Transcript
Speaker: Hello, hello friends and welcome back to the Wholeheartedly Herd Podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host, Laura Pryor, and as you can tell, I've been a little bit under the weather recently, but don't let my lack of voice deter you from tuning in to today's episode.
Speaker: I was joined by my friend Ruth Spess.
Speaker: We met in college and we talked about all things holistic living.
Speaker: We talked about kind of how she came to a point in her life where she wanted to live more holistically and
Speaker: what that looks like for her, and just some practical changes she made in her daily lifestyle.
Speaker: Ruth is a mom and an integrative health practitioner, or IHP2.
Speaker: She focuses on women's health, which includes metabolism, hormones, and fertility.
Speaker: She's passionate about helping women find holistic healing and believes that we were all created with the innate ability to heal and create change in our bodies.
Speaker: You guys, Ruth was so nice to come on and talk with me about...
Speaker: this passion that she has and share her knowledge and expertise on the subject.
Speaker: So please grab your favorite cup of tea, cup of Joe, take your seat at our table and welcome back to the wholeheartedly her podcast.
Speaker: All right, welcome to the show, the show as if I have like this big show.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast, Ruth.
Speaker: I am so glad you can join me this evening.
Speaker: Kind of just, you know, you take it away.
Speaker: Tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do.
Speaker: It's so fun to be on your podcast.
Speaker: So my name's Ruth.
Speaker: I am a mom and wife first and also an integrative health practitioner that focuses mainly on women's health and
Speaker: So yeah, most of the time I am just hanging out with my little 16 month old, but I get to take a select few amount of clients, really just what I have the capacity for each month and
Speaker: work specifically on women's health everything from hormones and fertility to metabolism and thyroid and i've really super enjoyed it it's definitely something that the lord has placed on my heart and it's been a great journey i just started officially seeing clients back in november so still uh in the the beginnings of a business but definitely having a great time and really loving it
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Well, while we're on the subject, just kind of dive into your business.
Speaker: Kind of just tell us a little bit about your business, business name, what you do.
Speaker: So right now, honestly, I didn't have a good name when I started.
Speaker: So it's just Ruth's Best Wellness.
Speaker: You can find me under that anywhere.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: That's original.
Speaker: You're the only Ruth's Best – well, probably not the only one.
Speaker: It's actually a really uncommon name.
Speaker: Like there's really not very many out there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It works.
Speaker: So I do free consultations for anybody that's interested.
Speaker: You can schedule that through my website, which is just Ruth'sBestWellness.com.
Speaker: And that's usually about a 20-minute call.
Speaker: You can schedule there and just see if we're a good fit because truly I like to make sure that –
Speaker: whatever your goals are or something that I can actually help you with.
Speaker: And if not, I love to refer on or, you know, anything like that.
Speaker: So 20 minute call is always a great place to start.
Speaker: And after that, I generally work with people for about three months.
Speaker: I am, I think I'm about to offer a one-time appointment that also includes a lab for people that are interested in that kind of thing.
Speaker: So, um, working on getting that together, but right now,
Speaker: I work with people usually for a three-month period because that's a really good amount of time that we can put in some sustainable habits that are going to carry you through so that you don't need me anymore.
Speaker: And yeah, I work mainly in diet and lifestyle with some supplements and herbs in there as well, just really trying to get down to the root cause of whatever's going on in your life and address it from a holistic standpoint.
Speaker: So tell us, like, did you go to college for this?
Speaker: Like what started this whole like passion for working with women, helping them figure out underlying health issues?
Speaker: Just what kind of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I went to college as a natural science major and graduated with that degree, which is really close to biology.
Speaker: It just leaves a little bit more wiggle room for you to pick some of your classes and
Speaker: with the mindset of going to PA school.
Speaker: So that was my goal was to go to PA school.
Speaker: I graduated and started applying and just really, really felt like that's not what the Lord had for me.
Speaker: I just didn't have a piece about it.
Speaker: I think that PAs are wonderful things.
Speaker: But it just didn't fit how I wanted to work with women and all of that.
Speaker: So during that same time, I was actually dealing with some of my own hormonal issues after being on birth control.
Speaker: and trying to address those holistically, which I'd always been just like a little bit of a hippie, I'll say.
Speaker: I've just always been really interested in what the body can do naturally.
Speaker: So I already kind of leaned that direction.
Speaker: But then once I encountered my own like hormonal difficulties, that's what –
Speaker: really just dove me headfirst even farther into the holistic world.
Speaker: And yeah, so then through a series of events, I found this integrative health practitioner program, which is a online certification that is separate from like a university.
Speaker: It's actually, it's created by a naturopathic doctor, which I applied and got accepted to go to naturopathic medical school, but then decided to
Speaker: after a series of events, that that was not what the Lord had for me in that season of life, partly because we found out we were pregnant with Thomas and I didn't want to be in med school and a mom at the same time.
Speaker: Power to all the moms that do that, but I did not want to be that.
Speaker: No, no, not for now, maybe later, but motherhood in and of itself is just, that's a whole other thing.
Speaker: So doing med school and
Speaker: It really would have.
Speaker: And I know there's people that do it and they do it so well, but I just knew I was like, that is not the life that I can handle.
Speaker: So I found the integrative health practitioner program, which was created by a naturopathic doctor, which is what I was going to go do.
Speaker: So it just made a lot of sense.
Speaker: It worked out.
Speaker: I could complete the certification online and at my own pace too, which was really great.
Speaker: So
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you're out there and you're interested in like holistic health, that's a avenue that a lot of people don't look at, but it's,
Speaker: It's a great option.
