Heal Your Thyroid with Nichole Hirsch Kuechle

Good morning, and welcome to Green Tea Conversations, the radio show that delves into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine to bring the local experts to share their progressive ideas in the latest information and insights needed so you can read your best life. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle, publisher, the Twin Cities edition of Natural Awakenings Magazine. And I'm honored to bring these experts to you. We have in our studio today, Nicole Hirsch Kuechle of My Healthy Beginning in Long Lake. Welcome to the show.

 

Thanks  for having me

 

And I can call you Nikki, correct?

 

Yes.

 

Okay.

 

And there's no s at the end of our it's My Healthy Beginning.

 

My Healthy Beginning in Long Lake. Thank you. So tell us about My Healthy Beginning and the services that you provide.

 

We do so many things. Really. What we do is we provide natural health care services to really support families and resolving health concerns. But we really hang on the chronic and unresolved side without medication or surgery and backing that up. I've also been a birth doula for 20 plus years. And so we really get the pleasure and the honor of working with women from preconception all the way through to growing their family. So we do have this birth side of what we do.

 

Okay. And when you talk about you kind of stay on the chronic and unresolved side. What do you mean by that?

 

So we can see anybody. We could have people who I just have this little this cough and we've had it for six weeks. And I have this every spring. I get this little cold, this kind of things that seem small and simple to manage to the level of training that we have in our practice really allows us to work with those chronic and unresolved cases, meaning people have worked with their medical providers for a number of years or other alternative providers. I mean, this is really what we see.

 

I have tried everything. There's nowhere else for me to turn. Nothing really works for me. And ultimately, it's their neighbor or something that says, Can you just try this one more thing? Just one more thing.

 

So go see Nippy.

 

Yes, we really do. We see these people who are like.

 

I can't describe it. There's no diagnosis for it. They tell me I'm completely fine. I'm feeling crazy. You know, XYZ is what's happening to me. It's been going on since I was a kid. It's been happening since I was 21. Gets in the way of all areas of their life, and they're living with it like they're in some sort of state of functional illness that's really not working.

 

And they just want to get it resolved.

 

And they do want to get it resolved. And the funny part, too. It's kind of like, kind of like an oxymoron. They come to us for help. And, as you know, healing from the inside out is not like a short-term thing. We're like, we're not a drive-through. It doesn't happen quickly. At the same time. It's they're fed up in at the end of their rope. Right. The channel's been burned on both ends for too long. And it's Interestingly, hard for some people to make that they feel like they're making that commitment again.

 

And so then some people will choose not to not to work with us because they're like, oh, this is a long time that you want me to work with you or. But it's the reality of getting them better, right after whatever they've been dealing with. And then some people are like, yes, this is the thing. I don't care how long it takes. I don't care. But they see something for themselves. And mostly what we try to do is have people really coach. I am not into convincing.

 

First of all. So I'm not going to spend my time doing that if you don't see something for yourself. And if we are for some reasonable to get you into an empowering context, I'm not going to accept that report a findings case because there are certain people I want my practice. You know, the people who believe they're going to get better, they're going to get better, right. Kind of stems from there. But we end up seeing these people who say, I'm even happy to be on a medication.

 

But I can't find a provider who will stick with me long enough to find one that I don't react so poorly to. They don't have such terrible side effects to and oh, my gosh. Do I feel for these people? First of all, they're not even looking for us. They don't even know what we do. Right.

 

So they're finding you through their friends and families and other referrals.

 

Yeah. Actually, we just had somebody come in from the magazine last week, which was she was super clear. She saw the ad and she was like, I'm a thyroid person. Clearly, this is going to help me. And within a week, she was on a program at already referring people in because she, too, had been in the state of they take my thyroid panels. I tell me, I'm fine. I'm clearly not fine.

 

One of the things that I always find so interesting and something that we talk to coaching clients about as well is this whole idea of this is going to take so long? I don't have the time to do this. And the fact of the matter is the time is going to go by it anyway.

 

Right. Right. It's so good.

 

I'm going to tie that in. So do you want to continue like this, or do you want to actually spend a little bit of time and be able to make that change?

