Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Hey there, it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani. Welcome back to Beyond Wellness Radio. Today we have a really great interview with Rachel Adams. Rachel has a real interesting story. She is an executive, owns four different businesses, is really big in the real estate industry, and she had a health crisis about three years ago. And she’s taken a lot of the health principles that we talk about on the show, sleep, diet, nutrition, exercise, and she’s really turned her health around. I think it’s great for people that are in or were in Rachel’s situation to really have the hope to see someone that’s been where they are now and get out of it. So I’m happy to introduce Rachel to the show. Rachel, how you doin’?

Rachel Adams:  I’m awesome. Thank you so much for having me, happy whatever day today is to you.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Happy Monday, right?

Rachel Adams:  Happy Monday!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Cool. Well, why don’t you share with the listeners your story? I think you have a compelling story—people that are trying to make it, whether it’s they’re executives or entrepreneurs, or just a busy, you know, housewife that’s trying to make it by and has—is struggling with health symptoms. Why don’t you just talk about yourself and your story?

Rachel Adams:  Definitely. Well, you know, I—I really wanted—I’ve always kind of been a person who has struggled a little bit with like weight and body issues and, yeah, I’m 5 feet tall. So I’ve only going to—I’m never gonna grow vertically. I’ll only grow horizontally.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  And so for me, weight’s been something I really struggled with, but what happened is that I—I hit top without an agent for the country, for the Wall Street Journal for real estate in three years. And so from the outside looking in, my world looked perfect. Like if you wanna talk about like the Facebook life, right? Because everything you see on Facebook is real.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, exactly.

Rachel Adams:  And so, you know, I had the perfect car, the perfect life, the perfect job, but what people didn’t know if that is that, you know, a lot of times in—in the struggle it takes to—to have such massive success in three years, you give up some stuff. And some of the things that I wasn’t necessarily admitting to people was that in the three years, I had gotten a divorce that I never dealt with.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  I had gained 32 pounds.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And I was putting everybody else’s needs in front of my own, like family, friends, clients, you name it. And my corporate company, Keller Williams Realty–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.

Rachel Adams:  They’ve heard there is this young girl, she’s doing big things, like let’s bring her down to Texas, to headquarters, and interview her on how she’s leading this amazing lifestyle and she’s so successful. Because at the time, I’m literally travelling all around the US, like coaching people on how to build a business and work on their mindset. So I go to Texas to shoot this commercial and I’m sitting down with Nina Rowan Heller, and she is an international health and wellness coach. She has coached Matthew McConaughey.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  Founders of Microsoft, like leaders at Keller Williams, and I go there and I, you know, get hair and make-up done, and I’m wearing like the most serious squarest things you could buy.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Right.

Rachel Adams:  Kinda like suck it all in, and I go to interview with her and—and I’m used to people asking me questions about real estate, so I’ve got like my normal canned answers. But we’re going through the questions and Nina stops and kinda gives me a funny look and she’s like, “And how does that make you feel?” And I’m like, “Feel?” I mean, you know, bumps and bruises but you do it, too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And then we keep talking and she stops again, and she’s like, “And how did that make you feel?” I’m like, “Ah, you know, I mean it was tough, but that’s what happens.” And so we keep talking and she kinda like gets this funny smirk on her face and she’s—she looks at the camera crew and she is like, “Hey guys, can I get you to step outside for a second?” And they step outside and I’m like, “What is going on?” You know? And she takes my hand then she says something to me that I’ll never forget. She said, “Rachel, have you ever heard that your video isn’t matching your audio?” Like what you said or doing–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  It’s clear you’re not doing.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  I’m like, “Well, I’ve heard it but not in relation to me.” And she’s like, “Sweetie, what’s really going on?” And I’ll tell you, Justin. It was like in this workout bench, in Texas, in this fancy outfit, I just like burst into tears.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  And I just said, “You know what, Nina? I got a divorce and I’ve never dealt with it, and I thought that if I shoved it down far enough, it’d go away.”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  But unfortunately, it’s showing up in different ways. You know, it’s showing up in unhealthy, like you know, unhealthy food habits. It’s showing up in like, I’m like, “Nina, I literally have a headache, but I also didn’t sleep well last night. So I’m taking an Advil with a cup of coffee.”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, man.

Rachel Adams:  You know, my–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Your poor gut.

