Ep154 - Heal by Eating Real: How to Reverse Chronic Disease with Dr. Nicolette Richer

HIListically Speaking with Hilary Russo

We have a saying in the world of integrative nutrition. If it’s made by people in white coats, you are likely going to see people in white coats. In other words, your food could be keeping you sick. But Doctor of Social Sciences, Nicolette Richer is on a mission to change that for millions of people by 2030. On this episode of the HIListically Speaking Podcast, we take a deep dive into the healing potential of whole foods as Dr. Richer shares her insights on dismantling systemic barriers to wellness, particularly for BIPOC women. Learn about the pitfalls of the ketogenic diet and other trendy plans, and be inspired by stories of empowerment and recovery through eating from the earth. This episode is not only rich with actionable knowledge but also a call to action for those tuning in to embrace scientific literacy and health education for a healthier, more informed society. It’s time to eat real to heal on the HIListically Speaking Podcast. ⁣

⁣Full Transcript https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣

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CHAPTERS/KEY MOMENTS⁣

00:00 Intro ⁣

00:08 Food as Medicine for Healthful Living⁣

03:25 Addressing Health Disparities ⁣

10:24 Holistic Healing Empowerment ⁣

14:10 The Dangers of the Keto Diet⁣

16:02 Media Misinformation ⁣

19:33 Health Coaches and clients⁣

27:02 Nutrition, Healing, and Wellness Journey⁣

29:00 Dr. Richer’s shift from government to nutrition⁣

31:45 Rapid Fire Game⁣

32:55 Reversing Chronic Disease and Detoxing⁣

34:00 Hilary’s closing thoughts and how to connect⁣

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CONNECT WITH DR. NICOLETTE RICHER⁣

Eat Real to Heal Cookbook: Using Nutrient-Dense Foods for Happiness and Longevity https://amzn.to/4blFWAG (Amazon) Eat Real to Heal: Using Food As Medicine to Reverse Chronic Diseases from Diabetes, Arthritis, Cancer and More https://amzn.to/4bnnFCZ (Amazon)⁣

https://www.instagram.com/nicolettericher/⁣

https://www.facebook.com/richerhealthconsulting/⁣

https://www.youtube.com/@eatrealtoheal⁣

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eat-real-to-heal-podcast/id1442998357⁣

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JOIN THE REAL TO HEAL PROGRAM https://www.richerhealth.ca/eat-real-to-heal-course⁣

⁣

PUT THE HEALING IN YOUR HANDS WITH HAVENING ⁣

https://www.hilaryrusso.com/havening⁣

⁣GRAB MY DISCOUNT ON COURSES ON INTEGRATIVE NUTRITION AT IIN https://sldr.page.link/4byd

CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣

https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso⁣

⁣https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣

https://www.facebook.com/hilisticallyspeaking⁣

https://www.tiktok.com/@hilisticallyspeaking⁣

https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣

⁣Music by Lipbone Redding https://lipbone.com/⁣

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT ⁣

Full Transcript https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣)⁣

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00:08 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Individuals who can afford to buy food at Whole Foods, but they still choose to buy processed refined food. I've been working with these individuals for a long time. I've, quite frankly, become a little bit exhausted because we do have so much information there's too much information out there, in fact but it's interesting. I've decided to really focus on BIPOC women, and that is an area that I know I'll be focusing on probably for the next half of my life, the next 50 years, and it's the area with some of the biggest challenges, because we're still facing racism in this area. We're still facing those economic gaps as well. ⁣

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00:43 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

All right, my friends, this is not the first time we talked about this, but imagine being able to reverse the chronic diseases in your life, the health issues that you have, with small changes and I mean really small changes that can make a difference. Like I said, this isn't the first time we talked about this. Holistic living and integrative nutrition is really a big part of that. If you can reverse 97% of the chronic diseases out there with whole food eating, with different kinds of approaches to taking care of your body, mind and spirit holistically, whole body approach, wouldn't you want to have the answers? And that is exactly why I have Dr Nicolette Richer here. She is a doctor of social sciences and she is on a mission to teach 22 million people using food as medicine by a deadline, by the way, 2030. Dr Nicolette, it is so great to have you here. Thank you so much for being on HIListically Speaking. ⁣

