Starter Girlz Podcast

Healing Through Food: Risa Groux, Author of FoodFrame, on Functional Nutrition & Personalized Health

• Jennifer Loehding • Season 6 • Episode 58

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In this episode of the Starter Girlz podcast, host Jennifer Loehding sits down with Risa Groux, a functional nutritionist and autoimmune coach, to discuss her transformative journey of overcoming health struggles like infertility and thyroid issues through natural methods. Risa shares how discovering the MTHFR gene mutation led her to explore functional nutrition and how addressing root causes can improve overall health. The conversation covers the importance of personalized nutrition, the impact of environmental factors on health, and the role of diet in managing inflammation. Risa also offers insights into her entrepreneurial ventures, including her book FoodFrame: Diet is a Four-Letter Word and upcoming projects aimed at promoting healthier lifestyles. Risa works with clients ranging from professional athletes to families, helping them achieve optimal health through tailored dietary approaches. Tune in to learn how food can be a powerful tool for healing and how Risa’s approach can help transform your health journey.

Takeaways

  • Understanding root causes and addressing nutrition can reverse autoimmune diseases and improve overall health.
  • Functional medicine emphasizes prevention and focuses on issues often overlooked in conventional medicine, like inflammation and gut health.
  • Risa’s book FoodFrame provides a methodology for healthy eating, emphasizing that diet is about lifestyle, not deprivation.
  • Cholesterol is essential for health, and personalized nutrition should be tailored to individual needs and health status.
  • Food relationships often stem from childhood; teaching kids to cook is vital for long-term health.
  • Building credibility in business and health advocacy takes time, effort, and learning from successes and failures.

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To learn more about Risa, visit www.risagrouxnutrition.com

Jennifer Loehding:

Welcome to the Starter Girl podcast, your ultimate source of inspiration and empowerment. We're here to help women succeed in every area of their lives career, money, relationships, and health and well-being while celebrating the remarkable journeys of individuals from all walks of life who've achieved amazing things. Whether you're looking to supercharge your career, build financial independence, nurture meaningful relationships or enhance your overall well-being, the Starter Girls podcast is here to guide you. Join us as we explore the journeys of those who dare to dream big and achieve greatness. I'm your host, jennifer Loding, and welcome to this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Starter Girls podcast. I'm your host, jennifer Loading, and wherever you are tuning in today, we are so thrilled to have you Excited about my guest. She's got an amazing story and doing a lot of great work. Basically, she turned a personal health challenge into a mission to transform lives. After reversing her own autoimmune disease symptoms through natural methods, she became passion, a passion advocate for the healing power of food and functional nutrition. Today, she empowers clients to uncover the root cause of their health issues and take charge of their well-being, proving that true healing begins with what we put on our plates. And so I'm going to be excited because, for those of you that have been following me forever. You know this is like my area. I love this conversation, so I'm so excited about this. But before we bring her on, we do need to do a quick shout out to our sponsor.

Jennifer Loehding:

This episode is brought to you by Walt Mills Productions. Need to add excitement to your YouTube videos or some expert hands for editing? Look no further. Walt Mills is the solution you've been searching for. Walt is not only your go-to guy for spicing up content. He's the force behind a thriving film production company with numerous titles in the pipeline. Always on the lookout for raw talent, walt is eager to collaborate on film and internet productions. With a background deeply rooted in entertainment and promotion, walt Mills leverages years of skills to give you the spotlight you deserve. Want to learn more about Walt and his work? Head on over to waltmillsproductionsnet and let your content shine All right. And with that, today we have Risa Groux, a functional nutritionist, certified autoimmune coach and author of Food Frame. Diet is a Four-Letter Word. Risa works with clients ranging from professional athletes to families, helping them address health issues such as autoimmune diseases, hormone imbalances and digestive challenges. She has dedicated her career to empowering others to take charge of their health. So, risa, welcome to the show. I am so excited to chat with you today.

