Everyday Wellness in Nature with Cynthia Thurlow Part 1 (of 2)
“Sometimes I take these leaps of faith where I’m not even sure where I’m going, I just know that I’m going to be successful.”
YOUR KEY INSIGHTS FROM cynthia
Cynthia Thurlow is a globally recognized expert in nutrition & intermittent fasting, highly sought after speaker, CEO and founder of Everyday Wellness Project. She’s been a nurse practitioner for 20+ years, is a 2x TEDx speaker: her 2nd talk on intermittent fasting has been viewed over 7 million times. She has been featured on ABC, FOX5, KTLA, CW and in Medium and Entrepreneur. Cynthia was recently listed in Yahoo Finance as one of the “21 founders changing the way we do business.” She’s also the host of Everyday Wellness podcast, which was listed as “20 podcasts that will help you grow in 2020” by Entrepreneur magazine, and in Business Insider “21 podcasts to expand your mind in 2021.”
EveryDay Wellness
“I am a traditionally Western medicine trained nurse practitioner who has a real passion and interest in the value of food and feeling that when it as it pertains to our health and wellness. It really it all starts with food. And we've gotten, unfortunately, really far removed from recognizing how critically important the foods that we choose to eat can have on our longevity and our health and wellness. Now, one of the things that I think is most important I always like to mention is that I'm a wife, a mom, and those are the things I'm most proud of. But there are a couple other hats that I that I actually wear, and one of them is a podcast host. So I have a podcast called Everyday Wellness, where I get to interview the best and the brightest in the health and wellness space. So I can continue to share really important and critical information. I've done a couple TED Talks. Both are women's health focus, but talking about perimenopause is my first and then intermittent fasting, which is the one that I'm probably best known for. And I always laugh that one of the basic tenants, in terms of information that I'd like to share, is that the limiting beliefs that we choose to embrace can have a huge net impact on how we perceive ourselves as we grow older with grace. And so I always like to mention that I don't subscribe to limiting beliefs, especially as they pertain to health and wellness. I'm actually getting ready to celebrate a big birthday next year. And so I like to remind people that we can create the lives for ourselves that we choose to and want to embrace. And so that's a little bit about me, but I would say that, the most important thing for me is being able to educate, inspire and empower, not just women, but also men and families to live their best lives. And if 2020 hasn't taught us anything, the lens that we choose to view the world with is the one that's most critically important. ”
Limiting Beliefs
“I think the probably most prominent one, and this really pertains to both genders, but in particular, middle-aged women, is that weight gain is a normal function of aging. And that is one that I cried BS and like to remind people that there's so many things that impact weight gain with age, and it could be as simplistic as we start to lose lean muscle mass as we get older. And so it's really, really vital, especially if we're north of 40, that we are lifting weights, that we are getting enough protein into our diets, and that we're getting enough high quality sleep. I also think that many, many people think to themselves, well, I'm x age, so I’m meant to have knee pain. I’m meant to get short of breath when I move my body. I’m meant to have poor quality sleep, and yet I recognize that those are not normal things that happen. It is a function largely of our over-harried, overstressed lifestyles where our bodies are sympathetic dominant, meaning our bodies think we're being chased by a saber toothed tiger. And on top of the fact that it's the highly processed foods we eat, it's the fact that we eat 16 to 17 times a day. When you take into account sugar sweetened beverages, along with meals.. People oftentimes don't register that those those Starbucks coffee drinks that are so sweet and delicious have 80 grams of sugar in them and are really derailing your health. So those are the things I think about and certainly heard quite a bit when I was in clinical practice.
I spent 16 years working in cardiology as an MP. And so most of the patients that I had were not on the preventative and they had established disease, whether it was vascular disease, diabesity, high cholesterol, or a combination of many things. And so for me, I really started to think very thoughtfully about what were the things that we were doing and our lifestyles that were contributing to this. And the mindset piece is always the most important, I remind everyone, it all starts with with our minds and our perspectives. But over and over and over again, hearing from patients, oh, I'm 45, I'm 50, I'm 60, I'm 65…this is the way things are meant today and I cry BS.
But irrespective of what chronologic age I am, I want to live and be able to have as much energy as possible. I have all boys. So try to keep up with a household of teenage boys and dogs and a very, very athletic spouse, I want to be able to keep up with everyone. I may be the shortest person at my house right now. But I definitely don't want to be the slowest or the one that has the least quality sleep and struggles with food cravings and things that. I think we as a country and as a nation, and even outside the United States, any westernized country really, just assumes that's just the way things are. And it was interesting, my kids and I were looking at photos that were my grandparents. And they kept saying, gosh, everyone in those photos, everyone's so thin. And I said, That's unfortunately, when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, you didn't see the degrees of obesity that we now see. And so their their lens with which they see the world is very different. Although we know we try to embrace really healthy principles here at home.”
the pivot
“I would say that I always talk very openly about my oldest who's now 15. When he was four months old, he developed horrendous eczema. And so the kind of traditional mindset in allopathic medicine is that you address with high potency topical steroids. I took him to the pediatrician, like a responsible parent. I kept saying, Is it something I'm eating because he was being exclusively breastfed? And they said, No, no, it's probably something environmental, maybe his skin's dry. And so after a couple months of this, I started to really question that nutrition was playing a role even though I was eating very healthy. And so I eventually when he got closer to a year old, I got his allergies tested, even though the pediatrician thought that was just going overboard, and it turns out, he had life threatening food allergies. He had allergies to tree nuts and to peanuts, and I probably had consumed some while breastfeeding, but without diving down another whole rabbit hole.. I think that's initially where it started. And then I read a book by Robin O'Brian called the Unhealthy Truth. And that book changed my life and certainly as a clinician, as a parent, as a as a woman. And it made me angry. The information in the book really talking about the buy in between pharmaceutical companies, the food companies, food industry, lobbyists, vaccine research, all of these things kind of came together. And that started the pivot.
