 Wendy Lowe and I'm your friend as we journey to take your health back. We are coming to you live from the studios of Think Tech Hawaii in the Plaza Club building. I always call it the Plaza Club because that's where I always go after I'm done with the show but it's always been an icon in downtown. Today our topic of discussion will be exploring whether or not you really are what you eat. They always say that. So I'm so excited to just talk to my guest here about that and she's going to define more of that in a few minutes. What I would really like you to take away from today's discussion is the idea that food really is medicine. You've heard that before, that food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. So simple changes will have massive effects on your overall well-being and that's what we're going to be talking to you about today. So today we are very honored to welcome Kristi Nix, a National Marketing Director in the plant-based powders and concentrates industry. She'll be consulting with me today and fortunately you're going to be able to be privileged to this information. Locally in Hawaii and globally all she wants to do is inspire healthy living around the world and she's very successful at that because she's impacting so many people with her message of health, wellness and nutrition. So welcome to you my dear friend Kristi. Thank you friend. I so appreciate you bringing me in here. Yeah, I love having you and with your TV background and all your positive energies. I know that people of Hawaii and the world will be hearing your message and so just tell us a little bit about Kristi. Well, a little bit about me is I was born and raised in Northern Michigan and around college time decided it was time to flock to a warmer place and I got an email from Travel Zoo that said fly to from Detroit to Honolulu for $400 and it was in January so I decided that's exactly what I was my body needed and yeah, I moved here with $100 in my pocket, hoped that I would get accepted to one of the universities here and made life happen. So it was an awesome decision. Excellent decision, I mean but not a very difficult decision to make. Yeah. It wasn't the right price but it was the right location that you're going to be venturing into. Yeah. So I'm so excited about that. So let's just get started. On your first slide, I know that this is so exciting for you. I just want you to tell us why is this topic so important to you? Well, because I've been on the spectrum from fast food to smart food and it was like a cold turkey shift that you guys will hear about but as I started to learn how important it was to eat more fruits and vegetables, I learned a statistic. There's like some statistics that just always stick with you and this one just kind of, it hit me. Dr. David Katz said this may be the first generation of children to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. And the way, the direction I was going, I easily could have been that statistic until a friend of mine had impacted me greatly. And then I think about one other statistic. You've probably heard it from Dr. Sears. I know you study a lot of what he teaches. Yes. He says that 75% of all chronic disease is preventable. Yes. 75%. So if we have that ability to change, like I look at it as if I had a lottery ticket and I was like, here's the lottery ticket, you have a 75% chance of winning. You would buy the lottery ticket. We need to take that same approach with our health. We have such a great ability to be able to shift our habits that this can make a really big impact. And I couldn't have done it without being around a circle of people who cared more about my health than I did at one time. And now I just want to be able to pay it forward. Well, you know, Chrissy, that same statement, that's what's compelled me and powered me up towards this journey. I have two daughters, 33 and 29. And when I heard that statement from David Katz, saying that my daughter's generation is the first generation that they may outlive their children. That was so profound to me, and it hit me like a bullet. And so I was very blessed to be able to retire from the chocolate factory world at the age of 50. And now my whole focus is to save the cakeys, save the generations, and just make them wake up and hear, you know, hear the message. And so coming on to a show like this, reaching so many more people than just you and I hanging out at the mall talking to people. This is so profound. And we just want to thank, again, thank Tech Hawaii for being here to allow us such an opportunity. And you know, along my journey, people like Dr. David Katz, people like Dr. William Sears, they've impacted me a lot. And we've been really blessed because we've even met them. And so there's so many people along our journeys that we need to really align ourselves with to help us towards that goal. There must be many that impacted your life. I can't even tell you the amount of friends I've gained because of one simple change that I've made along the way. And you know, they always say you're the average of the five people that you hang out