Risa Groux:

Thank you for having me, Jennifer. I'm excited to be here.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's going to be fun. It's like my favorite. It's funny. I have all these people come on this show and we talk about all different things, but my favorite things to talk about are health and well-being, because I think those are the most important, and when you don't have either, it is a rough life, exactly.

Risa Groux:

It's the foundation of everything.

Jennifer Loehding:

Exactly. So let's talk about you. I want to talk a little bit about what you're doing, how you got here. You know what kind of led you out. Obviously you've had some you know, had a health challenge, which I can. I always never like to say I know how somebody feels, but I can resonate with that because I've had my own and I've had to do things to reverse conditions, and so I'm always excited to hear about people's journeys. So walk us back through this and tell us you know how you got here.

Risa Groux:

Yeah. So you know, I grew up in a house where my mom was perpetually on a diet. She was just always trying to lose like five or 10 pounds, and it was just these foods were good and these foods were bad. And I had a lot of confusion because I always thought the bad foods tasted pretty good to me. So I had a lot of confusion. My grandma was doing the same thing at her house and it was just a lot of deprivation, starvation, the button was on or off, and so I was very, you know, confused as a child. And then, of course, as a teenager, what did I do? I went on every diet there was, because I was always trying to lose three pounds, and it was this perpetual starvation and deprivation. It was a craziness, right. So finally got sick and tired of doing that and I started to eat real food. And at the same time I had just gotten married.

Risa Groux:

We conceived our first child like quick, like right out of the gate, no problems, everything was great. And then, when we were trying to conceive for our second, it wasn't quite so easy. I just couldn't seem to get pregnant, and if I did, I would lose the baby right away. So it was really frustrating and if I did I would lose the baby right away. So it was really frustrating and I finally acquiesced and went to go see a fertility specialist and he did some labs and he passed over the script right across the desk to me and said you've got an underachieving thyroid. And I was like what's the deal? Right, he goes well, you just take this. You take this every day. And I said for how long? And he said, oh, forever. And I said forever. And I'm like why? I walked out of that office with two major burning questions. One is why is my thyroid an underachiever? Why is it not producing the hormone it was born to produce? And two, why do I have to take the synthetic hormone every single day for the rest of my life in order to mask what it's supposed to be producing? And why was the doctor not even asking why is this happening? So when I started down that road and then I started to uncover things and then I finally realized that I had this gene mutation that's very, very common. Most people have it. It's called MTHFR. Think of what you would say to somebody who cut you off on the freeway. And then I had that and lo and behold, this allele that I had, the folate, causes infertility miscarriage. So I took the proper B vitamin methylated form and I got pregnant, no problem, easy. Naturally, everything was great.

Risa Groux:

And several years after I had a healthy pregnancy with my son, I went to a naturopathic doctor because I wanted to get a checkup. I wasn't feeling quite as good as I felt like I should, and they found Hashimoto's. So now my thyroid was attacking itself, my body was attacking my thyroid and I thought what is the deal? I've now have an autoimmune disease. This has got to stop.

Risa Groux:

So I really did a deep dive and I was at that time going back to school and to become a nutritionist and I was able to find the root causes to autoimmunity I had. There was nothing available at the time when I was diagnosed. I put together a list that's in my book food frame and I went through each and every one of those root causes and of course, I had every single one. So I treated every single one and I was able to reverse my Hashimoto's, which is amazing because I had really really high levels and now I've been able to watch people heal every day. I'm very, very grateful to do what I do and I've been able to help people with their autoimmune diseases. But other things too, just achieving optimal health.

Jennifer Loehding:

No, I love this. And as I'm listening to you, like all these things are coming to my mind. One, the fact that you, when you came out of the doctor's office, you had those questions like why do I need to take this and what's the problem here? Because I feel like I can relate to that. I hate medicine. I don't even like Tylenol, like I, you know, like everybody knows. That is right. If you see me ever, if a few times, I push a Tylenol, you know I'm probably needing it because I am like you. I question everything and I think it's good, I think we should, you know. And and I think the other thing that's coming to mind when I listened to you is this part where you work to heal yourself, because I think the body is miraculous and when we treat it well, it can do great things. When we don't, it can do bad things. And I think you know for us to not recognize that the food that we do put in our body does make a difference.