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01:39 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Yeah, and thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here and share this information. ⁣

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01:43 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

So I was chit-chatting with you before we pressed record about. You are the first doctor of social sciences I've actually had on this podcast. We're, you know well into 150 plus podcast episodes here. Being that this podcast is about holistic health well-being, turning those traumas into triumphs in our life. I've realized from the different kinds of doctors I've had on the show many in functional medicine and integrative medicine that doctors do not go to medical school and take nutritional courses. That's kind of an extracurricular and I do want to start out there. So how is being a social science doctor different? ⁣

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02:19 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Yeah. So I was actually on the path to med school and all of our friends and our customers who ate at our plant-based whole food restaurants told me don't go to med school if I want to teach people how to reverse their chronic diseases. So I wrote my MCATs, I passed my MCAT, I was applying for med school and I really thought that was the path, that was the way I could help the most amount of people. And they were like Nikki, you're not going to be able to help people in seven and a half minute. You know practitioner patient appointments. And so they're the ones who actually the medical doctors talked me out of going to med school. And they said work with people around behavior change that's what's important around education around nutrition. And they also point blank said I'd lose my license if I was prescribing nutrition to patients who had heart disease and diabetes and cancer, etc. Etc. That's what a lot of people don't realize is they can't prescribe a specific diet as a doctor because that's not considered evidence-based medicine, even though we have thousands of studies to show that plant-based whole food eating is literally the answer to reversing 97% of all chronic diseases. ⁣

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03:25⁣

So, being a social scientist, I get to be on the side of understanding what makes a person tick, what makes them actually engage in the behaviors to reverse a chronic disease. What are the barriers in society that prevent them from being able to reverse their disease? Because it's never just a person has a disease and they want to reverse it. No, there's economic factors, there's geographic factors, there's political policies that are in place that prevent people from accessing food, particularly if you are Black, indigenous or a person of color, and a lot of people don't know that. So it's not just a simple have a disease, choose to reverse your disease. That's not how it works. There's financial inequities that are in place, there's racism within the medical system that prevent people from getting the proper lab test done, etc. Etc. So, being a social scientist, I'm actually able to look at the systems that are in place and the systems that need to be changed that would allow somebody to even engage in the behaviors of reversing their chronic disease in the first place. ⁣

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04:22 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

And that's a big difference. That's a really big difference from what you originally went to school for, like you said, but was this something that you identified with because of your own health concerns as well? ⁣

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04:33 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Good question and the answer is no, but a lot of people. That's. Number one question I get asked is how I got into this work. I was working in government actually creating policy for environmental policy, so I was in environmental toxicology and screening and you know wastewater management etc. Etc. ⁣

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04:51⁣

And so in doing that work, at the same time my best friend's dad was diagnosed with stage four cancer. He was 72 years old at the time and he had metastasized to his bones. He was not given chemo surgery or radiation as a treatment option at all and they just sent him home to die. So instead he had heard about metabolic nutrition and detoxification years and years and years before. So he went back and started researching, investigating, asking lots of questions, and he immediately changed his behavior, his lifestyle. He stopped eating processed food, stopped eating pizza and burgers and fries and packaged ingredients, and he switched to organic, plant-based whole food diet, daily detoxification with supplements and added juicings for the added nutrients. And at 72 years old, he reversed his stage for metastasized cancer, where he was given three months to live and he lived another 22 more years. ⁣

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05:44⁣

Now, being naturally a researcher and really curious, I couldn't discount what he did and just chalk it up to one anecdotal story. So I investigated the therapy to understand. You know, what did it mean, what was the science behind it? And lo and behold, it opened up a whole new world where I saw that actually, not even just for the last 200 years of published medical research and peer reviewed journal articles does this information exist. But you know, going back through traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine and other indigenous medicine practices, you know food has been medicine since the day every single human being was came into existence on the planet. ⁣

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06:20 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

What is your hope when you say that you want to teach 22 million people how to eradicate their chronic diseases using food as medicine in the next, really, six years? Yeah, when you think about that, what does that mean for you? Because I know that you are putting a lot of these programs, in these wellness programs in organizations, companies and institutions, but and teaching doctors is one thing that you do, so what is how? Would that mission be a possibility for you? ⁣