with now. And I just, I feel like I've really leveled up. So it's been really impactful to be around a lot of great people that have impacted my life. Kind of like these people here. Some of you guys locally may know them. This is Monica and Dave Swanson. I know you know Monica. Yes. She's one of my favorite humans on the earth. She started an awesome blog called The Grand Mom. And now it's recently transitioned to MonicaSwanson.com. She's just about to publish her second book. And this family took me in when I was in college here. And they hired me to be their nanny. And I don't think they realized, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into, because they didn't realize that I was a terrible eater. And so Dave and Monica, everything in the refrigerator was clean. Like I don't think there was ever like a cookie in there. And if it was, it was super healthy. Dave, before all the boys would go out surfing, he would open up the refrigerator and put a handful of spinach in each of the boys' mouths before they went out to like fuel. I had never thought of food as fuel that way before. They've really impacted me. In fact, Dave is a hospitalist. He's a doctor at PaliMomi. And he just really understands nutrition more than most people I've ever spoken to, more than a lot of doctors. Because I know that they don't always have the opportunity when they're going through med school to look at how nutrition really impacts body and focus on prevention. And no fault of the doctors. It's the curriculum of the medical schools that they don't offer as much or sometimes any nutritional classes that they should be having. And so Dr. Swanson is an out of the box doctor. He's the kind of doctors that we like to work with. So give him a shout out. Yes, oh my gosh. He is just like, I mean, this man is, he's a farmer at home, you guys. Like he's like in their backyard, he's always pruning different fruits, pulling stuff down from the trees, fueling his, I mean, Luke, Luke Swanson just earned the title for first place for the surf competition here. So I mean, they're like really focused in not just on preventing disease, but he, I mean, the man spends hours with his patients. He works so hard to make sure everyone is really trying to make changes in their lives. And he's a pediatrician? No, he's a hospitalist. Oh, very good. So he works with all sorts of different people. And Monica is a personal trainer. So they're just a total power couple. If you ever see them on the island, please say hi to them. They're, they're good humans. You know, by looking at you and your husband and knowing what you both do now, I could never imagine that you had such a past. I thought you probably was just raised a vegetarian or plant strong at a farm, eating the food that your family produced for you all, and just enjoyed that quality of life all your days. So how bad were you or was it for you? I mean, it was, it was embarrassingly bad. It was really bad. I mean, in the picture before you couldn't see that I had a coke can in my hand, it was just like a little glimpse. But like, you'd never see me with that in my hand anymore. But I mean, Patton and I were awful. We would wake up and have like snicker bars for breakfast. And we just didn't think about how bad things could be. And my friends titled me as Mick Christie, because I would go through the drive-thru McDonald's. I mean, I ate what I could afford, which was total junk. That's all I ate was junk. I had McDonald's twice a day, every single day. And everything else, if I did make something, it was like, I ate like a frat boy. It was macaroni and cheese, cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, like just anything that was beige with no color. I was a frat girl. Well, here in Hawaii, we call that the local diet. Okay, and you know, like I can totally relate to you because, and that's why this is so encouraging for everyone watching this, because frat boy here, frat girl here, our local chick. I mean, the worst diet, we lived on fast food. It's just that it's fast food. You know, and I have a confession to make. I ran a chocolate factory of business for 20 years. I fed my factory every meal. So I fed them food. It wasn't good food. It was fast food. It was bad food. It was junk food. But it was food, and I was very proud that I was feeding my people the food that I could provide for them. So if it meant Wendy was going to Costco, I'd buy 10 Costco hot dogs and drinks and come back and I'd say lunch is here. And so I did this for 20 years and I'm very guilty of that or just indulging in the local diet. And so totally understand where you're coming from and where you're going with all this. I mean, it's like... Well, I mean, I was on the receiving end because this is my background, this film. So I was used to being behind the camera, not in front of it, which is a little different today, but when you work on a film set, it's hurry up and wait and there's a craft service there. So anytime you're on set, there's just junk food galore. It's heaven for most people. No, I used to having that much. Because they want to say thank