She Sings to Her Food?! PA Katie’s Wild Health Method That Works | Katie Ruffino | Ep. 90

Introduction to Food, Health, and Katie Raffino 0:00

Food is impacting your health more than you might realize. If we can connect to our food in a different way, the healing power and medicinal power of that food goes beyond just the vitamins and nutrients. We are what we consume. There's such a strong psychological component that people have to tap into. So I do think what you consume will dictate your genetic makeup. It will affect your genes. Joining us today is Katie Raffino, a nationally certified physician associate founder of Sunnyside KT and host of Katie in the Kitchen.

Why do you think that you don't really see too many PAs going more into the functional medicine side? When I got out of school, I decided to go straight into regenerative functional medicine because I didn't want to waste time. Most people who want go into the medical field or help people with their health in some way think the options are limited and not a lot of people are aware that there's another way. You help women reconnect with themselves. How do you do that? What I mentioned earlier about how health is not just about having a healthy body, it's about, how do you live a fulfilling life?

I help people to reframe their relationship with themselves and realize that you are worthy of being exactly as you. So what are some common myths about the functional medicine space? That's actually a hard question. I think that. Welcome to another episode of a Healthy Point of View podcast. I'm your host, Sam Tahata. And like usual, we're bringing experts from all over the world to talk about health, wellness, beauty, and mindset. Today's guest, I've been following her for quite a few years on social media and she's doing some great things.

The interesting part is I found out years later that when I started following her as a PA, physician associate, don't get it wrong because it's not physician assistant anymore, she was only 23 years old doing what she's doing already today. She is touching people in so many different ways, internally, energetically, helping people really live that healthy, very well life that we're always talking about. Today we have Katie Raffino. Hey, Katie. All right. Welcome, welcome. Thank you, thank you for having me.

Absolutely. So Katie, Ruffino, your family owns the wine? Ah, extended family. Extended family, yeah. That's like, there's always like a lot of Dominican baseball players, a few with the last name Tahata, and I was, oh, are you related to Miguel Tahada? Yeah, so we're not alive, you know? Not enough to get any of his money, though. Yeah. Well, we're all related at some capacity, so. Some capacity. Yeah. Right. Katie. So pleasure to have you here on a Healthy Point of View podcast. Thank you. And you have a very compelling story.

But first, I want the listeners and viewers to really understand who is Katie? And it's such a loaded question right because there's so many different parts of me that I could start with I think. What most people know me as sunny side Katie or that's the nickname that i've been given over the years it was an instagram handle that just came to me when I wanted to start my own page separate from my personal page back in high school and. It started off as being about cooking. I got into the health journey and learned about how food is medicine just through my own experience.

And that inspired me to want to go down the path of being a practitioner in health. So a lot of people know me as the girl who is the chef. the creative cook, the medical personnel, and also somebody who sings, somebody whose creative and just goes with the flow of life and the sunshine to their day, to there life. And that's something that I really cherish and want to continue to do and be that. But where do you want me to start, or I guess, So, you know, though, I mean, that intro is actually good.

It actually brought up a quick question. So you sing, right? I do. Yeah. And you're talking about cooking. Do you ever sing to the food when you cook? Yeah, actually, a couple of people have asked me that, funny enough. So I don't always sing to my food, but I do find that when you connect with your food in a certain way, whether that's through touching it, smelling it through the process of cooking when your chopping the fruits and vegetables and honoring the food a in certain ways, singing to it can actually also elevate the vibration of the foods and connect to But it's something I think I sometimes intentionally do but otherwise

Katieu2019s Background and Path Into Medicine 4:47

it if I have a tune in my head and I'm just singing It's like you have the ability to actually like infuse some of that energy from that that scene Into the food. Yeah, and that's one thing I had a celebrity chef on the podcast and she was talking about how it was important to put that positive energy into the food, you know. Katie, so you started as a PA at a very young age, right? 23. I mean, that's young to be a medical practitioner. And I know what it's about being young in the medical field with that type of responsibility.

So it's like you start thinking to yourself, especially today where I'm 38 years old, I was responsible for someone who's actually dead and their life is in my hands at age 20. So how did that come about? Because that's pretty, most 23 year olds are not thinking about, hey I am a PA at 23. Right, yeah, it is a lot of responsibility. And just thinking about that right now is making me remember that it a big responsibility, but it's also such a privilege to be able to help serve people in the ways in which I have been, in ways which you have as well, and so many people, any art of saving lives.

I think that from a very young age, I was very fortunate to know that I wanted to in a position of serving others, whether that was in the medical space or in some kind of healing arts. And I have a grandfather who was a doctor, and when I was very young, he understood or picked up on the fact that I interested in human body and how it worked. Ever since I as a young girl, I always had this fascination of life and of how the human works, why we're all here and very philosophical And my curiosity was profound enough for him to want to nurture that.

And we always had conversations over at the dinner table about different bones in the body and how the mind worked and the brain was the last frontier and he was way ahead of his time and I'm fortunate to have had a mentor who nurtured that at a very young age. And when I was growing up, I thought about what I wanted to do with my life. Did I want to go into the medical field or something else? And also having been in the music industry in my own way from a young the performance route or do I go the medical route?

And what helped me to decide to go down the medial route was that I knew that singing and cooking and these different things could always be a part of my life. I didn't have to school for it. For it to be something I enjoyed. And how I could still use my voice in ways that were my own creative outlet and also as therapy. And I actually did end up working in a hospital to get some clinical hours to be a PA in musical therapy. And so I did get to experience the power of healing. I have a story I could share about that maybe.

But with the reason why I really chose to go down the medical field is because I knew I had the support from my family. I had the desire to do it and I know that it's a very rewarding field to be able to help people. And how I decided to go PA versus doctor is that I'm a multi-passionate person and saw the ways in which my grandfather sacrificed to take care of his patients and his family. and he had his own medical practice, and I just knew I also wanted to be a mom. I knew also I wanted have kids and have a family of my own, I didn't want medicine to consume my life.