 

You know, that really resonates with me. Seven years ago, when I started this work, I had been now a patient of this work for, I don't know, nine months to a year or so. And my mentor, who's on the direct opposite side of town from me. I kind of have asked my program. I was like, I'm going to do this my way. I'll come once a month, and then inside of that, even my husband was like, You're not feeling better. I had cystic acne. I had daily stomach aches.

 

I was cold all the time. I had chronic back pain. I mean, we could recurring UTIs. I mean, there's this laundry list, multiple miscarriages. And I was telling this guy like, I'm going to do it my way. And he looked at me one day after, I don't know how many visits. And I was like, this isn't working. You know, I should know better. It's like knock, knock, Puddin head. But he literally looked at me. He said, So the year is the deal, how quickly do you want to feel better?

 

And how long do you want to stay that way? And it was like it hit me with the brick. Like, what am I doing to myself? This is ridiculous.

 

In so many times I can

 

on the bottom line.

 

Right. And we've already tried it our way.

 

Right

 

Wasn't working before, and it wasn't working. So why we think that we do that changes at easy, though.

 

No, it's not. And it was that really finally seeing it for myself. And it really helped to shape how I work with my own clientele because I really do of a story to share. I'm not someone who's, like, I've been a health freak in terms of I've enjoyed learning about health. And I've been in this holistic health field for over 20 years already, but I didn't. But I didn't have great health. Right? So I was there looking for myself. And in the advanced nutrition response testing is is the thing that got me right.

 

So I want the thing that's not just going to get me a little bit better, but every year I get stronger and healthier and that road to recovery, if you will just recovery of optimal health, it just gets better and better. That's what we want.

 

So let's talk about that for a minute. You were saying your mentor was on the other side of the cities from you, and your mentor was actually somebody who did nutrition response test.

 

Yeah, he was a chiropractor.

 

Okay. So tell us, what is nutrition response test is.

 

Nutrition response testing is one of the many forms of muscle testing where we're just using the reflexes of the body of the nervous system to basically get information to kind of get a yes-no answer for what your body needs. And is looking for the interesting thing about this work when I started there's kind of a beginner level and the intermediate level, and lots of people just say at that beginners level. But I just had my appetite was large for this work.

 

And and I continue to see more and more benefits to my health. And I knew the kind of training my mentor had, and it was just like, I want that I could see the difference he was making in his practice, right? I could feel the difference I was seeing and myself. And so little by little by little. I continue to take on more and more of this training.

 

And so at the time, were you practicing doula and

 

All other things I was just doing too many things. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I spent 20 years as a birth and postpartum doula, like twelve to 16 years as a cranial sacral therapist and neuromuscular therapist, Bradley childbirth educator. But it's just because I so loved what I what I did. And I loved being able to grow with these families because they would come back time and time again with I'm experiencing this. What's going on with my kids? My dad called, he has gout, and then I just became a go to that was the fun part, because I was so hungry for the information that I knew if I didn't know the answer, I knew somebody who did.

 

And that was really fun for me. So I was looking for my own health and the health of my family and the community. But then when I stepped into this work, I realized we had done some muscle testing with our kids with chiropractors or eleven and 15-year-old for babies. And it was something that I had learned early in my back at the Minneapolis School Massage and Bodywork, which was like, at the time, the most comprehensive program in the Twin Cities. I think I was 19 or 20 when I did that.

 

So I kind of knew muscle testing. It wasn't new to me. I wasn't a skeptic. I was curious. And I also thought I had to be a licensed healthcare provider to do this work, which was kind of the big question Mark over my head when I discovered I really liked it, and I responded well to it. I was like, but, you know, I'm a lifestyle educator, been a health coach, but those those services weren't enough for my health and the health of my family. And they weren't doing enough for my own my own clients because I was really left with you can only recommend gluten and dairy free to so many people over so much time.

 

And though it's beneficial for everyone in terms of anti-inflammatory, it's not exactly what everybody needs. And this particular work, particularly in the advanced rum of nutrition response testing, the ability to Hone in and find these kind of deeply hidden things. It's like having all the tools in your toolbox, but nobody can see them.

