Help for the Overwhelmed Family

Overwhelmed. This describes so many of us as we juggle the demands of our lives. How can we keep our families on track emotionally, intellectually, and physically? Katie Wells, known as the Wellness Mama, shares her family’s healthy habits on today’s podcast. Katie is a mother of 6, a podcaster, blogger, and the CEO of Wellness Mama and Wellnesse (a line of natural personal care products). She understands very well where we’re coming from & offers ideas for how to lead the family with intention, clarity, and purpose. She shares her secrets to finding work/life balance in the home, managing her kids’ screen time, and feeding her family real nutrient-dense meals. She gives ideas for where to start when it comes to instilling in our children a positive work ethic and body image. And she discusses how she models all of the above in her own life, as well.

Visit Katie’s website: wellnessmama.com

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Check out our sponsors: Just Thrive & Mountain Rose herbs

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Listen to the podcast here

Episode Transcript

Within the below transcript the bolded text is Hilda Labrada Gore and the regular text is Daniel DeBaun.

Let’s face it. There is so much that we juggle these days between work, engaging and educating our children, and playing referee from time to time. Not to mention feeding them nourishing food, which at times can seem way beyond our reach. For most of us, we call the day a success if we had the chance to shower or even get five minutes to ourselves, but what if we want to raise the bar a little bit with our families?

Our guest is Katie Wells. Katie is a mother of six who also happens to be the CEO of Wellness Mama and Wellnesse, a line of natural personal care products, and a podcaster. In this episode, Katie opens up about her system for finding a work-life balance in her home. She also discusses how she manages her family’s screen time and feeds them real nutrient-dense meals. She talks about a number of things, including how to embrace positive body image and instill in the children a sense of responsibility and self-ownership.

Before we get into it, please join us at our Wise Traditions Conference in Atlanta this November the 13th to the 16th, 2022. The list of stellar speakers includes Dr. Tom Cowan, Sally Fallon Morell, Del Bigtree, Stephanie Seneff, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The theme is staying healthy in a toxic world. Personally, I can’t wait for this event. Go to WiseTraditions.org and sign up to take advantage of early-bird pricing. I will see you there.

Here is a reminder that we have online groups to support parents. If you are looking for support on how to nourish your children and yourself, join the Nourished Children 2.0 and Nourished 2.0 groups on Facebook for one donation of only $5 for the calendar year. Nourishing our children is a project of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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Visit Katie’s website: WellnessMama.com

Join Nourished Children 2.0 & Nourished 2.0

Check out our sponsors: Just Thrive & Mountain Rose Herbs

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Welcome to the show, Katie.

Thank you so much for having me.

It is high time that we talked to a mother who is juggling so much and trying to live a healthy lifestyle. I want you to speak to those moms and talk to us about how a few years ago, you said you were near a nervous breakdown. Tell us that story.

Moms still carry the emotional responsibility of whatever the task is.

I’ve always thought that there’s a lot of pressure, especially on women and moms, in this world with all that we balance because so many things have been added to our plate, which is wonderful. Nothing was taken off the plate, so we ended up with all these things that we’re still juggling. A couple of years ago, I was running a blog. At that point, I had 5 kids, and the 6th one was on the way. I was so stressed and overwhelmed all the time.

I got to a point where I considered deleting Wellness Mama and realized I couldn’t do everything the way I was doing it anymore. My family had to come first. I wasn’t going to let them suffer or get the short end of the stick, so the only logical answer seemed to be that I should stop the business side. At that moment, I had this tiny glimpse of clarity where I realized in the business side, everything is pretty much stress-free. It runs, and it’s easy. I enjoy that part, so why is it that at home, I’m so stressed and overwhelmed all the time, and it seems like I’m failing on all fronts and can never stay on top of everything?

At that second, I realized it was because, in business, I was managing everything intentionally. I had systems, objectives, and KPIs. I knew where we were going, and I knew what the goals were. It was easy to reach those things because there was a plan, whereas at home, I was trying to manage 7 and soon to be 8 people’s lives in my head, including the household, the food, the appointments for all the various different things, the activities, the emotional health of the children, making sure we had enough family time, and my own health. I was trying to do that off the top of my head and keep all those plates in the air.

