Debunking the stigma of CBD with Lizzy Renee

Michelle Lasley 0:02

Hi. This is Michelle Lasley with balanced shared a space where I truly believe we are better together.

My guest today is Lizzie Renee. She uses the pronouns she her hers. Lizzy is passionate about helping improve people's lives. Her focus is on natural living and reducing exposure to toxins and chemicals found in our environment, and processed food, personal care products and medicines. She was first inspired to keep her family above the wellness line by using plant based approaches when possible. She believes in modern medicine, but instead of it being her first resort, it is her second or third resort. She first attempts more holistic approach to her family's wellness. So Lizzie is the first person I've brought onto my podcast to talk about another kind of oil. Y'all know or you should know that I love essential oils. But today we're going to talk about CBD and hopefully debunk some of the stigma around it. Thank you, Lizzie, so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Oh great. So what does CBD stand for? CBD stands for cannabidiol. And what's confusing right off the bat is that kind of a dial is one of over 100 different cannabinoids in hemp, and cannabis. So CBD stands for just one. But really a good product, high quality you want all of the cbds although there's all different kinds, including THC is one of the cannabinoids. Okay, fascinating.

I want to go back to that. But first, you said that you were inspired to keep your family above a wellness line? What is a wellness line?

Lizzy Renee 1:46

Michelle Lasley 3:39

So our chemical life is something that is really important to me. And I have written about that. In some ways. There was a really fascinating Australian 30 minute documentary and I will link to my blog post in the show notes where I refer that out Yeah, and Ah, yes, yes. So that will be available to you and all our listeners. One of the things that I have found over the years is like a woman, for example, can put a conservatively 80,000 chemicals on her face, and her body with personal care products, the makeup, the whatever. So I'm going to share a personal story first, and I want to hear more about yours. So speaking to this chemical life, one of the things that we have chemicals in his food, right, so like food, dyes, gummy bears, gummy vitamins, that sort of thing. And when my son was five years old, we were noticing that he This was probably the start of some of his anxiety, but he was having attention challenges in the traditional kindergarten classroom and we had also noticed it when he was in preschool. So we hired a behaviorist to come in and work with us and she worked with the school and it was really great. She was able to help speak the teacher's language to help point out where maybe she was focusing on him when other children had been doing that same behavior. So there was some really awesome things that came out of that. And she also said, what kind of dyes are in your kid's diet. And we had been feeding him gummy vitamins. Like I've been interested in organic for a long time. But my husband isn't always on the same page. So we don't live a completely organic lifestyle. And sometimes budgets preclude you know, living completely organic, right. But we had noticed that for sure, there was a couple spaces where we could remove the red dye. So we did it was like, first of all, I think it was in his gummy vitamins that were given. So we thought we were doing the right thing by feeding him a vitamin. And it was loaded with this potential thing that was you know, maybe causing these attention issues. So we stopped the vitamins and we made sure to be really careful and not feed him any died foods for a solid 30 days. I think we started that in like September. So then Halloween came around, and he got you know, all his candy and he got a package of nerds and I tend to blend on the like get all the candy consumed. So then you don't have it lingering over days and days and days kind of thing. So the kid can still enjoy it. And then you're not

Lizzy Renee 6:09

any get sick, eat so much that you get sick and then make it disappear.

Michelle Lasley 6:12

Exactly, exactly. So he downed this entire container of nerds candy is just a standard little box, right? The next day, he broke out in a rash.

Lizzy Renee 6:25

Wow,

Michelle Lasley 6:26

the only difference was the red die, because we still would eat Oreos or brownies and things like that. So there was still sugar, and different things in our life, but no red dye until that day,

Lizzy Renee 6:38

I need to get you a podcast and on the podcast. It was a TED talk. And I need to go look up the woman's name. I don't remember what it was. But it was all about she is a psychologist trained psychologist and her son had the same problem with red dyes and yellow dyes. And they couldn't figure out what he ate. And it was like an an egg bagel or something that had yellow dye in it that they didn't realize they just you know, they were at the store. And they got lazy on reading things because they had really established a norm of what they bought and like, oh, some egg bagels, I'll just buy those. And they didn't read the ingredients, assuming that it's a bread product. So like, you know, you're not worried about bread products. No. And then it took them a couple days to figure out what his problem was. And so she is convinced of this problem. And what's really sad again, and it comes back to just where the focus is on the companies that we buy from where our dollars are spent. There's just in the medical community too. There's not enough kids, there's over on, you know, I want to say like 2 million kids or something that have ADHD. But it's not enough of the general population for it to drive a change yet those of us because my my 14 year old has ADHD as well. We really struggle. You know, it's it's a struggle.

