A Personalized Approach to Health: Understanding Your Genetic Blueprint with Becca Roses

Have you ever felt like you’re doing everything right— eating healthy, working out, trying all the wellness trends — and still not getting the results you want?

In this episode, we’re diving into one of the most powerful (and often misunderstood) pieces of the health puzzle: your genetics and epigenetics. We sit down with certified epigenetics coach, Becca Roses, to break down how your body is uniquely designed — and why there is no one-size-fits-all approach to wellness. 

Together, we explore the difference between the genes you’re born with and how your lifestyle, environment, and mindset influence how those genes are expressed. Because here’s the truth most women aren’t told: your body isn’t working against you — it’s responding to the inputs it’s being given.

This conversation cuts through the noise of modern wellness culture — the rigid rules, the extreme protocols, the “this worked for me so it should work for you” messaging — and replaces it with something far more empowering: bio-individuality.

You’ll walk away understanding that true health isn’t about restriction or forcing your body into someone else’s formula… it’s about learning how to support your body in a way that actually works for you.

We also dive into:

* How stress, sleep, nutrition, and mindset directly impact your gene expression
* Why you have more control over your health than you’ve been led to believe
* Why the seemingly healthy things you are doing regularly might be having a negative impact on your health

If you’ve ever felt stuck, frustrated, or like you’re constantly starting over… this episode will help you reconnect with your body, trust your path, and move forward with clarity.

Because the goal isn’t to do more.
It’s to do what works — for you.

Connect with Becca: 

Links: www.mindbodygenes.com
IG: @mindbodygenes

Get in touch with us!

Sarah:
Instagram: @simply.well.nourished
Website: www.simplywellnourished.co

Melissa:
Instagram: @rootedrocker
Website: www.rootedwellness.care

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Disclaimer:

This podcast is for educational purposes only. We are not medical doctors, and this content is not medical advice. Always consult your qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your diet, lifestyle, supplements, or medical treatment.

© 2025 Sarah Dalton and Melissa Rocker

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today, our guest is Becca Roses. She's the founder of Mind Body Genes, an epigenetics education and genetic testing platform for wellness practitioners and clients. She specializes in translating complex genetic data into practical lifestyle-based strategies that support hormone balance, gut health, inflammation, and long-term vitality. Through practitioner training, certification, and personalized genetic blueprints, Becca helps professionals confidently integrate genetics into their work while empowering individuals and families to make informed, sustainable health decisions. You guys, this conversation with Becca was beyond eye-opening for me personally. And just it really resonated so deeply on so many levels. And as I told her repeatedly, we definitely align with just kind of the view on health overall. It's holistic health, it's personalized, it's really looking at the root and getting to, yeah, getting to the root of how we are designed. So also bioindividuality and the power of knowledge as opposed to the overload of information, right? So really understanding our body, how our body is uniquely designed, and then pairing that knowledge with the choices that we make on a regular basis to support and how those genes are expressed, right? So this was such a full conversation. And what I love about Becca and Melissa, as we do, there's always a layer deeper. So we keep kind of getting deeper. We talk about all the different panels that they run and they look at hormones, sleep, stress patterns, nutrition, so and beyond, so many more than that. So really getting clear for you what are your patterns? How is your body designed to, for example, handle carbs or intense exercise? So many things where in a world where there's so much noise in the health and wellness field and just in general, it really cuts through the noise. Being armed with this information and this knowledge, it's so, so helpful. So I am personally excited as a practitioner to continue to learn and to continue to begin to integrate this into our practice and our program because there's so much value in what she's gonna share. So as you can tell, I'm super pumped for you guys to listen. So enjoy the episode. Becca, we are very excited to welcome you to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here with us, for reaching out. Like I said, I think this is such an incredible fit, a match of, and it's gonna be an incredible conversation. So we're excited to have you here. Thank you. Thank you, Sunidh, for having me. Yeah, let's just dive right in because I honestly feel like there's so much to get into. There's so many, so many questions and so many good nuggets that I know are just coming our way. So if you want to just start with, again, we kind of did the official bio, but uh in your own words, what brought you to genetics? That's such a big, such a big thing, genetics and epigenetics.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Yeah, my story is so funny. So my name is Becca. Thank you for introducing me. Um, outside of my work, I'm also a mom of three. So a busy, busy woman, as most of you can relate. I am the founder of Mind Body Genes. That was that was kind of a happen chance. Like how I got into genetics was so random. It was my own healing journey that really led me there. My background before that was in hospitality and food and wine and all the things. And I like to say I got to tiptoe into nutrition through that because we studied food science. Like it was literally like we had to memorize everything. We had to know how food reacted with everything, our bodies, all of that. But my background was never in the traditional wellness sense. I was always very wellness obsessed. I had my son in 2011, my first kid, and I was like the lady that was like, okay, no more chemicals in the house. We gotta sort out everything. Like that was my, I was just like naturally inclined to that. My husband's from Oregon, so he was already a little like crunchy, no, even before we knew that was cool. And we just kind of lived that way. And then in 2020, I had a diagnosis with Hashimoto's and some issues with my thyroid after I had my third kid. And I was like, okay, this is not an accident. Like something has been going on behind the scenes for years. I was in chronic stress and burnout from my career working mom 50, 60 hours a week, opening locations, training large teams. It was a lot on my body. And I found a lot of functional medicine solutions that really, really helped me in my thyroid journey, right? It helped me to, you know, heal and get better and put that in remission through some tools. And one of those tools that I found along the way was actually epigenetics. And I found it randomly on Instagram and was like, saw somebody that was doing blueprints, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do it because I keep shelling out lots of money and testing every six months. And every time it's like, oh, everything looks fantastic. Let's just, you know, but not feeling fantastic still. And let's just keep, you know, shelling out for the Dutch testing, for the food sensitivity testing, and just like keep throwing spaghetti at the wall. That is what I say all the time. Like, that is what I was doing. And I was too busy for that, right? Three kids, like busy life, like husband works, I worked. It was just a lot. And so when I found epigenetics, the short version of it is I just fell in love. And it helped me so much. It helped me to learn that all the answers were already inside of me and I didn't need to keep looking outside of myself for answers. And so I used it to really heal, really put my healing journey further, put it in remission, never went back out of remission. Like I've been in remission since 2021. And really, it just opened my eyes to this whole new world of wellness. And I literally did an Enneagram 3 thing. And I said, screw it. I'm gonna go back to school. I'm gonna learn. We were like still in kind of COVID time. So I went back to school online. I learned everything I needed to know about epigenetics. I got double certified in it. I trained under this medical doctor, and it was incredible. I felt like I was in medical school. And then afterwards, I was like, even if I just help my friends and family, I'm gonna make a business out of this. And that's how Mind Body Jeans was born. And then fast forward to now, 2026, it's like doing more than I thought it would do in terms of like now we're training practitioners. Now we're like getting this technology out into clinics and even like hair spas and salons and people that can like actually use the data to help their clients no matter what they help them with, whether it's skin aesthetics or whether it's autoimmune or whether it's personal trainers. Like it's really cool who can use this.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Becca, that is so amazing and so exciting. Like I felt, I felt like chills as you were talking. And I think part of it is because I think Sarah and I both relate to your story so much. Being the mom, being the busy mom, and then having a health crisis and having to like do a 180 and like do something new. And so I think we all have our versions of that story, but I love how you took like this bad situation, this hard situation, and just didn't quit on yourself. And what you said about having all of the answers within yourself, I really loved that too. Like the authorship, the having the authorship of your own life is so important to the women that we work with. Like that's something that we teach. And so another reason that we really wanted to dive into this conversation of epigenetics and genetics is because it doesn't change for you. This is something that is so consistent throughout, you know, your life. So I did want to ask really quick what's the difference for our listeners between epigenetics and genetics?

