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*** Please note that we did our best to adjust the audio quality of this interview. Unfortunately, I still sound a little echo-y but this interview was so amazing, and so jam packed full of good info I had to release it. Thanks for understanding. Enjoy! ***

Your energy is the most important resource you have. It influences how you think and feel as well as what you do and experience. When your energy is low there can be dramatic negative effects in your life from weight gain, to getting sick frequently, to sleeping poorly, and relationships suffering.

Let’s face it – living a good life requires energy. Energy to handle the pressures and stress of parenting, working, volunteering, doing things, exercising, shopping – you name it, it requires energy. But many people are putting their energy at risk and don’t even know it (this is totally true for me).

Join me and Dr. Anne Marie Fine as we talk about 5 critical things that are affecting everyone’s health and energy level AND what to do about it. So often attention is given to simply trying to eat better and exercise more but what if there were other things you could do to boost your energy and improve your health?

In this episode you will…

• Learn the top 5 things you can change in your environment to improve your health (with awesome recommendations)
• Hear about an amazing (free) app that has changed my life and my buying habits for the better – it can do the same for you
• Understand the mind body connection and how western medicine is getting it wrong, and how you can get it right
• Get clear on what “detoxing” really means
• Understand how losing weight and decreasing toxins in your body are interconnected
• Learn how HIIT training can improve your energy at the cellular level

Episode Resources: 

• Learn more about Dr. Anne Marie Fine here
• Connect with Dr. Anne Marie Fine on Twitter and Facebook
• Reverse osmosis is the best kind of water filter system for your home (built in – under the sink), but you need to add the minerals back in OR choose spring water
• Drink spring water: www.findaspring.com
• Have an air filter in your home: IQ Air is Dr. Fine’s top recommendation followed by Austin Air
• Environmental Working Group – ewg.org  – researched list of foods to buy and avoid unless they’re organic, plus more great info
• Amazing app called “Think Dirty” (free), use it to scan the barcode of products and it will rate them (I just downloaded this app and scanned things in my bathroom – WOW!!! I truly had no idea. I will be making different choices based on this new knowledge).
• Get my free e-book here: 5 Ways to Outsmart Your Fat Cells & Lose Weight Today

Protect Your Health By Reducing Your Toxic Risk [Full Text]

Jen: Hey everybody, welcome back. I’m so excited to have you with me today on the ENERGY To Thrive Podcast. And whether you’re watching on YouTube or listening via iTunes, I’m so excited you’re here because today my guest is amazing. Dr. Anne Marie Fine is a licensed and practising naturopathic physician. She’s an award winning researcher, author. She speaks nationally and internationally. She works with patients and honestly, she’s probably the most sought out expert in terms in environmental medicine that we could possibly hope to be learning from today. So Dr. Fine, welcome and a big hello to you.

Anne Marie: Well, thank you Jennifer. I’m really excited to do this with you today. I love this topic.

Jen: I know. We were just talking a few minutes before the show started and literally, I think our vines are buzzing here because we actually have a shared passion for a couple of things. One, it’s science and two, it’s the body and three, it’s sharing this information that sometimes we can be up in the academic level and talking and talking with researchers and yet, the very people that probably need to know about what we’re gonna be sharing today don’t often get access to the information in a really easy or digestible way. So, that’s what we’re hoping to do today. And I guess I just wanna ask you to share a bit of your story about why you’re so passionate about your field and toxins and avoiding toxins in general and where that came from.

Anne Marie: Okay, yeah. Well, I had my own health problems as a child and young adult. And I was on a lot of drugs and I was ill and I would wind up in emergency rooms and I also had terrible energy. And it really wasn’t until I sought out the help of an integrative physician that I got better. And so I wanted to share that with everyone else because it’s so powerful. And so I actually left my position. I was actually a CPA. Yeah, I was a corporate executive in finance for years and I just thought, “This is so powerful. I have to share this with people.” So, I actually left corporate America, went back to medical school and became a naturopathic physician.

Anne Marie: And then once I did that, I did additional training in environmental medicine because what I found out was that really the roots of all chronic disease lies in toxicity. It lies in our body burden of all the environmental pollutants that we take in through the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the thoughts we think, if they’re toxic, and we’re really able to see a difference when we work on this level. And there’s 80,000 different chemicals released into the environment today, synthetic chemicals, and it’s like not many of them have really been tested for human health and so it’s a bit of a human experiment in seeing how we do with all the additive and synergistic effects of being exposed to all these different toxins and so, yeah.

Jen:That’s crazy, 80,000.

Anne Marie:  Yeah, I know, I know.

Jen: 80,000 that assumptions have been made around their safety and we are the human guinea pigs. That is insane.

Anne Marie: We are.

Jen: Wow!

Anne Marie: We are! And the other crazy thing is toxicological testing is done with one chemical at a time and the safe levels are set for a 175 pound adult and children and babies, because of their small size, they get a disproportionate amount of water and food for their body size and weight and so they get hit with more toxins. But more importantly, none of us is exposed to one chemical at a time.

Jen: Yeah, exactly.

Anne Marie: There’s hundreds. There’s hundreds of chemicals.