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06:49 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

yeah, I think one of the biggest, most important things any entrepreneur can do is to set a big, hairy, audacious goal. And a big, hairy, audacious goal is a goal that is bigger than anything you can ever imagine accomplishing. And if we don't set goals like that, then we we just don't set big goals. We actually set really small goals that are very easy to achieve, and so it's important to set a big, hairy, audacious goal. So that is mine. It's going to be really hard to quantify. ⁣

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07:12⁣

For example, I was invited to China by the Ministry of Health and the Center for Chronic Disease Control to teach 600 physicians how to do this metabolic therapy that I teach. So what they ended up doing was donating 200 acres of organic farmland. The Chinese government did that and they mandated in China that every municipality needed to be in charge of the diabetes reversing diabetes using food as medicine. They now have a 150 bed wellness center where anybody in China can go to to learn the therapy that I taught these physicians. They gutted a main hospital in Beijing to put in a metabolic nutrition and detox center and including kitchens with stoves where every Wednesday evening the community can come and learn about food as medicine. So that's a country with over a billion people. ⁣

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07:57⁣

Now, am I going to know exactly how many patients those 600 individuals, those physicians, have been able to impact in the 150 bed center and the hospital in Beijing? ⁣

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08:08⁣

I will not be able to quantify that, but it allows me to actually reach out to organizations that I would not normally have reached out to and say, hey, can we partner? Another example is that Lululemon, which is a major employer of 34,000 employees, is one of our biggest sponsors and they made me an ambassador simply so we could get the message out, as food is medicine. So we're now working with them on a huge endeavor which is not only around chronic diseases but around mental health disorders as well, because mental health disorders are just chronic diseases, and so to really support men around the globe in reversing their suicidal ideation and mood disorders as well. So it's by partnering with these big organizations that I think I'm going to be able to achieve this goal. So, yeah, going to be hard to quantify, for sure, because I don't keep track of every single individual, but it allows me to really partner with big organizations. ⁣

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09:00 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

You glow when you're talking about this. You really you come alive, Like I'm just watching you as you talk about, and even talking about things that are traumatic when you talk about suicide. But I think you're seeing the other side of it, like where the possibility is. ⁣

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09:13 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Yeah, thank you for noticing that. It is definitely my life's work. It doesn't even feel like work and every time I get a client who is sitting on the side of the road. This is one example a very successful entrepreneur in our town who called me from the side of the road crying because he had a rope in his hand but couldn't figure out where to hang the rope. He had served in the British Air Forces. ⁣

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09:37⁣

You can listen to the podcast on our Eat Real to Heal podcast his story. And then now to see him, married with two kids, running a restaurant. He completed our metabolic, nutrition and detox coaching certification. He helped his entire family reverse their head to toe psoriasis. After he healed himself of his psoriasis and his chronic diseases and mood disorders, no longer wants to take his life. He's thriving. And when you see an individual, you know really, do that 150 degree turn like that? Yeah, I can't help but glow and smile and I can give you thousands of case studies like that reversing mental health disorders, suicidal ideation, chronic diseases. It's one of the easiest things to do, but our society makes it so complicated, so I'm excited to be on the side that knows how to do it. ⁣

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10:24 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

I think that's where we truly vibe, because that's an area where I'm focusing on. As far as being a holistic practitioner in the emotional well-being field, you know, having self-regulating tools, having ways that you can put the power of emotional well-being in someone else's hands. People will say often they'll say, oh, you're a healer or you are the one that is doing the work for someone, but it's being the guide, it's being the person that says here are the tools. You're the one that's actually doing the work that empowers the actual client or patient in your case. And I think about that, like just in the work I do with Havening Techniques, which is a, you know, a psychosensory, neuroscience-based approach that changes your thoughts, moods, behaviors and habits rapidly and being able to give people those tools. Really, I think I'm seeing parts of the mirroring back. You know like you get very excited when you see that, oh yes, this is working for somebody and the work that you're doing is working for so many people. Where do you feel that the challenges are truly in the work that you do? ⁣

