From Exhausted to Energized (with Holistic Health Coach Jennifer Oknin)

Our energy level touches everything we do. It can feel overwhelming and frustrating to not have enough to fully engage in daily activities and get the most out of life. If it feels like you're sometimes running on empty, dragging yourself through the day, Certified Integrative Health Practitioner, Jennifer Oknin is here to help. 

A former self-described “Runnin’ on Dunkin’ girl,”  Jennifer shares valuable insights into achieving a more energized and balanced life that goes beyond what we eat or how much we exercise. Hormones, stress, and sleep also play a huge part in our journey to good health and high energy. She says we should look at our health as a whole package and get some good foundational habits in place. But how do we get there? We’ve got questions and she’s got answers!

If you want to kick exhaustion to the curb and invite in a wave of energy, this episode may be a total game-changer! Click play and let’s learn how to up our energy and get healthier together.

REACH OUT TO JENNIFER OKNIN
Jennifer on LinkedIn

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Transcript

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:01]:

Our energy level affects almost everything in our life, and sometimes we focus too much on how we might look in a pair of jeans or just regular diet and exercise, and we don't take our physical health as a whole into consideration, talking about getting enough sleep, stress relief, what's going on with our hormones along with the diet and exercise. So we invited holistic health coach, Jennifer Oknin, who is just an amazing lady who's gonna take us through going from exhausted to to energized and getting a lot healthier while we're at it.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:37]:

Hello, everyone. This is Lanee here with Sandy. Imagine yourself having more energy. Imagine yourself having balanced hormones like the wonderful people on those advertisements talk so much about. Imagine yourself getting the right balance of sleep, healthy foods, body movement, de-stressors, all that stuff so you can feel your best. All this to say, we have a guest today. She used to live a life as a running on Dunkin' gal, but now she's a certified integrative health practitioner with a business called Shift Into Health and a special program called Fatigued TO Fabulous. So we want to welcome with wide open arms, Jennifer Oknin to help us get to that next level of health in our lives.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:32]:

Thank you for joining us, Jen.

Jennifer Oknin [00:01:34]:

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with everyone.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:38]:

Yeah. We're excited about what we're gonna learn today. Being healthy. It used to be okay. We need to maybe change our diet a little or go on a quote diet. We need to work out x number of times a week or get 30 minutes of walking, yada yada, and all that. But as you talk about it on your website, it is more like, building a foundation. Right? There's so many mark parts to it.

Jennifer Oknin [00:02:02]:

Absolutely. Foundations are so important. And most of us really we don't focus on it. We just don't put in the time because we're so busy thinking about everybody else. Right? There's always so many things going on. So we don't kinda Take a step back and look up and say, hey. What am I really doing? I know I'm exhausted. I know I feel terrible, but why is this? And and, you know, what am I doing to sabotage myself?

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:27]:

And you talk about you used to be in the corporate world yourself in a running on Dunkin' Girl, and so I'm assuming the sugar and the caffeine was what used to keep you going.

Jennifer Oknin [00:02:35]:

My lifeblood. Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:38]:

And now, was it like a full, I'm gonna go from this to that, or was it a process for you? Was it a learning process and then you started to feel better and started sharing with others?

Jennifer Oknin [00:02:51]:

Absolutely. It was a learning process. There was a moment though. You know? Come to Jesus moment. It just It hit me. It hit me hard. So I was always very active. I was in a lot of sports.

Jennifer Oknin [00:03:04]:

I was a collegiate cheerleader. Very fit, very active. So twenties and thirties working for General Electric. I was one of those people that, you know, every 12 to 15 months. Hey. Let's grab Jen and put her in this. So it's run, run, run, up, up, up, and I loved it. But I focused on the work really to the detriment of family and relationships and trips and fun because I was just all in, and I was having a blast.

Jennifer Oknin [00:03:35]:

And then sometimes, you know, I wasn't because it was a real hard, very competitive environment. But, really, the turning point for me came when I was asked to take a new role in operations team, a global team. And I was getting them all together for our orientation session, and the best place to go, I was meeting with them in Florence, Italy.