 

It gets very, very, specific.

 

Yeah. So bio-individual. It's just so fun. I always tell people it's a little like you can start to see the puzzle pieces being put together. I have this one I called me yesterday I think she's 28. She had her first baby, and she's been dealing with all Virginia for I don't know how many years. And she's done all the things. And she said we actually heard about you from a clinic who does what you do in Pennsylvania. But, you know, I'm not about to fly. People do crazy things like that.

 

And I was really excited to find that this person recommended you. And what does this look like? And lots of people want to know, have you dealt with the thing that I have, which, as we spoke earlier, is just something we need to look at a little more closely because we don't do that diagnosing piece.

 

Great. But when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with Nikki. And we're going to learn about going more deeply with what nutrition response testing is. To read Natural Awakenings magazine online, visit Natural TwinCities.Com you're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM950, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. We will be back.

 

Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations, where we delve into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine and talk to the professionals who share their expertise on natural help with you. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're talking with Nicki Hirsch. I'm sorry.

 

Got it

 

A nutrition response testing practitioner, natural childbirth instructor, birth and postpartum doula, and owner of My Healthy Begin in a wellness clinic and Long Lake. So before we went to the break, Nicki, we were talking about nutrition response testing, and we have talked about it a couple of times on the show. Different people have kind of explained a bit with what it is, but I don't think we've gone in quite deep enough for people to really understand.

 

And since this is really one of your many areas of expertise, I would like for you, if you could, to just describe what it is, what you're looking for, how how it all kind of works.

 

Got it. And just to be clear, this is primarily what I practice. I haven't been to a birth and three and a half years. My youngest is three and a half. So if that tells you anything, and I just created a team to do all the other things for me so that I could focus on this piece. And then now I'm training and associate up under me, which is really exciting in this work as we are growing and expanding. So the background on this work. So let me just walk you through some of the things that we do inside of an initial visit, right?

 

You might show up with rheumatoid arthritis. Okay. So we've got this person, and maybe there are some migraines on top of that, the first and foremost, their diagnosis doesn't necessarily make a difference. There's nothing different really in the testing that we're doing outside of. Maybe if that person said I also had a concussion and I happen to hit my head right here, I might just check that area of the head just because, well, that's really great data. It's really great information, but it isn't like I don't need to know what their diagnosis is.

 

I actually don't need to know what's going on. And we need that health history, right? That's just the way that goes. But the first thing we're going to do is put them on a heart rate variability monitor. And really what we're looking at there and that's similar to being at a gym. And you have something around. They're doing some sort of heart test, like a stress test around your chest. And what we're looking at there are how many organ systems are feeling stress or burden or overwhelmed?

 

And then what is the body's ability to adapt to that stress, injury or illness that gives us a really great picture of kind of their chronological and biological age, too. I mean, how fast that aging factor is working. So we get some behind-the-scenes information on that because we get both the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system information, and they behave differently. So it's fun to connect those things, too. I'm not sleeping well or I could sleep all day, and I'm jacked up all night.

 

We get some great information from that. Then the next thing we do is when we're actually doing the intake. And I should say, people love this work because they're sick and tired of being poked and prodded, and they're really excited to know that there's no blood work, there's no needle involved. And so it makes it feel safe and comfortable for people to know that they get this really great look, this whole holistic look at every system of the body. There are two terms that I teach are practice members, and one is called blocking, and the other is called switching.

 

So when we very first put our hands on your body again, we're using one arm as a reflex. It's either open or closed. Your experience of holding it out in front of you or having it dropped down. Right. First of all, we're looking for something called blocked regulation. If the nervous system is blocked, it can't do its job. It can't maintain the optimal function of its organs and glandular system. Okay. So not only are we looking at is it blocked, but we're looking at what's in the way.

 

So pardon my speaking kind of an analogy or a story here, but I would say to people. So, hey, you're lined up on the track next to your buddies, and the gun goes off and everyone starts running, and within minutes, you're flat on your face and you have no idea what you ran into. You get up, dust yourself off, you start running again, and Bam, you go down. Meanwhile, everyone else is running laps around, you know, in triumph because they're moving along easily and quickly, and you keep hitting this invisible hurdle, so to speak, so the idea is, what heck is that hurdle?

