Wellness Reality Check

Matt Cundill  0:01  
You may also like a show about the things you may also like things like a wellness reality check. Jess and Ashley are two health practitioners, moms and best friends, trying to navigate the world of holistic health in a balanced and productive way that brings health to our lives. They break down health trends and interview health influencers on their podcasts. They offer the dose of reality we all need in the often idealized world of health and wellness, where solutions are sold as quick fixes and sometimes as pills, their discussions might be uncomfortable, the opinions sometimes unpopular, but I'm here to tell you that their podcast isn't unpopular. And how do you start an episode like this one by asking how they met. Of course,

Jess Aldredge  0:55  
we both were in a nutritional therapy program, and it was like a, like a 10 months long program, and at that time, they had in person workshops. And we both lived in Dallas. We never met before, but we would see each other on like weekly calls that we would have, and we just sat next to each other, and we were like best friends. Instantly, we realized that,

Ashley Ihemelu  1:16  
like, we had so much in common. Same hair stylist at the time, my kids went to school right down the street from her, where she was currently living. Like, like, so many similarities. I

Matt Cundill  1:27  
mean, this is a story of two people who just, hey, we both want to be healthy. But when people talk about being healthy, there's so many things that need to align as to what defines healthy. So between the two of you, what was it that really sort of made you go, yeah, me too. I really

Ashley Ihemelu  1:42  
don't think that anything from a physical standpoint was like a me too. I think it was more so this resilient quality in Jess that I was like, like, gravitated towards. It was like, she had this fighter instinct. She stood out in a crowd. She was bold, she was unapologetic. She just had this quality that I kind of wanted to have within myself that I wasn't fully embodying, but also, I think we both are kind of like scrappy individuals, like, we'll get it done, however that may be.

Jess Aldredge  2:14  
And I thought that, like, I, you know, had lived in Dallas for a number of years, and I hadn't really connected with many people that I felt similar to, people that, like, maybe I grew up with, or, you know, that I could share a similar humor with, like, we both have two brothers, and so we're not these, like, girly girl, you know, your typical, like, Dallas site that I've been around, and I just felt like she was one of the first people that I could, like, really be myself with and not feel judged, and just really the both of us just be super real together. You know, we just always kind of tell each other how it is, and always have support each other from day one of being friends. I just hadn't really had a friend like that before. I hadn't really had a friend that I didn't feel like I was, like in competition with, especially kind of like in the same field, like even, you know, we both started out seeing clients and opening our own practices, like we always shared, and like the courses that we took, and, yeah, it was just always that, like, sisterhood. I just never felt any type of like trying to get ahead of me, or, you know, any anything like that.

Matt Cundill  3:12  
What's the hardest thing for someone to admit when it comes to health? Because you talk about having to be a fighter and fight through some things, and I'm sure you've met clients who just can't seem to get there when it comes to something involving their health. So what are some of those barriers and walls that we need to knock down to get to where they need to go, something

Jess Aldredge  3:29  
we've really talked about on our podcast pretty much with every guest that we've had, and I know this has been my own story, working through chronic illness is really stopping just focusing completely on the physical aspects of health, because so many people, just similar to allopathic medicine, want the pill. They want the quick fix. And, you know, Ashley knows this with working with clients, and it just doesn't work that way. And it's really, I think we've both seen it's people that don't want to kind of dive into maybe some of those patterns that have held us back our whole lives, or past traumas or just major stressors that are just continuing to be negatives in our lives. Think people don't realize, like, if you're gonna heal from a chronic condition, it usually takes some pretty radical changes. And it's not always just like changing your diet, but it's often like looking at the relationships that you have and boundaries that you have and, you know, just things that often people aren't willing to do.

Ashley Ihemelu  4:18  
I also think that holistic health is like, just said, not the quick fix. And so people lose steam on healing in this fashion. It's like, oh well, it's not happening fast enough. It's not happening on my schedule. I'm not achieving this on this timeline. And when we can kind of shift our perspective and look at it as like a daily pouring into ourselves. How are we showing up for ourselves? How are we caring for ourselves? How are we setting boundaries? How are we speaking our truth? How are we nourishing ourselves? How are we loving ourselves? Well, that's when we can make those shifts. It's just oftentimes, we're not trained. We're not shown how to give ourselves that type of love and. Is oftentimes, like for my clients, it's really hard to witness, but a lot of people get in their own way. Was there

Matt Cundill  5:07  
a moment for either one or both of you that made you pivot towards Holistic Health?

