UFC Champion’s Guide to Mental Strength, Hormone Balance & Homesteading | Miesha Tate

If you've been doing everything right, eating clean, exercising, but somehow you're still not feeling your best, your energy's dragging, your memory is slipping, and it's frustrating because you know there's more to your potential. Well, what if the issue isn't just in your routine, but it's deep down inside your cells? You know, you're investing in the best supplements, working out regularly, and sticking to a clean diet. But if your cells are stuck in what's called cell danger response, all the hard work might not be paying off as it should. Think of your cells like a house under renovation. You can bring in the highest quality materials like the best supplements and clean foods. But if the workers inside the house are on lockdown because of a storm, nothing gets done. The materials just pile up unused. That's what happens when your cells are in CDR. They can't fully use the good stuff you're giving them. Getting out of CDR, the cell danger response, is the key to unlocking your body's full potential. When your cells are no longer in protective mode, they can finally use the nutrients, hormones, and energy you're working so hard to provide. That's when everything starts to click. Your energy improves, your workouts become more efficient, and you start to feel like yourself again. Go to beyondbloodwork.com to learn how to break free from cell danger response and make the effort pay off. Hey everybody, welcome to Dr. Josh Axe Show. I'm your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on this podcast, we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. Today I've got a special guest on. It's Miesha Tate, and she is a UFC champion, and we're gonna be talking about a lot today, like how to overcome a victim mindset. We'll talk about how to eat healthy and transform your gut microbiome. She loves talking about hormone balance. We're going to be talking about how she has done that as an athlete, and women, you'll want to pay special attention to that. And we're going to dive into a number of things. I actually want to talk about your shirt you're wearing here today as well. But, uh, but Misha, welcome to the show.

I feel like I don't get enough compliments on this shirt. Like, I feel like everyone should be stopping me and being like, I love your shirt.

You know what, I'm gonna go and buy the shirt right after. It's my favorite TV series I, I told Chelsea this other day, like, one of my top 10— just not just Christian, but literally top 10 shows of all time— is The Chosen. I love it. And I saw that you got the, um, you know, Angel Studios. I know they were part of that, at least the early episodes. And, uh, feel so strongly about what you have on. So, so, so her shirt, if you're listening on audio right now, it says, God's children are not for sale. And so one thing that I really admire about you is that you have used your platform for good. You speak out in trying to help you know, people that are true victims in the world. And so let's start talking about that, and then we're going to jump into some nutrition and health information. But would love just to hear you talk about what— why is this important to you?

I mean, I have kids, and how are your kids? My kids are 6 and 4. Okay, yeah, uh, older girl and a younger boy. So when I watched that movie, um, it really hit home because it's pretty close in age. And I had my dad with me, and I mean, he was, you know, almost in tears. And not because it is, um, very explicit. You know, I think they do a great job of brushing over like the really hard parts but still getting the message across that children are being trafficked. Yeah, it's just a real— it's a real problem. And I, um, I want to try to do what I can. You know, I love all children, not just mine. I feel like there's like one degree of separation. You know, if you put me in a room with kids, like, I just love them. Yeah, the best. They're, they're, they're truly a gift. They know how to do things that we don't know how to do as adults, or we forget, or it's Yeah, present. They know how to, um, love unconditionally. They know how to just play, have fun, you know. I mean, remember the good old days, like you just laugh and have fun, and you remember, and we get so stressed, you know. It's like, even on the whole flight here, I just flew in and landed, um, I was just working, working, working, working, working, working, working, you know. And it's just like, I have to remind myself to slow down and then be present, you know, like put the phone away, look my kids in the face, talk to them, you know. And, um, so I just think children are a blessing. Um, not that anybody should be trafficked, but it especially breaks my heart.

Yeah, yeah, of course. You know, I, uh, well, one thing we have in common, we both have 4-year-old girls. I have a 4-year-old daughter as well. And, uh, and man, I just love being a dad so much. I love being a girl dad. I got 2 daughters, and so it's so fun. And, um, and, you know, I think that, uh, there are— yeah, you know, I, I think, I think that Um, it's so important that we, you know, fight for things that matter, you know, today. And I think that, you know, this is one thing that I think COVID opened my eyes to, is I think that there were people in my life— and this is taking maybe a different turn that I was planning on, but just sharing, like, well, this is the beauty of a podcast. Yeah, it is. I, I think that, um, you know, there were people that I really thought would fight for our rights and freedoms as, as human beings, and I saw certain people I just thought really caved, and other people I was really proud of and admired for standing up despite they might lose— like friends of mine that were doctors, like, were losing their medical license, and nurses I knew, and those sort of things.

And so honest professional opinion.

That's right.

And that's wild to me that that could be suppressed or that that could be just not allowed the same viewpoint. I— what I love about America and what I hope we continue to get is honest, open debates from different sides. I think everybody should be able to have their opinion, and nobody should be, cornered or forced or lose their license or their job because they're telling their truth.

Hey, hey, let me ask you this because it's so interesting, cuz you're, you're a fighter. And one of the things that I see people doing politically sometimes is saying, you know, uh, coming out and, and, and this is, it's part of their, uh, part of their argument for censorship is, well, it's hate speech, right? Or, but, but really a lot of times it's just things that people disagree with. But, but sometimes I also see it as this sort sort of like, it's, it's like a weakness mentality. It's like, okay, we need to go through life and nobody— everybody needs to—

anybody's feeling.

That's right.

Yeah. No, I completely disagree with that. I don't believe in censorship. Um, I believe there are things that shouldn't be said, and I think that is wrong to be said, but I think that's the duty of the parents to raise children that grow up to be responsible, respectful adults that can sit across the table from someone, disagree, be— have integrity. Um, and, and shake their hand at the end of that and say, you know what, I completely disagree with your opinion, but thank you for sharing it. I respect that you, you were open and honest. We're just missing that, you know. I don't believe in, um, that mentality. I don't even believe in it for like hand sanitizer and like avoiding things. I think that, you know, there's a certain element of resistance you have to face in life to find your true strength. And if you have constantly looked to avoid, whether it is germs, whether it is, um, I mean, it could be your food, food allergies, it could be anything. If you completely try to avoid them, a lot of times they just end up being worse in the long run because truthfully, you can never avoid the difficulties in life.

Well, you brought this up even with food because one thing that we did with both our daughters is we've introduced foods that most people would be allergic to early on. Like, like we have, and we actually have, we bought a kit for this to make sure, let's expose them to all allergens like peanuts. Learned about this, it's called like I gotta ask my wife because she's the one that—

There's a name for it.

There is, there is.

Yeah, I didn't know about this with my kids, but if I have another kid, which is possible, I will absolutely do this.

It's peanuts. Yeah, peanuts is one of the first things, eggs, certain types of dairy. Right. And it's science-backed. The medical studies show if you expect, that's how they get away with it. It's like if you—

Isn't it like, it might be the wrong country I'm saying, maybe like Norway, something that have like 1% food allergen. Really?

I need to look that up.

Yeah, look up what country it is. It's like 1% of their population has food allergies because they do this, because they expose— it's part of their cultural fabric that they expose instead of trying to like hold the child back and say like, I don't want to take any risk. Then what happens, the body starts— the way that I understand, of course I'm not a doctor, so correct me if I'm wrong— but that it becomes more of a foreign thing later, right, if you're not exposed?

