Hi Guys. This is Lindsay, your host for the Untethered with Lindsay Tuttle NP podcast, where we go deep on truly becoming untethered in your life and health, and experiencing exponential freedom.

We have the radical and uncensored conversations you have been craving and give you the tools for expansion and growth. I’m so glad that you are here and I can’t wait to connect with you.

Hey Guys. I am so excited for you to get to listen to my friend Amy today. She is from the Instagram account, Love your Body Well, and I am so stoked for you to be able to connect with all her wisdom. Amy Reineke is a blogger, podcaster, and integrative nutrition health coach. She empowers women to learn to take care of their right now body. So good. And approach wellness from a place of self-love.

Amy, it is so exciting to have you here.

I am so excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Lindsay.

I just am always so, uh, inspired by your vibe that you bring online. It’s just something that I know when I head to your page. It is just a place of calm. It is a place of inspiration and I know that it’s, I’m sure took time and an experience and a journey to get there. But you are just such an encouragement to women and I am so excited to just have you. Especially in this first season of the podcast, to be able to share what you’ve gone through, what has brought you to what you’re doing now, and just pearls of wisdom that people need when it comes to health. And with this Untethered podcast, I really wanted to encourage, women, just that they could be experiencing freedom in their health and life in a completely different capacity that they may know now. And I think we’re also used to the to-do lists, all the biohacks, all the things. And both you and I are just really passionate about the, the simplicity element too.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that we overcomplicate wellness a lot. And I, I say that because I overcomplicated wellness for a really long time and put it kind of on this pedestal of what I thought it needed to look like. And the older I get and the more experiences that I have, I realize that really at the end of the day, it is simple and it’s time that we just, I think, give more airtime to the simplicity of it.

A hundred percent and I’d love to just be able to share with everybody listening. What has been some of your experience that led you to where you are now as far as with your health journey?

Yeah. I’ve had kind of a complex health journey, to be honest that started when I was an adolescent. So the first time I can remember not liking what I saw in the mirror was actually when I was about 10 years old. I was, I was in fourth grade. That’s when I started my very first diet, and that is when I started to tell myself that my body was unworthy based on the way that it looked. Looking back now, that makes me really sad. I have, um, three kids. I have an 11, eight and four year old. And looking at like my eight and 11 year old and knowing that around that age was the time that I started to honestly disrespect and not love my body well, was really, that is just really kind of heartbreaking to me.

Something as a mom that I try really hard to help them, um, navigate. Um, help them appreciate their body for what it can do for them instead of what it looks like on the outside. But that is definitely where my journey started as a kid. And, uh, I dieted for many, many, many years, and college was a really difficult time for me. And, uh, as was I, um, even after I got married, so I struggled with binge eating disorder for several years. I honestly didn’t even know I had binge eating disorder until after I was married. And, um, I had done a lot of different diets.

I was always a yo-yo dieter, you know, I would go up and down, I would be on the wagon and then off the wagon and gaining weight and then losing it. And it just felt like my story. And, uh, back then, uh, you know, diets, I mean, still today they kind of run rampant. I mean, everybody’s like, what are you doing? Like if you’re losing weight or whatever, it’s like, what are you doing? What’s, what’s the latest trend? Or whatever. And back then it wasn’t any different. Um, and diets I think were a little bit more mainstream. They were something that a lot, that a lot of people did. And I think now we’re in a space that people are understanding that, um, diets are harmful. And I’ll never forget the first time I went to therapy for binge eating disorder.

My therapist said diets cause disorders. And it’s taken me a long time to kind of wrap my brain around that. But when I look back at my journey starting in fourth grade, being hyper-focused on food at that time, it makes sense to me. It really does that when we become hyper-focused on any one area of wellness, it doesn’t always. Lend itself to, to a positive result because it’s, it’s, it becomes this place of shame.

So true. And just listening to more of your story with this, I didn’t realize how similar a lot of our journey has been. Just, I was, I think, like nine years old when I started just really just having that self-criticism and skipping meals. And it’s weird looking back because, you know, for me, I definitely can see just how that was my control and that was my thing.

Mm-hmm.