And as a PA, there's so much possibility. And I actually went and saw a PA myself when I was in high school and she was the one that listened to me, had time with me. She listened my concerns, helped walk me through the process if I needed any help. And, I saw the doctor right after and he was very quick to come in and out and didn't really give me the time of day. That was only impression I had of PAs versus doctors when i was deciding what path I wanted to take. And the part that I love about medicine is actually connecting with people.

And that was the that part I knew if I was a PA, I could have the ability to really connect with other people on a different level. So then I went to school. I did undergrad in biomedical sciences at Marquette University and was also fortunate to... Hello, like Milwaukee? In Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I think you told me that before, right? Yeah. Yeah, I'm originally from Milwaukee. 17 years. Oh, that's right. And I grew up in Milwaukee Yeah that is awesome. So you know it well. Originally from Michigan so I was always born and raised in the Midwest.

You know that Dwayne Wade went to Marquette also? So that how I found out. That's the only thing I knew about Marqette was that he was there. and the PA that I saw The PA that I saw actually went to Marquette for the PA program as well, so that enticed me. So I went undergrad for biomedical sciences, continued on through their accelerated program to become a PA through the master's program. It was a three year program, but it overlapped with my senior year, which is how I was able to graduate at 23 with a master degree.

And Marqette has a very nice fine arts program there too. Yeah, Marquette's an amazing school. I think that it was the perfect fit for me. And what I love about that school, besides just being an incredible academic institution, is that the community and the alumni base of that School is strong. and I wanted to be a part of a legacy. And I knew that it had a strong weight to the name that if you went to that school, you were well respected because you are trained properly. Especially the PA program, it's pretty well ranked.

Katie, let me ask you this. PA, right? Why did they change it from physician assistant to physician associate? Yeah, well, there's a lot of different ways I guess I can answer that question. But I think that physician assistant, sometimes the assistant part, a lotta people will say physician's assistant as if the physician owns the PA or they're a sidekick. And they are, in a sense, an integral part of the medical team and do assist the physicians. I believe most states, if not all, PAs still need to be licensed and have a doctor overseeing or supervising their work.

Not that they're not independent. All PAS are autonomous to some extent to make their own decisions, but They can do so much that a doctor can't do almost everything the same absolutely and so that's why I think the shift from assistant to associate was important to. To better describe the role of the PA and the medical team and that they are associated with the physician. and they're also very autonomous and have a lot of credentials to be able to take care of patients independently. Absolutely.

I can see that for sure. Especially in our industry. There's really not much that the physician associate can't do versus the medical doctor. It's very similar. You know, you said growing up, your grandfather, right, who was the medical doctor, he kind of nurtured the process. Was one of your favorite games that Operation Game? I did like that game. Yeah, I do too. It taught me steady hands. I don't know if it'd be my favorite game, but I enjoyed it. You did enjoy it, awesome. Katie, so You know, you have something that, I became very interested in it and it's something you decided to do with your content and its Katie in the Kitchen, right?

What made you wanna do Katie In The Kitchen? So for those of you who don't know about Katie in the Kitchen and what it is, it's a cooking interview series in which I cook with people and I interview them at the same time. And I wanted to start a podcast of my own. I love deep conversations and wanted something that was fun and engaging. And I love to cook and I wanted to teach people how to eat healthy in a way that was fun and creative and didn't feel like you were watching some old TV show. You know, the Food Network.

Not not to say that Food network is bad or anything. I actually love the food network and grew up on it. But I. Wanted something that. Was going to cater to the next generation. Right. And everybody's on social media, everybody is on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube. And so I started with creating a short interview series where I'd go to the grocery store and I would come up to somebody and say, hey, what are you cooking today? And they'd say oh, I don't know or I'm cooking this or need help with that.

And I invite them to cook with me. We would go around the store collecting all the ingredients and go back to my place or theirs and cook in the kitchen. And I just wanted to highlight who the person was, but also highlight the recipe and show that cooking doesn't have to be so complicated and eating healthy doesn' have be hard or restrictive. It actually can be easy and fun as long as you just know the ways to do it. And I had to learn through my own experience and finding recipes online, Pinterest, Instagram, all these different websites and cookbooks.

And, I wanted to also re-inspire people to connect with their food. Like we started talking about in the beginning, if we can connect to our food in a different way, the healing power and the medicinal power of that food goes beyond just the vitamins and nutrients that are in food products. It's we are what we consume, we become that we're communing with it. And so when we give reverence to the food that were eating and all the people that are involved in the process of cooking the foods and understand that food is life.

Food is fun, it's pleasure, its creativity, It is an art form, an act of love and service. I wanted to highlight these different aspects of food in a show that was fun where people were learning passively just by enjoying and entertaining the content. That's amazing. So when you cook, are you the type of person that cooks following a specific recipe and utilizing like measurement tools? Or are the types of persons like a little bit of this, a bit a that? Yeah. Well, there's two different answers to that.

I think being Italian. Yeah, I gravitate towards that, but I also have a type A personality. part of myself that likes to follow directions. And I'm very task and one, two, three oriented. So what I'll do is I will look at a recipe and I get a gist of what it is. Then I say, okay, I make it my way. I put the Katie twist on it and not really measuring. Like anything, when you're learning a new skill, it's going to take a little bit more time and attention to detail in the beginning. But once you've done it over and over again, you kind of, It's like muscle memory and you get an idea of this is just how it goes.

And so with cooking, I've cooked so much over the course of my life that I'm able to guesstimate what a cup is or what tablespoon is, or, And also just using my palette. What I love cooking rather than baking because when you're cooking you can refine the ingredients and you could refine a dish while you are cooking versus baking. You put the ingredient together, you put it in the oven and pray that it turns out right. Well see like baking is different. That you have to measure. Because if not you got to get some other kind of mush that will come out instead of a cake.

So that's one thing I learned from my mother. She's like, because my mom was like typical Dominican, it's like, you know, they just cook by adding things on their own, not really measuring things. But when it came to bacon, she was she would always measure everything.

Cooking, Food as Medicine, and Her Health Awakening 17:28

It's just no, no. You can't play around with that when you're baking a cake or whatever it is that they're making. She says you can mess around. So. Yeah, exactly. So, and yeah, I think that not only are you putting in the ingredients, but you're also putting your own energy into the food you are eating. And I actually cater retreats. I cook for people in small retreat and I've always gotten very positive feedback where it just tastes different. It's different than what people felt like they could have made on their own.