Well, exactly. And this is part of, you know, when people hear the word today immunization, they, they tend to jump to vaccine, but the reality is, is there are lots of things that immunize us, and we want to do natural things that are naturally to immunize ourself, and even more so our kids when they're younger, because when you're younger is when your body is most adapting to things. And so even, even from, you know, like even from birth, like if a woman has specifically a vaginal birth, when the baby comes out with all of the white coating on them, uh, You want that because that's the bacteria that the mom has. We didn't either. I mean, our daughter was white for like days, weeks. Yeah, so that's the thing to do. And really this, it's a whole mentality. It's a whole philosophy of, you know what, you wanna do some hard things. You wanna challenge the body. You wanna help it get stronger. And when we have this mindset of, no, we need to put everything in a bubble or protect somebody to the point where they could never get hurt, you actually harm them and weaken them and make them a victim in the future.

Correct, and we're not that smart yet. We can't possibly avoid everything. So what's the better approach? Are we going to really stress ourselves out and try to avoid it all, or are we going to accept the fact that we're not there yet? We cannot possibly avoid everything, so let's try to get stronger so that when we face it, right, we can overcome it.

That's right.

Yeah. So, um, one thing I wanted to say, I know we're talking about this, but, but I did want to give a shout if anybody wants to listen to Dr. Phil on Joe Rogan's podcast, because that was eye-opening for me, and it's a big reason why about the trafficking. Sorry, jumping back to that. Um, I just wanted to give that shout out because Dr. Phil went down to the border and there was like children crossing with numbers written on their body. And he talked literally firsthand. And I've actually verified this too with some of my sources, but they come with numbers in their body, phone numbers, and they just call the number and say, are you expecting a child? And if they say yes, then this child is just sent. Like, that is what the current situation is at the border. Wow. And it's like, it's so frustrating to me. And it wasn't like that prior. So I don't want to get too political or anything like that, but it's just one of the things for me that's like so heartbreaking. And we're still talking about children, so I hope I can squeeze that in. I did want to say that in case anybody wants to take a listen. It was hard to listen to, but it's like I felt like I needed to.

It is. And again, this is the thing where it's like we need to do hard things. You know, the body is created to do hard things. It's the only way you grow. And this is, you know, the people that I, that I have this mentality of we're not going to do hard things, or we're not going to— we're not going to discipline our children in certain ways, and we're not going to challenge them, and everybody gets a trophy. I mean, there's a lot of different philosophies there. Yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're not growing. You're keeping the person stuck where they're at.

You know, my problem is with everybody gets a trophy is that it's confusing to children. They don't know what they're truly good at.

So true, you know.

And I think that children should get something for participation, but I do think that there should be a distinguishment from what the person is that's excelling the best at this, whether it's talent or hard work. That's where people get a little gray about this, and they say like, well, you know what, someone's working hard, they're just not as talented. That's okay, because that's life. If they're like, look, I'm working really hard at this— let's say it's track— and they're just not great at it, what if it was something else that they had their calling, but because they always got a trophy in the first place, they thought that they were just as good at it, and then they, they missed their true calling?

It's such a good perspective, right?

What if they were meant to be a fighter? What if they were meant to be an athlete? What if they were meant to be an artist, but they couldn't really distinguish that as a child because they thought that they were equal to everyone and everything, and we're just not.

See, see, see, this is a— and I think it's a— I, I think it's actually a spirit of evil in doing this. I think in some of this is my religious and faith beliefs, but I think part of society is trying to make everyone the same. Girls are boys and boys are girls, right? And everybody's good at this. Everybody's the same. Everybody is in— and, and I think even biblically speaking is God is saying, no, listen, You're unique. There's no one like you on the entire planet. And you may suck at fighting. Yes. You might be great at art or vice versa.

And there's your calling.

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

And I agree. So I think we're on the same page with that. I think that there is a spiritual warfare going on. Yeah. And I think it's much deeper than probably any of us could really understand. But I always just encourage people to really listen to their heart, really listen to, you know, we forget that internal dialogue that we have sometimes.

I mean, I literally— busyness makes it hard, right?

It makes it hard. It takes away from the nuclear family. It makes it hard to sit down and have a quality meal with your kids. It's much easier to throw a TV dinner in and they eat in front of the TV because you've got to finish up your emails before the next day of work comes on. I mean, it's just— we're overworked, we're underpaid, we're overtaxed, we don't have the time. Maternity leave is a joke, um, you know. And I don't know if you have any opinions on this, but, um, I can't remember if it was Paul Saladino— I don't want to say that he did say this, although I love his information about formula and stuff because that stuff is not good for babies. The Yeah, it's not good, but there's also so much money to be made by feeding babies formula, and how much money is lost by women breastfeeding, that there's a big push against that. And I always wondered, why in America do we have such crappy maternity leave? Like, how sad is that, that a mom who's trying to breastfeed needs to leave her baby for 8 hours a day?

Um, well, you know, I think you mentioned spiritual warfare. And I think that we're starting to see, and people are starting to call this out, is that some people think they're not religious, but they are. Everybody worships something. Some— so for somebody, their god might be the government, or it might be a social movement, you know. But every, every, everybody has their god that they're, you know, this thing that they're pursuing and chasing, chasing after. And make sure that whatever you're pursuing and chasing, it's righteous and good and the greatest thing possible, you know. So that's, you know, I think that's because you'll find the most no fulfillment in that, I promise.

If you are a self-centered, live for myself first, I challenge you to really see if you're happy with that.

Hey, so I want to go back to something you had mentioned, and that's a good point. We'll come back to that one too. You had mentioned that there was a maternity leave. It's very short. I think this is a mentality as well. Part of what I was going to bring up is part of the god in the US, one of these little g gods is mammon. It's, uh, it's financial advancement. And I think that this was something too that, uh, coming out of— if you actually study World War II, where a lot of the men left and so the women took, took jobs— well, that never changed to where there was, there was this big shift in terms of women working. And there's actually some, you know, statistics. Yes, there were staggering statistics on things like daycare. And if that's healthy for the— it's, you know, not being the healthiest for the child. By the way, when I say this, I'm going to get backlash. Last time I mentioned this, I did this whole thing on daycare, and I had so many people mad at me. And I'm not saying it because— I'm not saying anyone's a bad parent. I'm not saying there's never a case. I'm just saying that there's— listen, listen, like, right now, like, there's nobody like a mom. Like, even as a dad, like, I love my girls. Last night I slept with my, my, my 4-year-old daughter and, and Chelsea's sleeping with our 9-month-old because our 4-year-old, she's sick. And so she wanted someone to sleep with her. And all night long, even though I'm sleeping with her and I'm the dad, like, she had a cold. She— I mean, it's one of those things where she felt so bad. It was probably the— by the way, I got the least amount of sleep last night I have in probably 2 years.

And, um, oh, you sound great.

Yeah, thank you. Um, that's because I got a vitamin IV before I came here because I'm like, I'm so tired right now. So, but I was, but the entire night Arwen is like, mommy, mommy, mommy. I'm like, daddy's here, daddy here. She's like, oh, hey daddy. But mommy, mommy.

I'm like, my kids are the same way.

