Latest / Dr. Danielle Difference / CIMC 183: Why I Care So Much About Your Cholesterol
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome 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.
- 0:08I'm your host, Dr.
- 0:09Danielle, 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 If you are exhausted from starting over,
- 0:23overwhelmed by symptoms no one explains, or you're ready to take radical responsibility for the person you're becoming, you're in the right place.
- 0:30This is where faith meets physiology, where mindset meets metabolism, and where real transformation, the lasting kind, actually happens.
- 0:38Let's get into today's episode.
- 0:41Hi, friends.
- 0:42I am coming to you from my home office today.
- 0:46Um, I have had some massive stuff kinda just going on here, and Mondays are my CEO day.
- 0:53And so on Mondays, I have a lot of meetings.
- 0:55Typically, during the school year, when my kids are doing school, we're doing lots of schoolwork, so I am just not really present in, you know, on social media.
- 1:03I'm not really present on a lot of things because my job, first and foremost, is to take care of my children, and so I steward that well, and I do homeschool them.
- 1:12And so this week has been...
- 1:14I just wanna, like, kinda, if I can, if you'll let me, I am going to dive into some things that have happened this week, and it's been so disappointing.
- 1:22I, in fact, went live on Substack.
- 1:24If you are not subscribed to me on Substack, you have got to get there.
- 1:27It is where...
- 1:28This is where we have the conversation, like, the conversation starters.
- 1:31On Substack is where we are going even deeper.
- 1:35You not only get a chat with us, like, we used to do Telegram, but Telegram was so limited.
- 1:39So if you are listening and you're brand new here and you hear me talking about Telegram, this takes the place of Telegram because it is so much deeper.
- 1:45I can go live.
- 1:46Do you know on Telegram I was not able to go live and, like, save the video?
- 1:50Talk about really disappointing because people that weren't...
- 1:52You know, they were maybe working or doing something else, like living their life, could not go back and get the live video.
- 1:57So we are working on that and going to fig- like, and that's why we are moving everything over to Substack for that kind of stuff in the chat.
- 2:06Um, right now, if you join as a paid member of Substack, you're getting twenty percent off my Wilderness of Wellness membership.
- 2:12And if you join Wilderness of Wellness this month before the twenty-eighth, I think it is, uh, you're also getting a free thirty-minute call with our, with one of our coaches on the team or clinician on the team, and
- 2:24you...
- 2:24That way you can just be settled right away, know exactly where to start in my pathway and not have any confusion, anything like that.
- 2:31So this week, this past week has been full of disappointment, and, uh, this leads into the conversation today, which is about why I care so much about cholesterol and why every person should too.
- 2:42I really just want you to understand that, like, I am also living this life alongside you.
- 2:49So many practitioners I feel like are so distant.
- 2:51So many practitioners are...
- 2:53You know, you go and see them for their, for your visit, and then there's no follow-up or team caring for you behind the scenes, you know, when life actually happens.
- 3:01That's when care actually happens.
- 3:04Um, just like this week, if you were one of my patients and you were experiencing this, or you were one of my members in the Wilderness of Wellness, you would be able to have access to a healthcare provider
- 3:12team to support you Because this past week, I realized that starting probably Monday, honestly, it was nothing but disappointment.
- 3:21Even Sunday, because I wanted to see...
- 3:22There was someone, we were at a church campus, and I wanted to see someone very specific and meet this person for the first time.
- 3:28I thought I would've gotten to meet this person because they attend this campus, and she wasn't there.
- 3:32And I was like, "Oh, no, that stinks."
- 3:34So I didn't get to do that, and then Monday rolls up, and then there was just disappointment in my brain.
- 3:39I was doing a liver detox, and my brain just could not show up, and I wasn't able to get the things done that I wanted to get done.
- 3:44So yeah, expectation stuff, right?
- 3:46Yeah, first world country, like first world issues, right?
- 3:49So then Tuesday rolls around, and there was a disappointment that happened.
- 3:54And then Wednesday was another disappointment.
- 3:56Oh, Tuesday's disappointment was I went live on Substack for, like, 35, 36 minutes or something like that, like really excited, and I was talking about this cholesterol stuff because that's what we're talking about.
