I don't know, almost 20 pounds thinner than
I am now. And I had terrible fatigue, and I did not feel good.

[00:03:31] Elizabeth Stein: And how old were you when all of this was
happening?

[00:03:33] Wendie: Right. So, you know, it started
developing in my 20s except I didn't have an awareness of it because the thing
that about chronic illness, that's so fascinating is it's often not, like on
Monday you feel great and on Tuesday you feel awful. It's like this slow
decline where you just forget who you used to be. So I was 35 when I got
diagnosed, but when I was 15 ,I had iron deficient anemia and, I'm sorry, iron
deficiency and anemia and it didn't respond to taking iron 'cause I wasn't
absorbing.

[00:04:05] So I had issues when I was even much
younger, and I thought that's how it was for people.

[00:04:11] Elizabeth Stein: So you're 35, and you find functional
medicine. You figure out you have all of these issues. Was part of that? In
this process, learning that some of this was also mold and metal toxicity, or
did that come at a different time?

[00:04:30] Wendie: That was later. I had no idea that I had
mold and metal toxicity. That was not at all something that was even discussed
at the time. I'm sure that the guy who diagnosed me did that work, but I was
not ready for it. I was also six weeks postpartum and nursing, and I just, I
was. Not at all open to it, but, it was actually the perfect entry into
functional medicine cause I did gut health. I did gut health for years and got
to a place where I was pretty good and most of those symptoms went away. Like,
I don't have asthma now and I never really was an anxious human. The celiac
disease was really messing me up. So, it wasn't until 2019 that I really got
into toxins and got aware of them because we went to France and I was in France
the week after Notre Dame burned.

[00:05:19] And it was, unfortunately, we didn't get
to go to Notre Dame, but it was amazing in France, except I do remember saying
to my husband, it's so dusty, like, why is it so dusty? We're gonna have to
wash all of our shoes. It's so dusty. And we came home from France and then we
went to London. I'm sorry. We went right to London.

[00:05:35] Then we came home. The month after, I hit
the skids again, and I gained a ton of weight. I gained almost 10 pounds, kind
of like overnight, and my hair started falling out in droves, to the point
where the hairdresser said to me like, what's going on with you? Wow. 'cause
your hair is markedly... You always say to your hairdresser, "my hair's
falling out," and they're like, "yeah, you're fine. You're
fine."

[00:05:53] This one was like, "you have a
problem. There's problem. It's really a problem." And I was again,
fatigued and I had this killer rash, like my eyelids, it was under my nose, it
was under my chin, like under my lip. And it was so itchy. I'd be like, okay, I
can't scratch 'cause then I'm gonna have scarring on my face, and I don't want
that.

[00:06:10] And kinda was puzzled for a while, and
about three months later, I was doing some more digging 'cause like I don't
feel well. And I came across this citation that when Notre Dame burned, it
released 500 tons of lead dust into the air. And the closer you were to Notre
Dame, the more of an exposure you got. And the farther away you were, obviously
the less you got. And I looked at my husband, I was like, I got a lead
exposure. We all got a lead exposure, but I'm the one who's sick.

[00:06:38] So I tested my lead levels. And I'm in
functional medicine now. I've been doing it now since I was 38. I left
traditional medicine when I was 38, so three years after my diagnosis. So, I've
been doing functional medicine for years. I've done heavy metals testing on
myself, and doctors are the worst patients, the worst patients. So I had done
metals before and had this is like mildly positive result, and knowing now what
I didn't know then, I should have taken it seriously, but I'm like, oh, it's just
mildly elevated. It'll go away.

[00:07:05] It didn't go away. And then I got another
lead exposure, and when I retested, I was 25% higher. And now I'm definitely
positive. And my mercury is now mildly positive, too. And I was like, okay, I
gotta treat it. I was like, I know London's moldy, so I'll do a mold test.

[00:07:21] And I had gotten it back and it had five
strains of mycotoxins. These are the toxins that create mayhem in your body.
And I had five different ones. And then I was like, well, I mean, I have
everything else. I might as well test the environmental toxins, too. And I was
positive for a whole slew of those.

[00:07:40] I looked at my husband. He walks up to my
desk and I have 20 pieces of paper on my desk. And I'm trying to make sense of,
okay, like, okay, I have metal, I have, I have Mercury, I have lead, I have
five mycotoxins and I have a bunch of environmental toxins. And he comes in and
I'm doing this sort of mental work and I go, I'm such a dirty girl and we need
to write that book.