 

So a we can identify using our stress kits. So when we use the word stressor, we're looking at all four immune challenges. So parasites, bacteria, viruses, funguses. And just in this most recent training we had, which is below the ceiling off of our practice in the last three and a half weeks is the ability to find these deeply hidden kind of morphed and mutated immune challenges that are resistant to care. So people have the experience of having kind of an underlying chronic infection. Case in point, someone had a root canal and they just have never been the same.

 

Right. So there's a low-lying infection that nobody can find, but they just feel like crap. Nobody can tell them why they are. So now we have the procedure to find that stuff, which has just been ridiculously crazy in the past few weeks. So we're able to identify what that is. And then, more importantly, find the antidote for that were trained on 20 different lines, everything from homeopathic remedies to herbal remedies to whole food supplementation to stem cell extracts. And we will find the thing your body needs to open up that regulation.

 

Okay. So then we have access to the nervous system, right. Does that answer your question? Kind of first and foremost, how we get into there?

 

Yes.

So the second piece being switching and switching occurs to us as like confusion on the nervous system a little bit like babies are born confused, they're upside down and their days and nights are swapped. It's a really obvious sort of state of switching doesn't mean their switch is just a great example of that. So often switching occurs is something very suddenly. The language they'll use is like, suddenly I can't sleep at night, I suddenly have chronic diarrhea. I suddenly broke out in hives and rashes like that.

 

And we go through a similar procedure with different hand modes. And then what we find there are what is the stressor? Let's say we find chlorine is a chemical toxicity. And then we have to find the antidote for that. We find that now we have blocking handled and we have switching handle. So if I were testing you Candi I would handle blocking and switching if it were there. And only if those were handled, then it's like, oh, there you are. Nice to meet you. Right. Because those are just superficial layers.

 

If if set aside and not checked, you're going to have very inconsistent results. And so it's one thing we see is people who have gone to in the beginner and that's the place to start. I'm not saying people are going to have a bad experience. They'll be better off than they were. But they may have the experience of spending a lot of money every single week because people are starting at ground zero again every time and not working through a progressive state of improving health over time.

 

So.

 

So you're testing by actually having somebody hold on to a bio item?

 

Sure.

 

Right. So if you're testing for chlorine, you're having them hold glass tile that has chlorine,

 

Correct. Yeah.

And that's what your body is responding to.

 

Correct.

And how effective. So if you do.

I will tell you time and time again. People test us. I mean, they do. Sometimes they're not telling me. Sometimes I know. And what they have is they their blood panel of food sensitivities or whatever it is. I mean, I would say those are somewhat inconclusive foods. It seems like we dial right in and we can find the we find the thing. And I don't even know if there's a list or people will have come from. This has happened a lot where they're coming from a different state and they're coming to somewhere children or something to do, like an allergy panel and their kid because they're recovered in eczema.

 

But then they'll have our appointment set up in the afternoon. And what they find are two very different answers.

 

Very good for people who want to reach out to you and set an appointment. They can call you at 612-418-3801, or visit your website at MyHealthyBeginning.Com. When we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with Nikki and learn about the Heal Your Thyroid program that they offer you're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM950. The Progressive Voice of Minnesota will be back in just a bit.

 

Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations, where we delve into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine and talk to the professionals who share their expertise on natural health with you. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're talking with Nicki Hirsch Kuechle.

 

You got it

 

A nutrition response testing practitioner and owner of My Healthy Beginning, a wellness clinic, and Long Lake. So it's recently been reported that as many as 59 million people in the United States are afflicted with some sort of thyroid disorder. And I understand that you actually have a program that you offer at your clinic called Heal Your Thyroid.

 

I also understand that you use the nutrition response testing as a part of that program.

 

Correct.

 

Okay. So first of all, let's talk about thyroid. What are some of the things that you see that are presented to you with the clients that come in with thyroid issues?