I've been always wondering about that. Is it the quality of ingredients I'm picking? Is that I am conscious of what I put into the food or is it just that having so much fun cooking and I love serving people because I get to share a part of me every time I have a plate in front of somebody and infusing that love and happiness into it. So you mentioned that you kind of fell in love with cooking like in high school and you had your own health story that was about you cooking healthy. Let's talk about that.

Yeah. So I grew up with a mother who was health conscious. She was the mom who would go to the PTA at the schools and try to help the kids to not eat cookies for breakfast and rather have eggs or something. Is she one of the Maha moms today? I would say she is, but she doesn't call herself that. But I definitely learned from a young age that food is important. She also fed us Eggo waffles and different sugary cereals. So she wasn't so hyper focused on doing everything perfectly. It didn't instill something in me at a very young to know that health is and food.

And also being from an Italian family on my dad's side, I always knew that good food was really key to a good life. But when I was in high school, I started to get symptoms where I had headaches during school. I couldn't focus, my energy was going down in the afternoons and I just couldn' understand why. And I thought I'm young and healthy and vibrant and played sports and something just fell off. One year I was giving up food for Lent. I ended up giving out processed foods and just wanted to try it.

And I actually don't know why I did it, I can't even remember. It was just a feeling, an intuitive hit that I had to do it And I immediately felt incredibly different. Really? And it was just as simple as cutting out processed foods. I didn't realize how many processed food I'd actually been eating, but it is, you know, cheese, goldfish, pretzels, cereal. It's just things that when you don't know how to eat otherwise, it seems normal to you. And the same thing happened where I don' know. How bad I was actually feeling until I started feeling good.

And that was after I started cutting out these foods that weren't serving me. They were causing inflammation. And I know all these things now after researching, but back then I had no idea. Most people don't unless they take the initiative or have been informed by people around them that food is impacting your health more than you might realize. You can feel even better than now if you're doing the right things. So that woke me up to explore that further. And so as I was continuing down this journey with food and I, was like, wow, I'm gonna go for this because I see the benefit it's affecting me.

I say the benefits it is giving me and so I also thought that if I am going to do this, why not have fun with it? Why not get creative with? So that's when I really started to learn how to cook for myself and get created with, started my Instagram and started teach and help other people vicariously just by posting and informing people about the things I'd been learning. And so as I had gone through the beginning of college, once I graduated high school, went to college I had to eat in the dorms and I was like, this is not gonna work.

Those like noodle packages. Oh no, the ramen noodles. Yeah, and all the fake meats and you have no idea what the source of the food is there and they use seed oils for everything. And this was when seed oil weren't even the worst thing that people knew about. but I would have gut issues. I'd feel bloated, I have irregular bowel movements, and I just, again, the same thing happened where I felt like I couldn't perform well in school. And I thought, i'm here for a reason. i am here to learn, to get a good education and perform my best.

If I don't feel good, then I can't do that. and i thought that I'm not the only one who's experiencing this. There must be other students that are also suffering, And i would hear it from different friends that have the So what I did was I ended up going to the advisory board of the school and I told them, I said, this is unacceptable. We can't eat like this. It's just not going I think there's something to this and that we should make a change. And so- Were they receptive to that? They were to an extent, but then once I kept coming to them with new student complaints and different things, then they were like, okay, this is serious.

We need to start looking into this. So they brought me on their advisory board as a student advocate. And I helped them change the food system at the school. And we brought in local chefs to also show the culture of Milwaukee and different restaurant owners to connect the students with the cultural around the city. And they started adding allergy free aisles where they were eliminating gluten and dairy and peanuts and different things that were common allergens to help give students options. And then they also did a couple other things for the food system.

But I felt so empowered at that moment. I thought, wow, like, I feel like I can make a difference at the system level. everything that's happening politically these days with the whole Maha movement, it is so rewarding to know that people are listening and people who are standing up for the things that they believe in, especially around health. Because if you don't have health, you have nothing. And health is something that a lot of people maybe put on the back burner until they're sick, and they don t realize how important it That's amazing that you were doing that in Milwaukee, because I tell you, growing up in the Midwest in general, Wisconsin, healthy food wasn't that common, to be honest with you.

You'd go to the state fair, they got fried everything. I think I ate, it was a Krispy Kreme donut, chocolate-covered bacon cheeseburger. Oh gosh. That's the most Midwest thing. I remember going up there after I graduated high school and I went to the state fair and had one of those. And I was like, man, this is the reason why people are so obese in the Midwest. Also it gets cold and people kind of have comfort food. Yeah, and the drinking culture. The drink culture is crazy. Beer is a normal thing, they drink it like it's water.

Yeah, cheese, fried cheese curds. So that's amazing that you were able to do that and bring that to the community in Milwaukee specifically at the university. You know, as a PA, You know, most PAs, and now you're starting to see a little bit of a shift, but most PA's go into a lot of the conventional, traditional medicine. And then you see, a lotta PAS go to aesthetics medicine, But you don't see that go more into what you do, like a holistic health coach as a PA. Why is that? Why do you think that you really don' see too many PA going more to the functional medicine side?

And what really? Well, I kind of know why I got you to go that route. But what is like the main reason why you felt like, hey, this is where I have to put my expertise as a PA into the holistic health coach side? Yeah, there's a lot of pieces to that. I think to start, most people who want to go into the medical field or help people with their health in some way, think Western medicine, doctor, PA, nurse practitioner, or nurse. And that's the options are limited and not a lot of people are aware that there's another way.

Right. Thankfully, I had the awakening at a very young age to know that that they're so much more to health and healing than pharmaceuticals and surgery and chasing these symptoms and calling diseases what they are and then putting a label on something and Then just mitigating those symptoms. And so When I did decide to go into the medical field, I always knew in the back of my mind that I was going to do something different. I always felt different and not to say that I was better or anything than other people.