Jennifer Oknin [00:03:56]:

So I'm packing for this trip, and it was a nightmare because none of my clothes fit. And I was like, how did this happen? How did I not see this? And I remember going to the mall very clearly in a panic In the department store dressing room and just looking at myself and realizing that I was having to put on clothes that were 2 to 3 sizes bigger than I would normally think to get. It had to have been a gradual run up, but I just never noticed. And how I felt in that dressing room, just the tears and the frustration and the anger. And there were some heavy stuff going on in my personal life. At the same time, I was trying to navigate, and everything just really hit. So had to buy some new clothes. Yeah.

Jennifer Oknin [00:04:42]:

Went on the trip, tried not to focus on it, and and really did have an amazing meeting. But when I got back, it was like, okay. What is happening. And so it really became a struggle over the next 18 months to try and figure out what I could do. So I was killing it in the gym. I would go to work, come home, be one of those gym people in the evening, and then heat up my, you know, lean cuisine diet dinner at home thinking that was what I was what's to do to lose weight. Right? Use a frozen meal and exercise my butt up in the gym all the time. And I wasn't really working.

Jennifer Oknin [00:05:11]:

So I I lost some weight, but I still felt terrible. My complexion was awful. I was tired. I wasn't sleeping good. I'm like, what am I doing wrong? Or I'm doing what everybody tells me I should be doing to lose weight. And so, really, it was an evolution of finding a woman who introduced me to some products. Company was amazing. Isogenics out in Gilbert, Arizona.

Jennifer Oknin [00:05:32]:

I've been business for 20 years. Right? So she got me on some of their stuff, and I started learning. That's when I first heard the word detox. Cleansing. Oh my gosh. Sounds terrible. I don't wanna do this. I love to eat.

Jennifer Oknin [00:05:43]:

You know? But, I ended up working with her for 1 month. In in 1 month, I lost 13 pounds. My sleep increased. I looked terrific. My energy was up. That was the beginning of my evolution towards functional health and really understanding all the dynamics of that. So it's been a decade long process from the time that I had that Terrible meeting a meeting of the the mirror as it were.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:08]:

Meeting of the mirror.

Jennifer Oknin [00:06:09]:

Meeting of the mirror. And then to where I am today, where I really do understand. You cannot ignore the body. It has to be about looking at fundamental you can and you can't die. All this diet Crap. This tea is gonna drink and all, you know, that you lose the weight and gonna manage your hormones, all this stuff. Then that works. Right? Eat this 1 scoop of chocolate a day, and you're gonna drop 10 pounds.

Jennifer Oknin [00:06:33]:

Oh, what is this crap? You know? Just to hear it. Right? And we wanna believe it works. Right?

Jennifer Oknin [00:06:39]:

We wanna believe it works because we're so desperate. But at the end of the day, It just comes back to the food that we're eating, the exercise we're getting, the sleep that we're doing, the stress that we're managing. Because all of those things, when you do those in a very holistic way, when you do it in a make sense, common sense kind of way, They set the foundation for your basic health. And then from there, you can make the tweaks that you need to get it right. The the issue though is oftentimes is that people say, okay. Yeah. You tell me to eat. You tell me to sleep, but I'm having problems doing it.

Jennifer Oknin [00:07:10]:

I can't turn off my mind at night, and I'm super stressed. I got all this going on. It's not as easy as it sounds, Jen. I'm like, well, that's when you need to go to a coach so that you don't have to do what I did and spend 10 years trying to figure it out on your own. And then I'm ultimately quitting work and going to school to learn about it. That's what I can offer my clients now. That's why I love my clients. But They don't have time to do what I did, and they don't wanna do what I did.

Jennifer Oknin [00:07:31]:

So I wanna help them because I was I was them. I still am them to some extent. Writing the the hormonal wave never ends.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:40]:

That's why I said even in the intro as far as balancing your hormones, which I don't even understand what that means. I see the ads for it. I understand what hormones are, But I don't know and and, of course, you know, this is we're not doing a full consultation. But just to help me and others listening to understand, at least on a regular level, what does that mean?

Jennifer Oknin [00:08:06]:

Sure. Our hormones are really the things that drive everything in our body. They drive our metabolism. They drive our sleep. They drive our energy. They drive our reproductive. Right? So when I say hormones and balancing hormones, I'm not just talking about sex hormones. I'm talking about, like, Grenlin and leptin.