[00:08:00] So that's been our mission over the last
five years because. Because nobody should have to go through what I went
through. I was so sick, and it doesn't have to be that way.

[00:08:10] Elizabeth Stein: Wow, that's a great way for us to segue
into learning about what are all these toxins. I think there's so much
conversation right now on social media and the news, more so in social media,
about these toxins, and it can certainly feel very overwhelming.

[00:08:28] We don't always know what it all means,
and there are some ways a, that. Eventually to treat it and feel better, but
also some preventative things that we can do and make our body be the best host
that it can be. Because inevitably we're gonna come into contact with toxins.
It's not avoidable at all costs.

[00:08:47] So let's start with that kind of
foundational understanding of what are the different types of toxins that we're
talking about here and how do they enter the body?

[00:08:57] Wendie: I think this is a great place to start.
So think about this, humans like category, so there's the toxins that enter
your body because you put them in your body.

[00:09:05] This is typically your food or your
drink. And in that there's, are you drinking from single use plastic water
bottles or any type of, it doesn't have to be a water bottle. Is it a single
use kombucha drink? Is it some type of plastic that you're drinking from? Or
are you eating food that has pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, glyphosate
is the most common herbicide in the world.

[00:09:30] It's on everything. It's almost
impossible not to get exposed, and it is both toxic to the environment and also
harmful for the bacteria in our gut. So that's the first categories. What are
you putting in you? That also includes things like sugar, alcohol, artificial
colors, artificial flavors, highly processed foods, rancid oils.

[00:09:53] These can all be toxic for the body.
That's one category. Then there is the category of products that you put on
your body. So that is especially for women, right? We have all of these beauty
products and so all of the things we're putting on our face, all the things
we're putting on our body, our skin is our largest organ and it can both, it'll
tank you or it'll help you thrive.

[00:10:21] You know, it's thrive or dive. So, if
it's helping you, it's detoxing. If it's harming you, it's absorbing the toxins
that you put it on your skin and your skin absorbs it, or your makeup or your
toothpaste so it's typically the things you're putting on your body, including
your clothing.

[00:10:35] it's important to wash clothes before you
wear them because they have formaldehyde in them. So, you put the formaldehyde
on your body and look, when you're dead, they preserve you with formaldehyde,
but you don't want that stuff when you're alive. It's not good for you. So
that's the second category.

[00:10:50] And then the third category is all that
other stuff. That's the stuff around you. And let me back up. The second
category is things like nail polish, phthalates, plastics, and all to this is
all the endocrine disrupting category. And it can be in other categories too.
And then the third category is all of the other stuff around you.

[00:11:10] So that is, are you sitting on in a car?
There are 10,000 chemicals in a new car. Do you ride public transportation?
How's your air and water quality? Do you live in an area prone to wildfires? Do
you live near mining? Do you live near a farm, a golf course, some type of
mechanical industry, or do you live near a highway? 'cause all of those are
more prone to releasing toxins into the air. And so the thing that I'll say at
the outset is, like you said, you're never gonna be toxin-free.

[00:11:42] Elizabeth Stein: And all of a sudden you're like, oh my
God, I need to live in bubble. Oh my God.

[00:11:45] Wendie: I know, but it's not like that. It's not
like you need to live in a bubble. You're gonna get these exposures no matter
what you do. The flip side of it is you fix what you can and you do what you
can in your environment. So if you get nothing else outta this talk, the, or
this conversation, the thing that I would say is. Filter your air and your
water in your place of residence to the best of your ability.

[00:12:08] And that doesn't mean it has to be
perfect. It means if you can get a whole house water filter, great if you can't
get a Burke or get some type of countertop filter, but do something to fix your
water and do something to filter your air. And what I say to my patients is
something is always better than nothing. So do your best and don't sweat the
rest of it.

[00:12:30] Elizabeth Stein: And maybe also as far as water, looking
up how bad the water is where you live too, right?

[00:12:36] Wendie: Yeah. Well, it's interesting 'cause the
testing's not necessarily looking for the stuff we care about. They are now
required to test for PFAS and filter it out, but I think it's gonna take like
somewhere between five and 10 years for the municipal water.

[00:12:49] to actually filter it out. So, when I
went all through all of this, I said to my husband, we have to filter the water
in our house. And he's like a really good guy. He was like, Okay. So, we buy a
water filter, and we live in this town that's has really good water. It's
municipal, in theory, it has really good water. So we buy a whole house water
filter. We finally get it set up, and we realize that even though our water
filter water quality is theoretically good, it's actually not that good. So we,
the first time, we're supposed to change the filter every two years, but after
11 months, the filter's full of sediment.