Jennifer Loehding:

Oh, sure right, because people, a lot of times they're like, well, I don't see how that, how that's making a difference. How could it not? I mean, you're putting things in your body and you're consuming it, you know, and so I want to commend you on those aspects, but also healing yourself, because I I know for myself. I I've been diagnosed with two really rare conditions, one of which is trigeminal neuralgia, and I ended up reversing my condition after four years of being on six different medications with that. Like you, I went in there and they were putting me on benzos and opiates and you know all this and I'm thinking this is not a way to live. This is not how I want to be. See my kids, my kids are all adults now. They weren't at the time, but see them go through me being high on opiates for the rest of my life, you know.

Jennifer Loehding:

Right rest of my life, you know. So I want to commend you on that and say kudos to you, I got you.

Risa Groux:

Yeah, that's awesome.

Jennifer Loehding:

Good stuff. So so I'm excited about your book because I want to check this out. I'm excited I want to see what you put in there about the autoimmune, because I do think I hear a lot about that. That's one of the thyroids, one of the things that I'm working. I work with a functional nurse as well, and so we're working on getting my thyroid.

Risa Groux:

It's a common thing. Thyroid is a common thing. It really is common and unfortunately, you know, there's so many things that are disrupting our thyroid in our modern world, and chemicals being one of a major one. Right, we're inundated by chemicals. The FDA has approved 86,000 chemicals for us to use. That's a crazy amount, right. Most of them aren't even tested, and we're at about two to six thousand approved every year, regardless of who's in the White House, so it's been accumulating. There's not a country on this planet that has as many as we do, so chemicals are a real major thing, and just getting them out of your body detoxifying is really important as well.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, I agree with you, you on that and you think about years and years. You know you're, you're putting these, having these things go into your body and you don't really realize impact. But I think it's interesting that it's when you get to those places where you're like either have like fertility issues or you have this things happen and you're like why is this like this? And and if you're a problem solver, you sound like you are a little bit like I am and that you want to solve that. You want to figure out why is it not doing right? How can we and it's funny because I just you're going to get a kick out of this, because I just went to my functional doc nurse last week and she does every quarter we look at my blood work to see how everything's doing. And she gets in and everything's pretty good.

Jennifer Loehding:

My thyroid's moving up, it's climbing back up. And she said you know we. And she said you know we got to get the thyroid right. And I walked out. I told her, I said my focus is we're going to get the thyroid right, Because when the thyroid's right, everything else is going to be okay.

Risa Groux:

Exactly. Well, it's a major component. I mean it intersects with almost every system in the body. So, and unfortunately, conventional allopathic medicine only looks for TSH Right Hormone, which I just reviewed a lab this morning that the TSH was completely normal but the T3 or active thyroid hormone. That's only 7% of the equation. That's what mine is Right.

Risa Groux:

So is it you're reversing? Is it because of hormone imbalance? Is it because you are not converting? I mean, there's several reasons why, but first you have to look to find out what the problem is, and yes, the body can heal, which is amazing. To look to find out what what the problem is, and, yes, the body can heal.

Jennifer Loehding:

Which is amazing. Yeah, it's interesting too. When I went into um and you'll love this, maybe, maybe not, but I went in it was funny because we found out in the very beginning that I that I was low on iron. And what was crazy is I'd been going to the doctors just to shake this point up, had been going to the doctors, nobody caught this. So I go to the functional nurse and she's like caught this. So I go to the functional nurse and she's like your iron's low. So I did several iron infusions. Well, as we were doing that and this was kind of at the beginning stages when we were trying to heal all of a sudden my ferritin went up. And my ferritin had been normal all along and then my ferritin went up and so she was like inflammation in the body.

Jennifer Loehding:

So, it's interesting how you know when you talk about medicine they can miss so many things like you're talking thyroid because they're only looking at one thing they're not looking at the big picture. Kind of like when they get hung up on cholesterol, right, they get hung up on those two numbers, the total and that LDL, but they don't take into account anything. And then they don't look at say what about thyroid? Is there anything else going on that could be contributing to that? Right, you have a high number. You need statins.