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11:30 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Yeah. So we just got a book picked up by a publisher, our third book. It's called Rise Up and it's all about how women of color, it's time to rise up. It's time to reclaim our ancestral knowledge that food is medicine. It's time to reverse these chronic diseases. It's time to end the discrimination in the health field, in our food systems field, and it's time to reverse these chronic diseases. It's time to end the discrimination in the health field, in our food systems field, and it's time to really close those economic disparity gaps that we see that are huge, that really women face at higher levels than men. ⁣

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11:58⁣

So one of the big areas for BIPOC women especially, but men as well, and all genders and identities it is the fact that so many BIPOC individuals can't even access clean, real food. So they can't access your services, they can't access my services. It is out of their ability to be able to afford them. There's policies in place that won't that prevent them from having a grocery store that sells organic, clean, real food at affordable prices in their community. These are called redline districts. You know, whole Foods will not, whole Foods will not put their restaurant or their grocery store in a redline district. ⁣

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12:37⁣

Food deserts Well, yeah, and it's not even just food. Deserts, like just because you can get pop tarts in a grocery store, does not. That's not food. So it's actually having nutrition deserts, and so that's a huge problem. So that is the work that I'm really focused on individuals who can afford to buy, you know, food at a Whole Foods, but they still choose to buy processed, refined food. I've been working with these individuals for a long time. I've, quite frankly, become a little bit exhausted because we do have so much information there's too much information out there, in fact, but it's interesting. I've decided to really focus on BIPOC women, and that is an area that I know I'll be focusing on probably for the next half of my life, the next 50 years, and it's the area with some of the biggest challenges, because we're still facing racism in this area. We're still facing those economic gaps as well. ⁣

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13:31 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

That is something that I became very familiar with when I was working with CVS Health, because I was hosting a show called Healthy Communities. We focused on the social determinants of health and seeing the lack in some of these communities that, really, put it, halted a number of communities from being able to access what is healthier for them in their everyday, in their communities. But also it's changing the habits, because if for so long they have been eating a certain way to survive, it's changing the thought, moods, behaviors and habits to thrive, to live well to realize that they can turn so many things around, and it's not just the food, like you said, it's an emotional response as well. ⁣

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14:10⁣

Can you touch on why keto kills? That was something that came up because we hear so much about keto on both sides. I'm curious from your perspective, why does keto kill? ⁣

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14:20 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Yeah. So I'll actually just jump in and say it's not my perspective. It's actually what the scientific literature shows. So we have media, nutritionists, health advocates promoting keto based on a very few amount of studies and these studies have not been done long term. All of the studies that I've looked at that have been done long term. They had to actually stop the studies because they actually resulted in people having higher rates of suicidal ideation, clinical depression, which they didn't even have starting keto, higher rates of heart disease. Some studies had to be stopped because some of the patients they couldn't even carry out the long-term study because some of the patients ended up with 98% arterial blockage from keto. So they couldn't ethically continue the study because the subjects, the participants, would have died. ⁣

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15:06⁣

So when you just look at the evidence, that is why I do not promote keto but scientifically, from a biochemical perspective as well, when you choose to eat that high amount of fat, that high amount of protein, and especially if doing it through an animal-based diet, you create what's called a TMAO reaction in the gut. This happens in everybody. It's just a basic biochemical principle. Most people have no idea what TMAO does and is. So this reaction happens and then it starts immediately to clog arteries. When you do this, you create insulin insensitivity. You cannot draw glucose and insulin across the arterial walls into the cells where it's needed. So your kidneys, your heart, all your organs that are dependent on glucose and insulin no longer able to receive it. So then you create diabetes, heart disease, mental health disorders and more. So there is no way I can get behind that, because the long-term studies show keto kills. ⁣

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16:02⁣

So now we have a bunch of hooligans and I'll call them hooligans running around the planet. Most of these hooligans are backed by media because they running around the planet. Most of these hooligans are backed by media because they you know how media loves to. You know jump onto one little molecule like resveratrol from red wine, one study showing that resveratrol it does the body good. All of a sudden, the media is promoting red wine as being good for you. ⁣