Rachel Adams:  I know. I know. I know. And I’m just like, you know what, I was—I was just—I was happy on the outside because I choose to be happy.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  But when I went home at night like I wasn’t happy, and we end up having—instead of doing this interview, we have this amazing 2-hour conversation about what my life could look like if I was truly leading it with authenticity–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  And intention. And instead of feeling like my divorce was something that I needed to be ashamed of–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  Know that it’s just part of my journey, and she actually sent me home. I never got to shoot the commercial. I cried for like two days, but I had this moment.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  And I had this moment two days later, sitting on my—floor of my living room, and I remember looking up to—to the sky or the roof, to God, whatever you want to call it, and I just said, “I know I’m meant for more.” Like, I can’t have gone through all that I’ve gone through, and have this amazing platform of people that I get to connect with to not be meant for more. So I took a step back and I realize that I had some people in my life, and potentially some things in my life that were actually serving me.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And so I went on this 90-day journey of self-discovery, and pretty much everything changed.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow!

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So you kind of hit rock bottom with this interview, right?

Rachel Adams:  Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The lady, it seemed like was asking a lot of questions that were just drawing a lot of introspection, kind of looking at your health, looking at your life. Does that sound right?

Rachel Adams:  A hundred percent.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And what was the first change you made? Okay, so now you’re at rock bottom. What’s the first–

Rachel Adams:  Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Change you made with your health or your mindset that kind of got this journey going for you?

Rachel Adams:  So I—I look at my life and I said, “Okay, I know that I am not leading my life at the level that I want to, so if I could pick two things to remove from a life, like two distractions if you will–“

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  What are those distractions? Like what—what they—what could they be? And if I remove them what could my life look like? And at the time—a little embarrassing to say—I was actually on three online dating sites–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And that’s a distracting thing to have. You know, the little pings always coming at you.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And then drinking. So I checked out dating–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And all alcohol for 90 days, just to kind of see what would change for me.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm. Wow. Okay.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And what was the result of that?

Rachel Adams:  And you know, the thing—well, the thing about it like with taking out alcohol for me was a really big deal because it wasn’t like I was drinking every night of the week but I would have you know, happy hours with girlfriends or a cocktail with clients, and you can have the greatest intentions about food for the day, but once you have a couple cocktails in you, you’re like, “Yeah, let’s—with the French fries, sure we can have cheesecake.” You know?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, of course.

Rachel Adams:  So when I checked out alcohol, like I found that I was coming home earlier–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And instead of having a glass of wine at night, I had a cup of tea. And I was having all this time to sit at my house and I was like, “What do I want with my life?” So I started journaling and then I started reading about meditation, and then when you’re not like hungover every morning or any morning rather, you go, “Okay, well, maybe I’ve—I’m gonna go to bed a little earlier.” So if I wake up earlier, what if I start to exercise? So I started doing a morning routine–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  With just like getting out of bed and I made these little rules for myself, and one of my rules was—I feel like so many times people—the very first thing in their body it’s—they put in their body in the morning is coffee.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  When I was—I was one of those people.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  So before I went to bed every night, I put a glass of water by my bed, and my rule was that before my 2 feet hit the floor, I would drink that glass of water because your body naturally dehydrates as you sleep. And so I drink water and then when I got out of bed, I just set this simple exercise routine up where I would drop to the ground then I would do like 22 push-ups, and the simple ab routine, and some squats. And just like something to get my blood moving, and then I would take my journal and I would write three things I was grateful for every morning, and in the beginning it’s like kinda surface-y stuff–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  Like I’m grateful for, you know, the air. And then you start to get really deep, and you’re like, “I’m grateful for my struggles.” I’m—I mean I ended up being grateful for my divorce like who knew? You know?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. Right.

Rachel Adams:  But–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then what was the best thing for you emotionally? Because as a functional medicine doctor, we—

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  You know, we deal with a lot of the metabolic things, right? Diet–

Rachel Adams:  Yes.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Lifestyle.

Rachel Adams:  Yes.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  You know, we do fancy lab tests and create protocols. But a lot of what creates dysfunction or dis-ease, right? In someone’s body is a lot of the emotional things that are on process.

Rachel Adams:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you mentioned the—the divorce and those kind of things. How did you process that? What were the steps that you went through afterwards to help eradicate that?