Oh yeah. And you know what, up until the first, up until she was 1 and a half, I felt like a, just a sack of potatoes. I'm like, what am I even doing here? Like she wanted mom for everything. And then we, you know, we've, and we've developed a great relationship now, but there is to, to, to the point is there's no one like a mom. No. I mean, that maternal instinct, that nurture, that love, that compassion, nobody loves your kids like you do. So of course it's a no-brainer. Of course it's better for the mom to spend as much time, and secondarily the dad with young kids, as much as, you know, much as anyone. I do think you get to a point in time where kids might need more time with their dad. It might be different with boys and girls where they need a little less nurture, they need a little bit more discipline. And not to say that both women and men can't do both. I just, I already know this because I've covered this and I already know the comment's going to come in. But, um, anyways, yeah, but no, I'm, I'm, I'm with you.

And let me be full disclosure, my son goes to daycare. He goes to preschool. Yeah, he's 4 years old and he, um, he goes 3 days a week now. It used to be 5 and it, it was hurting my heart I couldn't deal with it because I, I had so much on my plate. Um, I couldn't do it, and I had to sit back and I listened to Jordan Peterson, you know, and I had to sit back and say, what else do I have going on that is so important? You know, like, what— where can I trim the fat? Because my role as a mother will not be diminished. I will not let society tell me that that is not an important job.

That's so good.

Yeah. And Um, that doesn't mean that it made it easier, and I'm not trying to guilt anybody who does have to put their children in 5 days because I've been there, I've done it myself. But I'm saying don't let anybody diminish the worth and value that you bring as a mother. Just because it's a job that you don't get paid for doesn't mean that it's worth any less.

It's worth it. We did this— I read this study and it said that if you were to hire somebody as a full-time mom, you would have to pay them $200,000 a year. And this is real stat— I mean, you can look this up. $200,000 a year is the value in, in a mom being there. And by the way, I'm not like— like, we, we have our daughter go to this— it's a small Christian school. It's like a day— like, it's not daycare, it's preschool. She's 4 and she goes 3 days a week for 4 hours, 3 days a week. And she loves it. I think also it's knowing your child. All kids are different. For our daughter, like, she loves structure. We have these teachers, you know, it's like 2 teachers per 10 kids. I mean, so it's a— I mean, she's getting a lot of good attention, but she loves it. And I think If it were like for us, if we, if we felt like this isn't right for her, then we would, you know, put, you know, have her go less, try to make a change.

Yeah.

But, but I think just here's, here's, here's part of my problem is I think that a lot of women feel like they have to both be correct, super successful at business or fight, whatever it is, and be super mom and be super wife.

I mean, did you know that 80% of all autoimmune diseases belong to women?

I, I actually did know that. Yes, but it's, it's very high.

This is a big part of the reason why, I think, because what we were called to do and what we're doing are oftentimes not aligned.

Can I tell you what's so interesting about that? So a big part of my, my expertise has been in Chinese medicine, and in Chinese medicine, autoimmune disease is tied to the emotion of grief. It's if you're living out and doing something and subconsciously regretting it at the same time. That's, that, that's what causes autoimmune disease, that, that emotion.

Yeah, women love their children. I mean, we make them in our bodies, but we feel a tremendous amount of pressure to still perform in all of the ways that the males do, or try to keep up. You know, it's a man's world, we've got to operate according to a man's world. Well, according to Dr. Mindy Peltz, um, who I know you've had on the show, you know, you guys are in a 24-hour hormone cycle. Every day is like Groundhog's Day. That's right, it's the same. So It's very consistent and even. We are not. 28-day hormone cycle. No day is the same for us.

Hey, hey, how has that impacted your eating? Because— and your training? Because I mean, you, in what you've done, you've got to train hard. I mean, it is so competitive that like, have you implemented some of those, you know, teachings and learnings in the way you train and the way you eat different things at different times of the month?

Absolutely.

Absolutely. So walk me through that. What is that?

So I primarily, I eat a lot of red meat. I don't eat a lot of vegetables anymore. I eat a lot of fruit. And, um, I'm not a perfect person. I like to eat bread too. I like to eat carbs. Okay, so it's—

I don't know, you know, you said you love fermented food earlier before we started.

You're telling me all about your fermented food. That's, that's—

you ever do sourdough?

Is that sourdough? Yeah, I make sourdough bread. I have the sourdough starter and I make like kefir water, I think is a great way to say it. Well, yeah, it's not exactly kefir water because— let me hold you down here, I'm going to confuse you guys a little bit. I do make kefir water. I also make just fermented fruits that make a water that's it's just like a fermented juice.

A lot— sometimes it's called kvass, sometimes it's kombucha, but it could be—

but it's not really the point where it's like alcohol or anything like that. So just to clarify. But yeah, I do it a lot with pineapple, pineapple honey. So I guess if you dilute honey above about 17%, it naturally begins to have these fermentative qualities, right? So like you don't have to worry about the wild yeast or adding yeast. Honey will do it for you. So if I just throw a little bit of honey with a bunch of pineapple, and then I keep the pineapple under the water with either weights or something like that. I have like a sauerkraut dish that I use, and as long as you keep it below the waterline, you should be safe.

Sounds delicious. Honey and pineapple fermented.

It's incredible. I've thrown grapefruit juice in there, too, and just let the, you know, all those, I mean, and I, grapes, I do all different kinds. But to your point, gut health has become such a big part of me learning, hey, if I am not going to abide by all the rules of vaccinations at the times when they say, And you know, my stance on this has changed a little bit. I didn't know as much, you know, when I had my daughter, you know, and then I had my son. I'm like, okay, well, look, I'm not anti-vaccination. I think there's a time and a place for it. However, I do feel like I believe in the strength of my body and I believe in the strength of my children's body because I work hard at that. I work just as hard at that as I do my fighting. I mean, I literally approach motherhood as like a fierce competitor. Like I have to find everything. And sometimes I put too much pressure for myself, and I drive my man crazy because he's like, this, like, it's overwhelming. I'm like, I promise I'll never put more on you than I put on myself as far as these expectations go, but we've got to at least meet these, you know. But I feed my children's gut biome with these fermented juices and fermented foods because, to my understanding, it's really good. And that's your first line of defense. So let's boost the immune system. We're not going to be the avoidance approach. We're going to be the headstrong. We're going to be like the fighter mentality, right? That's the mentality that I'm bringing into everything. It's like, look, I'm not going to avoid you. If you're coming at me, we're going to fight. If there's an intruder in my house, I might go down, but I won't be running. I will be— you know what I mean? I will protect my family with everything that I have to offer.

You know, the first book I wrote was called Eat Dirt, and it's hitting a lot on what you're sharing here. And I go through a lot of studies in that book about fermented foods and how that strengthens the immune system, but also having a dog or living on a farm or spending more time outside or eating local vegetables from your farmer's market. Yeah, all of those contribute.

Yeah, Johnny, uh, my, my man, he has a very strong allergy to cats. And so with our two kids, anytime I'm around someone who has cats, I'm like rubbing their face, you know, in the cat pretty much. I don't want you to have this allergy. Yeah, but I'm that same approach. Like, if they drop something and brought in the dirt, eat it. Eat it. Like, yeah, I'm sorry, like, you're like, I must make me a bad parent. No, I actually just think that my children have the ability to evolve if I don't over-avoid. And I believe in the strength and if of evolution, or we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be here if we couldn't evolve, right? So yeah, sometimes my kids pick those little— I don't know what they're called, these little flowers you can like, you can eat them, and they'll just like pick them and eat them off the ground randomly.

I'm like, oh well, okay, so good for them. Yeah, so good.

Yeah, and my kids are great and resilient and just amazing little humans. They inspire me every day.