I just felt like intuitively there was another way to healing. But I knew I also needed to learn about the system by going to school and learning how to speak the language, understanding what's going on in the medical system and how do I do it? And then how I add my own flair? How do then use what I'm learning and then add expertise or perspective or values or whatever it is to actually practice medicine in a way that I feel good about. And so I sought after extra training. Even when I was in my undergrad, I took extra nutrition courses outside of my degree just because I wanted to learn.

I want to expose myself. If I listening to all the podcasts I could, reading all of the articles because had the desire. And because I also knew how it affected me personally and how lost I felt going to the Western, like turning to Western medicine. And that's a story that so many people tell these days. They go to the doctor, they get the labs. They're told they're fine and nothing's wrong with them, but yet they feel like something's off. And I was one of those people. I knew that I wanted to offer healthcare and healing in a way that people felt heard, that they felt seen, and that there was more to this story.

That's where the functional medicine approach inspired me. When I learned about it, I did have to seek it out. Once I learned about that, I ran with it because I thought there's no other way. You have to always ask why, why why? Why do you feel this way? What's causing that? Let's look deeper. And the more I am a very deep thinker. So it was like a puzzle to me. I was the detective sleuth figuring these things out. Cracking the code. To figure out what is the optimum way the optimal way to healing, but not just to feel good physically, how do you have a good life?

Because feeling good, physically is one component of having a fulfilling life. And so that's how I decided to go down the functional medicine route. I think so many people are just unaware that that is even an option. Once they find out, there is also a lot of There's a lot of people who dismiss it, who might say, oh, that's the snake oil, or that doesn't work, Western medicine is the way, it's what's been done for so many years, et cetera, but there's so other cultures that have been practicing Eastern medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and all these different modalities of healing for much longer than Western Medicine has even been around, and I think we've forgotten, we're gotten so far away from our own roots and our connection to Source we forget that there's been these ancient practices and that have been going on for years that had been working and we just lost touch with that.

And even the basics, eating healthy, sleeping well, exercising, getting sunlight, community, connection, like we're forgetting that if we if, we, just do the basic's really good, We're way far ahead than most people who are doing all the biohacking stuff even. And when I got out of school, I decided to go straight into regenerative functional medicine because I didn't want to waste time. I don't wanna go into the hospital or go in to Western medicine practice, even a specialty. to get experience to then have to relearn and rewire my brain to revert back to the ways that I really believed in and what healing was and not to discount Western medicine in certain conditions or aspects because We need emergency medicine, we need surgery for certain conditions because they are life saving, especially some of these pharmaceuticals if somebody is having a very acute event, heart attack, stroke, things like that.

But I think when it comes to chronic disease and actually taking care of yourself for longevity, to live a long and healthy,

Functional Medicine, Nutrition, and Prevention 30:38

happy life, we have to do it differently. And I took a leap of faith to go in this route with medicine because I was getting a lot of backlash from classmates who were saying, what are you doing? You're crazy. you're so off the beaten path but I knew that I had to follow what I believed in and the moment that i got out of school and went down this path and started to learn to meet other people in the field that were doing it had been successful and meeting people like you and in all these conferences of people doing work that's actually reversing diseases and curing things and and helping people in all these ways.

I was like, I wanna be a part of that. Whatever that is. It's a beautiful thing, right? It is a very beautiful, it's extremely rewarding. And you know, and I worked in emergency medicine as a firefighter paramedic and that was a product to the broken medical system, so I get it. So Katie, one of the things that you mentioned was that, you took additional nutritional courses after PA school. How much nutritional education do you get as a PA? So when I was an undergrad, I did take a nutrition course, a very basic course.

Now does every PA have to take that nutrition? When I was an undergrad, I don't think that it was required to get my degree as a biomedical science major. But when I. Was in PA school, we did have a public health class in which we talked about health in the aspect of food. We talked. About the very basics, though. It was like, you know, processed foods are bad. Eat as close to nature as possible. it wasn't going into. It wasn't going into nutrition the way that if you were to study functional medicine, for example, with IFM or AFM, all these different extended trainings, it's nothing close to that.

But they do touch on it, and I gotta give them credit for that, but to the extent at which I know nutrition now, They just are like, save it for the nutritionist. Save it the dieticians. And that's where I think they're really lacking. But to be fair, they did go into it a little bit. I know medical school gets a bad rep for not teaching their students about nutrition, but I, I they do a bit, it's just not to the extent. Yeah, to not the extend at which we could, in my opinion, should know about how food is medicine.

It's a little bit different when you learn nutrition, not just to eat healthy, but like, how does specific nutrients affect the body's biochemistry? That's the difference where you're really at that point, you are utilizing food as medicine, right? So one of the things you said earlier, you were talking about how people can live a healthier, more happy type of life. And you mentioned about getting sunlight, going out exercising, getting good sleep, doing all of these things. And I know when I get interviewed a lot on the news, one of the things that get brought up is like, hey, you know, I now you're in the functional medicine space doing the biohacking stuff.

Most people can't afford those things. And what you just mentioned, all of that stuff is free. Right. So how much do you actually push those thing in your practice? Every time I talk to a patient, it's a must because if they're not doing the basics, why am I going to put them through these expensive treatments? And so with the regenerative medicine that I practice, its stem cell therapy. It's peptides, it's PRP, its IV therapy, which you're very familiar with. And these are expensive treatments.

There are some patients that come to me and say, I've done all those things. I just want to get an IV with some stem cells. Can you do that for me? And I'll tell them honestly and I can do it for you. It will cost you a lot of money. But I can't guarantee you're gonna get good results if you not doing the other things like eating healthy, sleeping well, exercise, lowering your stress, et cetera. Because those cells are going into your vessel and they gotta know what to do and the gotta have the proper nutrients and things to support their healing abilities.

And so I'm telling every patient to those things. Some people will listen, some people won't, and that's okay. As long as I feel like I'm doing my job, then that all I can do and the rest is up to the individual. But I do find that even if people have all the right information and they're like, yeah, I know I gotta do all these things, it doesn't mean they are gonna do them. And that was a key moment when I was practicing medicine as to why I decided to switch into more coaching is because I knew that I could also serve people in a different way that focusing just on the physical health wasn't cutting it.