you to you. And so they're figuring out what malasada, what donut should I bring for the crew here. You know, and so it's different here at Think Tech of Hawaii because when we walk in, we bring them kale smoothies and we bring them fruits and vegetables. Right, gang? I know he said yes, I hear him in my ear. So Chrissy, it couldn't be all that bad with all your friends and with you and how you live. I mean, tell us about that. It was so bad that Monica Swanson actually wrote a book about what's it titled, The Secret of Your Naturally Skinny Friends, there it is. So I'm not the preface of the book, but I'm on page 13. So what Monica found is that, you know, her background is she's a personal trainer, she's studied how food impacts the body, her husband's a doctor, but most of her life, she's battled this relationship with food. And I think most people can relate to that. I hear people say, look, I just had two cookies, I've really gotta go work that off. And that was a mindset that I never could understand. Now don't get me wrong, there's some negative thoughts that I have and we all have those, you know, bad little drafts in our head of nasty talk, but I didn't have a bad relationship with food and Monica didn't quite realize that. Like to me, food was just regular food. So how it all started was Monica was gonna have me take the boys for the day, I was their nanny and she put their car seat in my car and in the back, she found a little skimpy bikini. This is what she writes, she calls it a skimpy bikini and there was a Dunkin' Donuts next to it. And she was like, those things don't add up. That's weird, maybe random because I look the same then as I do now. And so she's like, well, that might just be a fluke. And then the next day, she found a McDonald's bag next to my bikini and she was like, okay, she doesn't work out. She learned that I didn't work out. She thought I did, I don't work out. I mean, I do now, but I never enjoyed it. And then she's like, and now I see, she noticed that at all these gatherings, I was eating junk, I was eating junk in front of her kids. But she noticed that I was just having fun and I wasn't ever having this bad relationship with food. So she couldn't figure out why I was naturally quote unquote skinny despite all of the frat boy ways that I had. And of course a lot is genetics, but what she dove into the book is so much as mindset. There's this pattern that we tend to get into and for whatever reason, I didn't get into a pattern at a young age about having a belief about a certain thing, maybe about food or about my body. And then you have these thoughts that create that. And then it just keeps going into like this cycle of, you know, your actions, then support the beliefs. And thankfully whatever it was, maybe it was my mother, I don't know, but I just never had that bad relationship with food. So, but what I did find is, can I do a quick meditation with you? Sure. All right, close your eyes. So I want you to imagine that you're in your kitchen and open the refrigerator and you can feel this cold blast of air hit you, right? Okay, you see this big lemon on the top of your refrigerator, reach out and grab it and then pick it up and you're gonna feel like there's these heavy, big pockets. It's a heavy lemon. Take it over to your cutting board and you guys at home should be doing the same thing. Close your eyes and do the same thing with us. Put your lemon down on the cutting board, grab a big knife and cut it in half. Now imagine that you're gonna pick up one end and you're gonna squeeze the lemon into your mouth. Now, did you salivate? I love lemons. Okay, you can open your eyes. I'm not the norm. Most of you are like, I grew up eating lemons. I love lemons like there's apples. And you know, this is another fact that sticks with us. When I was growing up eating those lemons, my father would say, girl, stop eating those lemons. The acid is gonna eat up the lining of your stomach. You're gonna damage your body, stop. And so I just kept eating them because we had a lemon tree. So I ate them like they were going out of style. So now we understand. Yes, lemons are acidic. But when you put them into your body, they become alkaline. Exactly. And so I didn't know. And so like you said, maybe it was your mom who was guiding you. But all these little tricks of the trade, I innately had practiced as a young girl, mangoes, tangerines, oranges, lemons, all from the yard, building up my body's immune system. So, and again, like yourself, I mean, you can't really see it now. But remember now, I owned a chocolate factory for 20 years. I was a skinny little girl without any health issues. And no reason to say, I gotta change my lifestyle because. So the whole premise for what we're doing is I'm not gonna wait until the diagnosis comes. I wanna work on my wellness and prevention every day from now to the day I go to heaven. And when we go to heaven, we should go there because we're old, not because we're sick. Exactly. So that's the facts that we really wanna share with others that they can have this gift as well. Yeah, absolutely. But we