Speaker: I love that you used your personal life experience to kind of propel you into this new atmosphere that you were – I mean, you were still a little familiar with it, you said, but it was just – it was still new.
Speaker: You used your personal experience and now you're helping other women and I'm sure you're using your story to just kind of help them get to the root of their – any health issues, stuff like that.
Speaker: So you said you kind of were always, not always a hippie, but a little bit of a hippie at heart.
Speaker: And I love that you say that.
Speaker: So what was there like, you mentioned that you had some of your own personal health issues.
Speaker: Was there any like pinpointed moment in your life where you're like, you know what?
Speaker: the modern American lifestyle is not for me.
Speaker: I need to choose something else.
Speaker: So I always joke that my mom was crunchy before it was cool.
Speaker: So she's always been a little bit more holistically minded, which is amazing.
Speaker: She actually had all seven of us kids naturally, which is like
Speaker: power to her.
Speaker: So that kind of my mom's mindset kind of, I don't know, set me up to kind of think a little bit that way.
Speaker: But then also I was homeschooled until high school and just really always got to pursue my interest in health like freely, which I think was really huge for me.
Speaker: It was also great to go to public school and high school and get that like mixture of the two.
Speaker: I would also like to point out that Ruth played football.
Speaker: Can we like take a side tangent and talk about how you played in your high school football team?
Speaker: I think I met you when you were still in high school.
Speaker: You might have been a junior or senior.
Speaker: Or like the summer before.
Speaker: And I was like, this girl's legit.
Speaker: Like she's the coolest.
Speaker: It was really fun and they were super great.
Speaker: Like it was a really good,
Speaker: environment to be in.
Speaker: And I was thankful I got to do it, but it was just, I played soccer my whole life and played soccer at OBU and my high school didn't have soccer.
Speaker: So I just would always play club and just run track at school.
Speaker: But the football coach that was there at the time was like, Hey, why don't you kick a field goal or two and just see, see how it goes.
Speaker: And
Speaker: They didn't have anybody that was filling that position.
Speaker: And so then I did and they were like, okay, well, what do you want to, you want to kick field goals for us?
Speaker: And it was really great and fun and I enjoyed it.
Speaker: But yeah, it's kind of a fun, I forget that that even happened, but yeah.
Speaker: It was a good time.
Speaker: Oh, that's like the first thing when I met you, I was like – I could not let go of that.
Speaker: I was like, oh my gosh, she plays on her football team.
Speaker: That is just so cool.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Anyways, so sorry to interrupt.
Speaker: I just could not let that pass.
Speaker: I was just – But yeah, and then whenever I started having my own health issues after being on birth control, I started having like a whole slew of hormonal issues coming up.
Speaker: I –
Speaker: was having like hormonal acne, more painful periods than I had before.
Speaker: And I was getting like pain throughout my cycle.
Speaker: Um, and I had a couple of cysts as well.
Speaker: I was just like all over the place.
Speaker: I started listening to podcasts.
Speaker: Actually, I think that was probably the big one for me.
Speaker: And, um, one of them
Speaker: talked a lot about hormonal imbalances and all the things and natural ways to go about it.
Speaker: And I just loved it and dove in.
Speaker: Me and my husband actually did a couple of parasite cleanses.
Speaker: That was kind of one of the first things that we did.
Speaker: I think that's a lot.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Like together, especially after we got married.
Speaker: And for those that are wondering, I don't think this is like in the office when you swallow a worm to like make yourself skinnier.
Speaker: I think this is like ridding your body of the face.
Speaker: Yeah, there's like truly most...
Speaker: like holistic practitioners will tell you that if you have a pulse, you have a parasite, like they're just everywhere.
Speaker: And it's not something to freak out about.
Speaker: Like in some cases they do have like a symbiotic relationship with us and they're helpful.
Speaker: It's just one of those things where it's, it can be easy when you're living a standard American lifestyle for those imbalances to really like
Speaker: thrive and then you might end up with like a whole bunch of parasites that you don't need that can cause a whole lot of issues.
Speaker: So yeah, we did that and it was, it worked.
Speaker: I'll say that we saw some parasites and it,
Speaker: my hormones did like rapidly start improving and then we got pregnant like right after that so I think that that was definitely a part of it all that to say if you work with me I don't usually just put you on a parasite cleanse so don't worry about that that's good to know I mean that would still be pretty cool but I know it's not for everyone like I it would take a lot of
Speaker: hyping me up to be like, all right, you're going to see some parasites come out of you in a few days.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, honestly, you don't have to.
Speaker: Unless you like are curious, then you would never know.
Speaker: And it's really not super intense.
Speaker: I don't like to do like things that are
Speaker: super intense because that's usually also very stressful for the body.
Speaker: So it's, I love to do like gentle things that where your body's not going to like freak out, but it's still going to make some progress.
Speaker: And that's, those are the types of parasite cleanses that I'm like, yes, do that.
Speaker: But not, maybe not like the crazy ones.
Speaker: So on the birth control subject, and I know this is kind of a touchy subject, so I don't want to dive too deep, but I was the same way.
Speaker: I was on birth control for not very long, a lot
Speaker: less time compared to a lot of people I know.
Speaker: I was on it from about April of 2018, like right before we got married until like October of the same year.
Speaker: And it was so crazy because I had never gone to a gynecologist first off.
Speaker: Like I was just so new to like women's health.
Speaker: And I was like, well, I'm about to get married.
Speaker: So I should probably get on that so I don't get pregnant.