Michelle Lasley 7:50

Lizzy Renee 8:27

Okay, I'm gonna just add one thing into that. And that's that I started with essential oils before CBD. And I feel like my pivot was with the essential oils. And let's do that as the marker. Yeah. Um, okay. And so you want the California or the American. So

Michelle Lasley 8:44

you, you and however you define health, and, and 10 being like you're on it, and you're doing the best you can possibly do to maintain health. Like, where do you think you were before you got on essential oils. And then now,

Lizzy Renee 8:58

I'm going to use the word clean, because I feel like I've always been relatively high, I don't think my health level has changed. If anything, it's gotten worse just because I'm older, and I don't have as much time to exercise. So but in terms of like the choices that I'm making about the types of products and everything we use, I would say I didn't pay attention at all into the cleanliness of it. It's like I've heard the term organic, but I didn't really know whether it was worth the money kind of thing. So I would say I was probably more like a three or a four. And now I would say I'm probably as much as I would like to say I'm a nine or a 10 I'm probably like a seven and a half or an eight and that's because I'm married to somebody who my husband actually does a lot of the shopping so that's a blessing in disguise. And we're very busy. And so the busy factor gets, you know, plays into that and we we live outside not during COVID but when it's not COVID we are relying on schools that feed our kids and we're relying on it we eat out of these I mean, we eat out a lot. I've been cooking more in the last we're on about what six weeks now of, of quarantine. Yeah, I've cooked more in the last six weeks than I have the last six years, I'm cooking three meals a day. It's crazy. But the quality of our food right now is, is really pretty good. So I it is you have to make and also the evolution in this I'm sure I'm gonna guess that you agree with us. But I feel like the evolution when people's you start talking about essential oils and CBD and making all these wonderful health changes. It's really overwhelming to people at first. And I think, well, I can't just change everything all at once, or that's gonna cost me so much money. I've always just said you start with one thing and you add on to it. So if you start first with treat using the essential oils, or the CBD to treat whatever your problem is that you're currently working on work on that and then let it expand. So my pivot was not overnight, it probably took a couple years, you know, and then I have to watch because sometimes things sneak back in Old habits die hard. It's like, Oh, yeah, I shouldn't have bought that I won't buy that again, and we still eat it. Or we still, you know, I really liked this shampoo. So I'm just going to use it. So things do sneak back in. So I'm not aiming for 100%. Because I think it just takes the fun out of life. But if I can control and make positive changes to that 80 plus percent in what I can control, then that's going to reduce my overall which would have been really bad. Yeah. Yes, control what you can and work from there. If I've reduced our risks of getting sick of having bigger chronic problems, not having to take allergy medication every single day for, you know, four or five months out of the year. If I can remove all of that with using plant based stuff that's not hard on my on my liver. And it's not hard on our bodies with the buildup that it can have been I've won. And I get an Advil every so often but a lot less because I try other things first.

Oh, absolutely. I still get headaches because I didn't sleep enough or I didn't drink enough water and right, you know, yeah, yes, absolutely. Try the essential oils first and whatever. And then and then if that still doesn't work, then you have the backup, because it's not about getting rid of Western medicine.

Right, exactly. And that's why I say it's my second or third choice instead of my first choice. And I would actually say since I wrote that bio of myself, it's probably more like the third or fourth choice like now I have more things in my arsenal. And I'm more patient with the process. And I have I just don't have as many things pop up anymore.

Can we highlight that more patient with the process? What do you mean by that?

Well, especially with essential oils, CBD too, they just take a little time to do a call it trial and error. Yeah, so with essential oils, you have 100 different oils available to you. And you may not own all of them when you first get started. So I always say buy the flexible ones. And you know, you can just use jockey around for what it is that it didn't work for this, but I'll work for that. You got to give it a try. And the great thing about essential oils is you get an immediate response if it's going to work, you know, that night did I sleep better? Okay, so you and then also when you're getting started both CBD and essential oils, you have to start slow and add up and build up. You don't want to just flood your body with the system your system with all of the stuff and be like, gosh, I'm having this weird reaction. What is it? What is it from I don't know, I tried four new essential oils today that you want to avoid that same with CBD, if you just start taking the full dose that you know I take 66 milligrams a day right now. And you don't want to start there that could upset your stomach. It's new, it's new to your body, your body needs to adjust so so I just say it takes trial and error. You got to figure it out with essential oils, you have to figure out which one is going to work and with CBD, it's about how much is going to work and you have to slowly build up the amount in your body.