- 4:06It's Heart Health Month here in the, in the Wilderness of Wellness and in the Letters of Wilderness...
- 4:10uh, Well- Letters from the Wilderness on Substack.
- 4:13We're talking all about cholesterol because that's...
- 4:16it's just what it is.
- 4:17It's my dad's birthday month, and he is the reason why I'm in this business in the first place.
- 4:21Because if I can help just one family prevent heart disease and diabetes, I have done everything I was ever supposed to have done on this earth.
- 4:27Because that creates lots of family and generational issues and lots of things going on.
- 4:33So that being said, my audio didn't work.
- 4:36I had a microphone hooked up, and apparently I hit the wrong button, and the microphone did not connect.
- 4:42Just like when I was getting ready to record this, I put on a different microphone because I do have, like, those little Rode, uh, wireless microphones that you can clip to your shirt.
- 4:49That's where you're at, actually, is on my shirt at the moment.
- 4:52And the, the first microphone I put on did not work.
- 4:55And so I'm like, "Okay," instead of getting frustrated, I'm like, "Let me just try the other one, see if I can get that to work."
- 5:00Sure enough, it works.
- 5:01Clearly, I'm, I'm talking here, and I can see my voice waves.
- 5:04Um, but I'm like, "Okay, thank goodness I have my husband to, like, help me with that."
- 5:08Anyway, so on Tuesday there was that.
- 5:09Wednesday there was disappointment, um, going on, and it was a really long day.
- 5:15Thursday was another really long day, um, and just disappointment of stuff going on.
- 5:20Um, had some meetings, had some disappointments pop up.
- 5:22And then Friday and...
- 5:24didn't get any better.
- 5:25I spent 30 hours this weekend working because of some disappointments that popped up.
- 5:30And then I went to church on yesterday.
- 5:33So I'm recording this on Monday.
- 5:35It's coming out tomorrow.
- 5:36But I went to church, and I just said to God, I'm like, "God, I'm not ready.
- 5:39I'm not prepared to worship.
- 5:40I am not prepared to..."
- 5:42Put those away, babe.
- 5:43I'm, I'm recording a podcast.
- 5:45Yes, I'm at home, so pardon, guys, this is the real me.
- 5:47Um, they...
- 5:48my kids are cleaning the kitchen right now, and they're finding mochi and, um, what are those jellies that you put in the boba, the boba tea?
- 5:55So they found some jellies, and they're like, "Can we have this?"
- 5:57And anyway, all that to say, like, I went to church, and I just told God, I'm like, "God, I'm not ready to worship.
- 6:02I don't feel like I have a heart of worship right now.
- 6:05Help me to surrender whatever it is."
- 6:07And I'm getting emotional as I'm even talking about this, and I'm getting emotional because God met me.
- 6:13Because I asked, I raised my hand metaphorically by saying, "God, I need help."
- 6:21And I said that, and he met my every stinking need.
- 6:28And not only that, he went above and beyond, and he showed me how h- much he cared for me by putting, um, the coffee shop gal, like she is in charge of the coffee shop, went in there and
- 6:42sh...
- 6:42I was like, "Hey, I need to order..."
- 6:43I, I order my coffee through my church because it's so delicious, and it's fresh, and it's like fresh.
- 6:48Like, everything is just fresh about it.
- 6:49There's no even...
- 6:50There's not even time for mold to form on the coffee.
- 6:53But anyway, I went in there.
- 6:55I was like, "Hey, I, I need to order my next one."
- 6:57She's like, "I already did last week.
- 6:58I r- I had a feeling that you were gonna need it, so I went ahead and just ordered it, and it'll, it should be here next week."
- 7:03And I was like, "Oh my gosh.
- 7:04Thank you, God."
- 7:05Like, praise you, Jesus, for going above and beyond and showing me that people care.
- 7:11They're already thinking ahead for me so I don't have to.
- 7:16Exhausted, right?
- 7:17So then you know like how at church you have unassigned/assigned seats?
- 7:21It really disrupts my life when I can't park in a similar place.
- 7:25It really disrupts my life when I can't worship in the same place because it's very distracting, and I have my spaces.