just have to hear it one more time. So for you, what really changed for you? Oh, well, I can tell you real quick, just let me expand on the lemon real quick though. So you did salivate, right? Oh, slightly, because I love lemons, yes. So most people do, when I do that exercise, I read it from a book and it shows that the brain doesn't know the difference between real and fake. So when we think about, when we think about our thoughts about our body, whether they're positive or negative, then you're setting yourself up for that. So that's where Monica was talking about in the book and I think it's really important. So if people believe that they're not healthy, if they say, I'm not healthy, I am overweight, then you're going to continue to be that way. The statements to yourself is really important. But yeah, what did change for me was a book. Okay, I'm gonna ask you to hold that thought because this is the exciting part, the solution. All right, so we're gonna take a short 60 second break and when we return, we're gonna hear the solution to this fast food junkie turn smart foodie. All right, so aloha for now. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m., aloha. Aloha, I'm Cynthia Sinclair. And I'm Tim Appachella. We are hosts here at Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you'd go to thinktechhawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Aloha and welcome back. Here we are with Christy Nix, and she's a dear friend with a story that everyone out there can probably relate to. She being, what was it, what did you call you, a junk food friend? Yeah, I was like a junk food junkie or a frat boy. A frat boy, a frat boy, a frat girl. And I'm a local tita chick with bad eating habits. That's what we have both in common. And so from being that, I shared a little bit about my journey about from wellness to health, and she's gonna share her solution from going from fast foods to smart foods. And so when we took our break, you were going to tell us about what changed in you. Yes, so what changed in me was an instant. I went cold turkey vegan because someone handed me a book called The China Study. And The China Study is a 40 year long study to show the positive impacts that plants have on the body. And what I realized, so what you guys are looking at is a picture of my family at our wedding. But the whole time I was brought up, I thought that I was doomed with a family history of disease. You hear cancer runs on my family, high blood pressure, whatever it is that runs in your family. I just always thought I was doomed. I remember sitting at a band fire with my aunt who was a nurse and she was telling me about this family history of disease that we have and how diabetes runs and it skips a generation. And I just remember thinking at seven years old, there's nothing I can do, like this is what I was dealt with. And she said, well, don't eat a lot of sugar, but there was not a lot of talk about fruits and vegetables. The China Study changed everything for me because chapter one, I learned that we can actually fight disease with a fork. Our DNA is not our destiny. Just because my family has a sickness and disease running through it, it's because we all eat the same. It's not because of the genes that are, I mean, we do have those genes in our body but food turns it on. Yes, yes. And so you hit it right on the nail on the head. I had the same thought, both my mom and dad both passed away with cancer, my mom being 100% Okinawan. And we know Okinawans have the longest life expectancies. And my mom went to heaven at 64. And so exactly that when I was 40 years old, I thought to myself, for the next 25 years I'm gonna max out on life because I've got 25 years of life at 65, I'll be in heaven as well. So I would have mentally doomed myself. So the power of knowledge is so critical. That's why our voices, our messages, Christine never stopped sharing, continued to share for somebody like me, understanding the power of fruits and vegetables, changed my whole life. Excuse me, I'm 60 years old now. And had I had my old mindset, that means I have five more years of life. I'm not ready to go yet. We're just starting. We're just starting. And so I'm doing everything possible not to get the C word or the D word or any of those diagnosis. I'm working on it now today very actively with a vision of just growing old. And how would I look with all those wrinkles at a hundred? That's what I want to envision. Okay, and if I look at like a dried up apple, that's okay. I deserve those wrinkles. Right? You've earned them. Yeah, I've earned them all. Yeah, so going co-turkey vegan, that's a pretty big step. I mean, I'm transitioning, I say to everyone, I'm going plant strong. I go more vegetarian like. What I practice is I never cook beef, pork or chicken in my home, but if I do go out and if it's there on the plate, I might have a little taste, because I did love it. I'm just walking away from it. So congratulations to you. Thank you. For making the best health decision on your lifestyle by going vegan. You were at one time a cinematographer, just like it is here. Now