So you get that magic number. Awesome. Okay, I want to take a super quick break and then I want to know why you landed on CBD oil. Okay. I love aligning my days with nature's rhythms and I made a tool to make it easier. I would like to introduce you to my moon deck. My moon deck is a perpetual calendar, a calendar that never expires. This 86 card deck with booklet will allow you to lay out your day week or month and overlay the sun and moon with the elements and with the celebrations from the Wheel of the Year. This tool drawn and created by me. Michelle Lasley will be your fun, whimsical and practical tool to see how nature and its rhythms can support you. If you want to learn more and get your own deck today, visit www dot Michelle lasley.com slash moon deck. I can't wait to help you align your time with nature and my perpetual calendar the moon deck

Welcome back. So you said that you started with essential oils. And then I think this happens to people in different ways when they start getting into the natural lifestyle, right. So like for me, it was actually learning to make soap and what goes into So why do we put all these things in and when you learn, then you're like, oh, soap really only needs to be three things like water and fat. And so why do we put all these other things in and whatever. And so so for me, that was like, my gateway essential oils are an amazing gateway because they smell good, right? And you can do different things with them. And it can be just so amazing. But you kept going. And so can you just kind of explain that journey?

Yeah, like what are some of the things that you thought of and have heard about CBD?

Well, the the stuff you hear before you're educated is or you think is Oh, I'm gonna get high from this. If I take this product, I'm going to get stoned and Okay, I'll admit I had my days where I know what that's like. And all I do is eat and I can't think straight and I like to sleep does not go well for you know, being a responsible mom doesn't and I've been an employee like that that can add up. So that's what was in my head like I didn't want I was afraid of getting high. So I really liked the idea of 0.00% THC product. Now in the beginning of my of my journey on this, I did not understand how important THC is to the success of your CBD. Okay, so it's kind of confusing, right? So that it's in my bottle at trace amounts. So it's 0.00 to sort the hundredths level of THC but there's just a tiny bit in there and we have our body has what's called an endocannabinoid system. So that's just like our respiratory system, our digestive system, like our reproductive system, well we actually have an endocannabinoid system. And that system is in charge of making a chemical similar to CBD. It's the plant version is slightly different than the the animal version, right? But it can supplement and use it the same way. So our bodies making it and we have receptors all over our body. So I think of this as little Pac man's and a little Pac Man is wants to eat the CBD that goes by in the bloodstream, okay, and Pac Man is sitting on my brain, on my, in my lungs all over every major organ has its own pac man that's in charge of jumping on the proper CBD that it needs that it can take in to keep your body working properly. So we have this endocannabinoid system that is in charge of keeping everything happy, and the THC. So again, when we talked about the quality of product as a term you'll hear in the CBD world, which is called full spectrum. And that means they've used the entire plant, and it has all 100 plus cannabinoids found in hemp and marijuana. Okay? Now hemp has a different makeup than marijuana, they have different different amounts of things. So let's focus on hemp. That's the product most people want. That's what's legal in all 50 states. And so our bodies are taking it up. Well, if Pac Man is sitting there with the limited amount that our bodies make, and it's off kilter, because our body isn't making enough and the plant version of the CBD comes by, he's like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what that is, that's something new and he kind of skips over it, where the THC will come in and say, Hey, dude, wake up, wake up and get ready some stuffs coming your way that you're going to want. And it like perked up the little, little receptors so that it grabs on to the CBD faster. So what you find is, and the clients of mine who are marijuana users, they use the product and they noticed the results immediately because their body is primed with a bunch of THC in it. Now I'm not recommending that for everybody can still get the effect, you just have to wait a couple days to see how it's gonna work. So with the product that I use, and having very trace amounts of THC in there, it makes people comfortable to get started. But it takes a little longer to figure out how much does my body need for Pac Man to stop wobbling and to be like, oh, cool, I'm happy I have what I need and then I can calm down whatever organ isn't getting what it needs in the body.

So you used it then to help support a healthy inflammation response in your back.

And he doesn't have the 2pm slump?

Nope, neither of us do. If If one of us is tired, two or three o'clock in the afternoon, we say it to each other. The other one always says, Did you forget your CBD today? And the answer is usually Yes.