Rachel Adams:  Well, you know, I didn’t even necessarily know that they were like—they—they didn’t turn into steps for me. I was just—what starts to happen is when you decide you’re gonna commit to, you know, eating clean or—or you’re gonna do an exercise routine, like when you start to feel good—like what happens is you’ll make one good decision, like “Okay, I’m gonna take out drinking for 90 days.” And after you do one good decision then you make another good decision, and you’re like, “Well, maybe I should start to look at what I’m feeling my body with,” because you know, I—I didn’t fit like I—when I was going through the divorce, I was like, “I’m really sad. I should eat comfort food.” I was like, “I’m happy. It’s a great day! I’m goota eat a celebratory meal.” And what I realized for the—like the healing part with divorce is I found some really good books. I found a book called From Me To We—I’m sorry—From We To Me. And I thought that was a really good book. I actually—I started going to a group called Divorce Care and it was through my church. And it was a Divorce Recovery Group and I mean, I was raised Jewish and I was like, “I can’t walk into a Christian church.” I bet they’ll have this worse. But the cool thing was that it was—they were just really nice and accepting, and you know, I realized like I’m not the first person to get divorced, and it was so crazy because I did this 90-day journey, and I’m you know, focusing on like my purpose, like what I really want to do in this world and planning my day better, like respecting my boundaries, and I’m—I’m just, I’m making all of these good decisions, and I remember this like moment where it was like towards the end of the 90 days and I was actually driving up to go visit my parents and they live up in the country, and it’s like a 2½-hour drive and I stopped at a fruit stand. Like I pulled over to stop at a fruit stand to bring fresh fruit home. I remember picking up a peach and—and smelling this peach, and I, for some reason, I just felt so light like I felt so happy. And it was like what the heck is going on, like why do I feel so good? And I realized in that moment that I had forgiven myself for the divorce. And it was like the most powerful thing because I wasn’t—I wa—I didn’t know how much guilt I had around it, but I did. You know? And it wasn’t—it wasn’t that I didn’t try. I tried everything I could have, it was just I saw it as—as failure instead of it just being part of my journey.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. So if someone’s dealing with emotional stress in your relationship, if you can kinda boil down the biggest, maybe 1 to 3 things, that someone can do to help either, you know, save it and/or recover from it, you know. What would those things the?

Rachel Adams:  You know, one thing I would encourage people to do is to find out really what a good—what a healthy relationship means to them?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  So not—not in relation to anyone else, but take—take a piece of paper, or you do—take a computer and—and write out all the words that matter to you in a relationship.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  Like communication, intimacy, a sense of community, like whatever matters to you.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And next to each word, write a paragraph about what that word means you.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And I think that it will help you really—it—it’s creating clarity around what you want for yourself but it’s also setting a standard for what you will and you won’t allow in your life. And you know, if you’re in a relationship right now and it—it’s not the one that necessarily fulfils you, then look at this list you’re making and see if this person, if it’s conversations you can have with this person, and say, “Listen, I really have been taking some time to—to really reflect and—and this is what matters.” And see if this person aligns with you because I will tell you that the right people are going to come into your life and the right people are also going to leave your life.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  In something else I would say is, you know, if you’re—if you’re not in a relationship yet, and you wanna get in a relationship, a lot of times people will start a new hobby or they’re like, “I’m gonna lose weight, so I’ll meet the right person.” And they do all these things because they think that that’s gonna be the reason a guy—or you know, someone’s gonna be attracted to them. But the reality is is that when you’re actually, you know, living in your powerful space, when you’re being who you are supposed to be, the person is going to appear. Like I was in—I basically took a three-year break. I mean I dated a lot but from being divorced ‘til being in my next serious relationship, it was three years and the funny thing is it was three months to the day after I met Ryan–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And he is—he literally is my list. He is everything I’ve ever wanted in a per—like he’s just my best friend and then it’s a bonus that were silly in love and like 38 days ago, not that I’m counting, we got engaged.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, wow! Congratulations!

Rachel Adams:  And—yeah, thank you. But it’s like it is so cool to get to go through such an amazing transformative process and then meet the person that you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, like it really could be this good?” Like how fun can life be now?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that’s great.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So that’s awesome. So you got your relationship dialed in. You related some soul-searching, figuring out what you wanted so you can kinda–

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Create that that magnetic energy to attract it in.

Rachel Adams:  Absolutely.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great. So then what are the next things because we have lots of people listening to this podcast that are—they’re either healthy and they’re—they’re really rocking it in all areas in their life and they are trying to get in the edge, or you have people that are kind of at a baseline of not so happy with their health and they’re trying to make those changes kind of moving forward. So we talked about the morning routine. I’m a big fan of you know, good clean filtered water.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Throw some extra sea salts in there. Get some minerals going in your body.

Rachel Adams:  Love it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Do a little bit of movement. I think that’s great. What’s that next change for you on the diet side? What was that big one feel?

