A Chat With My Husband: Living, Working & Parenting Together

The Wellness Mama Podcast

353: A Chat With My Husband: Healthy Living, Working Together, Parenting & Random Things in the Name of Health

00:00 / 01:07:34

Today you get the real inside scoop as I sit down with my husband Seth for a long-awaited podcast chat. He’s the mastermind of all things tech behind the Wellness Mama website and podcast, an avid outdoorsman, and I couldn’t do what I do without him!

Obviously and most importantly we also tackle the business of raising a family together, and we get into the nitty gritty of parenting, marriage, and all that entails.

Episode Highlights With My Husband

How we met under unusual circumstances
What my husband thinks of all my health experiments 🙂
How he helped me launch the website
What made him open to entrepreneurship
The values we hold in common (and the ones we don’t)
How we solve our differences
One thing we always aim for in business and in life
Our recent sauna experiment and other favorite health hacks
And more!

Resources We Mention

More From Wellness Mama

What did you think? Did you enjoy meeting my better half? Please drop a comment below or leave a review on iTunes to let us know. We value knowing what you think and this helps other moms find the podcast as well.

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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Katie: Hello, and welcome to “The Wellness Mama” podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com, and wellnesse.com, that’s wellnesse with an e on the end, which is our new line of personal care products that go beyond just safe to benefit the body from the outside in. We’re going to talk about that a little bit today because I’m here with my husband, Seth, to answer questions we got from you guys and talk about his perspective on our shift to healthier living, all the weird things we’ve tried in the name of health, on building businesses together, parenting and many other topics. So, welcome, honey. Thanks for being here.

Seth: Hi.

Katie: This should be a fun conversation. And I’ll warn you guys, we don’t always actually agree on everything. And actually there’s some live disagreements because we did not overly script this and we’re both definitely willing to be vulnerable, especially at the end of the day, like today. So, to start off, we had several people ask how we met and kind of our love story. So we can…I don’t think I’ve ever told this story publicly on the podcast.

Seth: Have you not?

Katie: I don’t think I have. So, do you want to start with the beginning origins of this one?

Seth: Sure. I guess so. Should I take a drink first? Yeah, so I was just out of college and summer, post-college. I was working, bartending, waiting tables, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, and on a whim decided to join this non-profit and walk across the country. Just, you know, figured a way to see the country, see the West Coast, which I hadn’t spent a lot of time in, see the middle of the country and the East coast as well, while doing something worthwhile and charitable. And also, hopefully, discover myself and kind of figure out what the world and what life is all about, post-college. Just so happens, I met an attractive blonde on the walk as well. And while we got to know each other very well during the walk, and mainly just had a lot of questions for each other and just learned about each other and developed a friendship, and then started dating shortly thereafter and got married a year later.

Katie: And to add a little bit of color to that, and this’ll kind of give away our age difference a little bit. Seth had finished college and I had just finished high school and was supposed to have this really busy summer of internships and all these programs and all these things I was supposed to do that I decided I didn’t want to do. I was looking for an out and found this non-profit and thought, what better way than to run away than to actually walk across the country. So, when he says we walked across the country, we physically walked from Los Angeles to D.C. over the course of May to August of that year. And I think you would agree with me on this, honey, that we both kind of got there and thought, “Thank goodness, nobody on this walk is really my type. I’m just going to focus on figuring everything out this summer.”

And it ended up that we turned out we were each other’s type, we just didn’t know it yet. But that…all those miles of walking, about 15, 20 miles a day together, we got to know each other really well. And the irony was, we weren’t allowed to date on the walk because there were a bunch of us college students together and that would have been kind of weird dynamics to navigate. So, Seth actually asked me out on the bridge, walking into D.C. to finish the walk. And our first date was in a park in D.C, over, ironically things that we would probably not eat or drink now.

Seth: Hey, speak for yourself.

Katie: You might still. I think it involved soda and sandwiches and….

Seth: Maybe some Captain Morgan’s.

Katie: But that’s how we met. And it was somewhat a whirlwind from there. Like you said, we got married about a year later, and then very quickly had eventually six babies in the course of nine years. And through that, also started businesses. I know I’ve talked to more about that side here on the podcast and how I got really sick and started researching health answers because my background had been in journalism. And that lining up with us having kids kind of became the perfect storm to write about a lot of these topics that ended up being really beneficial for mothers. But from the business side, you were actually a large part of the impetus of why Wellness Mama became a website and not just my diary. So, talk about that side a little bit.

Seth: Okay. Before I do that, I just want to backtrack. You said something about us not being each other’s types and yeah, during the walk and going into it, a relationship was the last thing that I was looking for at the time. I had been in one and had gotten out of it not too long before that. And so, it just wasn’t really looking to get involved in another relationship. But also, I kind of had this idealized idea of what a relationship is supposed to be and what I wanted. And so, then meeting you and you were not that at all, but then realizing everything that you were complimented what I’m not, and vice versa. And so, it completely changed my perspective on relationships and the way those work…the way those work together and kind of that synchronicity of each of us complimenting each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

And I think that has worked very well in business and in life and raising kids and marriage and all of that. But I think that goes into the question that you asked as far as just getting started with Wellness Mama and everything. So, I guess it was 2006, we were newly married, had our first son and… I’d always been a tech early adopter. I was working for a college helping in the collegiate admissions department. And I’d always been a tech early adopter involved with social media. And actually, you were kind of an early adopter too, I mean, one of the first, what 100 people on Facebook ever? Yeah. So, that’s pretty cool stat. And so because of that, I was really into blogs at the time. And I’d seen that there was a huge feature in that, just in self-publishing because it was basically democratizing publishing where anybody could create a website and put their thoughts on paper or digitally on the web and create and write about whatever they wanted.

So, I saw a big opportunity there and realizing… Because you were a journalism major in college and were a great writer, and was already doing some of that on the side, I saw an opportunity where, hey, you could self publish and write about whatever you want. And originally, you know, that was going to be about politics because that’s when all the political blogs were really taking off and doing really well. And you were kind of like, “Ah, no, I don’t want to write about politics. I’d rather write about health and nutrition,” which I’m really digging into the research side right now and trying to figure out, you know, your own health issues and the health for our family. And so, you know, I spun up a little site for you that was on blogger.com and kind of used that as an online journal, just to document your own health progress and what you were learning and researching and studying.

And it kind of went from there. I mean, that’s the very, very, very humble beginnings of Wellness Mama. I mean, we weren’t even using the domain name wellnessmama.com then at all. Because we didn’t even purchase that until 2009, I guess. And that was only because the two other domains we wanted were taken. So, yeah. So, that’s kind of how it got started. And I always handled the tech side, you’ve always handled the content side.

Katie: And to that note, I think that flows perfectly into the first listener question, which is along the lines of, what has our journey to natural living been like, specifically for you? And were you always on board with the changes I wanted to make and how did I handle it when I wanted to make changes and you didn’t want to? Basically, how did we meet in the middle? And at least from my side, I feel like, as I started researching things, because I was sick and because of Hashimoto’s early on, as I learned stuff, I kind of implemented them overnight if I thought it could help because I was desperate to find answers. And the rest of the family, by nature of the fact that I was the one cooking a lot of times kind of got drug along with those changes. But I’m curious to hear your take on what that journey was like for you, because I know it was a whirlwind at first.