Risa Groux:

Right, and we're not actually born with a deficiency in statins. And the other thing is, cholesterol is not the devil. Exactly this in the eighties did a great job, but it isn't the devil. It does not prevent cardiovascular diseases, right? So that's you know. There's four reasons why, typically, cholesterol goes up. One is blood sugar dysregulation, thyroid dysregulation, as we just talked about, liver congestion and gallbladder congestion and, of course, genetics play a huge part. You may be more inclined genetically to have higher levels of cholesterol, but that's okay, because cholesterol is actually something we need. It's a messenger system. It helps us conjugate our hormones, helps us conjugate our vitamin D. I mean it does so many good things in the body that we need it. We don't want too little. I've had plenty of people come to me with very, very, very low cholesterol like scary low cholesterol and of having heart attacks. So we know it's not the cholesterol. I mean, we just know. So at this point we know that.

Jennifer Loehding:

So I think and I feel like some, some doctors are coming around and talking about that, but I think a lot of them still. I think they're so used to you know, when you come in they're looking at a stereotypical client. That's why I love the work that you guys get to do when you move out of that and move away from medicine and really get into how you heal the body and look at the individual, because not everybody's the same and you can't. It's like I read an article even recently where they were talking about because I've been low carb for a very long time and I did that really did you get all the the inflammation out and I laxed up a little bit and then I got diagnosed with another disorder and then I came back to it at the advisement of my functional nurse.

Jennifer Loehding:

But I was reading even an article recently, so much they were talking about, you know, as the thyroid. When you're in low carb, you know, is it questionable how high the thyroid needs to be because your body's starting to run optimally too. So there's a lot of stuff out there and I and I love that people are talking about it, because I think when we just say as a whole, everybody should fit this range of numbers, like vitamin D, for example. That's the one that you know. Most functional naturopaths are going to tell you you need more vitamin D. The doctors are going to tell you you need to be right here. You know. Mine tells me she wants my vitamin D up all the time, you know.

Risa Groux:

So we want it up, yeah, but the thing is is that you know, the two major foundational issues that really cause disease are systemic inflammation, which allopathic conventional medicine does not test for at all, and the other is gut health, which most of them don't as well. So that's why I do a comprehensive blood panel and a comprehensive stool test to find out exactly what's going on. But those are the driver of diseases, right?

Risa Groux:

We know that inflammation is the driver, and if we didn't know that before COVID, we should definitely know that now. Right, that's what caused third stage inflammation, which was going into your respiratory tract. So we need to be looking at those two markers for sure, which we don't typically look for. So it really is. I think the weakness is in our medical schools because we're not teaching doctors these tools. We're focusing more time on the chemistry of medications and the symptoms, so it's really important to find out the root causes. And the other thing to really keep in mind is that our blood labs in our country really are focusing on what's normal right, so they assess their guidelines quarterly and they're looking at what's normal.

Risa Groux:

Well, we are a very obese and sick nation and that's what's considered normal. So in conventional medicine they don't really treat you until you're in full disease state in addition to root causes. But we're looking for prevention so that we don't have to wait until you're in disease state to treat you. We're trying to avoid getting there in the first place. So our numbers are a little bit more narrow because we're trying to prevent.

Jennifer Loehding:

No, I love that and that's why that's why I'm saying, like you know where I go, she looks at the blood work like every three months to kind of see how everything. Oh, it makes me feel so much better because I feel like I can look at that and say, okay, this is staying consistent. Are we having any shifts in anything? Do we need you know it? Just especially when you I think you probably can relate this when you have something that is a chronic condition, we know conventional medicine is not going to fix a chronic condition you go on broken bone, you know cold, flu, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, we can do that, which, by the way, if you're healthy, you can probably do flu and cold at home too, if you know, like, if you take care of yourself right, know the tricks, but they can't fix those things. And so when you get into those places where you're dealing with chronic things, that's when I think it for somebody like you or myself, it becomes important to. I love this in your position.