It was like my, my thing that I got to have and was part of my identity and that was such a, like you said, like the nineties. I mean, it really was so mainstream and I feel like, I don’t know if that’s still a lot of the culture now. I’m so disconnected with what happens because my kids are a lot younger. But that was definitely, I feel like, the thing then. And you know, we were growing up in the fat-free, sugar-free era. When the food, you know, like everything was a frozen meal in a box growing up or a, a lunchable in a box.

And you know, I think there was just such lack of awareness of what health was. But to be totally honest, I know you mentioned this a bit, you know, like I don’t feel like it’s too different from what’s going on today. Because it’s this hypervigilant hyper-focus on what is something that I need to do to change who I am.

Mm-hmm.

And it’s a disconnection from self. And so, you know, I, I could totally appreciate too you saying just it was continuing even past marriage. And I remember for myself, I had dealt with the eating disorder, uh, I had dealt with anorexia, but you know, interestingly, uh, I had gone through a different, some different treatment centers through high school, and you just pick up new habits because you learn.

Mm-hmm.

Like, oh, there’s other things that I could be doing. And anyway, so like I remember when I got married to my husband, I realized like there was this element that I let go of it a little bit, but it kind of just shifted into something else. And then I became super, uh, obsessed with exercise, just working out and running like hours and hours a day because I never resolved the wound that was from childhood. It was just forming into something else, and I’m sure you can relate with that.

Oh yeah. So I can actually relate exactly to that with exercise. Um, so I developed, like in therapy, I realized that I developed binge eating as an adolescent. So around that fourth and fifth grade time is when I really started to use food as more than just like nutrition. But it was, it was, it was like my friend, it was my confidant. It was what was always there. And then that kind of shifted, you know. And it was kind of this thing, like in college, I said, I, I would joke, really terrible joke, like, I’m a bulimic who doesn’t purge? And, but what I didn’t realize is that I was actually purging, it was just in a different way, but I became hyper obsessed with exercising.

Mm-hmm.

So I have a Bachelor of science and health promotion and so I was in the health field in college. It was, it’s something I’ve always loved and enjoyed. I was in a class that we had to write like our own exercise prescription, and we had to hand it in and she graded it based on, you know, our goals and whatever. And she pulled me in after class. So this is probably my junior year, and she was my favorite professor of college. I just really connected with her. I loved her, and she pulled me in and she’s like, I need to have a serious conversation with you. The, the amount of time that you are working out a day is not something that you should ever prescribe to anyone. This is not normal. People do not have time for this, and it is not healthy.

And that was really the first time I was like, well, what do you mean? What do you mean it’s not healthy? Like, more is always better, right? And.

Oh wow. Yeah. I love that you highlighted that. That’s like always the message we’re getting.

Yes. Yes. And it, it really was my first, it honestly probably was my first kind of taste of what really is happening here. And, and that was the seed that got planted, but it really, I really didn’t understand till, oh, it was probably three to four years after that that I did have an eating disorder. And, um, when I realized that that was what was actually going on, I knew I needed help. I knew it was at a point that I, this was now my way, like this is how I went about life. This is how I went about food. This is how I went about exercise.

And I needed somebody to help me kind of rewire my brain. And so I went to therapy, um, in like 2007 ish, 2008. And what happened in therapy was actually something that I could have never prepared myself for. They put me on a couple different antidepressants and then were, I was seeing an intuitive eating dietician. I was seeing a psychologist and a therapist. So I was seeing a lot of different people. I was in a very, very, very dark space.

Um, but being on the antidepressants, I gained weight at a very rapid rate. So I gained a hundred pounds in a year. And here I was in the middle of trying to navigate my body issues, my food issues, and gaining weight at a rapid rate. And that was incredibly scary for me. It felt like I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t, I, I thought I was doing the right thing, but was I not doing the right thing?

Um, I learned a lot in that time, to be honest. I learned that I needed to trust my body fully and I made the decision then, um, when I finally kind of came out of the fog, I was like, I’m completely numb to everything. I, these, these drugs have made me completely numb to everything. Now I want to say if you are using medication of any sort, you do, you like, you have to do what is best for you in your body. So I’m not telling anybody that medication is wrong or bad, or you shouldn’t be on it. But my personal journey with it, it allowed me to numb to the point, I could kind of get out of this like manic space that I was in, that was literally controlling my life. But there came a time that I needed to trust myself beyond the medication.

