Believe Big Podcast

65-Wendy Massey - The Benefits of an Anti-Inflammatory Diet

• Ivelisse Page & Wendy Massey • Season 2 • Episode 65

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Does nutrition matter?  Can nutrition play a key role in a person’s healing journey and overall health?

The answer is YES!

Today’s podcast episode features Wendy Massey, an author and holistic health expert.  Wendy discusses the benefits of an anti-inflammatory diet and its impact on health.  She demonstrates through family members’ personal experiences that nutrition, when approached from a healing standpoint, can do just that - HEAL.

Listen in and learn about the foods that can contribute to the body’s wellness and take note of some of the simple changes you can make today to begin your path to better nutrition and healing.

Connect with Wendy Massey at Massey Wellness:
https://masseywellness.com/

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Ivelisse Page:

Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page, and thanks for listening to the Believe Big Podcast, the show where we take a deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders, and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page, and it's an honor to spend this time with you. In today's episode, we'll be discussing the benefits of an anti inflammatory diet and how it can help you regain your health. Many people suffer from inflammation related health issues such as arthritis, allergies, and we share about on this podcast, cancer. Wendy Massey is here with some simple changes you can make to your diet that will help you reduce inflammation and improve your overall health. Wendy was an emergency and trauma nurse for nearly two decades and returned to school to obtain a degree in holistic health sciences and is currently pursuing her PhD in integrative medicine. She is the owner of Massey Wellness that helps people see the power they have to heal themselves by utilizing proper nutrition. She recently published her first book called The Ultimate Meal Prep Guide to Simplify Clean Eating. Welcome, Wendy to the show.

Wendy Massey:

Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.

Ivelisse Page:

We always like to start our show with our guest's favorite health tip. I know you have many, but can you share one with us?

Wendy Massey:

Yes, my absolute favorite one and the foundation for everything I teach is to eat what God has given us. If you stick to eating the natural foods that he already provided us on this earth, there's the majority of your inflammation problems right there already solved.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, I completely agree. And I really have come back to that again after this recent diagnosis and reevaluating everything that I've been eating. And I've always, I eat, ate pretty clean and reduce the amount of added sugars and things like that. But, really focusing on whole foods and really using those things and minimizing packaged food, even healthy ones. So I think that is such a good tip and a great reminder for us to just eat whole foods. You know, many of the practitioners that I speak with have reasons for entering the integrative medicine world. Your journey began with your son's health journey. Can you just quickly, just briefly share a little bit about that because people are always wondering, you know, what caused you to go into this integrative medicine side?

Wendy Massey:

Absolutely. So my son, who is now 30, which he's getting old, I'm not. When he was 18 was suddenly diagnosed as a type one diabetic. And he was managing that beautifully, but then developed a horrible GI condition, which we now know as Celiacs. But we went through nine months of doctor after doctor, just throwing medicine at him. And here I was an emergency and trauma nurse, and I just hung on every word, with pills and procedures and it dawned on me one day that not one of them asked him about asked us what he was eating. And so when I all of a sudden had this big awakening and I started contemplating what did I learn in nursing school about food? I got about three weeks of food pyramid stuff. And I started looking at what the medical schools taught and they taught less than we learned. So that became my passion. I was able to learn a whole lot more about clean eating, clean nutrition. I did my own elimination diet with him. He was my first Guinea pig. And, in five weeks time, my six foot one kid who had gotten down to 118 pounds, he had gotten so sick and was practically bedridden. But in five weeks time, we got him off all of his medicine except for his insulin and he was running a 10k. And I watched the power of food in five weeks turn his life around. And I knew then that was my calling, that I had to help people because we weren't taught that in the medical world.

Ivelisse Page:

No, and then later your husband was diagnosed with cancer and one of the tools you also used with him to help him was the low inflammatory nutrient rich diet. Can you share how that helped him and his cancer diagnosis?

Wendy Massey:

Yes, absolutely. He was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Luckily, it was stage two when we found it, so it was not very far progressed, but I was able to give him at home when he wasn't able to protest because he was pretty much staying in the bed. I took control, only gave him the whole foods. I also was a lot more focused on an alkaline diet. This was really the only thing he protested is I gave him a lot less meat than he normally would eat, but his doctors at the end of his treatment, he had to go through chemo and radiation, but at the end of his treatment his doctors credited the way he was eating with how incredibly quickly he healed. They said they'd never seen healing like it. I'm a big believer of even just the the eight weeks that we were really strict with him. What a massive impact that had.

