This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast Chris Harrison Comedy from the home office in Austin, Texas. Today, you guys know that Laura and I love talking nutrition. Our guest today Alyssa Goodman, a holistic nutritionist and clense expert. She's based in Los Angeles. Don't judge her by that. She's, you know, not one of those crazy Cali cleansed people.
Alyssa actually kind of came about this, and this is really what I wanted to talk to her about, is how she came about this in her personal story and her journey having Hodgkins lymphoma, and one doctor in particular, one doctor finally stopped and asked the right questions. It's a question that most doctors, and it's not against them, They're just not getting this kind of nutritional training. It's
just not how they go through school. It's not the approach that our western medicine is taking with big pharma and surgery and getting you on drugs and trying to keep you on drugs. That's just not the approach. But this one doctor changed everything and ended up changing her life. It is an amazing story and I love her approach to nutrition. Wanted to have her on today to share
her story. So welcome to the show, Alyssa. Goodman, Alyssa, I'm so happy to have you on the show today because I am Here's the thing, I'm not crazy about it, because I know people that are like there's a spectrum to health and all this stuff, and you know there is you know, the far far where they are just everything they do, touch, eat all that. I still live my life a little bit. I'm not gonna lie. I'm gonna have a glass of wine. If my daughter makes
chocolate chip cookies, I'm gonna have one. So you call them cheats, call them whatever. I'm still gonna live. But I would say overall, I would I'd like to think I live a healthy life. It's important to me. And I think that the more I've learned about gut health, all of this stuff is so related to everything in our body.
Right yeah, oh man, totally. I mean gut brain, you know, all the things that have been happening, and also just in regards to like all the digestive issues that are coming up, you know that are just rampant, and also your intuition and instincts in your.
Gut yeah, totally. Yeah. You remember, remember how we say a gut instinct, right, it's in the name. I've gotten into this because I've just been I've been an athlete my whole life, and I'm very active and I like to stay that way. And but you got into this because you were diagnosed with Hotchkins lymphoma and you're like, I need to make a life change here.
I really grew up like not a very healthy well kid. I was, you know, sick a lot growing up, so and psychologically everybody labeled me a sick kid. And then my energy was always so low and just not you know, mentally, I wasn't really thinking straight. So I did go for sugar and caffeine.
And comfort foods. You would you would think I.
Just a crappy uh. And so I got sick a lot growing up over the years. And when I moved to New York from after college, I just kind of was thinking, Okay, I'm gonna work my ass off, I'm gonna climb the corporate ladder, you know. And that is what I was taught growing up in those days, and just followed that same lineage of eating out late, lots of alcohol, you know, just really bad food, lots of caffeine, and then.
Lifestyle we all live as we get out of college and start Yeah, that life.
We're superhuman, right.
Yeah, we're invincible at that age.
Right. So I said to my husband, who's from Queens, like we're moving. We gotta move west. I gotta like slow down, I gotta chill out, like New York is not a place for me that I want to stay. And he was funny because he was like, you know, he had never been to Los Angeles, so it was like New Jersey. I'm not going to New Jersey, you know, like like no La, you know. And he loved it. He was a golfer and he came out here. And then when I landed a job with Vogue magazine, which
I thought was the ultimate, which wasn't. I was diagnosed with the cancer and it was an early stage, so I was lucky. Early stage. Doctors still treating me like it was stage four and I was going to die. But I did see one doctor out of all of these doctors I saw during that time that said sat me down. He was a radiologist from Saint John's and he said, do you love your life? Are you happy with yourself. Do you love yourself? Are you stressed? How stressed are you all the time? You know, like, do
you love your job? What's going on in your world? And I was like, I have no idea what any of that means. Wow, I don't know what happiness is. I don't know what I don't know what not being stressed feels like.
So two things just struck me as you were saying that. Number one, that someone had the wherewithal to talk about health prevention and getting in front of it, not through drugs and pharma and all that. But also what struck me, because this is what really scares me about the world today, is that one doctor out of all the doctors you saw, one talked about gut health, mental health, your emotions, all
those things that play into this. And that's what scares me today is that that is the approach and there's very few people who study this. And you know, I talked, I've talked to many doctors are like Chris, you we spent a couple hours on nutrition, you know, and that's crazy to me.
I know, I know, it's just it is really wild how how our medical community is set up, you know, and it's also set up with fear. So anytime you're in fear mode, you know you're just not going to heal. Your body's not gonna reset. And also you're in fear, your in stress and going back to the gut, you know your gut's going to completely shut down.