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16:22⁣

But what media fails to say is that you'd need to drink 12 bottles of red wine in one sitting to get enough resveratrol. That would actually be beneficial to the body. So we have people running around spreading nutritional information that do not know how to read an actual scientific study from beginning to end, and this is killing people. So it's not just keto kills, media kills. Nutritionists who fail to read scientific studies are killing people every single day, and I do not say that lightly if they're in. You don't know how many nutritionists that have patients, clients that end up coming to me afterwards because their markers are worse than when they started with that nutritionist, and so it's really, really important that we start looking at nutrition as a body of medicine that is not going to be run by people who've never read a single scientific study. ⁣

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17:11 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

I have a question about testing too. When people do come to you, do they get specific types of tests, meaning like their vitamin tests, blood work, like a full panel? What's the first step for somebody that comes to you as a patient or a potential patient? ⁣

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17:25 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Yes. So everybody who comes to me already has years of diagnostic testing done. They have years of lab results. They have everything. Most often I don't need. There's only a few more tests that I need done. They're very minor, so they already have it. Because they're on disability, they've had their chronic disease for a long time, they're on 36 different medications, so they don't need more testing. ⁣

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17:47⁣

This is the other side that drives me, and if I can say this on the show, you can say whatever you want Thank you, that shit. Crazy is when a health coach takes on a new client and then they just send them for these expensive tests that do not need to be done, whereas they already have the testing done. We've seen their lab markers, we've seen their hormone panels, we've seen everything. So my clients come in, we already know their full diagnosis. I work with their entire medical team to reverse their disease. So the premise of what I teach is only there's two things you have your chronic disease because of two factors okay Nutritional deficiency that resulted in toxicity or toxicity that resulted in nutritional deficiency. You reverse those two factors and the client heals. Now people will say what about the emotional side of it, which I know is really a lot of the good work that you do. ⁣

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18:36⁣

Of course there's an emotional side of it, but here's the thing Most of my clients don't have the mental capacity anymore because their brain fog is so bad that you can coach the hell out of them and they cannot remember what you just said. They cannot implement the tools that you know. So the thing is is that we can reverse those two things nutritional deficiency and toxicity which really starts with the next meal that they eat, the next meal they can do it that day. Within a day they can start to think clearly, which means that they can address yes, intergenerational trauma is 100% true and affects probably everybody. Right? ⁣

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19:11⁣

People have huge traumas, big T traumas, little t traumas, emotional concussions All humans have that. If you're a human on the planet, you have that. So what we do is we just go in with the simplest thing that every human does on any given day, and that's that they eat food. We just change the food that they're eating and all of a sudden they heal, even though they still have the big T traumas. They still haven't even dealt with that. But now that their brain is clear and their body's nervous system is not in angst because it's looking for nutrients or it's highly toxic, all of a sudden they're able to address the emotional side, or the spiritual side, or their mental health as well. But we start with the physical first and foremost. ⁣

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19:50 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

Yeah, that's why you're the type of doctor I love to work with, because there is such a need for the liaison between the client, the patient and the doctor, and I think that's where health coaches come in. But what? Where you really hit the nail on the head is that, first of all, stay within your scope of practice. Everyone, if you are a health coach that tunes into this podcast or you are in any way in the nutrition or health or medical or mental health field, please stay within your scope of practice. Build that tribe of people, like you mentioned, working with their doctors right, it's not just one, because we all have these areas that we focus on that we're there to support the client or the patient for the doctor, right? So the one thing I do want to share with those who are tuning in is that Dr Nicolette has just graciously offered her reverse your chronic disease. This is her program that she has. It's called Eat Real to Heal, course. I'm going to put that in the podcast notes. And also there is a program, a certification program, that you have, on nutritional detox. ⁣

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20:53⁣

If we can just learn how to detox this body from the things that we you know we do it so much for our home. We do it for things outside of ourselves. If we're not starting right here, the temple before you, the one that you look in the mirror and see every day, what are we doing Right? So having something like this is really great. I'll put all of that in the podcast notes. You can look into Dr Nicolette's approaches everything on her website to offer more. What would the first step be for folks that are looking to take this to the next level? They are frustrated, they are getting brain fog, they are getting migraines, they are not sleeping well. You know we can really compound all of these doctor visits that they get and that in itself can just burn you out. So what's the first step? ⁣

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21:35 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