- 7:31Like, I just have my connection there.
- 7:33And so, um, there's this joke that some people like to take my spot, and I don't like it, and I can't...
- 7:38I have a hard time.
- 7:39So one of the, one of the ladies working the, uh, welcome center, she looked at the camera and kn- knew that those ladies that were taking my spot usually, um, were there, and she texted me and looked at
- 7:49the camera to make sure that I got my spot.
- 7:51And I'm like, "Okay, God.
- 7:52Like, you care about these minute details that no one else cares about, and no one else understands how much they mean to me."
- 8:02Then this morning, I met with Aria.
- 8:03She's my director of operations.
- 8:05If you send any emails to the clinic, if you send any emails into the Wilderness of Wellness or whatever, you are likely going to have connection with Aria.
- 8:13She's also in the Wilderness of Wellness teaching, um, at least once a month or at least once every other month or so.
- 8:19And, um, she is a phenomenal asset here, and she just, um, this morning answered so many other prayers I didn't know I needed, and I just...
- 8:28I didn't mean to come on here and just throw in a testimonial, but I have to because that's who I am.
- 8:34That is why this whole business, this whole business exists because I want to provide you a space for you to come alive.
- 8:45I want you to not just come alive, but I also want you to experience a premier, the only premier Christian root cause health community helping women and soon-to-be-men steward their health through education and accountability and coaching and functional
- 9:00wellness principles from my perspective and what God has taught me about how the body heals itself.
- 9:05And no one else does it like I do, and so we are literally building for you something that has never been done before.
- 9:13In the age of AI, you can ask AI anything, but there are so many things that AI can't do.
- 9:18And there are so many things that AI can't do, and that's, uh, explained to me making the, the connections of my health and my cholesterol and my antibodies for my Hashimoto's and autoimmune and, and making connections of the
- 9:32disappointments I had.
- 9:33And I- AI can't heal me.
- 9:36I still have to do the work.
- 9:38And how do we do the work?
- 9:39And how do we not give up on ourselves?
- 9:40It's when we come in community with one another.
- 9:43So I wanna just kinda come together with you.
- 9:46That is my heart here, and like I said, if you join the Wilderness of Wellness now, if you join Substack now, you get twenty percent off of my Wilderness of Wellness membership.
- 9:55Plus, right now, you also get a two hundred and twenty dollar value of an initial intake with one of our coaches and clinician team, and that is a one-to-one.
- 10:04And that way you just have that security of onboarding.
- 10:07You're also assigned a care coordinator to make sure that that care coordinat- coordinator, anything that you need, um, any kind of resource, it, it, you are all supported wherever you are.
- 10:16So why I want to just kinda talk about this episode a little bit more about why you should care so much about your cholesterol is because, yes, I'm talking about blood sugar.
- 10:27Yes, I'm talking about inflammation.
- 10:28Yes, I'm talking about heart health.
- 10:30But I want you to understand why do I care so much about it.
- 10:36Why do I care so much about heart disease and why now?
- 10:39And I know, like I've just said, like, it, it is a deeply personal conversation for me.
- 10:45It's a deeply personal topic, but it's also very professional for me because it is one of the greatest stewardship conversations a church needs to be having, and it's like, it's l- the leading cause of death.
- 10:58The leading cause of death still today in the United States is, is heart disease, period.
- 11:04Heart disease outweighs cancer, diabetes, all those things, but the rest of the things on the list, the first, the top five things on the list...
- 11:11Let me see if I can find the screenshot, 'cause I had a screenshot that I shared on social media a while ago, and I shared this because, um, I realized that heart disease is at the top of this
- 11:22list, right?
- 11:23But heart disease, while being at the top of the list, is also, underneath it is everything that is a precursor or connected to the heart disease.
- 11:33Oh my gosh, where is this dang picture?
- 11:36I can't seem to find it.
- 11:37Where are my recents?
- 11:40I don't know where my recents...
- 11:40I don't know how to work this.
- 11:41I hate when they update my phone and I don't know any, I don't know anything anymore.
- 11:46I don't know how anything works.
- 11:47Anyway, so all that to say, everything about heart disease, everything is connected and everything...
- 11:55I can't believe I can't find this dang thing.