Wow. That's amazing. Okay, so you had so many amazing things that happened with us, right? And you were able to like, go really full force into this much more natural lifestyle. So that just feels more balanced. And all those great things. Right? more control. So you know, yeah, like, as you indicated, at the time of this recording, we're all in quarantine. And one of the reasons I love having my natural solutions, whatever they are, are, it helps to even support what our governments are saying what we should do, right? You don't have to go run out to the store, because you've got a system in place where you get your natural solutions, or you have them. And so there's more control and more sovereignty over our health, so many things. So you wrote a book

I did.

It's called 52 tips using CBD for your health and wellness. And we'll put a link to that in the show notes.

Perfect.

So tell me more about this book.

Oh, that's beautiful. You

that's another episode. We'll get it. Yeah.

We can talk about that for hours. But again, but it comes down to the stigma. She was comfortable taking it herself, but she was not comfortable telling her doctor. I mean, we all listen to our doctors, we all kind of like it's like kind of like praise to the doctors. But I'm hearing more and more about how doctors get like less than a friend of mine who's a psycho psychologist. He's not a science. He's a psychologist said his understanding is they spend like 30 hours on mental health in in terms of instruction in medical school. Same with nutrition, I saw something recently that it was less than 50 hours on nutrition. It's like a very small snippets. And they understand how the body like how the body works. And they understand a lot of disease and how to diagnose different stuff. But I don't believe our doctors are really training at the root level, which is feed our body good stuff to stop things. It's like I'll just give them we just learn how to diagnose and then what medications treat that. And it's just sort of seems like we're on our medical system is going now I am No, I've never been through medical school. I can't I mean, there's just like hearsay type of stuff. But it kind of makes some sense, especially when the doctors are so hesitant to even talk to you about CBD or blessing.

Yeah, there's a lot of things to unpack there with the stigma of power and control and the education. I think we can narrow down maybe two things, one, any of those types of jobs, even lawyering, right, doctors, they call a practice for a reason.

That's a good point. Very good point.

And then the point of self advocating, and, and doing our own research and asking questions and challenging our doctors like, Okay, I get it. And this is the research I've done. Can you take a look at it? And can we have a conversation about my health, please?

wanted to just share, like if your thyroid was over or under active?

I don't remember.

Do you remember the name they gave to your thyroid problem?

No. Okay.

I have graves disease.

I think I'm I think I'm under. Most people asked about I think I'm under because when I asked about increasing the dose, he said, I'm afraid I don't want you to become hyper. So I must be hypo.

Yeah, I should be reluctant. With my saying most, it feels like many of the people I encounter have under active thyroid, or hashimotos, which is the autoimmune version of an underactive thyroid, I actually have graves disease in remission, which is the opposite of hyper active. Graves disease is the autoimmune version of that. So you were having these thyroid issues probably under and then what?

Right if that. And we could ask our doctors to like, Are you open to natural solutions? And if they just give you a hard No, thanks so much for the conversation.

awesome. Okay. Ah, I would like to invite you back so we can talk about any number of the things that we could have spin off on, we could have our own little podcast book of all the topics. And anyway, so but what are two things that people can do right now to get started successfully

with CVD I have two tips that I always give these are my two number one tips. One is make sure you're using quality products. And that my book can help you with my facebook group on thriving by nature. Now. Join me there I have all the tips in there to get quality product and the second is take the patience and the time to figure out the right amount. And if you get the quality product and the right amount then it is your endocannabinoid system that's starving for more CBD. And it could not work if your if your cbds are not low in your body. It's not going to fill that gap but most of us are deficient in the amount of CBD. That's in our bodies. so fascinating.

Where else can people find you?

And my website is Lizzie Renee calm and so that has all different ways to get a hold of me and my facebook group and then my book is on Amazon so you're welcome to read that. Feel free to email me message me through Facebook. I'm I'm around I love talking about CBD and I love talking about essential oils. Natural approaches. I'm all for helping people get started.

Oh, thank you. I'm so glad you joined me today. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

Balance shared is produced and edited by me. Michelle Lasley. The instrumental music grass by Silent Partner is from the YouTube Audio Library. If you've enjoyed today's episode, leave a review, especially on Apple podcasts. If you love the messages of CO creating a better future and digging into ourselves, maybe you'd like to become a supporter. Email Hello at Michelle lasley.com to get your sponsorship guide. Thank you for listening to this podcast. This is Michelle Lasley with bounce shared, a space where I truly believe we are better together.

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