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Yeah, that's a great question. It's usually the first one that pops up, right? Like, what the is epigenetics? So the genetics are the blueprint that you are born with. It is your DNA, it is your genes. You may hear people say things like SNPs, and we'll get into that later too. But epigenetics is how that's expressed. It's basically how those genes interact with your environment. So basically that means, you know, everything you eat, what you listen to, your movement, all of the inputs, right? All of the inputs, the the genetics are really the outputs, right? It's like what you're already born with. It's what you already carry. And then it's all about how you can change the behavior of those genes based on your lifestyle, your environment, your stress, all of it, sleep. It's everything. It's everything around us, it's everything that we physically do every day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Honestly, I feel like the other thing I love about you specifically, and kind of how how you're showing up and using this incredible tool and information is that it is, it resonates so deeply, like we, like Melissa said, with like busy moms. We're in in this day and age, there is so much information. There are so many things that we could do that we feel like we should do, that we see our neighbor doing, that we see on Instagram, right? Like all of the things. So this idea, it it can be so loud. It can be, there's just so much information. And then we also hear about root cause, bioindividuality, and it's kind of thrown around like with a million. What does that mean? How do I find that out? All right, you're like, You're like, great, great in concept, but what does that actually look like? Right. And so that's why it's this idea of getting that that blueprint of myself, of me and my genes, that is so, and we're gonna get into it, but that language, I love that how you frame it around it's there's so much freedom in that. It's so empowering, and it's and it's really true to us. So I also think something that comes up too like, how is this different from like the 23 and me and the different things?

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Yeah, when we think genetics, we think of a lot of those large, like direct-to-consumer brands. Those are out there and they're very affordable, right? They're like, oh, sure, like 200 bucks, that's not really gonna harm anybody. Let me just spend it and get my jeans done. Except they sell all your information. Up they sell all your information and then you're like, what is happening? And then what you end up getting is a lot of just raw data. Like you end up getting raw data with some interesting facts mixed in. You don't actually get the translation of what that means for you. So there's a lot of people, I can't tell you the percentage of people that have come to us after doing 23andme, ancestry.com, something like that, and they are like, Can you do anything with my raw data? Like, I don't know what this means. And yeah, the answer is yes. Like, we absolutely can upload their raw data file into our system and translate it into our report. So that's like the good news is that no matter if you've already, if you feel like you already went down the rabbit hole and you didn't get that like itch scratch, you didn't get satisfied from that data, you still can get it translated. But that's how we're different is we actually put in into some systems pathways where our reports are very much like nutrition. Here's your nutrition genetics, right? We pull the SNPs that have to do with those areas. So you are not gonna get a bunch of useless info about how you like cilantro or not. You're gonna get information on how you're actually digesting carbs and how your body is processing fats and like how much protein you need. So, like I think of it as like, okay, fun need to know information, fun information, or like need to know, like I want to know how I'm wired. Am I somebody that needs to be a low carb girly or am I somebody that actually needs to eat a shit ton of carbs, right? Like it's you're we don't know until I see what's under the hood, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah. And I also think with genetic testing specifically, I mean, we're talking about, yeah, the genetics are what you're born with, but the epigenetics are the inputs that we put in to influence those genes. And so we even think with things like supplements. These this is a big, big thing in a market that is a billion-dollar guy, you know, market right now, where everybody's throwing supplements at you and these blends and all of these different forms and all of this. And it's like the one of the most fascinating things I've found, and I'm not nearly as versed in genetic testing as you are, but I have run many genetic tests and on myself as well. One, you only need one. But yeah, I but I'm saying, you know, I've done that genetic testing, and it's really helpful to know what forms of nutrients you need too. So have you found that? Is that something that you break down to?