Speaker: And I knew there were other options other than like,
Speaker: like a copper IUD or the pill or like other forms of like hormonal birth control.
Speaker: But it wasn't something again, like at that point that I was really interested in pursuing, but I knew they existed.
Speaker: But I remember vividly when I was talking to my first gynecologist about the,
Speaker: forms of birth control, she was like, well, it's pretty much the IUD or the pill like you choose.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker: So I just got on the pill and it was like the lowest dosage, I think.
Speaker: And I stopped having periods.
Speaker: I was super, super like anxious and really moody.
Speaker: And I was, I mean, I'm not like a perfect, like chill person all the time, but I've never struggled with depression and anxiety like I did when I was on the pill.
Speaker: And so I remember I went back to her
Speaker: a few months after we got married and I was like, you know, this is weird.
Speaker: Like, I don't have a period.
Speaker: And she was like, well, that's just, that's what happens.
Speaker: That's normal.
Speaker: Like, that happens to everyone who's on the pill or, like, some people that are on the pill.
Speaker: And I was just like, but that can't be normal.
Speaker: That's how my body prepares to one day, like,
Speaker: create and carry a child so I don't know that's just my random thoughts on birth control like obviously I end up getting off of it and we personally do like the natural family or the what is it um fertility awareness method and um so yeah anyone anyone struggling out there I get a lot of dms every time I share about my like anti-birth control campaign um like there's a lot of women out there who are like oh that like x y or z maybe that's you know from birth control I'm like well I'm not gonna diagnose you because I'm not a medical professional but
Speaker: Yeah, it probably is.
Speaker: And I know a lot of women are very scared to like do like a natural family planning or like fertility awareness method.
Speaker: And I just want to say that I was off birth control from October 2018 until December of 2021.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not once in there did we get pregnant, have any type of pregnancy scare.
Speaker: And like if you just do like a pretty minimal amount of research, you can figure out your cycle pretty easily.
Speaker: Like was that your – I don't know.
Speaker: I guess I'm assuming that you guys do fertility awareness.
Speaker: Was that kind of your discovery as well?
Speaker: tells you like, no, you're going to get pregnant if you're not on birth control.
Speaker: Like don't even try the natural stuff.
Speaker: That's a way to fail, but it's really not true.
Speaker: Like I have a close friend that doesn't personally, she doesn't ever want to have kids and she's married and her and her husband do the, the fertility awareness method very successfully and have like never had a scare.
Speaker: And it is like proven to be just as successful as birth control when it's done correctly.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: like the whole 99 or 98% effective.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: And too, like it just gets you in touch with your body, which is really great.
Speaker: Like there's so much that you can learn about your body just from paying attention to your
Speaker: monthly cycle it's kind of like a report card of like oh here's how you've been doing the last three months what it's like a free lab you know and like we so like we do that and like we've never had a scare but like i will say that i do know someone personally who they did try i don't know if they followed it like i don't know how well they followed it but they got pregnant pretty quickly
Speaker: I think their oldest or their first was like nine or ten months when they got pregnant.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like obviously there's not like a fail safe.
Speaker: It's like saying that breastfeeding is a, you know, it's a contraceptive.
Speaker: Like, yeah, you got to pay attention to like your body and the signs, like multiple signs instead of just like.
Speaker: one or two, you know.
Speaker: And like I use like the daisy.
Speaker: I don't know if you've heard of that.
Speaker: It's like the thermometer pretty much.
Speaker: I use the daisy and that's pretty much all I relied on until we started trying to get pregnant.
Speaker: But I listened to a really great podcast and I'll link it in the description of this episode that just talked about like the biomarkers that your body gives off when you're ovulating or like, you know, X, Y, or Z when you're most fertile.
Speaker: And
Speaker: And it was so funny.
Speaker: And this is probably TMI, but you know, whatever.
Speaker: It's mostly women probably who listen to this.
Speaker: But we tried for the first time to get pregnant in November of 2021.
Speaker: And we weren't successful, but...
Speaker: Looking back, we did not know what we were doing.
Speaker: Like, I mean, we did, obviously, but it was just, I was putting so, so much, like, emphasis on it.
Speaker: And then when I just stopped and was like, okay, I know my cycle.
Speaker: I know my biomarkers.
Speaker: And I really just paid attention to my body instead of, like, trying to calculate everything.
Speaker: We got pregnant super easy.
Speaker: And I know we're blessed.
Speaker: I know it's not that easy for everyone.
Speaker: And like, I really do sympathize with those people who struggle with fertility.
Speaker: And I never want to come off as like nonchalant about that.
Speaker: But yeah, just kind of paying attention to my body and knowing my body because no one knows your body better than you do.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: I don't know, to like circle kind of back towards the birth control topic.
Speaker: Like one of the things that I think is not really well known about that is that you aren't ovulating every month.
Speaker: So the bleed that some people have is not, it's not a true period.
Speaker: It's just a withdrawal bleed from,
Speaker: from not taking the, you know, synthetic hormones that you were.
Speaker: So that's like the communication there between your brain and your ovaries is just basically severed.
Speaker: chemically by the birth control pill and that's one of the ways that it can really affect your hormones in the long term that and it has some others and this is a question I get quite a bit when I share about birth control and like being off of it or whatever I do have some friends on Instagram who struggle with PCOS or endometriosis stuff like that and birth control is really like the I think it's probably the pill is like their only form of relief from those symptoms and
Speaker: Um, well, I mean, I don't want to put you in like a weird position, hot seat or anything, but like, do you have any words of like encouragement for those ladies who might want to like get off hormonal birth control?