And with the help of my doctors, I was able to get off of the medication. And, um, then navigate like what life, life looked like, quite honestly. Um, in therapy, um, without medication at that time, ’cause I’d kind of worked through those. But then also navigating a much larger body than I had ever been in, in my life. To be honest, that time period, um, that is when I developed hypothyroidism. Um, and so there, there’s a lot that came up in that period. There was a lot of trauma that had come up in that period. I’d been through quite a bit. Um, and there was a lot of things that I was literally quite literally shoving down with food and with the control of exercise and things like that, that I needed to just like give myself space for space to grow, space to feel.

And feeling things can be really scary, especially when you haven’t done it.

Yeah, yeah. Just listening to you share this aspect. You know, I had been on antidepressants too, prescribed as a, as when I was a teenager. And I, totally in agreement with you, like if people feel like they need to be on that, if they’re prescribed it, wonderful. Like, I am not going to knock that. And also, you know, there’s a time and a place where you just need to…

Mm-hmm.

…get somebody stable. Yes. There’s so much new emerging research that is also kind of just interesting to put in the pot about like, are they even effective? And like, what’s going on here? I will say, you know, my experience with antidepressants, I look back and I’m like, gosh, how many kids and teens are put on these medications when, you know, our brains aren’t even fully developed till age 25? And there’s so much else, you know, other stuff going on here.

You know what you mentioned with just working with those different professionals, do you feel like it was in any way helpful or the intuitive eating dietician, or do you feel like you just weren’t getting to where you need it to be quite yet? And I feel like, you know, part of it is we, our journey evolves how it’s supposed to evolve, you know, and I, I know you feel the same way. It’s like no regrets. Yeah. Like things happen in the timing that they should. And when I look back and I’m like, I, I really honestly can’t say I wish it would’ve happened a different way ’cause I had to go through what I went through to stand talking to you now, you know? I’m just curious, like that experience and just with the intuitive eating dietician, which I’ve always been really interested and fascinated with, was that helpful at all or what were your thoughts on that?

It’s okay. So nobody’s really ever point blank asked me this question, so I’m actually a little scared and glad that you asked the question at the same time.

Yay!

Um, So there was a lot that I learned in that timeframe. There was a lot that I learned in regards to what led me there and about the control that I was seeking. To be completely transparent, no, I wish I wouldn’t have gained a hundred pounds in that time and I wish that I wouldn’t have had to like come off of those antidepressants in the way that I did. Um, that was horrible to come off of. I was on some pretty strong meds. And, um, it was a really, really dark time for my marriage, quite honestly as well. And on the, on one coin, you can say, yeah, I wish I never went through that because I didn’t recognize myself. I look back at that time period and was like, I can’t believe that I went through that, or we went through that.

But then I can honestly say like, it, it did kind of mold me into the person that I am today. Um, do I think that there could have been a different way around it? Yes. I didn’t know the different way. And I think that that’s why I’m really passionate about sharing this today, is that I think that a lot of people feel like in order to be in a body that they feel comfortable in, they either have to diet or they’re just naturally thin, but there’s really no middle ground.

And I really, I, I had a really hard time understanding that difference. Like I don’t know how to be in a body that feels comfortable without dieting. Because I dieted for 15 years, at 10, 15 years at that point. So that was all I ever knew. So I think it was a learning period, for sure. What ensued after that though, after I thought I was quote unquote healed, um, were just more years quite honestly, of trying to make a diet fit into this new lifestyle that I’d created that was like, now I am recovered from binge eating, but this diet can still work for me because I had weight to lose.

And so that has been the navigation since, quite honestly. Um, I’ve had three kids since then and after my second son, I, well actually during that pregnancy I developed horrific back pain, like starting at like week seven. And when I had him, um, I had experienced awful back pain the entire time, and I was in a larger body because I was so sedentary in my pregnancy from being in so much pain. And I had to have back surgery when he was 12 weeks old. And. I can remember going into the surgeon and him telling me that if you don’t lose weight, then you will end up back here in this exact same place. And that really terrified me, to be honest. I did not want to end up in that space again. And so I let fear control me and I dove headfirst into, uh, a very popular weight loss plan and kind of ended up back in some of those old ways.