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Absolutely. Yeah, that's a huge part of our reports. It's in every single panel that we run, every single report we do has the micronutrient panel. And that because it's a huge part of what you do. I mean, who has a supplement graveyard here? A hundred percent. Like we, yeah, like still to this day, because I mean, I fall for it too, where I'm like, ooh, this new supplement, let me see. And like I love to research on myself. But the thing about micronutrients is exactly what you said. What form do you need? And also, like, how are you converting some of these things? Like vitamin A, it's like if you can't convert it and you're not converting it into the active form, you're basically just having expensive vitamins for no reason. Like you're just taking those and it's not doing anything for you. Choline is another one that like a lot of people aren't talking about. And especially for women, especially like in the preconception years, but then all the way into perimenopause and menopause, we're talking about brain fog, we're talking about metabolism, we're talking about all these processes that are going on behind the scenes that you can't feel and see necessarily until something is off, and you're like, I'm tired all the time, I have joint pain, my brain fog is out of control, and you're just throwing stuff at the wall to see. Then we uncover that you have the highest choline needs ever and a really big risk of things going wrong when you're deficient in choline. And then it's like, boom, okay, like let's get some choline, right? We're getting it in our diet, but are we getting enough? There's a lot of people who are on the really high end of the scale of needs. And if they were eating 12 eggs a day, they wouldn't be getting enough choline, right? It's just you you need a really bioavailable form. It's usually very easy to get that, but you wouldn't know unless you randomly stumbled on somebody that was, you know, had a really great choline product that they were selling. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

And again, these nutrient overlap or like the nutrient deficiencies or the symptoms that you can have can overlap. Like this is why testing can be so helpful. You know, not necessarily testing every six months, doing a yes or extensive Dutch, but it's like testing can be helpful because symptoms can mimic so many different things in the body. It's multi-system.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Absolutely. I mean, I said for years, like I was saying symptoms to doctors for years, and I just kept getting a like, oh, well, you're a mom, like you're tired. This is just how it is. And I'm just like, I don't buy that. Like, I don't buy it. Yes, we lose sleep. Yes, we're tired, but like you know when something is wrong with your body. You know when something is off. And so that's what's beautiful about this is you don't have to guess anymore. You can just see what's there.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Yeah, I feel like taking, I mean, that's huge because I think so. There's this, of course, there's this desire, I feel like, in again, today's world where that we want answers now. We want solutions and results now. So, in a way, right? So, yes, sustainable lifestyle change, like there's that and holding space for that. And then there's these clear-cut answers of your genes are your genes. And so if you could tell us a little more about your process specifically and kind of what that looks like, what is the process to get the sample? How does it work? Um, I think that would be super helpful.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah, that's a great question. It's done through a cheek swab. So we send out these kits and you don't have to go to a lab, there's no needles involved. It's done through a cheek swab. You send it into our lab and then it gets processed in a few weeks. Once we have the raw data uploaded to our system, there's a secure portal that we use for the client and your particular coach. So whether that's me or that's one of our certified coaches or practitioners that you're working with, you are the only two people who can log in and see that. Um, and then you get a full customized report to you. And basically, our standard blueprint is six different panels. It's nutrition, it's micronutrients or supplements, it's detox pathways, which also includes environmental sensitivities, it's sleep, it's exercise, and it's hormones. So, really, you cover the entire gamut of everything that you would want to know, right? Yes, we have extra panels that you can do anytime. We have cognition, we have different longevity reports and stuff, but that's our standard blueprint that gives you like the full lifestyle blueprint. And then you actually do get a translation call. So you don't just get the information, you don't just have a portal that you log into and you have to figure it out yourself. Even though it's very user-friendly, very easy to read, you still the really secret sauce in all of this is having somebody that's trained how to translate that and how to take your lived experience and look at that through the lens of, okay, here's what Sarah is going through right now. Here's what her symptoms are, here's what she would like to improve and work on. Maybe you feel fantastic, but you would love a little bit more energy, or you would love to just know like what supplements you need instead of having to take 14 bottles of things, right? Like how there's different goals for everyone wherever they're at. They don't necessarily have to be like in the throes of some diagnosis to want this testing. You could just be somebody that wants to know and wants to stop listening to your neighbor talk about keto 50 times a day, right? Like you just might want to know what kind of diet or nutrition plan is best for you. And so you hop on a call with your certified coach and you talk for about an hour to an hour and a half about your genes. And that's all translated from a very systems approach, you know, hey, this is this explains what you put on your intake form, or here's how your body is wired for macronutrients, here's how your body is wired for micronutrients. So you get a full customized wellness plan after that. So not only do you have your data in our really clear-to-read reports, we use gauges. So it's basically like, you know, you can see whether you're at risk or whether you're very neutral or in a very good place for something. For example, like we talked about vitamin A conversion. We can tell if you're a reduced converter or if you're an optimal converter. Like it's gonna be clear on there. It's gonna be green, it's gonna be yellow, it's gonna be red. Like it's very clear, easy to use. Even my kids look at it and they're like, oh, that's cool. I can build strength and muscle really easily. Like it's neat. You know, they can, a child can read it now where you want to have the real magic happening is with that call with your coach. And some of all of our coaches do it differently, right? Like everybody translates it the same way, but you know, whether you're working with a personal trainer because your goal is to have an exercise routine and to change your body composition, or maybe you're working with someone who specializes in fertility because that's your plan. Or you specialize with somebody who, you know, works with women and hormones, are you perimenopause? We have people from all backgrounds that have done the certification. And so there's not a shortage of like who your vibe is, right? You can go on the website and you can select somebody who you resonate with from their story and you can work with them. So that's what's really cool about it too.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

I love that so much, truly. Like the I think I already said this, but I really believe that it is so important to at least get a genetics test done one time in your life.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Like everybody should do that. You never have to retake it. So, like, that is it is not your cheapest test. Like, it is not, it shouldn't be. Like, if you see somebody, it's like 250 bucks, like run for the hills because you're probably gonna be retesting later or like trying to figure out if you can upload the data. Trying to make sense of it.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Like, yes, yeah, you're gonna end up paying somebody later on down the road.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