Speaker: Like it can be a reliever of symptoms, but it's never going to get down to the root cause of what's going on.
Speaker: And it's, you know, it's not created to do that at all.
Speaker: so there are absolutely ways that your body can heal naturally a lot of times there's a liver component of like your liver not being able to detox hormones if effectively because it might be missing some of the nutrients required or something like that a lot of times it can be linked towards estrogen dominance which is really just rampant right now and that's when your estrogen to progesterone ratio is off
Speaker: And so you have a whole lot more estrogen than progesterone when you really want the two to be in balance.
Speaker: So there's a lot of herbs out there that are really great for like PCOS and stuff like that.
Speaker: There's one of my favorite companies for that is Organic Olivia and she has a flow balance that I usually use with PCOS clients.
Speaker: And it can be really helpful.
Speaker: So there's little things like that.
Speaker: There's also like things that can help with the symptoms as well.
Speaker: And it's going to be different for every person depending on like their own personal health history.
Speaker: So I can't like give blanket advice by any means, but I can say that.
Speaker: There is absolutely hope to heal that naturally.
Speaker: And I have seen it happen.
Speaker: I know people that it has worked for.
Speaker: It does take, you know, some time and effort, but there is absolutely hope.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: You were talking about like the little things you can do to change that diagnosis.
Speaker: What are some little things like
Speaker: For those of us like me, like I'm not, I wouldn't say like crunchy per se, but I do like to try to tie in small, like holistic ways into my lifestyle.
Speaker: What are like a few ways if someone out there is like, you know, I would really like to try to live more holistically, but like it's so expensive or it's so much effort or, you know, whatever, a multitude of reasons.
Speaker: Just tell us like some little ways that they can start living more holistically.
Speaker: I think one of the biggest things is just eating food.
Speaker: as many whole foods as you can and, you know, avoiding processed food when you can, that doesn't mean, you know, never have a chip or something like that.
Speaker: It just means like, like the majority of the time, you know, maybe 80% of the time, that's what you really focus on as like your staples and whole foods just means, you know, foods that aren't
Speaker: packaged or processed.
Speaker: So that's like your, it's going to be your fruits, vegetables, your, most of your dairy products, some of them would probably be considered more processed if they have more additives in there and then like meats and you know, the cold sections of the grocery store.
Speaker: So that's really huge is just focusing on whole foods and, um, especially for women, a lot of times we don't get enough protein.
Speaker: And that's really big for a lot of reasons.
Speaker: One of those is balancing your blood sugar, which just takes a whole lot of stress off of your body.
Speaker: And then another reason is because your liver needs adequate protein in order to function and in order to detox the right way.
Speaker: So if we are under eating protein, our body's going to be like, okay, well, I need to use this protein to repair heart muscle.
Speaker: Sorry, liver, you don't get to
Speaker: detox efficiently today because we have some other top priorities going on.
Speaker: So that's why I like protein that can be kind of huge.
Speaker: And then, um,
Speaker: Being mindful of your polyunsaturated fatty acid intake, which that's a big word.
Speaker: It just means like your canola oils, your seed oils, your corn oils.
Speaker: Being mindful of that intake whenever you can is huge.
Speaker: Really, they can like hardly be considered food because they are pretty much lab made.
Speaker: They're extremely processed.
Speaker: And they can just cause a whole slew of health issues.
Speaker: They've been, you know, like proven to cause cancer and heart disease and metabolic dysfunction and hormone issues and all of the things.
Speaker: So that's huge.
Speaker: And my like, probably my biggest one that's just underrated is eating consistently.
Speaker: And especially for women trying to eat within 30 minutes of waking up,
Speaker: and then eating consistently throughout the day is just so huge for your overall health and keeping your stress hormones low and really giving your body the fuel that it needs.
Speaker: So when we talk about fuel and like I'm not trying to turn you into like all of our personal nutritionist or health guru or anything, but you were talking earlier about like drinking milk and eating meat.
Speaker: So I feel like so often we see like eat this impossible burger or get this coffee with oat milk in it.
Speaker: So are you telling – this is obviously in a very sarcastic tone, but are you telling me that these things that come from the beautiful earth that God gave us are actually healthy for us?
Speaker: Like the things that people haven't been eating for hundreds of years are not the things that are causing your health issues.
Speaker: It's just not.
Speaker: It's the processed things.
Speaker: It's our modern-day lifestyle and standard American diet.
Speaker: but it's not the meat or the milk.
Speaker: Carbs bad for you?
Speaker: Listen.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Carbs are – your body's preferred source of fuel is glucose.
Speaker: And yes, it can use other forms.
Speaker: It can absolutely eventually turn protein and fat into glucose.
Speaker: But that is a major stress on your body and it comes with a cost.
Speaker: And that cost is often slowing down your metabolism.
Speaker: If you are not getting adequate carb intake, your body is going to say, all right, we'll make it from your muscle instead, which just further slows down your metabolism because muscle is like so crucial for having muscle.
Speaker: a strong, healthy metabolism.
Speaker: I love that you're talking about this because on my last week, I don't know if you listened to last week's episode, but I had my friend Sydney on and she struggled or still struggles with a chronic illness, rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker: And so she's had to like drastically change her eating habits.
Speaker: And we were also talking about how like seed oils were the cause of a lot of inflammation and acne.
Speaker: And the doctor's like, Oh, here's a pill.
Speaker: This will fix it.
Speaker: And she was like,
Speaker: I don't think that's correct.
Speaker: And so I thought it was so funny that she was talking about the same things that you were.
Speaker: She also discussed like the 80-20 lifestyle.
