Latest / Dr. Danielle Difference / CIMC 182: Why Your Cholesterol Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story

Transcript

CIMC 182: Why Your Cholesterol Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story · Dr. Danielle Difference

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  Welcome to the Crying in My Cheesecake podcast, where we stop settling, stop spiraling, and stop living in bodies and lives that feel too small for who God created us to be.
• 0:08
  I am your host, Dr.
• 0:09
  Danielle, a naturopathic doctor, root cause detective, straight-talking coach, and the woman who's gonna tell you the truth about your health, your habits, and your spiritual life, even when no one else will.
• 0:19
  If you're exhausted from starting over, overwhelmed by symptoms no one explains, or you're ready to take re- radical responsibility for the person you're becoming, you are in the right place.
• 0:28
  This is where faith meets physiology, where mindset meets metabolism, and where real transformation, the lasting kind, actually happens.
• 0:36
  Let's get into today's episode.
• 0:38
  Welcome back to the podcast, friends.
• 0:40
  This week on Substack, we are and have been talking about numbers I look at before I ever worry about your total cholesterol, and I kinda wanna approach that conversation a little differently here.
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  So this month, I have already said we're kinda talking about cholesterol.
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  I actually had someone, actually multiple people, tell me that they're loving that over the last few months I've just been taking a symptom or a system and just kinda talking about it and going deep dive into it.
• 1:08
  So if you are not subscribed to my Substack yet, please get over on Substack.
• 1:12
  Introduce yourself over there in the chat in the Letters from the Wilderness, and you will see all the information down below in the show notes on how to get connected there and everything that's going on there, um, so
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  please do that.
• 1:23
  But I wanna approach our conversation a little bit differently here about, um, some total, like, total cholesterol and so forth.
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  I just took a quick drink.
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  But, um, because I know, um, before we talk about lab values, we need to know and need to talk about how many people feel when they get labs done.
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  Okay?
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  You've gotten your labs done, you've been vulnerable, and so you got them done, you open your portal, and then all of a sudden you see red marks, or you see little flags, or you see, like, highlighted marks or
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  bolded things, and you see words like high, low, abnormal, and immediately your stomach starts to drop because you, because, A, you take identity in it, but you also, um, have other people, like, trying to, like, control you by,
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  "See, I told you something's not working," and all of this.
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  And I do believe that your labs are a report card.
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  Okay?
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  They are a report card, but only if you know how to read labs in light of your whole body and your whole life.
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  I do know that a lot of people put their worth and their value in labs.
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  A lot of stock is put in labs, and I'm just here to remind you that it- your identity is not in your labs, and it is not the final word over your future.
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  And so many people have been trained to approach their health with either fear or avoidance so that you don't have the fear, right?
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  There's panic over every single number, and so then that makes you avoid testing altogether because you don't even wanna know.
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  And none of that is stewardship of your body.
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  Stewardship is the fancy term that just means management of what God has given you.
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  Stewardship means we are willing to take a look, willing to learn, willing to ask better questions.
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  So when I look at your cholesterol, I'm not just looking at your total cholesterol and stopping there.
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  I want to understand patterns.
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  I am like the patterns queen.
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  What is your blood sugar doing?
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  What are your triglycerides doing?
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  How does your AD- or HDL look like?
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  Like, how does it look?
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  What does the body composition picture suggest?
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  What is your body composition?
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  Where are you holding the extra weight?
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  I actually care about where you're holding the extra weight.
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  Yes, you may be overweight everywhere in your body, but where is it mostly?
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  How are you sleeping?
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  What is your stress load, your actual stress load, the stuff that you don't tell everybody, the stuff that social media would never know?
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  What is your actual stress load?
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  Are you eating enough protein, or are you eating just whatever you can?
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  Are you eating off of, you know, whatever you can piecemeal, um, every time you go to the kitchen?
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  Are you taking a snack every time you leave the kitchen?
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  Are you moving your body intentionally, or are you mostly sitting all day because of the nature of your job or because you can't move or those kinds of things?
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  Are you constantly living in a state of survival?
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  All of these numbers and all these things matter to your total cholesterol, and this is why I want you over on Substack, honestly, because I am not, um, I'm not just building a place where you can consume health
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  tips.
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  You can do that on any social media platform, any social media platform.
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  I am building a community here where people, not just women, but people, because I have a lot of men that come to me, and I'm...
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  I love my men, I do.
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  Um, but I have a lot of people coming to learn and understand their bodies and understand how to ask better questions, understand how to take responsibility without the shame.
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  And I want you this week to stop seeing lab work as a grade, and I want you to start seeing it as a clue, a clue that God is using the way He designed your body to communicate with
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  us.
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  Symptoms are communication.
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  That's it.
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  Energy, your energy levels are communication.
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  Your cravings, your sleep, your labs, all of these things in my brain come together as communication.
