 Hey everyone, this is Dr. Ruscio and I'm excited to introduce you to Amy Gallo, who is our new health coach. And what I'm so excited about this is you've likely heard my spiel about knowing what to do, knowing how to use the tools is more important than having access to the tools. Example, probiotics so commonly incorrectly used and it's really unfortunate that patients wait fair amount of time to be seen at the clinic and then we finally just help them use that one tool the right way and they finally see the results they're looking for. This is why I'm so happy to have Amy here with us because if you turned me into a health coach I think you would have Amy. And I don't say that lightly, we really went through a really diligent process of screening and just the skills Amy has and Amy let me start off with a compliment here. She is forward thinking, really knows her stuff, but also at the same time she's circumspecting cautious and just doesn't vacuously follow trends. That's the exact balance that we want, someone who's open-minded and willing to look into information but not just going to follow the trends and be unable to identify that this doesn't work, that doesn't work and can really help an individual hone in on what they need to do to get to the bottom line root cause and feel better. So Amy I'm really happy to have you on our team. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be a part of the team as well. And again you know there's many areas that we line up on. I should start by maybe asking you before we get into some of the you know nerdy clinical stuff. Tell people a little bit about your background because you have great training you know a master's nutrition and functional medicine but tell us a little bit about your backstory. Oh gosh. So I actually became interested in nutrition when I was about 13 years old and I was one of those radical militant vegans in the 90s who was protesting in front of McDonald's as a child and I had family members that were legitimately concerned about my health and innately I knew that avoiding meat wasn't inherently a problem but I wanted to have research to back it up. So I went to the library and started studying and that opened up my world to how much every bite we take either empowers our health or causes health decline. And I was really lucky that that just opened up the rabbit hole for me and nutrition has been my passion since. I received my bachelor's degree in nutrition from Baster University with a minor in exercise science and then went on to get my master's in nutrition and functional medicine which I completed in 2018 because after being a health coach for about 12 years in private practice I was noticing that people were getting sicker and having more complex wealth issues and my bachelor's degree hadn't actually prepared me for that level of support so that's why I went back to get my master's. So fantastic background meaning you've been in the game from a litany of dietary perspective as a personal participant but you've also participated in nutrition training, functional medicine training and also even exercise and personal fitness so this gives you that really nice breath to be able to meet people and again this is where I feel like kinship because my undergraduate was an exercise science and in college I was quite involved in personal training and so I have that gear I can kind of flip into when people are asking about things like body composition, training and such and kind of gives a broad breath of experience to pull from. Exactly yeah. Let's touch on the the aspect here that I think is most important is there's this spectrum where on the one hand you can be seen through the clinic via the doctor-patient or consultant-patient relationship and that's great but not everyone needs that and up until now there's kind of in this chasm where the other end is the book healthy go healthy which I think is definitely helpful or the web server podcast and this gets people I think really on a good track however not everyone is able to fully execute on their own and they need a little bit of help and so this is where you're you're occupying this great intermediary space that I think we've needed to fill and why I'm so excited about that is because this can save people time money and heartache and the conversations that we've had it's great when we have a chance to to kind of ruminate over various case studies because we see the same kind of stuff people focusing meticulously on diet when they're missing another aspect or they've read the blog about the miracle supplement and they're they're so kind of tunnel visioned on the one thing they're totally missing this glaringly obvious low hanging fruit that can really help them so can you speak to to that a little bit because I really think that's an area where someone may be saying well you know it's free to go through this podcast and it costs money to see a health coach but that will likely even though it looks like one is free and one has a cost the the lost time and money by not executing appropriately actually makes working with a health coach a much better value from a time and money perspective so you know whatever thoughts you want to share here I'm curious to hear it it really is such a more efficient way to go about the healing process is when you're working with a health coach you're essentially working with a health detective and having been in the field for over 25 years at this point I've seen so much I've done so much I've been the person hyper focused on diet I've been the person who got super excited about the one supplement and found out it didn't do anything you know or one research study doesn't translate into what I need for my body so I really understand that desire to find the thing that is going to make you feel so better and also being so overwhelmed by all of the options all of the possibilities out there and even with a book that is as attentive to the individual needs as healthy gut and healthy you is it's impossible to find all of the different obstacles and things that get in people's way and even if you have the perfect protocol if you have family that's resistant to supporting your change if you have a work schedule that is insane or you're traveling a lot implementing the perfect protocol can be extremely challenging and in working with a health coach you've got someone who's there who has a bunch of tools and resources to help you navigate that protocol and help you be successful because change is hard even small changes can be really challenging and having someone to support you through that can make all of the difference yeah obviously I fully agree and one of the other scenarios I think will be somewhat common is someone who's either read the book listen to a podcast read a blog or maybe just stumbled across our immunoglobulin formula and they're excited about using it and so they're kind of here and where I'm really excited to have you on board is to help kind of redirect them into a more kind of here's our master plan and here's how we kind of you know funnel that excitement about the immunoglobulins and the potential about those into how to orchestrate that in concert with all these other healing therapies and I'm just really excited to be able to offer that to people because again as I talk about healthy good health you and I know that's something that we both agree on the right tools used in the wrong way will not lead to healing and you know so I'm really excited to be able to offer people that so is there anything else that you want to touch on maybe a couple things that you've found or common stumbling blocks for people or or anything else I think probably one of the common stumbling blocks is just the paralysis by analysis and and having so many choices and so many voices in the space now too with competing ideas and different different insights many of which are valid but again how do we discern what is appropriate for us and having someone available to help you navigate that just it takes it takes the burden off of you and relieving that stress alone having someone to talk to about it having someone in your camp brainstorming with you takes so much of the stress off and stress in and of itself can be a barrier to healing so and you know even as a health coach and a nutritionist I've had health coaches myself off and on over the years as I've needed an outside eye to come in and take a look at things and you know our our physicians and our functional medicine practitioners don't always have the time to be able to do that deep dive and that dialoguing and that troubleshooting with us so utilizing health coaching is it's quite a bit cheaper to be frank and it gives you that time and that attention and that support that often you know we don't necessarily have unless we reach out and grab it yeah I mean I think that's all really well said and you know there there's that level of support that I'd love to be able to spend more time with patients you don't have to say that we don't spend ample time but I'm thinking more clinically not so much so how does this fit into their lifestyle how do they implement how do we answer some of the nuanced questions like people have and again that's a really nice kind of union between the doctor patient and the health coach because it just it just gives you this continuation of levels of support yeah often our our professional providers like our functional medicine providers they lay out the blueprint right and the health coach is the contractor on site helping you build that house well said so Amy I'm so so happy to have you on board and for people who have maybe again read the book or gone through a podcast or a blog or have came across one of our products and you're looking for how to better utilize this I think it's well well worth investing in someone who can help guide you along the way because again these tools only work if they're applied in the right way and I have the utmost confidence in you Amy you know again in all the conversations we've had the thing that I I think I prized the most about you is the fact that you're really smart and progressive and you know all the stuff but you're not expecting everything to work and you have a critical looking for well what moves a needle and what doesn't move the needle and this is such a gift to be able to offer up the patients because now you've sifted through all these potential options and can really present them with the things that are going to move the needle the most so just super appreciative to have you on our team and for those who are floundering please reach out make a point with Amy and I think you'll be really happy with how she can accelerate your healing process awesome