Speaker: But anyway, talk to us about like the 80-20 lifestyle.
Speaker: Like what, what is that?
Speaker: What does that mean?
Speaker: Because so often I think that those of, or not those of us as a part of that group, but like people who don't live, like they just live a hundred percent like
Speaker: just the modern American lifestyle, which is totally fine.
Speaker: But they look at like the holistic community and they're like, oh, they're always just like picking the herbs from the ground and grinding them up and drinking them in their morning tea or whatever.
Speaker: And they don't do, they don't eat donuts or Doritos or candy or anything.
Speaker: Kind of talk about the A&T lifestyle.
Speaker: I just feel like it's taking responsibility for your health, but also having that open hand of knowing that like I can't control everything and I'm not going to try to control everything.
Speaker: And I also know that like
Speaker: My body is resilient and I don't have to freak out about it.
Speaker: every little toxin.
Speaker: Our bodies are resilient, especially when we are supporting them really well.
Speaker: They can handle things.
Speaker: We don't have to freak out about every little thing.
Speaker: So that's what I just really try to shift my mindset from like, oh, no, a seed oil or a toxin or synthetic fragrance to like my body is resilient and it's going to take care of it.
Speaker: And I
Speaker: I know that the rest of the time, the 80% of the time, I'm supporting it to do what it needs to do.
Speaker: And I don't need to stress about the 20% that I'm eating Mexican food and getting a margarita.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I don't think it's like – it's not feasible.
Speaker: to freak out.
Speaker: And I'm sure people have like their reasons to freak out over like if they come in contact with a synthetic fragrance or, you know, eat a donut or whatever.
Speaker: But, you know, it's just not, it's not healthy, literally.
Speaker: It's not healthy for you to, you know, freak out over everything like at my work.
Speaker: I swear, like, every – I don't know if I just smell bad or something.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But every time I walk in the bathroom, that stupid little perfume thing on the wall just goes off right in my face.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, stop it.
Speaker: Because I hate – I am so, like, sensitive to scents.
Speaker: Not because I'm just, like, high maintenance.
Speaker: But I really, like, especially when I was pregnant, I was like, oh, my gosh.
Speaker: Like, if I smelled even, like, the faintest perfume, I couldn't even walk past, like, Lush or Victoria's Secret in the mall without just, like, wanting to throw up.
Speaker: And I'll say, like, sometimes there's a season of life where maybe it needs to be a little bit more 95.
Speaker: five, if you're in a season of healing and like your body's not to like you, maybe you are recovering from some hormonal imbalances or you have had a hard diagnosis that you're working on or something like that.
Speaker: Those are times when I'm like, okay, that it's okay.
Speaker: And within reason to be a little bit more strict with things, but it's also with that goal of like, my body will heal and be resilient.
Speaker: And this won't be something that I
Speaker: have to be super strict on forever.
Speaker: And that's so true with like everything.
Speaker: I feel like with everything in life, there's different seasons to be a little more strict and a little more, you know, not strict.
Speaker: Do you have anything like you would say, because we're talking about like those who might, you know, just like really focus on every minute detail of living holistically.
Speaker: What about the other side of the spectrum?
Speaker: Those who are like, oh, those hippy dippy crunchy people, you know.
Speaker: they don't even, it's just all in their head.
Speaker: I mean, honestly, personally, I don't ever try to convince those people.
Speaker: I mean, it's, that's fine if that's what, what they believe and they are happy with their life, all the power to them.
Speaker: Um, I think for me, it's just, I do want to steward my body very well.
Speaker: And
Speaker: live life and have a very capable body to do whatever the Lord has called me to do.
Speaker: So to me, I feel like the Lord has called me to really learn about my physiology and in turn help other people learn about their physiology
Speaker: so that they can just best steward their lives, really.
Speaker: I'm not trying to say that people that don't do the things that I do are not stewarding their body well, but I think that being conscious and mindful of what we put in our bodies is something that we probably should do.
Speaker: And if you are conscious and mindful and you're doing other things, that's completely fine.
Speaker: But yeah, I just think it's about like honoring the way that God designed our bodies and
Speaker: trying to support our physiology the best way we know how.
Speaker: That's a really good answer.
Speaker: I really appreciate like your honesty and your like open-mindedness about this topic.
Speaker: I feel like so often when we have conversations about, I wouldn't even say holistic living is like a hot button, but it can be very like, I don't know, like triggering or just,
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: People make a big to do about nothing sometimes.
Speaker: But I feel like all of your answers and your discussion on this has been very like compassionate and open minded and just like, you know, this is what works for me.
Speaker: Everyone's wired differently.
Speaker: Everyone's made differently in the image of God.
Speaker: And like what works for you might not work for me or what works for me might not work for you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I feel like the Lord's been like growing me into that perspective.
Speaker: I definitely like used to be a lot more strict with myself and like just
Speaker: definitely probably leaned more into like the orthorexia where you are like super strict on the foods that you eat and things like that.
Speaker: And I think that the Lord's just really been working on my heart to, to be more balanced and not so black and white, you know, everything's nuanced.
Speaker: Well, this has been such a great discussion so far.
Speaker: Before we leave, I wanted to get into a few of these Instagram questions that people submitted.
Speaker: There's only a few of them.
Speaker: I thought about submitting my own question for myself.
Speaker: You should have.
Speaker: I submitted one and then I...
Speaker: Literally, I don't – I'm trying to find which one – oh, there it is.
Speaker: It's literally like, where to start living holistically?
Speaker: You've already answered that.
Speaker: So, awesome.