Ivelisse Page:

And so many well meaning oncologists, they share with patients to eat whatever they want. They really care about patients, and I truly believe that, and I think their main concern is that a patient's gonna lose too much weight to be able to handle the treatments, and if they got some nutrition training in medical school, like you share, that they have less than maybe a week's course. It's changing now, but it's still a very slow introduction into what is actually good nutrition and good foods for patients, which is why we have to be our own advocates or be advocates for our loved ones. What was your response to that question when the doctors, or well-meaning friends would tell you that?

Wendy Massey:

Very well meaning friends would say, oh, he has cancer. Let him eat whatever he wants. And I was like, no, he has cancer it's time to heal. So the thought process of people not realizing what a huge impact food has, it's a societal thing, just give them the comfort foods, let them have all this stuff and I joke and say that he protested. He really didn't. He wanted to heal as badly as I wanted him to heal. But when you realize that food is medicine and you treat it as such. It's life changing. It's life giving. It truly is. And quite honestly, that was a big thing when we were interviewing doctors, as I know you all have been through this. When we were interviewing oncologists for him, if they saw zero reason to be concerned about diet, we kept going. We kept finding one that did understand that that was a huge impact, and makes a big difference.

Ivelisse Page:

That is so important. It gets discouraging when you meet with someone and they're so closed minded and thinking, it's my way or the highway. And I love physicians. My surgeon this go around was that same way. And, he says, he said something to me that was really interesting too. He goes, sometimes we have to make sure we don't impose our preferences on our patients, and that we are actually a partnership. And I love that they said, you can find those, that was one of the things that concerned me most was all of my contacts were on the East Coast. And how was I going to find someone here in Colorado since I was so new, that would really be a team player. And Jimmy and I, thankfully we interviewed two that were excellent. They both were team players and I was just so encouraged by that. So no matter where you are in the country, keep interviewing, keep going to find a different hospital. You will find those individuals who can be a part of this team and be a team player for you. And like you said, you know, we want to starve the tumor, not feed it with things that our society say are comfort foods. So, I really love that. Now, how did you find your oncology team that would not discourage or dismiss your nutrition work? Do you just ask them that question in the initial consult or, did you know ahead of time that they were open to it?

Wendy Massey:

I didn't. We asked the questions and actually it's really funny because my husband, of course, at the time was pretty overwhelmed with his diagnosis. But the one question that he asked, everything else he wanted hands off, he said, my wife is handling this because he just mentally was not ready for that. But the one question every time we walked into an office was, I need to know you're the, you are going to be willing to partner with my wife. He said, if you don't see her as a partner and my advocate, then this relationship isn't going to work. And he was just very frank and upfront with them. And we had a couple that were just like, no, I've done this for years and were very close minded. And so we just kept going. But luckily at Johns Hopkins, and I know you have a history there of working with some of those doctors, we had fantastic options. We didn't meet too much resistance.

Ivelisse Page:

That is great. And so share with us what happened in five to six short weeks. I know that they were all shocked over his rapid progress in his tumor decreasing and all of that. But what was it that they said for him? What was expected and then what did he experience?

Wendy Massey:

For him, the tumor size shrank at just such quick growth. I'm trying to think of the word. The tumor reduced.

Ivelisse Page:

Within a short time period.

Wendy Massey:

Yes, the tumor reduced a lot quicker than they anticipated and our radiation oncologist had prepared us because part of his tumor, unfortunately, was external and he had prepared us for, hey, some of this is still going to be a factor. There's still going to be things that may be we'll have to do surgically. And miracle of all miracles, they were just mind blown week after week as they were measuring the tumor. And just, they said that this is not only reacting to the radiation, it is most definitely reacting from within. And his chemo was something that they weren't even crediting with it. They said that the chemo that they had given him was more focused on preventing spread versus what we were actually working on with the tumor. So they said that the only answer that they could give for how quickly it was shrinking was the way that he was feeding his body.

Ivelisse Page:

That's incredible. And this not only occurred with your husband, but also his best friend who had multiple myeloma. What occurred with him?

Wendy Massey:

Yes. So that's a much longer process, unfortunately, but he had many tests that were showing just all kinds of cell growth, cell division that was not not normal. And, his wife my best friend she just came to me and she said, okay, what do we do? I had them on a full alkaline diet and she did it with him being the supportive wife. And the doctors, when it came time for him to have his transplant, he had to have bone marrow transplant. When it came time for it, they actually ended up putting it off for a while because they couldn't believe that his tumor markers were completely disappearing. They were decreasing rapidly. Some of the tumor markers they were looking for were completely disappearing. It was just incredible. And unfortunately, he had a team that was not as much believers in the food being a factor, but my best friend kept saying, no, I know that's what this is.