You are, yeah. And the the beauty of it is that it you never have to retest it. So people get confused about that. Like, what do you mean? How can you tell me anything if it never changes? But I'm supposed to be able to change my expression. It's because we we work on it based on tendencies, right? So, like, just because you have a tendency, like, you know, I have insulin resistance tendency, I've seen it in my family, I've seen it in myself. It's it's expressed before. I know that that will never not be a tendency for me, but it's not a scary thing because I know that everything that I do day to day, including how much I stress out about that, really helps those genes to work for me or against me. And so knowledge is truly power when it comes to this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Oh my gosh. I feel like that that hit home for me. Like that is, I think that's again, and there's no shortage of knowledge, right? Information really. There's no shortage of information out there, but this is truly a scenario where it's knowledge is power. This knowledge of understanding yourself. And I love that distinction of this is my tendency. This is how, yes, these are my genes, and the empowerment piece of the choices I make and the lifestyle, you know, the foundations I put in place absolutely matter and will influence how those genes are expressed. I think that's probably one of the biggest takeaways. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

I am, and on that point, Sarah, like this reminded me of this course I took years ago. It was one of my first health coaching courses with Andrea Nakiyama, Full Body Systems. I don't know if you've heard of that one, but she explained that all disease basically has three roots. She said, three roots, many branches. And it was like inflammation, digestion, and genetics. And they all kind of, if you can imagine them all overlapping, you know. So it's like, and then within that overlap, there's like things that influence those things, you know, but genes being part of that three-legged stool. So it's like we have to kind of keep these main roots, if you will, the the inflammation or immune system in check, the digestion in check, and then the genes, you know, like we have to support that with the epigenetic factors. So I just love this conversation because I'm like, it is so important. And, you know, there is actually something we can do to influence genetic expression. We don't have to be a slave to that. And I think that that kind of leads us into the next question, which is SNPs. Like so many people come to me and they're like, I have the NTHFR mutation. Well, you know, I'm like, okay, well, that's probably not the worst of the issues here, but oh yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

The MTHFR gets a lot of buzz. And the reason for that is it's it does sell a lot of supplements, right? Because it's very easy to say, Oh, you have the SNP, you have the mutation, you're gonna need to take this type of supplement. And it sounds very easy. It sounds very Very like, okay, great. The problem is that so SNPs are small genetic variations, right? And they influence all sorts of things. Like, let's just talk about detox, nutrient needs, um inflammation, because that's very involved with MTHFR. It's basically how you methylate, it's involved in methylation pathways, but it's just one of the many SNPs. And so a lot of people, when they come to you and they say, like, oh, I have MTHFR, blah, blah, blah, they may not know the full picture because they may have only seen one SNP. Usually, if it's done on a blood test, they only get one. It's rare to see both, right? We check both and we also check MTR, MTRR, C O M T, like all the other SNPs that influence methylation, because it's not uncommon to see somebody with like a reduced enzyme activity in MTHFR, right? That's how they convert vitamins. And it's not rare to see that and then also see that they're not really an undermethylator truly based on the other SNPs that are involved. So they get confused and then they start taking all these like really high dose B vitamins and it's like actually agitating them, it's giving them anxiety. So like it's so nuanced, right? I mean, we have like in our course, we have a whole training sheet that's like three pages long on MTHFR and the nuance and the charts and like what to do for this scenario, what to do for this scenario, how to look at actual symptoms and genetics and see like if this person is a good match for this. So I'm one of those ones that now I kind of roll my eyes when I see little screenshots, which I'll totally get now. I'll get like advertisements for gummies that help you with MTHFR because it happens every time I talk about this. And I just kind of like scroll through, roll my eyes because it's like, oh yeah, that is really enticing. Like as a mom, even it'll be like, if your kid has NTHFR, they need this greens gummy. And you're like, oh my gosh, I don't want to ruin my kid. Let's buy this. And it just, it's a never-ending, like, it's that billion-dollar industry where it's like, you know, never-ending need and want for certain things because you think that you got to do it the right way. That's a great, a great point.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yeah. Well, thank you for explaining it because you're right. It is just one SNP or one gene that we can look at that really influences the bigger picture.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Yeah. And that's really, that's really the pitfall that most people fall into. And and like everybody is, everybody can fall into this, even practitioners and coaches, is when we start treating single SNPs like they're a diagnosis, right? Because we know that it's not diagnostic, but sometimes it's easy to go, like, oh yeah, my client is really focused on this one SNP because they heard a podcast with like some big name on there and they were like, oh my gosh, you know, Huberman's talking about this or or Gary Breca's talking about this, and I really want to check these genes. And it's like, we can check those genes and we will, but I will also be really the first one to say we never zero in on a SNP, right? Like there's a there's very few SNPs that you you can be like, okay, yep, your C O M T is this. This is what it's gonna tell you about the way that you clear stress chemicals. That is very cut and dry. Apoe status, very cut and dry. But it's still one of the many pathways that we look at that are all influencing each other. So it's it's a good way to keep like that really broad stroke whole picture approach instead of just going, hey, you have this gene, like it that can be a scary thing. That can be a really dark place to be in if you're just focused on that one snip.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yeah. And this is what we mean by the information overload. Like, you know, people are getting on these podcasts and they want to hear, you know, how to take care of themselves, but if the whole conversation is based on this like hyper niche like topic, it's like it's really difficult for a person who hasn't gotten all the training and things to really sift through that and be discerning. So I really love how you and your team or the your trained practitioners have that whole body full picture approach and don't like hyperfixate on one gene. But yeah, I did want to say just one last thing and then Sarah, you can uh take over from there. But I did want to say I actually have a case study on a woman that was a client of mine who came in from a functional medicine practitioner to me and she was on so many methyl donors because of this MTHFR mutation, and she's like, What do I need to do? And I was like, I think for starters, like you basically need to get off of all of those. That's and within two weeks, she felt so good, she just got off of everything just to find her new baseline. But within two weeks, she was like, Wow, I'm feeling great. It was just kind of funny because again, that's that's the problem with treating a single genetic nip.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Yeah. Oh my gosh, so powerful. Literally got chills during that because I I see it all the time. I and I lived it too. It's like, you know, there's a lot of well-meaning practitioners out there. And I, I mean, I worked with naturopaths, I worked with doctors that, you know, were helping me early on in my journey. And I just I can remember being like having a little light bulb moment when I saw my own genetics and I started even deep diving. I'm talking like when I first saw my genetics, and then three years later, like looking at them again, you get even deeper and deeper. Like you can go seven layers deeper every single time you look at your blueprint. And, you know, with the work that I do, I had this big light bulb moment where I realized that, like, oh, I am not prone towards any thyroid stuff. I'm not prone towards autoimmune thyroid. I'm not prone towards this. So what does that tell me? And then I started looking at my stress pathways because we started creating this like really in-depth stress response report that you get in like our longevity panels. And I had this moment where I was like, oh my goodness, like this allowed me. I never identified, I never like allowed myself to identify with like, I have Hashimoto's, it's for life, it's that, it's this. I just am not that type of person. But fast forward, I went, oh my goodness, like this tells me everything that I need to know. The stress, like the way that my body clears stress, the way that my stress response needs so much support, explains why that progressed for me, why that showed up for me. It wasn't a genetic destiny that I had to have Hashimoto's. It wasn't something that was like on the table or I have to be scared of every foreign object that is around me because my thyroid might freak out. And that really allowed me to release some of that, right? Because I think when anybody receives any type of diagnosis, whether that's SIBO or Hashimoto's or Crohn's or anything, especially as women, we take that so personally and we take the weight of the world and we go, okay. And then we start kind of spiraling a little bit, no matter what personality type you have. And you can be afraid of certain things and fearful of certain types of foods. Because again, there's one size fits all advice out there. You have Hashimoto's, don't eat gluten, don't eat dairy, don't do this. I was like, okay. Well, then I started getting curious about myself and realized I don't have anything in my genes that say that I need to avoid gluten and dairy. I focus really high on quality. That's what I do. I was gluten-free and dairy-free for like two, three years, and I was so miserable, so inflamed. I thought I was doing the right thing, but then when I started eating it again, I like literally started to drop like 40 pounds of inflammation. It was crazy. It was like the craziest thing because even as somebody who was trained in this, like this took me, it was through my journey with Mind Body Jeans that I got to there. So even like even coaches and practitioners, like, we need to pull the blinders off and we need to go a what is the deeper level? For me, it was that I was literally stressing out about every single thing I was putting in my body. And I was trying to be the purest, crunchiest, like most like I was just trying to be that girl. I was trying to be that clean girl. And then I realized, like, that was killing me. That was honestly killing me. Are you a Virgo? No, I'm a Leo. I might as well be a Virgo. My daughter is Virgo.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