It was all from the inspiration of having a little guy who was otherwise healthy, but had terrible food allergies to really open up my eyes. And I always say there are no coincidences in life. But for me, that was a powerful impetus to try to get him answers. And I've come to find out now that, very likely, it did all start with food with him as well. And so I always credit my children for being my greatest inspiration. But that's kind of where it stemmed or started from.”
cynthia’s childhood
“I will be the first person to say that there are no coincidences in life. But I do think that the way that I grew up, helped mold me into the individual that I am, and made me incredibly resilient. I think sometimes God gives us the parents that we need. I have a father who is probably on the Asperger's spectrum and is a high-functioning alcoholic. My mom is an incredibly accomplished woman. But she's tough. She's a tough person. My parents were married for the first seven years of my life and chose to get a divorce, which was a good decision for them both. But the fallout from that is the ripple effect across the water for the rest of your life. Growing up with emotional and physical abuse is not an easy thing to do. I was certainly a very kind of sensitive child, probably more cerebral than the average elementary school aged kid. I was very blessed and very fortunate that my both my grandmother's, my maternal and paternal grandmother's, and several of my aunts really kind of stepped in and provided a lot of the support and addressed my emotional needs in a way that really helped mold me into the person that I am. So if anyone where ever to describe how I was, as a child, they would probably say I was very serious. And I was very serious, because I dealt with a father who was very emotionally abusive and very harsh, and would oftentimes, would talk and say things that were highly inappropriate. And then my mother and father both got remarried in the same year. And so my step parents are both wonderful people, I think they should be bronzed for sainthood, because my parents are actually very difficult people overall.
But I think that in many, many ways, when God doesn't give you what you think you need, he gives you exactly what you do need. And so because I didn't necessarily have the easiest parents, I develop wonderful relationships with girlfriends. Most of my friends that I'm very, very close to, I've been friends with my entire life. I mean, sixth grade, seventh grade, first grade, some of these women, I consider them like sisters that I never had. As a young woman, if you grew up, not really having healthy relationship with your father, it can make it very challenging to have healthy relationships when you're on a romantic level. When I was in my 20s, I thought I would never get married. And not because I didn't feel like I was a wonderful prize, I just didn't think I was in a healthy place. So after many years of therapy, I ended up meeting my husband, and he's one of my greatest blessings. But when I look back retrospectively, I wouldn't be the hard kind of tenacious, resilient person I am, without the blessing of the parents that I did have. So I always look at them with grace and respect and say, they did the best they could. And I didn't have a beaver cleaver existence. My husband had one of those for which I think it was one of the things that attracted me to him. He grew up with parents that were very actively involved in him growing up as well as with his sister.
You can take adversity and you can do one or two things with it, you can either let it pull you down, or you can allow it to create the momentum to fight and I'm a fighter on so many levels. And so I look at my upbringing as a blessing. Even though on the outside if I went into all the details, people would probably be shocked. But being a people pleaser can also be one of those things that can be challenging to outgrow. And so I've learned to outgrow that code, if you will. But I sit in tremendous gratitude for the way that I grew up. Because I don't think I would have taken the leap of faith to leave clinical medicine. Making a larger impact is what drives me so that tenacity, it was probably a coping mechanism that turned into something that was a really powerful motivator as I got older.”
Leaps of Faith
“Sometimes I take these leaps of faith where I'm not even sure where I'm going, I just know that I'm going to be successful. And I remember being terrified when I was 21 years old, and not going to a prestigious law school, and then going to work at the worst job I've ever had my entire life. I was doing all these pre-med classes while I was doing this job. And I remember being ranked last in the entire department. Out of 30 people in a department, I got ranked last. And this pencil pusher behind a desk was telling me that I was essentially a loser and that I wasn't gonna amount to anything. And I laugh about this now, because I'm so grateful that he did that, because I hated that job. And I think he knew it, which is why he probably ranked me last. But it just spurned my desire to keep moving forward. When I when I left this job where I had a decent salary, I uprooted myself, moved to another city and started nursing school. I remember thinking to myself, I don't know if I'm going to be any good at this, but I'm going to do it. And that's the same way I was at the entrepreneurial path. There's a whole lot more in play when it's not just me and a little 12 pound dog, like when I was going to nursing school. Now I've got a husband, a mortgage, two dogs, two kids… like what am I doing? But it's that steadfast belief that I will always land on my feet, and I will always be successful. And I will always be resilient because I know exactly what I need to do.
I think of myself in many ways, like a strainer. I'm collecting all these ideas, and the best ones are going to settle with me. I truly believe that all these things occur for a reason. Pivoting is something that will mark my life and I tell my children, Listen, sometimes we have to do what's hard to get to where we want to be. We don't want to be complacent. In fact, I hate complacency. And I hate laziness, and my kids know this. But I always tell them, I want you to be true to who you are as an individual. Are you going to play it safe, which that's not my personality, I'm going to push the envelope a bit. And I think with great risk comes great reward. That was something my dad said was through great risk comes great reward. And I don't think he could have ever been more proud than when I pivoted and changed the direction I was going. It's one of the few times I think he's actually admitted he was proud of me, which to me was huge. I think that it's very easy in life to go on autopilot. It's very easy in life to just continue doing the status quo. It is much, much harder to change direction and it could be something small. I'm not saying everyone that's listening has to take these extraordinary leaps. But it could be as much as creating more boundaries. I had a health scare last year and you better believe when I got out of that hospital and didn't die. I was like, my life's gonna be different. I want to make sure my life is being lived much more authentically.”
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