 

Yeah. First of all, our clinic is about 40% thyroid. Just by way of what shows up, it doesn't even mean it's what they came in with as a concern. But what we find that's the driving force behind what's not working around their health. So how these I was going to say women, men, too, but not as many. Certainly, it's more female-oriented in its presentation. And I remember in our training they would say here's what hyperthyroid looks like and here's what hypothyroid looks like. Now pretend you don't know any of it.

 

Because it can look like everything and anything. And that's really the truth. More often than not, these women have had blood panels. They're totally inconclusive. They say my thyroid is fine and they come in. And there are these people that are constantly pulling up their throat, constantly clearing their throat. Thyroid is obviously swollen. That area of the neck is obviously swollen. Hair loss may be a thing. Adrenal. Fatigue may be a thing. Heart issues, maybe a thing. Sleeplessness is often a case. Metal, toxic, mineral deficient, heart racing, hot flashes.

 

Some of it is just, oh, it's hormones. It's probably my hormones. I'm going through menopause, right?

 

So often it gets kind of misdiagnosed by very well-meaning. Medical doctors are looking at so many other things as well because it presents similar to other things as well.

 

Anxiety, depression.

 

So when it comes to let's just talk a little bit about. So you said let's just ignore the difference between hyper and hypothyroidism, but just so that the listeners understand. And what is the difference between it?

 

Well, so we can't and don't treat diagnose and prescribe in this work. So even if there is an MD who is trained in advanced nutrition response testing like the MD hat has to come off when they're doing this work, which is really the beauty of it, because the body really tells the tail your hyperthyroid patient often will look tall, long spindly. You know, big dough eyes, thinning hair. What do they call it? The vertical stripes on the fingernails? Heart racing, sick. You know, maybe some IDs along with that.

 

Her palpitations like that typical hypothyroid case might be that chronic. I can't lose this weight. It's around my middle.

 

I'm tired all the time.

 

I'm tired all the time. I'm not motivated. I'm tired of being told I'm lazy. I can't get anything done. The brain fog is so thick. I have no sex drive that's on both ends. Usually, you know, they're miserable despite they're miserable. And they've been told they're fine. Unfortunately.

 

It's all in your hand.

 

It's all in your head. I know it'll be fine. And then they're on medication and and the like is the medication. Is that what has me feel miserable or is this just something's not right? I mean, they have that I call them, like, intuitive pings, right? I'm like you're so smart. You're paying attention, your body's communicating. You're just not speaking the same language. That's the only thing missing. So let me come in and translate for you.

 

Right.

 

What your body is saying to you.

 

And that's so good. I mean, I'm glad that you brought that up, because that's really kind of the premise behind Green Tea conversations, too, is getting us back to listening to our intuition. You know, you're not feeling good.

 

Right.

 

So instead of just taking one or two or ten opinions, if you're still not feeling good and you don't feel like you feel, you know that there's something wrong. Continue.

 

Keep looking right.

 

Continue to find out what the problem is so that you can get, well, you want to live your best life. So one of the things that's kind of close to me, I guess you would say, is Graves disease. My mom, my mother, who had diabetes and she had always had. She was always diagnosed as having hypothyroidism. All of a sudden something switched and she just she started losing weight. She became very nervous. Her eyes got very big. I used to say to her like, Am I doing something to make you feel uncomfortable?

 

Because I would see her. And it was like she was scared of me.

 

Right.

 

That's how it felt to me because her eyes were vague, bulging and she was shaking all the time. And she's like, no, and I'm like, Are you sure? Do you feel judged by me? What can I do differently? Because I feel like there's something going on here. And we didn't know for the longest time until she actually was in a public place and she passed out and she just went down very, very hard.

 

We took her in. She was in tech Cardia, and then they discovered that she had hyperthyroidism and when we took her then to a specialist, it was actually grave.

 

Sure.

 

So sometimes we see both.

 

Okay. So talk a little bit about that.

 

They're really sick people. I mean, not living their best lives, unable to live their best lives in a lot of ways. They have no stamina. They have no muscle tone. They are depressed and anxious. Most of them, they have heart trouble. I mean, the youngest in our practice is seven. To be honest with you, that's pretty.