And that's where the mindset piece comes in. Because if somebody doesn't believe that they can be healthy, if they don't value their health, or they They could try to, you could waste all the time trying to tell them all right things to do, and they're just not gonna do it because it's at a subconscious level. And so when I figured that out, I was like, okay, now I gotta go learn how to that and help people rewire their mindset. So that's why I went and became a master practitioner of NLP or neuro-linguistic programming to re-wire these beliefs.

I've been having just sessions with people about that. in an hour time, they are crying, having these breakthroughs and realizing, oh my gosh, I've been burdening myself with all this pain and suffering about this negative belief that I had about myself and my health, and that's what's keeping me from losing the weight, that what keeping from being healthy. that if I would have just let this thing go and realized that I'm loved, I am worthy, it's okay, can be me, and I can do all these things, then it would've changed the game and it'd have saved them so much time and energy.

There's such a strong psychological component that people have to tap into. I've known actual functional medicine doctors that have been trained even in hypnosis to really get some of their patients across that level. So one of the things that I wanna talk about is I break down our industry into three different categories, right? And I broke it down into prevention, early detection, and treatment and intervention. So I want you to take those three and give me what would be your top thing for prevention?

Your top things for early detections and then your topic for treatment intervention? And I know there's a lot. Oh, yeah. So but but you as a medical provider, as the practitioner, like when I say prevention, what would be the one thing that you say, hey, you must do this with prevention? I mean, we know. We know so much about how stress is a silent killer. And I think that working on your nervous system and learning how to become resilient to the world around you is so key because your nerves system affects everything in your body.

It affects your gut, it affects you brain, and it effects your heart, affects all your organs. I found that, working with patients, If they're wired and they are constantly in a stressed out state, their body can't relax and heal. So to prevent future issues, I would say you got to start with the nervous system. And part of the Nervous System being in this fight or flight state might be that they eating a lot of sugar or that there eating lot process foods or red dyes or these things that are preventing their bodies from calming down so they feel this like worked up state.

So I do think it is important to eat healthy and what you consume will dictate your genetic makeup. It will affect your genes. And so I would say like nervous system and eating healthy are probably the main things. Do you do anything like for the nervous like the vagus nerve type of reset stimulation? There's ways to stimulate that. I mean, you can get the devices where you could put them on your neck and stimulate your vagus nerve, but even just from a free perspective, I'm mean even humming and singing is very calming for the nervous system and the vagous nerve.

Can you show us what that's like? I like that. And vagal toning in that regard is really helpful. Doing different neck stretches, meditation, yoga, stretching your body, calming down before you eat, taking deep breaths. Those are things that can calm your nervous system over time. But then also, You gotta be consistent with it. And these are tools, these things that might be challenging in the beginning, especially if somebody is very stressed out. But just with practice, it starts to become a routine in their life and it just gets easier with time.

Yeah. Um, but it keeps, keeps them centered. So, all right, so that's prevention. So that prevention early detection early, detection, early early. Detection of disease or of you getting sick. Are you. Getting sick? I would say if you're starting to get sick more frequently. that's a sign that you gotta slow down and take care of yourself because if you're constantly running and running, you are going to push your body over the edge and it will have no choice but to get sick to force you to slowdown.

And so that is actually something that my grandfather taught me very young is that if your getting sick more frequently it means your immune system is taxed. and it's more vulnerable to diseases. And so if you are having a cough frequently, if your always the one getting sick when it is flu season or you can't handle or your very sensitive to environmental toxins, that's a sign that your body is already overwhelmed, and so that might be a early detection of other problems that may be on the horizon.

Time to slow down, right? Time slowdown. Yeah, okay, so now treatment intervention, which treatment interventions can be really anything. It can food also. Yeah, I mean, food, obviously, that's a given, but I think sleep. Sleep is where the magic happens. That's when your body has time to rest and recover. It's where your brain is using its glymphatic system. Do you track your sleep? Do wear an oar ring or anything? I was wearing an Apple watch for a while, but I try to eliminate EMFs as much as I can.

I Was wearing it for like five years and I just was like, what am I wearing this actually for? And I decided to take it off one day and just like intuitively my body's like yeah, we're good and then I actually been sleeping better, which is surprising. But I actually use this app called Sleep Timer and I set it before I go to bed and it's like a multiple choice questionnaire where you can say, oh, I drank coffee today or I worked out or. I meditated or I took a nap. And there's different ways you can track to see how your sleep's getting affected.

It'll measure if you are in REM sleep for a certain amount of time. If you have deep sleep, it'll record if your snoring or sleep talking, which is very interesting. You've never actually witnessed yourself sleeping, you might find out some things you didn't know about yourself. I think sometimes I'll sing a night in my sleep. Or a hum, I think I picked that up last week. I was like, huh, that's interesting. But it also is very important to know if you are snoring that can affect the quality of your sleep and might indicate an issue with breathing in your asleep.

You might need to get a CPAP or a sleep test and other things. So yeah, sleep is really important. Yeah, so one of the things that I read about you is that you help women reconnect with themselves. You like to work with women primarily, right? Because you can connect with them. Yeah, I work men and women. I think I can help both people, but I feel like I could connect more with, of course, because I'm a woman. So how do you do that? How do make them reconnect with themselves? Yeah. Part of what I decided to do when I became an independent contractor as a PA and started my own business in this health and life coaching field is I created a detox program.

And I think at first it sounds like, oh, you open up the drainage pathways, eliminate toxins, parasites, things like that, which is true. But more importantly, we're detoxing or eliminating the things that get in the way of us being our true self. And so when I say I help people come home to themselves and connect with their true selves, it's bringing awareness to all the ways in which they haven't been true to them selves. And what I mentioned earlier about how health is not just about having a healthy body, it's about how do you live a fulfilling life.

I think that that really comes to being in your most authentic essence. And as we're starting to learn and know about the vibrations and energy is that we, most people think love is the highest vibration, but it is actually authenticity. Knowing that. What does authenticity mean to you? What's the definition of that? Yeah, I don't know the Webster's dictionary definition off the top of my head, But I think my addition, my definition of authenticity would be being in congruency with your thoughts, words, feelings, and actions.

