Childhood Fatigue & Pain; Be your own best advocate for your family’s health with special guest Michelle McCoy

Hey, parents, welcome back to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. I'm your host, Jacqueline Finneman. And with more than 30 years of experience working with kids and families, I promise you there is a solution to the challenges you're facing at home with your kids and in your relationships. And speaking of relationships, we have a big announcement coming in October, a brand new program that is specifically designed to help you, the parents, with your relationship. You're going to want to head over to noproblemparents.com, get on the list so that you are the first to receive the notice about the brand new relationship program that is designed to help you the parents become that confident leader that your kids crave you to be and it really does start with you and your relationship now in preparation for this new program we are actually offering the becoming a no problem parent training for just 50 this is for a limited time once the new program starts this offer will go away so if you've been following me for a while and you're just really kind of curious about what becoming a no problem parent means, this is a great opportunity for you to go check it out for just $50. You're going to be able to kick your parenting fears, doubts, and uncertainty to the curb, transform your kiddo's behavior, prepare for, and get this, even look forward to your child misbehaving. And then you're going to learn how to change the conversations in your home. Click on the link in the show notes,

becoming a no problem parent and get yourself started today. And now let me introduce to you our next guest. All right, welcome back. No problem, parents. In today's episode, we're going to talk about fatigue, pain, inflammation, and natural solutions to helping you out, mamas. We've got your back. My special guest today is Ms. Michelle McCoy.

Michelle is a board-certified holistic and functional health coach and the host of Treasured Wellness Christian Podcast. She supports women who've been struggling with ongoing fatigue and pain to reclaim their health with anti-inflammatory lifestyle changes and natural solutions using a godly approach. Michelle has a deep passion for helping women get to the root cause of dis-ease before it turns into disease. Without the frustration and the overwhelm, she makes this all very simple, doable, practical. Welcome to the show, Michelle.

Thank you so much for having me, Jackie. It's a pleasure to be here. I just really love the work that you're doing right now, helping people become the best advocate for their health and for their family. You know, we're all about creating confident leaders here at No Problem Parenting.

And really, it starts with the parent first, right? Moms and dads putting that oxygen mask on, taking care of your own mental health and physical health. And when we do that and, you know, we have more energy for our kids and just more drive and more interest. You know, we're less lazy or exhausted.

And so I love the work that you're doing today. We're going to talk about advocating for our own health and also ways to boost our energy naturally. But before we get into all that, I do want to ask you what led you to become a holistic and functional health coach? And I know listeners don't yet, but I know that it had something to do with your daughter's illness.

It did. And we have to go back 20 years. My daughter is 26 now. But when she was five, almost six, she came down with a lot of debilitating headaches, migraines.

She was having some skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis. And she really just did not look well. Like you can tell that look that our kids get. And so we did the normal gamut.

We went to the pediatrician. We had certain tests done. We had MRI, CAT scan, all of the things, blood work, allergy testing, everything. And they simply couldn't find out what was wrong with her, which boggled my mind because like they're they are the experts, right? Like they are supposed to know what's wrong with my daughter. And so we went through three years of not getting answers.

and it just really frustrated me because every single doctor that I would go to and say, well, what about this? What about her diet? What about she's eating this? And every doctor said food had nothing to do with why she was getting migraines, headaches, and psoriasis and eczema.

They said, let her eat whatever she wants. You know, she doesn't feel well, give her whatever she wants. Well, the mama bear in me was like, that's ridiculous because obviously something I am feeding her is causing this. And I go into much more detail in episode one and two of the treasured wellness podcast, because that is what fueled my passion to help other moms, not only help their kids feel better, but help themselves feel better, you know, in the process. Because, you know, when we, when we know better and we feel better and we do better, we continue to do better. And then we share better. And it's just that beautiful trickle down effect into the family.

So fast forward, I ended up getting out of conventional medicine and I went into holistic medicine to find the answers to get to the root cause of her problems. And sure enough, big surprise food had everything to do with it once we took out the offending food product that she was eating you know and I have to say I'm embarrassed to say this but you know we don't know what we don't know I was actually poisoning her even more I was giving her the wheat and the gluten that she was absolutely allergic to because you know you're getting her off white bread and putting her on whole wheat and all of these things. I was taking her off foods and putting her on my own elimination diet before I even knew what that was. And so it's just, it was a journey.