Jennifer Oknin [00:08:22]:

Grenlin. The hunger hormone. Leptin says I'm full. So that's a yin and the yang. Everything in the body is really yin and yang. Cortisol, That's a hormone. Melatonin, that's a hormone. They're a yin and yang.

Jennifer Oknin [00:08:33]:

If your mind is racing at night and you get the chances are your cortisol is spiking at night when it should be going down as melatonin rises to make you more sleepy. And then, of course, we have estrogen and progesterone, which are the favorite ones that everybody thinks about When it comes to, you know, female sex hormone balance. All of these hormones, they work together. You have a yin and the yang. And when they're working beautifully, then you sleep through the night, you wake up, you feel rested, you can eat normally 3 meals, maybe 1 snack, and you're full when you should be full, You're hungry when you should be hungry, and then you get through your day. That's what it means to be be balanced versus, oh my gosh. I'm going out of control. I'm depressed.

Jennifer Oknin [00:09:15]:

I'm angry. I'm snapping at my kids. My job promotion is at risk because people say that I've I've changed. Right? I've turned into a monster. Sure. Right? I've heard women women say that. There's women who got divorced because of what's going on in perimenopause and menopause. Not to mention the basics everybody knows about in dreads, the hot flashes, the night sweats.

Jennifer Oknin [00:09:34]:

I mean, the where is my phone when it's right in your hand? I mean, that that is real.

Jennifer Oknin [00:09:40]:

Just that brain fog. Oh my God. Yes. And that's where I am right now in my life. I've been getting a little bit better each day by talking about it with other women and talking about it with women who have more experience, not just with Perimenopause and menopause that I do, but also with taking different supplements. Sometimes certain vitamins, sometimes avoiding certain things. I just don't want anybody else to suffer unnecessarily so and just say, oh, that's the way it is. And I also don't want anyone else To have something come crazy at them that they didn't.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:17]:

I think every woman knows that there's a time where hot flashes can come because of that. But there's other stuff too, Jen. I woke up 1 morning, and I was like, oh my gosh. I think I have arthritis out of the blue because all my joints were achy. And then someone I know who is a nutritionist said, oh, Lynae, that is actually the menopause doing that. Like, what? Nobody said that. What do we do when we have all these things coming at us, especially if we don't talk about or we don't know, it comes out of left field. I'm sure you have people who who struggle with that too.

Jennifer Oknin [00:10:50]:

It's scary the amount of women, number 1, who Never even heard the word perimenopause and don't realize symptoms of that start about 10 years before the actual onset of menopause. OBGYNs. Over 85% of them have no training in hormones. I find this number shocking. And then your regular MD, they'll give you a basic panel, but they don't look at things relationally to each other. They might look at your estrogen and say, well, your estrogen's within normal range. Yeah. But how is it in relation to your progesterone? They could both be low, but if your estrogen's higher than it should be, then you're gonna be experiencing some symptoms of estrogen dominance, Which is again, the hot flashes and everything.

Jennifer Oknin [00:11:28]:

And let's not forget our poor hips. Right? Our hips start aching. That's not just because you didn't stretch. So many symptoms that we have no idea is caused to hormonal decline. And it's because, again, our hormones our metabolism. They control all the systems in our body. So when your hormone production starts to go down, it impacts almost every aspect of your health as a woman. It's crazy.

Jennifer Oknin [00:11:54]:

Men don't experience this in this way.

Sandy Kovach  [00:11:56]:

Right? Of course not.

Sandy Kovach  [00:11:57]:

We have to live with all these complicated fun things.

Jennifer Oknin [00:12:00]:

I mean, if they did, we'd probably have a lot better knowledge on this stuff right now. Just saying. But, you know, they don't experience it the same way we do. And and I'm so glad, Lanee, that you are talking to somebody about it. Because a lot of women, they just don't talk about it.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:12]:

Exactly. Even perimenopause, I had never heard that term until about a year ago. That's crazy. And I go to my checkups every year, my annuals every year. Even aspects of sleep. I thought that women might struggle with sleep because they have a hot flash at night and it makes them, you know, hot. But it's something else with the hormones and sleep that goes on during that time too.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:40]:

Like, I just encourage anyone listening To either reach out to Jen or reach out to somebody. Don't just think that you've gone crazy. Don't think that your body has betrayed you.