The first step is when you go to the grocery store is you have to know the difference between processed food and refined food. So a lot of people don't like taking supplements. They're afraid of supplements, they think they're going to hurt them. But again, that's because they're not looking at the research that shows that supplements do very, very little harm, and in fact, you can count on my fingers how many people have been negatively impacted by supplements, whereas prescription medications everybody's willing to pop those pills and which you do need until you know another way. So the first thing you need to do is know the difference between refined and processed food. All the processed food that's out there usually comes in a box, a bag, a package of some sort. You need to not purchase that stuff anymore. It's full of preservatives high in sodium, it's full in food coloring, it's full of glyphosate, it's full of you know, pesticides, herbicides. This stuff is killing you slowly cell by cell, organ by organ. ⁣

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22:29⁣

So that's the first thing you need to know. ⁣

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22:30⁣

So when you go to the grocery store, it makes it really, really, really easy, because when you want to go buy the potatoes, sure the potatoes might come in a bag, but try and get the potatoes that are still dirty that come in the box. Buy the apples, not the fruit roll-ups or the applesauce in a jar. Buy the oranges, buy the chickpeas, not the chickpea potato chips that are 100% organic and still covered in tons of sodium and have to have supplements added to them to even be considered food. So this is the first thing that people need to do. You do not need to know how to cook, which is so beautiful. A lot of my clients who come to our retreats they've never chopped a potato or even seen broccoli. And it is okay, because in our Eat Real to Heal program, we teach you how to become some of the best chefs in the entire world, and you don't have to spend hours in the kitchen If somebody has to give you meal plan after meal plan, week after week. This is not intuitive eating, and what we do is teach you how to eat intuitively so you can eat with the seasons, you can buy what's affordable at the grocery store and then you know how to make it really really easily with spending the least amount of time in the kitchen. Really important to cook your food. ⁣

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23:34⁣

So if there's a lot of raw foodists out there who are suffering from chronic diseases, one of the most important things you could do is actually use the heat from your stove as medicine, because by cooking the food, you're going to actually access about 2000 times more nutrients and make it really easy on your body to heal. ⁣

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23:49⁣

So if you're doing any fad programs right now, if somebody is telling you to fast right now to try and reverse your chronic disease, I promise you. ⁣

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23:57⁣

I've worked with thousands of people who fasted and they're still have their chronic diseases and that's because they're still not eating clean, real food. So eat real food. And with our coaching program I just have to say and it's not just an online course where you're going to be left to do it on your own Only 5% of people ever ever even open up, let alone complete, an online course that they purchased. So we offer a lifetime of group coaching every single week so we can handhold you through the process, so you can ask the questions and not have to spend 24 hours just trying to find the answer on Google or within the course. You can just simply show up, ask the questions and, as you age and as you go through menopause or giving birth or whatever it is that you're going to be doing over the course of your life, we're still here for you to answer those questions in our weekly live group coaching. ⁣

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24:44 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

And that's the Real to Heal course. Correct, that's your group coaching course. ⁣

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24:47 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

That's the Eat Real to Heal course and it's the community too, isn't it? ⁣

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24:50 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

It's community. I mean, you're not alone in the battle. It's not one to one and there are benefits to one in one. But I think there's also real benefits to having community and knowing other people are going through something. It might not be your specific battle, but we're all in this together kind of thing, right, you learn from others. ⁣

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25:04 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Yeah, and like, for example, andrew, you know he suffered from 30 migraines. A Everybody celebrated Miguel rheumatoid arthritis on disability couldn't play baseball anymore, which is his sport. Couldn't work anymore, living alone at home suffering from rheumatoid arthritis on all of these prescription meds that were just like slowly killing him. When the day his doctors took him off his last medication and declared him rheumatoid arthritis free, we all celebrated. His son died a month later. We were all there to support him and hold him through that time. So, yes, community is so, so, so important. ⁣

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25:42 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

What do you think is the biggest fad out there right now that you just wish people would just stop? ⁣

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25:51 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

I don't know. Keto for sure is one of the biggest ones. Keto is just another name for the Atkins diet, so everybody needs to know that that created so much heart disease in the 80s. ⁣

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26:01 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

I remember that. ⁣

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26:02 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