Seth: Well, the funny thing is, when we first started dating, and even first married, I was more health-conscious than you were even. I guess, my family was a little bit more into natural health and just figuring things out, whether that was through herbs and supplements or homeopathic remedies, or just more natural things, which is funny because my mother who was an RN, she kind of went the other way and then got super into the natural health side, probably a little bit too far. And because of that I think that I was already a little bit into it. And so, that was kind of… even when we were doing that walk across the country, like I had a bunch of supplements with me and things like that, some herbs and stuff. So when like you were sore, I would give you some of those and kind of help with things like that.

And so, I was already programmed to be open to that. But as far as the actual changes and things that you made when you were really diving into health, I mean…I’d say it had mostly to do with food and cooking. Growing up in an Italian household, you know, we ate a lot of bread, a lot of pasta, cooked with a lot of olive oil, you know, all of those things, kind of more Mediterranean style. And so, basically, you know, you said, no grains, grains are bad, grains are the devil and we’re cooking only with coconut oil. And some of those things and eating more holistically, I guess, and not just as much processed foods… Because growing up, we didn’t eat that healthy. As naturally minded as my mother got into in later years, as far as like herbs and supplements and things like that, food-wise, she was basically trying to out-supplement like a poor diet.

And we ate a lot of processed food, a lot of canned things, but it wasn’t that healthy or nutritious. And so, because of that… I mean, I’ve never been a picky eater. I’ve always been…if you put the food in front of me, I’m going to eat it unless it’s something that’s just so bad that I’m just not going to. I’ve just never been picky. Some people live to eat, some people eat to live. I’ve always just been of the mindset, you don’t waste food. If food is there, you eat it, you consume it, and it’s there for the nourishment of your body and because you’re hungry, right? So because of that, I think it was getting used to some of the things that you changed as far as just cooking and what we would eat. So for example, you never would cook pasta and switching out coconut oil instead of olive oil. And so, I never really cared for that too much, but I just kind of went along with it because you were the one cooking and you’re a much better cook than me. And it made it easier like that.

Katie: A couple of ironic things, thinking back about this. Early on, I know because you were used to more canned food growing up because it was more budget-friendly, I think. A couple of times that I was cooking things like spinach or broccoli, and at first you would balk about it because you were used to eating canned foods. And when we started cooking those things from fresh vegetables, and like you learned, you actually really liked them. And like you really enjoy broccoli now and like raw spinach salads and those kind of things.

Seth: Well, spinach is a great example there because the only type of spinach that I had ever eaten before was canned spinach. Like remember the Popeye spinach and like the cartoon of Popeye, The Sailor Man, you know, he would pop open the can and eat and then would get strong muscles. And that’s what my mom would tell us, “You want to be strong like Popeye you got to eat your spinach.” And it was just the nastiest, grossest stuff ever. And so, I hated spinach. There’s very few foods that I didn’t like or wouldn’t we eat, turnip greens, spinach, but it was always like that raw or the cooked steamed stuff. And so, it was just so gross. And I had never had just raw spinach, just like, you know, the leaves until…I guess until we were married and you would buy that for salads or for whatever. And it was really good. And so, I actually liked it. But to this day, I still don’t like cooked spinach.

Katie: And another ironic fact along those notes, I don’t think I’ve admitted this publicly before either, I didn’t know how to cook anything, like literally anything other than I think I cooked ramen noodles in a microwave in my college dorm was about the extent of my cooking ability when we got married. And I went through this sort of three-week panic phase, it was like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to learn how to cook now that I have to like cook for a husband and then eventually the kids.” And so, I read a bunch of cookbooks from cover to cover and like read the science of cooking and a bunch of these things and learned how to cook, and watched some cooking shows early on. And thankfully, learned how to cook relatively quickly. I just find it funny looking back that now I create recipes somewhat for a living when I didn’t know how to cook a thing when we got married.

Seth: Yeah. And I guess for me, that was never a thought process as far as, “Oh, you got to marry someone who’s a good cook,” because my mother was never a great cook. And again, I would just eat whatever was there and wasn’t a big deal. And so, I mean, I was more concerned with, “Hey, you look good. You’re a lot of fun. And, you know, we get along well and have a lot of the same philosophies on life and the important things.” So, I didn’t realize that you couldn’t cook or had never cooked that much because… And then when you started I was like, “Oh, this is actually really good. You’re a really good cook.”

Katie: Along those same lines, several people asked…and probably the most common question was, advice for people whose significant other might not be on board with the changes and how to navigate. So specifically, has your husband always been on board with such a healthy lifestyle and if not, how do we keep forging forward in that way? How do we find compromise? So, I have my own thoughts on this, but I’m curious from your perspective how you would give advice to A, listeners who are trying to get their significant other on board with health changes for various reasons, or B, to the significant other whose partner is trying to drag them along on these health changes?

Seth: Well, I think like anything, baby steps is always the easiest way to go, especially when you’re talking major monumental changes. If someone has been in the habit of eating nothing but processed foods, just tons of bread and just other food that isn’t that great for you and they’re not used to eating a more raw or holistic diet, you know, just lots of grass-fed meats and fresh vegetables and things like that, or whether that’s taking supplements or it’s getting more sleep or, you know, all of those, the more holistic outlook of just living life, right? So, I think it’s baby steps and it’s not just changing everything overnight. You know, it’s not throwing out all the Doritos or all the candy or everything right away, although you could, but that probably won’t get the best response. But it’s making little changes here or there and substitutions.

So, if someone, say, if the spouse loves tortilla chips and you’re just getting, you know, whatever the run of the mill kind of chips are, switch to like, say, something like Siete which are cassava chips, which are even better than typical corn tortilla chips. So, start making small changes there where it’s slowly changing out those things. And so, it doesn’t seem like such a big shift. And then just realizing, having some of those tough conversations about, “Hey, these things really aren’t good, right? Here’s the science behind it, or here’s why,” and, you know, if you can’t go like a day without having a soda, that’s a problem. You know, I mean, you’re addicted to the sugar in it or switch out soda like regular Coke or Pepsi or whatever to, say, like a Zevia or something that’s a little bit healthier or kombucha or whatever the case may be. And just trying to make some of those changes, very, very small changes at first. But having those conversations as well about here’s why you should consider doing it for the health of yourself, for our family, I want you to live longer. You know, if they’re an athlete or into sports or whatever, you’re going to have better performance, or you’re going to have more energy or your sleep is going to be better. All of those things I think is a good way to kind of go into that.

Katie: And from my perspective, on the side of the one who was trying to get you on board with the changes, I would say…three pieces of advice that would kind of go to, would be. I do think at the end of the day, real food and healthy food can always taste better. I think it took us a while even to find our rhythm of recipes that we loved. But now, we have kind of this seasonal rotating meal plan of recipes that are extremely healthy and real food, but you also genuinely enjoy them. So, it’s much easier to get a spouse on board when they like the food. So, I don’t think I’ve published this one yet, but there’s an egg roll in a bowl recipe that I make quite a bit for us.

Seth: So good.

Katie: It’s one of the healthier recipes we make and you love it. So, I don’t even have to try and get you on board. If I make that and you eat like three bowls and you love it and there’s no friction there.

Seth: So good.

Katie: But it took a while for us to find those recipes. So, I always say, don’t give up and keep trying until you find recipes the whole family can agree on. But also, I would say when it comes to the mindset of getting a spouse on board, I get a lot of questions from listeners of like, how do you make your husband do these things? And my mindset has always been, you’re not my child. Like the two of us are responsible for our children and they don’t have complete food freedom because we buy the food. And so, they have to eat what we cook and we try to cook nutritious food for them.