Jennifer Oknin [00:12:50]:

There's a reason. Yeah. The difference here, and here's what's important to understand. So most people have no idea what an integrative health practitioner is. And all this means is that I am certified to look at you from an integrative perspective, from a whole person perspective. Right? So my background includes Ayurvedic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, Orthomolecular, which is testing the naturopath, the functional health side. You know, a 100 years ago, almost everybody had they had a regular doctor, doc Hardy, whoever it is. Right? You know, I have these western pictures in my mind of what a doctor is and the little, you know, eye thing.

Jennifer Oknin [00:13:25]:

And they also had a functional naturopath type doctor. This was normal. The reason that functional health and naturopathic health started to get woo woo It's because around the time the big oral oil barons were going on, they were donating a lot of money to universities, The Rockefellers, all that generation. And they said, okay. We're gonna give you all this money, but you have to practice this type of medicine. And so the Colleges that were teaching naturopath and functional medicine really, really dropped. So a lot of stuff that we've always known or like our great grandparents knew or like they were doing Ayurvedic medicine 1000 years ago, we just lost that knowledge. And so now it's starting to come back.

Jennifer Oknin [00:14:05]:

There's this reemergence of functional health That is so incredible. When you think about it from what's going on your body, it's really about the functional, the naturopath approach. The approach I take with somebody, I look at, okay, What's really going on? What's the root cause of what's going on in your body? You've got clearly some nutrient deficiencies going on because if you're not, If you're super stressed, you are burning through nutrients like a house of fire. You're depleted. Okay? We need to get you some smart supplements to get you back up a level. You might not have to be on the for long, but we need to get you there because we need to get you some relief. Right? And that's the most effective way to do it. We also have to look at some of the toxicities that are going on that are attacking your body.

Jennifer Oknin [00:14:45]:

Right? We get overloaded. The example, my teacher, my mentor, doctor Steven Cabral, based Out of Boston. It's his program that I went through. He's brilliant. He's got this amazing book called the Rain Barrel Effect. Everybody should read this book. And he talks about his analogy of the rain barrels. Just imagine your body's a rain barrel, and it's catching all the rain coming off the roof, and everything's good.

Jennifer Oknin [00:15:06]:

But when the rain barrel gets overloaded, what happens? The water starts sloshing over the sides. The grass around gets all dying. It's gross. It's smelly. There's mud. It's a mess. It can't keep up. It's overloaded.

Jennifer Oknin [00:15:18]:

That is our bodies when we think about heavy metals, pollution, our makeup, our hair dye. Just got my hair done. Doesn't look great? Our hair dye does. Things. Right? Yeah. Like, our our dryer sheets, the amount of chemicals that are in our environment are staggering. It might be safe in certain small doses, but the problem is is we're looking at small dose exposure over time. These things build up.

Jennifer Oknin [00:15:44]:

And the argument that says, but, hey, Jen, don't our bodies know how to handle this? The answer is yes, but Your car knows how to drive, but if you don't give it gas, it's not gonna do it, is it? You're not gonna get it right far. So you gotta give your body the either the break from eating that it needs so it can go into autophagy. Right? The process of cleaning out our body inside where it kills bad cells that are, you know, conformant to cancer. It kills bacteria. It kills viruses. Your body does this amazing internal housekeeping process, and you're gonna give your body nutrients support your liver as it's our queen organ. We give our liver no respect. She is a queen.

Jennifer Oknin [00:16:22]:

She is filtering our blood every 6 minutes, and she's handling all the waste and all the toxic process in her body. If she's all gunked up, it's like your HVAC system in your house. You change the filter. Right? You don't know there. What happens? You're gonna be breathing bad air. Same thing with your liver. You gotta make sure your liver detox pathways are open. That way your liver can process all the stuff so that you can eliminate all these things.

Jennifer Oknin [00:16:45]:

So, again, too many toxins, not enough nutrients. And with those 2 things together cause everything to start going out of whack, including hormones. So when you're eating right, you're getting your right supplements, you're managing stress, you're managing your nervous system. Do you know that stress? Stress makes us fat.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:04]:

I've heard that. Yeah.