And as cliche as it might sound, when people say you feel like you can go to sleep happy, or feeling okay with the decisions that you've made that day, as long as its incongruent with what you believe is true to you, And that can look like a lot of different things, but I think when it comes down to it, it's, are you able to walk into any room and you're the same person? Are you changing who you are to mold or shift to your environment, or are the one that's the change maker? Oh, wow. That's deep.

So what's that opposite of authentic? inauthentic, so that would be where you're, you have no idea who you are, or you aren't sure of yourself. You're the one that will morph into the crowd and kind of blend in and mimic to fit in, essentially. That could be it. They could fall under that umbrella. Yeah, and I think that being authentic at the core feels really good because we feel seen and heard. And so many people want that. They want to feel seen, they want feel heard, They wanna feel loved for who they are.

And if people feel like they don't love themselves for they who are, then it's almost impossible for them to go out into the world and feel other people will. And so how I help people with that is I helped people to reframe their relationship with themselves and realize that you are worthy of being exactly as you. You might express a part of you that other people might not like, but that's okay because you're being you and you'll find the right people. And the more authentic you the world around you will just shift instead of you shifting to fit into the around world you.

And if we're talking about energy and frequency again, the more higher vibrational you become, that creates your reality. So many people these days are talking manifestation and living the life of your dreams and that you desire. That comes from being true to yourself. I think through my own experience, I've spent way too many years of my life as a young girl trying to fit in and trying be liked and accepted. And part of that was culturally. It was where I was raised and I in a bubble. I raised in the kind of materialistic bubble of people always trying judge and fit into the crowd and be popular.

Something about that rubbed me the wrong way but I felt like I needed to conform to that. but over the years of realizing that I was always trying to prove myself, I realized I didn't have to. I, didn' have prove to myself. When you're authentic, you attract a similar like-minded type of individuals. And I've seen that. When I first got into the industry, I had to conform to other people because I was kind of new, young, and then all of a sudden,

Burnout, Authenticity, and Energetic Healing 47:48

it's like, You know what? I'm just going to be me. do whatever I want, I'm gonna dress however I wanna, talk however want. I just wanna be out here of who I am, because I know what my purpose is. And if I authentic and act on my purposes, then I'll just bring the right people. The people who don't like it, they'll gravitate out of my life. So I like that. We have a question for you actually. Oh boy. I never get interviewed. So this is a question that I've started to ask people who I interview and Katie in the kitchen series is in a world that's forcing us to conform.

How do you stay true to yourself? You know, it falls back to being authentic, right? Staying true to myself is just number one, I'm a believer, so I always go back Christianity and if it doesn't align to my values or the morals that fall under my Christian beliefs, then I just won't mess with it. You know, so there's a very strong spirituality component to it. And that's how I stay true to myself because that what I follow, you know. That's awesome. Was that a good answer? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, awesome, I like it, yeah.

God is always first. 100%. And it's what believe as well. Yeah. Thank you. I liked that. So what are some common myths about the functional medicine space? I know you get them a lot. Yeah, I think that, that's actually a hard question. I thing that when you say myths, do you mean false accusations? We could go with that. About functional medicine? I would say a lot of people, a lotta people say that functional medicines doesn't really work, or like, I know actually, I don't know how to answer that.

I think that is like one of them. Like recently, this last week, I had this like fourth year medical student who's got something out for like biohackers. And she's like always trashing them. She got a hold of my page and she started like, I posted something about you should measure your blood work and stuff. Then she wrote something on there like that's dangerous and then started reposting stuff on her page. I was like, man, I don't like that. Like, you're trying to say that what we're doing is like false.

So I told her, said, yo, take it down, if not, your messing with the wrong person. I'm not one of these doctors that doesn't understand the world of social media and everything else. And she didn't, and she got a little nasty. So I thought, OK, we'll see how this works. And I actually literally contacted UW Miami, the dean's office, and I told him, I said, look, this is how your student, your medical student is behaving when your uniform this that which doesn't fall under your code of conduct. And they took that very seriously.

So she ended up blocking me. Who knows what ended happening with that. But you know, these are things that happen where what we're doing, there is science behind what were doing in the functional medicine space. And the science is getting stronger and stronger. You know? Behind it. Let's interrupt. That was probably, that would be the answer that I would say of so many people say, well, where's the research behind this? Or this is newer. It hasn't been backed up. How can you prove that? especially with things that haven't been researched or there's no funding for it.

Like even with stem cell therapy, there is a lot of research, but there not enough for where the FDA is gonna approve it, I actually don't know if we want it to be approved by the F.D.A. Because then they start controlling it so, anyway. But you know the thing is, this is the things with functional medicine. What we're doing is precision and it's personalized to the individual. So when you take this bucket of 100 people or whatever, and they're giving you an average of how this should work for a human, right, there's so many other factors that go into play when it comes to if this is gonna work an individual or not.

So what we're doing is we are working based off objective data on the actual person, right? So we doing blood work, we do genetic testing, looking at all of the different types of scans, full body MRIs, DEXA scans VO2 max, you name it, the list goes on. So, we have things to be able to track if this is working. Not just subjective data, but we objective data to show that it's working, so for me, when I say there's science behind it, it not just, oh, there has been clinical research, I'm talking about what's been working for this person, this individual.

You know? Yeah, absolutely, and it really is a personalized thing because we are all unique. Right. And not just genetically, but also spiritually and emotionally and mentally. I mean, for there to be, I think, what is it now, eight billion people? Seven or eight billion people in the world. It's something like that. The numbers are going bigger and bigger. Yeah. We're one of Mars. Just think about how many unique personalities there are and how unique combinations of every aspect of human life.

And so how can you then expect medical treatment to be so cookie cutter? You just can't. And I think that for the medical field, especially in the Western medicine, I there is some merit and benefit to having standardization. So that different practitioners can communicate with each other of, oh, this is a patient with heart disease, liver disease kidney cancer, all these different things. So that way he's like, oh, OK, I have an idea of where this practitioner has assessed the patient to figure these things out.