But you aren’t my child so it’s not my job to tell you how to eat. It’s my job to have adult conversations with you to respect your autonomy and independence, to educate you and explain the things that are important to me. But at the end of the day, how you choose to eat is how you choose to eat. And certainly, when you’re not at home, it’s not truly my business how you choose to eat. But when you’re at home, because I handle most of the food at our house, I feel like it’s my responsibility to provide the food. And thankfully you’re not picky, so typically, when I cook healthy, you eat healthy and it kind of works out for us. And I know that’s not the case in every relationship, but I think it’s an important perspective to maintain that you are not my child.

So, I’m not trying to get you/force you to adopt anything that I’m doing, but it is about finding common ground for our family in the household that we can both be on board with for our kids. And then, I would also say lastly, the third thing that when I was in the worst of the Hashimoto’s, you responded and were on board when I came to you and said, “I’m sick. And I feel like I need to do this so that I can get better. And I’m not expecting you to eat like this all the time, but at home, I need to cook like this right now until I feel better.” And you were so willing to be like, of course, I’ll do this to support so that you can feel better. It wasn’t even me asking you to change your entire lifestyle, it was, can you support me at home…

Seth: Yeah.

Katie: …when our family are doing this? And that I think made it so much easier for you to say yes, because you realized it was important for me and for my health, not just something I was trying to force you into. So, maybe for anybody listening, I don’t know what the case is, and every relationship is so different, but I feel like those three things were helpful for me in navigating that. And I feel like, hopefully, you could tell me if I’m wrong, but hopefully, took some of the friction out of that change for us.

Seth: Yeah, for sure. But again, I think every situation is different. You know, some couples, just depending on the relationship, how they interact and their dynamic between each other, the communication style will play into that as well. You know, we have friends and family members who like the wife makes whatever the husband wants because, “I’m trying to make him happy” even though it’s not healthy or because he’s so picky, he just won’t eat anything, and he’ll just go on a hunger strike or he’s going to go to McDonald’s or whatever if he doesn’t get what he wants. But to me, that’s childish. I mean, come on, grow up. It’s a lot bigger than just, how does this taste right now because this is what I’m used to. This is what my mommy made for me, you know. Okay, well, you’re a big boy now. You don’t just do something because your mom did it for you, you know. We’re all adults here. We’re not kids where we’re forced to do it. So, make a conscious choice about what you’re putting in your body and the food that you’re eating and all of those things because it’s important, not just for you, but for your family, for your kids, if you have children, for your spouse, for your significant other, etc.

Katie: And definitely, correct me if you don’t agree with this, but I would say, I feel like our whole family feels better and notices a difference when we eat this way as well. And I definitely am on the extreme end of systems and logistics and probably being a little neurotic. So, we all ran our genes through Nutrition Genome, which we can link in the show notes. And that generates a report of, based on your genes, your top foods. And so, I took our entire family, all eight of us, and created a spreadsheet and ran similarities. And then I put those foods into real plans and created meal plans based on all the common foods that we had. And then, I just add things in based on… So, some of our kids have a much higher carb need. So, we add in things like white rice or potatoes or sweet potatoes for them.

And so, that was an easy way to kind of standardize the things that we knew we all needed. So rather than just food being about what tastes good it’s actually like, how do we best nutritionally support our family, which is absolutely possible to do on a budget because most of our common foods are vegetables and we can rotate those seasonally. But that helped really simplify it for me as well. And I know…I definitely feel better when we eat this way. I think the kids definitely respond better to it. It seems like you feel better as well, but I don’t want to speak for you.

Seth: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean… And I think that my own health issues over the past eight years or so, and just trying to figure out what works for me, it’s definitely proven that as well. I mean, I definitely feel the best on lots of protein, lots of meat, fish, and fresh vegetables. I don’t do that well with carbs. I don’t do well with many sugars at all. I mean, I’m not a junk food guy at all, and I really don’t have much of a sweet tooth. I think I was when I was younger, but I think a lot of the things we’ve done over the years, a lot of fasting, intermittent fasting, and just kind of cutting out a lot of foods and seeing what works for my body… Because there’s no one-size-fits-all, everyone is so different. And just figuring out what works for you. Because, you know, what works for you, Katie, what works for me, those are different things. What works for our kids, those are different too. I mean, just look at the difference between the way some of our kids react to certain foods versus others. Some need more carbs, some need more protein, some need more vegetables, you know.

Katie: Well, actually that… I have another question. But before we jump into that, I think that leads into another important point to make, which is that I know my lesson of the last couple of years has been that you can figure out what works for you health-wise, you even figured out what works for you health-wise. So, with eight of us and the variables in our house, it’s actually been quite a big job to figure out what each of our kids individually needs and ironically, figuring out what you need. Because the funny part of this to me is like with Wellness Mama, it’s been wonderful to see the information we’ve put out, hopefully help all these families and you have, hands down, been my toughest case with trying to help. And I think…well, we can talk a little bit about maybe some of the factors that go into that.

So, I believe it was 2012, some listeners may remember this if they’ve been with us for a long time, your appendix rupture. And we had like a pretty intense, it was a 10-day period where you had a secondary infection, almost died, had C-diff, were on antibiotics every three hours via IV, basically all the things you would not optimally want to happen. So, you had sort of your own health journey. And then since then, you’ve been one of my tougher cases to figure out. So, a lot of our family and friends that I’ve helped with nutritional stuff and genes and all that, have been much easier to get to respond. And we now know there’s a lot of factors that go into that, including that you are a very rapid metabolizer of essentially everything. So, it’s hard to give you big enough doses of stuff to get you to respond. But that’s been an interesting lesson for me of that finding out what works for me wasn’t, of course, going to be the same thing that worked for you, and each person is so different. But it’s just also been a learning journey for me to try to help figure out the things to fix your gut and to repair your health after that.

Seth: Yeah, totally agree. And I guess, I think one of the big lessons here is that in taking it kind of to the business side, as far as Wellness Mama goes, or just the content side, you know, in the early days you were really dogmatic as far as you have to eat this certain way, this is always healthy and this has always unhealthy. And then realizing, going through your own health journey and then mine, our kids, and working with a lot of other people and having conversations and reading studies and things like that, and seeing that it’s also personalized. Coconut oil is not necessarily a superfood that everyone should eat all the time, you know. It’s not native where people in the Northern hemisphere should be consuming it so much because it’s just not natively grown there. As an example, you know, you had an article, “How Grains are Killing You Slowly.”

And, you know, for some people, grains are, if you’re a celiac, if you have a gluten sensitivity or intolerance, you shouldn’t be eating grains, but for other people, they do fine with them, and it’s not a big deal. Everyone is so different and their health, it’s become so specific to them based on your genetics, based possibly on your blood type, based on your climate, where you live, so many factors. And I think that plays into it a lot. But for me, I mean, it’s been really frustrating to see, you know, you’ve worked with so many people over the years, either on a client basis or whether that’s readers or podcast listeners or our family or friends or things you’ve just, you know, just helped, whether it’s consulting or whatever, just helping them with their own nutrition and health things.

And most of them are seeing incredible results like overnight, you know, or within a very short period of time. And I feel like for me, it’s been really frustrating because it’s like you’ve tried so many different things and nothing has worked that well. But I feel like it started to a little bit more because… A little bit more of that backstory. Yeah, in 2012, I had an emergency appendectomy, my appendix partially ruptured and then the doctor screwed it up and didn’t get everything all cleaned out. And so, I got a secondary infection. I was in the hospital for 10 days, like Katie mentioned. I was on all kinds of antibiotics. It basically screwed up my entire gut and so I was just sluggish and didn’t have any energy, couldn’t lose weight. My testosterone was crazy low. It seems like anything that I did, nothing would seem to help it.