[00:13:25] Wow. I was like, but we live in this
town. It's supposed to be amazing, and it might be amazing, but it has
particulate matter in it, so it's not as good as we think it is. That's the
bottom line. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I just have found from
firsthand experience that we all tend to wanna think the best of it, and
they're not.

[00:13:45] They don't necessarily have their eye on
the things that we care about. So we put this water filter in and immediately
the water feels different. It tastes different. Our hair is different. My
daughter's friend said, Your hair's amazing. And my daughter's like, Yeah, we
filter our water and it's way better when I filtered the water, like, your skin
gets better, your hair gets better.

[00:14:08] And it was amazing because we thought we
had good water. And now, I post on Instagram regularly about, oh, we're
changing the filters. Look how terrible they look. This is what you're not
drinking, right? Yeah, absolutely. So even if you have good water, it's
probably worth filtering and, and just seeing like what's really in your water?

[00:14:28] You do have great hair. Thank you. My
hair's easy, you know? 'cause I don't, and I don't put any product in it. It's
just this is now, it's also I'm inside. And so even though it's humid, it's not
going crazy, but outside it would go crazy.

[00:14:42] Elizabeth Stein: Okay, so we have these categories of
toxins and of course hearing all of them, and it sounds very overwhelming, and
it sounds bad, right?

[00:14:52] But really like let's get to the heart of
what is happening when these toxics enter our body. Why are they bad? And for
so many of them, they don't leave our body right? So that becomes the host of
why it can lead to some chronic issues.

[00:15:13] Wendie: Yeah, think of yourself like a rain
barrel. So when you're born, your rain barrel is mostly empty, and then as you
get older, it fills up with stressors, toxins, chemicals, bad experiences, they
all combine in our body.

[00:15:27] So all of these toxins are fat soluble.
Our hormones are fat soluble, too. And what that means is if you've ever made
your own salad dressing and you put oil and lemon or oil and vinegar together,
they don't stay mixed. And they don't stay mixed because they're not
dissolvable in each other.

[00:15:45] So when you go back to your body, when
you have a fat-soluble toxin that goes into your body. And your water. You know
your pee is water. Your poop is water. Your sweat is water. Your breathing is
water. Air has water droplets in it, but the fat can't dissolve in that unless
you make it water soluble, and that's where your liver comes in.

[00:16:07] So I'm gonna simplify it, but basically
this fat-soluble item is presented to your liver, and your liver goes through
two phases. Phase one is called is very fast, especially for women where like
just get right to it all the time and it takes that item and changes it into
something that's actually more toxic.

[00:16:28] It changes into a free radical. And free
radicals cause oxidative stress, and they cause tissue damage and they're a
precursor for cancer. And your body knows this. So as soon as you have a free
radical, you have to convert it into something that's inert. And there's two
ways to do that. One is put it in your fat as a storage depot, all the fat in
our body is a storage depot.

[00:16:50] Or if you can get to it, your liver goes
on to phase two. And in phase two, there's one of six pathways you go down and
it ultimately binds that toxic substance, makes it inert and makes it water
soluble. And then you go on to the third step of detox, which is excretion. You
pee poop or sweat it out, you can breathe it out, but that's a lesser pathway.

[00:17:11] Typically, pee, poop or sweat are your
three big pathways. Now, in theory, because you're only exposed to just a
little bit of this or a little bit of that, you could in theory get rid of it.
But if you're stressed, you shut detox down. If you haven't had enough sleep,
that's a form of stress. You shut detox down.

[00:17:32] If you're in the midst of some argument
with your best friend, your sister, your brother, your family member, it
doesn't matter. That shuts detox down. And then the other issue is that we're
exposed to this just, it's everywhere, right? So, there's EMFs and there's
plastic everywhere, and we have to get from here to there, and we renovate our
house and there's VOCs, or we buy new furniture.

[00:17:57] I'm sitting on this gorgeous, gorgeous,
vegan leather chair. But guess what? Vegan leather, it didn't harm an annual.
But it's plastic. So there's a lot of ways that we're just getting it and we're
getting a lot more exposures to toxins than we really think about. And so, the
liver gets overloaded and it can't do its job because it's like Lucy and Ethel
on the chocolate conveyor belt.