Rachel Adams:  Oh, my gosh. So I am that person who have—I really honestly, I went diet to diet to diet and diet in a bad way because there is such a negative rep on the word diet but in reality diet is just what you eat.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  It’s not what you’re on.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  And I mean, I’m not kidding you. I was high carb, low carb, no carb, yo carb, like I—I did any diet that I could think of because I wanted the quick fix. I wanted to find what works for me.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  And what happened was when I took out drinking, I also set some other rules out for myself, and I decided that I was gonna take out white flour–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.

Rachel Adams: White sugar and anything processed.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  No, just simple stuff. Right?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Simple stuff, right, just kind of foundational stuff, right?

Rachel Adams:  Nothing too crazy, right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And so what happens when you take out these, I call them distractions and noise—sugar to me is a noise and—and alcohol is a noise. It’s something—it almost numbs your body so you can’t—your taste buds aren’t even alive. They’re like kind of numb. They don’t know what’s going on and so what happened is I took this out and all of a sudden, food started tasting different to me. And so when I would need something, instead of—instead of just eating because I ate, because it was just what I did. I started to eat something and go, “Okay, how does my body feel when I eat this?”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  How does my body feel? Do I get energy? Do I feel a little tired? Do I have a—you know, a slump a couple hours later? And what I realized is that my body feels good when I eat a lot of vegetables, when I eat lean proteins, and the other thing that I—that I told myself is like no more restricting because I would go on a diet, the bad kind of diet, and I would say, “Okay,  I can’t eat this. I can eat this. I can eat this.” So I don’t eat and I restrict myself for a long time, and then I get towards the end and I’m like, “I did so great, now I’m gonna eat seven donuts.” Like it is such a weird cycle.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And so what happened is I go, “Okay, how does my body feel?” And you know, I—I really—I honestly, I took a piece of paper and I drew a circle, and the circle to me it could represent a plate for some, for me it represented my daily intake of what I was eating, and down the middle of the plate in a straight line, so slitting the plate or the circle in half, I put a line. And on the left side for me that—half of what I eat in a full day is vegetables, literally vegetables.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And then I took the other half and I—I cut that in half. So I now have, and so with those two halves on the right side, one of them I put protein.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And for me that’s beans, that’s, you know, chicken, fish, tofu, whatever. That’s my lean protein. And then the all—the other one, I—I literally put it in the tiny little slivers, and I had dark chocolate. I had red wine. I—I put cheese on there like all—but it was—it was all the other things that I love in life that I realized like I don’t need huge portions of these. And I implemented another rule that was really big for me. And it’s kind of an opposite of what I think a lot of people think when they eat, but I do breakfast like a queen, lunch like a princess, and then dinner like a pauper.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams: So I’m eating bigger meals earlier in the day.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  Still all good fuel. And it—and then when I go to bed at night, it gives my body time to kind of rest and recuperate, and it’s not working on this huge meal. Could I even eat a really big meal at night? Then it would affect my sleep, you know?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So you feel better having a bigger meal at breakfast and kind of your—your number two at—at lunch from a mealtime perspective.

Rachel Adams:  I do.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  How long would you go between meals?

Rachel Adams:  I do and I eat two snacks, too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Okay.

Rachel Adams:  Like two or three hours. I do little snacks.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  I’ll do like a Trader Joe, like I’m big because I—I own four companies so I’m always jamming, like I’m on the road a lot or–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  I’m at meetings and I have to prep in order to be successful because if I don’t—I prep meals on Sunday and Wednesday.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Ahh, huh!

Rachel Adams:  And, yeah, so like I always have raw vegetables with me, like I have almonds, like different things. I do—a Trader Joe makes a turkey jerky with low sugar.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And so I do—I have to have fuel with me in order to keep me going and so I just—I just made little rules that every two or three hours I would eat, and I wouldn’t eat if I wasn’t hungry but your body will speak to you. If you take out the distractions, your body is speaking to you. And it’s so just up to you to choose to listen.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So looking at kind of the meal timing thing, it sounds like you really were doing a good job stabilizing your blood sugar, eating really good, you know, proteins, healthy fats, and you were trying to consume more of your carbohydrates from kind of like non-starchy veggies. Does that sound about right?