And I was like, you sound like me.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Oh yes. No, I'm we kindred spirits, Leos and Virgos. I, yeah, I I so for me, again, very deeply personal. And that's why I love it. Because you can totally bring things like human design, astrology, like all the things into genetics, too, because how you're wired is also like how you're wired. And so when you can put those all together and you have a little bit of knowledge about all those things, that may not work for some of my clients or friends that are not the same type as me, right? They may need to do that because that gives them peace. But avoiding things like that did not give me peace. It gave me turmoil. Like that is exactly what it did for me. And so it really does give you that permission to like actually learn who you are and ingrain into that instead of trying to be something that other people are telling you to be.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

I mean, that's seriously, that's the one of the biggest things that I talk about that I love talking about is that food freedom, that intuitive sense with our bodies, with food. So I feel like that truly is. That is that reconnection back to many times, right? Like again, it's this big puzzle, like starting to put these puzzle pieces together and understanding for yourself and getting curious, and then saying, Oh, I actually on a on a deep level, I I kind of knew that already. Like I kind of knew there was like that restriction did not feel good. That did not feel like, right, but but we do it because we do the thing and we check the boxes and we do the things we should do and we keep pushing harder and harder and harder until we burn out, right? Yeah, it's crazy. I love, I love this approach.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Yeah, it's so it's it's hard to get there, right? It's hard to get there, especially in the world of social media, which we love, but also can hate sometimes, like if we're honest, and like love you, like love it, hate it at the same time. But honestly, more of us can be saying things like that. Like more of us can be showing up and saying, like, how would you perform if you didn't think that you were being judged on every turn with how crunchy you are? How would you perform? How would you be? How would you live if you didn't have to be this, have this performative wellness stuff? Like, how would you be? And the answer is you wouldn't go off the deep end. Like you wouldn't, like, that's the thing is I had to get really honest with myself. That doesn't mean I'm going to McDonald's every day. Like it, but it means that I'm giving myself permission to actually be who I am. And within what I know about my genes, like freedom and stress relief and balance and all of those things were just staring at me the whole entire time. And it was like, why am I trying to fit this like round peg into a square hole? Like, what am I doing? I'm still listening to the old voices in my head from my naturopath telling me, oh no, all gluten is evil. Like you cannot, that will inflame you right up. And I'm going, like, wait, I didn't even pay attention to the evidence though. I was still inflamed. Like, I wasn't even actually paying attention. I was just listening to somebody telling me something or listening to a colleague who, you know, talks about how like you can't have this, you can't have that, don't even don't get your nails done, don't do this. And I was going, like, but what if I like want to get my nails done? What if I like feel good when I get what if I have like joy when I do those things? Does the joy matter? Like, what if I, what if I want to color my hair? What if I want to just, you know, and I started just like asking myself those questions. And I know this sounds like it's like a left turn from the blueprint, but it's really not. I've heard from so many women, especially who get it, and they say exactly what you just said, Sarah, which is like deep down, I freaking knew that. Like I tell them things and they go, I knew it. And I'm like, did you, huh? And they're like, yeah, because they didn't know that they needed to listen to themselves. They kept hearing other voices in their head. And then something about seeing it on paper, something about seeing your SNPs, your data, going, okay, I don't have to listen to my cousin, you know, Karen, tell me that, you know, low carb saved her life. It may have. But like, guess what? Karen's genes are different than your genes. Like, even like siblings, you know, we have, I've done genes on all of my kids, all my family. There's some similarities, but there's some key differences where it's like, you do great with complex carbs, you do not. So let's like figure out how to like feed everybody. You know, it's it's one of those things. We can't assume that everybody's gonna have this success. And some people stumble into what's best for them on accident, and that's fantastic. I just wasn't one of those people. I needed to see like what was under there before I could stumble in because I'm again like that personality type, the Leo, the Enneagram 3. Like, I'm trying everything. I'm trying to be the best at everything. So I'm just gonna try it all and see what works, and that's not sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Yeah, and Sarah and I, we really focus on. Sorry, I'm keep speaking for you, Sarah. I just feel like we talk so much that we just no, we are so similar. We do. No, Sarah and I, we really love information for the sake of stewardship. So stewarding your body well, but information with the through the lens of fear or control or especially outsourcing power is not where we want any woman to be. And we are actually very focused on this in our program that we want run with women. It's exactly what you're saying, Becca. It's like you know, you have that intuition and truthfully, truthfully, even though the genetics is amazing, it's an amazing tool. And quite honestly, we all need to get it done. It's like, I also think the bigger conversation here is like, how much has our intuition been totally shot down and like taken away from us, where we can't even read our own signals anymore. So we have to have the information to like ground us in it. But yeah, I mean, gosh, that the I don't think the conversation took a left turn. I think it kind of came full circle because it was like that human design, that intuition, the genetics that is all embedded within you. It's a gift to you. And we need to have the right information to help us tap back into that and make good choices for the rest of our lives. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