I thought, “Before I take an extreme step like deleting the blog, what if I applied the same type of logic I use in business to my home life?” In business, I thought of everything as a math equation. I solved for the variables like, “How can I help the most people? How can I make this post the simplest, most concise action step possible?” I thought of everything like a math variable. I thought, “What if at home, I solve for the variable of reduced stress? What would my life look like then? How could I 80/20 things so that I was still accomplishing the things I needed to accomplish without the stress?”

That’s what I started doing. I put systems in place in my home life and with my family like I would in a business and got my family members involved like I would get team members involved in a business. Over the next few months, it completely revolutionized our family life. The stress melted away. I was able to keep doing all the things I loved in the business and still have even better relationships and better family time because there was that same level of intentionality, goal-setting, measuring what was expected, and getting everybody involved.

It sounds so great. I have to ask you for a specific because I want a window into what this looked like as you put on your business hat almost at home to manage things differently.

I realized, for instance, in business, I was big on hiring people who are extremely good at what they did and then letting them have autonomy and independence and respecting their brilliance in what they did. At home, I still had this mentality that nobody could do it quite as well as I could, so I was going to do everything all the time. I was going to handle everything.

I realized that my husband and I had worked hard to teach our children a lot of things over the years. We’ve created these pretty exceptional kids who are capable of a lot more than I was letting them do at that moment. We took a big step back and looked at all the things that needed to happen in our household almost as if it was a business responsibility list and got everybody involved as if we were a team and let people pull from their strengths. Once we figured out the system, we let them own it.

As moms, we still carry the emotional responsibility of whatever the task is, so we’re always reminding. We might trade having to do the task, like unload the dishwasher, for having to remind someone 25 times to unload the dishwasher, and we end up spending more time. I figured out all the things that my kids could be involved with that they were capable of. I then worked on switching the emotional responsibility to them and letting them have ownership of it so they could feel like they were contributing to the family because they were.

I made a non-negotiable rule at that point that I was going to stop doing anything for them that they were capable of doing on their own with the goal of trying to raise adults, not perpetual children. These were things they needed to do when they were adults anyway, so I was going to stop doing things they were capable of doing, which meant that at the time, my then four-year-old was capable of doing her laundry if she had a stool and she could reach it. She started doing her laundry. My older one was able to cook dinner at nine.

They loved having that responsibility and ownership and feeling like they had done something on their own. It took a little while to refine the system and give everybody their marching orders, but now that we have it, it’s a well-oiled machine. The beauty of it is with all the systems in place and written down, when I have to travel for work, someone else can easily step in and fill in my part of the system because it’s clearly defined.

WT 251 | Overwhelm — Overwhelm: There’s a lot of pressure, especially on women and moms, in today’s world with all that we balance because so many things have been added to our plate, which is wonderful, but nothing was taken off the plate.

That’s so cool. I’m thinking on some level, as a mom, we have to let go of perfectionism because when the four-year-olds do the laundry, they might toss in the whites and the dark colors. We have to let go of having them do it the way we want them to do it and seeing that they’re doing it to the best of their ability. I want to ask you. How can we prioritize healthy living in the middle of that? Is that a part of your system?

Absolutely. When I started putting these systems in writing, they were like silos for different things. The most important enforced things were related to our time as a family, our culture, our community, and the things we wanted to pass on to our kids before they left home. Since being healthy and trying to live to the best of our ability is so much part of our family culture, living healthy in a physical sense was very much high up on that list as well.

I’ve always meal planned, but I realized I was still spending a lot of time on the act of meal planning and spinning my wheels. I created 4 seasonal meal plans in 3-month increments that were based on seasonal produce, especially at the time, that I ran through and made sure that all the macros were good and we were getting enough protein and micronutrients from all the different inputs.

Each of those 3-month meal plans was 14 separate dinners. Our lunches and breakfasts are pretty standardized anyway. I split those into two weeks. There were seven dinners each week, and I pre-created a shopping list to go with each of those, so we weren’t eating any meal more than once every two weeks. I already knew what my shopping list was once a week when I went, and it alternated.