So fun. We have a— I, I have a farm about an hour south here in Nashville, and, um, we do regenerative organic agriculture there. And so actually, we was here with our producer Ashley yesterday, and so we actually got a— so we pulled a thing of turmeric out of the ground. We actually grow blue and green turmeric, like these different forms of turmeric. Yeah.

And so we've even heard of blue or green turmeric.

Yeah, yeah, we're growing it.

It's awesome.

Yeah, they're amazing. Yeah. So, but we, uh, yeah, the blue is really unique. So blue turmeric has, um, even the leaves has a little bit of blue shade in the middle. It has camphor, which some people are familiar— it's a, it's a volatile oil that's found in some essential oils that has these respiratory benefits. And it's also higher in turmerone, which is really good for for the brain more than the orange or golden turmeric. But we took a bite of it and it's actually a little bit more spicy than the golden. It has almost like a ginger, very slight quality. But my point there was we pulled it out of the ground with dirt on it. We all took a bite, including—

I love it.

Including Ashley. We have water buffalo all out there and, you know, got—

When's my invite?

Yeah, next time you're here, you got to come. Like, I had the water buffalo literally lick my entire arms up and down. And so anyway, but it's all good for us. It is. It's all, it's all, it's all, it's all good for us.

You don't get strong from running from—

No. Are you doing some farming at your— you know, you know, you're in Vegas, you're in Nevada, but it'd be a strike. Okay, now farming, gardening.

I'm starting like a homesteading practice.

You're gonna do chickens at some point? You do? I do.

I have chickens, so we eat eggs every day for breakfast, you know. Well, sometimes we'll do yogurt because the kids get a little tired of eggs and I don't want to burn them out too much, but we're pretty egg heavy. And I grow some green onions. I've got some bell peppers growing, trying my hand at blueberries, but I live in Las Vegas, so I mean, it's rough. It's not easy. I mean, it's just scorching hot and you've got to put things a lot of times in, a lot of things in planters so that you can move them away from the heat. It just gets so hot there. You've got to find shade for these things or they just, you know, they basically evaporate.

Yeah, it's hot.

Cucumbers do well there though.

Okay.

Yeah. So, you know, I'm trying my hand. I've got a compost bin going.

I mean, listen, you're composting, you're making sourdough, you're making kefir, you got chickens, you got some veggies. That's fantastic.

The gateway drug though. I mean, like once you have chickens, you pretty much like you're not going back.

I literally sent my wife and I am almost never on Instagram. I get on there about 30 minutes. Well, I get there about 30 minutes every other day, but I saw a post saying just that, like, oh, hey, we thought we'd have a few chickens. And then the next day, then, you know, days later, meat and the regenerative farm.

I love the regenerative farm thing, by the way, so props to you for that. That is my goal, so I'm moving towards that. We want to move to Boise, our Boise area.

Oh, it's all— I got a couple friends there. Yeah, it's beautiful. You're gonna be able to grow stuff a lot better there.

Yeah, I can't— I, I'm so excited for it. So, um, but I'm still finishing my career. I'm still active, uh, fighting and everything like that. And actually, yeah, I wasn't sure how, how, how, how many more years do you think you'll You know, 1, 2, maybe, uh, probably 1, because I think we would like to still explore the option of 1 more kid, and I'm not getting any younger.

I was gonna ask you, but then I know that, you know, my first thing my mom told me when I got to 18, don't ask a woman at their age.

You can ask my age and my weight.

What would you say, 48?

38.

Oh, you're 38? Yeah, I was gonna say there's no way you're that old.

This is working.

Yeah, I was like, yeah, still, yeah, 38. It's— yeah, you got all kinds of— when you're healthy, you know what, we, uh, we just had some friends who had, I think, maybe like 48.

So I mean, you know, you know what, I think I will do just fine. But I also do, um, respect the natural aging process.

Totally.

Yeah, I know that, you know, there's likely better outcomes the younger that I have the child. So 100% with them first. But, um, mom's still got a career and we're just trying to balance it, right? Load management, figure it out, see what I can do. Um, wouldn't suck to grab a couple more more good paychecks and then cash out and, yeah, have another baby and start a regenerative farm up in Idaho. That's the goal.

That's so awesome. It's so awesome. What— so I asked you this earlier, what does your diet look like around training? Like, like, do you at some point around your cycle go harder than other times, back off a little bit, or, or, you know, and then also your diet?

Oh, it's all—

it all—

both.

I'm curious with both.

It all goes together. So the way that I have adapted my training is that day 1 of the cycle Um, that I move more into longer type workouts. So if I want to do things that are more cardiovascular, like I want to add some long runs, I'm focusing more on that or longer training sessions, a little bit less on the explosivity side. I understand too that there's some, and I'm still wrapping my head around this stuff, but you know, ligament flexibility and different things like that at different times in the cycle. So I think around that time isn't like the best time to be, um, like doing the most explosive, you know, 10 out of 10, like explosive anaerobic workouts or sparring just because your body's just going through a lot of change at that time. Right. And then we move into more of the testosterone phase, like the mid part of the cycle. And that's where when we have testosterone present, it's incredible. I mean, we're the most aggressive. Sex drive is up. We feel like we can take all the things that put back on our plate that we had to take off of the plate, which I'm going to move into the next part of the cycle. But in that part, in that time, we're just king of the mountain. Like, it feels great. And I prioritize then lifting weights because I feel like I'm gonna get the most bang out of my buck. Now, I will say that when I'm in a training camp, I don't avoid anything specifically. I just lessen certain things and prioritize other things. So as I continue to talk about that, you know, when I'm talking about this prioritization of this timing in the cycle, doesn't mean that I'm not I'm not still going for a jog or something like that, but maybe not as long, maybe not as much. I'm really focused on eating well during that time of cycle, make sure there's a lot of protein. And I'll get to the food part too, but I think it's easier to go through the workout first. Then we move into the progesterone phase, and I'm also summarizing this a little bit more simplified than maybe it would be in all the ebb and flow, because I know that we have these dips and valleys. Good. But in the general theme of things, this is a good rule of thumb as a female athlete. Move into the progesterone phase. I call that the Netflix and chill hormone, right? It doesn't want added stress. Yeah, doesn't want you to, you know, 11 out of 10 type of workout or 11 out of 10 type of schedule. It's not the week, men, this is not the week that you come to your lady and want to talk about big problems, issues, or make big decisions because she's already going to feel like molehills are like mountains during this time. It's just an overload. That is the time when women need to delegate and lean on their partner a little bit. "Hey, I'm having a hard time. I'm really feeling like I'm just overwhelmed. Just a little, this like, you know, 4 days till my cycle starts and I'm just having a hard time. I need a little bit of help, a little bit of support." And I think actually what I found is when men know that, it's so much easier because they can provide the support and they're happy to usually.

Oh, absolutely.

Better. Like, what, you need me?

Like, oh yeah, that's so true.