[00:18:21] It's just coming too fast for them to be
able to deal with. And so if you can't deal with it, you store it. In your fat
and that's when the women say, oh, I can't lose any weight. Or I, I look at
water, I gain weight. Or I woke up today five pounds heavier. And I'm like, you
probably got a toxic exposure somewhere in there.

[00:18:40] And it happens all the time. So, then we
can't really even distinguish it and it snowballs.

[00:18:46] Elizabeth Stein: What of all of those toxins, if you could
rank it so to speak, is research showing what are the worst?

[00:18:56] Wendie: So how broad is that question, Elizabeth?
Meaning, when you look at the way we eat, the food we eat is directly linked to
the diseases we have.

[00:19:09] So I would say food is far and away the
most important thing to focus on because you do it intentionally three times a
day. , and if you can improve the quality of your food, you can decrease the
toxins you're exposed to. You can decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, Alzheimer's, autoimmune disease.

[00:19:27] So that's very impactful. And then
there's research supporting plastics and gasoline fumes, and Merck, your, all
of the heavy metals and mycotoxins, pretty much all of them are supported in
the literature as being toxic. So, I think the most impactful thing for people
to focus on is their food, because you do it every day.

[00:19:52] But I think we need to back up a step.
It's almost impossible to do effective detox until you've dealt with what I'll
call the foundations of your health, your food—and that's not just organic, but
just what are you eating, your relationship with yourself and others, your
stress, your sleep, and your movement.

[00:20:11] That's the foundation. And because if
you're not doing foundational work, you cannot go into detox. Detox is a higher
order like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's at the very top. You cannot do it
if the other systems are not well cured for. So, food is well supported. Heavy
metals, mycotoxins, plastics, PFAS, endocrine disrupting agents.

[00:20:34] Those are all extremely well supported in
the literature.

[00:20:37] Elizabeth Stein: I love that you have that approach of
this foundation, this really holistic view of it's not just one thing, you have
to get all five of those together when it comes to health, and you can't look
at it in a singular bucket, so to speak. So as you think about working well for
yourself or working with clients, if for someone hearing this.

[00:21:02] They may say, yep, I feel like I gained
10 pounds overnight. And where do you start? Where do you start with figuring
out, how do I diagnose if I do have toxins? And what are the sort of first
steps? 'cause we probably all do, but you do. I,

[00:21:20] Wendie: I mean, congratulations. We all have
toxins. I don't think the question is, do I have toxins? The question is, are
they impacting me in a way that's worrisome, and are they getting to the
tipping point where they're gonna make a negative impact in my health? I would
say, if you're in perfect health and nothing bothers you, then you probably
don't need to worry about it. This probably like 2% of the people, I don't know
any people like that. I literally don't know any of them.

[00:21:48] But if that's you, you don't have to do
anything. But if you're like me, and you're human, and you don't feel your best
and you get fatigued, or you have some gut stuff or autoimmune or, going to the
far end of it, if you have cancer or if you have cardiovascular disease or
really anything, then that's the time to pay attention because your body's
signaling okay, it's not in the best of health.

[00:22:12] So. You're not gonna like the answer to
this, okay. I'm just prefacing it that. Sure, that before we do any toxins
work, we go back to basics and make sure that your gut, liver, your adrenals,
your life, is managed because you cannot detox on a broken foundation. It won't
work and you'll just feel sick.

[00:22:32] So people who hear me on podcasts and
they come to the practice and they're like, they sit in the chair. You can't
see. I have my office right over there. They sit in the chair and they're like,
detox me. I'm like, no, I can't do that yet. 'cause it makes people sicker when
you detox them without managing the foundations of their health.

[00:22:49] So first foundations, and then when their
gut is as good as it can be and their adrenals are fine and they're sleeping,
then we can do toxins and. Typically, I'm a huge fan of testing so that you
understand like I would never give someone the chelating agents without
understanding what level are we at here . What am I actually testing, and has
it made an impact?

[00:23:12] So you wanna test the data and see before
and after. And so we do individual tests for heavy metals. We do both a
baseline, just a first morning void, and we do a provoke test because remember
these. Toxins are fat soluble. They're not in your bloodstream. They're too
toxic to hang out in your bloodstream.

[00:23:31] They're hanging out in your fat. So, we
wanna pull them out of the fat and the bones. And the organ. And the brain. We
wanna pull them out and see them. So you have to provoke the test. And then
same test for mycotoxins. It's also urine. And you take a hot bath or shower
and then you pee. That's it. That's a test.