Yeah, well there and look, and I know you'll say this as well, there is a time for surgery, there is a time for medications. This you know, Western medicine. Our advances are amazing and technology is a wonderful thing. But at the same time, that shouldn't be our medical approach right out of the gate to everything. It's like to have that conversation you had with that one doctor
from Saint John's God bless him like that. He was put in your pershee whoever was put in your path to have that conversation.
I know, I know, I was so lucky. And then that is when I started to change my life and I went into you know, therapy, and I read every self help book I could get my hands on, and I started doing yoga and just breath work and meditation and journaling. And that was thirty two years ago. So I mean I got lucky, and you know, had two girls, but had health issues because I did do some radiation because the only reason why I did the radiation was because my family and friends were freaking out that I
wasn't going to do any Western meds. So I did that and then I got hyper thousand hashimotos, celiac anxiety, insomnia, Like it was crazy. This stuff happened after that. And then, as you probably know, my husband eleven and a half years later after my diagnosis, was diagnosed with non hodges liphoma and he passed away at forty five from the Western meds like they did two bow marrew transplants in a year and a half. He never was able to recover. So his immune system gave out and he got fumbled
pneumonia and he passed away so young. And that's what I was like, Okay, there's something not right here.
So that made you dive even deeper into this.
I went back to school and got certified in Eastern Western medicine, and then just everything kind of unfolded after that. It was like I became obsessed because I wasn't really feeling well and I was back being very tired and brain foggy and not sleeping well. When he passed away thinking what am I going to do with my life with two girls that had both had cancer? Like I was going back into the fear mode.
Yeah, of course you're like, oh my gosh, they're going to have this and we're going to pass this on. And so when you dove back in, what did you take from this? What did you learn? Is there a world in which all these things can coincide and we can coexist with Western medicine Eastern medicine and you know, is is that a possibility on?
Yes, you could do. I feel like it's really important to do both. You have to be your own health advocate first of all.
That's so creaty huge, that's huge.
And there are so many beautiful modalities out there that are in you know, Chinese medicine and are you adic like acupuncture and you know they are you adic eating style and you got all the spices that are so beautiful for you know health. I mean, there's so many
beautiful modalities right now that are at our fingertips. So I think if you feel like you need to do some Western meds, you just need to balance it with the other because the holistic ways, because you know, the Western meds really do you know, take us down, like going back to the gut. You know, Western meds just deplete our microbiome like crazy, even ad built tail and all, you know, allergy medicine just kill our microbiome and that
is so crucial. And none of us have enough beneficial bacteria in our gut anyway, just from stress and life and you know, over the years, so it's not just antibiotics, but it's you know, bad food and water and you know stress.
And what would you say overall? I know we're painting with a broad brush, so it's not like we're diagnosing anybody in particular, but what are some broad brush things that all of us could do to just immediately this week of better ourselves?
Easy and hard question at the same time, because there's so many things that I'd love to tell people to do. But I mean, we all know that sleep is crucial, very underrated totally. Women need really eight to ten hours, and they kind of like look at me, like what, But we restore our We restore in our drenals, so we really do need to restore properly, and eight hours is kind of the minimum. Men can get away with seven because they don't restore.
By the way. My wife Lauren reminds me of this all the time when she sleeps in a little bit longer. She's like, you know, women need more sleep than men.
Is Okay, they do, they do, and that's when the body resets, you know. And it also is when the body's detoxing through the night. Your brain's detoxing, your liver is detoxing, you know, So that that is just crucial. And I know we a lot, we have a sleep epidemic going on and it's really sad and hard. And then I would say that hydration is crucial because two to three percent you drop below your hydration level, your brain's not going to work, your digestion's not going to work.
You know, you're not going to be feeling good.
And that's not much two to three percent.
No, it's nothing. So we're we're we have all this beautiful water at our fingertips, but we're just drinking it and peeing it out because there's not enough minerals we're not eating. They're not in our soil, they're not in our food, we're not absorbing them. That's what helps the water go into your cells, so you're not just peeing it out. And really hydrates you. So I have this powder that I've used for years and years and years,
and I love it. It's called Ultima Replenisher, and I just I dilute it because it has a lot of stevia and it's a little too sweet for me. But I put a packet into thirty two ounces. I drink two of those a day. It's life changing. And also getting up and drinking two cups of water before you go straight to your coffee because you haven't, you're dehydrated and you have detoxing.
The best analogy someone gave me about you wake up, think of think of a wet sponge you would leave out on your sink at night. You wake up in the morning. That's your brain, that's your body. It is completely right up, it's completely and so you gotta soak it in. You gotta replenish it.
I never heard of that. That's a great analogy.
Like, you're right, Yeah, the sponge is all hard and crusty.