Jennifer Oknin [00:17:05]:

It makes a cortisol. It totally does. I did this whole masterclass on it. Discovered the 3 surprising reasons that Stress is sabotaging your health, your libido, your hormones. Right? Because Wow.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:17]:

It's Trifecta. Yeah.

Jennifer Oknin [00:17:18]:

Yeah. It's a trifecta. So so that is why sorry. We went on on this one. But this is why that it's so important to really look at things from a root cause perspective Instead of just, you know, going to get a prescription. Because when you're looking at chronic issues like stress, like weight, like sleep, you know what? There's a lot you can do to help your body resolve that problem naturally. Same thing with hormones. Perimenopause and menopause, it is a natural process that we go through.

Jennifer Oknin [00:17:43]:

It is not an issue to be solved, but there's so many things that we can do to help our body do that more gracefully so that we're not suffering. And that's what we need to do. And those foundations that I talk about that I help women set, help us ride that hormonal wave So that you know how to handle it. And, yes, you might have to get help at different times, but, boy, you're helping yourself out a lot if you're making sure that you're at a healthy body weight. I'm not talking about being bikini stage ready. I'm not one of those people. But I'm at a healthy weight, getting good sleep. I'm managing my stress.

Jennifer Oknin [00:18:16]:

I'm exercising regularly. Right? I'm taking the right supplements for my body. This is foundational. If you're not taking care of those things. That is absolutely the 1st place to start before you go get any prescription.

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:28]:

Yeah. It's good to have the options for both, but I was talking to my son, and I was saying, I'm starting to realize after all these years that food is medicine. There's the normal medicine and the is it the integrative medicine that you called it?

Jennifer Oknin [00:18:40]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:41]:

It really deserves equal weight because I feel so much different now that I'm taking in a lot of fruits and vegetables and, you know, drinking enough water and all the things that you hear people say you should do, but you're thinking, oh, I can't really get off the pizza. I love pizza too much. When you a client comes to you like that and you were the girl that runs on Dunkin', and you went from one dream to the other even though it took you a while. If somebody wants to make that shift, how do you help them do that? Because it seems so overwhelming at first.

Jennifer Oknin [00:19:09]:

Yeah. It can be. And and it really it's all about really sitting down with my clients at the beginning and talking. I take them through a whole intake questionnaire, and we spend a lot of time, like, in the prep week that we do. I'm with them for, like, 90 minutes. Right. When's the last time you had a heart to heart with your doctor for 90 minutes? I mean, come on. That that just doesn't happen.

Jennifer Oknin [00:19:30]:

Right? But you have to because I'm I'm asking them things about, I'm going through their day. Right? What are you eating? Or start at the beginning. When do you wake up? How do you feel? Do you feel rested? What's the first thing you're eating and drinking? Going through all that. How are you moving your body? When's the last time you you worked out? Has there been any big stressful events in your life in the last 12 to 24 months? Any big changes. Have there's mood, death in the family. Right? Our body our body remembers stress. Our body holds on to those things. That's why stress is such an important thing.

Jennifer Oknin [00:20:00]:

We gotta meet them where they're at and then set simple goals to get started. That's really the most important thing is never pushing someone too far. There is an amazing amount of change that you can do with someone in 12 weeks' time. And you can really set them the path. But we're all individual. Right? Bio individuality. It's super important. So we all need these things, but we apply them in different ways.

Jennifer Oknin [00:20:23]:

So that's why I love the way I've set up my program because it is it's 1 on 1. It's high touch. It's concierge. It's me and that person. And I set their plan up for them. I'm meeting with them every week. They have the text access to me through a special client only app. This is what's needed.

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:41]:

How do we get in touch with you? Like, if our listeners are they maybe they can start on your website because I know you have some free stuff there too. If they just wanna take a look at that and then maybe take a look at some of your programs, how would we get in touch?

Jennifer Oknin [00:20:55]:

The best way is they can go to my website, just jenn ochman.com, and send a request into chat. The other thing is is that It's unusual for someone in my field, but I am primarily on LinkedIn. That's how we all connected.

Jennifer Oknin [00:21:08]:

So if someone wants to look me up on LinkedIn through jen ochman.com, I'm there on LinkedIn then all the time, and they can send a message to me there. That's the just the simplest way to do it. And we set up you know, we just set up a consult. The consult is free. It lasts about 45 minutes. And I take them through, you know, the background, and then I talk about my program. And then I say, well, you know what? Here's what I think. 1st, I'll tell them.