I'm super curious as we're I just feel like I love some of those examples, like you said, with your like the different panels that you run specifically, like with the stress that's the women that we work with, right? There's uh women in general, right? That it's that's so top of mind. That's such a huge thing. So understanding that, are there any specific scenarios that you can think of that really stood out, like aha moments or patterns that you see often with women specifically? Like we're working with, you know, the busy moms that again are trying everything. So, what are some of the things that they can expect with like sleep's a big one?

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Yeah, sleep is a huge one. So I would say there's so many takeaways from each section. Biggest ones that I see are definitely like hidden in the nutrition section because there's a lot of times where it'll be, you know, most of us by this time in our lives, we've tried everything under the sun. So we've gone low carb, we've gone keto, we've done the this, we've done the that, like we've tried it all. And we are we've we've done the whole 30s and we've been like, oh my God, that was miserable. Like, why did I do that to myself? Um, and we realize, like, we look back at all those times that you either like didn't have success or didn't feel great or like didn't have any energy or maybe did something for a while and then ended up on the other side. Like now your hormones were all like out of whack. When we look at those panels and we tell a woman, like, actually, your body needs like more than 150 grams of carbs a day to even sustain like its natural order, right? And then, like, even more than that, you can get away with. And they're like, Oh, are you kidding me? Like, no wonder I feel like I cannot even function at 2 p.m. Because they're literally not, they're eating like 20 grams of carbs, right? So it's like, it's those individual things that I can tell them. It's also like in the sleep panels, it's, you know, uncovering that, you know, yeah, maybe they are wired for, you know, stress-induced or mood-induced sleeplessness and they've struggled with insomnia or they've struggled with restless leg syndrome, they've struggled with things like, you know, constant like moving around or those micro move movements in their sleep like being really high. We can see so many things. And then like the stress pathways, exactly that. It's like, are you this warrior type person? Are you a warrior? Are you this mediator? Are you somebody that fluctuates between the two? How does your body clear stress chemicals? Well, that can be explained so well through the genes. And then we can take a look at like, what is your life like right now? Like, how stressed are you? What stressors do you have? Sometimes we can't remove those. I know I've been in situations where like, I can't make my husband travel less, like when he was traveling all the time. I can't, we can't change that right now. We eventually changed it. We can't change it right now. So, like, what do I need to do? Because again, instead of just white knuckling things and like really trying to like warrior my way through it, I didn't know that I just needed to pause. Like, I needed to stop. I needed to stop doing all the things. I needed to stop doing all the things that I was performing, stop working out so much, like work out for your body, work out for your genes. Like, there's gosh, so many light bulb moments where it's like, actually, you're not built for endurance. You're built for power and sprint, or vice versa. And then they're like doing the opposite thing. Again, it's not a big deal. You just make some simple tweaks and then you can feel so much better. Like you gave the example earlier, Melissa, about your client who literally just had to stop taking the methyl donors. Like, stop doing, like, yeah, clients will send me lists of their supplements and when it can't fit on the intake form, and I'm like, oh my gosh, they have to send me a separate list because they're taking so many things and I'm going, okay, like let's pause. And most of them will actually pause before they get the blueprint, and then they'll be like, okay, tell me what to do now. I'm starting over. And that's really smart because we do need supplement vacations, even the ones that are dialed in and doing things for according to their genes. Like, we all need those supplement vacations to like let our bodies rest, let our bodies just like kind of go back. Nothing's gonna happen if you don't take your pill box on a three-day trip. Like, nothing will happen. You'll be fine. It's it's one of those things. Yeah. So that was a really long answer. But there's like I could just pick, I could like cherry pick so many things out of the reports that would be so eye-opening for people. And most of the time, it's either like giving them validation in places, and then there's other places where it's totally blowing their mind and it's saying, like, wow, this is completely not what I thought. Like, I thought that I was somebody who needed XYZ, and you're telling me, like, actually, that's not great for me, or like, you know, the cold plunging thing, like that conversation in our longevity panels, like, we can tell whether or not that's beneficial for you, or you don't have a tolerance for it. So why are we trying to cold plunge if it's not great? Why are we, you know, why are we doing that to ourselves? Because some biohacker said that it was gonna make your inflammation drop overnight. Like it's what maybe for them, but again, there's people that are built for it. There's people that weren't. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Yes. And I also feel like it's very much environment dependent to like I thought about when I like I cannot tolerate a c a cold plunge. And I haven't even gotten that panel done yet. I'm very interested now. Um, but I'm you know, I'm thinking when I lived in Hawaii, we had cold waterfalls, and for some reason I could very much tolerate that. It's probably what it's probably because it wasn't 30 degrees, you know, like 55 or something. But still I felt like some of it is environmentally dependent to like how your genetics are going to be expressed, which you can speak to that if you want. But I did want to ask, are there universal like good practices, epigenetic practices that use me? Which I think I already know the answer, but I wanted to get your yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