So this was like, so I went to eating disorder therapy in like 2007, 2008, and then this happened in like 2015, is when this started. So I lost like over a hundred pounds on a popular weight loss plan. But what ended up happening is all of those things resurfaced inside. I felt the intense pressure to look a certain way. I felt the, this obsessiveness with, um, food again. And I got back in that space of being like really focused and hyper-focused on exercise, sometimes working out for several hours a day. And what I quickly realized there is that I still hadn’t solved the problem.

When you have struggled with food and stuff, I think the common thing is like, once I lose the weight, everything’s going to be better. And what happened was I can remember looking at myself in the mirror the day that I hit the goal weight that I’d been dreaming of for years. And I was picking apart my body still and saying, you can, you got five more in you. And I, I have chills saying that to you today because, um, I, at that moment, it was a pivotal point for me in my journey. And I’ve never been the same since, because I realized right then and there that I just fixed the shell. But there was so much work that still had to be done on the inside, and it was nothing that anybody was going to be able to do for me. I had to do it for myself.

And I’m not here today like telling you that I have that all a hundred percent figured out. It’s 2023 and I am still in the midst of it. I’m still in the midst of this journey, of figuring out what that looks like and taking care of myself and being a vessel. Like to share this really honest wellness journey with others to know, like to help other women see, like you, many of us have struggled for years and for decades with our bodies, and that doesn’t mean that you give up on them. We can’t, we have to stop giving up on ourselves and we have to step into the space of; I might not understand all these things that I’ve been through. Like my body has literally never been the same since that year of eating disorder therapy.

I, I mean, it has never been remotely the same since that year, but there is a reason like, god also gave me a platform now to share this, and, and I never would’ve dreamed that. You know, in the, in the midst of the dark days like going through all I went through, I would’ve never imagined like, being able to use my voice and like taking other women by the hand and saying, everything’s going to be okay. I promise. It might not feel okay today, but I promise if you keep taking like one baby step at a time in time, you’re, you won’t be at war with yourself. You, you can heal, like healing is always possible.

It really is all the baby steps and the micro shifts. And I literally, I love, I I got chills when you were talking and I was getting a little teary and I’m, I’m still feeling a little teary, ’cause literally I was just yesterday going out to my baby goats and I had this realization. So it just so timely that we’re talking about this. I had this realization, uh, ’cause I recently had a stomach bug. And, you know, anyway, I’m, I’m tying this all in. I had a stomach bug, which I haven’t had in quite some time, but anyways, I was like throwing up from the stomach bug.

Oh!

And I used to purge and I, that was like part of my life for so long. And I mean, even after I had kids, like, and it wasn’t the same obsession, but it was if there was any stress that I was feeling really stressed or just that I had done something wrong.

Mm-hmm.

That was my coping mechanism. And as you said, it’s such a, um, it’s such a journey with it because, you know, I real realized, you know, it started decreasing, right. So it would be like, maybe that would happen every like few months or something like that, just once when it was just like a coping mechanism.

Yeah.

And then I realized, like just yesterday; I was like, you know, I have not dealt with any of that since living where we live now. And it’s been probably, I would say like four years, four or five years since that happened. And um, yeah, maybe just four years and it was just like this moment of just compassion. And like giving myself and my inner child just a hug because you know, you and I both know like what that journey is and you know, Instagram is, and, and social and all of it; what people see is like such a highlight reel, you know, when you’ve walked through that journey and like, you know what it’s like to start to resolve those pieces, you know? It was work and it was time and it was really, like you said, you know, starting to connect with myself again and, and, and love my body and I feel like even just a year, from a year ago, I’ve done a 180. Like, and it, it gives, I hope it can give everyone hope, you know. Just that you can get there and it is really just one, one step at a time. I always say, you know, healing is micro shifts, not breakthroughs.

I think a lot of times it gets proposed to us through all these avenues that like one, you know, just do this and all this will be better when. You know, unless you’re resolving those innermost parts and the things that you know from childhood and just these wounds, you’re just going to keep being in the same place. And a lot of people that I work with who deal with hypothyroidism or autoimmune or chronic illness have a history of going through an eating disorder or just something that really was like an act of self-sabotage.

Yeah.