Jennifer Oknin [00:21:30]:

And this is what I always say is, look. So I'm gonna tell you whether I think you're a good fit or not because I don't wanna waste their time or money. I don't wanna waste my time or money. There has to be when it's a program such as this, you have to like you have to like your coach. Right? There has to be some good energy there. Plus, they have to be willing to invest the time and energy to actually implement the coaching. Yeah. And I've turned people away.

Jennifer Oknin [00:21:55]:

I see. You know what? You're just not ready for this yet. Here's what I recommend you do, a, b, c, d. Do this for a month or 2, and then let's maybe reconnect. And then they're like, okay. Great. And they appreciate the honesty.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:08]:

Oh, for sure. You're not just trying to get business. You're trying to actually get in someone's life and help them.

Jennifer Oknin [00:22:14]:

Yeah. And, I mean, it's it takes a lot out of me too because there's it's not just the time that I'm with them, but the time that I'm prepping their plan or I'm checking their, you know, my fitness pal and their food logs or creating their new fitness workout routine, whatever it is that I'm doing for them. It takes a lot of time. So that's why the program's there. But, again, you just gotta start people where they're at with smaller goals and encourage them. And not always tell them about what they're doing wrong, but encouraging them on what they're doing right. Because again, most people, unfortunately, a lot of my clients don't have anybody in their life they can talk to about this stuff. They just don't get support from their friends.

Jennifer Oknin [00:22:49]:

Whenever you wanna change, it threatens the circle around you because they're happy with you where you are. If you decide all of a sudden you're going to make a change, not all your friends are going to support you. Not all your family's gonna support you because your change is going to make them reflect on their own lives. And they're gonna think that their your choice is reflecting poorly on them. Well, I'm not deciding. Maybe they know they should lose weight. Maybe they know they're trending towards type 2 diabetes, but they're not ready to do anything about it. That's something that I find with almost all the women that I talk to.

Jennifer Oknin [00:23:20]:

So I have to give them the tools then how to manage that as well.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:24]:

So that when you're with your friends or your spouse or your family members And you don't choose to partake in some of the food and drink and things that they are that that you kinda like you said, that whole body, Whole mind, whole self element where you're able to have something to say, something mentally ready and physically ready to Yeah. Just about you don't get yeah. So you don't get put on the spot in front of everybody. Sure.

Jennifer Oknin [00:23:51]:

And it it's it's nobody's business what you're eating or drinking, But there's certain there's definitely ways to handle it. So I give my clients and some of my lives that I did on LinkedIn over the last 30 days. It's tailgating season. Right? How to handle a tailgate? To handle going to a wedding, how to handle going to a special event. At the end of the day, it's just about making a decision before you go into one of those events about How are you gonna handle it? Is this something that it's going to be I don't like the term cheat meals. Okay. But people call it that. I like to call it flex meals.

Jennifer Oknin [00:24:17]:

This is something I'm gonna flex. This is one of my flex, One of my 1 or 2 flex meals a week. I'm just gonna go in, eat or drink whatever I want, get on the next day, start with my healthy breakfast, my drink, whatever. Great. If not, though, maybe they've got 4 or 5 of those events in 1 week. Right? What's the strategy going in? What are some of the things that I can do? What are the things that I have ready to say? And then they go in and they can feel very, very confident and do what they need to do at the event and what they want to do at the event without the food pushers and the alcohol pushers Really making them feel bad and derail themselves. We're hey. We all have food pressures.

Jennifer Oknin [00:24:49]:

Let's think about that with the holidays coming up. Right?

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:52]:

Well, it sounds like a drug dealer or something.

Jennifer Oknin [00:24:54]:

The sugar is definitely a drug.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:58]:

It's it's peer pressure though. It's peer pressure at the end of the day and that social component. And that's why I love everything that you're saying as far as getting to the root of all of the components of the person. I even like the fact that you do have to customize for each client that you have as far as what stage of life they're in, what underlying diseases that they might be dealing with or disorders they might be dealing with. And some people too, like, You know, some people say they can't eat dairy and some can. Certain things are good for you and not good for me and vice versa. And we really need to embrace that customized aspect too.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:39]:

So you have the customizable issue. And I just wanted to ask with so many of these different diets, and you don't strike me as somebody that pushes like a keto or a what are some of the other things that are?