 

Yeah. So we always think of these middle-aged women who are going through a midlife crisis must be their thyroid. You're like, oh, my God. I mean, a number of kids in our practice are suffering from adrenal fatigue or some sort of thyroid or heart issue, if you will. And that's just sad to see. And then, unfortunately, they end up on psychotropic drugs because that's what's showing up over there on the other side. It does look like something else. Right. And then one of the tricks with some of these now it's like, I'm just seeing the kids in our practice at the moment.

 

But a lot of these women, if they are on the underweight side, they're so afraid to make some of the lifestyle changes around food because they're like, I don't have I don't have the weight to lose. And I get how that could be scary. And really, in those cases, there may be a drop in weight up to about £10 before you turn the corner and their body starts waking up to like, oh, I get what's going on here. Wow. Now I'm assimilating nutrients. I actually know what to do with those nutrients that are coming in versus kind of finding with that debt end sign, right.

 

Every time the body is trying to take in a nutrient, you've got to find the right pathways you've got to eliminate, let's say, the junk. I don't necessarily mean, yes, we want to deal with the food that people are eating. But, I mean, the gunk that just built up in the body. That the metabolic waste of the organisms that may be pathogens that are there the toxicities that are there. On the flip side, you have the women who are frustrated that they can't get rid of the weight that they've gained.

 

I've got both ends of the spectrum. And those women, what they're missing and hanging on to is that, well, I have to lose weight first, let me lose weight, and then I'll come into the clinic and then I'll see you guys, and then I'll start your program because then I'll be healthy. And what they're missing is actually, you got to get in there and clean that body out so that it can start to lose weight and maintain that in a sustainable fashion. Otherwise, as these women say, I'm going to do the stupid things.

 

I have a wedding coming up or I have vacation coming. I'm going to do these stupid things and we have to talk about fled. But, you know, there are ways of providing a little jump start to a body if it's ready. But the beautiful thing about nutrition response testing is we can find out exactly what's going on and what's missing in Western medicine is the underlying cause. You know, like, well, let's fix it by here's a medication because it will drive that blood pressure down. But, you know, guess what drives up that blood pressure all the time.

 

A number of underlying issues could be food-related. Could be immune, challenge related. Could be toxicity-related. It's going to be different for every person that walks in the door. Yeah. You wouldn't believe the things we see that's what's so fascinating about it is it whether you're coming in with a thyroid issue. Hard issue. Pituitary issue, how it comes about what's happening and how it's manifesting in the body and what the underlying causes. It's just entirely different. That's what I meant. When I said earlier, you can see the puzzle pieces start to come together.

 

You know, some of these people didn't experience any hormonal issues until they were in a car accident where, you know, the pituitary gland side of the head is what hit the steering wheel. And then, boom, they're in a state of disarray with their health that they were never in before. And everyone's treating them for headaches and they're seeing chiropractors and PT is all good things. But it's not really getting at the root cause of the problem, which is that it blew out the pituitary gland and it's causing problems down there in the gut now or whatever the case may be.

 

There's many many layers.

 

Yeah.

 

It's almost like being a Detective on.

 

I love it.

 

So you're taking care of one thing, and then it's almost in layers.

 

Correct.

 

You're just kind of getting helping to heal one thing before you go on to before another thing kind of presents itself.

 

Right. And to speak to kind of our quote, Unquote heal your thyroid program that it is nutrition response testing. We're not doing anything else other than nutrition response testing. But I always say to people who are asking questions on Facebook, and I never want, have you tried nutrition response testing to ever be just like this can answer just this wrote thing that I say. And so I either don't say enough or or I have to private message people because there's so much more to see in it. It's not like.

 

And it's extremely customized.

It is so..

 

It's not the same.

 

No. So it's so much it's usually what I'll do is say, if I can get 15 or 30 minutes on the phone like a complimentary, what we do is the next step session, which is actually it's great for listeners, too, who are like, I don't really know if this is for me. That would be the thing to schedule with us is just that phone call because we get an idea of who you are, what you're dealing with, what you've done, what isn't working. And can I see have we worked with people before like you who've had similar issues to you?