It was such a long journey and it never should have taken three years to get to the root cause of her problems. Oh, I totally agree. And, um, and sometimes we think that we've moved so much further than where we were like 20 years ago. And yeah, that's true when you find the right person, but when you're simply going to your pediatrician, depending on the pediatrician, right. And how well-versed they are in holistic care and in food and supplements or vitamins and all the things just depends on, on, you know, your experience. And for a lot of people, much like your family, it took way too long to get to the root of what was going on. What kinds of behaviors, just real quickly, I know you share all of this in episode one and two of the treasured wellness podcast. What kinds of behaviors or things was your daughter experiencing or displaying that would have maybe made you think that, well, this is behavioral and not physical? With her, it was all physical because she still maintained really good grades. She was always, you know, that student wanting to please. She was just, you know, really a good kid,

you know, and the joke is that she watched her brother get in trouble so much. She learned what not to do, but she had sleep issues for sure. And she had dark circles under her eyes. Truthfully, was that the food intolerance? Not sure because she continued on to have some sleep issues.

And I found out she was like type A personality, just really had a hard time shutting her brain down. So that was a whole other situation, but just lack of energy, losing her normal energetic self that she was before. And then definitely physical signs and symptoms of, you know, the pain she was to three migraines a week. Like she would come home from school and lay on the couch and we put an ice pack on her head and, you know, give her a snack. And then we'd be back at, you know, doing schoolwork and all of that. And she tried, she really did. She would run around, she would, she would do all these things, but then she would come in and just lay down. And I'm like, that's, that's not normal. Like you're, you're so young, like where's your energy. And so it was,

you know, she didn't express like GI issues, gut issues, like a lot of people think of for gluten, And it was all in her skin, her head, but the doctors were just looking at her head. They were just looking at the migraine and the headache. And once they couldn't find an answer, they didn't even think to look at the gut. They didn't, you didn't look at her as a whole person.

And that's what I do with holistic health. That's what holistic health is looking at the whole person, not just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what will stick. well and so this experience with your daughter actually shaped how you started taking care of yourself and that's really kind of our focus today is for moms and you know so what was that what was it about your daughter's experience that went hey I need to I need to take a look at how I'm caring for myself well the irony Jackie is that while I was taking her to all of her appointments for her neurology appointments or biofeedback therapy appointments, all of these things, I was going through some of the same symptoms. I was having migraines. I was having headaches. I thought it was hormonal. I thought, oh, it's my cycle. You know, I was in my thirties. So I just totally blew it off, focused completely on her because that's what we do as moms. And it wasn't until I got her straight, you know, I, you know, we worked on her gut. We, you know, cause ironically she did have some gut issues. It just wasn't presenting. We cleaned out the toxins in her system and she was doing better. A couple of years later, I'm like, man, I am really feeling bad.

Like I am exhausted. I am having way more headaches than I should. And I was explaining them away. Oh, it's the weather. Oh, it's, you know, it's hormones. It's that time of the month.

It's the barometric pressure, like all of these things, all these excuses. And it hit me one day how did she get the gluten allergy? I gave that to her. So I just really started digging. And in the process, I was actually transitioning out of one career into another. And so that's when I went back to school for nutrition, because God was like, this is your thing. Like you need to use this. Cause I was already looking at children in school and in my classroom and going, you might have a food allergy, you know, and talking to parents about this and, you know, Hey, make, making little suggestions and then getting the feedback, you know, the positive feedback.

And so I was like, okay, yeah, I need to do this because obviously there's a massive need. And then I started talking to other moms about how they too were pushing their own health on the back burner and they were feeling worse. And they were saying things like, well, it's my age. I guess this is how it's going to be.