Rachel Adams: Yes, definitely. And—but the cool thing is I will tell you, I was like terrified. My whole life was like bread or potatoes. Like I can’t eat them, bad news, can’t do it. But reality is, you can. Just choose a really good whole-grain that doesn’t have a bunch of processed junk in it. And if you’re gonna have a potato, eat a sweet potato, you know? And—and telling myself that I can have stuff and taking out the you can’t have that, it was the most freeing feeling and go figure. I’m not kidding you. I—from the start of my journey to the end, I lost—I started at 162 and when I ended the journey, I was like at 130. And I have a before and after picture on social media, but like my morning routine and my little abs, and these little things that was doing these little small implemental changes, they added up. And I ended the journey feeling so strong and so healthy, and it was—and everybody is like, “What are you doing? Oh, my God. What’s your new diet?” And I’m like, “Oh, my God! We need to talk.”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s funny. That’s great. That’s a nice little tip there. So give me a quick rundown. I’ll put you on the spot here. What’s–

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A day in the life like? Well, let’s go. Today what did you have for breakfast?

Rachel Adams:  So this morning I woke up, before again, before my 2 feet hit the floor I have a glass of water, and then dropped to the ground, did my quick little exercise, I—my journal is by my bed. So I write three things that I’m grateful for. I just came off this two-day conference where I spoke a bunch about actually health and my journey, so I was just grateful for the connections I made there. So this morning for breakfast, I had a cup of egg whites.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams: I had half a banana with about a teaspoon of peanut butter and then I had, well, let’s see. I had quite—so I sautéed vegetables.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  So this was sautéed from last night.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  So I’ll do half the plate sautéed vegetables and all different kinds. Like I—I don’t really—I’m—I really like vegetables so I don’t limit a ton except for maybe onions in the morning to spare everybody health. And then I’ll do a little bit—I added a little bit of smoked salmon and then I do have a cup of coffee.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so you got some good omega 3’s, some good proteins, some good fats.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awesome. What’s typical lunch look like?

Rachel Adams:  Lunch for me is usually either a salad with some kind of a lean protein or like sautéed veggies or some kind of a lean protein. Sometimes I throw in a little quinoa on there. Sometimes I’ll have a little sweet potato and sometimes I don’t.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So you’re really sure to keep the inflammation down.

Rachel Adams:  Absolutely, yes. And I—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And, uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  I believe in that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  Like, see I do a ton of stuff with like—I know you talk about it on your show—but like spices. Like natural–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  Curries.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And you know, like I get a lot of my flavor now from spices instead of from like sodium and different salts and stuff like that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  Like I think it’s different to put salt in your water versus salt all your food.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and I think also sea salt is totally different than your typical table salt–

Rachel Adams:  The only time.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s just Sodium Chloride.

Rachel Adams:  I keep one in my purse.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, that’s great. Yeah, if you can–

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: When I was in California at the Whole Foods, they had the—the real salt packs.

Rachel Adams:  Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Those were awesome because you get like 60-70 minerals versus just the refined sodium chloride.

Rachel Adams: That’s literally what’s in my purse right now.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  I take them from Whole Foods.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, it’s a really good electrolyte support. Awesome! So what other little tips and tricks that you did on—on the diet and lifestyle side that you would say are like in that top 5 that listeners that are making that transition now, what can they do outside of what you already mentioned?

Rachel Adams:  You know, I—so I kind of implement the 85-15, or–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  All I know everybody have their different process–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 80-20, 90-10, yeah, I get it.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah, so for me it’s 85-15. So 85 for the—the 85% of the time I eat clean, and then 15% of the time I’ll eat whatever I want. But it—but what—what you find is like so say you love desert. You have a super sweet tooth. You know, like I—I love getting desert at dinner.

Dr. teen Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  So perfect. Get desert but share it with a friend and have a couple bites because the first bite tastes amazing. You’re like, “Oh, my gosh! This is so good.” And the second bites tastes pretty freaking good. But then the third or the fourth bite, it doesn’t even—it stops tasting as good, and then you’re kinda eating to eat empty calories.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, totally.

Rachel Adams:  So I—I would encourage you to just really try—like listen to your body, really listen. And then my fiancé, he eats—like he is 6’3” and I’m 5 feet tall. And he can literally eat whatever he wants, but the coolest thing about talking to him about food and his relationship with food–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  Because he has no emotional relationship with food at all, is he eats really slowly and he chews all his food. He like—I swear he chews like 50 bites, every time, it’s 50 times. But the cool thing is like, so I wanted to pace myself with him because I was like, “Gosh, I wonder, that’s so crazy. He eats so slow.” But I love it because it—it gives you—like you can respect your food. You can respect your meal time, and so many people rush through their food, scarf it as fast as they can to keep moving throughout the day. And what you realize and for me because I was such a driver in my business world, I ate like a driver. I slept like a driver. I mean, and what I mean by that is I was like, “Go, go, go. Sleep—like it’s little sleep. Wake up. Get moving. Go! Quick breakfast.” And there is such a beautiful power in slowing down. So my rule when I eat is they just, it’s simple but I set my fork down in between bites, instead of having my fork always in my hand, I set my fork down in between bites. And that slows me down and really, really was helpful. And then I’d say the last piece to nutrition that’s really helpful for me is if you’re starting at clean eating and you don’t really know what it is, think about when you go to the grocery store, just hanging out on the outside perimeter, like where the vegetables are and the fresh, you know, fresh fruits and the—the lean proteins, because when you get into the center aisle, that’s where all your processed saturated fat, crackers, like that’s where all this stuff is that’s gonna be doing harm to your body and you know, like I said when you start making one good decision, your body is gonna crave it. Like you’re gonna be like, “Are you serious?” Like sometimes I wake up in the morning and I’m craving vegetables. Craving it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Right.