Ivelisse Page:

I love that. And so can you share with those who are listening with us today, what is an anti inflammatory nutrient rich diet and how does that differ from other diets that are out there?

Wendy Massey:

So the biggest thing that I advocate is the whole foods for sure. I don't recommend any of the chemicals when you're seeing. If you do buy anything in a box, you gotta read the ingredients. I try and make as much as I can at home, but obviously that isn't always practical. So sometimes you do grab something in a box, but you gotta read those ingredients. Cause even something as simple, a lot of people don't realize the word natural flavors isn't natural. The EWG, uh, Environmental Working Group, who I love. They will tell you that they can have over a hundred chemicals in any single natural flavor. So even something that simple can make such a difference. When you are consuming the foods that God created us to consume, our liver knows what to do with it. Our liver is our body's filter that is filtering our blood every six seconds. And if our liver is getting gummed up trying to figure out, what is all this mess that they're putting in my body? You're giving it so much more work to have to do. So, that is the the biggest factor. I do not advocate high protein. I have no problem with meat. I eat meat. I am really big on pasture raised and getting good quality protein. But all of these diets out there that recommend, 200 grams of protein, 300 grams of protein, they are not good for your liver, for your kidneys. Everything that your body needs to function, you can generally do in about 60 to 80 grams of protein for most, I'd say for most women. Now, a heavy weightlifter, you may need more. Men you might need up to a hundred grams. But, a lot of people get hung up on these real high protein diets and they're also not healthy. And then finally, the biggest thing, I'm very fiber focused. So if you are not eating the added sugars, if you're once in a blue moon treating yourself with something that has organic maple syrup or raw local honey or something, there's nothing wrong with that, but have a diet that's super fiber rich, and you're not going to have the cravings, you're not going to have the hunger, you're going to get all the food you need, and you're not going to overeat. It's just a beautiful balance of all these great foods that God has given us and it's healing.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. So for those who have never heard of this before, because some people you know, this might be their first time hearing about a low anti inflammatory diet. What would be like five anti inflammatory, favorite foods of yours, and what would be five of your inflammatory things that definitely stay away from?

Wendy Massey:

Sure. My favorite, uh, and everybody always laughs whenever they hear me say, my answer to everything's avocado. I love avocados, very anti inflammatory and high fiber, high in healthy fats. Raspberries are amazing. They're a wonderful high fiber fruit. Believe it or not, I'm a big fan of sunflower seed butter for people who just gotta have the peanut butter or the special treat of something like that, sunflower seed butter is such a great option. Let's see, coconut. You can make your own coconut yogurt if you have trouble finding some good ones in the store, though there are some really good brands too, um, or just coconut itself, coconut milk. Coconut is just so rich in anti inflammatory properties as well as good healthy fats. And I think that's four. Did I say four or five?

Ivelisse Page:

Those are great. And no, that's good. Those just give some ideas. And what about inflammatory things? Like, I know one of the biggest things that people don't realize is the seed oils and what things are cooked in. Seed oils are very high in causing inflammation in your body. What are some other things?

Wendy Massey:

Yes. Another oil that a lot of people don't realize is canola. They assume that canola, you know, it's been billed as this healthy fat or this heart healthy oil. And canola isn't even a plant that was originally created on this earth. It stands for Canada oil low acid. So it's from the the genetically modified grapeseed plant. So, you know, anything like that, that's been created by man, I don't recommend. Maltodextrin is something a lot of people don't realize that, is an ingredient in a lot of foods, not only is it a zero calorie sweetener, so it's put in a lot of our quote unquote health foods, the boxed foods, but it also has real high addictive properties and the companies know this. So they will use maltodextrin and you know, you think you're doing okay eating this one gluten-free cookie that came out of a box. But what happens is you want eight, you know, you don't want one of them.

Ivelisse Page:

Wow. Yeah, those are some really good tips. So can you share with us, how long have, in your experience, typically to see improvements in health after starting an anti inflammatory diet?