[00:23:51] And then the other environmental toxins
is the same test as the mycotoxins. So there's essentially... I'm sorry, three
different tests because that company stopped doing it. There's a third one to
do environmental toxins testing, and then we put the data together and say,
okay, what's the most important here?

[00:24:06] What are your symptoms? If you're someone
who's super reactive and you have asthma or a rash or some type of dermatitis
or you're really, your brain's really foggy, that's more suggestive that the
mycotoxins are wreaking havoc., If you have osteoporosis or any type of bone
loss, or if you have dementia, early Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, some of the
more.

[00:24:29] More deadly of the autoimmune and
degenerative diseases. I'm gonna lean towards heavy metals, but it's not in a
vacuum. I'm often sort of flowing between them and the treatments do synergize.
So we will often start with one and then layer on the next one when you're
ready.

[00:24:48] Elizabeth Stein: So before we get into how we end up
treating and, and, and or preventing, we'd love just to step back to your
foundation because very clear that we need to start with the foundation.

[00:24:59] So pretend I am a new client working with
you. Can you just walk us through what those foundational aspects are a little
bit deeper for people to understand?

[00:25:09] Wendie: Sure. Our company is called Five
Journeys, and we called it that because there are five unique pathways that you
use to get to health and really they're all intertwined, but as humans, we
think about them.

[00:25:20] So, that's our foundational work. So
there's your physical body, that's your bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons,
exercise, posture. You can alter your mood by altering your posture for, I
don't know if you follow Amy Cuddy's work at all? I think she's a
neuroscientist, and she does this work on posture and shows that if you're in
this like hunched over, which a lot of us as women often are like, Oh, I don't
wanna take up too much space.

[00:25:46] No, take up space. The more hunched over,
the more curved in you are, the more kind of in yourself that you are, the
higher your cortisol, the lower your testosterone. Conversely, the more space
you take up and the bigger you get and the taller you stand, you know the power
pose hands on, hips wide. The wonder woman pose.

[00:26:07] Elizabeth Stein: Yeah.

[00:26:09] Wendie: The higher your testosterone, the lower
your cortisol, and the better you are perceived.

[00:26:15] Elizabeth Stein: Fascinating.

[00:26:16] Wendie: I know. So, so that's your physical body.
So people who sit in my office, and they're like small, one of the first things
we talk about is how do you get bigger? How do you take up more space in the
world? Stop apologizing for your existence on this planet.

[00:26:31] So that's the physical body. We do a full
chemical evaluation. That's the second pillar of health. That's the functional
medicine evaluation that people are thinking about: stool minerals, nutrients,
hormones, adrenal health, food sensitivity. If you're a Lyme human, we're
testing you for Lyme to make sure we don't miss that.

[00:26:50] That's the basic evaluation, and then
we're looking at your emotional health. That's your relationship to yourself.
What are you saying to yourself? How do you speak to yourself? Do you like
yourself and really making sure that you have a relationship with yourself
that's healthy. Because most of us are not ax murderers.

[00:27:10] So, unless you're an ax murderer, you're
a good human, but we don't interact with ourselves like that. And then the
social health: Do you have a relationship with others? Do you have a community?
Do you belong or are you isolated? Because isolation is a huge factor in
overall health. So ensuring that you're not isolated.

[00:27:27] And then the last pillar is your
spiritual health: why are you here? What legacy are you here to make on this
earth? Put those together, that's your health.

[00:27:38] So typically people need to work on about
three of them to tip the health scale towards longevity, peak performance as
opposed to degeneration and failure. So, you have to tip the scales. That's the
foundational work we do.

[00:27:53] Elizabeth Stein: I love that. I went to the Institute for
Integrative Nutrition almost, oh my God, 17 years ago. And I remember doing
this exercise that we would do with clients all the time that was called the
Circle of Life. You sort of put a circle, a dot in the circle of life of how
fulfilled you were in all these different areas.

[00:28:11] There's maybe 10 in the circle, but
really that importance of each one of those foundational aspects are so
critical for so many of us, we don't realize the impact of talking negatively
to yourself has a profound effect on your health. And you think, Oh, I'm eating
all the best things and have filtered water and have an air filter.

[00:28:32] But if you're speaking negatively.

[00:28:36] Wendie: Time to filter those thoughts, right?