- 11:57I know I took a picture of it.
- 11:59I took a screenshot and I shared it somewhere.
- 12:02Anyway, the top causes of, of death are heart disease, and I really think that Christians need to be paying attention to this because it's not just, it's not just the heart disease piece.
- 12:13It's all of the elements underneath it that are, like, point to it.
- 12:19And if leading cau- if the leading cause of heart disease remains, or if that remains to be the leading cause of men and women's death is heart disease, it's not cancer, it's not Alzheimer's, it's not accidents, it's heart
- 12:32disease.
- 12:33That means heart disease is probably preventable and it's reversible because it is not anything that's like cur- Uh, it's not something that you have to be destined to have.
- 12:45And yet most people won't spend time thinking about their heart until someone tells them their cholesterol is high or a family member has a heart attack.
- 12:52And by then, few- fear is what enters your conversation into your brain.
- 12:56But what if I told you there's another way?
- 12:58What if we stopped waiting for fear to motivate us?
- 13:02What if we chose stewardship instead?
- 13:04That, my friend, is the conversation I wanna have in the, in the containers.
- 13:09I want you to be in Substack having this conversation with like-minded individuals.
- 13:15I want you, when you are ready, in the Wilderness of Wellness, doing the work alongside my team.
- 13:21I want you to have access to this because this is stewardship.
- 13:24This is something that I believe we're gonna be held accountable for at the end of our days when we see Jesus face to face.
- 13:30How well did you take care of your body?
- 13:32How, why did you punish your body?
- 13:34Yes, Jesus is gonna, you know, say, like, he's gonna, like, clear our, clear our slate there, but I feel like we're gonna be held accountable to that because it's like, if, if everything else, our finances, our home, our
- 13:46car, our, uh, bills, our children, like, all of these things and our roles in life that we, we know that we're responsible for, why do we not think about our bodies when the body is the exact vessel at
- 13:57which we do life in?
- 13:59So when I first encountered healthcare, like, for myself, um, I...
- 14:05And even with other people, I thought that doctors' jobs were to make people feel better, and it is.
- 14:11But over the years of me being part of the m- being part of the equation and part of the system is that I realize most people don't come into doctor's offices at the beginning of disease.
- 14:28They're coming after years of symptoms, years of fatigue, years of blood sugar inst- instability, years of poor sleep, years of chronic stress, years of believing feeling miserable was just simply part of getting older.
- 14:41But yet there are other people that are older, and yet they're thriving in life, and they're not miserable, so clearly it's not part of getting older.
- 14:48But by the time someone sits across from me, they don't just have one problem, it's multiple layers, and they're exhausted.
- 14:56Their hormones are shot.
- 14:57Digestion isn't working well.
- 14:59They've probably had a hysterectomy.
- 15:01They could be dealing with PSA stuff if they're a man.
- 15:04Could be dealing with erectile dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, all sorts of things that make your mental health then go crazy because you feel bad about yourself.
- 15:11Like, what's the point of living, right?
- 15:13The weight keeps creeping up even though they're actually trying.
- 15:16If you would know how many people come into my office that are athletes struggling with their weight.
- 15:21It is a thing.
- 15:22When your cholesterol has gone up, your blood pressure keeps creeping higher, then you're frustrated because you've been treating every issue like it's separate, but the body doesn't work that way.
- 15:33The body is beautifully connected, and that's, that is what changed everything for me when I started treating people.
- 15:39Because I don't care what your diagnosis is.
- 15:41Your diagnosis is actually a symptom for me, so I'm like, "What actually happened here?
- 15:45Where did all of this actually start?
- 15:48What is the weakest link that we need to start with first?
- 15:51What has your body been trying to tell us for the last 10 or 20 years?"
- 15:56That is where root cause medicine became c- so compelling for me, and I think one of the tragedies, the biggest tragedies out there in modern healthcare is that we wait until disease is advanced before we c- become interested
- 16:12in prevention.
- 16:13Hmm.
- 16:14And I'm gonna take a sip to coffee...
- 16:16or my coffee on that because that is the truth.
- 16:20We wait until we are diseased or the disease is advanced before we become interested in prevention.