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  And when you learn that language, fear loses its grip If you wanna go deeper into this week's teaching, please join us on Substack.
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  But on this space is where I'm going to give you full articles and deeper conversations.
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  I'm gonna go live, and we're gonna have com- we have community happening there.
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  We're bringing people into one place so you don't have to chase your health advice all over the internet.
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  I think that that is something that really bothers me, too, is that you can go...
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  You can even upload your labs to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT is going to take the traditional lab ranges and say, "Oh yeah, you probably need to go on a statin," or, "Oh yeah, you probably need to be on this
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  supplement," and all of that.
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  And what we're settling for by doing that are band-aids, band-aid solutions.
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  If your kid was struggling, and let's just say your kid was vomiting at night, are you looking to...
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  Are you...
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  Is your first question, like, "Oh my gosh, how do I stop this?"
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  Or is it, "What caused it?"
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  You're gonna try to figure out what caused it because you're like, "Oh, shoot, we need...
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  Was it the food that they ate?
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  Was it, you know, was it that they got into something?
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  Did they eat some poison?"
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  Like, you don't know what happened.
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  You're gonna ask better questions for your kids.
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  You're gonna ask better questions about your dog often than how you talk about yourself or treat your own healthcare.
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  And so over here in Substack and on this podcast and in the space in the Wilderness of Wellness, we are literally creating a space for you to change how you go about your living and how you go about
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  your life.
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  And I think what, for me, I'm going to just kinda share with you, I refuse to be a statistic.
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  I refuse to be a statistic because right now I should already...
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  Well, I should be having my first heart attack soon.
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  And I say soon because my father had his first heart attack at 42 years old.
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  I remember, I will never forget, it is ingrained that it's just who I am.
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  Like, I am a visual...
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  I struggle with PTSD of things, and I struggle with i- images that will pop into my mind and kinda pull me out of reality at times.
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  I've gotten so much better thanks to therapy and foundational medicine that I practice here.
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  Um- But I have, like, this image ingrained and emblazoned in the back of my mind of my dad wearing a white Hanes undershirt and his old jeans, and he was just bent over on the chair trying to get
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  his shoes on, a- annoyed that he had to go to the hospital because my mom would...
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  thank God she didn't relent, made him go, and, um, sure enough, he was having his first heart attack.
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  Notice I said first.
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  That was just the first of many years, and if the American Heart Asso- Association did anything to help him, he would not be in Stage 4 heart failure for the last three or four years.
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  That wouldn't...
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  He would not be continuing to decline.
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  But there's no money in offering someone an opportunity to actually, like, heal their bodies, is there?
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  There's no money in it.
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  There's no money for the pharmaceutical companies, and I'm, I'm convinced that the pharmaceutical companies are in it to make people continue to be sick and just alive long enough, but sick enough that they still need medicine and surgeries
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  so that insurance can, you know, make more money off of them as well.
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  And I, I struggle to think about the general population out there is walking around with something wrong with their kidneys, their colon, and with their, um, lungs, with their skin, um, with their sleep, like, all of that, and
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  the general population is struggling to sleep, and they're like, "Oh, it's fine."
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  The general population is out there, and they are trying to...
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  or they're struggling with certain th- like, different aches and pains and different things over time, reflux, heartburn, and they're like, "Oh, I'll just go and, and mask it with these medications," and they don't ever think about living life
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  responsibly People are out there drinking and trying to be fun mom, fun dad, and they wanna do that so that their kids don't rebel, and yet they're causing health issues in their kids and not even thinking about the
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  addictive personalities that this is gonna create in the future.
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  We also have general populations out there that, that don't have the money to access the support that they need.
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  That's why I've offered Substack for free.
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  You're going to be getting at least one live a month for free on Substack.
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  You're also getting connection with our team on Substack, and I'm writing articles every single week on there to support you, no matter what your income level.
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  If you have a phone or access to the internet, you have access to healthcare directly with me, and you can do that there.
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  You can even get support at $14 a month with my paid Substack, and in $14 a month, you get a specific paid live that is only going live for my paid folks, and it is a place where you
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  can actually get that, and we have extra threads going on, um, and extra accountability for what I'm teaching in the Substack articles on, um, on Wednesday and Saturday.
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  And so there's like...
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  There is so much available out there, and I am trying to bring foundational healthcare right to you wherever you are.
• 10:27
  You know, in the last episode, I made the imagery of how wherever you are on the train, like, whatever station that you're starting at, but the train is coming, and we're going to pick you up as long as
• 10:36
  you reach your hand out.
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  As long as you reach your hand out and you are ready to go, you are welcome on the train of the Wilderness of Wellness, and that is what I, what I am working so hard and so diligently.
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  My team is working so hard and diligently.
• 10:51
  Do you realize when you come into our world, whether you're on Instagram, whether you're on this podcast, whether you are in Substack, or you're in Wilderness of Wellness, you are literally assigned a care coordinator, someone who only, uh,
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  her...