[00:28:37] Elizabeth Stein: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, so I love that
approach and that foundation. Once we have that and you start to get to how do
we treat, and maybe before we get to treat, let's start with what are some of
those things we can do preventatively, or I should say like to protect
ourselves. What are the best foods that we can eat or other lifestyle factors
that we can be doing?

[00:29:03] Wendie: I mean, you do have like 80% of the
agency here. Each of us has a ton of room for improvement. Before you even come
see me, there are a million things you can do. And I think I really like how
you're languaging this. There's things you can do just as a way of life, and
then there's things you can do that'll up your chances for doing detox.

[00:29:22] So way of life stuff: filter your air,
filter your water, wash your clothes before you wear them. Don't engage in
toxic relationships. Level up your food. Think of the food spectrum. It's a
spectrum. So wherever you are on this, if this one end of the spectrum is eat
every meal out of the house, don't cook a thing yourself, everything's
processed. And the other end is, macrobiotic, make everything yourself and
everything is within a, what, 50 mile radius of, of where you live. I don't
know if that's necessarily the goal, but figure out where you are and try to
level up on your food.

[00:29:58] So, if you're eating out three times a
day, eat out two times a day and cook a meal for yourself once a day. Or if
you're eating sugar every day, go to every other day. If you're drinking
alcohol, that directly shuts down, detox. So especially for women, alcohol's
the devil for us. I'm gonna go out on a far really thin, unpopular limb and
say, don't drink alcohol unless it's a special occasion because it directly
stops your body from detoxing cause then you gotta deal with the alcohol. It's
its own toxin. So those are some of the things you can do.

[00:30:33] And then foods to eat would be
cruciferous vegetables, eat the rainbow, eat beautiful, organic, if possible,
local, fresh or frozen at the peak of the nutrient value foods that are
minimally processed.

[00:30:49] If you do that, that's gonna go a long
way, right there. Optimize your hormones. So if you have PCOS, if you're
perimenopausal, make sure that your hormones are optimized. And then you can do
things like on your own, like an acetylcysteine and alpha lipoic acid,
cilantro, parsley. Those are ways you can eat your way to health.

[00:31:09] Those are things you can do on your own
without ever seeing a, a provider that help your body do its job for detox.

[00:31:16] Elizabeth Stein: How important is it getting... I mean,
obviously in general, fiber is very important for us, but how important of an
emphasis do you put on consuming X amount of fiber in your diet?

[00:31:26] Wendie: Huge. So, fiber is essentially the brush
and mop of your gut.

[00:31:31] And so if you're not getting enough
fiber, your gut's not cleaning itself. So I put a huge emphasis on fiber. One
of the things we use to treat the mycotoxins is actually just fiber. It's a
specific type of fiber called lean and clean, and it's propyl manin fiber from
the konjac tuber, and it binds to all the strains of mycotoxins.

[00:31:51] So you couldn't quite literally eat your
way to health. So fiber is tremendous. It also helps to bind the heavy metals
that make their way into your gut. You actually, on your own, get rid of about
1% of your heavy metals every day, but you recycle 99% of that, so you get rid
of 0.01% every day.

[00:32:10] And especially if you're living somewhere
where you're getting an exposure, that's not enough to get it out of your body.

[00:32:17] Elizabeth Stein: It would take a long time.

[00:32:19] Wendy: Yes. And one thing that I think is really
impactful, if you have mercury fillings, those are the silver fillings. You
open your mouth and you're like, oh, it's silver. It's not white. Those are
amalgam fillings. They're 50% mercury by weight. They never stop offgassing.
Every time you chew, drink, eat, grind your teeth, they release mercury into
your body. Typically, the thyroid is the first impacted 'cause.

[00:32:44] Think of it: here's your mouth, here's
your molar, here's your thyroid. It's right here. It's draining right in and
passing the thyroid on its way outta your body. So getting rid of with a
biologic dentist safely is very powerful because then you no longer get exposed
to your mercury in your mouth. So, get the mercury outta your mouth.

[00:33:04] Elizabeth Stein: Are they still utilizing that for
fillings today?

[00:33:07] Wendie: Sometimes. Typically no. But if it's a
big filling, they might. I think it was like around 1990, they stopped using
them. So if you're born before then, and you had a cavity, you have a silver
filling.

[00:33:20] Elizabeth Stein: Okay, so that's a great sort of
foundation of what we can be doing in our daily lives to protect now if we are
indeed overexposed and have a real issue where you need to start to detox.