And so, I basically had to try…tried everything under the sun, every different type of diet, lots of specialists and things to just try to figure out what was going on and why. And even from the outside, everything looked good other than the fact that I was, you know, somewhat overweight. But it’s only been in the past year or so that I feel like we’ve kind of finally started to get that under control. And I’m finally back down weight-wise where I should be, I definitely have more energy and stuff. And still trying to figure it all of that out. But just realizing that everything is so personalized and that what works for one person isn’t necessarily going to work for everyone else. Supplements is a great example, like the different stacks of supplements that you’ll give to different people based on their genetics and things like that. It’s like, “Oh, this works amazing for that,” but you do the same thing for me and it’s like, I don’t notice a difference at all. Like, I don’t notice the difference if I took those or if I took nothing. So, that’s been frustrating, at least on my end, as far as that goes.

Katie: I feel like the genetics were a big key for you and we had to get really granular on some stuff and just pretty big, simple little doses to get some things back in range. But I think we have seen big changes with you in the past year. And to your point, like going back to some of those articles, I look at things…like I do think saturated fat was unfairly villainized in society. And we went through these decades of saturated fat being 100% the enemy. And so, early on in writing, I found that out and kind of made a case for saturated fat is not bad. And I fully still stand behind that, that I don’t think saturated fat is objectively bad. I think many people need more saturated fat than they were getting for a long time, especially when they were replacing those saturated fats with things like vegetable oils. But the irony is, for me, I found out, based on my genes, I don’t do well with almost any saturated fat at all, including coconut oil.

And I think like red meat was unfairly villainized and I still do better without red meat because my iron gets too high. Whereas, you need more red meat, like a lot of red meat. So, there’s just all those really individual factors. And I’m personally really excited for that because I think in the next 10 to 20 years, we’re going to see amazing research and be able to really use this to our advantage with genes and epigenetics, and being able to alter dietary approaches and light. And there’s just so much exciting research, but it does really just all point to the fact that, like you said, we are so individual. And that leads into the next listener question actually perfectly, which is, what are the weirdest things that you’ve made him try in the name of health? And I can throw at you as ideas, if you want, or you can start with some of the ones you think have been the craziest.

Seth: I mean, I feel like my entire life I’ve been a Guinea pig for everything. I was the oldest of six kids. And so, I was kind of always the experiment for everything that…to see what would work. So, I’m pretty much self-taught in everything that I’ve ever done. So, because of that, you know, it’s like, “Okay, what are we going to do? Throw it at me, let’s see where it goes.” So, I’ve always been pretty open to lots of different experiments and crazy biohacking and health experiments and things like that. But, I mean, fasting, just water fasting and dry fasting, when you first mentioned those, I was like, I’m not going to eat for a day?

Katie: I remember that conversation. When I came back from a…basically longevity cancer conference and was like, “I have this great idea. So, we’re going to just not eat for a week.” And you were like, “What now?”

Seth: Yeah. And I was like, “Why would I do that? That’s crazy. Why would I not eat food? I like to eat. Food is good. Starving is bad.” Yeah. So, that would be one, definitely noticed the benefits from that. And so, like I’ll usually do like a three to five day fast once a quarter. And then we usually start off the year with, like a week-long, 7 to 10 day fast as well. And have definitely noticed some increased energy and weight loss and muscle increase from doing that and increased metabolism from doing that for sure. So, that would be one of them. Coffee enemas. That’s a weird one. Yeah, but definitely helps the bowels and the gut and everything. Yeah, that one’s not quite as fun. Actually, neither of those are fun. What am I talking about?

Katie: I was going to say some of these ideas I’ll throw at you I don’t think… We’ve done a lot of various nutrient IV’s. I think the weirdest one I’ve pushed you to try is an NAD, which you can talk about your experience with that if you want, and then I’ll explain the science of it.

Seth: I can’t even pronounce what it stands for. So, you might have to say what NAD stands for because I…yeah.

Katie: Talk about your theory of it and then I’ll explain.

Sean: Well, I mean, it’s basically, you’re getting an IV and it’s some type of supplementation that is going through your entire body and your veins. And depending on the rate of flow that it’s going through, it kind of feels like you’re having a heart attack. You’re like, you feel pressure in your chest and you just kinda double over and you just don’t feel good at all. Afterwards, you feel more energized and really good. And basically, it’s supposed to reverse-age you. So you’re supposed to…instead of your age going up based on whatever those factors are, they’re going down because of it. So, it’s kind of like the anti-aging drug or supplement or whatever you want to call it.

Katie: Okay. And so a little bit about the science of that, because it definitely does not sound fun and it definitely isn’t fun at all. NAD stands for, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, which is essentially, it’s a coenzyme. So there’s two forms, there’s NAD plus and NADH.

Seth: Speak English.

Katie: Basically, it’s an electron transfer. So, as the electrons go back and forth between these two forms, it benefits your body. And essentially, the quicker you get it into your body, the more beneficial it is. Extremely miserable going in. It takes, if you don’t want to be horribly miserable, it takes four to six hours probably, is that what’d you say, to get an IV in?

Seth: Yeah, I think the first day that…because I did it for three days straight, the first day it was like six hours, second day was about five hours and the third day was about a three and a half hours.

Katie: Yeah. And so, you do see noticeable lab changes and there’s some clinical uses for anti-aging and also for certain very specific disease states that you would want to use a doctor’s care with doing. So, we tried this partially for research and then partially we were targeting some specific things we were trying to work through. It definitely is not fun. Like you said, it kind of feels like a general huge feeling of just malaise. I would compare it to like if you have the flu and a hangover at the same time, when you do it slowly. When you started it quickly, so you can kind of control the flow at which it’s going into you, when you turn it up, the first time I was like, “I think I can handle it. I’ve had six kids, whatever.” I turned it all the way up and immediately like felt my whole chest tighten and kind of like, just crawled into the fetal position.

And the doctor who’s a friend of ours looked at me and he said, “Yep. If you ever feel like that and you are not doing an NAD IV, go to the ER, you’re having a heart attack.” That’s what it feels like. So, it’s very not fun experience. I have one time, and I doubt I will ever do it again, done it as a push IV, which means they pretty much just push it, at a really high concentration, directly into your vein. So, instead of doing IV, they just push it in and then you get all of that very quickly within about 20 minutes. But the downside is you can’t get away from it. So, once it’s in your veins, you’re just going to have to ride it out. And short of labor, that’s one of the less comfortable times I’ve had in my life. Kind of just like curl into the fetal position and had to breath and tap my way through that. Don’t recommend it.

Seth: I said, “Screw that. I’m not trying that, that’s awful. No way.”

Katie: But one of those definitely weird ones, would not recommend everybody, definitely recommend a doctor if you’re going to try that one. I think one you’ve done that I have not done is ketamine. One of the few things that I have not tried that you have. Do you want to speak to that?