Jen: Well, the food that we eat, it’s all happening all at the same time. So, let’s dive in because we started to talk about basically, so energy, right? I’m passionate about energy, how we create it, how it’s impacted. I work in the world of health and weight loss and so often my clients are women. Well, the women are coming to me low on energy, depleted, fatigued, exhausted. Handling one more thing is just too much. And so what we started to, Dr. Fine and I, started to talk about the word mitochondria and what that is. I’m gonna get you to explain it because you know it better than I know, but basically, it’s like the energy factory in our body and it can often be taxed or it can be assisted. And so let’s talk about how your energy is getting zapped at that cellular level and what we, like everyday person out there, somebody listening to the show, me after we’re done, what can I do to build up my energy within my body in an easy way?

Anne Marie: Okay. Well, first of all, going backwards a little bit, the mitochondria are little organelles in your cells and they are what create ATP, which is your body’s currency for energy and your body uses energy for everything it needs to do. Every function in your body requires energy, including detoxification. And so what happens is, your muscles, your heart, your liver, and your brain, these are very energy-dependent organs in your body, so they might have one to two thousand or more mitochondria per cell. And so the mitochondria, they’re kind of delicate, they’re actually more delicate than other things in your body and so… And they’re also lipid-encapsulated, they’re fat coated. Toxins are often times attracted to fat and they store in our fat.

Jen: So we hear that. Often overweight people or people who’ve been carrying extra weight have heard that the fat is toxic.

Anne Marie: Yes.

Jen: I want us to touch on that in a moment, but it’s very important.

Anne Marie: Okay, we will. We’ll go back to that. But in the mitochondria, it’s a lipid bilayer and there’s a lot of fat in there, and it really takes a hit from the toxins and it just doesn’t have the same… The DNA in the mitochondria is different than DNA in your other cells. It’s only from your mother, by the way, and so it’s just prone to decay and degeneration and then you’re not making as much energy. You are dysfunctional. I just feel like, here in the world, we have a personal energy crisis. People are just exhausted and it’s because we’re just toxic load people, just kind of toxic dumps walking around.

Jen: We’re like a toxic dump ground right now.

Anne Marie: Yes. Yes, we are.

Jen: Well, what’s interesting about what you said is that, and as much as there are these environmental factors, but you touched on, and said even our thoughts can be toxic and that those thoughts can have the physiological impact.

Anne Marie: Yes.

Jen: Can you explain more about that because that is something that I think everybody here is probably in some way, shape, or form being harmed by, mean voice in your head or just the general… Whether it’s acute stress or just underlying daily kind of stress we’re living with. What’s happening when in that situation?

Anne Marie: Well, what’s happening is that the mind and the body, there really is no separation. The mind is in the body and we have grown up with a medical system that has so thoroughly divorced one from the other that we have certain doctors that deal with, psychiatrists with the head, and certain ones that deal with the body and never the two shall meet, but the reality of the situation is that it’s just all one. And so that negative voice in your head and the self-talk that we do can really be toxic and unfriendly to your physiological processes. And we’re beginning, we’re at the very beginning of really being able to see that and so that’s why, and especially for women, so many women have had… Remember the days when chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, it was totally dismissed by doctors and they would say, “Oh, it’s all in you head.” Well, guess what? It is all in your head, but your head is part of your body. There’s a lot of emotional and psychological and trauma that’s involved in those kinds of problems as well as physical toxins. They all… You cannot separate them.

Jen: Exactly, exactly. Okay, so me, you, whoever, whoever’s listening, we’ve got problems and challenges, that little voice inside our head. I’m putting on… I’m eating food, some of it’s organic, some of it’s not. I’m stopping at, say, maybe a Starbucks, maybe the coffee beans are not the book… Who knows what’s true out there? What you find is that there’s so much information coming at us every second, but all of a sudden looking after our health in any way becomes too much and we just wanna kind of shut down. And whether I put on lotion that I buy from the drug store, skin cream, sun screen, now where do we start to really get some control over this?

Anne Marie: Where do we start? Yeah, it’s all about… I feel like it’s unfortunate but we don’t have the right regulations in place to protect us. And so I feel like we have to be our own little FDAs, our own personal FDAs for ourselves and our families in our homes. And the first rule of environmental medicine is avoidance. And so if you’re educated on what to avoid in your personal care products, in your home, in your food, get a good water filter, those are really important steps that can make a difference in your own body and in the bodies of your family.

Jen: Can I put you on the spot really quick?

Anne Marie: Yes.

Jen: Okay, so if you had to say, okay, Jen. Right now the top five things that you should be aware of and absolutely without a doubt know about and avoid, what would you say? What should I be looking for?

Anne Marie: Okay, you know what? Water filters, water is absolutely toxic, the water. I just put out a newsletter on their finding hexavalent chromium, which is the Erin Brockovich chemical, they’re finding it now in water supplies all over the United States. 75% of 60,000 water samples taken tested high for hexavalent chromium which causes cancer, birth defects, and other problems but there’s hundreds of chemicals in water, including antidepressants, birth control pills, hormones and perchlorate, which is rocket fuel, pesticides, flame retardants.

Jen: So when they test water, that is all in my drinking water, ’cause I got tap water, that is what I’m consuming?