No, no, no, no. It does not have to be. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

So why do you think that so many women, especially, let's focus on the women today anyway. Why do you think so many women are walking around tired and exhausted? The quick answer is we put ourselves on the back burner. You know, we put everybody else above ourselves and we're not truly taking care of ourselves in an optimal way, or let alone just, you know, in a way that honors our body. And we have stress, we have hormones, we have problems that are like, I mean, of course, men have hormones too, but like our hormones tend to get really wonky. And so also being in stressful situations, we tend to stay in that fight or flight. So if we're in that sympathetic state, which is fight or flight or freeze, instead of that parasympathetic state, which is rest and digest,

we are going to struggle with energy. We are going to struggle with feeling our best and just, we're just kind of getting through the day. But I definitely think at the core of it, we're putting ourselves last. And it's not selfish to give yourself care. It's literally like necessary. It's medically necessary. It's whole body necessary, mind, body, soul, spirit necessary to for a season, put that oxygen mask on yourself so that you can then pour into others more effectively. Yeah, absolutely. So let's get into it. What are the things that you did and that you now teach women about what they can do to get that energy back and decrease inflammation and the aches and pains and all the things? Yeah. So, you know, tactically, there are some simple things that we can do and don't feel like you have to do this all at once, right? Just pick one and run with it for a week and then add another one. But there are some natural things that you can do. You know, the food that we eat is so important. So I would say eat smarter. And what I mean by that is, are you skipping meals? Are you making sure your kids are getting their breakfast every day, but you're not eating? You're just drinking your coffee. You know, are you just running out the door with nothing? Are you packing your kids lunch every day, but you're not packing your own lunch. Oh my gosh. I was so guilty of that as my kiddo was growing up breakfast, lunch,

like doing it all for him and not even maybe taking a bite of something, you know, like the carrot stick that didn't fit in the lunch box or something, you know, I'd eat that, but not actually doing it myself. That is so common. So common. And you know what else I would hear if our kids were home when we eat lunch and we would eat the crust off the sandwiches, right?

that they didn't eat. We'd eat their kids left, our kids leftovers. But I've also heard people unpacking the lunch boxes and they're like, Oh, I didn't eat lunch today. And so they're eating their kiddos leftovers and calling it a meal. And I'm like, no, like love yourself enough to pour into yourself in the most basic ways that is showing yourself care. And so eat smarter, like protein, you know, women are specifically lacking, I would say in protein, especially women over 35. I believe that women over 35 are low in protein. We're just not focused enough on getting that good quality protein. Think about what you're eating when you're grabbing something.

Is it more carbohydrate based or is it protein based? You really should be eating protein at every meal. So think about that. That will give you a natural energy, just helping keep your blood sugars more balanced throughout the day. What are some quick protein ideas that we can, that we can, that we can make into go-tos? Oh yeah. So hard boiled eggs are the easy, you know, and of course you really do want farm fresh, organic, free range eggs, you know, cause it's not just the food you eat. It's the quality of food you eat. But, you know, some people that don't like eggs, once they switch to farm fresh free range eggs, they're like, oh my gosh, like I thought an egg was an egg was an egg. And it's so different. It is. Yeah. Do a test. Grab a, you know, a carton of regular eggs and then a carton of organic eggs and just crack them open. You will literally just see the difference. Absolutely. And you'll taste the difference. And I've had clients that have had what they thought were egg allergies. And then they try, you know, we get their gut taken care of and they try again, but with an organic farm egg and they're like, oh my gosh, like I had no idea. So that is super quick and easy. Make egg casserole, egg quiches or crustless quiches.

And that way you can bake it and you've got days, egg muffins, you know, all your veggies, all of that quick bake it, you've got days worth. And then, you know, if you really don't have time, really making a protein shake takes just about as much time. But if you can't prep at night, which is what I highly recommend prepping at night while you're making dinner, boil up those eggs, make that, you know, egg muffin mix, you know, and bake it real quick.

a protein shake is a good option, but you want a good quality protein shake and you want to try to add other things, you know, for more nutrition, like hemp seeds, chia seed, flax seed, some spinach. You don't taste the spinach. It might change the color. Yes, but you don't taste it.