Rachel Adams: And it’s a beautiful thing like I just went on this all-inclusive vacation, and I was joking around yesterday, but 85-15 rule was pretty much reversed. Like at 85% of the time I ate whatever I wanted and 15% of the time I was like, “I should probably have a salad.” But the cool thing is when you treat your body really, really well, when you come home you don’t have to go on this crazy diet to restrict to get you back to where you were, you just go back on how you like to eat, what feels good for your body, and all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, that was just some extra like saltwater, water weight.” And then you’re near back to where you were and it’s—it’s really empowering.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, absolutely. I think that makes a ton of sense. I mean, these are just real practical things that everyone could be doing. I think the timing of food is really important also–

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That adage of like, you know, one chew per tooth, right? You have about 32 teeth on average, right? So that’s about 30 chews or so. That gets your food up to that liquid kind of consistency. There’s that old Buddhist proverb saying, “Drink your food and eat your water,” or chewing your food up to a consistency so it’s almost liquid so when you swallow it, it’s a lot of surface area for your enzymes and your hydrochloric acid to work and break it down. And then also when you drink your water, letting it imprint on your saliva so your body can—can process it better. So I think those are some really good things, and also just giving your appetite that appestat, that center of your brain that controls your appetite, time to let the nutrients kinda get into the body so it can sense it and allow you to feel full faster, where if you just scarf that food down its really east to overeat when your appestatic mechanisms that control satiety aren’t working optimally.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah, absolutely. Do you—what is your feeling on drinking like a glass of water before you eat? I’ve heard a lot of people talk about that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think with hydration with water, hydrating about 10 minutes before is ideal. I mean if you’re gonna drink like an ounce or two, just to help food kind of process down or maybe you’re sipping a little bit of wine or something with your meal, fine. But hydration ideally about 10 minutes or so before meal because their stomach’s really acidic. It needs to be acidic. It’s about a pH of about 2. So hydrochloric acid and can activate a lot of the protein-digesting enzymes and water’s got a pH of 7. So if you’re raising up that pH, that’s gonna lessen your hydrochloric acid levels and lessen your enzymes and create more bloating and burping and belching. So I find 10 minutes or so before meal and/or about an hour or two after a meal is ideal for hydration.

Rachel Adams:  Awesome! Okay.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and I find a lot of people, too—this is a big thing—is the mechanism for like craving food and craving water can be easily mistaken in some individuals. So–

Rachel Adams:  Yes.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like before you eat, having like a big glass or two of water, you’d be surprised what happens to your appetite when that meal comes. It’s like you eat less even though you’re not trying to because you’re just giving your brain a chance to catch up with what it really needs.

Rachel Adams:  Absolutely.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So okay we got the alcohol stuff down. We got meal timing. You’re—you’re really doing I think a lot of mindfulness with the chewing and giving your body time to—to process that food. I think that makes a ton of sense. What else? What else is on that big 5 list that you use to help improve your health?

Rachel Adams:  Well, you know, one, a big thing for me was sleep.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, huge.

Rachel Adams:  I—I fought sleep almost my whole life because I always was—even when I was in college, I was like 20 units and 2 jobs. Like I’m just—it’s just how I operate. And I, from 2007 to 2013, I literally took Ambien, the sleep—over-the-counter sleeping pill–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Oh, wow.

Rachel Adams:  Four nights a week. Yeah, 4 nights, and it only was not 7, because I don’t wanna feel like I was addicted.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And when I decided to really take a look at how I—how I slept, I realized that I was doing a disservice to myself and like I said, when I—I found myself home earlier, I was like I wonder if I, you know, I fought sleep always, so I’m—I hadn’t taken a sleeping pill in quite a long time and I’m drinking tea and I almost started to create this like—so you know we talked about a powerful morning routine–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah.