Jess Aldredge  5:14  
For me, it was myself and my children became chronically ill. And, you know, I had always been in kind of like the holistic world, in terms of, like, diet, I own a healthy restaurant, and so that was something that was very open to, but I hadn't had to really utilize a lot of the healthcare system, and we were, you know, kind of going through that process and not getting answers. And I really had to take it upon myself to study and learn how to really help myself and my children to get to where we are today. It was really out of necessity, not necessarily something that I was looking to do, but found myself doing after I just wasn't getting the help that I needed. And

Ashley Ihemelu  5:51  
my story is quite different. My grandmother cured herself of like, four different types of cancer, so she was using methods like fasting, coffee enemas, castor oil packs, yoga, dramatically shifting her diet and lifestyle. And therefore my mom was a product of that, you know, before it was trendy and cool, we were eating all organic. We never were put on antibiotics. You know, my mom just really raised us in a health focused environment. And so when I kind of strayed from that in college, I knew that foundation that I was taught like my whole life, that I wanted to get back to. Now,

Matt Cundill  6:30  
no country is perfect, but I do know that when I go to the United States, I see a lot more sugar in something as simple as cereals. Congratulations to the sugar lobby in America who have managed to get sugar into just about everything. But Ashley, you went to Costa Rica. In fact, you're in Costa Rica now, I believe I am. And what is it about living down there just so noticeable that you would have to tell you know people back home, it's different. It's healthier.

Ashley Ihemelu  6:57  
I can't say that the diet or the culture around diet is any healthier than the United States. I think they reward their kids with really crappy candy that's, you know, filled with food coloring and high fructose corn syrup. However, it's more of the lifestyle that is such a tangible difference. They put such a importance on family, work, life balance, time in nature, time, not only in nature, but like connected to the wisdom of nature. So whether that's medicinal herbs or growing your own food or having your own chickens, being really from an ancestral standpoint, connected to the earth and how it provides you.

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Matt Cundill  7:59  
Why did you guys decide to start a podcast? I think

Jess Aldredge  8:03  
we've been talking about it for a long time, and both just felt like we had so much more to say that is really hard to convey. Just whether that's in an Instagram post or an Instagram Stories, it's also anything holistic related is pretty heavily censored, and that really started around the COVID times, and really wanted to have a different type of conversation that isn't always had on Instagram because there is so much click bait and that type of thing. And we just felt this need for a lot of people, especially people that are chronically ill, to hear from people in like in a long form, their stories and how they've overcome so many struggles, some some of them since childhood, and it's just been really rewarding to hear the feedback that people are like, you know, it's just a little bit of a different conversation that's being had on social media. And I know that, we both know that it's a very saturated market, but I don't think there's a lot of wellness podcasts that are having, like, really real conversations, because it is all about image or selling something, talking about facts and statistics, that type of thing,

Ashley Ihemelu  9:03  
or fear mongering, right? Like fear mongering, and, yeah, heavily weighted in statistics and data. And that's not what we wanted. We wanted, like, real conversations.

Matt Cundill  9:17  
So you've had some real conversations, and a few of them, I found very, very alarming, because I've had to worry about things all of a sudden that I didn't think I had to worry about. So I knew, for instance, like you did an episode about mold, that was popular. And of course, I don't have any mold in my place, so I'm fine. However, I do have Instagram, and Instagram is a toxic spot, and I had to sort of listen and go, Yeah, you know what? This ain't all that good for me.

Ashley Ihemelu  9:42  
I mean, I don't I think we are trying to offer different perspectives. You know, hopefully people don't take offense to a different perspective. Hopefully they hear it and they kind of filter it through their own filter and say, Is this for me? Is this not for me? And that's always been Jess, and I's goal is to empower people, you know. Give them an information in kind of real stories where we're not hitting them over the head with the data, but instead, through other people's stories, they can get curious. They can weed out what's for them, what's not for them, and kind of open their minds in a different way.