 

And it really just gives that opportunity to create some of that relatedness so people can say like, hey, am I going to enjoy working with this woman? First of all, she's crazy.

 

And so that is an introductory phone call. That right.

 

Anybody can do that.

 

And in the cost of that again?

 

There is no cost. It's just we call it a next step session, and it is our opportunity to get to know you a little bit better because if there's a better referral that I can make for what you're experiencing, I will do that. I have no issue doing that. I want you know.

 

So how does somebody go about making that appointment with you?

 

They could go right to our website at My HealthyBeginning.com and book a next set session. I think it's up in the right-hand corner, or they could just call the office and get that scheduled.

 

And the number for them to call is

 

612-418-3801.

 

Say it one more time and little slower

 

  612-418-381.

 

Great. But when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with Nikki, and we are going to be talking about in the next session. We're going to kind of explore a little bit more about what the hell your thyroid program is. Kind of the step to step about that. To read Natural Awakenings magazine online, visit NaturalTwinCities.Com. You can find a podcast of this show on AM950Radio.com on Apple and Google Podcasts, and anywhere you get your podcasts. You're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM950. The Progressive Voice of Minnesota will be back in just a bit.

 

Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations, where we delve into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine and talk to the professionals who share their expertise on natural health with you. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're talking with Nicki Hirschh Kuechle. I think that in you got it now.

 

So now you'll never forget it.

 

 A nutrition response testing practitioner and owner of My Healthy Beginning, which is a wellness clinic in Long Lake. So before we left, we're we're talking about the Heal Your Thyroid program. So take us through that if somebody were to sign up for that program with you, kind of take us through what their journey might look like.

 

So it's a three-phase program, essentially. So the first phase is kind of your fine-tuning and tweaking program where your body is dancing inside of a new protocol, like inside of a whole new way of being as it's starting to do the dance of what is it to adapt to something new and start letting go of some of the old that's both in lifestyle habits, just management of a lifestyle in general, and then the supplementation to start managing what it is that they're dealing with. And inside of that, they're literally on my table every single week in a follow-up visit where we actually do testing.

 

So the first visit takes so much longer because we're looking at the whole entire system and then the follow-up visits. We're not looking at the whole system. We're just focusing in on kind of what your active areas are, and that's what enables us to offer progress, you know, reports over time.

 

So the first visit, they do the heart monitoring?

 

The heart rate variability to monitor. We look at visceral fat and body fat levels and wait just to get an idea of that, we put you on the table and do the actual testing here's. One thing that's probably a shocker to some people is they may come in and say, my thyroid, like, my thyroid is the problem. And some don't say my thyroid is a problem. They don't know it's a problem. Either way, we're going to find it. And there are times where they're not complaining of it, but everything that shows up inside of the intake form and surveys and things they're filling out.

 

They're like, this is just thyroid. That crazy. It's like crazy. But she doesn't really see that it is or isn't complaining about it being a problem. But we can find it. So sometimes these organs are hidden. They kind of hideout and they're back there like, I'm not a problem. Nobody knows I'm here.

 

Don't look at me.

 

Don't look at me and in fact, I describe it as some of these glands and organs, particularly the irate kind of a Jackass. I like it sits. It sits back there like a marionette.

 

Okay. Like fumbling it strings around. I pointing to everybody else but itself. Right. So there's a lot of chasing

 

Blaming everybody, every other organ or every other system in your body.

 

Right. There's a lot of looking around and chasing and time being spent. I just remember the difference between kind of my beginner and intermediate training and then completing the advanced clinical training and just like the CAPA of, oh, my gosh. I had no idea what we were missing and being able to handle some of these endocrine issues for women. It just blew my mind. And so sometimes you've got the pituitary that's actually the problem or the hypothalamus is actually the problem or the heart. That's actually the problem pointing to the thyroid.