During each three-month period, it would alternate back and forth in each of those weeks. If my mom was going to the store, she could help with shopping if she wanted to, or even the kids could help me with shopping because the list was the same, and we could split it up easily. Since the meals were the same, I could teach the kids how to cook them. They learned and developed getting good at some of these meals, and they were able to help more.

I have those four seasonal rotating meal plans that we will sometimes switch out meals if we find new recipes we like. In general, when we were especially in the transition, it was not having to think about it and repeat it. I believe, especially for women, we’re capable of multitasking, which is wonderful, but it can also be a downfall because we’re so good at it. It was reducing that mental energy of all the things that I knew I had to do. When I could pre-plan and take that off my list mentally, it wasn’t contributing to the overwhelm.

When I knew when the laundry was going to happen, I didn’t worry about it when it wasn’t going to happen, so it wasn’t contributing to the overwhelm. When I knew exactly what day on my calendar we needed to order the seeds for gardening, I didn’t have to think about it until then, so nothing was falling through the cracks. That’s the part that gets to us when we feel like we’re forgetting things or if things are falling through because of it.

I have to pivot and ask you about your background. Did you study math? I don’t have a mind like yours. I’m curious if you were always so left-brain-oriented, or is it the right brain? I always get the brain sides mixed up too.

Other than normal high school classes, I did read a calculus textbook and take the calculus AP test. Math has always made sense to me, and I’ve always loved it, but I didn’t take an extreme amount of math. I have always been creative. I love art, and I competed in art when I was younger. I love the creative stuff too, but math has always made sense to me. I always systematized everything as I saw it in life and thought of things as equations.

Did you ever read the book Cheaper by the Dozen?

I haven’t, but they turned it into a movie, didn’t they?

Accept that you can’t get everything done every day.

They did, back in the ’50s. It’s some black and white movie with Lucille Ball. The reason it’s coming to mind is because the father had a mind like yours. He would time if it were quicker to button from the bottom up a shirt or if it was better to button it from the top-down. He was very precise, and it worked for their huge family. I like this idea of systems, even if we’re not into being as precise as the guy in the movie or the book. It’s good for us to come up with stuff so that we avoid the overwhelm. Going back to the meal thing, what is a favorite food of yours or your family’s?

I don’t, in general, eat breakfast typically. I don’t eat until lunch. Usually, the kids will get up and make their own breakfast, and that sometimes is smoothies or soups. We do a lot of breakfast soups. They’ll sometimes do leftovers from the night before or scrambled leftovers into eggs to make omelets. For lunches, we typically do some big salads or cooked veggies, or soups. It’s a lot of repeats there.

My favorite lunch is a huge watercress salad with broccoli sprouts, a can of sardines, avocado, a bunch of different herbs or whatever I’m feeling that day, and then olive oil. I make a huge salad with all the healthy fats and lots of green stuff. I’m a huge fan of sardines. For dinner, the kids call it egg roll guts, which is a stir fry made of vegetables and the meat that you would put inside of an egg roll, but no wrapper. That’s one of their favorites. That’s their go-to on the rotating meal plan.

Are some of these recipes on your website? Can we check them out there?

We have hundreds of recipes on the website. Also, there’s a system called Real Plans that all my recipes are loaded into. People can use that to plan their meals too.

I love that you guys don’t have cereal for breakfast. People who read this are all across the board in different places on their wellness journey. I want to put in a plug here that dinner for breakfast is awesome. Why do we make the heaviest meal the one at the end of the day? Why not start your day with some nice protein and fats and feel yourself to go? I like that you skip breakfast. Everyone has to do what works for them too. There’s no need to fit into the standard box that is promoted out there. Your life sounds wonderful and full. Do you have one area of weakness or someplace where you feel like, “I still don’t have it together?” That would make us all feel better.