Speaker: My question doesn't even count anymore.
Speaker: No, but the few people that ask questions, they get theirs read first now.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: So, let's just start it out with like super fun and spicy.
Speaker: Does holistic living mean that you're anti-vax and pro-essential oils?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You just take it away in the hot seat.
Speaker: We're just going to start out real political.
Speaker: I would say in my experience with the holistic community and my personal perspective on vaccines is not that no one should be vaccinated.
Speaker: It's more so just that everyone should have the right to decide for their own family.
Speaker: And that everyone should have full informed consent of knowing all of the risks and all of the benefits and being able to weigh those for themselves and for their own family.
Speaker: It's where I think, I mean, where I get upset about vaccines is if the risks are really downplayed, the benefits are not represented well and
Speaker: there's not a true informed consent going on.
Speaker: And also, I just really think that everyone should be able to choose without the need for exemptions.
Speaker: So that is my personal opinion.
Speaker: I just think that people deserve agency over their body and that
Speaker: they are smart enough to read the risks and the benefits and make decisions for themselves.
Speaker: As far as the essential oils go, I personally am not a super big essential oil fan.
Speaker: I definitely have used them there in some of my products.
Speaker: I'm not just super anti, but I think that it can get really out of hand and people
Speaker: end up putting them on everything.
Speaker: And they are, I mean, plants are powerful and the essential oil is a very concentrated part of the plant that was designed to protect the plant.
Speaker: So it's essentially kind of like a plant toxin that was there to protect the plant from, you know, bugs or whatever else might be coming at it.
Speaker: When you take that and super concentrate it, it can have negative effects for humans as well.
Speaker: Some essential oils are extremely estrogenic, which can imbalance your hormones and things like that.
Speaker: It's just one of those things where it's going to be different for each person and I wouldn't just blindly put essential oils on everything or anything like that.
Speaker: It's just…
Speaker: you know, plants are powerful and that's the way the Lord designed them.
Speaker: So we do have to take some like caution with that.
Speaker: I don't think anyone really thinks about that.
Speaker: I think they see like essential oil or like this product is made with essential oils and they think, oh, it's automatically healthier.
Speaker: And again, everything has its pros and its cons, even the things that seem to be, you know, very healthy.
Speaker: And so like for me, when you told me that for the first time, I was like,
Speaker: wait, these aren't like 100% like perfect for me to use, you know, whatever.
Speaker: I think one time when I got really, really, you'll laugh at this.
Speaker: I got very desperate one time when I was sick.
Speaker: I could not like breathe because I was so congested.
Speaker: And it was like that congestion you can't even blow out of your nose.
Speaker: It was just like my face was a rock of snot in the worst possible way.
Speaker: And so I was like,
Speaker: you know what, I have never used essential oils ever before.
Speaker: And of course, I thought that I didn't even need to research anything.
Speaker: But I was like, I'm so desperate that I took peppermint and eucalyptus oil, just dabbed my finger, put it under my nose.
Speaker: That wasn't that bad because it was a couple of drops.
Speaker: Then I put it on my chest, and I straight up thought I was having a heart attack because it just, like, froze my – it was horrible.
Speaker: I was like, why didn't I research this?
Speaker: And then, of course, I learned, like, hey, you shouldn't apply this directly to your skin because it could burn your skin off.
Speaker: So I was like, that's awesome, never doing that again.
Speaker: But, yeah, just a fair warning to anyone out there.
Speaker: Like, even the healthy products can hurt you if you don't use them correctly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sometimes we have to realize that a lot of times the people defining what is healthy and what's not healthy have money involved in whatever's going on.
Speaker: Even like deciding if kale is healthy or not.
Speaker: Like somebody has some stake in that.
Speaker: Well, yeah, because the kale farmers are going to be like, oh, this is amazing.
Speaker: But the spinach farmers are going to be like, no, no, kale is not the healthiest spinach is.
Speaker: Let's get into some of the other questions.
Speaker: Okay, so we kind of talked about this earlier, how you kind of had to, like, gain a more healthy mindset about your holistic living.
Speaker: But just kind of, like, talk about how you personally keep a healthy mindset about holistic choices.
Speaker: Knowing that...
Speaker: I'm not ever going to be 100% perfect or be able to 100% avoid toxins.
Speaker: But really the biggest thing that I feel like has shifted my mindset personally is looking at my body as resilient.
Speaker: And like I know I said that earlier, but truly that is huge of like –
Speaker: It just gives you a lot of peace of mind when you're entering situations that are stressful or you don't have a lot of control over to just be like, yes, this might not be ideal, but my body is resilient and it's going to handle it just fine because –
Speaker: That's exactly what the Lord created my body to do.
Speaker: So I'd say that that's the biggest thing for me.
Speaker: And also just like really understanding my physiology better has been great to actually help me to –
Speaker: live a little bit freer.
Speaker: Whenever I didn't have a good understanding of my physiology and like my metabolism especially, I was definitely a lot more strict.
Speaker: But once I figured out that like calorie restricting was not it, it was not going to lead me down a road of health, but it was actually going to slow down my metabolism and just cause a whole lot of other issues.
Speaker: And, you know, I learned that sugar is not the devil.
Speaker: It can be really supportive in certain situations and very supportive for your thyroid as long as you're consuming it in a blood sugar balanced way.
Speaker: Those little things of just understanding my physiology a lot better.
Speaker: really helped to like free my mind.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: That's such a like, that's just literally and figuratively healthy way to live.
Speaker: I think, I think that's kind of the root of it is like, like obviously for me and like the whole birth control thing, once I realized like, it's not a matter of like, oh, I got to be careful so I don't get pregnant.