It's not like you're eating grass. So, but you're going to get some more sustained energy from the protein. Awesome. So one of the important things that you say needs to happen instead of us just kind of guessing what we need more of or less of or whatever is to get some labs done. So tell us a little bit about what you suggest for that. The thing is, is a lot of women will go to their doctor and they will get a basic lab panel done, their cholesterol, their just the basic CMPs, you know, just metabolic tests and everything. And those are good. Those are really good to have. However, if we are still feeling like crap, when those labs come back normal, and I'm using air quotes here, normal, then something's not right. Just because your symptoms are common does not mean they are normal. So it's really important to ask for more specific labs if you feel that you need that.

So let me give you an example. Vitamin D is a test that everybody should be getting at least once a year. However, often I have clients come to me and say, well, my doctor said that the insurance company won't cover it, so that's why they didn't order it. As if that's a reason.

And it simply should not be a reason. And so you have a choice. You can either go online and order your own lab because you can do that. And I help my clients do that all the time. Or you can push back and, you know, especially if you're low in energy, if you're exhausted, if you're not sleeping well, your doctor should be ordering a vitamin D test.

so there's that that's a great example because a lot of women are not getting their vitamin d checked or they're getting it checked in conventional ranges between 30 and 100 i have seen so many people come to me and say well it was 24 but they didn't say anything to me 24 is too low even in conventional terms in functional medicine we like to see it between 60 and 80. So if you're below 30, you're deficient in vitamin D. No wonder you feel like crap.

And I think that's really important for parents and like for kids too. A lot of times kids aren't getting lab work, right? It's not standard to do blood tests and, and things for kids, unless there's some significant issue, but what a significant issue, like you as the parent, no, there's a concern. And your doctor will kind of sometimes just be like, well, it's common for kids to have stomach aches or cramps or some constipation or headaches or whatever. It drives me crazy too, because it's so easy to just do the dang blood work. And like you said, there are places where you can do the lab work right at home and send it in and get results. Absolutely. And you know, you don't even have to do blood work because I know a lot of kids are, you know,

that's very traumatic and scary for them, but you know, your child, you know, that, and that's why be that mama bear, be your own best advocate, not only for your health, but for your family. And we have to advocate for ourselves more and more and more because we are only really getting maybe an eight minute conversation with our doctor, you know, and there's just not enough time. And oftentimes they're looking down at their iPad. You don't really have that face-to-face conversation. You don't feel heard. You're maybe walking out with more questions than answers.

So, you know, be an advocate. One thing I do recommend is take the emotion out of it. If you are really struggling with energy, drive, ambition, you're not sleeping well, your libido is down, all of those things, right? if you go because you're so sleep deprived and you start crying and this is this is horrible but a lot of doctors will think that you need to be on an antidepressant and again this is not across the board I'm not like bashing all doctors but it happens all the time and so if you can do your best to take the emotion out of it and stick to the facts and have a note and you know list for yourself. Like these are my symptoms. This is how long it's been going on. These are the things I've changed. And I still feel like crap. And my labs are coming back, quote unquote, normal. And I don't, that's not good enough. Like it's not good enough because just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal. So we have to fight. I mean, sadly, I have an episode. I can't remember what number it is, maybe three or four where it says, should you fire your doctor? Maybe you should.

Right. If they're not listening to you and hearing you and you're going in and leaving with nothing but a prescription for an anti-anxiety or depression medication, there's something wrong that should not be the go to. Because, again, vitamin D, I mean, this has happened time and time again where I recommended that a family go get a vitamin D lab done on their child or themselves. and it comes back that they're significantly deficient, just that in of itself can be a game changer for behavior and connection with your child. Absolutely. And the way they're sleeping, the way their brain is thinking, the way they're, you know, hyperactivity or lethargic, like we have to know these things. And so you can supplement yourself. That's the beauty of supplements, you could do these tests yourself. If you can't do a lab test, but you suspect that your child might be low in vitamin D just based on where you live or the fact that they're in a school building for seven hours a day or whatever, and you feel like that might support your child, then absolutely there are over-the-counter vitamin D you can get. You just want to make sure you're getting good quality, not a bunch of fillers is certainly no dyes,