Wendy Massey:

Oh my goodness, it will blow your mind. I I oftentimes will do free four day programs with people because even by day four, so many people are already feeling it. Oftentimes day two, they're calling me and they're going, Wendy, I can't believe this. I, I have energy. I slept last night for the first time through the night. A lot of times if they're on medicine, I'll have them say, I don't know what happened, but I got dizzy this morning and then I find out they were on blood pressure medicine and I'm like, guess what? You probably don't need to be on that much blood pressure medicine. If you keep this up, you want to let your doctor know, or their blood sugar, you know, same thing. So, uh, it can happen in a matter of days. I've never had a single person that I work with that has gone beyond 10 days of not feeling marked improvement. And, I always say those are usually my heavy soda drinkers that have to go through a withdrawal period and they they might not feel their best.

Ivelisse Page:

And you've worked with countless of clients by using clean nutrition to eliminate the inflammatory process. Can you share how you do this practically?

Wendy Massey:

I work with everybody virtually for the most part, but I take them through a two week detox period. And, I always tell people not to fear. There's a lot of food options. They aren't just licking lettuce leaves. There's lots to choose from. But I give them meal plans as well as a food list for them to choose from. We do that for two weeks. And then I take them through four weeks of a slow reintroduction of otherwise healthy foods that could potentially be inflammatory triggers. Cause what a lot of people don't understand is while maybe everybody should be gluten free, soy free, no processed foods, there's a lot of people that have inflammatory reactions to nightshade veggies, to grains, to eggs, you know, to nuts, to dairy. So I I test people on seven different categories of otherwise healthy foods and just to make sure that there's nothing else we're keeping in their diet that would otherwise cause them inflammation. And once we get on the other side of that, I get their balance, their macros balanced out just to help them reach whatever goals they have. But the biggest part is that first six week window where we're taking them through that process to see exactly how their body responds to different foods.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great. So this is a big one. How can someone maintain a clean eating lifestyle when eating out or traveling? I mean, it's going to happen. It's part of life. We don't go out that often, but what we do, like, what are some of your tips to help people to be able to go out with their friends and make a wise choice? Or when you're traveling, which is inevitable, what are some ways that you can continue to maintain a healthy lifestyle, eatingwise?

Wendy Massey:

That is a great question and a big question that I get all the time. So, um, believe it or not, there's usually a lot of options when you go out. Your best options are always going to be at non chain restaurants. So if you go someplace that is a mom and pop restaurant, you're going to have a lot more options usually at those places. There are options at chain restaurants, but you gotta realize at these chain restaurants bring their food in the cheapest that they can get away with to the masses and keep them frozen for who knows how long, you know, before they actually get served up. So if you're dealing with a mom and pop, a lot of times they're shopping locally. They're shopping for better quality because they want their name to be well known in the area and for people to come to them. I also always recommend, even though I don't have a problem with certain starchy foods when you're fixing them at home. You know, like the occasional potato or sweet potato or things like that. Usually when you go out, I recommend stick with the protein and the veggie. Stick with a piece of salmon and some steamed broccoli. They can't do but so much to that. Is it possible? Sure. I also ask questions. I stopped feeling bad asking, what do you guys cook this in? What oil do you use? And again, if you're dealing with a mom and pop restaurant, a lot of times if you say, hey, do you all mind not cooking mine in that oil? They'll do it. So, you know, it's just a matter of not being afraid to ask a few questions and usually just sticking with the protein and the veggie. And you'll have lots of options at most restaurants.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great. And what about when you're traveling, do you bring things with you? How do you, how can you travel smart when you're traveling by plane and you can't take it with you in a car?

Wendy Massey:

Sure, sure. When I'm traveling by plane, I actually will still pack stuff. Believe it or not, a lot of people don't realize this, but the airlines will let you bring hard boiled eggs, they'll let you bring things that, depending on of course, how long your flight is, let you bring little things of trail mix that you've made yourself. They'll let you bring a homemade sandwich if you've made your own bread or whatever. But I will bring things for that day if I know I'm going to be on a flight because the peanuts that they hand me or the snack mix that they hand me in the plane is not going to happen. And if you want to buy something after you've gotten through security you're going to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it. So I just put it with me through, security, as long as it's not something that's liquid, they let you bring stuff. Now when you're traveling and your destination is an Airbnb that has a kitchen, that's always my preference. I know that's not always practical for everybody, but that's become mine and my husband's favorite thing to do is no matter where we go, we don't do hotels anymore unless they happen to have a kitchenette. We do Airbnbs and get kitchens and we don't have any trouble finding places where we want to be, whether it be on the water somewhere or, Duval Street in Key West or whatever we're doing, we can always find a place that has a kitchen and that's been really helpful.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, I agree. We do the same. And what's really nice is a little tip for people if they didn't realize this Instacart. You pay a yearly fee and this is not an, I'm not, being paid by them or anything, but I just love it because no matter where we travel, they can Instacart groceries to the house. And even if we don't have a car and we're Ubering to the house or wherever it may be, they deliver it right to the front door. All these healthy vegetables from local grocery stores that are there, whether it's a Whole Foods or Sprouts or whatever is around that area. So I love that. And you have your groceries waiting for you. You don't have to go out and spend time out of your vacation to shop. It's already done ahead of time. So that's a great tip. And I love using VRBOs for that reason. To cook our own foods and make our own coffee and have some healthy options.