Speaker: It's a matter of like, hey, your body is going to tell you when it's wanting to get pregnant or, you
Speaker: Hey, you really can only get pregnant like three to five days out of the entire month.
Speaker: Granted, you know, all depends on your cycle, but on average, that's, you know, kind of what we're looking at for most women.
Speaker: Um, just knowing your body and understanding your body and like, you know, the,
Speaker: just the roots and the physiology of everything.
Speaker: That's just so freeing.
Speaker: Like for me, like once I kind of understood that it wasn't a matter.
Speaker: And like, I think that's why we got pregnant the second time we tried is because I wasn't focusing on like the literal math and like, what's this ovulation test telling me?
Speaker: Oh, what's my temperature telling me?
Speaker: And I literally remember walking in the bathroom without giving too much information, realizing my biomarker.
Speaker: I told Ian, I was like, all right, let's go.
Speaker: We're going to get pregnant.
Speaker: You give...
Speaker: people knowledge and they will make the decisions that are best for them.
Speaker: And that's, I think that's what bothers me sometimes about our conventional system is it's not really focused on teaching people about their bodies.
Speaker: It's just focused on like, okay, do this for this or do that for that.
Speaker: And I truly believe whenever you teach people about their body, they will make the decision that's best for them.
Speaker: I think I was telling Ian this recently.
Speaker: Well, it must have been at least a couple of months ago because when we were beginning to talk about vaccinations for Arthur and I was just talking about how
Speaker: Our modern health system is not set up to like, hey, let's do X, Y, and Z before the problem arises so we can prevent the problem and keep our bodies healthy.
Speaker: It's, oh, we sold you these products that caused you a problem.
Speaker: Here's another product that we can sell you and make money off of so we can make you feel a little bit better.
Speaker: But it's not actually fixing the problem.
Speaker: And obviously, I think there is a time and place for it.
Speaker: doctors in modern medicine because like that that is a beauty of some some of the aspects of modern medicine is like you know like maternal and fetal mortality rates as a whole are you know i think they're down i was talking with someone recently i did talk about it yeah you recently i said i can't remember who was telling you in uh developed countries in like first world countries the u.s actually has one of the worst maternal mortality rates and i think that that's kind of
Speaker: misrepresented sometimes because we really view birth as an emergency.
Speaker: And like you said, conventional medicine is absolutely necessary and life-saving in a lot of situations.
Speaker: I think we just tend to treat things as an emergency that maybe aren't one.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: I totally agree.
Speaker: Like, and again, with everything, there's a time and place.
Speaker: And I think there is absolutely a time and place for modern medicine to be like, oh yeah, this is an actual issue.
Speaker: Let's, here's like a medication that can help you.
Speaker: But I would say kind of on average, like if you're looking at the average, like health condition, yeah, it can be like helped and kind of like
Speaker: mitigated, I guess, with a medication, but you aren't going to always solve like the root cause just by throwing a pill at it.
Speaker: Our modern medicine system is just not really set up for chronic illness and
Speaker: they are really good at mitigating symptoms, but our bodies are just so connected.
Speaker: And if we kind of get in trouble whenever we start viewing everything as separate of like, oh, take this and it's not going to affect this or that.
Speaker: It's just going to do what we want it to.
Speaker: When in reality, everything is just so connected.
Speaker: And so a lot of times we do, you know, we have one symptom, so we use something for that and it creates another symptom.
Speaker: But
Speaker: You might not even make the connection that those things are related because they're in completely different organ systems.
Speaker: And obviously, when we're talking about this, I don't want anyone to feel ashamed for like, oh my gosh, I took Tylenol for a headache today instead of laying out in the sun.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And like we've said earlier, if that's what works for you, great.
Speaker: But this is more for people who are like, hey, I've had this, you know, like with my friend Sydney last week, I've had this rheumatoid arthritis and I've had these symptoms for X amount of years and nothing's helping, you know, and these pills are giving me horrible allergic reactions to the point that like she was in the ER at least a couple of times.
Speaker: And, um, but then again, like she finally, she was like, let's dig into this more.
Speaker: And we start, we, you know, she talked about like the seed oils and just like other inflammatory issues that were really contributing not only to her allergic reactions, but to her chronic illness as a whole.
Speaker: And so I think, I think at the end of the day, I don't want to like demonize like
Speaker: medication or modern medicine because like you said, there is a time and place.
Speaker: But when it's the only solution given, like you're in a place in your life where the symptom needs to be treated and that's a great time to use medication and whatever people choose to do with their bodies is their right and their decision.
Speaker: But yeah, like you said, I think if for people that want to dig deeper into
Speaker: that opportunity is there and there's, you know, there's room for treating things at a root cause level for sure.
Speaker: Let's move on to the last question before we get canceled.
Speaker: And this is my last podcast episode ever.
Speaker: Um, and this is one that I'm just going to ask because I thought of it and, um, I think a lot of people would like to know the answer to it.
Speaker: Do you have any podcasts or books or, um, good articles even, uh, for our friends out there who are wanting to research a more holistic lifestyle?
Speaker: So that's, um, for me, podcasts have been huge.
Speaker: There are some really great ones out there.
Speaker: My, my favorite right now for women's health is Freely Rooted podcast.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: It's just really great at really coming from a physiological perspective and just trying to support your body as a whole, especially like through your metabolism and thyroid.
Speaker: So that one's really great.
Speaker: Also, the Are You Menstrual podcast is really good too.
Speaker: It's really focused on women's health and just minerals and a lot of – she really like deep dives on a lot of great things.