Yeah, your organs are like most of your organs are like that because they're squeezing out you know, toxins, and we are pretty toxic.
So your muscles are repairing all night and it's like your body's doing a lot of work. You gotta help it out.
When I was diagnosed with cancer thirty two, because I'm sixty four today, but I basically started juicing, and I feel like that was sort of my like food based multi vitamin. I have sense come like full circle into I throw just my greens into a blender now, and I make it really simple. Cucumber, celery, lemon, ginger, spinach, parsley, you know, just really it's so nutrient dense, and I keep the fiber intact because fiber is really crucial also for us to detox. And I drink like sixty ounces
of that every day. I think that is a game changer, and you don't have to Juicers can be a pain. When I tell people over the years, you know, buy a juice or juice, They're just always like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to clean. The blender is easy. You pour some water in with those greens, you get four to five cups of vegetables, and you're you're supposed to get eight to ten a day. So most people never get that. And I'd say that was
like my third thing. And also tacking on like making sure the fiber you get enough fibers so you can get food in and out of the system. You know, it's not staying in there for your cogestive system.
Yeah, keep regular is there are so many diets. There always have been, but you know today there's just different ones. You know, since I was a kid, there was there was diets, and and you know, you've fast forward to the carnivore diet to the you know, I only eat beets. I only you know, uh, wore cabbage soup. So what I'm curious what your diet is. Are you ven? You vegetarian? Are you what is your diet that you follow?
So I would say that I am probably more like I eat. I'm more Mediterranean, I'm more middle of the road. I'm very plant forward. I have a cleanse. I don't know if you know that I have had for ten years. I cook and deliver like four different cleanses, four different food programs to people in Los Angeles. And it's very planted forward because I'm just trying to get people to eat. Like it's over fifty different vegetables in five days. It
has some bone broth, chicken broth on it. We are now offering some animal protein for a lot of the people who are more like on this carnivore diet, and animal protein has become now the big thing vegetarian.
Vegan, which just funny because that's what we have always been eating. But now it's cool again, which is great.
I know it's cool again, right, But I feel like, you know, as you age, we need protein, we really and we need amino acids complete and you know, especially getting older, I feel like I crave more animal protein
and I basically feel better, you know, doing that. But I just want people to know that we where the good stuff is, the nutrients, that vitamin's, minerals, fider nutrients, antioxidants, the fiber is in the plants, you know, and also not negating the legomes and beans for the fiber and for the probiotics for your gut, and also not taking away all the grains because it's like grain free diet
and all these things. But I feel like my cleanse gives you a ton of food, like it is, sometimes more food than people can actually eat, and at the end of five days, they're completely different people. They're thinking better, they're digestions better, they lose weight, they're like I eat all this food and I lost weight, and I'm like, see, you don't have to starve your cell and deprive yourself.
I wanted to ask you about the cleans because that again, that is that word gets thrown out a lot. And whether it's you know, intermittent fasting and you're cleansing for a certain amount of time, some people are like, I don't eat for two or three days and I only eat water or drink water and or you know, that's it. So how often are you suggesting people cleans and when they do it? You know, I think you kind of answered the question. You guys are doing it with stuff.
You're not just cold turkey cleansing.
Right, I My cleans you can do weekly. So it's just nutrient dense food that no inflammatory foods on the cleans unless it's like foods that don't agree with you. We do specialize for people who have nut allergies or don't like beats or you know, things like that, or don't eat soy we have a little edem so, but you could do this program every single week, and I had someone on it for a year and a half almost two years.
They just did They were just cleansing.
They were just doing my program because it's Monday through Friday. Then they then they basically Saturday Sunday did their own thing. But and we do switch up the items like every three to four weeks our soups and salads and everything. But since it's not deprivation and it's not like true cleansing, it probably shouldn't be called cleansing. It should just be calling reset, you know, or nutrient debt.
Reset the system. Totally, totally, It's a great way of thinking about it because you know, I'll never forget I used to work on the Red Carpet and you'd get the Red Carpet season and the women would do what the cayenne pepper lemon cleans you remember that, like cayenne the Master, the master cleanse yes. It was just horrifying what these women were doing to themselves is cayenne pepper and lemon and honey or whatever it was.
And that's all they were drinking. That's all.
That's all they were eating and drinking. And you know, to get Red Carpet ready, right.