Like, they want to feel needed, they want to feel gratified, you know. Hey, I need your help, I need your support. They love it. It's just when they don't understand that and then they come to you at the wrong time and you're just like, no, and you want to bite their head off because, you know, you're hormonally just susceptible to more stress. Yeah, it doesn't feel good. Yeah. Um, so this is the time in my workouts that I just dial it back and I really listen to my body. If I I don't feel like doing an intense workout, or if I feel like— let's say that we had sparring scheduled, because that's happened before in a training camp, and I'm entering this week and I'm just gonna see how I feel. And then I realize, you know what, because sparring is like 10 out of 10. I mean, it's the most intense thing you can do, and it, it's also the most difficult thing mentally to process if you don't do it well, because it can plant all kinds of seeds of doubt that you're not ready for this fight coming up. And so it's not a good idea to rate yourself on this very important test you have coming up— in my case would be a fight— based on the performance you had during the progesterone phase of your cycle. It's not— it's— you're not going to be as explosive, you're not going to be as aggressive, you're going to be more emotional. Um, at least this is my experience with it. Yeah. And I think a lot of women experience it. I never knew this until I I met Mindy. Yeah. So for my whole life, I pretty much trained according to male model. And I remember times when I would feel like crap and I would spar anyways because that's just what I was told I needed to do. And I would cry after, you know, sparring, not because I was hurt. I would just be so frustrated because I felt like I wasn't myself. And I just didn't know that I— it's not that I wasn't myself, it's just that my body was needing something different in a support way.

Yeah.

And it didn't have to be sparring. I could have done a technical sparring session, which is almost just as valuable without the damage and without the pressure of having to rate myself on, um, how well I do in a full-on fist fight at that time in my cycle. So now what I do is like, hey guys, I know we're going to spar today. I'm not feeling it. I don't feel well. Been feeling a bit overwhelmed. Let's do a technical sparring session. And I just dial it back. Hey, I know that we were gonna try to PR today, uh, trainer, but I don't think it's the day.

You know, it takes, it takes courage and wisdom to do that because I think a lot of people, they might feel— if you, if somebody doesn't have a strong sense of identity in who they are, they're gonna feel like I'm weak if I, I, or, you know, people don't want to be vulnerable and saying You know, you're not 100%.

You're absolutely right. And I think men might struggle with this more than us, although I'm just not as familiar with their cycle besides that it's 24 hours. And, you know, um, I haven't delved into that because obviously I don't live in a male body. So to my understanding, it's usually pretty consistent for you guys. But I think it's very important that as female athletes that we understand how much our cycle plays into our performance. And You're right, it is. That is the challenge, is to have honest accountability. And that's what I call it, honest accountability. Every day that I show up, I will give everything I have to give, but not more. Yeah, because I've done that and I dug myself a hole. And I lost my last two fights in the— the last two fights before I retired, uh, for 5 years. And then I came back. So just catching everyone up to speed, um, 2016 to 2017, I fought, I captured the UFC world title in March of 2016.

And who'd you beat there?

Holly Holm.

Oh yeah, wow.

That's around rear naked choke. Wow, it was a fun one. And then I lost my belt, and then I lost again, and I just realized I had been burning the candle at both ends. And then I cracked it open and lit the middle of the wick too. Like, I just had no time for myself, no time to listen. It was just go, go, go, harder, harder, harder. Don't listen to anything that's telling you to do otherwise. Guys, but I was living far beyond my, um, hormonal and emotional and mental and physical, um, abilities. And when you do that, it's just a matter of time until it, you know, really kind of blows up in your face. And that's what I experienced. So I retired for about 4 and a half years. I met my fiancé, and now we have two beautiful kids. And I was pregnant with my son with Daxton, my second child, and we were living in Singapore actually at the time. Pandemic hit, um, fast forward, had Daxton, reached out to Dana, president of the UFC, and was like, I want to fight again. And I, I saw he read my message, but he didn't even reply. And I was like, oh, you know, like, he probably was like, oh man, you know, is she hurting financially? Like, why would she want to fight again? It's been 4 and a half years, and isn't she pregnant? You know, or like, doesn't she have to just— um, but I was serious. And I think a big part of that was, um, at that time still didn't know a lot about the hormones and nutrition side of it, but I knew that I was far more healed in my journey than I was at the point of retirement. And I knew a little bit more how to balance things. And I knew that it was never that I fell out of love with the sport, it was that I was just doing it all wrong.

Yeah.

You know, and I was— I was in a toxic relationship too, you know. So I had gotten out of that and things were just better, and I was like, man, I'm gonna try this again. So I came back.

And you enjoying it?

I am enjoying it, yeah. You know, I'm not at a point in my life where I have to do anything. Yeah. And it feels really nice to be able to say that. But I have a lot of things I want to do, you know. So fighting is one of them, still, still in there. I think, um, right now I'm ranked 11th, who's kind of, uh— I was like, just got pushed out of the top 10. I was like 8 for a long while, but I haven't fought for a little while, you know. I've been—

yeah, I imagine it takes time to, you know, you know, it takes time to—

yeah, build back to where you Well, so I fought since I had children, but in my last fight, I had some injuries and then, you know, that's the name of the game. And then I've gotten busy with life and I started a podcast, you know, Built for Growth. Yes. I know we're gonna probably talk about that at the end, but just recently launched that and I'm so proud of it because it's a lot of this kind of thought and just trying to help people grow in their mindset. That's it. Like, be informed and transformed. I want people to be able to be inspired to be the best version of themselves. And, you know, my coach, he passed away, Robert Follis, due to suicide, which was so unfortunate because, man, you talk about a great— just a brother, a mentor, a father, you know, such a good person. But he— one of his— in his many— we call his Follisisms because he has his last name Paulus. Um, but he said, you know, change is inevitable, growth is not. And it always stuck with me, like, wow, it goes with that saying, you know, if you keep doing the same thing you've always done, you're going to keep getting the same thing you've always got.

Yeah.

So you've got to change it, and that is where growth comes in. And so that was a big reason why that inspired me to name the podcast Built for Growth. I was leaning towards Built for Impact at first because I'm like, you know, it makes sense, you know, I have impact, you know, I'm I've been impacted and I'm impactful, but built for growth made so much more sense because it's not about the head-on collisions, you know, it's about the adaptation to all of that.

What are some areas of life where you've been able to embody that?

So I, I think so many more areas than I used to. Um, obviously as an athlete, I've been able to bury that. When I talk about honest accountability, um, it is very hard as a professional athlete when you know you a lot of money on the line and you have a lot of people counting on you, a lot of people who put their time into you in a whole training camp, to show up and say, guys, I'm not gonna give you what you think I need to give you today. I'm gonna give you what I'm gonna— I'm telling you I can give you. Yeah, because sometimes it's just— it's not the, the, the cultural fabric of being a professional athlete. Professional athletes show up and they grind and they give everything they have in the short term and they never stop to think about the long term. But I don't know if you've ever seen the documentary The Weight of Gold.

No.

This documentary is mind-blowing. It follows, um, some of the prior Olympians and what their life is like after the sport, and a lot of them have nothing. Juice bars and stuff, you know. It's like you sacrificed everything and more for, for that singular moment in time, and I'm not discrediting I know it's very important, and being Olympian is a great dream. I'm saying that there's more to life.

You know, I, I, we, we had a— one of my best friends, he played professional baseball, and we're part of a growth group together. Yeah. And, um, one of the things he said was— and this is crazy because he was like the— a C-level executive of a company— but he said in their group, he said, you know, I still just see myself as just an athlete. Like, he didn't feel worthy to be in the business world. And what— and the crazy part now is like he's been able to overcome that. Now he's the CEO and president of one of the top 10, I think, nutrition companies in, in the United States. Like, number one of the top two in all the natural health industry. So, so he was able to overcome it. But like, he had this issue for a long time. And I think a lot of athletes probably struggle with that once they are done with their career as an athlete, of, okay, this was such a key part of their identity. Well, you know, now, now what?