So keto, I would say, is the one that is doing the most harm to humans, to their bodies and to the planet. It is horrific when it's, you know, in a time when we need to be consuming less meat because we were told 100 years ago how you, we need protein, we need fat, we need, you know, all of these animal-based products. And now, basically, governments around the world are rewriting all their nutrition programs to say, please stop eating so much meat. At the same time that all the keto advocates came out, and all because of what? They? Sure, you can lose weight, but you're going to clog your arteries doing it. So I would say, keto Fasting is amazing, for sure, there's no doubt about it, but people are using it like it's the only thing that they need to do, and it's so important that, sure, if you're going to eat within that eight hour period, that's fine, but if you have a chronic disease, you need nutrients all throughout the day, and that is critical, especially if you're trying to reverse something like a very aggressive chronic disease like cancer, where you have limited time on your hands. Fasting is not going to get you there. So that's a challenge for me and, as well, the kind of fasting people are doing. ⁣

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27:10⁣

I'm a big proponent of intermittent fasting, where you still consume some calories, but not this. You know people who are running around, you know consuming their one meal a day, which you can do for a limited amount of time. But again, you have to look at the long-term studies as well. And as well you have to know that you're not a yeast molecule, you are not a yeast species alone. You are intricate human species. ⁣

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27:38⁣

So what happens in the laboratory in a Petri dish, is not the same that happens to a human in real life. That's busy, running around taking care of kids, has stress, you know, because the economy is taking in environmental toxins. So it's really important that people are critical of the scientific research that gets published as well, and anybody can take a course in how to you know understand bias in a research and how to read the entire study. So that's going to be really important is we need to develop a scientifically literate society, and anybody can do that. My kids are teenagers and they know how to read through scientific journals now, and so this is something we need to be teaching in school. So that's also one of the big fads is that our education system is also needs an overhaul. ⁣

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28:22 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

Oh, that could be a whole nother conversation. I agree with that, not just. I mean in all areas. It's not your everyday home ec, home ec, like when we grew up. You know, and I'm so happy to see that some schools are taking that really seriously, both nutrition and mental health, mindfulness, you know, bringing those into the classroom. ⁣

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28:41⁣

So hopefully we will see a change with more champions like yourself. I know we have a little time left and I just want to remind folks that there is a wonderful course, that that the doctor is putting out, and it's called eat real to heal, and also the detox coaching certification she has. I'm going to put all of that in the podcast notes you mentioned. You have a book that you're working on called rise up, and is there anything else that is coming up? Because there's? I have so much on you that I want to talk about in this time and I actually really I do have something I want to ask you about. Please tell me about the Green Mustache Organic Cafes. ⁣

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29:16 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Yeah. So back in 2013, I had been working in government up until that point and our local HR manager in the government said could you please teach all our employees the Eat Realty Heal program? And so I did and all of a sudden all the employees started coming back to me saying oh, I don't have, you know, emphysema anymore. I can breathe again. I don't have depression. I just got pregnant after being told for 15 years I cannot get pregnant. Diabetes gone, heart disease. So all of these individuals kept coming back their energy through the roof, you know, brain fog gone. So I started taking on clients. Then because you, then because people are saying can you work with my mom? She's got this disease. Can you work with my cousin? So I started taking on clients and one of the number one things my clients said to me was after they got started with the program and they saw well, you need to be in your kitchen, right? Feminist movement was wonderful, but it really did take humans out of the kitchen and didn't replace them. So that's all fine to take women out of the homes, put them in the workforce, but they forgot to put a chef back in the kitchen for the household. And so tv dinners. You know macaroni and cheese. Those things came to be the convenient food, quick fix, yes. So my client started asking me can you make me the food? So I did. I did. ⁣

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30:35⁣

I was like five months pregnant with my third child and I would start making juices and making the food and delivering it to clients and delivering it to restaurants so they can sell it to their patrons. They were asking for the food and I was like I cannot do this anymore. I need a restaurant where I can have a whole team who makes the food and I can be coaching clients. So I quit my job in government, opened up the first restaurant. That's when I was also applying for med school. I had just written my MCAT and all the doctors who were eating at our restaurant. ⁣