I have to always say that it’s the myth of social media too. None of us post our bad days, or typically, we’ll only post a glimpse of the hard stuff. I never want to be that someone for anyone where they’re like, “How does she get it all done?” That’s not what it is. I have bad days as much as anyone else. My answer is I don’t do anything all the time. I do a lot of things and get it all done, but I can’t get everything done every day.

That’s one of my philosophies with life as well. I try not to do anything every single day, including taking supplements. I always take the weekends off from supplements. I don’t drink coffee every day because I don’t want to get used to the caffeine. I don’t do the same exercises every day. The body thrives on adaptability, so I don’t get it all done every day.

This is something I’ve been trying to break the mindset around because when I was younger, and I got sick, I had Hashimoto’s that’s now in remission, I had to be strict for a while in order to get better. That was a time of my life when that was necessary, but because of that, I got in that mentality of, “This equals bad,” or certain foods are bad or doing certain things is bad.

In 2021, I’ve been trying to consciously undo that mindset and get more intuitive about listening to my body and how I eat and live versus thinking of anything as objectively good or bad. If anything, it is how your body handles it. It’s the situation, the amount, and the interval of how often you are eating it. I don’t think I’ve admitted this publicly yet, but I sometimes eat gluten or sugar maybe once a month, and I’m fine because I’ve healed my gut. I’ve dealt with all the health issues, and it doesn’t affect me. I still don’t eat those things often because I don’t think they’re nutrient-dense.

I had to learn to have a little bit more balance and not be quite so strict about everything. The irony is I’ve been able to continue to be healthy and lose weight by doing that. It goes back to metabolic flexibility and having a good relationship with food and health. I stay on track 95% of the time, but I try to 100% enjoy every day in every instance. I 100% enjoy it when I’m eating super clean and I also 100% enjoy those couple of times when I eat something because it tastes good. It doesn’t necessarily have the nutrients I would normally eat, but I’m not going to feel guilty about it either.

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Coming up, Katie addresses the biggest hurdle facing parents and her estimation. She gives advice to those of us who feel we are way too busy.

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That sounds a lot like intuitive eating.

I’ve tried to develop that. For me, it’s gone hand in hand with a lot of inner work, working through some past trauma, and getting more in touch with my body in general. The flip side of that is I can eat things that I would normally not have eaten before and not feel bad, but I only want to eat small amounts of them. As I’ve gotten more in touch with my body as well, I’m so in tune with when I’m full that I cannot eat more, so once I’m full, my body will not accept any more food. I am able to listen to it easily.

It’s good for the children to see you making these choices as well. It’s probably healthy for them also to learn to listen to their own bodies, and they see you modeling that. You talked about getting more in touch with childhood trauma that you have and being in a different place than you were before. Are there certain areas where you’re helping your children work through this intuitive eating philosophy? How do you see them living their healthiest lives?

Learn from your failures, so you can be a role model to your kids.

In some ways, I’ve learned it from my children. Since we’ve always had clean food at home, I tried to never pass on any kind of issues around food to them. It wasn’t that I told them, “You can never eat sugar. You can never eat gluten. You can ever eat these foods.” I didn’t have them in the house because I tried to make it our family culture that we love nutrient-dense foods, brightly colored vegetables, and right foods.

From the beginning, to them, food is fuel. It’s such a beautiful thing to watch as kids because they’re so active. They have learned to develop and crave the things their body needs. They’ll come back from some of their sports or from pole vaulting and they’re craving protein. They’ll be like, “Can we make salmon and broccoli?” They know to crave the things that have the nutrients in them. I saw that in them. I’m like, “They don’t feel deprived when they’re eating salmon and broccoli. They’re not wishing they were eating something sweet that they can’t have.”

They view food as fuel and their body as this amazing machine that can do things. They weren’t sitting there looking at their body going, “I wish it looked different. I wish this was smaller.” I tried to lean into that and learn the beauty of that from children because they’re born with this amazing ability to listen to their bodies.

In 2021, that was one of my biggest experiments for the year. I don’t do resolutions, but I had set it as an experiment and a goal that I was going to get through my internal issues and my body image issues because I did not want to pass those on to my children. I wanted them to keep that ability to think of food as a way to fuel and nourish the body and not as something that was bad or harmful. I wanted them to think of their bodies as incredible tools and machines that they could do fun, incredible things with.