Some of my favorite things that I see that I'm like, I don't need to see your genes to tell you that you need more of this is prioritizing sleep and prioritizing morning sunshine. Like those are the two where I'm just like, if you don't want to spend money on testing yet and you just want to do two very impactful things for your health. I know there's people that talk about this. I'm not the only one. Like, we obviously all agree here, but like one of the most powerful regulators of gene expression, no matter what, are those two things. It's like, are you sleeping well? And I'm not just talking about like getting eight hours. I'm talking about like, are you getting enough? You know, those two go hand in hand. Morning sunshine to help you regulate all the things that are gonna help you to sleep better. And then are you truly sleeping in an environment that's restful? Are you truly getting deep sleep? Are you truly winding yourself down? Or are we doom scrolling? You know, we're all, yes, sometimes I do that too. But are we doom scrolling? Or are we doing things? Are we prioritizing like putting your phone down, like reading a book before bed? Are we really focused on rest? Because as women, like we do need more sleep than men. We do have things like biological processes that are going on that we need more sleep. Our hormonal clock is different, right? Like we do not run on a 24-7 clock every day. We literally go through this 28-day cycle. And so, like living with that cycle syncing in the sense of like, I'm not talking about like seed cycling. I have no problem with that, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about like syncing with your rhythm, right? And that includes the sleep, the morning sunshine, like getting it on your skin, getting it in your eyes. Those are so powerful.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Oh, totally. You're definitely speaking our language. Um, yeah, you want to know something interesting that I saw from my own genetics was that I on my panel, it was like I didn't need as much sleep as like the normal person. Okay. So I can get away with getting like six hours of sleep and I I can, but I was also, I'm also wired to fall into that deep delta wave sleep cycle faster than the average person. So it was like, it's really interesting because I know that to be true about myself. Seeing the genetics was really you know, affirming to that. Cause I was like, oh yeah, when I fall asleep, I fall asleep hard and I only need about five or six hours, and then I'm I'm good, you know, I'm up. That's great. That's wonderful. Interesting. I wouldn't have known that.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

No, you didn't immune that. And you probably, and then if you didn't know that, you might be like, oh gosh, like I only got six.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I'm getting horrible sleep, you know. Yeah, exactly. I thought that. Yeah, it was like, I need nine hours because I was thinking, because I'd heard that so much. I was like, I need so much more sleep, and I would stress about it, which is funny. So I'd be like getting pissed at everybody because I couldn't get enough sleep. And then I was like, you know what? I'm actually getting bloody.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Fine. Yeah. I have a case study with a woman who she works in like an industry where she has to be up like until 2 a.m. Like she she's in the music industry. So she works super like late hours and she like is very much a night owl. And like she just kept feeling so bad about that because she was also having like autoimmune stuff and Hashimoto's and like different like PCOS and all kinds of things. And she was like, maybe I'm just not like cut out for this industry, but it's her passion. And then she got her genetics, and like literally, we confirmed she is an actual night owl based on her clock and she needs way more sleep. So if she can, it doesn't matter what time she goes to bed, she can go to bed at 2, 3 a.m., but she has got to sleep. She was feeling bad and like down on herself for sleeping the day away. But it's like, no, actually, this is fantastic news. And she was just like almost in tears of like, I was about to quit like the thing I love because I was just thinking I was like working against my biology or whatever. And turns out no. So like very affirming.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

That gives me the chills. Like, truly. That I mean, that's where this knowing these this information, I feel like I can just feel like weights being lifted off the women listening and myself. And like, okay, it's it's it's truly understanding these things. And I feel like also I love talking about like creating routines and habits again, like around everything we're talking about. And I feel like so much of the time, if we just give somebody a protocol, like for no apparent reason, and this is your plan, the chances of them sticking with it without a deeper why, it's just not gonna happen, right? The sustainability piece of really creating like that depth. And then I love how you've been saying this idea of it's there, it's going to be there. And then you can keep going deeper and deeper and like peeling back the layers of the onion and saying, okay, what in this season of my life, what makes sense for me to really dive deep in and to optimize? And I know I again, I knew I knew we were gonna just want to chat like forever with you because there's so many good things. But I do have a little bit of like a personal, personal question that I do feel like will also help people listening, probably most likely. So, this idea of getting this when I think about and specifically like the cognitive and longevity. So my dad passed away from Louis body dementia. And I'm just curious, like around that conversation, you know, kind of what can that show me when it comes to, you know, and like the good or the bad or you know, just that information. What is that?