This is how I can handle the patients going forward. There's just a specific language and a way of communicating between practitioner, practitioner and the medical team. And I think that there's value to that. However, it went too far so much as to label people with these diseases. We know how powerful words are. and labels are. And that's the other thing that I found was a struggle with patients who have all these labels of diseases is they start to become those labels and they personalize it. That makes it so much harder for them to let it go.

Part of the detox process that i take people through is to help them really identify who are you beyond anything you've ever been told by other people about yourself. And for a lot of people that is a wake up call because they never thought about it that way. And the mind is so powerful over the body and what we think and we believe becomes our reality and becomes a truth. So there's a lots that can go into that as far as whether somebody is going to be healthy or not. So and I want for the listeners and viewers to understand, like, we're not just talking about a detox process where you're taking things that are activating and make it a free radical and binders.

This is like you detoxing the mind, you know, these thoughts. Right. Which I think that's actually the first step before anything else. Yeah. So Katie, energetic healing. How important is that for women that experiencing burnout? Oh, gosh, it's the essence of everything. I mean, we are energetic beings at the core. And so I think that if we're talking about energy, like, oh, I feel low or high energy. It makes a difference when it comes to burnout, for sure, because, you know, where are you putting your energy?

Are you engaging with energy takers or energy givers? And that could be a toxic relationship. If the energy-takers could watching TV, scrolling on social media. That could be people pleasing. I'm in a job that sucks the life out of me because I am out on my purpose. There are so many things that can contribute to that. And then on the other side, energy givers. Am I standing in my truth? Am i going outside? am I exercising?am I getting sunlight?Am I able to have a hard conversation and set a boundary?

Am I feeding myself good, positive thoughts? Am i surrounding myself with uplifting people? And so energy plays a huge role in burnout, but also just living a good healthy life too. What do you do about those energy suckers? I say get away. You know, it's interesting. I was talking to somebody recently, I think it was in my NLP training, and the facilitator was taking about the study that they did with heart cells. And they were talking about, in a Petri dish, they put different heart cell and they're trying to understand how they all sunk up together.

They were determining how did the heart-cells all know what to do to sink up and beat together? And they found that the lead heart cell, the highest vibrational heart cells in that Petri dish, was the one that dictated the beats of all the others. And so when it comes to surrounding yourself with good people, there's a big lesson there. But at the same time, you have to ask yourself, if you want to be a leader, You've got to that lead hearts cell. So you can be around all these toxic people. If you stand strong in who you are and you had such a high vibration, The other art cells, for example, or the other people around you have no other choice than to start to match your energy.

So how can you be that light in the dark? I love that. Hit the chicken. The chicken over there. I loved it. I always say that, you know, and the reason why I wanted him to hit the chicken because I really do believe that that's how most people need to think, is put themselves in that leadership role, be powerful enough to be in a toxic environment, right? As a healer, which you are, You have to able to guide people in the right direction. So, I hear a lot of people that are very influential that say, People are going out on this yacht and they're doing drugs, I'm not going there because I don't want to be in a world of temptation.

I get it, but you should be strong enough that you could go there, not have to engage in it and be the light for all of those other people where they see you and say, man. Sam's not doing any of this stuff, and he's a pretty cool dude. Man, I should probably hang out with him more often to figure out a set of these other people. And I feel like more people have to step in that path, go down that pathway, where you can be strong enough and be around toxic people, people that are doing things that aren't good for their health, not good to their mind, Yeah, absolutely.

And we know we live in a toxic world. Now, more than ever, are we exposed to all these toxins around us, toxic people, evil energy. We're in spiritual warfare right now with the good and evil, I feel. But also environmentally, the food that we're eating, all the processed foods and all of the chemicals and the pesticides and herbicides and everything we are exposed in the pollutants, How do we survive? Do we hide ourselves into a cave and prevent and close ourselves off or we're never exposed to these things?

Or do become resilient? And so part of my program as well is teaching how to build resiliency because we are going to be exposed of these thing. It's not about shying away, it's how do you support yourself to be able to withstand the chaos and the turmoil of life and not crumble and just become a pile of mess. And so same thing goes for when you're around people that are toxic. You can choose how people make you feel. Or you can chose whether somebody's going to affect you or not. I think that so often, like you said, people choose not to not to put themselves in that environment.

And yeah, that's helpful. But is that realistic all the time? And we can't control our environment all at the same time, but what we CAN control is ourselves and how we handle it and show up. And so that's why I think it's extra important to be connected to your truth and really be solid in that because the more solid and connected you are with your true self, the harder it is for anything to affect you become resilient, become like superhuman. And if we talk about longevity and biohacking and becoming super humans, that is a key component.

that I believe really makes a difference. And it distinguishes you from being a leader and a follower. If we're all in this together to make the world a better place, we need more leaders, more lead heart cells, and more people that really believe and stay strong and true to who they are and come together.

Biohacker Lightning Round and Closing Advice 1:01:18

Lead by example. I love that. You were talking about some of the toxic food. So there's a big movement that's happening right now. The Maha movement, Make America Healthy Again, which is obviously being led by R.F.K. Jr. What are your thoughts? What do you think about what RRK Jr.'s doing? And what do think of this whole Maja movement? Yeah, well, I think it's great. I thinks it is long overdue. For so long, the government has been focused on convenience and spraying all these herbicides and pesticides and creating processed foods for convenience, overconsumption and things like that.

And I love what he's promoting and the ways that he has already changed the fluoride in the water and banning certain dyes and things like that and there's so much growth that's needed to be done, but we're in It helps me to feel like I can exhale. And I think that there's so many people who are stepping in and stepping up to support the movement and actually make change happen. I'm grateful for those people. and I want to be a part of it as much as I Amazing, amazing. So, Katie, what I'm going to do now, this is we're going have a little fun.

OK. Are we not having fun already? Oh, we've got to have more fun, OK? So what am I going do is I am going name a biohacker. And you have to say one word that comes to mind that describes that bio hacker. It can be good or bad, it doesn't matter. You know, just be you. Be authentic. All right. Can do that. Joe Dispenza. Meditation. Peter Otea. The Brain. Ben Greenfield. Strength. Gary Brecker. Breathing. Brian Johnson. Superhuman. That's a good one for that one. Dave Asprey. Did I say that one already?