I vowed in 2021, “No matter what it takes, I’m going to figure out how to conquer it this year,” because I don’t want my daughter to look in the mirror and think of the things that her body isn’t or to see her flaws. I want her to continue to see how incredible and grateful she is that she has a body that can jump over a pole that’s nine feet in the air, or whatever it may be. I set out on a journey of that. If anything, I learned from them.

I also read the book The Body Keeps the Score. It is so good. I did things like tapping and trying to even take small steps. When I looked at the mirror, instead of that script that would tend to run in my head automatically of, “My stomach is this because I had so many babies,” or all the things I would see that I didn’t like, I would try to find the things I could be grateful for and look at those and call those out instead. Slowly, it made this shift that I realized one day that I looked in the mirror, and I didn’t immediately think of the negative, which was one of my big goals for 2021. I’d say I should be grateful because I learned it from my kids.

I know another thing you’ve learned from your kids, which is pole vaulting. Isn’t it true that you’re trying your hand at it?

I am. I never in a million years thought I would try pole vaulting. We live close by and have become friends with someone who trains Olympians. We’re grateful we live close to him. The kids have all taken it up as a hobby. My daughter especially has a natural knack for it and has gotten really good. They all started doing it.

One thing I always want to model for my kids is learning from failure. We have a family motto, which is, “You were made to do hard things.” I realized they see me work all the time, but they don’t see me try something and not be good at it and then have to work hard and overcome it, especially in a physical sense. I started pole vaulting, and so did my husband. They get some of their athleticism from him because he’s well above 6 feet. It does not come easy. It’s one of the harder things I’ve ever done. I love that they’re getting to see me fall over myself and not be great at it at first and still have fun with it.

I love that philosophy that you were made to do hard things. It reminds me of parenting because it’s not easy. What do you think is the biggest hurdle for parents these days in helping their family live a healthy lifestyle?

Certainly, we are facing things that previous generations of parents haven’t had to face with technology and all kinds of stuff. Maybe the unknown is the toughest thing because everything is changing so rapidly. At least for me, what’s always on top of my mind is how do I prepare my kids for a world that doesn’t exist yet and that I can’t even fully necessarily probably predict? That’s one of the reasons we have decided to homeschool.

We realized that even the school system was originally started so long ago, and it prepared kids for a world that doesn’t necessarily exist anymore. How can we help create kids that are going to change the world for the better and keep things moving? Our kids talk about it all the time. Their generation has a lot of things to fix and a lot of problems to clean up.

We sat down and thought in that same vein when I was overwhelmed. We were like, “What are the things that are important to us to pass on to our kids?” We realized it wasn’t things like, “You need to sit still for eight hours and get every single answer right on the test,” or that there’s only one right answer to every problem. It’s that we want them to be able to think critically. We want them to stay creative and innovative and think outside the box.

I’m a big believer that the people that will succeed and keep changing the world going forward are those who can see patterns where there aren’t normal patterns. We were like, “How can we make sure that we pass these things on to our kids and foster that as part of our family culture and our education culture?” That’s what we’ve done in trying to pass that on to them.

I love that you’re stimulating them on so many levels to think for themselves. That’s a valuable asset. I’ve heard it said that in schools, they educate, but they don’t teach us to think and evaluate. That’s important. How do you manage screens in your household?

Like the food thing, I never wanted it to become a forbidden thing that they would feel like they had to hide or want to sneak in when they weren’t with us, or that became such an intrigue that when they left home, that’s all they wanted to do. We’ve tried to manage teaching them good habits about screen time, but also not letting them have too much at too young of an age.

A large part of that is for us modeling it and not always being on screens ourselves. They know my husband and I both work on computers, but we have work time. It’s typically while they’re doing school and they see us work, but we try to have those off and be good examples when it’s family time and not be constantly looking at our phones.