 

Or you have the thyroid going there pointing at everybody else. So you spend time doing the things that aren't actually necessarily important. You need to know how to find the one that's hidden that is causing the problem. And there are things about a thyroid. Like, guess what? It just has no tolerance for sugar and grains. Just period. Better said, the worst thing you can do to handle your thyroid is consumed sugar and grain. And what are women do? They're subsisting on their sugared, coffee drinks and their pastries, and their bagels.

 

And you know what I'm saying? Their pasta, their cereals.

 

That energy, too.

Yeah. It makes sense.

 

Right. Because you're feeling depleting completely so now I'm going to go with sharing.

 

They walk into the employee lounge. Thank God somebody brought muffins in today. Right. So then they just had breakfast, coffee, and blueberry muffin, and they feel so much better for about 17 minutes.

I was going to say for about 15 minutes. So they were crashing and then they not feeling good. Yeah.

 

So they just sit in the cycle all the time and they can't see their way. They can't see their way out of it. And it's exciting to help them navigate through that, because the minute they see a blip on the horizon of Betterness or hope, I mean, they're over the moon excited because they just know my mom once described it really well when we were handling her thyroid at one time. And she said, How's your fatigue? Like, How's your energy level right now? She said, it's really interesting before I was just tired all the time, just like, completely bombed all the time.

 

Right. But she was like, no, it's really far back there, but like. But I can see that it's changing. I thought that was so cool because it just takes being aware, first of all, to go, like, I don't necessarily feel different, but there's something way out there. I can't put my finger on it. And that's often what people will say. We talked about kind of the first phase being that weekly for maybe six to nine, maybe twelve weeks or so. And what we're really looking for is 25% improvement in order to move them on to lesser frequent visits and kind of that next stage of lifestyle management and supplementation.

 

And the the script. They can't sometimes they can't exactly pinpoint what's changing. We can see it either twinkly their cheeks have pinked up. They've got a little lightness in their step. It's palpable. Right. And they say, I just can't put my finger on it just something different. 

 

It's super cool

 

Because you can you can see them starting to transform. And they're like, okay, I got it. Let's keep going.

 

And I think that's an important thing for the listeners to really understand, too. It's not a quick fix. It's not something that's going to happen. And immediately they're going to feel different. It does take time. It's taken a lot of time for your body to get here to begin with. And there's many different, as you said earlier, many different layers to it. But as they start to get better, and I always say to people, too, I mean, think about what were you doing six weeks ago? What were you doing nine weeks ago, right?

 

They're like, don't look at that.

 

But the time goes so fast. It seems like a long time when you're not feeling good to say, I have to invest 13 weeks. I have to invest 18 weeks, six months, whatever the case might be. But really, when you look at it, time goes so fast. Anyway, it's not going to take a long .

 

I'm stealing  that line, because what I do tell people. Like, we talked about this next step session, so people say, okay, well, what's the cost? And what are you looking at here? And so I let them know, not a quick fix. You're putting up a financial commitment and energy commitment, a time commitment, like, minimally. I need you for six months. Bottom line. I mean, there's no other option to working with us unless we're getting that kind of commitment because there's no way there's no actual way to create new healthy habits that are lasting that will like, I am here for your lifetime, like, for your lifestyle management, progressing and improving over time.

 

I am not interested in having you feel better.

 

Right.

 

Not at all.

 

It's actually healing.

 

Yeah.

 

And so in your program, they're going to get the nutrition testing. They're going to get coaching with you through that six months to make really lifetime changes for themselves. And again, you said the Next step program is free. And if they want to get the next step session, I'm sorry. The next step session is free, and they can find that by going to your website at?

 

MyHealthyBeginning.com

 

Or they can call the office?

 

612-418-3801.

Great. Well, Nikki, thank you so much for being with us today. It's really been a pleasure. And we have had such great information that you've shared with us. We really appreciate it. And thank you for joining our conversation today as we awaken to Natural Health. To read an online edition of Natural Awakenings Magazine, or to check out our complete online calendar of events, visit NaturalTwinCities.Com. You can find a podcast of the show on AM950 Radio.Com on Apple Podcast in Google Podcasts or anywhere you find your podcast.

 

You've been listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM950 The Progressive Voice of Minnesota and I'm wishing for you a lovely day!