It becomes all-consuming if you don't find balance in it.

And let me, let me ask you this, because I'm curious to, to hear this. If, you know, I think what helped him, just to, you know, just to— his faith helped him a lot, because I think a lot of people's identities is tied to maybe a career. Well, well, your career at some point is going to end, or it's going to change, you know, like, like there are certain things. So if you make that the biggest part of your identity, you know, for, for me, if you're a fighter and that is the core and center of everything, well then now you're a fighter.

Well then, I mean, yeah, not only a fighter, but if I won, I was a winner, and if I lost, I was a loser.

Oh wow.

So it, it, it's all tied into an outcome on a single night, which there's two people going into an octagon on, with gloves on, fighting for their life, and one is gonna walk out a winner, and one— it is a 50/50 every time, you know what I mean? I mean, realistically, um, I think that I stack more chips in my favor, but so does the person who's fighting me.

So how have you overcome that, not feeling if you lose like a— like, like that identity is a loser?

So this has been a really big turning point for me in my career, and in my, my most recent fight That was the best performance of my life. And, you know, at 37 at the time, and having lost 2 fights prior to that, I had to have a change in mindset and a change in heart and an evolution. And I stepped back and I said, I asked myself, "What do you want out of this?" And my answer before I made adjustments and really started to think of things deeper was, "I want to win." right? So when you want to win, if winning meant that you weren't your best but you still won, is that as good as being your best and potentially losing? You have to start to look at the other side of the coin. Yeah. Which one is more important? What is the actual goal and objective? And I said, you know what, I actually don't care if I win this fight. Now, that's not exactly true. Of course I care. But I had I had to swallow that winning wasn't the most important thing in my life anymore. Being the best at something was the most important thing in my life. And I realized that winning has held me back a lot. Just wanting to win has held me back because I oftentimes did what was just enough to win. It was safe. And I— there were fights that I think I could have dominated that I narrowly won, and there were fights that I lost that I know that I could have won. So in this next fight, I said, look, I'm not gonna tie anything into an outcome. The outcome is, it doesn't, what will be will be. What I'm gonna tie this to is my effort. I'm gonna, instead of being outcome-based, I'm gonna be effort-based. How hard am I willing to work at this? And how much am I willing to give in this moment? And how much does it mean to me to really know the best version of myself, 'cause I don't think I've met her yet. And I wanna meet her tonight in the octagon. And I'm really fighting myself in that moment. And yeah, I got to shake my own hand and be like, this is the best you. And I dominated. It was 10-8 rounds. And I was on my way to another 10-8 round before I finished in the third round. And it was, I mean. Wow. It was an incredible performance. People don't really know what was going on in my head and my heart and how different that was for me in that approach of saying, look, if I lose, it's okay, because as long as I give my best, I will still be happy with that.

One of my favorite books on mindset is called Mindset by Carol Dweck, and basically she talks about just what you just said. She said we all need to shift from having an outcome mentality to an effort mentality. And she said it's most important with kids. Like, when you have kids developing, if you only applaud them when they do something that's perfect or what the outcome is versus, hey, you know what, I'm glad you tried and you gave your all. Like, that's what we should be praising. And so it's such an important delineation to be able to change your mind. By the way, I've seen— I mean, from what I've already heard, from what you've shared, and I love the name of your podcast, Um, and I love that you picked growth as one of those keywords there, even instead of— listen, impact would have made sense even from a, you know, physical standpoint. So I'm like, okay, that's— but in terms of what you want to talk about, but it seems like— I mean, look at, you know, what was your diet like 10 years ago? Okay, it's probably a lot better. Look at what your, you know, your mindset about fighting. Look at what you think about. And, you know, you're a mom now. I mean, that you're, you're constantly growing in those ways. And so I, uh, I love that.

Thanks.

Yeah, it's so appropriate, the name of the podcast.

Diet. I didn't even go through the diet. Let's go.

Let's do it. Right, let's do it. It's not too late.

Um, so I don't differentiate too much in the very beginning of the cycle. I kind of just listen to my body. But in the testosterone phase, I really want to make sure that protein's on point. I always think protein's important.

Yeah.

But if there was a time to really be diligent about it, I think when I'm trying to build muscle, when I have testosterone around, might as well take advantage but give all the amino acids and the proteins and everything, the building blocks for that so that we can capitalize. And then during the end of the cycle, higher blood sugar is preferred by the body for whatever, the progesterone phase. So more carbs, more— and a lot of times as athletes, they think that we must not eat a drop of carbs, but this is a common misconception. Like a lot of normal people just are like, "Oh, what do you do to like have a body like that? You don't touch a carb, right?" I'm like, I eat a lot of carbs. They're just not processed. They're like white sweet potatoes and, um, quinoa and, you know, broccoli and fruit, lots of fruit, mangoes and meat. And I mean, I eat well and I drop weight like no problem. And by the way, I have hypothyroidism, so I've been diagnosed with that.

Wait, I have some things that could help.

So yeah, let me know because I'm still trying to learn about that. I don't fully I understand, um, but I'm trying to— I'm trying to remedy that in a more natural way.

So, so there's a few, and just so everyone understands, I would love to explain this part of the cycle there and the different macronutrients you were talking about. So when you're in the early phase, when estrogen is high, you typically don't want to do high carb. So everybody listening, you typically want to do moderate to lower carb during that time for most people. Now athletes, you got to still pay attention because you need to make sure you have enough energy there, but it's typically lower carb. As you're talking about testosterone, you really want to do higher protein, even though, like you said, you can do higher the whole time. And then progesterone is higher carb typically during that part of the cycle. And we talked about when she said Dr. Mindy earlier, when Misha said that, that's, um, Dr. Mindy Peltz. And she's got a great book out called Fast Like a Girl. Fast Like a Girl. Eat Like a Girl. That's her new book.

I can't wait to read that one.

So, so, so that's— so, so for just for everybody's reference, that, that would be, um, you know, it'd be helpful to read if you want to learn how to eat like, like Misha's eating here.

Yeah. And even fasting for women is so different, you know. So I know you— we mentioned it, but Fast Like a Girl, like fasting for your cycle is important.

I have women fast in a different way than men and be more mindful of it. And I think I still want women to have 3— I still want them eating 3 times a day most of the time, um, even if the weight eating window is 10 hours.

I'm curious.

Well, I, I, the reason is, let me just— it's mostly clinical experience. When I've had women fast versus men I have had women have a harder time hormonally with fasting. For many of them, it would really cause some major hormone issues, some fatigue issues. And so, so just the first was experience. Before I read a medical journal about it, I just was like, okay, women— a lot of my women are having a harder time with doing fasting. And so I noticed if they still got 3 meals in, even if, let's say, and, and again, it's intermittent fasting where they fasted 14 hours but they still ate 10, rather than cutting it down to the 8 or 6. They did so— they just did so much better with it. And, um, I think part of it has to do with women's hormones are more sensitive. And so if they're not eating anything, um, and depending on the time of the cycle, sometimes they might have just done fine fasting, right, on, on parts of their cycle. But if they got into for instance, the progesterone phase, you don't want to fast. Yeah. And then you're fasting, well then there's all these issues.

And so now fasting is a stressor. So again, we're trying to minimize stress during a progesterone—

that's right, right.