Our oldest still does not have a phone of his own. We have a house phone that stays when he babysits, but it’s not his phone. We can check the browser history and have full access to it. We try to teach them, like with food, that technology is a tool. It’s one that their generation is certainly going to increasingly have to know how to navigate, but that, like any tool, can be misused and be harmful like food or even water if you misuse it.

By mentoring and guiding them, we are letting them develop those good habits young. They know things like the science of looking at blue light after dark is not good for your melatonin, especially when you’re a child, so we don’t let them do screens after dark for the most part. Also, we want them to be proficient in screens. It is going to be a big part of their world. We teach them coding in school and make sure they understand technology.

We do have an agreement with them that they can’t have their first phone, and they can’t drive until they’ve had a profitable business for a year. This goes back to our idea of what we want to pass on to them before they leave home. We realized that by teaching them through entrepreneurship, they could work in many of the lessons of life through that. In running a business, you learn to be consistent, solve problems, and show up. You learn customer service, attention to detail, critical thinking and creativity, and connecting the dots. We work with them to create a business and then run it profitably. After they do that, then they can get a phone. It’s a multifaceted answer.

What businesses do you see blossoming in your household?

The little ones have little neighborhood things where they sell things or newspapers. My older one, my son, is into science. He’s experimenting with a series of super worms that break down plastic into safe byproducts without the BPA. He’s working with some scientists on that. It’s fascinating. He’s got a couple of other local businesses that he’s working on as well.

Parenting is very overwhelming. It will take you a while to know how to deal with things. What seems to help is to simplify as much as possible.

That’s exciting. We look forward to learning more about that. We’re going to wrap up, but I want to ask you. What advice do you have for parents who feel too busy to take care of themselves, let alone help create a healthy atmosphere in their home?

As I mentioned, we first started talking. My heart goes out to people. I know how overwhelming parenting can be. It took me a while. What seems to help is to simplify as much as possible, at least in the beginning. We saw the Marie Kondo trends and doing this with our physical possessions, and how much less stressed people can be when they declutter. We also have to do that mentally and with our time more than anything because our time is our most valuable asset. If you’re in that state of overwhelm, be ruthless and look at what is not required, what’s not necessary that can go away for a while, and start with scheduling the most important things first.

When I was in that place of overwhelm, I started with a completely blank calendar. I took everything off. I then started putting the most important things first. Family dinner and time with each of my kids went first. The things that are going to matter and that I’m going to look back on probably one day at the end of my life and be like, “I wish I had more of those moments,” those things went first, and then everything else was scheduled around that, like the extra activities and the extra work stuff.

As humans, we will fill whatever container we give ourselves. If we give ourselves eight hours to work, we’re going to take eight hours to work. If I put my family first and give myself three hours to work, I’m going to get it done in three hours. I also get everyone else involved. When I was in that place of overwhelm, it was because I was trying to either do or emotionally manage every aspect of life and realizing that, especially in a family, we are a team. We started acting like a team. I started letting people take ownership of other parts of that, so it’s not all falling on us.

Beyond that, find a starting point where you can have as little stress as possible. No stress is not possible, but find a place where you can start from where you’re not so stressed. Get comfortable there. Establish systems and good habits, and then build in baby steps slowly as you’re able to without getting overwhelmed. In that way, it’s sustainable, and you’re not trying to overhaul your whole life overnight, but you’re building a system that’s going to work for you and your family over time.

That’s helpful. I love that simplifying, streamlining, and prioritizing the things that are most important. I want to ask you a question I often pose at the end. If the reader could do one thing to improve their health, what would you recommend that they do?

I’ll try to keep it free, easy, and has multi-benefits. I’m a big fan of stacking beneficial things into the same time period. One non-negotiable for me is every morning, as soon as possible, pretty much waking up, I try to spend half an hour outside even if it’s not a sunny day. There’s so much science about the broad spectrum of light that comes from the sun, even on a cloudy day, and how much more light that is than we could ever get inside.