Anne Marie: Yeah, and it’s like… So it’s not really regulated. There are some things that are regulated in water, but the regulations, in my opinion, I don’t think, let me put it this way, I don’t think people drinking tap water, they’re not going to get acutely sick, they’re not gonna get like protozoa. They’re not gonna get like Giardia from drinking our water because it’s disinfected and it’s safe so that you don’t get sick. But the accumulated toxins that you drink at low levels in your water and other places they just accumulate in your body and can that contribute to an illness later? Absolutely. So we’re really talking about…

Jen: So we drink water everyday. We do, since we’re little…

Anne Marie: We’re mostly water.

Jen: We’re mostly water, so what kind of water filter? These are the questions where I’m like, “Oh my Gosh, there’s so many choices. Do you have to get it built in? Is it a thousand dollars? Can I get a Brita?” What do I do?

Anne Marie: Okay, first of all reverse osmosis, I believe, is our best option right now is a reverse osmosis system for your home, built in under the sink. You can get it at the Home Depot or some place like that…

Jen: Right. Hardware store, yeah.

Anne Marie: Yes, a hardware store. And reverse osmosis is so the pores are so small that really nothing can get through and it even takes out radiation, which is a concern with Fukushima that happened years ago. And so, RO water, reverse osmosis water is about as clean as you can get. Now, there’s one problem with that. You have to add back your minerals, because it also takes out… Yeah. Because it takes out the minerals, so you have to get little drops and put them in your water. And normally you don’t taste them, if you do that. Or you can drink spring water, fresh spring water. And there’s a great website out there called www.findaspring.com and it’s… I don’t know if they do Canada as well, but it actually will map out places where there’s spring water, and you can go with your container and get fresh spring water.

Jen: Now, practically, so I’m gonna be a little practically if I live in Calgary and I’m going to be driving to go get water. I’m probably not going to do that. So, what about bottled water? There’s this huge thing about bottled water right now, trying to minimize plastic and it’s actually just… There’s all sorts of things around bottled water. Is there anything that we can be aware of around that?

Anne Marie: Well, what I like to do if I’m travelling or I’m not home, I like to get a bottled spring water, like Mountain Valley spring water, it comes in glass. It comes in glass, and I actually carry it around with me, even though it’s heavy. And short of that, you can drink bottled water, even if it’s not spring water, you can drink bottled water. But you know what, if I’m in an airport or something where you have to divest yourself of all your water before you even go through the security, I’ll buy bottled water in plastic, because you have to have water.

Jen: Right, it’s a necessity.

Anne Marie: You have to have water.

Jen: Gotcha.

Anne Marie: So, if you have to, then drink plastic bottled water, because you still have to have water. But when you can make the right choices, either get bottle of water in glass, or better yet, get spring water in glass, or if you’re at home do an RO water in your home, or you could go to the water store.

Jen: RO meaning reverse osmosis.

Anne Marie: Reverse osmosis. Or you can go to a water store, and they have a huge gigantic RO system. And you just bring your bottles, you fill ’em up, pay 50 cents a gallon, or whatever, take it home.

Jen: Gotcha. Okay, so that’s one of the things. What’s something else I wanna be on the look out? So, if my energy is gonna be impacted and there’s things I can do in my environmental world that I have some control over, yeah I wanna know. Keep sharing.

Anne Marie: Okay. So, then the other thing that’s huge that people don’t know is that the indoor air in your home is more toxic than your outdoor air. And that’s because it starts with your outdoor air, which is toxic. And then all of your furniture and cabinets, they off-gas formaldehyde, unless they’re pure wood. Because particle board off-gases formaldehyde, and most cabinets and a lot of the furniture made today is cheaper particle board with veneers. Then you’ve got your carpets with the carpet pad, and the adhesives, and the glue, that’s all off-gassing. The quickest way to get rid of infestation of bugs in your home is to install new carpet, really. Because there’s so much toxicity in there that it will kill things. So, your indoor air is very toxic. And so, I believe everyone should have an air filter in their home as well. And so, there’s all kinds of air filters out there, but the one, honestly… Do you want me to give you a recommendation?

Jen: Yeah, I think that’s why… ‘Cause all the effort, now I have to go research, I mean it will overwhelm me with research.

Anne Marie: Okay. IQAir. IQAir. And that’s my top recommendation, that’s the one I had in my green clinic in Scottsdale, which was an environmental medicine clinic. That’s my top recommendation, but I got the one that… There’s different kinds. I got the one that also filters gases, because I wanted to get the formaldehyde and the off-gassing that was happening in my office. And then Austin, A-U-S-T-I-N is another well thought of brand in that space, in the air filter space, those two.

Jen: Okay.

Anne Marie: I think it’s so important.

Jen: So water, air. The things that are around all the time.

Anne Marie: Exactly. And then you gotta eat organic. Gotta eat organic, because it’s not just the pesticide, it’s the GMOs in food. Okay?

Jen: So, there’s gonna be people out there listening, who are gonna say, “Well, that’s great for them who can afford it, I can’t. I’ve got a family of six, or I’ve gotta a family of five, or I’m a single mom, and there’s no way. I go to my grocery store, and I look at all of that organic stuff and I think, ‘I can’t do it.'” So, how do we resource as many organic products as we can, but still eat within a budget? Like how do we manage that real life conundrum?