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31:02⁣

They said Nikki, do not go to med school, just grow the green mustache. So the green mustache is 100% organic, plant-based, whole food, vegan, gluten-free cafe, which means we basically get the food from our farmers. They pick it at five in the morning. They bring it into our restaurant. We convert it into amazing meals lots of warm dishes, cool dishes. Any beverage you get in there is made from a whole food. We do not have refined sugar, we do not have any salt, we do not have any refined oils, everything is made from scratch and whole foods. So that's our restaurant. And, yeah, we had up to eight locations at one point, or seven locations, and we have 10 coming to New York at one point soon. So, yeah, that's an exciting company. ⁣

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31:46 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

That's amazing. What a journey. Love it. We have a couple minutes left. I want to ask you if you are willing to do a quick rapid fire game that I do with my guests at the end of every podcast. I'm going to throw out a word and then what you do is come back with the first word that comes to mind. All right, yeah, refined Processed food Intuitive. ⁣

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32:08 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Healer Clean vegetables, metabolism, mitochondria disease, reversed bipoc, complete, most amazing total health and wellness knowledge that needs to be resurrected so that we use that beautiful wisdom to heal the planet and heal all people and animals and rocks and trees and soil, etc. ⁣

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32:37 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

Can I just leave it there? We're going to make that one long word like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. ⁣

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32:43 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

That's exactly what it was intended to be. That's great, yes. ⁣

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32:46 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

Awesome. One more word for you, just like it's the exclamation point heal. ⁣

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32:52 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

Potential. Yeah, and we all have that right. ⁣

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32:55 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

I think that's what you're teaching people. ⁣

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32:56 - Dr. Nicolette Richer (Guest)⁣

We all do. ⁣

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32:58⁣

We all have the ability to be free of chronic disease, and I'll just talk about the nutrition and detox coaching certification. ⁣

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33:05⁣

So that is a six month training program for any individual, whether you have a science background or not, whether you're a physician, a stay at home dad, someone who's a physician, a stay-at-home dad, someone who's battling a chronic disease. That's a beautiful program where you're going to learn everything that I know that I've learned in the last 25 years about reversing chronic disease. I download all the science to you the art of reversing disease, how to coach clients and then we help you build a business in helping other people reverse their chronic diseases. So that's an exciting program. One of our former students he just got a $4 million investment for his business that he built. Another student has 169 acre beautiful piece of land in British Columbia where he now works with elders and indigenous communities working to help men and women in their 20s reverse their mood disorders and mental health disorders and chronic diseases. I love that program because it can take anybody, you do not need to be a physician, and it turns you into a healer overnight. ⁣

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34:06 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣

We're our own healers first. Yes, exactly, it's really the only ones that we can focus on is the inner healing, yeah, you know, and then we can support others on their journey as well. Exactly, thank you for being here and just sharing your gift. Thank you for having me on your show. If you connect with what Dr Roche shared during our conversation on HIListically Speaking, it may be time to connect with her personally so you can turn your health around and finally heal once and for all. Just check out the list of notes of Holistically Speaking and see how you can find out more about the Eat Real to Heal program that she has, her course and her detox coaching certification, as well as everything else that we shared during our conversation right here on this podcast episode, and listen. ⁣

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34:50⁣

Dr Richer shared that healing is about building your army right, finding the right doctors, the right practitioners, the right coaches to support you on your healing journey. And you know what? Havening could be one of those things, and I could be that guy by your side. So if you want to see how havening can help you with your emotional well-being, how you could hug it out, how you could put the healing back in your hands and make that part of that army that you want to build to heal, to live a well-balanced life. Just check the list of notes I shared how you can get in touch with me for a complimentary session and learn more about how Havening can help you on your healing journey. ⁣

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35:31⁣

And don't forget to share your thoughts and your responses about this podcast episode. Remember, every time you download, every time you subscribe, every time you leave your message and thoughtful message on the app where you listen, it lets others find this episode and this could help someone else too, so you can pay it forward. I really appreciate reading those responses and I love to read what you have to share Holistically. Speaking is edited by 2MarketMedia with music by Lipbone Redding and listened to and tuned into and supported by you. So thank you so much for being part of this journey. Week after week, you have everything you need to heal yourself. You might just need a guy by your side, and taking this first step just by tuning in here is all part of that process. So thank you for trusting me on your journey. I love you, I believe in you and I will see you next week.