no additives, no fillers. It's a trial, right? And that's why we need to be journaling and tracking. So that is giving us great information. Absolutely. Do you do labs? Do you have a company you work with to do labs? So I can do a lab analysis. So that's where if they, I can help them go get their labs online. They can order them online, go to their lab, LabCorp or Quest, and then they bring me the labs and I can pick out lifestyle and dietary changes that probably want to make based on that. I think it is really important to not have it be a guessing game. Agreed. If you do need to supplement, I think it is important to know that you're getting a good supplement, not just something off of the shelves at your local grocery store. Or Amazon,

absolutely do not get your supplements off of Amazon because they do change the labels and And it's not necessarily coming from the company you think it's coming from. And yeah, you don't want extra fillers. And as far as our food supply, our soil is just depleted, period. And with all the toxins that are chemicals that are being put into our foods, sprayed on our foods, in our water, in our air, it is really difficult now to be, even if you stuck with completely organic everything, It is really difficult to be getting all of the nutrients and the minerals and everything in the soil, in the food.

So supplements are just that. They're supposed to supplement an already healthy diet, a way of eating. And so you don't want to take a supplement, but you're still eating McDonald's every day, right? So there's lifestyle change involved here.

But the supplements, unfortunately, more often than not are necessary. Super important stuff. You do, Michelle, you have a couple of options when people come to work with you. You have the Shape Reclaimed Nutrition Protocol, and then you also do wellness coaching.

So tell us a little bit about those. I do have a couple of offers based on what people need, because some people come to me just for a one hour foggy and fatigued, like what is going on? What can I change? Some people will come to me with wanting a complete food and lifestyle review.

and that's again like we're hitting the cliff notes version of what you can change and then we can we check back in later but if you want to really reduce toxic inflammation in your body that's where I partnered with Shape Reclaimed because they were doing everything that I was already teaching my clients but they have the added benefit of the amazing homeopathy of the shape drops, which really help with things like cravings and mood swings and brain fog and sleep disorder or disordered sleep, I should say, where you're not sleeping well, you're having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep and just overall energy. And so much more because it's a perfect blend of, like I said, homeopathy and it gets into the cells. That's the key. That's the other thing that I love to do with my anti-inflammatory shape program, because we are testing urine to see on a cellular level, how your body's reacting to the food and lifestyle changes you're making.

That is amazing. Super awesome. There's no guesswork then you're taking the guesswork out of it. And before we wrap up today, I want to make sure that people know you have a free gift for us.

It's a free Foggy and Fatigued Blueprint. And this is just going to give you three days of intentional action steps that you can take to help move the needle forward so that you can start gaining more energy in a natural way. There are recipes in there. Like I said, there are three days of intentional things that you can do. And then you just build on that after those three days are over. You don't go back to what you're doing. You know, change takes time.

change can be sometimes exhausting so we have to be gentle with ourselves but it gives you those three days of intentional action steps that you can review over and over and over again bake up those muffins you know cook the recipes that are there and you've got it for a while until you really do notice the difference and you should notice within a few days honestly that you have more natural energy so parents you can get that today go in the show notes there's a link in there and you can get started without spending a dime on anything other than the food and the recipes. But Michelle's put this together for you to really add value and give you some steps that you can implement easily. Baby steps, right? You talked about not doing it all at once.

This is just like a three-day action plan. And then if and when you decide, hey, I need a little bit more support. I need some accountability. I want the whole plan. I want this whole protocol.

then be sure to reach out to Michelle again, links in the show notes, and you can work with her one-on-one or just have a session with her to decide the next best step for you and your family. Absolutely. Okay. So when a parent is ready to reach out to you, what is the best way for them to connect with you, Michelle? The easiest way is the website treasuredwellness.com. You can also access the podcast treasured wellness podcast right there, and you can check out the services, the offerings and connect with me right there as well. I'm so excited that you're joining my No Problem Parenting community, that you're here to be a resource for moms and for parents and for kids, for the whole family. But let's get those mamas to be feeling as energetic and confident and energized as possible, I would say. So I appreciate it so much for taking time to be with me, Michelle. I had so much fun, Jackie. Thank you for having me. All right, parents,

That's it for today. Make sure you head over to the website, noproblemparents.com. Sign up to get our emails. We're going to be giving away tips, tools, techniques, and resources, updates on podcast episodes, roundtable events, and more. Check out noproblemparents.com. For now, hugs and high fives. You got this.