Anne Marie: Okay, it is a real life conundrum. One of the things is though, is that if pesticides are just so toxic, and they’re so associated with cancer, and neuro-degenerative diseases that it’s really like pay now or pay later. Do you know what I mean?

Jen: I do.

Anne Marie: But having said that, I do have a really good resource, and it would be to go to ewg.org.

Jen: All of these links are gonna be listed on the show notes, so if anybody is listening and driving or doing something else or watching and you’re trying to scrabble and write things down, don’t worry. We’ll have these for you in the show notes. So, ewg.org.

Anne Marie: And that’s Environmental Working Group, and they did all the work to figure out what are the top… I think it’s the top 12 most contaminated foods with pesticides. And the reason why they came up with this list is for the very question you ask. Not everyone can afford to just go out and buy all organic. So what they say is these 12 foods that are so highly toxic, you get the most bang for your buck if you are gonna eat those foods, get those organic. But this list over here is pretty low-pesticide residue and so feel free to eat these foods even if they’re not organic. Like an avocado, like organic, it’s like it doesn’t really make any difference. Berries, it makes a huge difference.

Jen: Strawberries. Yeah, I was just gonna say.

Anne Marie: Yeah, it makes a huge difference because there is no protective covering and it’s all corrugated.

Jen: It’s absorbing it, basically.

Anne Marie: Yeah, it’s just absorbing it and so that should really help people out. So, it’s ewg.org.

Jen: So I think that’s and I really want to stress, because even in the work I do, first of all we have to eat, right? Eating is something that we have to do every single day and I think people often adopt this all or none. Right? Either I have to be all organic, which I can’t do, so I am not going to do any because it’s too hard.

Anne Marie: Oh, right.

Jen: And that’s why this, I think, is so helpful. It’s like, look. Everybody’s got their own situations. I don’t eat all organic. I wish I could. I wish I did. I don’t. I happily admit it as a health coach, right? And, I’ve got the dirty dozen. I know them and when I am shopping, it’s always informing my choices. That, and especially with meat too.

Anne Marie: Right, right. Yeah, so clean sources, and it’s… You can’t… I think the idea of being 100% perfect is actually a toxic thought in your head. When I go to a restaurant, which you have to do when you travel, it’s like, I don’t even ask if it’s organic. I know it’s not organic unless it says somewhere it’s organic. But you have to eat, and so you have to allow for the fact that you’re going to, even with everything you’re doing, you’re going to take in some toxins and you have to be okay with that. There are things you can do. But you have to recognize that you have to drink water, even in an airport, and you have to eat, yes, and you have to breathe, yeah. And if you don’t have an air filter, guess what? You still need to breathe.

Jen: Exactly. We should actually make that a quote. Being 100% perfect is a toxic thought. Or believing that you need to be 100% perfect is a toxic thought.

Anne Marie: Yeah, yeah.

Jen: I agree. Okay, two other hot tips or recommendations.

Anne Marie: Okay, okay. My next one would be personal care products.

Jen: Thank you. I want you to really touch on this because women, which is mostly who listens to this show, right? Often anti-aging, anti-wrinkle, like I’m certainly more interested in that than I was 10 years ago. And I’m looking at my products more and more and I still don’t really know. So, I’m excited to hear what you have to say.

Anne Marie: Okay. So this is an area that I’ve really dived deep into because we know so much more about heavy metals and what they do in the body and PCPs and pesticides and I really tackled the topic of endocrine disruptors in personal care products because so many of my patients who had the autoimmune disease, who had chronic fatigue, and fibromyalgia, and asthma, and all these different things. I was thinking to myself, why are they all women? Why are they… What are they doing differently? And I started looking at, well, we just, we slather like 20 different products on our bodies. Our face, our bodies, under our arms.

Anne Marie: Our shower water is one of them, it’s very toxic; and so I started really looking into this, and this is one of the areas where I’ve published in and spoken on is toxins and personal care product. And what’s interesting is the doctors that I lecture to are so interested in this topic. Even the environmental medicine doctors. Because we tend to focus more on the flame retardants, and the rocket fuel, and the heavy metals. And so I recently put together a digital class on toxins and personal care products called The Beauty Bluff. And that is a very good resource for figuring out what to avoid in your personal care products and how to do a beauty detox in your home. Because we are absorbing these chemicals into our skin every day.

Jen: Well, and so many people talk about the skin being like a microbiome. Right? It’s this first layer, and that’s where things enter. And exactly, like if you think about from when you get up this morning in your shower, shampoo, conditioner, face scrub, body wash, maybe shaving cream. Right there is like five or six products.

Anne Marie: Under arm deodorant.

Jen: Then you get out, you dry off, you put on lotion, deodorant, face cream, maybe eye cream.

Anne Marie: Yes, yes.

Jen: So within half an hour you’ve been exposed to… Perfume… 15 maybe? Up to?

Anne Marie: Yeah.

Jen: Different things. Not including makeup.