[00:33:33] What are some of those things that you
suggest for people? And obviously you'd really wanna be working with a
professional at this stage. But sort of at a high level, general things that we
can be doing, as well as eating, supplementing and lifestyle things like Sauna,
for example. And is sauna just great in general?

[00:33:52] Wendie: Sauna's great. In general. I'm a huge
fan. in fact, there's always an upside. So Covid was not fun. But then instead
of going away for my 50th birthday, we went and finished our basement and
bought a sauna. So I was like, the best could be worse, right?

[00:34:05] If you feel like you've gotten a big
exposure, please don't do that alone. You definitely wanna work with a
professional where you test, treat, test, treat, and keep treating until it's
gone. And it's a longer process than you would expect.

[00:34:20] And I'm always interested in what can you
do on your own. You can do charcoal on your own, but don't ever take charcoal
with your other supplements or with medications. 'cause it binds them. So these
are the reasons to work with a professional. Like I have patients who call me
and they're like, I'm taking charcoal. I'm like, Great, when? With my thyroid
medication. I'm like, don't do that. Don't do that. That's making your thyroid
not work. Making your medicine in obsolete 'cause it's binding it.

[00:34:46] So, things that people can do: cold
plunging, sauna, Epsom salt soaks, acupuncture, osteopathy, craniosacral
massage, reiki, all the squishy stuff that make you feel good. All those things
are absolutely supportive of detox. Think about it. If you get rid of toxins in
your pee, poop, or sweat. If you sweat, you're getting rid of toxins, making
sure you're pooping every day. So, magnesium, back to the fiber, cilium husks,
other fiber, eating food, adequate water, because if you don't poop at least
once a day, you're storing toxins.

[00:35:23] And then a lot of them get recycled as
they sit in your gut, which is disgusting. You're essentially recycling what
you don't want . So, yeah, so make sure you're pooping all the squishy stuff,
all the foundational work, right? This takes you a long way. And then the last,
it's not even 20%, it's more like 10%, is to work with a provider who can guide
you through the detox journey. And it takes a couple years. It's not a quick
fix, unfortunately.

[00:35:49] Elizabeth Stein: If there was one thing that you were
going to suggest to someone to make a modification, what would it be?

[00:35:58] Wendie: I really only get one. Huh?

[00:36:00] Elizabeth Stein: Okay, I'll give you three.

[00:36:02] Wendie: Okay. Eat amazing, organic, local, if
possible. Food. That's one. Minimally processed low sugar, amazing quality,
organic food every day. Refrain from drinking alcohol, and manage your
foundational work, meaning get enough sleep, move your body. Don't engage in
toxic relationships. Every day.

[00:36:30] Elizabeth Stein: Love that.

[00:36:30] Wendie: Easy. None of those are easy. Easy to
say, right? Easy to say, but all of those are certainly challenging.

[00:36:43] But I would say, Elizabeth, the one thing
to remember is Rome wasn't built in a day and detox work does not occur
overnight. It's a slow process. So I referred to all these toxins in our makeup
product, so, okay as you're running out of your mascara, that's the thing to
Level Up. Environmental Working Group has amazing resources. You can go and
look up like, okay, what's a highly rated mascara? Buy that instead of buying
the same old, same old, look up what you're about to buy so that you don't continue
to give yourself harmful chemicals and toxins.

[00:37:19] And if you think about it, how many
things you buy over the course of a year, if every time you level up after a
year, you've made a tremendous impact on your health and your family's health,
right? But it takes a while, and you'll screw it up. Have compassion for
yourself.

[00:37:36] It happens. I've screwed it up more times
than I can count. I'm like, oh, I didn't look that up. Oops. Just look it up
next time when you realize it.

[00:37:43] Elizabeth Stein: Yeah, I love that, that step-by-step
approach and like when it comes to organic. Think about the dirty dozen. Think
about the foods that have the most glyphosate, for example, like oats, which we
now have certified glyphosate free oats, which is very exciting. But really
looking at those lists of the worst offenders so that you don't have to be
overwhelmed that every single food that you're eating is organic, for example.

[00:38:11] Wendie: Yeah, and you can do frozen. Frozen's
often much less expensive than fresh, and it's frozen at the peak of its
freshness, and so that's a great substitute if you're in a food desert or
you're traveling, or summer, you can't get to fresh fruit, fruit and
vegetables, you can do frozen.

[00:38:27] Elizabeth Stein: All right. We're gonna move on to some
rapid fire q and a. Three things that you're currently loving.