In their childhood, I mean, it’s just an addiction, right? So it’s an addiction mindset with how everything works within the chemicals of your brain. So it could be drugs, it could be alcoholism for, you know, for many it’s the eating disorder. So it’s just identifying, hey, this is an addiction. And it’s also there is like a shift in the brain and also understanding, you know, how can we be able to respond and support. Like you were saying, like knowing that you have kids now, how am I being a model? I know that really has inspired me, ’cause even though I have three boys, I’m like, I want them to understand that a woman’s body is not going to be perfect or something that they see

Mm-hmm.

Like in a magazine or you know, any of these things like, you know, I’m going to age. I am aging. Yeah. And, um, you know, I want them, I going to be able to showcase to them that I’m not constantly, or that I’m not criticizing what I look like and having the conversations about how mommy’s body is just different since having babies. And I love the relationship with my spouse, you know? Um, I feel like you, you are able to relate in this way. You know, our husbands love us well, and that’s one of the best gifts that we could give to our kids. To be able to see that dynamic of a, a man just loving us throughout the journey. You know, the testimony of time, and so I’m curious, Amy, just if you could identify just what, what experience or if there’s anything specific that really helped you get to where you are now? I know you had mentioned the therapy. Has that been something that really helped you get to that deeper place?

I think the therapy has helped at different points. I’m, I’m in therapy again right now actually. Um, and I’ve, I’ve utilized it off and on for many years. There have been times that I’ve gone and been like, you know, I’m okay. Like, I’m okay and I can be fine and, and go without it for a while. And I’ve worked with Lindsay Chambers with Beyond the Body as well, and she really helped me a couple years ago with that. And now I am back into like sitting down with a therapist and talking. And I, I think something that I want to normalize here is that we all need help and we all need support as your journey shifts. It’s okay if you need help and support in a different way than then you might’ve thought you needed it or, or different than what it looked like a year ago.

So I, I think that that’s a, a big thing is just being, really being able to be open. I think that’s, that’s one of the biggest things that I think has allowed me to find acceptance in this journey. And, um, and that’s just being willing to be open. I am able to like, say to my husband, like, this is how I’m feeling. These are the feelings that I’m navigating. And then, and then having a therapist to talk to as well. I do think that that has been really, really helpful. But I think also, I think the biggest shift came for me truly was that day, standing in front of the mirror and having lost 104 pounds.

I worked my rear end off to get there and still looking in the mirror and being like, okay, you got five more. And I, I didn’t probably have five more. I mean, I, I was good. I didn’t need to lose anymore. I was thin enough. Just having that realization, I think all of my therapy from, you know, 10 years prior had come just rushing back to remind me, you are enough the way that you are today. Quit striving for the number, the number doesn’t matter. Your feeling matters. Like that’s what you have to start chasing is the feeling.

And I’d lost sight of that. I, I’d started sharing my journey on Instagram and I gained popularity there. I gained a following there, and so it kind of felt like I was letting people down. And so I made my journey about other people and I made it less about myself. I feel like, honestly, that’s being really raw and really vulnerable right now with you, um, telling you that. And what I, I was so afraid to like walk away from a program that I’d been talking about for so long, but I just had this overwhelming sense of like, this is the path that I’ve created for you. Follow it. It is hard. It is rocky. It is uphill. But this, like, this change in your journey today is going to help so many more people than you sharing about your two point breakfast or your, your lunch, that whatever. Like this journey, this journey of.

I thought it was about the weight, but it’s actually not. There’s a lot of other things wrapped up in this and that women’s bodies are supposed to change. Like that’s the beautiful thing about being a woman and for so long, I think, I think it starts when we hit puberty, like our body starts to change and we look at it like, well, why does it look like that now? Like, like it’s a negative thing that our hips are getting wider or we’re getting breasts or we’re getting taller or we’re filling out. Like that’s a bad thing because that’s what society tells us. Or maybe your grandma has told you, or a parent or a sibling or a boyfriend. And so we begin to tell ourselves that when your body changes, that’s bad.

And that verbiage is my hope that I can help women understand that no, it’s actually beautiful. Like when your body changes for a pregnancy, when your body changes because you’re going through stress, this is your body keeping you safe, this is your body reminding you, I’m here. You’re still alive and breathing, if you’re listening to this podcast. Your body is still working for you. Even though there are days that you might look in the mirror and you might say to yourself, like I, there have been days I’ve looked in the mirror and been like, why me? Why am I going through this? Why, why is there always something else that I have to battle?