Anne Marie: You know what, and then if you look at each of the ingredient lists for these 15 to 20 products, there could be like 20 to 50 ingredient on each one. So there’s hundreds of chemicals we’re basically exposing ourselves to before we even leave the house in the morning. Including in our lipsticks, and our makeup.

Jen: And we’re paying a lot of money for them, right? We’re paying lots of money.

Anne Marie: We are. We’re paying a lot of money for them, we are.

Jen: So is there anything that… Yeah. So I’m, even just in listening to my own conversation with you as I’m listening I’m doing this before I’m like, oh my God, how do I even begin to take a look at what’s in my bathroom, to start?

Anne Marie: Yeah. How do you begin? I would say a really great resource, and really fun and easy, and this is one that I mention in my class, is there’s an app called Think Dirty.

Jen: It will not get found in different places.

Anne Marie: But it’s called Think Dirty, and what’s cool about it is you put it on your… It’s free.

Jen: Yeah.

Anne Marie: It’s an app, free app. Put it on your smartphone, and you get to go in your bathroom and you hold it up to the code. You know that code, and if it’s registered in their data bank, and most of them are, it will come up with a rating system that’s very easy to use and it’ll tell you highly toxic, you know, medium toxic, pretty clean. No, I’m not kiddigood stuff, right?

Jen: It’s really expensive.

Anne Marie: And I just started doing it on each box and it was all like toxic and maybe I shouldn’t have said the name Lancome. But anyway, and then the sales lady comes over and she’s like what are you doing? And I’m just like, I’m just looking at the ingredients in your products. But I was just having so much fun looking to see how they came up. And it’s so easy, ’cause you do it in your bathroom, and you figure out what you have that isn’t so good. But also, you can take it to the store and do it on the new products and right there in the store you get feedback. Is this clean? Or is this not so good?

Jen: Yeah.

Anne Marie: And so you can buy better things or you see what you have that’s not so good.

Jen: ‘Cause it can get confusing for me. I can go to my local, kind of organic is what we’ve had here in Calgary. So there’s a couple different like, more holistic or very natural stores, but having friends and colleagues that I do, then you hear, “Well yes, you have to be careful ’cause even all of those organic products can still be toxic.” So sometimes you’re just left thinking, “God! Like what the hell! How do I navigate this?”

Anne Marie: That’s why I…

Jen: This app is life-changing.

Anne Marie: It is life-changing and also my class goes through all of that. Because just because it’s being marketed as natural or organic, that’s not the be all, end all. I really think that people need to understand what things are when they look at an ingredient label, but the app, I think, is fantastic and I think that we have so many more resources and… Listen to this, I got immersed in the beauty and skincare consumer product industry a few years ago, and I go to the global business platform for personal care development in Europe every year. And so I’ve kinda watched this industry, and it’s changing, and it’s changing for the better. It’s changing for products that are cleaner and it’s really consumer demand. It’s really kind of a grassroots effort, because a lot of times what the companies will say is, “We really don’t think that parabens are bad for you, but everyone is demanding paraben-free products and so we’re going to make ’em.”

Jen: Gotcha.

Anne Marie: Yeah.

Jen: Okay, so we’ve got air, water, organic, our skincare products where we can actually legitimately download an app called, Think Dirty and then what would be the last one? This is so amazing.

Anne Marie: The last one? I would have to say you have to look at your homes. You have to look at what’s in your homes.

Jen: Okay, so cleaning, like cleaning…

Anne Marie: Cleaning products?

Jen: Yes.

Anne Marie: Cleaning products, and one of the biggest, most bang for your buck in the home, actually in your personal care products too, is to use unscented products. Because scents, unless they’re essential oils, so this is exclusive of essential oils, scents have phthalates in them, and phthalates are a chemical that helps the scent last longer. It’s like a scent fixative. Like plug-in air fresheners for your home, they’re so highly toxic. It’s not just phthalates, it’s benzine, okay. So benzine is coming out of a known carcinogen, you don’t want all these scented things in your home. If your home smells, clean it or take out the garbage or open a window, but it’s like…

Jen: But, we’re addicted to scent. If you go into the laundry detergent aisle, they have 15 different scents for all the different laundry detergents, and then you’ve got the… What’s the clothes softener? I wanna use a brand name here, I wanna use it ’cause it helps people get a reference, like Downy and then you’ve got Bounce and these dryer things. And I can’t remember who it was, but a long time ago I had a close friend say, “Yeah, those are all carcinogens.” And I thought she was bat-shit crazy. I was like, “They wouldn’t sell that if it was bad for us.”

Anne Marie: Yes, yes! You know what? I was telling you before that I had bad health before I figured it all out. So in my early 20s, I couldn’t even walk down the aisle of a detergent store. The scents would just make me so ill. That’s the mark of a chemically sensitive person. But I was raised in a typical home where you had to use store bought detergent and dryer sheets. And I was just getting so sick. I just thought to myself, “I’m just not gonna use dryer sheets.” Which I thought was committing a sin or something, everybody uses dryer sheets!

Jen: And people are shocked when I say that, it’s like…

Anne Marie: I know, and then I got a detergent that was non-scented. I used to wear perfume because I thought if a woman left the home without her signature scent on, she’s essentially naked. And I stopped wearing that and I felt so much better. I wasn’t a doctor then. I had no idea why, I had no idea why, I just thought maybe I’m allergic to scents, that’s what I thought.