Jennifer Loehding:

I have never been excited to go look at my blood work. It's fun, not that it's been bad, but I've never cared. When I go now to get it Like I'm when I see good, everything looks pretty good, I'm like, yes, we're doing the right things. Yes, you know it correlates. When I'm like, yes, we're doing the right things, yes, you know it correlates. When I'm not feeling as well, the blood work shows they go together Absolutely.

Risa Groux:

And it's something you know. I said. You know you're getting paid for going to work. You're doing all these changes, you're making all these efforts and you're going out of your way quite a bit to eat better and to take care of yourself better, so it's always good to see that that's working.

Jennifer Loehding:

Right.

Risa Groux:

And the greatest news here is that you're actually looking right. You're not guessing, you're, you're testing.

Jennifer Loehding:

So it's really, really important, because we do a lot of guessing unfortunately conventional medicine. I love it. I love what you're doing, so how?

Risa Groux:

long has this book been out then, did you?

Jennifer Loehding:

just write this, been out for a little bit.

Risa Groux:

It came out last January. It's been endorsed by Dr Stephen Gundry and Dr Josh Axe and JJ Virgin and the late Suzanne Summers and it really is a passion of mine because I've been doing this for so long and I've watched so many people heal that I really wanted to give this to the mainstream public, that opportunity to really understand how to do this Right. And I think what really focuses the book's focus is food frame, which is my methodology for eating, because when I first started my practice a million years ago, I put everybody on the same anti-inflammatory protocol. Some people were like doing great and other people really weren't thriving. So I was trying to figure out, and it took me a while to figure out, but I did realize that every body should be eating according to their current health status. So in other words, if you're having some bloating and chronic gas or maybe constipation or diarrhea, you should probably do the low FODMAP program right, which is a 30 to 90 day protocol, and then I give you the steps on what to do after that, everything you can eat and what to avoid. Maybe you are autoimmune, maybe you were just diagnosed with some autoimmune, you've got some antibodies to wherever they are, thyroid or otherwise, and so autoimmune protocol would also be a great protocol for you. It's a 30 to 90 day program and then I give you the next steps on what to do. So maybe you have blood sugar dysregulation, diabetes or even cancer. I would recommend keto If you fit you'd have to qualify to do keto, but that might be a good thing for you or paleo, so I really individualize them according to our current health status.

Risa Groux:

We all have a different microbiome, right, depending on where we live. You could live in the woods or the beach, or you could live in a, you know, next to a steel plant in a city. So everybody's microbiome, their environment, really, um, really changes. You know everybody's individual eating programs. So that's why I created food frame and I said diet is a four letter word because it's just. Diet is actually a word that means what you eat, but it's been has so much connotation to deprivation and starvation that I don't use. I don't, we don't go on diets, right, and for childhood I don't do a diet. I have a healthy eating lifestyle, and if I need to go out of the box for an occasion or because I want to, or because it, you know, sounds good to me, then great, but I'm always living in this lifestyle because this is what actually helps me right, no, and I agree with you because that's how I feel, like I embrace.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's funny I'm, you know, when I was listening to your story in the beginning you were talking about your mom and the diet. I think it's so interesting that how so many takeaways from that like right, like how we grew up, witnessing things, because I've I talked about you know, a lot of the work that I do is helping people bust through, get to root causes of why they're doing the behaviors they're doing. And it's funny because most of them come to me for about their business. But then we get into these other conversations because health will come in, they want they're like trying to adopt exercising routines and I look at the grand scope of this and I'm like, okay, all of this sort of kind of stems back to you know, like we talk about like food things and stuff. It kind of stems back to the same thing. Well, it's interesting because I have often talked about when I was growing up that we, we were I microwave kids. I mean we were we ate out all the time or we microwaved, because we were involved in lots of activities. Both parents worked and we were just kind of rode the bus home from school, locked ourself in the house and we put the Swanson TV trays in the microwave. Well, interestingly enough, you know, then one day I get in my late 30s, popping into my 40s. This was in 2012. And I get this just weird, random, you know, nerve condition. I'm like where'd this come from? Nobody in my family even has this, you know. But for so long before that, like, I had so many like issues with food, and it wasn't about like body, like getting sick from it, maybe it was, I didn't know it, but it was more that, like, I ate a lot of sugar, I crave sweets and candy and all that stuff. And when I went through this whole healing process, you know, like I did, I ended up doing keto hardcore for two years. I mean, I just I went FODMAPs, I kind of worked up to all this, ended up doing keto for two years. And people were like, how did you do that? And I was like, well, I had gotten to a point where I was so freaking sick that I had already eliminated so many things out of my diet and I still was not getting better that I didn't really see an alternative at that point. During that process, not only did I heal that condition? I was able to get off all my medication, but I also kind of healed my issues with food, like I healed the freaking issues. So it became more now like you, where I just I it's.