Wendy Massey:

We actually did the same thing in Key West. We traveled with four other couples and we did that. We would set up a big Instacart and they would just deliver everything every couple of days. It was wonderful. So yes, I'm in agreement.

Ivelisse Page:

Well, I read your book. And I just love it. You made really easy ways that we can all simplify the clean eating lifestyle. And I think that is the biggest hurdle for people is, even now when I'm adjusting things that I'm eating and, tweaking it during this healing period, it can be overwhelming looking through cookbooks and how do I practically do this and afford it? And you share so many great tips in your book. And we're going to put the link in so that people can grab that after they listen to the podcast, but can you share a few with us?

Wendy Massey:

Sure, sure. So the biggest one that I based my book on, though it's all on clean eating as a focus, is to meal prep once a month. And a lot of people hear that and they're like, why in the world would I want to do that? It is such a huge time saver. What's the one thing that is your biggest barrier to eating healthy? Most people will tell you, I don't have time. And I break it down in the book where I show you that the average American spends 33 hours in the kitchen a month. If you spend just four to six hours, I say four, but let's be realistic, the first time you do this, it's going to take you a couple extra hours. But if you spent an average of four to six hours once a month. And I show you how easy it is to do it with very systematically preparing out some freezer meals, big batch of soup, some snacks, smoothies, but I show you how to do all this. And if you do that once a month for four hours and then spend an average of 10 minutes a day, the rest of the month in the kitchen. And I show you how this is possible. Then you have now reduced your 33 hours a month to nine hours a month. And you just got 24 hours of your life back. And I'm telling you, we don't eat poorly. These freezer meals I set up are raw. So when you're cooking them, I have one in there cooking right now. I have lemon and garlic chicken with green beans cooking in my crock pot right now. And I froze it raw. So today is the first day it's being cooked. So it doesn't taste like leftovers because it's not. And so you just have this amazing meal to feed your family with leftovers for a couple days if that's what you have available. And you're eating like a king and queen for the month and you don't have to think about it. So it's really a huge impact and it's a huge impact financially because I teach you to shop your pantry first. But also you don't have those days of, oh, we don't have anything to eat, let's just go through the McDonald's drive thru or, oh, we don't have anything to eat, so let's order Chinese. You're not going to choose healthy. You're not going to choose low cost options. So it adds up.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, that is great advice. And one of them that I'm going to be doing for Jimmy is the smoothie ingredients in packets. Like he, he has his protein smoothies every day. And so to have those, instead of pulling everything out every single day, and I use the little silicone baggies that you can get at Whole Foods or in grocery stores that, so it's not plastic, or you can put it in glass containers, however you do it. But by putting them into these little packets, it just makes it so much simpler and easy on time to do it one time, instead of every day pulling everything out every time. So I love that idea in the book that you had shared too. So Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think would be really helpful for those listening today to know before we close our show?

Wendy Massey:

I would just say don't let this lifestyle overwhelm you. That's the number one thing I hear at the beginning is I don't know where to start. I don't know. It's too much. I I don't know how to get started. If you just start with reading those labels, it gets easier. It really gets easier and give yourself grace. I can tell you right now, I'm 12 years into this and I still learn things every single day. I still find ingredients that I'm like, What the heck is that? I've never heard of that one. So, I mean, it is absolutely an expected learning curve. So give yourself some grace, just make the mental commitment that this is something you need for your health and just start chewing that elephant one bite at a time and you will make massive strides in your health.

Ivelisse Page:

That's great advice. Yes. One step at a time. Don't get overwhelmed with the whole picture, pick seven recipes, whole food recipes, and you share a lot of that in your book as well. So Wendy, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share with us this, your story, your family story, but really encouraging those who are listening today that today can be the day that you turn a new leaf of healthy eating, a healthy lifestyle, and things that actually taste good and are good for you. So, I so appreciate you and your friendship and thank you again for joining us.

Wendy Massey:

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Ivelisse Page:

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