Seth: Yeah. So I did a round of therapeutic ketamine for like anxiety/depression last year. And that was very, very interesting. It’s pretty much complete ego dissolution where… It’s intravenous as well and it lasts for about an hour. And basically, you know, you kind of close your eyes and you go in. It’s something of a psychedelic, I guess, if you will. You kind of feel like you’re on a roller coaster and you’re seeing colors and shapes and all kinds of things, and you kind of are disconnecting from the ego. And you’re not getting so caught up in your own head and stuff. And I think it did have some very positive benefits. It’s hard to really explain it, to put it into words, very different, but the studies behind it, as far as for anxiety, for depression, for PTSD, for a lot of things like that are incredible coming out. And most states have different centers where you can go and get that type of therapy conducted. That was definitely a very interesting one, for sure.

Katie: Yeah. And the clinical data is really fascinating on that, for like you said, anxiety, depression. I think we’re going to see studies on that as well in the next few years. But to echo what you said, it’s definitely better done with a practitioner/doctor who knows what they’re doing. This is not…it can be abused and can be very dangerous if abused. So, you have to want to do that with someone who knows what they’re doing. I’m trying to think of other weird things we’ve tried. Another one that we did as a family was peak brain. We did a podcast with Andrew Hill. I’ll make sure that’s linked in the show notes where they do acute EEG of your brain. So, they basically map your brain activity and can see different areas light up, whether you’re high delta or beta, or theta, what kind of waves are firing where, and if you are balanced on both sides of your brain. That was a pretty fascinating one. I learned actually, ironically through that test that I am technically ADHD.

Seth: And I’m not somehow, which is really weird.

Katie: But I remember him going, “So has your ADHD ever impacted your life?” “I guess not, because that’s the first time I’ve heard about it.” But yeah, I had even the older kids all do that one as well. What did you think of that one? I thought it was fascinating information.

Seth: Yeah. I thought it was pretty cool because they basically connect your head to these diodes which is run into a computer. And so, you’re seeing it, the scan on the screen. And then based on what the scan shows you and if there’s injury via concussion or head trauma or any number of things or whatever the case may be. Then you play these games and you’re using your head to…your mind, to control the games so you basically have to think through it. And it helps to rewire the brain to an extent. And the way that works, the example that Dr. Hill gave was that, over time, your brain develops ruts. So, think if you’re driving a car down a dirt path and it develops ruts, so it’s hard to get out of those ruts because they’re so ingrained in there.

And if the ground is soft or wet, you know, you get out, you’re just going back, sliding back into the ruts. So, what this does is it basically smooths out those ruts and enables you to create a new path. So, that’s really fascinating. And that’s something that we need to go back and do more of because they have like a system that you can do at home and everything. They have a couple of different centers as well. But that was really cool, I really enjoyed seeing that technology.

Katie: Yeah. And the science there being that they’re using neurofeedback essentially instant, positive feedback from the brain when it does what it wants to do. So if you have too high of certain kinds of brainwaves, you can create a scenario through this feedback, both audio and visual that you’re seeing, where your brain thinks it’s playing a video game. When it does what it’s supposed to do, it gets…the ship flies or the music plays or whatever it is. And the brain is so amazing and adaptable that almost instantaneously, it starts to learn what it’s supposed to do. And then the computer algorithm adapts just outside of your range of ability. So, you’re always just striving, which for me, was very frustrating because you can never actually win or beat the game, but it’s constantly just very rapidly training your brain. And there are some amazing clinical applications for traumatic brain injuries or people who have very specific things that they’re trying to work through.

And again, I’ll link to that in the show notes. But since we just talked about some of the more extreme things we’ve tried in the name of health, I want to also just highlight the fact that some of this is actually our job kind of now, that this is part of the things that we have to do for a living and not all of them are necessary or important to live healthy by any means.

Seth: For sure.

Katie: So, I think before we move on to the next question, I also just want to say, at the end of the day, if anything, over the last few years, I think you would probably agree with me on this. The really important stuff is almost always the really inexpensive or free stuff or things you always have to eat anyway. You make changes to your diet, that makes still the biggest difference.

It just may take a lot of experimentation to really dial in what that is, but you can do it even on a tight budget with seasonal produce or organic, frozen vegetables or whatever it may be. And the end of the day, I think it’s the sleep and sunlight and food, things that are part of all of our daily lives that make the biggest difference. And if you have very specific health issues, that’s when you can look into these other more extreme things. But I think you and I both found that over this last, well, I guess now 14 years of research is that it’s the consistent, healthy things, small things that you have to do every day that make the big difference in the long run.

Seth: Oh yeah, for sure. And I think…didn’t you even come up with an acronym at one time for like the whole system of like those basic core things?

Katie: Yeah, I think it was reset. And it had to do with like real food and exercise and sunlight. I have to go back and look at what they all were.

Seth: It’s probably been simplified since then. But yeah, totally agree. I mean…and you know, like the sleep side, that’s something I’m still trying to work on to improve my sleep and, you know… Like I track it every day using the Oura Ring, and like my weight and all of that stuff. And so, we have like this cool scale that tracks the weight and it connects to my phone and stuff so I can see all that. And like I’m fascinated by the data, probably not quite as much as you, but I like to see those patterns and trends. And I think that’s really interesting. And there’s a lot of opportunity just in health, in the future, as far as whether…that individualized side, but creating like a dashboard where you can get all these different health metrics. What’s…

Katie: I use Heads Up Health for that. I an link to that as well.

Seth: Yea, yea.

Katie: I use it to track both of our lab results, sleep stuff. We test our fasting glucose occasionally. It pulls in metrics from a lot of different thing. And we both use an Oura Ring.

Seth: And you can manually add those things in too, whether that’s, you know, you’re getting your food sensitivity test from Everlywell, you know, your genetics from Nutrition Genome, some of those. That’s always been pretty cool to see.

Katie: Yeah. And again, just to highlight, like, I don’t think all those things are necessary. I think they’re really helpful tools, but… I had Hashimoto’s and then I almost died when our third was born. We were both overcoming some relatively serious things. You almost died with your appendix. Most people, I feel like can 80/20 it and get many of these same results just like with diet, going outside in the morning within 30 minutes of waking up, getting enough sleep and having good relationships. I feel like if you get those things dialed in or you should at least get those things dialed in before you start really delving into the more complicated stuff, really start with those…

Seth: Well, the good relationships can be the toughest part.

Katie: Truly. I think community relationships are the one that are a little life long journey for sure.

Seth: Did you want to talk about some of our favorites of the crazy health things we’ve done?

Katie: Yeah. Do you have any favorites? Go ahead.

Seth: Well, I’d say the sauna and the cold plunge for sure. Those would be two of mine, two of my favorite. Just, you know, getting so…because we have a barrel sauna and that’s fantastic. So, we’re at five days a week, probably, depending on what’s going on or whatever, and then a cold plunge as well. And we’re in that probably three days a week or something, and just alternating between the hot and the cold. I would say that’s been a couple of my favorites.

Katie: I would definitely agree. And actually, this is a probably good time. I haven’t shared this data yet. So, there’s separate benefits from hot and cold and from contrast therapy with just the two of them together alternating on the same day. And so, we alternate those. We’ll do some days with just hot, some days with hot and cold and fewer days with just cold. And you’ll sometimes do cold before bed on its own because that helps with deep sleep. But over the last couple of months, we did an actual experiment using our sauna with some friends of ours, where we lab tested before, and then at the end of this time period, where we followed some of the clinical data that you see in studies. Because there’s all this…when they can kind of did a meta-analysis of the sauna studies that it appears that the most benefit happens with 4 to 7 times per week at a temperature of about 170 degrees for at least 20 to 30 minutes.