Jennifer Oknin [00:25:51]:

You keto. Are you low carb? Are you low fat? Are you vegan? I mean, there's some philosophies of eating.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:57]:

And intermittent fasting, which is big right now.

Jennifer Oknin [00:25:59]:

Yeah. Yeah. But I love intermittent fasting when it's done appropriately. And here's what I would say for your list for your listeners for you. Whenever somebody comes and say, oh, well, I'm doing keto, and I'm doing amazing. You should do it too. Maybe, maybe not. Whenever somebody pushes something, they first say, well, is this good for who? Is it good for me? Is it good for me right now? Why is that? Because somebody could be doing amazing on keto.

Jennifer Oknin [00:26:25]:

I'll tell you though. Most of the time, when my clients come to me, I'll say, okay. Well, what diets, you know, have have you tried in the past? What style of eating? Keto's always on the list. It's how how'd that go? Well, I lost 25 pounds, and then I gained it all back. Mhmm.

Jennifer Oknin [00:26:39]:

people that say, well, it worked, but then again, well, then it really didn't work. Because You put in all that effort, you lost that weight, and then immediately, you tried to go back to normal eating and you couldn't because you didn't really know how. I'm not anti anything, honestly. Part of what I do is I help people figure out what foods work best for them. The last part of my program, we do, some food elimination work where we cut away the foods that are most highly inflammatory, the most high you know, have the most, natural sugar in them, eat very, very clean for 3 weeks, use some intermittent fasting, and then we reintroduce those foods, each one over the course of 2 to 3 days to test and see how does that person feel. That way they know is this food food food is not a new not a child. It's not good or bad. It's just does it serve your body or not in your goals? So that's what people are able to find out.

Jennifer Oknin [00:27:30]:

That's really, really helpful. But I'm all about a balanced plate. The picnic plate. Everybody knows the divided picnic plate. One of the small ones should be protein. 1 of the other ones should be rice, you know, a nice starch whether it's rice or sweet potato or something. The other half of the plate, vegetables. 1 or 2 cups of vegetables, and you should have some healthy fat.

Jennifer Oknin [00:27:48]:

Boom. If everybody just started eating that way, let's all have the problems.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:53]:

Yeah. They do. They need to have restaurants just for that food.

Jennifer Oknin [00:27:58]:

Protein it is. It can be plant based protein. It can be fish. It can be me. I don't care as long as you know? But somebody coming to me and say, yeah. I'm eating, you know, meat all the time. Wow. Okay.

Jennifer Oknin [00:28:08]:

How are you getting your vitamins and minerals?

Lanée Blaise [00:28:11]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's I think everyone needs to listen to this podcast sharing with others. I think everyone needs to reach out to you. That's when I saw you doing those LinkedIn lives, you did them like 30 days in a row. I was fascinated every time. And I'm sure there's a way that people can go back and take a look at those.

Lanée Blaise [00:28:30]:

and replay. Yeah. Because you hit so many different topics and you've alluded to them, you know, here on this podcast, but so many different topics. I've just, I really recommend everyone just take a look like and our life Sandy said, even at your website. And you're doing a 90 day signature program, fatigued to fabulous.

Jennifer Oknin [00:28:51]:

That's my baby. That's the program that I'm enrolling everybody in right now. It's my 1 on 1 high touch concierge program. You come in. There's a prep week. And then each month, we have a different schedule. We have habits that build on what we've created. And then the the accumulation or the graduation is that 21 day functional medicine detox where we're really doing a lot of that food elimination work and trying to get rid of any trigger foods that do a lot of the inflammation or gut discomfort things for people.

Jennifer Oknin [00:29:21]:

So I just had a woman actually right before this. She had just finished. Just even in that 3 week period, she lost 12 pounds. I said, well, how did you feel? She's like, I feel so great. She's like, I have such good energy. My mind feels clear. To look at her, you wouldn't say she had 12 pounds to lose, but a lot of it is inflammation. And then a lot of it is and she's like, yeah.