Jess Aldredge  10:14  
And even when we've talked about topics that you know can feel very overwhelming or stressful for people. Mold, for example, we've really wanted to discuss mold in a different way. That was messages of hope and resiliency and overcoming things. Because, you know, that's life, like, Life is not easy all the time. And I think that that's what our podcast really speaks to, is just how people have overcome some like, really, really hard times by doing things a little differently,

Matt Cundill  10:42  
again, I feel like I'm gonna ask the same question that I already asked earlier when it comes to like, you know, maybe it's your patients you wanna push back a little bit on health, but, you know, you've got a planet that wants to push back. And maybe we don't, we wanna censor it, or maybe we don't wanna listen to the whole episode about what you're talking about, but it's just a perspective on health. So I sometimes wonder if people fear getting healthy.

Ashley Ihemelu  11:04  
I think about this often because I work with clients, and I sometimes often think like, is that what happened with Western medicine, where they just, they didn't give people the benefit of the doubt, or they didn't think that they could make those hard changes, and they just created a pill for every ill right? Let's get rid of your symptom as quickly as we can. And I think of that often, and I have to say that I don't believe that to be true. I think that we are definitely fighting an uphill battle in regards to having to advocate for yourself, having to do your own research, having to make hard changes, having to look at yourself through a different lens. These are really difficult things that I don't think we were one taught, and we're definitely not celebrated when we do these things, right, right? You don't get a gold medal once you cross the finish line of having optimal health. And what does optimal health even mean? So I think that it's kind of this nuanced topic that a lot of people just purely based on confusion. Don't even dip their toe in. I think too,

Jess Aldredge  12:03  
it scares people that they're like, oh, wait, I'm gonna actually have to make changes in my life and my I'm gonna have to choose differently, and it might impact my relationships, and it might, you know, be a little bit harder. And I think that's what really keeps people and I think it's too just a lack of understanding. And when people don't understand certain topics, they automatically make them wrong or bad or not for me. And you know, I always tell people, you know what, you're really fortunate that you don't have to worry about your health in this way, lucky you. And really, people don't worry about their health until they have to, or until they get some sort of scary diagnosis or symptoms that become a huge impediment in their life. And I always tell people, that's awesome for you. I'd love to not have to worry about my health every day. You know,

Matt Cundill  12:45  
someone is making a decision listening to this for the very first time, and where should they start if they want to make a change with their health? What is one thing they can do today to take that first step towards becoming healthier? And I love this one step process, because we just have to do one thing. We don't have to do many things.

Ashley Ihemelu  13:05  
I would say, Get curious, like with what you're feeling. I think a lot of people, the bar is set so low in regards to how I quote, unquote, should feel, that they don't actually know how good they can feel. So getting curious is always a good option as a first step. If I could have a perfect body and a healthy mind and all of that, what were, what would be some of the changes that I would want? Like, oh, actually, you know what, when I eat this my gut hurts, or when I don't drink enough water, I have a headache. Like, if we can just get curious about how our body is communicating with us. I think that's an incredible first step, because we're not only able to kind of understand how our body's communicating, but we can then empower ourselves to kind of know what we would then want to change.

Jess Aldredge  13:57  
And our podcast episodes three and four are all about the foundations of health, and we really go in depth and what we consider the foundations of health, because it's really hard to have. And I think about this because so many of my friends, they know of me as, like, this holistic health person, they have this symptom, and they always wanna, what should I take for this? And it's really hard for me, because it's like, I know how you live, and there's so many things that I wanna tell you to do, but I know that's too overwhelming. And it's not just taking a supplement, but these are the foundations of health. And how are you doing on these? You know, drinking enough water? Are you eating less processed foods? Are you moving your body throughout the day? You know, just these really simple things that I feel like, especially as Americans, and the way that we live today, just continue to override and try to out supplement or out bio hack, these really just foundational things that we all should be doing every day, really without thinking about it. It should be our lifestyles and people just really don't know the very basics, and that's what our episodes three and four go over.

Matt Cundill  14:57  
My thanks to Jess and Ashley for joining me. On the show. They can be reached through their website, the wellnessreality check.com all the connection points are on our episode page at You may also like.net this episode was produced by Evan serminsky and Edited by AleXander Hwang and built with love by everyone at the sound off media company. You