So, we standardized that, did 30 minutes minimum. We actually have 45 minutes but we did 30 minutes at 170 degrees, lab testing, a whole of factors before and after. And what we found, even at the end of a very short study, because we know the research says sauna improves longevity, it reduces all-cause mortality, drastically reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia, etc. Even within a short period of time of just over a month, we saw in all of us who did the sauna thing, improvement in immune factors, which is a big deal right now, reduction in inflammation factors like C reactive protein. And even in some of these people that were testing were athletes already in extremely good shape. So, to be able to see changes that quickly from sauna use, to me, it’s one of those things, if it was a pill I think everybody would take it. And I know we both have become big, big fans of sauna. I would agree with you. So, I think one of our favorites.

Seth: Yeah, for sure.

Katie: So, to switch gears a little bit, we also got a lot of questions about working together as team, what role you play in the business and how to navigate that. I think more and more people are working together, especially as things go more virtual right now. So, they’re asking how we navigate that. So, to start off, talk about what you do in both the businesses.

Seth: Yeah. So, for Wellness Mama, you know, I’ve handled the tech side since the beginning. I built the first five websites, the first five blog designs and everything before outsourcing that and just overseeing it, played more of the project manager side of it. But also, I was so deeply involved in the tech side for so long, and I’m still involved in that day to day, but realizing that I’m not a great coder or a great designer, but I can speak that language. So, overseeing it and other people can do it a lot better than me. So, handling all the tech side, whether there’s something wrong on the site, whether links aren’t working correctly or the site is down or anything that has to do with the technical side. Also the marketing, whether it’s surrounding the content strategy and researching what topics we should cover or write about based on whether that’s reader, listener feedback, whether that’s trends, anything that has to do with the marketing, kind of social media strategy and all that.

So, one thing we didn’t talk about before was I ran a boutique digital marketing agency after I left my last real job. And I was taking on paying clients, doing website design and social media and search engine optimization and everything in digital marketing. And Wellness Mama was the testing ground that I used for these paying clients, because it wasn’t making any money. It wasn’t a business. It was just a little hobby where you’re writing about health for, you know, for the first, what, five, six years or something that it was around. And so, because of that, it was the testing ground and a lot of those tests that I was trying worked really well. And they were all for the paying clients. And then I got really burnt out. This was around 2014, 2015, got really burnt out on just in client services and had a rush of bad clients where, either, you know, they wouldn’t pay or had to fire them or, you know, just different things like that. And I’m like, there’s a lot of potential with Wellness Mama, it can help a lot of people, it’s growing really well. Why am I focusing so much time on all these other little sites that I’m helping build-out or handling for these clients? I need to go all in or a lot more in on the Wellness Mama side of things and focus on that because that’s…it’s a better option for our family and it can help a lot more people.

And so, I did and just focused more on that and really optimized it a lot better, created a lot more content and just helps everything with all of that. And so, we’ve always had duties that have been completely split up. You know, you’ve always handled the content and anything that has to do with that, and I’ve always handled the technical and the marketing side of things on the Wellness Mama side. I mean, maybe you can add a little more context to that, Katie.

Katie: Yeah. I think that’s really accurate. On the Wellness Mama side I think we both had to learn as we’ve grown Wellnesse, the new site of that, because we’ve both taken on those roles in the new company as well. But then there’s all these new things associated with that, that we’ve never had to navigate. I’ve always formulated for Wellness Mama but I’ve never had to formulate on the chemistry side for actual products that we’re going to market. So, I’ve had to learn that, you’ve had to learn like the paid media side, like new worlds that we haven’t had to exist in before.

Seth: Yeah. I think for Wellnesse, because, you know, co-founding a company, a physical product company that is very different than just creating educational material, like a content site that is education and information, very different when you’re actually creating and working with manufacturers to create physical products and learning a whole new software platform, going from WordPress on the Wellness Mama side to Shopify on the Wellnesse side. And so, and I’ve handled the technical side of that as well. And overseeing like the agency that we’ve used to build out the site and dealing with paid media and paid social and things that, you know, we’ve never done before on Wellness Mama. And just learning all of that. And just separating out the duties so that we’re not stepping on each other’s toes and staying in our own silos, those things that we’re good at.

You know, we talked about earlier as far as relationships and realizing that we compliment each other’s skillsets. And I think in business that’s been one thing that’s been really good as well because those things that you’re good at, I’m not necessarily the best at and vice versa. I’ve always said that I’m a much better editor than a writer. And for Wellness Mama, you know, for the first, what, eight, nine years I edited every post that you ever wrote, you know, you would write and put it out. It was great content, but then, you know, you weren’t necessarily so worried about some of the grammatical things.

Katie: No, I was a journalism major, but it’s also very hard to edit yourself. Those mistakes will make you like almost read through them and don’t see them.

Seth: Yeah. So, I think we’ve complemented each other very, very well over the years. Just in business as well as in life and raising kids and all of that.

Katie: Yeah. I think the silos are actually really important for that. Especially maybe a lot of couples who are having to navigate this, when we both switched to working on these businesses full time you were home all the time. And I know I had an adjustment with this because I was used to you at first, when we were first married, going away to an office every day. And then because you don’t like any kind of messes or disorder, we had this…well, you didn’t know this. We had this rhythm where you would go to work, I would deal with the kids and chaos all day. And then before you came home, the house would be clean, food was made, I would have like undone all the messes of the day. So, then when you were home all day, you were like, “Why is everything always just constantly a mess any more?”

And I was like, “Things had always been like that. I just had time to clean it up every day before you came home.” We had to learn how to navigate that. You had to get used to the constant noise of the kids. And I think we also had to learn, because we were together 24/7, how to make sure we gave each other time away from the kids and time apart, and also really learn to be intentional about which responsibilities we each had in the business, that we weren’t stepping on each other’s toes and we weren’t duplicating work. And so, it became these things are your silos that you’re in charge of, these are mine that I’m in charge of. Within our own realms, we have veto ability. And so, like within the content realm, I’m the final call, and on the tech platform, you’re the final call. And that way, we could speed up the decision-making process and everything didn’t have to be like a board meeting. And also, we could like learn to navigate those different roles when we were together all the time.

Seth: And we’d also communicate with each other about those. And I think this is one of the differences in how…our personalities and how we work together, no matter what is. I work much better in a collaborative environment, bouncing ideas off. And even if I already know what I think we should do, I want to get some outside feedback also and how you’d rather just work by yourself, just like alone, just head down and just go deep in whether it’s your writing or researching or whatever, and not deal with anyone else. And that’s completely foreign to me.

Katie: So we kind of had to learn or like I would have set aside times to be collaborative with you and let you bounce ideas off. And you had to learn there were some times when you would just not talk to me so I could get work done. And we’ve kind of had to figure out that rhythm too.

Seth: Yeah. I mean, like, even now, like we’ll set a day aside where you’ll just go to a coffee shop and write or just plan or outline or research or whatever that is, just so you’re away from the noise and the kids and all of that stuff. And I’ll manage that.

Katie: Yeah. Somebody also asked, kind of along these lines, does he like to hear all your exciting, new research about whatever topic you’re researching? And I want to take this one and then hear if you think I’m right.

Seth: I can’t take this?

Katie: Well, I want to hear you first or…

Seth: Go ahead.

Katie: I was going to say I don’t think you’d actually like hearing the super deep science side because I can actually put you to sleep. If you’re having trouble sleeping, I keep rambling on about studies and you’ll fall asleep, but it’s really helpful to me because I feel like you’re a good barometer and like a good representation of how other people need to hear… Because I get so deep in the science and I think everyone wants to talk about science too.