Jen: You’re just not understanding the whole deeper underline toxicity issues at play.

Anne Marie: So, I got rid of everything scented and I haven’t a used a dryer sheet in decades. But I’m noticing that when I was using ’em there was maybe one or two on the market. It’s like a proliferation of all these things and everything is so toxic. And the commercials make you feel like you need all of these toxic things in your home, in your life to be normal or to have good hygiene, and it’s not true.

Jen: Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it? And so, okay so we’re talking about the things that can really impact your mitochondria. And basically, by being toxic, and that starts to wear down and break down those powerhouse cells in our body. And just before we actually recorded, started to record our show today, we started talking a little bit about, “Well, how do we start to repair, right? What can we do?” So, we know that eating organically is gonna help, ’cause now we’re avoiding toxicity, but there’s some other things we can do physically. So let’s hear about that, because I often sometimes find, it’s so depressing to hear about my environment. And sometimes it makes me feel like I got no control, I can’t help the company that’s… I live in a house, I’ve got products in here there are definitely off-gassing, I renovated six years ago, I’ve got carpet in some areas, I’ve got hardwood, I go outside. It can feel, oh my god, what’s the point, right?

Anne Marie: Well, what I do and what I teach my patients is that no matter how clean you get your diet or your home or anything like that, we’re all still being exposed. So you have to just kinda get comfortable with that. I have this great test that I use with my patients that looks at chemicals, like a 172 different chemicals in your body, And get this, I’ve lived organic, pretty much all organic, except when I’m out at restaurants and you can’t get it, for decades and I tested myself for glyphosate.

Anne Marie: I have glyphosate in me. And it’s like, “I’m not devastated.” And the reason I’m not devastated is because all the other doctors who were taking this test with me at this conference, they had it too. And it’s like so pervasive, and it’s like you just have to understand that… I think personally it’s great to do what you can, because you want to keep it at the lowest level you can. Nobody is at zero. I’m not at zero. Nobody is at zero. We all have toxins, but I think it makes sense to keep ’em at a low level, and then not worry about the ones that you can’t control. I live in California, and there’s a lot of information coming out about the toxicity from Fukushima coming to the West Coast of California that’s in the water, and this and that. And it’s like you know what? I walk on the beach every night. And it’s like, am I getting radiation? Probably. But I’m not gonna not walk on the beach, you know what I’m saying? And so you still have to live your life.

Jen: And so, do you think, so I’m 41, I’ve been on my health journey for probably a decade or so now where I’m really much more actively paying attention to what I put in my body, what I expose myself to, what I think. And do you believe that a lot of chronic disease nowadays, an underlying principle component is accumulated toxicity within our bodies?

Anne Marie: Yes. I think the primary driver of chronic disease today is toxicity.

Jen: So what do we do about that? When people talk about detoxing, you and I are sort of saying that the word “detox” is everywhere, from a yoga class where you take a detoxified breath to the one-day sugar detox. But what does “detox” to you mean?

Anne Marie: Right. Detox to me, I’m glad you asked that question, because it’s not the three-day cleanse, or it’s not a colon cleanse kit that you buy at the health food store. When I as an environmental medicine doctor formulate an individualized detoxification plan for someone, it includes different parts, and it’s depuration, it’s tissue cleansing, it’s enhancing phase one and phase two biochemical transformations in the liver. It’s very specific for that person, what their illness is, what their levels of chemicals are, what’s bothering them. And also, I have another level that I take my patients to, which is I have the ability to test for genetic… I don’t know. They’re like little mutations, single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Have you heard of SNPs? SNPs in your… Okay.

Jen: No.

Anne Marie: So, in your detoxification genetic pathway, everybody’s got these little mutations, but mutations connote something terrible, like you’re gonna get a disease, when really 30% of the population might have the same SNP. So it’s really better to think of it as a variation. And so people’s genetic ability to detoxify varies like 40-fold, not 40%, 40-fold. And so I can do the genetic testing on people to see where they’re at. And I’ve done that on myself, and where I got the biggest needle change on my own health, was after I discovered where my genetic hang-up was in my detoxification pathways. And so you could…

Jen: That’s amazing we can get that info.

Anne Marie: I know. It’s so cool. And so when I design something, it’s really multifaceted. It’s got a dietary component, it’s got a supplement component. Maybe it’s got sauna. Maybe it’s got IV chelation. There’s just different aspects. But it’s not… I don’t want the readers to think that they can do a three-day juice cleanse, and it’s like they’re 50 years old, and they’re like, “Oh, I did it.” And that could never…

Jen: Well, it could be a good start, or a good stat, right? But it’s gonna be a much more in-depth process.

Anne Marie: Well, it’s gonna be more in-depth, and the thing that I wanna also point out, is that when people go on diet sometimes to lose weight and they don’t feel good, a lot of times that’s due to the fat cells have opened up and they’ve released their contents, and the chemicals are coming out, and now they’re in the circulation of the body. And if the person is not being optimized for detoxification, then maybe it’s gonna go to the brain and lodge there. Instead of leaving the body, it’s going somewhere else. And people don’t feel good, because they’re getting headaches, and they’re getting joint pain, and they’re feeling a lot of fatigue, because these chemicals that were stored somewhere are now being released into the environment, but not being released from the body. It’s two different things.