Like, why am I always feeling at war? Why do I have a new diagnosis or whatever? But what I can tell you is like, you’re still here. Like you’re still battling, you’re still fighting, and your body is still good. It is still good.

Love that so much. I just, you know, I’m over here. A continuous nod, just like nodding for like 20 minutes. I’m like, this is so good. But I, as when you were mentioning about just standing in the mirror, I could just relate to that moment so much, of just standing in the mirror, knowing that it’s still not enough. And even remember when I first, you know, just an entrepreneur like you and reaching six figures with my income years ago, but in a place that I knew it wasn’t right for me, and also feeling like it wasn’t, it still wasn’t enough. It was like I was so addicted to this high. Yeah. That I didn’t even know, I wasn’t even happy. And I remember thinking like, I am like sacrificing all these things around me for what? You know, for what? And so it’s just, it’s wild.

Just like I, I love how you mentioned too, recently I kind of resurrected one of my Instagram accounts, and that was something that had been a place that I had shared so much of our family and journey and things that I’m passionate about for a long time. And then I took a break from it, like this was a year ago, ’cause I just felt like I had changed so much that I could not…

Mm-hmm.

…speak to that same person anymore. It just felt like the death, an, an ending like, and I just didn’t even know how to show up in that space. So I created a new space for my practice, which I love. I am so, such a manifesting generator personality, so I’m always doing new things. I can’t be boxed in. But then I just had this realization a month or two ago that I was like, you know, it’s, I can show up as this changed person and let people see how I’ve changed.

Yep.

And you know what, like people are going to get it or they’re not. And it doesn’t matter because I need to show people that it’s okay to evolve and change. And that, you know, I’m not the same person that I was. I’m still learning, like you said, and this is, this is the path that I’m supposed to be on. Um, I’m still just, you know, navigating that. But it’s like giving women, giving people permission to meet themself where they’re at. And like you said, just, you know, your body is always working for you and how can we shift the dynamic to just really, you know, romanticizing our life and where we are and, and not making it so black and white and, you know, well I didn’t do this and that’s why this is wrong.

And so something that I focus on a lot with clients is being able to reprogram these stories because the stories just wind up keeping you stuck. So I’d love to know, Amy, just what are some things that just light you up in life right now? Things that are just nourishing your cup, your soul. I feel like this is something that’s just so good for people to hear.

Mm-hmm.

And that it can be so basic, so easy. And I know I love asking guests to anything that they’re reading and digging with, any of that. So I’d love to hear what’s just been rocking, rocking your world in life lately?

So I love to read. It’s like my favorite way to unwind. I’ve read ever since Babysitter’s Club books came out when I was a young girl. Um, it’s always been my thing.

Oh, funny. Yeah. That’s great.

Yes. So, um, what I found in the last year is I feel like, you know, I, I have Love Your Body Well, and then I also have another business called Spark Media Concepts, and I help people learn how to blog. I felt really pulled in those directions. And, and then I have three kids and they’re busy, and so there’s not a lot of like downtime for myself, quite honestly. So when I sit down to read, like I want to read something that just makes me feel happy. So I think in the last year I’ve read more romance novels than I’ve ever read in my entire life. I don’t know what it is about it, but I just need that place to like escape.

They’re the best reads I call it. Yeah. It’s like mindless reading. And it is. People get offended. I was like reading a Colleen Hoover book and I guess people are, were just like, she’s not, they were just not great Colleen Hoover fans. And they’re like, you know, you could do better. And I’m like, look, like this is just my mindless reading.

A hundred percent.

I have no expectations. Mm-hmm. I just want to be like, sit here and receive.

Yep. A hundred percent. And that’s how I feel when I sit down and read, I love Colleen Hoover too. So no judgment here. Um, but I, Emily Henry is one of my very favorite. I just got done reading her new book, Happy Place. I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend all Emily Henry books. I just think they’re just feel good reads, and that’s what I need, honestly. Um, so that’s one way I unwind. And I also do have an infrared sauna as well in my basement. That was kind of a luxurious purchase at the time, but, um, in my healing journey, that was something that we decided to invest in. And so when I can utilize that, it really, it really does feel like this warm hug. And if I can’t do that, then I love to take a bath. That is one of the ways that I give back to myself is to just like unwind in the bath. So those are like my favorite ways to unwind and like just spend time with myself.