You don't want to be adding stress really in any way because usually our lives are plenty stressful enough to suppress progesterone, and then we get all kinds of cycle issues. I see this a lot in female fighters who have no idea about their hormones, just like I didn't, and um, there's all kinds of issues with the cycle, which is just an indication that things are not firing well in the body. So they don't feel well as athletes, and they don't perform well, and they miss weight, and they have all these complications because they're all over the board.

Yeah, you know, part of it I think is— I mean, it's the way that God created women, the way he created men, from the standpoint of also even the way it works in terms of the spiritual and mental and physical component of being connected. Because, you know, Men are— I think most women would agree with— I think most men and women would agree with this. Men are less aware generally than women. Women are more aware of what's going on in their bodies. They're more aware of what's going on internally. They're more aware of what's going on in a relationship. Most guys, if I say, "Hey, what's going on with you internally right now?" It's like, "I've never thought of it before." Most women are thinking about it every single day. It's just, it's just very different, right? And so I think that there's a, you know, it's— and I think God created women like that because you, you have to be, because if not, you know, you're going to have some negative issues. There's gonna be some problems.

Well, you know, and spiritually, I believe that these variances in emotions and hormones that we experience allow us to be better mothers because we get the maternal instinct and the understanding for what our children go through with undeveloped brains when their emotions just come out and they're feeling different ways, we're like, "Oh, we know what that feels like. We've been there. It'll be okay." You know?

That's right. You know, I think there's a PhD in the Bible that I love to listen to. His name's Skip Moen, and he talks about this. For the woman, even Eve, and this word "azeer" actually means internal, and the man's is external. And so women are created to be very, very aware of things that are internal threats inside the home. But men have a different thing where they're supposed to be aware of what's going on outside side of the home and be protecting. And so it's, uh, yeah, so, so with hypothyroidism, in Chinese medicine it's known as a qi and a yang deficiency, which tends to mean— and this would make sense for, for, for you— but qi is really tied to your cellular energy. And so if you're using up too much energy, tends to be tied to your adrenal glands, which if you think about, it's a fight or flight response. Correct. So if you're having to fight, there's no time where, where in your life where where you'll— it's the time in your life where you're going to be producing the most adrenal hormones and you're the most sympathetic when you're in a fight. And so for you, that— imagine you have a battery on your adrenal glands. Well, that's really going to help bring it down. And, and that adrenal then affects the thyroid. And so that's part of what causes hypothyroid. And the other thing is called a yang deficiency, and that means— and that's you fighting, weightlifting, CrossFit. It's those sort of movements versus a yoga, a Pilates, a barre, meditation, prayer. Those are going to build up the yin. And so what's happening is you expend so much energy, chi, and so much yang. Like, everything you do is those two things. I actually think once you're done fighting, and I think if you are able to then go and build those— and there's some practical ways to do that. For instance, like building chi, there's some herbs. Ashwagandha is very good at this, schisandra, astragalus, ginseng, dong quai, like that'll build that. And then there are some that are more, uh, yang boosters, which are like fenugreek, um, and actually Panax ginseng and things like that. So, so there's actually some herbs you can do. There's some B vitamins that you can do, especially methylated with, with probiotics. You want to do that combo, methylated with, with probiotics, and then add in some more of the restorative, you know, like even things like yoga, those sort of practices. And the other thing is your body temperature is a little low, so what you'll want to do is start doing like infrared sauna things to warm the, you know, yourself internally, sunbathing. But, um, no, it'll, it'll fix it.

I, I've been trying to, um, eat more iodine naturally. I heard that that is a good supplement. Would you, would you agree with that?

Well, it depends on the person. Typically, if somebody has hyp— I'm very generalizing here, but if somebody is hypothyroid, that's pretty safe. If somebody has Hashimoto's, the autoimmune form, they got to be more careful with it. You're probably just hypothyroid, but it's, um, but I don't want to speculate and know. So, but I would say if you're just doing a little bit more, let's say strawberries and a little bit of seaweed, yeah, then you're not going to probably get too much as long as it's a serving a day.

I just did blood work recently, and of course I'm awful with numbers, so I won't be able to tell you what it is, but I'll send it to me and I'll be happy to Yeah, but it was better than it was. It is better than it was. And I had been off. I, I, so I had my last fight in December, uh, my most recent fight. I say last because people are like, are you retired? No, not yet. Um, I had my most recent fight, um, in December of 2023, and I stopped taking my thyroid medication after that. I was just like, look, I, I don't want to take it anymore. So I take like a natural pig hormone.

Yeah, it's all Armor.

So armor, yes, armor. But there's also another one.

Oh, oh, Nature's Throid.

There you go. Nature's Throid. Yeah. So I prefer to go natural, of course, if I can. Um, but I said, look, I've taken combinations of those over the years, and I said, I just want to see what will happen if I stop taking it and if I could really just try to focus on eating well and all this stuff. Well, look, it took some time. I gained a little bit of weight. Um, I also started to notice a bit more brain fog and left this lethargic, you know, just feeling tired. Yeah. And but my blood work still reflected that it was better than it had been at its worst point despite having been off thyroid medication for probably about 6 months. I just completely stopped. But I would love to again, now having more information. I just didn't have time to totally dive into it. I'm like, look, I'll be fine. But eventually I was kind of like, this kind of sucks. Yeah, I don't feel very good.

And, um, I think if you're gonna make the change, you want to do all these other things like supplements simultaneously. Spontaneously to help with that.

I think so too. So I'm, I'm really excited to try that. So thank you.

One of the things I was excited to talk to you about is you've got this term, it's called hope molecules. Tell me about that.

Well, it's a— I mean, you probably know. I feel like I've— I feel weird educating you on anything, but oh hey, this is, uh, hopefully the listeners can learn something. So when you work out, your muscles excrete this protein that they call it a hope molecule, and it just goes through your body and helps you feel feel just better. It's a mood lifting— it's an— it's a natural antidepressant. Yeah, a hope molecule is a natural antidepressant that you get from squeezing your muscles, making your muscles do hard things. Because what do they do when they do hard things? They adapt. And right, and yeah, and, and again, it's like, okay, if we avoid working out because it's not comfortable, we're doing a disservice. No wonder depression's going up. No wonder these things are going up as, as the world demands less activity from us, more sit in a desk and work on a computer, we're working against our divine connection to the Earth. And the connection to the Earth basically, in my mind, says you work with the Earth, you till the land, you pick the fruit, you plant the fruit, you do all these things, right, that used to be just part of how life existed. And now we have again tried to outsmart it, and we're just not that smart yet. Yeah, again, it comes back to— it's like, as smart as we try to be, we really get dumber in the whole process of things. So I've just kind of dialed it back and said, if I, if I didn't have all this modern, this modern world around me, what would I— like, how would my life be? And I just try to sit back and think about it for a little bit. How much time do you think I'd spend in the sun? Well, maybe it's a good idea that I get outside, you know. I'm going to use my— take my computer and sit in the sun for a little bit. I don't care about sunscreen. I'm not going to use sunscreen. And, you know, I, I think— I don't think burning is good for you, just let me clarify. But I don't believe in the toxic sunscreens. I think they're terrible. And especially when you compare them, pair them with the sun. Um, so I even make my own sunscreen now.

So great. It's actually pretty easy. Just buy some zinc oxide and some essential oils and you got it.

Yeah, I put it— I did that with a little beeswax, and I got the recipe.

That's even better. Yeah, he's got a good one.