Anne Marie: Releasing toxins from your cells, that’s a good step, but it’s gotta come out of your body. And so that’s something to think of too. And then also something else that’s really interesting, ’cause we were talking about emotions earlier. When I’m detoxing someone, and let’s say they’re following my plan, and all of a sudden they stop detoxing, they hit a plateau. A lot of times it’s because they have emotional toxicity going on, and once they’ve dealt with that by going into counselling or whatever method they prefer, and once they start breaking through those emotional obstacles, they start physiologically detoxing again. That’s what I mean, the mind and the body work together. If you are so toxic in your emotions, then that can hold up physiological detox in your body, so it does work together. And so, I’ve also heard people say, psychologists and counsellors say, that when they’re really making good progress with someone with what they’re doing, a lot of times they start not feeling good and I’m thinking to myself, that’s because they’re now detoxing more, right? Which is good, it’s good.

Jen: That makes sense.

Anne Marie: But you don’t feel so good, and so this is something that has to be looked at very carefully and it’s better under guidance, it’s better if you know your genetic detoxification hang ups, and it’s better when you know which chemicals are poisoning you the most. But having said all that, I firmly stand by the first rule of environmental medicine is avoidance. Water purification, air purification, not using scented products in the home, using clean personal care products you can go a long way with a lot of those. But if you’re truly… If you’re already sick, you’ve got cancer, you’ve got autoimmune disease or chronic fatigue, you have to go further and get the right professional help.

Jen: So I gotta couple… So before we direct people on how to find you, I’ve got another question ’cause so many people that listen to this podcast, they’re on a health journey. They’re proactive, they’re interested, they’re usually typically wanting to make some sort of change in their life in some way and very often the first step is weight. I’m a weight loss expert, that’s what I help women do. Mind, body, very much connected in the work that I do and so tell me a little bit if you can in terms of toxicity and weight loss and environmental toxins.

Anne Marie: Yes…

Jen: Can we…

Anne Marie: Yes, because I’m so glad you said that. Okay.

Anne Marie: So weight loss is huge and so you’re doing it and so you know this, so I don’t have to tell you. It’s huge, it’s like the number one thing people want, especially women, is “How do I lose weight?” It’s huge. Okay, in my practice… So I’ve been practicing for like 17 years. I’ve never put anyone on a weight loss diet, but I do put people on detox programs, and guess what? People lose weight because when you’re losing the toxins, you’re losing the weight. Now, when you’re doing the opposite side which is losing the weight, you should know that people are losing the toxins, and our listeners should know that if you’re losing weight, you’re also releasing toxins, so you could go at it from two different ways. The physical weight or the toxins, and either way you’re gonna lose weight. Because also the toxins, guess what? They love fat, they love your thyroid, your thyroid is endocrine tissue, mostly fat. Mercury for example, in the environment, loves the thyroid, and I would say most of my women patients have thyroid disease.

Jen: Yes, and most people who come, a lot of them come to me with thyroid issues and then say, “Well, now I can’t lose weight, because I have a thyroid problem.”

Anne Marie: Right.

Jen: I did too and I still lost weight. So there’s ways that you can go at this where you’re not gonna be a victim of your diagnosis.

Anne Marie: Exactly. Exactly. And cleaning up your home and your diet, your water, all of these things and going on some sort of detox can help your thyroid. And I’ve gotten women over Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which is a veritable epidemic in my practice and in the practices of people around, you can overcome these thyroid issues.

Jen: Okay, so one other thing that we were talking about that was just really close. We just had a quick conversation around exercise, and one of the things… So I used to be very big into cardio, long-term, slow steady-state cardio, I’m an endurance athlete, and then I had kids and life got busy. I don’t have time for that so HIIT training became a very fun part of my working out routine. But you told me something that I didn’t actually know about one of the benefits of HIIT training. Can you share that with our listeners today?

Anne Marie: Absolutely. You can improve your mitochondria by HIIT training. Okay, now…

Jen: So high-intensity interval training, if you’re new to trying to figure out what to bring into your world, listeners and viewers. So HIIT training is that intense exercise for a shorter period of time and here’s what happens. Dr. Fine was explaining it to me, so go ahead.

Anne Marie: It improves your mitochondria. And so the mitochondria are concentrated, there’s lots more of them in muscle tissue and the HIIT training is good for… Well for one thing, to just back up a little bit…

Jen: Yeah.

Anne Marie: Your body gets used to whatever you do and it just kind of adjusts and if you just go into the gym every day for 45 minutes on the treadmill or the elliptical, your body is completely adapted to that and you’re not getting the weight loss, you’re not getting the training, you’re not building muscle. HIIT is good for building muscle, building mitochondria and so… By the way, I know you already know this but for our listeners, as you get older one of the most important things, the key aspect to anti-aging, is preserving your muscle tissue.

Jen: Strength training. Pause. Can everybody hear that?

Anne Marie: Yes, ladies, sarcopenia will get you, and men too.