Rachel Adams:  So I decided to create a powerful nighttime routine and it’s been such a huge shift for me, so what happened for me is like when I walk into my bedroom, I look at it and I say, “Okay, I—like so think about going into a spa, that when you go into a spa like you just feel good.” You feel relaxed, right?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  You feel like you want to unwind. So I—I looked at my bedroom and I said, “Why—why doesn’t my bedroom represent that?” Like if your bedroom is your—so I literally consider my bedroom now my sacred space.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And I changed the paint colors to—to be more like calming colors because I—I had liked red. And that’s not so the most calming color.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yup.

Rachel Adams:  So I do a lot of like cream—now is like creams and ivories, and I have a little bit of gold tones, some blue–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And I don’t have full lights on. So I change my light bulbs in my room, too, so they are dimmer. I had a system that every night before bed I had this folder, and I would watch—it is on my comp—on my phone and I would look at e-news and Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest, and I’m like, “What? He’s dating her?” And you know, my mind is racing. So I implemented a rule and it’s a no tech hour. So before bed, any email, anything I wanna look at in the Internet, any text messaging, anything I wanna do before bed is done one hour before bed. So I unwind from technology a full hour before bed. I do not plug my phone in by my bed.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  A lot of people have their phone plugged in by the nightstand. It’s too easy for me to grab it. So I actually plug my phone in by—in my bathroom. And that does one of two things. One it makes it easy so I can’t go grab it to go chat on it, right?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  And the other thing it does is when my alarm goes off to wake me up, I actually have to get my butt out of bed to go turn it off, because I was like a four-time snoozer. I was like, I just keep it in you know?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Rachel Adams:  And I—I aim for eight hours. I really do. I’m intentional about my—my sleep but the last thing to sleep for me was that sometimes life shows up and sometimes I don’t get eight hours. And I realized there was a mindset shift in here and I can, you know, it—I could either say, “Okay, I’ve got five hours. I’m going to be so freaking tired tomorrow. Tomorrow is gonna suck. I’m gonna need a cup of coffee at 4 PM and I’m gonna drag all day.” Or I can say, “Okay, I’ve got five hours. I’m going to shut down now and when I wake up, I’m gonna feel refreshed and amazing. I’m gonna have the most beautiful restful night’s sleep.” And then I wake up and I do my morning routine, and like mental shift for me was sleep. It was super, super huge. I think the last piece for sleep that really has been helpful is my mind races. Like I, a lot of times, couldn’t fall asleep because I’m thinking about a client I didn’t write back or a blog I need to write or whatever. So I keep a–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Rachel Adams:  Journal by my bed, the same gratitude journal and I call it a mind dump. So something’s happening in my head and I’m not getting sleep, I literally look to my journal and just get it out of my head and once it’s out of my head and on paper, I usually can get back into the place of getting—getting into sleep mode.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I totally agree. I think one of the biggest things—my biggest issue is just getting off technology earlier. The biggest thing I do is—I’m trying to do and working on it is one, throwing your phone or iPad into airplane mode, and then also clicking the night time button.

Rachel Adams:  Oh, good for you.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You know? Throw it in airplane mode.

Rachel Adams:  That is dangerous.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know it’s hard. Throw it into airplane mode and then also hit the little moon button, half moon button that kills all your notifications, so then you don’t you don’t have like calendar things popping up or you know, your to-do list going off saying, “You gotta do this, you gotta do this.” And then it’s just dead, then your phone’s off. There’s no EMF. I throw my phone all the way across the room, kinda like you mentioned, at least 6 feet–

Rachel Adams:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But I keep it you know, 25 feet away.

Rachel Adams: You check it?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, I just have an end table that’s literally at the polar opposite corner of my bedroom, and then number one when the alarm goes off, it forces me to actually get up.

Rachel Adams:  Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then number two, it keeps that EMF away. And then also with the Apples, they have the application, their Night Shift, and I make sure Night Shift is on so it kills all of the blue light, so which—that’s the light that really disrupts melatonin. So kill, putting the Night Shift application on or if you’re Android, there are other applications out there that will kill the blue light which shuts down melatonin.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah, I have that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  You know how you said the moon? It—do you have to hit that? Do you hit that again in the morning to take it off?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, you gotta take it off–

Rachel Adams:  Okay.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Or like–

Rachel Adams:  Got it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Your calendar notifications or people call you, it just will go. You won’t even hear it. So it’s great at night because it just, you know, sometimes at night I’d have like calendar stuff popping up. I’m like, “What the heck?” So I just—I use that now and then it’s like, it’s perfect. There’s no more issues, but it takes discipline. It really does.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah, absolutely. It does.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, awesome here. We’ve had a really great talk and I wanted just highlight a little bit more where people can get more Intel and more info on you over at lost2found90.com, like a 90 days to kinda get your health and your life back on track. So I think that’s gonna be some great Intel for people that wanna get more information about how they can get their life back. Also any way else people can get a hold of you or find out more about you, Rachel?