Jennifer Loehding:

If I want to have a piece of cake that's outside of what I'm going to normally eat, I'm going to do it. I'm going to decide because I got to decide whether or not I want to feel good or not. That's going to be first, but if I do, I'm not going to feel guilty. I'm going to be more angry if I don't feel good. That's really what's going to come up for me. But it's just because it's become my lifestyle lifestyle for me where I don't really have to negotiate that. And the funny thing is I don't really crave sweets anymore. I don't. You know what I mean. I don't get up and I'd be like I need to have ice cream, I need to have cake, I need to have candy. That was my lifestyle before. No-transcript.

Risa Groux:

But isn't that funny.

Risa Groux:

It's like you, you kind of sort of heal the wounds, that kind of go with that and you learn to make it different you know, we have a psychological relationship with food and it is from our childhood and it is from what we see and what we hear, and but we, we have a lot of. You know, we use food as our, our reward, we use it as punishment, we use it for celebration, we have power over it. On our birthday, I mean it's like everybody has to eat what I want on my birthday. And you know, I mean it's craziness what we do with food, right, if you, if your A, you get a scoop at the Baskin Robbins or whatever, it is right, we do all this stuff.

Risa Groux:

We don't do this with brushing our teeth, no, and it's something that we need to do, right, but there's that whole psychological component and our families, every family has a different relationship with food. So some of that we adopt, right, that's what we know. So you know it's so it takes a while to break that and to have a healthier relationship with food. And and it's critical, I think, for children to watch people cooking food and and I always had my kids very engaged in the, in the preparation of food, because you know, I'm like you, cannot leave my house without knowing how to cook it is a life skill right.

Risa Groux:

Like I wouldn't let you drive a car without knowing how to change the tire. You're, you know same thing. So both my kids cook all the time now and it's and they know that it's a life skill and they know they feel better when they do that. So it's really important. It's, it's essential and I know we have so much convenience out there, but it really is. It's not good for us.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, no, this is good and I love that. You said your kids can cook. That is a good skill to have. What is the same, more is caught than taught, right? They pick up on the things, they pick up on the behaviors and the habits and the patterns. And when you, when you don't, you have to really make those conscious shifts to change. So I'm glad that you, you know, did that with him around, my husband.

Jennifer Loehding:

He grew up on a farm in Montana so he learned how to cook. I was smart, I figured that out because we've been married now, going on, we'll be 29 years in April he went in the beginning, made pancakes and they were really good pancakes. I didn't get to eat them anymore like that, but that was like he's like. I think the only reason you hung around me was for those pancakes His mom did well, she taught him how to cook. Yeah, did he put butterfingers in them? No, they were. They were. They would put the and he still does this occasionally peanut butter on the pancakes. They like peanut butter on the pancakes. And you know what's funny is when my kids before I was cooking like that, when they were younger, we my husband would make the pancakes and they did the same thing they put the peanut butter on the pancakes. I don't think any of them do that anymore, but yeah, it was a big thing.