No, not yet. I think of that gecko thing that he talks about, the thing, that can regenerate its limbs and whatnot. Do you remember? I don't even know which one that is. Anybody know that? There is a specific, I want to say it's a reptile. It's his emblem sign. Oh, do you always see that, but I didn't know. You know, it is some geckoreptilian thing. Now you got to make me actually look into this thing? Yeah, anyway, That's what I'm thinking. Now I'm gonna start thinking about that every time I think about they've asked me awesome so those were it, you know, okay so the next thing we're gonna do is so You know I have one of my favorite podcasts to watch besides my own is I But the guy is named Stephen Barlett.

It's called The Diary of a CEO. Right. He's got one of the top podcasts that are out there. And he came out with these cool conversation cards right here. I just got it the other day. So you're the first that I'm doing it on the podcast. Love it. so I want to allow you to just open this up. Kind of stands like that. OK. and then you get to pick two cards. Okay. In. Those are going to be your questions. And I'm asking you? Oh no. Or for me? These are for you. Okay. It's like tarot cards. Tell me my future.

Who is the person who first believed in you I'd say my mom. Your mom? Yeah, she's one of my biggest fans. She will go to the ends of the earth to make sure that I am okay. and she'll call me as many times as she can. She'll check in with me, she will say, are you okay? Are you doing good? And I'm grateful for that. I think moms are a blessing and I am grateful that I have such a strong, supportive one in my life and hopefully she's around for a long time. Love it. All right. How will you control your own greed?

It was very off topic. Oh man. Gratitude. Always being grateful for everything. And I think as long as I can maintain that perspective of seeing everything through the lens of gratitude, I don't think that greed could ever touch me. I think it's natural for us as humans, as sinners and nature to have greed. I mean it is one of the seven deadly sins and so it not, so I it a matter of staying in that zone of gratitude. I like that. Let's do one more. Okay. Why not? You're good at this. There's the charm.

Thanks. What is your biggest regret? And if you could go back, what would you do differently? Oh boy. Getting real vulnerable here. But from being authentic. Biggest regret. Don't hold back. I would say asking for help sooner. I think that I've had a tendency to believe that i can do more and handle more than I can and I'm grateful that ive pushed myself to be very independent but I sometimes think it came to a fault because I didn't know how to ask for help when I needed it And I thought that I had to figure it out all on my own.

And there were many nights, many days of feeling lonely and lost and suffering, especially when it came to medical field or when I came deciding who I wanted to be. That put a lot of pressure on myself to perfect for what it's worth. I think that if I'd just asked for help earlier, I would have saved myself from a Amazing, amazing. I love it. We can't do this, we can do Earth alone. Need community. 100%. Can I ask you one? Yeah, let's do it, for some reason I knew you were gonna do that. Okay, what is your selfish dream?

Oh, selfish dreams, gosh. Selfish dream, you know my dream I'm really living my dreams right now, but if I had to look at the bigger dream of me, I'm really selfish, like just for you. I mean, you know, one day I wanna win the lottery. Like I play the Power Bowl, I've been playing the same numbers since I was 18 every single game. Really? Yeah, and I do believe that I am gonna win it one-day. And I feel like I know what I gonna do with that money. It's not going out and just spending it on all this expensive stuff.

The reason why I haven't won that lottery just yet is that God has prepared me to be ready against the big fight. With the amount of money that I win and what I know operationally in business on what to do with that money, we're gonna do some damage in this world of medicine. I mean, it's gonna be incredible. But the people I now, if I have that funding to fuel it at that level, That's a selfish thing that I'm gonna be doing. And there's gonna so many of us that are just gonna change the course of medicine.

So, yeah. That sounds exciting. It doesn't seem so selfish. Oh, it will be. I will front and center, you know? Obviously, they're gonna probably try to take my head off, so I gotta have security and all this other stuff. Yeah, but you'll be protected. You got God. Exactly, exactly. Okay. If there's one person who's listening or watching this podcast that really resonates with today's message, it could be one of our thousands of medical providers that are listening that tuning in, or it can just be the patients that we have that's tuning.

What's the one thing you can leave them off with? I would say, with the theme of authenticity, I'd encourage anyone who's listening to listen to that inner voice inside of you that says there's something else or there is something more or something that I can go deeper with. And a practice that i love to use is every day spending a couple minutes, doesn't have to be that long, putting a hand on a heart and just connecting with yourself and asking what does my soul need to tell me today? my feeling actually and if there's any emotion that needs to be moved any intuitive download thought feeling like anything that comes up really listen to that because you are your you're your own best healer you The truth is within you already and with the world being with all this information at our fingertips and forget to learn how to trust ourselves and if you feel something inside that you want to do differently feel differently express differently Trust that listen to it because it will serve you and save you so much time and energy and and headaches going the wrong path I heard this quote one time that really resonated with me was If you get on the Wrong Train It's more expensive the longer you wait to get off.

And so, yeah, I would say that. I love it, love love. So if people want to find you, where can they find me? You can find on Instagram. That's probably the best way at by Katherine Rufino with a C. Katherine C, Katie with the K. By Katherine, Ruffino, also on YouTube at Purely Seen. Have a website, sunnysidekt.com. And yeah, you can message me on platforms. And I also sing on TikTok. So it's at Sunnyside Katie, Katie as well on there. Amazing. If you want to watch me some time. It was a pleasure having you on the podcast.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, amazing guys. You heard Katie. You have to be your true self, you have live a life with purpose, it's extremely important that you do. You don't wanna be inauthentic, You wanna authentic, right? You had to live life, being authentic I'm trying to use other big words, but what I try to get to here is, Katie tapped into certain things that all of us are guilty of, right? There's a process that she's an expert in where you go through a processes where have the ability to detox a lot of those bad thoughts.

So there's a starting point, guys. Make sure that you take a deeper dive into what Katie is doing. You can kind of understand what her process is. Right. Go on her website or social media. We're going to learn a heck of a lot more. She's very active online. And she's always sharing content and, you know, she lives her life to purpose to make sure she can help all of us and get this message out to the masses. So guys, make sure you subscribe, follow, share this with all of your friends and family and we'll see you for the next one.