Jen: Sarcopenia is muscle wasting and once you lose it, or if you don’t use it, you lose it. And that is true so if you think of your muscle as a bundle of spaghetti, it’s muscle fibers. If you don’t use those muscles to the full capacity, those muscle fibres start to die off, which means you’re losing your mass. Your muscle mass. Which is what Dr Fine is saying.

Anne Marie: Yes. I feel like…

Jen: It’s age related.

Anne Marie: One of the biggest predictors in healthy aging is muscle mass. And I wanna tell you about a really interesting study that I ran across years ago. And what they did was… You know how with nursing homes there’s a lot of old people in wheelchairs? Those people are not paralysed…

Jen: My mum lives in one. So I see that every day.

Anne Marie: They don’t, they don’t have the thigh strength to get up out of a chair and walk. They lost their thigh and their glute strength, and so they’re in wheelchairs. And so this one study took a bunch of old people, like 85 to 95. So that’s older, in nursing homes. Wheelchair-bound 100%, and they did like half of them. They started giving them exercises strength building and the other half they did nothing. Now, these people are in wheelchairs so they’re not at the gym but they started in wheelchairs, just kind of with the legs, you know what I mean? With the upper body, they just started doing really light, baby stuff to these people who have been immobile for who knows how long. And after a period of time, and I don’t remember how long it was, but a significant percentage of those wheelchair-bound people were able to get up out of their wheelchair. So the body responds to exercise. It responds to exercise.

Jen: It responds to everything that it’s exposed to…

Anne Marie: It really does.

Jen: In everything that we do or don’t do. And if we want to live with energy to thrive, I truly believe that it’s up to us to create that by really becoming aware and conscious of the choices we’re making every single day. Right out of what we’re avoiding, what we’re choosing, what we’re actively engaging in, or what we’re saying, “Meh, I’m on a Netflix binge tonight instead,” right?

Anne Marie: Right.

Jen: And eat Doritos, or something, with my pyjamas that smell like Bounce or…

Jen: And what I love about this interview is that I think that you’ve given our listeners and viewers such good… Sort of what, look, we’re never gonna get all clear… I know I saw a physician, and I have some mercury in my body, and we’re never gonna be completely free and clear. But there are simple things that we can take control of in our life every day, and little things count. And that’s helpful.

Anne Marie: Yes, it is.

Jen: You can start to avoid… And again, this idea that being active and responsible for our own health and wanting to be able to walk when we’re 70 or 80, we can take charge of that now. And I heard a stat that said, if you’re 40 and a woman, 40% of your exercise should come from strength training, 60% from cardio. As you age and go to 50 and 60, at your 60s, 60% should be strength training, 40% cardio because cardio is muscle wasting. So, cool, it’s really cool how this all comes together like this.

Anne Marie: It does come together.

Jen: Okay. I think people need to know about you. They need to be on your newsletter list. They should be getting access to the information that you share. So can you let people know how to… And first of all, beauty is amazing. We all wanna start to feel beautiful inside and out and do what we can. And I know that you have a resource for women. How do we get it?

Anne Marie: Well, you can go to my website which is www.drannemariefine.com. I’ll spell it out. D-R A-N-N-E M-A-R-I-E F-I-N-E.com. And if you go to my website, I have a free giveaway which is on the seven skin secrets for beautiful skin. Because your skin is just… It’s actually the body’s largest organ and it’s really a reflection of what’s going on on the inside. And so all of the things that we talked about today are going to also be good for your skin as well. And so that’s a way to get on my newsletter list. And then I will… I also have a class on The Beauty Bluff, which I’ve mentioned previously on how to learn about ingredients in your personal care products and get educated on how to avoid them and really know what you’re doing. And really knowledge is power. We wanna empower women to not just be sucked into the marketing of, “This is natural.” There’s a lot of greenwashing out there and we don’t want you to fall into that.

Anne Marie: So anyway, if you get on my newsletter list, I talk a lot about environmental toxins. I talk a lot about beauty from the inside out. I talk a lot about epigenetics which is everything is impacting your genes. It’s not just your genes, it’s your ultimate destiny. And so those are the ways to get a hold of me.

Jen: And we’ll have all of those links in the show notes and in description below. So if you’re listening again, make sure you come back in and grab those links so that you can… And we’ll have links to anything that you’ve mentioned so far in this interview. I have one last question for you and I think I’ve forgotten it. Shoot.

Jen: Well, anyways, I have a feeling you’re gonna back on this podcast not too long from now, just to share more of your knowledge and wisdom, and I cannot thank you enough for being on the Energy to Thrive podcast. And for people who’ve tuned in to listen, please share your comments. Go and rate the podcast and the interview, like it, share it, if you believe that there’s people in this world who need to hear Dr. Fine’s info and understand more about toxins and how it does impact energy. Like it, share it, post it. Social media is here to spread the good.

Anne Marie: Right. Spread the good news.

Jen: Spread the good and spread…

Anne Marie: That’s what my mission is in life is just to reach as many people as I can with this message.

Jen: And of course, if you have any questions, you know where to find me, Jennifer Powter. So thank you so much and have a wonderful day. And we’ll be back again with another episode soon. Take care, everybody. Bye for now.

Anne Marie: Bye-bye.