I mean, I don't I'm not opposed to, like even water fast because they can be really you know, crazy amazing for you for a certain period of time, and depending on what you're trying to achieve. You know, if you're trying to kill off you know, bad cells, a topagy type of thing, and you know, sometimes doing that really hardcore fasting is important if you're having some health issues. But mine is more like I want people to know
they can, you know, reset their body with food. So and it's also really fun because they don't have to even think about it. They get all the food prepared and it's organic and clean. And I just feel these days,
we're eating out way too much. We're ordering for Postmates, right and since covid and restaurants are using cheap seed oils that are inflammatory, and they're using really cheap animal protein because that's all they can afford, and they're putting too much sugar in their salad dressings, and you know, I mean, I think that we're just getting a lot more inflammatory issues going on because you know, people are ordering in and not cooking at home and preparing for themselves.
So when people do your cleanse, what are you seeing? What are they saying is the benefit? What are they feeling afterwards?
I mean, I can't even begin to tell you after ten years of In my tenth year of doing this, it's so fun because their skin is better in five days, their digestion is working. They're actually going the bathroom more than once a day. Once a day is now considered constipated, so they're going two and three times a day. By the end of my gut cleanse, they're like, holy cow, this feels so good.
That you're going to say another word, which would have been very appropriate.
I was good, I know, but yeah, they're just they're sleeping better, you know, they have more energy, like all all of the things are happening for them, and it really is simple and like they could do this at home if they, you know, because it's not anything hard because.
You'll just do the greater Los Angeles area. You don't go out out of state or out of no.
We just because it's in glass and it's organic and fresh and delivered twice in the week. Yeah, we haven't gone out of state. We do. We go out of state with granola and bars that we ship across the country. And we are getting ready to do three different bone broths, an anti inflammatory of mood and an inflammation.
I swear by by the way, I swear By bone broth Love. Yeah, it's so good.
I know, I know, so I do too. I feel like also for the gut.
Of the collagen, the protein, that it's everything's in there, right.
Yeah. So I feel like I want people to feel like they Like I said earlier, I don't want them to feel deprived. We're deprived enough in our life right mentally, just and.
I think that's a good thing. That's what I love hearing about your quies. It's like, you don't need to like to harve yourself.
It's not that, yeah, No, you can get the results and get better results without starving yourself.
Yeah, as I say, it's actually to the detriment sometimes. Yeah, a lot of times.
You need to nourish and nurture yourself. I mean even more now than ever in our life, you know, with everything going on in the world and in our little world, you know where just there's so much happening that I feel like nurturing and nourishing yourself is where it's at. Where you can actually, like I said from that doctor who you know, gave me that advice years ago, like you can exhale like I don't see anyone exhaling like ooh I got this, you know, right, like, oh I
feel good with this food. Oh I got oh man, Like you know, it's like a beautiful thing when you feel like you are feeding yourself and you're nourishing yourself and you're exhaling.
Exhale, breathe everybody, it's okay, I agree, Alyssa, thank you so much. I like for days on this now. It is it is so important and it's I luckily was introduced to this medical company called Medici that that is their philosophy too, of like approaching this, Let's try to never get you on medication. Let's think about what we can do to prevent all this and if you are like how, let's let's get you off of it if we can.
So yeah, it's just.
It's a way of thinking. It's not even Eastern medicine. It's just like thinking about nutrition and your gut health and all those things first before we you know, call the pharmacy.
It's like holistic. It's the whole approach. It's like what's going on with your sleep, stress, food, you know, life, exercise, It's the whole approach for you, like you know, and when you when you go that direction, that's when you can get off your meds. That's when you can like really take a hold of, like, you know, what are the things that aren't working and fix them.
I bet some I bet a lot of your clients have called and said, Alyssa, I'm not taking my anxiety medication anymore.
It's been insulin cholesterol like Ozmpic's a little different story.
Oh man, that's that's that's that's all that cash. Yeah, that it really is for another day. I'll put a pin in it for now. But by the way, I can't wait to try your stuff. I'll have to check out your bars.
And the bone barrow. I'm honored to be you.
Yeah. Where can we find you? Though? First, so people are listening, even especially if they're in the greater Los Angeles area. Where can we find you?
So I'm on Instagram, Alyssa e Li Ssa Goodman and I have a website same name, and they can find all that stuff there.
Alyssa Goodman, thank you for the knowledge, thank you for what you're doing. And it's amazing how that one lightning bulb moment with the doctor has changed everything.
So and also like being sixty four and feeling better than I've ever felt my entired life.
By the way, there's no I mean, I'm sure people say this all the time. There's no way. There's no way you're sixty four.
I feel like I'm fifty four, Like I don't feel like it's great. And I want to be a spokesperson for people as a age as well, not just illnesses, but age in a really thriving, energetic way where they can really actually live a full life.
So that's awesome. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate everything.
Thank you, see you later.
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