Rachel Adams:  Absolutely, yeah. I’m really active on Facebook so if you do the /racheladamsrealtor, you can find out about me and then my main website that kinda houses everything I do is www.RachelAdamsInspire.com and you can talk to me about speaking. You can see my book and program, real estate coaching, and all fun stuff I’m up to.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: RachelAdamsInspire. Awesome! And the last question that I ask everyone–

Rachel Adams:  Please.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Let’s say you are stuck on a desert island and you only can bring one thing, one supplement with you, what do you bring?

Rachel Adams:  Oh, that’s so good. One supplement. Hmm. So it’s health related? One thing?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, health-related, but you know, if you want to go outside of health related, I’ll—I’ll let you do that, too, as long as we can—as long as you really have a good answer why.

Rachel Adams:  I just—I think I’d bring like a flint to make a fire so that I can cook food and boil water and you know what I mean?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, from a practical standpoint. That—that makes a lot of sense.

Rachel Adams:  Yeah, that would be my go-to, and this horrible—I’m not a fan of it, but my fiancé really likes watching Naked and Afraid–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  So I keep seeing people like going on the shows and doing all these horrible things, but that—that would be my take away.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. And is there one supplement that you’re—you’re doing now or you’ve done in the past that you really like or you’ve gotten some success with?

Rachel Adams:  Well, I’d love it—I’d love to actually hear your feedback on this. So I am training for my first full marathon right now.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  And I—I did a half marathon and we were told by some runners to—look, I’m not a big believer—I think that the—the supplement industry from like a GNC standpoint–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Rachel Adams:  Is poison.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah, 95%.

Rachel Adams:  So I steer super clear from those.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  I really—I only do natural supplements in my body.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.

Rachel Adams:  But I will tell you turmeric, they told us use turmeric after running to like help restore muscles are something.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Inflammation, yeah.

Rachel Adams:  It freaking made such a difference, I think, but I’m wondering if I—it’s in my head because we honestly like we had a fairly okay healing process for tearing down our muscles as much as we did and I’d love to hear your feedback on that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, turmeric I think, yeah, that’s great.

Rachel Adams:  That’s—that’s one of my favorite.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think turmeric’s great for inflammation and you know, marathon running can be very inflammatory in the body. Sell for some people if you’re not already healthy it can be—it can be a stressor but for my marathoners, the biggest thing I like is branched-chain amino acids because the body will allow those amino acids to pinch-hit instead of breaking down your muscle and getting more catabolic, i.e. breaking down faster. And then also mitochondrial nutrients like extra CoQ10, carnitine, creatine, ribose, you know those type of nutrients that pinch-hit because the parts of your—little cells of your body, these powerhouse cells, the mitochondria, really use them to generate energy and that’s a big part of you know, that kind of energy systems you’re using when you’re running as well. To those would be my two—branched-chain aminos and mitochondrial nutrients.

Rachel Adams:  Awesome!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, great. Any other parting words you want to leave with the listeners here, Rachel?

Rachel Adams:  No, I think just, you know, the—the one thing I would talk—that I think about a lot is people make such big goals for their lives, and they have these beautiful ambitions, but they forget that they only have one body. They only have one vessel that’s gonna get them there. So I would really encourage you to just remember that if you’re not taking care of you and you’re not making yourself a priority, you’re never going to achieve these big goals that you wanna achieve because you’re not gonna feel good. And in reality it is all about how you feel. So just remember that, you know, you can’t be the best wife, you can’t be mom, you can be husband, dad, all of that if you’re not taking care of number one.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. Yeah, I think even in the—the Bible, right? It says you gotta love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Rachel Adams:  A hundred percent.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s pre—that’s pre-assuming that you already love yourself, so I think that’s really important. Spiritual text from all religions echoes that as well so I think that’s a really, really great point to—to leave on.

Rachel Adams:  Awesome!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, thanks so much, Rachel. Appreciate your time.

Rachel Adams:  Thank you. I appreciate you have me on.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thank you. Bye!

Rachel Adams:  Bye!

References:
http://www.lost2found90.com/
http://www.racheladamsinspire.com/