Seth: Not true.

Katie: So, if I can explain it to you in a way that is interesting to you and get you excited about it, that means I’ve probably gotten to a point where I can write about it because then it’ll hopefully be exciting to other people as well. But I’m curious your take, are you excited to hear my new science?

Seth: You know, I mean, I’ve never been that into science per se. I mean, I like the high-level overview. Give me the cliff notes version and tell me exactly like what this actually means. I don’t really care to dig way deep into the research and understand every little itty-bitty point that is being made. And that’s great that you do, but give me the condensed version, explain it to me in common speak so that I can understand it and get a high-level overview and maybe explain that to someone else if need be. But I don’t need to know every single little detail, but that’s just not where my interests lie. So, yeah. So I think I like hearing about it, but sometimes not quite as deep and nerdy as you like to get with it at times.

Katie: Yeah. I think that’s a good barometer for sure. And that also brings up the next question, which is, somebody asked, what do we most disagree about?

Seth: That is a good question.

Katie: I think I will say we butt heads in business sometimes, which is why figuring out those silos has been important because I feel like we now know like if it’s tech stuff, I’ll offer feedback if you want it, but I know that’s your realm and you know better than I know. And we’ve had to learn kind of how to navigate that and not step on each other’s toes, because we are both firstborns and we are both strong-willed. So, that’s been a little bit tough to navigate. When it comes to kids, I’m grateful we’re very much on the same page for a lot of that. I don’t feel like we have any massive disagreements when it comes to raising the kids. I would say one, is a small one comparatively, but you were raised in a very German, Italian household, and you were used to everything being almost like military clean at all times, and that’s kind of your baseline. And I very much am of the realm… Only growing up with one brother, I wanted to have a big family. And when we had a bunch of kids, I wanted to always be the place where all the kids would feel comfortable hanging out and bringing all their friends all the time, which is definitely the case right now. We usually have what, 12 to 15 kids in our house.

Katie: And that’s not me at all.

Seth: And you kind of go nuts with messes. So, that’s one of our more common disagreements is I’m very much like houses are made to be lived in, of course, you should do handstands against the wall and you’ll be like, “Hey, you’re messing up the paint.” So, we’ve had to figure out how to navigate things like that.

Seth: Yeah. I mean, I’ll be the first admit I’m super anal when it comes to being neat and orderly and having everything clean. I hate messes. Everything has it’s place and it should be in its place at all times. Why are there things on the floor? Why is this not put away? I mean, like I always want things to be neat and orderly. That’s how I was raised and I know you were kind of the opposite, like your family was not very neat, orderly, and still aren’t. And so, just a difference in how we were raised, and I realize there’s probably a happy balance and there somewhere. But yeah, I think the difference, like when I come home, I expect everything should be neat and orderly. You would want to make it neat because I like it neat.

So, as the counterpoint to that, I guess, is that when you travel, when you’re gone, I make sure that everything is spotless, so you don’t have to think about it. So that it’s perfectly neat. And so, you don’t have to worry about picking things up or cleaning things up because when I get home and things are messy, I can’t think about doing anything else except cleaning first, because that’s just how things should be like, you know, it’s just…I don’t know. It’s probably a little bit neurotic, I’ll admit it, but yeah, I mean, there’s probably a happy balance somewhere in the middle there. But yeah, I would definitely much prefer not so many people over all the time, not so many kids running around all the time, and just having things a little quieter and neater.

Katie: Yeah. So, that’s definitely one we disagree a lot on, we’re still working on, probably trying to find balance on. Another thing, they said you guys should talk about natural family planning. I don’t think this one needs to probably turn into a long discussion, but I know we can probably both offer some quick practical tips because we’ve used an NFP for our whole marriage and when to have kids and not to have kids for the last four years. And a couple…like we’ve definitely learned some lessons along the way, I feel like. And there’s so much technology now that makes it easier. I would say my most practical tip… Well, for anyone who’s not familiar, so natural family planning is the idea of tracking one’s cycle and fertility signs to be able to know when you’re fertile and when you’re not fertile. And there’s now some great resources for that. So, there’s an app called My Flow that I have on my phone, and you now have on your phone. And the beauty of that is you can know all of those things too without having to ask me every single day.

Seth: When you remember to update it.

Katie: I do remember to update it. It’s accurate. So, you’re pretty much aware when I’m fertile and when I’m not. And I think that one actually sends the guy emails too…

Seth: Used to, it has been kind of inconsistent. I haven’t gotten an email about it in a long time, but I will get a push notification, but I’ve noticed that it’s not perfectly accurate. But again, I think it has something to do with when it’s synched and how often you sync it up, I think.

Katie: Well, and the cool thing about that one as well is it kind of tells you, like you’re in this phase of your cycle. So, here’s some tips for what kind of workouts are actually going to be most beneficial for you based on your hormones, make sure to get enough of these nutrients. So, there’s some really practical applications beyond just the fertility side as well. And I’ve written about NFP quite a few times in different posts. So, I’ll make sure to include those in the show notes as well for anyone who wants to go into more detail. But I do feel like that has taken some of the stress out of NFP for us, wouldn’t you say? Like, you don’t have to ask me every day, I don’t have to get annoyed with you asking me every day.

Seth: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I mean, that’s, you know, never that much fun dealing with it, when you can and cannot get intimate based on that. I mean, and most contraception, and pretty much all contraception healthwise is terrible for you, and that’s one of the things that we’ve realized or it’s not as good. So, yeah, so you’ve got that side of it too. But yeah, so it’s a balancing act trying to find what to do there.

Katie: We were also asked, what is our philosophy on raising children? How are we similar in this and how do we differ? I’ll link to some posts because I know we’ve written about this before. But if you want to speak to just kind of some of our core ones about independence and responsibility and giving them freedom.

Seth: Yeah. I think we’ve always pretty much been on the same page when it comes to raising kids and how we want to raise them. And that goes down to teaching them all those skills that they’re going to need to know as an adult, and preparing them for life as an adult, which we don’t know what that’s going to look like because the world is changing so fast and technology is evolving so quickly. But basically, teaching them how to think critically, not what to think, but how to think, how to evaluate any idea, any concept on its own merit and looking at the pros and cons, playing devil’s advocate for it and just looking at all the different sides of a subject matter. Also, thinking creatively and being creative. So, whether that’s art, whether that’s music, and playing an instrument or taking a drawing or painting class, also athletically. Because getting the body moving and being active and whether that’s playing a team sport or an individual sport…like everybody used to take traditional Japanese jujitsu, and that was great.

Now, all the kids are doing pole vaulting and that’s been really good. Some of the boys have played baseball. You know, so just trying to get involved in as many different activities like that, within reason, of course, you know, when you’re running around constantly non-stop and everything is about the next kid’s activity that’s obviously…has consequences too and isn’t that balanced. But just encouraging the kids to be active and mobile and not being on electronics, limiting the amount of time they’re on technology, whether that’s an iPad or video games or TV, or what have you. And so, I think those are kind of the core things, as far as creative thinking, critical thinking and being active, and just learning to appreciate athletic sports, movement, all that sort of thing.

Katie: Yeah, definitely agree. Like I said, I’ve talked about this a little bit, or at least the homeschool side I’ve talked about more, but I’m grateful we are on the same page. I don’t think we have any really big disagreements when it comes to the kids, and I know some couples do, so I’m grateful that we’re on the same page for those things.