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  Their job, her job is only about you.
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  When is the last time that you've had some place that was already assigned someone to take care of you?
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  I, I think that that with the rise of AI and automations and all of this stuff, we're realizing that people are, uh, just settling for automations, and people are settling for bots, and people are settling for do it
• 11:28
  themselves without access to a practitioner or clinician team or, um, this team that we have here, everything is hands-on.
• 11:35
  There is nothing that you will touch that is AI related.
• 11:39
  Everything that, um, r- that everything in our containers is always going to be, that you touch, is going to be a human being.
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  You know, by the end of this year, and by the...
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  They for sure said by the end of twenty twenty-seven, most things that you interact with will be bots.
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  They will not even be human anymore, and it's happening in our healthcare.
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  I have been told over and over and over again to make these AI bots, and I'm like, "No.
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  No," because my brain is not a bot.
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  The way that I think and the way that I wanna teach and the way that I interact is, is scriptural and, and we will be going directly to our people.
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  We will be going directly to our people, and we will make sure that everyone has access to a human being on the other side.
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  And so this space is ADA compliant.
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  I'm working very hard for my blind folks.
• 12:25
  I'm working very hard to, um, instill, uh, opportunities in there for my blind folks, but we are set up for our deaf folks.
• 12:32
  We are set up for, um, any of our other issues.
• 12:35
  If you do have a concern about, um, the access to the content, please let us know.
• 12:42
  Um, I even have private podcasts in there as well, so there are transcripts in there that you can read.
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  It just automatically does it for you And all of that.
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  So everything is compliant and available at your fingertips.
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  We are offering you spaces where you can learn and grow and have everything that you need in this space.
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  And cholesterol, like I said, everything in my world started with cholesterol because my worldview and the reason why I do this is because everyone is so scared of cholesterol, and I want you to learn on Substack exactly what
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  we're doing, um, and what cholesterol is and how it works.
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  And so you can actually go to the top.
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  I have a tag that has cholesterol on there, and, and maybe I'm imperfect and maybe not everything is tagged there.
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  But everything for July is gonna be all about cholesterol for you and how to do things, what to do, what to pay attention to, all of that as we move on.
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  So I want to make sure that you are invited into Substack, man or woman.
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  Get in there, subscribe for free, get your bearings, get connected, um, and in the Wilderness of Wellness, if you are a female, we have a wait list for men, um, for the Forge.
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  The Forge is coming.
• 13:47
  Um, but for women, the Adventurers is the space for you to get the support that you need in a foundational and functional health clinic, but also with that worldview of, you know, you need real live access.
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  If you are struggling with something, you need a space to go and ask the questions.
• 14:06
  There are so many...
• 14:07
  Like, even the members themselves are so knowledgeable that you can ask, "Hey, uh, what diapers are you using?"
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  Or, "Hey, what did you do with...
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  How did...
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  Like, what is your favorite pan to cook in?"
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  Or, "Hey, how do you handle this in your life?"
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  And whatever it is, don't let yourself get caught up in not having a community around you and support around you, um, that you just go and do life on your own.
• 14:30
  So this month, we, again, we are talking about cholesterol, and cholesterol is a problem, um, for some people, and cholesterol is much more than just a total cholesterol number.
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  But your cholesterol does point to what is going on in your life, and we wanna make sure that you get access to the support that you actually need and not just the hubbub of Band-Aids or eat better, exercise
• 14:51
  more.
• 14:52
  That may be part of your, uh, need, but sometimes you need stuff right now, and we wanna provide that for you.
• 14:58
  Um, so get into Substack, get into the Wilderness of Wellness.
• 15:01
  The...
• 15:01
  If you pay, uh, $14 a month in Substack, you are getting 20% off your annual, your annual membership to the, um, to Wilderness of Wellness Explor- or Adventurers.
• 15:12
  And that is...
• 15:13
  Like, guys, it is everything that you need when it comes to your healthcare, uh, right in one spot.
• 15:18
  So with that said, I wanna thank you, and I will see you next week.
• 15:23
  Thanks for listening to the Crying in My Cheesecake podcast.
• 15:25
  If this episode spoke to you, even the smallest way, don't keep it to yourself.
• 15:28
  Share it with a friend who's ready for real, real change.
• 15:31
  And listen, your next steps matter.
• 15:33
  Check the show notes for links, resources, and ways to work with me.
• 15:37
  Whether you're ready to step into the wilderness of wellness or come hang out with me on Substack, we would love to have you there.
• 15:43
  And if you made it to the end, come tell me.
• 15:45
  Send me a d- a DM on Instagram and tell me what hit home for you today.
• 15:49
  We read every single one of them.
• 15:51
  I am cheering for you, I am praying over you, and I will see you in the next episode