your whole career is towards health and wellness. Did the book, The China Study, have a great influence on you that you did that? Yeah, it had a huge influence on me. I started a blog. I bought like 20 books of The China Study and tried to pass it out to everyone that I knew and loved. No one read it, I'm sure. But I wanted to make sure everybody got that message, but really what changed for me most is I needed to change. I needed to change people's thoughts about food because just like you lost your mom in her 60s, I lost my dad unexpectedly to reasons that could have been prevented. And yeah, it's so not easy. I lost him in 2012. And I remember getting the call that nobody wants to get my husband and I had just celebrated our four year anniversary. We were living in Washington state and we were hiking Mount Rainier in August and it was probably one of the most beautiful days. It's like, you know, when you have that perfect day, but you also feel like the other shoe is gonna fall. I just had this feeling that something bad was gonna happen and the next day my mom called to tell me that my dad was dying. And then it went from he had six months to live to less. So I made it home and two days later, we were planning a funeral. And I remember standing at the edge of his bed, realizing that he did that to himself. And if I kept quiet about that, I wouldn't be helping people have more time with their family. I totally understand. I mean, I can't imagine how that must have felt. Losing your father to something that was so preventable. I mean, I feel the same cry every day. And so that's why our voice is powered up because we don't want others to lose their family, loved ones. And now at this point in our lives, like what Dr. David Katz says, not only our elders, but we're also going to be losing more and more children. And so that's even more devastating. And so that's why our voices have to get louder. Our mission is just more focused because of these facts. There's no way that under our watch, we're going to let this happen. So we're going to do everything possible. Is that right? That's right. That's right. And 100%. I don't know how you got through all those emotions at that time, but I can still see you're greatly impacted by that episode in your life. And I know that you're doing everything possible to bring the tears of joy for others. Is that correct? 100%. Yeah, that lit a fire underneath me. I mean, when you see the next slide, you can see that I basically lived with my gardens. These were my babies. I started growing them as much as possible. Wendy has thankfully brought these to the island of Hawaii, but you can see in the motorcycle trailer back there, that was one right after my dad died. We moved from Washington state, we drove from Washington state down to LA and then through the South to North Carolina, we spent three weeks on the road where I had a garden growing in the back of my motorcycle trailer and we would roll it outside, have a salad. It was the healthiest fast food we could possibly have. And I had these incredible opportunities to be able to use that as a platform to talk to people about their health, to be able to tell them about how I had just lost my dad one month prior and how it impacted me and why he had passed and how important it was to get this visual of how many fruits and vegetables were supposed to eat a day. You know, people didn't realize that we need at a minimum seven. You know, they had no idea, like if you hold up the size of your fist, that is how many fruits and vegetables we're supposed to have. So I had it as an opportunity to have this as a platform to educate and inspire people to take these simple steps onto the next lane. Wow, you're truly building a community and spreading your mission and just growing this, the knowledge. And I mean like one little seed at a time, growing a whole farm of healthiness. And that's so exciting for working with you and just hearing your heart about how you're progressing with your health journey. I'm so excited for you. Keep going girl. Thank you, it's good to do it with you. So on that next slide, let's see what is it, it's the building of a community. A community, yeah, that's what happened. That was some of my favorite people right there. These people are just mission driven to be able to do exactly what I'm doing, inspire a healthy living around the world. And so many of those spaces are, majority are all military spaces like myself. A lot of them are in different countries and every week they're creating events where people can go and they can meal prep and they can create salads in a jar and help people find these really simple ways to just add more plants to their diet. You know, they're doing health talks. They're just, they're going outside of their comfort zone to ask people if they're open to learning more about how they can have a healthier life. Or they could come on a show like Think Hawaii and get the word out to millions. Because this is what, this is a voice to the world. It's an incredible platform. No, I'm so excited. So now for the general public, say they want