- 16:28Imagine waiting until your roof collapsed before checking for a leak.
- 16:32Mm-hmm.
- 16:33You wouldn't do that, would you?
- 16:34You would hire an inspector, you would maintain it, you would get it repaired if it needed, but it would be because you're protecting that 20, 30, $60,000 roof.
- 16:43I don't even know with inflation how much a roof costs anymore.
- 16:46I bet it's like $60,000 or more at this point.
- 16:48But you want to protect that roof's integrity at all costs because you don't wanna spend that $60,000 on it, do you?
- 16:56So you're protecting tomorrow, and our health deserves that same kind of attention.
- 17:01Think about your car.
- 17:03If you still take your car in every six months or when it says to, like now the cars tell you when they need an, an oil change.
- 17:08If you take them in and you get that done regularly, why are you not regularly taking care of yourself?
- 17:15Mm.
- 17:16This, this is why I care so much about cholesterol, because cholesterol's been a villain long enough.
- 17:22It is actually usually the pl- first place I can get someone's attention, though.
- 17:28Especially when people tell me, uh, "My cholesterol is elevated.
- 17:32I don't wanna be on statin.
- 17:33What can I do?"
- 17:35That is when they're asking.
- 17:37And so then I come in, and I'm gonna ask you, how are you sleeping?
- 17:40How are you eating?
- 17:41What is your blood sugar like?
- 17:42Are you constantly stressed?
- 17:43Are you moving your body?
- 17:44Are you caring for yourself the same way you care for everyone else?
- 17:48These are more stewardship questions, life story questions that matter more to me than the symptoms.
- 17:54I wanna know your past traumas.
- 17:55I wanna know when they happened.
- 17:56I wanna know how your cycle is.
- 17:58I wanna know, as a man, when did you start puberty?
- 18:00What are your 24-hour cycles?
- 18:01I wanna know this.
- 18:02I wanna know when you get itchy with a B.
- 18:04I wanna know when you feel the most insecure.
- 18:06I wanna know what you do then in response to all of that.
- 18:09I wanna know your habits.
- 18:10I wanna know your coping mechanisms.
- 18:11I wanna know everything about you because that is going to change how I treat you And if I could sit across the table from you today, I would tell you that your body is always working for you, and
- 18:24that your identity is not in the symptoms or the lab value or your cravings or any of that.
- 18:29Those are all conversations and data that point us to that root cause.
- 18:35So if you say, "My cholesterol's always been normal," I'm grateful for that, but this conversation still matters because heart disease does not develop overnight.
- 18:47And a perfect, uh, a perfect cholesterol marker is not going to tell me the actual truth, whether it is elevated or whether it's not.
- 18:58I can help you to prevent and optimize your health because all of these things matter.
- 19:03Heart disease does not develop overnight.
- 19:05Habits that you're building today influence the decades ahead.
- 19:09I have seen people in six months have perfect cholesterol.
- 19:13We're talking like 180s to 200, early, like top 200s, and, like, perfect cholesterol.
- 19:19And then, and something traumatic happens, either at work, like they're under a lot of stress at work, and there's a lot of demand at home and things like that, their cholest- their cholesterol will elevate 40 to 60 points,
- 19:29sometimes even 120 I've seen.
- 19:32That does not mean you need a statin, does it?
- 19:35You know what that was?
- 19:35It was your body saying, "I'm stressed, and I need some help."
- 19:39And so that is something that we need to start really having the conversation about, is that your habits and what you do tell me who and what you worship more than what your heart health is.
- 19:52Because I think when we, when we go to perform for everybody else, we can do everything we want.
- 20:03But when it comes to taking care of us, we don't have the slightest clue how to even do it.
- 20:07We don't.
- 20:08And that's why in the Wilderness of Wellness, we are adamant...
- 20:10I'm gonna sneeze.
- 20:13excuse me.
- 20:14I, um, in the Wilderness of Wellness, I'm adamant about doing life with you, and doing life with you means that healthcare should be in your back pocket doing life with you.
- 20:23It should be.
- 20:24We should demand l- like, no less than that.
- 20:27In my Wilderness of Wellness, we are in there Monday through Thursday.