I love that, and I love that you identify the sauna as like a warm hug.

Mm-hmm.

I have a sauna and I have not really utilized it that much in this postpartum period because I feel like when my kids are home, it’s just not really happening, and then I have to wait till they go to bed. And so, uh, I’ve been looking for to, to getting back to that, so.

Mm-hmm.

I love that, that’s like a little self-care ritual that you love. So, Amy, can you share too, what are some of the, uh, services that you offer, how can people be able to connect with what you’re doing?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, is there anything that you’re working on right now that you’d love to share? I’d love to be able to have listeners hear that.

Yeah, so you can always connect with me over on my blog. It’s www.loveyourbodywell.net. You can connect with me on Instagram at Love Your Body. Well, I am a podcaster, so I started a podcast called Love Your Body Well, and you can connect with me there too. I release episodes every Tuesday. And in this past May is when I actually got my certification for, from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. So as an integrative nutrition health coach, and to be honest, at this point in time, I’m not taking on clients, but that is definitely not off the table. It’s something that I’m hoping once my kids get back into school and get in the swing of things, I can see how I can start working with clients. So if you connect with me and like join my email list, I can give you a link.

Um, I have a free resource that I can provide your listeners, and it’s just called Love Your Body Well – The Reset. It’s an ebook. That it just is kind of like a check-in that people can like check in with themselves, see where they’re at on their journey with their bodies. And that will also put you on my email list. So where if coaching opportunities arise and come available to you, that you will be the first to hear those.

Love it. And I’ve heard really great things about that, it’s Integrative nutrition school.

Mm-hmm.

What was the name again?

It’s the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. It’s an online program from, uh, they’re based out of New York. So I started last May, so May of 2022, and then I finished in May of 2023. It was a year long program. And I learned so many different things and it, you know, I started, when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, I learned more about the functional space, like functional medicine, functional nutrition, and it really does lead heavy onto that functional space, which I really, really appreciate.

Learning about that root cause and not just treating a symptom, but, but trying to figure out why this is actually happening in the body. And so I, it was just a really enlightening year to learn, quite honestly. I really enjoyed it and I have a bachelor of science already in health promotion, but I, I graduated in 2004, so I’ve really felt like I needed to like up my education again.

Oh wow. Yep. Yep. I back at the early two thousands.

It was time.

So something that I want to ask with wrapping up every podcast episode this season is just, if I could ask each person coming on, what three words would they use to describe what health and wellness means to them right now? So I’d love to know, what comes to mind for you, Amy?

The three words that come to my mind right now at this current state of my journey is healing, patience, and grace. And I, my word of the year is actually healing, so healing from the inside out. Um, and I, I used to not be very patient in my wellness journey, and so I’m learning to lean into, into that more, and having patience with myself. Knowing that there’s no timeline for anything, but I am right where I need to be, going through the things that I’m meant to go through, and just having grace with myself as I fall and stumble and have to figure out a new way. And just normalizing that too, knowing that it no journey is worth going on without giving yourself grace throughout that process.

I love that so much, and I love that your word for 2023 was healing and we all could use more of that, right? And just having that be just this continuous, evolving and unraveling and part of the journey. And so I, I love that for, from you and just getting to hear more of your story. And so Amy, thank you so much for being a guest. Amy’s actually, when you guys listen to this, this is, Amy’s the first person that I am interviewing for my podcast, and so I am just so honored and, and so grateful to have your presence here. And all your wisdom and so thank you so much, Amy, for coming on, sharing your story, being able to share the raw, the real, the journey. It is so, so needed. We need that in this space and I’m just grateful for you. Thanks so much, friend.

Thank you for trusting me with your very first episode. It’s an honor. Thank you.

Thanks Amy.

Thank you so much you guys for listening to the show. I’m so glad you’re here.

Come say hi on Instagram at www.instagram.com/lindsaytuttlenp, which is my practice page, or find me on Lindsay on the Haven, which gives you the behind the scenes of our day-to-day intentional living on our homestead.

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Chat soon friend.