Jennifer Oknin [00:29:44]:

I've lost inches around my waist. She's like, I I feel so good. And so we talked about then how she's gonna eat moving forward, and, you know, it was a really great, really great success story. But that's that's my main program that I take people in. I'm almost full for the rest of this year, which is so exciting in terms of client scope, but I do have a few openings, left. And this is actually the best time of year for people to start something. People are always like, why? Who would enroll with you in December? I'm like, You'd be surprised. Who would enroll in.

Jennifer Oknin [00:30:13]:

I said, think about it. I said, so what is your concern? Well, we got the holidays. I said, okay. Well, talk to me about the holidays. You have Thanksgiving. Yeah. Okay. So that's 1 meal, maybe 2.

Jennifer Oknin [00:30:22]:

And then Yep. You've got Christmas. So okay. So you got Christmas Eve, Christmas day, your big meals, and you've got a couple holiday parties. Great. So we're talking about, say, 7 meals. Let's just say 7 meals. What are you eating the rest of the time?

Sandy Kovach  [00:30:35]:

Reese's trees?

Jennifer Oknin [00:30:37]:

No. Outreach the street. That's that's so there's all this room. Right? You still have to eat. And this would be moving your body because Most of the time, especially for women, it's a control issue. I feel like I'm out of control. I need a plan. Give me a plan.

Jennifer Oknin [00:30:51]:

You give me a plan. I can work the plans. Okay. I'm gonna teach you the plan. You're gonna be able to enjoy Thanksgiving. You're gonna be able to have that special Christmas cocktail that you wanna have. You're gonna be able to have your fun foods, but at the same time, you're gonna be trying to you're gonna be eating a consistent meal times. You're gonna be getting in enough protein.

Jennifer Oknin [00:31:07]:

You're gonna be moving your body, and we're gonna be making sure that you get better sleep. If you have those things going on and then you've got some great bonus tools like plant adaptogens to help you manage mental and physical stress, AKA cortisol spiking as well. Right? You've all got that weird uncle that shows up for Thanksgiving dinner. Right? So you gotta deal with all these weird relative issues. So when you do that, when you have a plan and you have tools and you have some accountability, this is the best time to do it. Because if you can do it then, In this time of year, you can do it anytime because food is not the enemy. Food is friends and celebrations and life and, you know, graduations, all the things. So there's never a perfect time to start.

Jennifer Oknin [00:31:47]:

That's why I tell people, if you wanna really kick start it and learn how to eat, how to fuel yourself, how to take care of yourself. You do it now when you've got the support and you've got the challenges. And then you're rolling into January 10, 15, 20 pounds lighter versus everybody else who's gained 7 to 10 pounds over the holidays. They feel like crap. They join a gym on January 2nd. They go for a week. They overwork out, and then they become a member donor.

Sandy Kovach  [00:32:14]:

The gym posers. Yeah.

Jennifer Oknin [00:32:15]:

Right? So so don't be a member donor. Yes.

Lanée Blaise [00:32:21]:

Yeah. Go ahead and start early ahead of the pack. Yeah. Ahead of the pack. Jennifer, everything that you are saying is hitting all the right spots to the point where We need to actually continue this conversation. I'm gonna go ahead and just tell everyone to make sure that you listen to our next episode because we are gonna feature Jennifer Oknin again to talk about maneuvering through these holidays with absolute success. Overall, we have loved having you. You have taught us terms, concepts, ways of life that we never dreamed of before, and we truly thank you.

Jennifer Oknin [00:33:06]:

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's been a blast.

Lanée Blaise [00:33:09]:

So everyone out there, please imagine yourself, your whole self, your body, your mind, your spirit, your emotions, everything, getting to a healthier spot, not forcing it, but going with a certain flow. And if you need help, Feel free to reach out because we'd imagine yourself want to continue to help you to grow into your best version of yourself, and we're rooting for you the whole time.

Sandy Kovach  [00:33:36]:

Yes. We are always rooting for you, and we always want to hear from you. Drop us a review or a rating. We'd love that. It helps us to shape the podcast and helps other folks discover us, or connect with us at imagine yourself podcast.com or on any one of our social feeds, which you'll find the links to those in the show notes, as well as info to get in touch with the amazing Jen.