Seth: Yeah. I mean, there’s, you know, there’s always like minimal things here or there, like sometimes… I’d say the only thing that we would possibly disagree with some is you tend to be a little bit more free with them as far as letting them just run around and do more things that I would necessarily. And not even to a huge extent, but yeah just… And I’m not a helicopter parent at all, but I would say that you are even less of that than me.

Katie: Yeah. That’s really an accurate assessment. But I still feel like we’re pretty close when it comes to those things. I cannot believe we’ve already flown through an entire hour. There might be a round two based on if we get followup questions, I suspect that we will, but I’m going to throw a couple of the ending questions that I always throw at podcast guest at you. The first being, if there’s a book or a number of books that have had a dramatic impact on your life and if so, what they are and why?

Seth: Categorically, doesn’t matter? Okay. So, I guess just a personal, like self-help book “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. I read that in college and that’s always been a great book. I’ll usually reread it every couple of years. Business book, a couple. When I was in high school, I read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. And that was a great one, just to kind of get me thinking outside the box monetarily. And let’s see, what would a third one be? Do I need a third one?

Katie: You don’t need a third one, two is good.

Seth: Okay, we’ll go with those two.

Katie: I will say you just read one that you suggested to me to read. It may not have been one of the more impactful ones of your life, but that you enjoyed, which was “Let Them Go Surfing.” Which is from the founder of Patagonia. You enjoyed that one.

Seth: Yeah. That was a great book, just as far as… That’s by Yvon Chouinard, who’s the founder of Patagonia. And that was just a good business book about kind of his memoir about creating the company and being so all in on creating amazing products, but also doing the right thing for the environment. I feel like that was a great book, just kind of getting me all in on as far as what we’re doing with Wellnesse. And I always have been, but even more so.

Katie: And then lastly, I feel like you know the audience very well from a tech perspective, you know their demographics and their data and the roundup of where the traffic comes from. But if on a maybe like personal level, relationship level, parenting level, whatever it may be, if there’s any parting advice you want to leave with the listeners today, what it would be and why?

Seth: I guess, you know, we’ve covered so many different topics over the years on Wellness Mama based on things that you were interested in, based on reader questions or feedback. So, if you have a health question you have, whether it’s mindset or parenting or things like that, there is such a vast resource on the website. You know, we’re close to 2,000 blog posts and several hundred podcast episodes. You know, just searching on wellnessmama.com you’re going to find probably an answer to a question as far as, you know, your perspective on it, Katie. And not to say that it’s the end all be all, definitely isn’t, but we do our very best just to put out accurate information that is medically reviewed and that is as accurate as it possibly can be. And we’re always updating that content to what the latest science, what the latest info and research. And in the recommendations that we make, we try to use a three-tiered approach of good, better, and best based…whether that’s based on the quality of a product or service or based on the price point or things like that.

And realizing that everyone is a different place, whether that is on their health journey, financially, location, social-economically etc, and just trying to be as helpful as we can to everyone. Because, you know, without someone caring and being interested in these, then Wellness Mama wouldn’t be amazing community that it is.

Katie: I love that. That’s a perfect place to wrap up. And this has been a fun conversation. Hopefully, it’s been helpful to you guys listening. And definitely by no means are we obviously a perfect couple. We have our own share of things that we navigate, but I’m grateful that we got to spend time with you guys today. Thanks honey for taking the time to be here.

Seth: Good times.

Katie: And thanks, of course, to all of you guys for listening. I’m so grateful that you chose to spend time with us today, and your time is one of your most valuable resources. And it’s always an honor that you spend it here. I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
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Thanks to Our Sponsors

This podcast is sponsored by Joovv Red Light Therapy. Like many of you, I am always trying to find different ways to keep my wellness routine in check. I’ve noticed some of the things that are most helpful to me are practicing daily gratitude, a no-phone rule one hour before and after bed, eating healthy and exercising, and if you’ve been listening to me for a while now, getting in my light therapy sessions. I’ve told you before about why I personally love Joovv before: the skin and hair benefits are awesome and I find that I recover faster from soreness after working out. Joovv is my preferred red light therapy device because it has a patented, modular system that lets you build as you go so you can find a way to fit it into your budget. They have full-body devices (Joovv Elite & Duo) and you can keep connecting these pieces together to make it as big of a device as you like. They also have a Desktop model (Joovv Mini), which is great for travel or for spot treating. Remember, when it comes to natural light modalities, bigger is better for optimal benefits, which is why their modular system is so unique. I wanted my listeners to know they offer exclusive discounts on larger devices when you upgrade your system within the first year of your initial purchase. Their unique modular design lets you build a larger, full-body system over time, and their bundle pricing ensures you’ll pay only what you would have paid if you bought the larger system from the start. Find out more at joovv.com/wellnessmama and use the code wellnessmama for a free gift.

This podcast is brought to you by Wellnesse, my new personal care company that is based on the DIY recipes I have been making for years. Many “clean” products simply don’t work. This is why I have spent the last decade researching and perfecting recipes for products that not only eliminate toxic chemicals but also have ingredients that work BETTER than the conventional alternatives by your body from the outside in. I’m so excited to finally share these products with you and wanted to tell you about our brand new dry shampoo, which is our newest product! Our dry shampoo takes care of all your hair needs, naturally. Tousle in clean hair to add volume, sprinkle to absorb oil or sweat, work in to maintain color-treated hair by skipping a wash or two. It contains Oil-absorbing kaolin clay and volume-boosting tapioca work together to refresh hair at the roots. Lavender oil and cactus flower help balance scalp and to keep the hairs natural pH. We even added hibiscus for healthy hair growth. Try it at Wellnesse.com – and TIP: grab a bundle and save with the built in discount or subscribe and save to save on each order!

About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder of Wellness Mama and Co-founder of Wellnesse, has a background in research, journalism, and nutrition. As a mom of six, she turned to research and took health into her own hands to find answers to her health problems. WellnessMama.com is the culmination of her thousands of hours of research and all posts are medically reviewed and verified by the Wellness Mama research team. Katie is also the author of the bestselling books The Wellness Mama Cookbook and The Wellness Mama 5-Step Lifestyle Detox.

Comments

3 responses to “353: A Chat With My Husband: Healthy Living, Working Together, Parenting & Random Things in the Name of Health”

Blanca

January 3, 2023

I cannot believe you are divorced Katie. I will pray for a miracle between you and Seth. Marriage is not easy specially at this times when we get busy with other things. I pray that you both go back and choose to love one another with all your virtues and defects. Because LOVE IS A CHOICE. We choose to love a person. God bless you, Seth and your children.

Reply
Kira

July 9, 2020

I enjoyed this honest and informative conversation very much. My husband and I are also entrepreneurs and I loved the bit about dividing and conquering, rather than having a “board meeting” about every decision. I also enjoyed hearing about all the health experiments that you’ve tried, and appreciated your perspective on that. Meaning, not everyone needs or should try all of these things, for some folks the answers could be more simple. Which leads me to a question – if I am interested in targeting the unique needs of my own health, where should I begin? I really enjoyed your input about catering to the dietary needs for each of your family members. The genome part was interesting as well but I’m not sure I’m ready for that experiment. How can I look into this topic on a basic elementary level?

Reply
1. Katie Wells
  
  July 9, 2020
  
  I’ve found that the genetic test results give a HUGE insight into next steps to take regarding, foods and supplements that your body will do best with, and which ones to avoid…
  
  Reply