When that light hits certain receptors in our eyes and on our skin, it signals all of this cascade of hormones beneficial for circadian rhythm, proper melatonin production at night, and keeping cortisol in the right range. It’s free. I try to stack that, so I often drink a cup of tea or coffee on the front porch with my kids or my husband or go for a walk. In that way, you’re getting community. You’re getting movement. You’re getting something warm to drink, and you’re getting time with those you love. People often discount how powerful the light in the morning can be. It’s a free, simple, and easy way for you to see some pretty dramatic improvements in health.

That’s wonderful. I love it. I have that habit as well. I’m a big fan of it. I can’t believe how good I feel and how wonderful it is. Thank you for that advice. You even started a self-care product line called Wellnesse.

Our new line is called Wellnesse. It’s built on the premise that we shouldn’t have to sacrifice finding products that work as well as conventional alternatives to be able to use natural and safe products. We have haircare and toothpaste, and we’ll be having a lot more products come to market this 2022. I’m excited about those because they’re all completely EWG verified as safe, natural, clean products that work as well as conventional alternatives.

Why am I not surprised that you can bring this to us? You are amazing. I’m so glad you didn’t shut down the Wellness Mama business years ago and that you found a way to make it all work. We look forward to talking to you next time. Thanks again.

Thank you so much for having me.

—

Our guest was Katie Wells, the wellness mama. Visit her website at WellnessMama.com. You can go to my website at HolisticHilda.com. Here is a letter from our journal, “My first-born daughter was very little. She was never quite right. She was pale and very lean. She had dark rings under her eyes. She would often cry for hours and have meltdowns daily, seemingly without cause. However, because she was reaching all her developmental milestones, the medical profession made me feel that I was a paranoid first-time mother.”

“I thought we had a healthy diet. She was breastfed until 21 months, but the rest was low fat, lots of fruit, rice crackers, sugary homemade sweets, gluten-free pasta, etc. As a veterinarian who had been indoctrinated by mainstream medical and pharmaceutical practices, I didn’t think twice about the recommended childhood vaccination regime. However, after my daughter’s eighteen-month vaccinations, her demeanor was worse. She was crying and irritable, and I was terrified that her language had regressed.”

“A month after this vaccination, she had an acute systemic anaphylactic reaction to 1/4 of a cashew nut. Holding her blue floppy body in my arms was the worst day of my life. Living with an anaphylactic child is living on the edge. This started us on an amazing journey of real food discovery and healing. Although it took almost two years to find WAPF, we have never looked back. We’ve had bone broths, ferments, organ meats, no processed foods, no sugar, raw dairy, grass-fed meat, pastured eggs, organics, lots of real fat, Cod liver oil, etc.”

“Needless to say, there were no more vaccinations. My daughter’s disposition and health continued to improve over the years. In November 2021, when she was six, we did our final nut challenge without a reaction. There were no more EpiPens, action plans, or medical alerts. Thank you, Weston A. Price Foundation, for your continued dedication to finding the truth about food and commitment to our future generations.”

That’s Rebecca from Brisbane, Australia. Rebecca, it is our pleasure. If you feel so, please write a letter to the editor for submission in an upcoming journal or rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts, and we’ll try to get it on the air as well. Thank you so much for reading. Stay well and hasta pronto, which means see you soon.

About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, who thinks most bios are pretty boring, wants to live in a world where laundry folds itself, moms get to wear the superhero costumes they’ve already earned, and our kids never have to deal with the health problems our world is currently facing.

A mom of six with a background in journalism, she took health into her own hands and started researching to find answers to her own health struggles. Her research turned into a blog and podcast that turned into an amazing community (starring you!). If Katie was writing this, she wouldn’t tell you that she’s written over 1,500 blog posts, 3 books, and was named one of the 100 most influential people in health and wellness. Or that she’s been called a thought leader for the current generations of moms.

When she’s not reading medical journals, creating new recipes, or recording podcasts, you can find her somewhere outside in the sun with her six kids or undertaking some DIY remodeling project that inevitably takes twice as long as it was supposed to.

Obligatory additional unrelated randomness: LEGO® walking world record holder, doula, speed-reader, hates bananas, loves baseball, scuba-diver, amateur pole-vaulter, INTJ, highly experienced in answering the question, “why.”