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Yeah, no, our cog, that's a great question. I'm glad you brought that up. My my grandmother also passed away pretty young from uh from dementia as well. And we didn't know all the things, like we didn't have a bunch of like really great knowledge back then. It was before I did this work and everything. And so it's very near and dear to my heart as well. You know, you're trying to be a cycle breaker, right? You're trying to be somebody that like that like does things differently. And our cognition panels can absolutely give insights on all of that. We actually have like a panel that talks about dementia. We have a panel, again, not a diagnostic tool, but it tells you risks and it tells you propensities, so you can kind of, you know, rest easy, or you can have the information that'll say, hey, yeah, this is something that's you are prone to in your genes, but also here's tools so that you can work against what you have, right? Like it's not a destiny. It's not something that just because we saw a family member, you know, have a this like horrible scenario, right? That's very deeply personal. And so we take a very like calm approach to it instead of, you know, the scare, the fear around that, because we do realize people are coming to the table with very real things that they've been through, very sad, very like very heartfelt things that they've gone through and they've seen their family members, you know, pass away from. They've seen their family members struggle with. And so we take that very seriously, right? It's a big responsibility to be able to tell somebody, hey, yes, there is a risk here for this, right? Like, you know, working with clients who their parents have, you know, Parkinson's, and then seeing that risk allele on there and going, hey, yes, this is in your genes. But here's the good news because now we have all of this information and we can tell you how to do things differently, right? We can tell you how to support your body to where that is something that you don't have to have like a dark cloud over you all the time.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

The dark cloud, I was gonna say, I feel like that's that is the thing. I'd rather and everybody's gonna be different and kind of of obviously approach it differently. But for me, I and I know I've talked with my siblings, you know, it's it is literally that dark cloud. And so just kind of understanding it. And I love how you said just gently and like taking the fear, it's the fear, taking that away and understanding. I love that. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

I I don't know what it is, but I also have like a 50% higher chance of Alzheimer's, like late onset Alzheimer's than like the general population. So I was like, that was one big flag thing that I was like, I want to definitely care for my brain, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

Yeah, there's some key things there. I mean, they're like I I have ApoE3-4, and so does my husband. And so our kids, like our kids have three, four, and then two of them actually have four, four, which is the highest risk allele type for you know, age-related cognitive decline and all of that. And so as a mother, like it can be a little bit like take your breath away for a second, but then you realize, like, okay, taking care of your brain. Like, we weren't telling people to do that 20, 40, 50 years ago. We weren't focused on that. Now we are, and so we can do better. And we will, and we won't freak out about every little thing. We won't stress out about, you know, saturated fat. We won't stress out about stuff. We will take it and we will use it in our life in the way that's appropriate, right? We'll like we'll do better. I know. I'm like, what else?

SPEAKER_00 49:48

What else? I know. We just well, we definitely want to honor your time. We, I mean, we might just have to have you back. Like, there's so many, maybe even like a QA, because I feel like there's there's again, there's so much here, and that's that's the beauty of it. And I love you are completely our people. Just this, like having the deeper conversation under the conversation. Like, what's what's the thing under the thing?

SPEAKER_02 50:11

So I know Melissa has her raw data, so we can always do reports. I was gonna say that would be fun to do like a report revealing episode where we like talk about your specific stuff. So all about my genes. I love that. I love that idea. So I'll email y'all and we can kind of coordinate what that looks like for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Oh, last question though, like selfishly, how long does it take to complete the gene queen? It's gene queen, right? Certification program.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

Oh, yeah. Tell us about that. Yeah, the gene queen certification trains wellness professionals of all different backgrounds. Like I said, I don't have any prerequisites to where you have to be a dietitian or you have to have like some certification. It's great, it's a bonus, like it helps you because you have the knowledge. But we teach you everything you need to know. So it takes about 12 weeks. That's how it's set up. It's self-paced. I say 12 weeks because I have that broken down into 12 weeks of modules, but I've had people go through it in like three weeks because they had like a busy, like a weekend where they could just study, study. That's the beauty. Like you can go through it faster or slower. It's there's no like expiration date. The certification comes with your own blueprint. So it actually comes with your three-panel blueprint, which is nutrition, micronutrients, and detox pathways. So that's like a really good baseline. And then coaches can always add on panels at the wholesale rate for themselves. But it comes with that. It's very comprehensive. We have business training in there, we have resources and guides to where you don't have to recreate the wheel. We're all busy. Most of us are running businesses already, running practices and having clients. So I didn't want people to have to do what I did in the beginning, which is create everything from scratch. So we have guides that match everything in there. And you can use that for your business, for your clients. It's all included in that certification enrollment.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

I love that. I was just thinking, I'm a manifesting generator. So I was like, I will definitely get it done in three weeks. Yeah, no, me too.

SPEAKER_02 51:47

I feel like, yeah, we're the same person. I remember just being like, I'm gonna listen to my certification. I was like, I'm gonna listen on my drives. I'm gonna listen in the car and I'm gonna get this done in record timing. Like I like it was my goal. I was like, yes, I'm gonna do this. Passionate.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

Yeah. So for the woman listening who's maybe not a coach, what's the best way? How can she learn more and check you out as well?

SPEAKER_02 52:13

Yeah, you can go to mindbodyjeans.com and we're on Instagram as MindbodyGeans. We're basically everywhere as MindbodyGeans, but you can find me mostly on Instagram or you can email me. I'm just Becca at mindbodyjeans.com. And then if you're looking for blueprinting, we can match you with one of our certified coaches, or you can work with myself. And then if you're, you know, even the wellness curious and you might want to get certified just to help people around you, like it's absolutely a thing. And I've had many people that didn't have wellness backgrounds go through there that can give you some of their insights and tips because I have been very impressed that all of them come out with so much knowledge on nutrition, on supplements. We do master classes all the time. So they learn like it's a deep dive. It's so fun. If you're a knowledge junkie, like that's the way to go. But we have paths for everybody. Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

What you have created is truly amazing. I mean, it's so, I think it's so needed and necessary and helpful for the time that we're living in, also. So thank you so much for coming on. It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.