to start getting their friends healthier because they hear your heart. How do they start? I think it starts with a conversation and in the next slide it shows some, you know, some language that you can use especially, this is especially for children, but first you have to start with why. And that's my why right there. My husband and my dog because I just love them so much I want to keep them both alive for as long as I possibly can. And I know a lot has to do with food. So knowing that emotion, a lot of times that's gonna what's gonna keep you, you know, saying no to the brownie every single night after dinner or something. So I think first it's important to find your why and that's one of the things that I love to do most is emotionally have a conversation with people so that they can make that emotional decision and then the logical decision because the how comes next. But it's having that conversation, especially with kids to let them understand, you know, when I was told you have to eat fruits and vegetables, I did the opposite. You know, like that doesn't work. People don't like to be told what to do. So let's tell them why instead. You know, so I love how it says, you know, if you eat orange plants then it's gonna help you seem better at night. You know, if you eat yellow, you know, plants then it's gonna help heal your cuts better. And what kid doesn't think about like the band-aids they're obsessed about putting band-aids and checking on their wounds and stuff. So to be able to show that they can use food as a way to help them heal and live longer, healthier, happier lives, I just think that's one of the greatest gifts we can do is have those conversations. Yeah, so you know, you're hitting so many good key points because where do I start? How do I start? What do I say? The verbiage, you know, and so all so, so critical. Well, once they understand the importance of good food and nutrition, how do you make the transition? How do you help them make their transition in their lives? Yeah, we've just gotta make it fun, colorful and easy. And there's a slide that shows, I just love these little plates that if you were trying to get your children to eat more fruits and vegetables, which child would not eat that? Like how fun are those little people that you can decorate the plates with? But as adults, we need to be showing, we need to be at the grocery store buying everything that's colorful. And one of the great things that happens all around the island usually on Monday nights is a lot of my team members host these mason jar salad events. And everyone is in charge of bringing just one ingredient. And it's usually like a Costco size. They wash it, they thoroughly cut it up, they put it into a container and we all meet, set it on the table and bring our jars and we fill it assembly line style. In 30 minutes, we have a week's worth of healthy salads. And that salad has a minimum fat amount. It's beautiful, look at the colors. So you know, food is really fuel. With that in mind, a lot of young athletes, I mean, they're working out, they're working their bodies hard, their coaches are having them have the greatest performance of their lives. But if they're not putting the right fuel into their bodies, how detrimental is that? Long term, it's detrimental. They think that they've earned something. You know, I've earned the brownie after a workout, but long term it's just going to create more bad habits. The recovery from the workouts isn't going to be good and now we're talking about some, you know, possible sickness and disease down the lane. And just for competitive, you know, for the next slide, if you want to talk about being able to eat to compete, food is going to be your fuel 100%. You know, and athletes are supposed to eat not just the minimum seven, is the 18 different fruits and vegetables. So we want to help them level up. That's so powerful. So in your closing slide, share a little bit about what your statement is in this closing slide. My statement would be, just because you're not sick doesn't mean you're healthy. Remember that, just because we feel good now, we have no idea what can happen in our future and it is so much better to fuel our body with good fruits and vegetables so that later we can possibly recover faster or just live a life that you and I have been talking about. Amen, that's the key point right there, that key and statement. And you know, just because we don't look sick, we don't know what the inside looks like. So we have to keep all of that in mind when we're putting that next naughty food into our mouth, the next fast food. So as I always say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Just get, prepare yourself to see how beautiful this is, how much this can help us and save our lives. So Chrissy, thank you so much. You're the apple of our eyes and you're the apple of many people's eyes because you're just inspired so many. So thank you for being here with us today. And I look forward to hearing more tidbits from your life and your journey as you proceed onwards. Likewise. All right, thank you. Aloha everyone. Aloha.