Jennifer Loehding:

So I love it. I love it. So I want to ask you, because I know somebody listening to this I mean, we could talk forever on the food and all of that, because I know that's your passion and it's obviously it's an area that I love to talk about as well, because I believe in it. But I want to talk about you as an entrepreneur too, because you've been doing this for a while and people that listen to this show you know they might be plugging in and they're like, oh my gosh, she's doing amazing things. She's been at it for a while and you and I both know that's not how it is when you start, like we got to start from the ground up and build this thing. So maybe for somebody listening, I would love to know, like, how did you go about like getting out there, putting yourself out there and getting, because you're dealing with some amazing people and that takes time to do.

Risa Groux:

You know, yeah, I you reflect back and I worked constantly. You know it was just after I put my kids down I would be working and I was always trying to network and get my name out there and at the beginning it was absolutely tough. So I'd get one by one and it was really that slow. And then, once you start building credibility, it's so much easier. And then I saw something a while ago that you know, one day you'll just feel like you're an overnight success right. So I kind of could relate to that because I just worked and worked, and worked, and worked and worked and I was just. I did every school event, I did every charity event, I would donate, I would talk, I would write articles, I had a column in a local magazine. I mean, I did everything I possibly could to network and I was lucky. You know, I had a really good network and my social network really helped me. I was friends with a lot of doctors and they referred a lot of patients and it was just a one by one. And then I started doing TV. I got a daily gig or a monthly gig on Good Day LA and then that turned into more TV and I did a lot of local TV and then I ended up doing national TV with Good Morning America. But it was, you know, and it's a slow climb. You do not come out of the gate getting that right. It was just earning that credibility and it was credibility one patient at a time and but I was constantly, constantly working and it was hard. It was, for sure, hard at the beginning and and now it's, it's, you know, so much easier and it's word of mouth. And I've been working with people for so many years. I've been working with families and their kids now, and you know, and I've been able to work with a lot of professional athletes, which is just amazing as well. So I've, I've really had a great career. I've loved doing. I mean you get to watch people heal, it's just super cool and turn on that light bulb. I mean you just saw my morning today. I just like four people are just like trans. They're transformed, you know, and the greatest thing is that that gift is going to serve them for the rest of their lives. They're going to be different mothers, different wives, different business people as well, because they know that to pack their lunch or whatever it is, you know how they travel and things like that.

Risa Groux:

Um, I uh, you know I started, I created my own detox um many years ago and it was. It didn't really work. It was too bulky, it was the manufacturing, I got the wrong plant, I went through a lot of mistakes and now I have my own line of supplements that are super clean and easy and it's great. Um, it's much easier. So I learned a lot from that failure, which we usually do Right.

Risa Groux:

And then I was able to, from my whole health history and working with so many people with thyroid, I created my own course, online course called Achieving Optimal Thyroid Health. So that is a total labor of love that I worked very hard on, because I put every single thing I know about thyroid, which is a lot for any given situation, for any kind of thyroid issue, and so I'm really proud of that, and my book same thing, and I was fortunate enough to have those incredible endorsements. And so it's hard, it's not easy. None of it has been easy. It's much easier now because you know I've put all the work in but it, you know I kept my head down for a good 10 years and then all of a sudden, you pop up and you're like oh wow, like you know, I got something going here, right. I kind of know what I'm doing and yeah, so great.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, reminds me I had a gal on Starter Girls a while back. Her name is, I think it's Ripley Rader. She's a she does these clothing line and she had these pants I think they were called the Ponty pants, and she was talking about I think she's out of New York. She was talking about you know how she'd been going along, going along, and then somebody got ahold of her pants and I think they went on good morning America or something with her pants and then all of a sudden they became famous and she said it was like we went all this time building and building and building and then all of a sudden and you know, it's funny because I was talking about this with our YouTube page because we, you know, this show has been in existence for about five years and we worked really hard in the beginning and then there were some shifts because a host left, a new one came in, we bridged another show and then I put the starter girls on a little bit of a pause and then last year I brought it back with a little bit different passion because I had evolved in what I was trying to do with, in the work that I was trying to create and the message I was putting out there.