Speaker: So that's a really good one.
Speaker: I'll say since having Thomas, I haven't read very many books.
Speaker: But – Oh, I haven't either.
Speaker: I'm literally – my mother-in-law got me a really good like devotional book.
Speaker: I'm like just starting to read.
Speaker: I like started trying to read books again after he was born.
Speaker: But I was like I waited too long or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And every time I turned the page, he would turn around and be like, mom, I want to read too.
Speaker: And I was like, I love that.
Speaker: I need to get you and like a couple other people on just to like talk about postpartum because it's a literal other crock of issues because no one really does postpartum.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: And like someone that you might want to like consider for one of those things is my business partner, Dr. Madeline Mills.
Speaker: She is –
Speaker: She's a chiropractor and is super great.
Speaker: She focuses on prenatal and pediatric and she's just really super great.
Speaker: Comes from a Christian background and really puts God into everything that she does, which is so beautiful.
Speaker: So she would be a great person to
Speaker: She is really good at talking about emotional roots to things, which is a gift that I do not have.
Speaker: So we kind of make a good team because she looks at a lot of issues from an emotional root cause and I look at a physical root cause.
Speaker: So then whenever we get to team up together, it's like,
Speaker: The bases are covered.
Speaker: That's why you guys are such great business partners.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I totally interrupted you, though.
Speaker: Did you have any other podcasts or even Instagram profiles that you follow?
Speaker: I know when I've asked you a couple of random questions, you're like, I don't know the answer to that, but here is your expert as a person you should follow who might have a good highlight over it.
Speaker: I know that you have to be careful on Instagram because not everyone...
Speaker: is maybe sharing the most like scientifically but i can say there are some accounts out there that are sharing great information that you can absolutely trust and some of those are um the hormone healing rd who is the
Speaker: does the R U Minstrel podcast.
Speaker: And then also Corey Malloy and Fallon Danae.
Speaker: And let's see, I'll definitely send you the handles for all these.
Speaker: Dr. Courtney, Kayla, really great.
Speaker: And honestly, a lot of their opinions are a little like countercultural to even the holistic community in a lot of ways.
Speaker: Like they're going to be like, hey,
Speaker: maybe eat a little bit less leafy green vegetables and a little bit more steak oh i love that we just had steak for dinner i literally okay sidebar i we had steak and potatoes for dinner tonight and i was joking or ian was joking and he was like here you go arthur you want me to puree some steak i was like no no um ruth said we could just give him steak so just give him a whole steak for dinner he would just gnaw on it and like get all the juices out and just have a
Speaker: have a great time like he absolutely loved it and I think it's been really great because he really he doesn't really struggle to eat protein I think that that's kind of a struggle for a lot of kids which I totally understand but he's like give me the meat okay
Speaker: Thank you so much, Ruth, for coming on today and letting me just have this fun conversation.
Speaker: Before we go, we've talked about where to find everyone else online.
Speaker: Where do we find you and connect with you and your business online?
Speaker: Yeah, so I am on Instagram as Ruth Spess, super simple.
Speaker: That's S-P-E-S-S.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: And then my website is just ruthsbestwellness.com.
Speaker: And yeah, that's really, I am truly working on my online presence and I have not been super consistent at it quite yet, but we're getting there.
Speaker: A lot of times I feel bad because I'm like, oh, I need to be a little bit better at my online presence.
Speaker: But then I feel like the Lord reminds me, actually, you just need to keep like working with the clients that you have right now and
Speaker: That has been super fruitful and definitely, like, the Lord's right there.
Speaker: He's definitely leading that.
Speaker: So at some point, we'll have a lot more content online.
Speaker: As of right now, there is some.
Speaker: So please go check it out.
Speaker: Yeah, I am really looking forward.
Speaker: I need to actually – I really do need to book a consultation with you because, like, I don't think I live, like, super unhealthy.
Speaker: But I'm like, I think there's some changes I can make.
Speaker: But –
Speaker: I need a little more.
Speaker: I totally understand.
Speaker: I'm like – The mommy bloggers and the podcast.
Speaker: I haven't started, but I'm really hoping to create like a little mini course that is like perfect for people that are just like, okay, I'm just trying to optimize some things.
Speaker: Like I don't really have any huge issues.
Speaker: I just, you know.
Speaker: want to get to know my body better.
Speaker: I think it'll be so beneficial for so many women.
Speaker: Well, last thing, and I like to ask every guest this, before you go today, what is one little piece of your heart that you want?
Speaker: This is something I tell my clients all the time, that everything that your body is doing, it's doing for a reason.
Speaker: And the Lord created your body so intelligently.
Speaker: It's not broken.
Speaker: It is resilient and
Speaker: there's absolutely ways to get down to the bottom of whatever you're struggling with.
Speaker: So yeah, thank you so much for having me on today.
Speaker: It's been so much fun.
Speaker: I'm so glad you got to come on.
Speaker: I'm glad this recording works and everything so far.
Speaker: Fingers crossed, knock on wood, all the things because I haven't gone back and checked it yet.
Speaker: So I'm really praying that it recorded well and everything.
Speaker: But no, thank you so much for taking time out of your day away from your family to just hop on a call and
Speaker: I know you've been such an encouragement to a lot of women out there through your words and your expertise and knowledge.
Speaker: Thank you so much again for joining us today.
Speaker: Thank you to all the listeners for hanging out with us.
Speaker: I hope your cup has been filled today through Ruth and join us back next week for another episode of Wholeheartedly Herb.
Speaker: Bye, friends.