- 20:30Anything you post Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we respond to on Monday, because out of living by example, the team takes time off on Friday and the weekend to be with our family and to ensure that we have at least
- 20:40three days that we can get our workouts in, we can, like, take care of ourselves with mealtime, connect with family, do the things that we need to do.
- 20:48We have that.
- 20:50We build that into our schedule, and we model it for you because we wanna make sure that you know, yeah, life doesn't end on the weekends.
- 20:57We can still support you, but your stress matters, your sleep matters, your blood sugar matters right now, and you need people to do life with.
- 21:04You need a practitioner team to do life with.
- 21:08I, I don't think that many people get it, and this feels like I am talking into a void, if I can be honest.
- 21:15And if I can be honest, it would be really humbling if you would leave me five stars in what you're learning from this podcast.
- 21:21I'm not saying this for marketing.
- 21:23I'm saying this because I am convicted that as Christians we need to s- live set apart and set free, and that's what...
- 21:30and it means that we don't look like culture.
- 21:33We are doing things differently One of the favorite things, one of my favorite things, honestly, about this work I'm doing is watching the women specifically changing their own future.
- 21:46They're changing what their children see.
- 21:48They're changing family dinners.
- 21:50They're changing grocery shopping and asking for help.
- 21:53They're changing conversations around the table.
- 21:56They're changing how the next generation thinks about health.
- 21:58And guess what?
- 21:59Those kids and those husbands come into my clinic as well, and I'm actually building the Forge, the men's membership, the same thing like the Adventures, but for men, because we're building legacy here.
- 22:09And legacy isn't only what we leave behind when we're gone.
- 22:12It's actually what we're modeling every single day that we're here.
- 22:17The children are watching how you care for yourself.
- 22:19The grandchildren are watching how you, uh, respond to stress.
- 22:23Your friends are watching whether you believe your body is worth caring for or not.
- 22:27Never underestimate the ripple effect of your faithful stewardship.
- 22:31And so at the end of the month, so on the 28th, I am running a, a cholesterol boot camp.
- 22:38On the 28th, I'm running a cholesterol boot camp.
- 22:40You can totally come join us.
- 22:41We're gonna put the, the link down below for you to register.
- 22:44It is free.
- 22:45You can totally come to this.
- 22:46I would love for you to register.
- 22:48Come join us in that boot camp.
- 22:50It'll be about an hour long, and we are going to talk about cholesterol, the...
- 22:54Like, kind of like what is going on with our cholesterol, what it affects, like, the downstream of cholesterol, like, what...
- 23:00Or I guess what came before the cholesterol stuff, what you can do, and all of that.
- 23:05And I am so grateful I get to do this life with you.
- 23:08I'm so grateful for that.
- 23:09Come join me on Substack right now.
- 23:12You can subscribe for free.
- 23:14If you don't know what Substack is, it is an amazing app.
- 23:16It is like what the internet was before 2015, where it's like blogs, and you can watch videos of me talking and other people.
- 23:24You can, um, do podcasts there.
- 23:26You can actually access this podcast there.
- 23:28Um, you can also come into the chat and have conversations with us.
- 23:33My free people get conversations going, but then there are private paid conversations going on as well.
- 23:38Uh, so there is all of that going on.
- 23:40Come join us in there.
- 23:41I am so grateful I get to serve you.
- 23:43Then register for the boot camp at the end of the month.
- 23:46I cannot wait to serve you.
- 23:48You guys are amazing, and so, I'm so grateful f- to be in your ears today.
- 23:53Thanks for listening to the Cry In My Cheesecake podcast.
- 23:56In this...
- 23:56If this episode spoke to you, even in the smallest way, don't keep it to yourself.
- 24:00Share it with a friend who's ready for real change.
- 24:02And listen, your next steps matter.
- 24:04Check the show notes for links, resources, and ways to work with us.
- 24:07Whether you're ready to step into Adventures or come hang out with us on Substack, we are grateful for you, and the link is down below.
- 24:14And if you made it to the end, come tell us.
- 24:15Send us a DM on Instagram and tell us what home- hit home for you today.
- 24:19We read every single one.
- 24:21I am cheering for you, I am praying f- over you, and I will see you in the next episode