Jennifer Loehding:

And it's been funny because all of a sudden our YouTube is I mean, we've got about 12,000 followers in there and I know that's not as big as the big famous YouTube people. But when you go from zero, you know you're sitting at like a couple months ago we were at about three, you know, and all of a sudden we're like and I told my husband, I said it's starting to kind of we're getting some and it's exciting and it's to your point that you're putting in that work and doing the day in, day out, consistent things that you need to do to build your business and all of a sudden things start to kind of manifest for you. And so I love hearing you say that because I think that people need to recognize that that it's not, you know, some people you see that the overnight success. There are a few out there that hit it and they go.

Risa Groux:

But that's not the norm, that's not majority of us.

Jennifer Loehding:

Majority of us have to work and build and get our credibility, and even those people who hit it right off the bat.

Risa Groux:

They're going to have some hurdles later down the road, exactly, you know everybody has. They're coming, they're around the corner.

Jennifer Loehding:

Exactly, I love it. I love all that you're doing. I think it's great. So you've got your book out. I want to check out your thyroid protocol, by the way. I'm going to have to go check that out. I want to see which I love. It's funny because I do a lot of it. I was telling somebody the other day a lot of the research that I do. I just do it because I like to get the knowledge and it helps me. I can have a yourself and learning, and then you recognize, hey, somebody else may benefit from some of the knowledge that you've gained and you can pass it on for sure. Yeah, so anything in the horizon coming out, anything new that you're going to be like working on or something excited about yeah, I can't really say yet, but there's some exciting stuff going on.

Risa Groux:

I'm trying to help heal our country from processed foods, so I can't announce anything quite yet, but it's. I'm working on it.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, the processed food thing. There's so much you know and it's kind of like you hear everything. Now they keep talking about all the chemicals but I really I'm like with you, we got to get that stuff out. But I think it gets back to helping people make the right choices and teaching them the right association with foods and and all that. So I think it's great that you're looking at, you know, these kind of on an individual basis with the, with each person, as to where they are, and it's also you got to meet them where they come in right, because, like you're given I mean take keto, for instance, example.

Jennifer Loehding:

That's not an easy thing for me. It's easy because I've been doing it for a long time. I know exactly what tip, what I can have and what I can't have. I know how to now even a restaurant. I know how to navigate that. I will tell you when I first did it. No, the first, like 60 days. No, I had a book, right, I love Maria Emmerich. She's like you probably know. She's like the keto girl. She was the one I had consulted with. I purchased her book and I followed the meal plan like exactly to a T every single day, because there's no way I would have been able to figure that out on my own in the beginning.

Jennifer Loehding:

So you know when you've got somebody and you're walking them through that. You've got to meet them where they are, because if you take somebody that's really not committed and they're not in a place where they've been eating all this junk and they're not committed to changing, then you go OK, we're going to do this. Where they've been eating all this junk and they're not committed to changing, Then you go okay, we're going to do this, Freak out, you know what I mean.

Risa Groux:

And I say that you know I mean some people will say to me tell me exactly what to do and I'll do it. Others say, I need a little. You know I have to go slowly and go step by step, and so we do it that way. So, yes, absolutely different. So we work according to that yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Loehding:

Well, I'm excited for whatever you got coming out, because I think it's great and I like that you're evolving and continuing to do things and helping the world be a better place, cause I do think it's important. I think health, like I said, when you don't have it, you and I both know when you don't have it, it means everything. So you can, you aren't getting anywhere without that. Risa, this has been so fun. I know you have things to do and I definitely could chat with you forever because I love what you're doing, but I know I want to value your time and get you back to what you're doing, so we'll make sure, when this goes out, that we get the links in there so they know how to find you and we'll get you tagged in all the right places and all that good stuff.

Jennifer Loehding:

I want to thank you for your time and for your knowledge and all the good wisdom nuggets All right to our audience. Of course, we hope that you found this episode inspiring and informative and, of course, you know what to do. Go, hit like, subscribe, share, do all the things so we can keep sharing all the fabulous content with you. And, as I always say, in order to live, the extraordinary must start. Every start begins with a decision. You guys, take care, be safe, be kind to one another and we will see you next time. Thank you.

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