[00:38:40] Wendy: Well, I live in Boston and I am currently
loving the warm weather. I am currently loving my outdoor, I can't call it a
pond, it's just a water feature. But it just brings me peace, and I'm currently
loving that all my kids are old enough to actually have fun with.

[00:39:01] Elizabeth Stein: Love that Three items always in your
grocery cart.

[00:39:06] Wendie: So organic blueberries or raspberries
kind of go back and forth. If we're doing, Coconut Cult and Bubbies Pickles,
which are fermented pickles.

[00:39:19] Elizabeth Stein: A favorite book for growth or nutrition
book.

[00:39:24] It could be too.

[00:39:25] Wendie: Good to Great.

[00:39:27] Elizabeth Stein: Oh, that's a great one. Your number one
thing in your day to make you feel the best.

[00:39:36] Wendie: I'm not going to answer this question in
the way you want to hear. I should say, Well, I'm going to the gym. I love
going to the gym and working out, but that's not the number one thing.

[00:39:44] Honestly. It's actually that, every
morning, and I don't do anything that you're supposed to do in the order you're
supposed to do it. The minute I wake up...

[00:39:53] Elizabeth Stein: Tell us about your morning.

[00:39:54] Wendy: So I wake up, and the minute I wake up, I
log into my accounts so that I can be reassured that financially we're doing
okay and that we have enough money to pay the bills and that we can have
surplus and so that's the very first thing I do every day is I look into the
bills, I pay the bills, and then I do the crossword.

[00:40:12] I read the New York Times and do the
crossword puzzle: the Spelling Bee, the Wordle I do all the games on the New
York Times. That's my morning. So I would say, that's kind of my favorite thing
to do because it brings me just this sense that everything's gonna be okay and
I get my brain going and I know it's weird ,and I'm sorry in advance.

[00:40:33] Elizabeth Stein: No. It's bringing you peace. I love it.
It's a different answer for sure. But that's what's bringing you relaxation and
peace.

[00:40:39] Wendy: It does.

[00:40:40] Elizabeth Stein: Yeah. Lastly, what is your number one
non-negotiable to thrive on your wellness journey?

[00:40:48] Wendie: I actually would say it's to get enough
rest and set boundaries. Not negotiable is to set boundaries because within
that I get enough rest, I move my body, I eat food that works for me. So set
boundaries. My favorite thing to say to my family is, that doesn't work for me.

[00:41:05] Elizabeth Stein: I have four kids. Tips for setting
boundaries or how you've gotten better at that.

[00:41:10] Yeah.

[00:41:10] Wendy: Yeah, so don't say yes to anything
without taking a deep breath. And in that deep breath asking, does this work
for me? Does it move, touch, and inspire me? And if the answer's no, then on
the exhale you can say, I'm so sorry. I need to decline that invitation. But
thank you so much. That's one.

[00:41:28] Two. Once you're clear about what does
and doesn't work for you, adopt the phrase, that doesn't work for me. Because
nobody can argue with you yes, that works for you. It's not accusatory, it's
not mean, it's not unkind. It's simply that doesn't work for me. You can say,
you could smile, I'm so sorry. That just isn't gonna work for me.

[00:41:50] But nobody argues with you when you do
that. Like I was saying, I have four kids and a husband and they come up with
all these hair brain schemes, and they're like, let's do blahdi blah. Doesn't
matter. Those hair brain schemes always backfire. So, no, I'm not gonna stay up
till 3 in the morning and drive 18 hours without stopping. That doesn't work
for me.

[00:42:10] Go back to Amy Cuddy's work of don't be
afraid to take up space, right? You're here on this earth to make a
contribution. And you make a contribution, you just don't realize the
contribution you're making. So stop apologizing for it because every human is a
gift and you just need to remember that you're a gift.

[00:42:29] Elizabeth Stein: Love that. Well, in closing, where can
everybody find you, your practice?

[00:42:35] Wendy: We have a podcast ourselves called Feel
Freakin Amazing, so you could find me there. And then Instagram and Facebook.
I'm at Wendie Trubow MD and then our practice is five journeys.com. So you can
find me all those.

[00:42:50] Elizabeth Stein: Thank you so much for being here. It was
so great to chat. Thank you. Bye.

[00:42:58] Thanks so much for joining me on Live
Purely with Elizabeth. I hope you feel inspired to thrive on your wellness
journey. If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to rate, subscribe, and
review. You can follow us on Instagram at purely Elizabeth to catch up on all
the latest. See you next Wednesday on the podcast.