Um, beef tallow. Yeah, that stuff feels so nice on your skin too. I mean, sometimes I'll use sunscreen as a moisturizer.

You know what I don't think a lot of people realize? I, you know, doing something like an animal fat, like a beef tallow, it's more natural for your skin if you think about it. An animal fat is, is more— yes, it's going to be more moisturizing and absorb more than a plant, a plant oil.

Yeah, we're not plants. It would make sense.

Exactly.

Much more like biologically similar to an animal than to a plant. And I personally, I eat a lot of meat, but I believe in also using the entire animal. I don't, you know, I— maybe it's the Native in me. I have a little bit of Native blood.

No, it's the wisdom in you.

Yeah, we should be, we should be. So I'm not going to throw any of away. I render— I get the bones, I render the, the, the tallow from boiling the bones, you know. I, I, I sometimes even like grind pieces of the bones down and give them back to my chickens, you know. If I— I, I try to be as holistic and mindful, but I'm taking an animal's life. I don't want to just be careless about it and, you know, throw it away. I don't— I try to save all my food. I have pretty much a zero waste policy, you know. My kids know that they don't throw food in the trash. It goes into the little compost bin or goes to the chickens or goes to the dog. Yeah, because between those three things, you pretty much never have to throw anything.

And here's what I'll tell you, we have a lot of chickens at our farm. Actually, we have, we have chickens, ducks. Yeah, there's nothing they won't eat. Yeah, I mean, they are—

yeah, everything.

I didn't realize that until we had chickens.

Country, and of course it's wild that they gave chickens away to the, the people of the country, and they eliminated a large part of their landfill waste just just by people like generally owning chickens because they'd give them all their scraps. Belgium. There we go. Thanks.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, Belgium, they would just like— the government was like, just, you know, and they had this idea and it worked, you know.

It's so great, right?

I mean, and chickens, they're so easy. They don't need a lot of space and they're really easy to take care of.

They are really easy to take care of except for— let me just mention this. So I, I had some, uh, some friends of mine, they have chickens. In Tennessee, we have hawks, and they will come down and swoop and get the chickens. And our, our biggest issue at our— Jordan Rubin and I, we have a, the farm I was talking about down in South Tennessee, we have eagles, like bald eagles, and they will just come and— I mean, yeah, these chickens are— well, they're— I was going to say they're sitting ducks. We have ducks too, and they're actually chickens. But, but my point is, they just do not do well with the—

so outside of that though, yeah, yeah, for you to take care of, um, no, you know what, my coop has a, like, a top to it.

Yeah.

So I, you know, but if they're free-ranging, of course you're going to have the elements, you know, that's one of my chickens just got taken by a coyote though, because I let— yeah, so Las Vegas, I let my chickens out at certain times in the evening, usually as the sun is setting, and I let them go graze through the rest of the yard and pick through the grass and things like that. And one was gone because I forgot to close the coop.

We had a wild dog come out to our farm, and it wasn't a cow, it was just like a wild dog. Nobody owned it, and it, and it grabbed one of the chickens. Well, we have a water buffalo in there with it. Oh, and the water buffalo just ran up and rammed it and piledrove it into the ground and killed it. So I don't know if I should be saying this because then I'm going to hear from like, oh, you know, but, but that— well, that just happens on the farm. It happens. You had a wild— yeah, so it's, um, yeah, I was talking to my wife about this because we just— I'm so excited, we just bought a property and we're going to do a homestead. We're doing chickens, ducks, some, some cows, and, and big greenhouse garden, honeybees. So we are— oh, duper.

I want to have bees. Yeah, we are allergic to bees. I don't know if there's any cure to that, but I'm just— I'm not scared of honeybees at all. Yeah, I don't know, I think about that.

You said you're allergic to honey?

No, not honey.

Oh, bees. Bee stings.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, at least you can still have honey. At least you can still have honey.

Me, but I would be like anaphylactic or anything like that. But I do have an EpiPen, so yeah, yeah.

My sister-in-law, she's, she's allergic too, so. But, um, but, but we're so excited.

Do you think that they're like— is there any research or anything that you know of that's like a pos— like a way to expose children to like without stinging them? Or I wonder about that, you know.

Now you're saying about the food allergies, there's actually a technique for food allergies I love. It's called NAET, N-A-E-T. EFT. And it's something that a lot of acupuncturists do, where people— they'll do essentially an acupuncture treatment while having people hold on to, or have like a very— whether it's holding it or touching the thing that they are allergic to. And so I, I'm— there likely is somebody who's, who's a specialist in what you're sharing. Um, I don't know who it is off the top of my head.

Huh. I almost got my brain— there's got to be something, you know. Well, I mean, kids probably would have been stung by bees a lot earlier if we spent more time outside.

For sure. I, my grandpa— I was outside a lot growing up. I got stung constantly.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's just, you know, more indoor generation time. I think that these things become more problematic.

So yeah, this has been great talking. You know, I feel, you know, I, I, uh, one, I, I respect so much what you've done. It's been so amazing having the career you've had. But even more than the career you've had, um, man, I, I love your mindset growth and about family values and about all the things you're about. So I, I'm excited for phase 2 after this career, you know, what's next.

Thank you. I feel like chapter 2 is knocking on the door, and I'm already starting that transition, you know, with the Built for Growth podcast. And I'm, I'm so excited. I have had some fantastic guests. By the way, I would love to have you on the podcast.

Yeah, yeah, well, we'll find some time in the future.

Swap for sure. So let me know if you're ever out in Las Vegas. I prefer the sit-downs as well, but Um, you know, I've had Tim Kennedy, Nick Friedas, the glyphosate girl. I don't know if you follow Kelly, Kelly at all, Kelly Ryerson. She's, she's great.

Oh yeah, you know, I've see— I've seen some of her stuff.

Oh yeah, she talks a lot about, you know, glyphosates and the, the, you know, it's not labeled on our food, so it's really hard to understand where it is and how to avoid it, right? So, um, all these really important conversations that I'm having with great people who I would consider far smarter than I am, but I'm on a mission to grow every single day, you know. I don't want to live my life passively. I want to You know, go at things head on and, you know, if we fall down, then we just learn how to get back up, get stronger. We're gonna grow with a lot of things about mindset, a lot of things about nutrition and information that, you know, these experts such as yourself, you know, I mean, just being able to sit down and hear what you had to say about hypothyroidism for me is so beneficial. And you've spent years and years and years dedicating your life to the knowledge that you're able to just drop in a podcast that's gonna change people's lives. And that's what I wanna do with Built for Growth, very similar, you know, share stories and help people be informed and transformed.

I love it. Well, I'm excited to eventually be on. I'm excited to listen. And I want to encourage you guys, check out Misha's new podcast, brand new, Built for Growth. And, um, and I think, I think you're gonna love it. And, uh, hey, thanks so much for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this conversation. I've loved it. This is one of my, uh, you know, one of my favorites. I love being able to talk about things that really matter and impact us. Remember, on this show, we're constantly talking about physical health, but also the health of our mindset. And part of that is having a growth mindset, saying, I want to run to win the race, I want to give it my all. And it's been fun talking about that today as well. So, uh, hey, if you are, uh, not subscribed, make sure to subscribe here, listen, share. If you're watching on YouTube, we'd love to hear your comments. What was your favorite takeaway here from the podcast today here with Misha Tate? And again, don't forget to listen to her podcast. I think you're going to love that, and I'll be back next week. I can't wait to see you on the next show.