154. Solar Plexus Power & Ayurveda for Metabolic Health with Ingrid Elise

Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic, The show where practical mind power and mystical wisdom collide with humor and wild curiosity. Yeah, we're not here to play it safe. I'm Cynthia Varkevisser, your resident spiritual shit disturber. I stir things up with mystic power and bold action. And I'm Michelle Walters, coach and Hypnotherapist. I bring strategy and transformative hypnosis to help you turn subconscious blocks into unstoppable momentum. Let's shake up your thinking, dive into your soul and make bold moves in your life. We'll take you on a journey of breakthrough and aha moments, exploring spirit, business, love relationships and self expansion, we're connecting you with your highest self in flipping fear into strength. So buckle up. We're doing this one wild, transformative conversation at a time.

Let's go.

Here we go. Welcome to another episode of Mind Power Meets Mystic,. I am Michelle Walters. I'm the hypnotherapist and mind power part of our show, joined by my friend and lovely podcast partner, Cinthia Varkevisser, who is our show mystic. We are continuing on with our chakra series, and we are very excited to have our friend Ingrid Elise on today. Ingrid is your type two diabetes, low carb and keto connoisseur. Ingrid Elise, affectionately called the Green Goddess, is nationally board certified health and wellness coach and an Ayurveda wellness counselor devoted to helping women break free from metabolic and inflammatory conditions like type two diabetes and insulin resistance. We know Ingrid because she's a lot of fun, but she also is a very wise woman when it comes to health and diet and cooking and eating and all of these things. Welcome Ingrid, thank you. Thank you, Cinthia and Michelle. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. Really excited to have you. So tell us about how you came to be the Green Goddess, and if you could include your YouTube your YouTube videos. I'd love to hear about all the things that you're up to, my YouTube videos. So how I came to be the Green Goddess is about 12 years ago, I was given a terminal diagnosis of a very rare type of inflammatory bowel disease, which is gross, it was gross, which is a type of autoimmune disease, which is why it's like, when you told me my chakra that we were talking about today, I'm like, Oh, you are mystic. You do have mind power. You know exactly what, where I'm coming from. So after doing years and years of traditional, you know, you know, Western medicine, all the pharmaceuticals and everything. And after being told I could eat whatever I can tolerate, well, I can tolerate a whole hell of a lot. Apparently,

you know, I decided that the medications were making me even sicker, and I decided to find another way. And I discovered that food can, in fact, be medicine. Food can poison you, but food can also be medicine and the wonderful, you know, properties of herbs and supplements and and food and spices, which is interesting. I'm sure we'll get into that later. And that's how I did it. People started asking me, Ingrid, you know,

what are you doing? Are you on some special diet? Can I, you know, even though they didn't have the level of illness that I did, I was able to put my disease into clinical remission. But all the I was metabolically bankrupt. It was just absolutely horrific. I was living a half life. My my nanny raised my children because they were aged five and seven at the time. So they're really, really little. It was horrible.

But yeah, that's, that's how I got into it. As people just simply asked me, What are you doing? And they said, Can you,

can you start a Facebook group? And I'm like, okay, I can start a Facebook group. And it just all kind of snowballed from there. I ended up going to coaching school. And as you mentioned, I went to Ayurveda school, which are Ayurveda being the science of life. It's a beautiful, beautiful science. I just absolutely love it. It just really resonated with me, especially when it comes to the correcting the imbalances. And of course, we studied the chakras as well, which I found absolutely fascinating. But, uh, it all kind of led to a cooking show that I do every to every Tuesday, Tasty Tuesdays. And I go live. And then, of course, I put the recordings on my YouTube channel, and they're a lot of fun. My stick is five ingredients or less, because people come to me, I can't cook. Can you drive a car? Yes, then you can get five ingredients. And.

And put them in a pan, or put them in the slow cooker, or put them in the air fryer. You can do that. So it's five ingredients or less, heart healthy, diabetic friendly. That's also friendly on your wallet. You don't have to spend a lot of money. It's like, oh, but I can't afford to eat healthy. I'm like, Yeah, you can, and I will show you how. So that's kind of how that came about. It was actually

fairly early into lockdown, and I'd already been, like, known as a foodie, posting pictures and videos of my food and everything. And I'm like, Well, why don't I just turn the camera on and do a live show, just for kicks and giggles, right? And it'll again. It snowballed from there, and so now it's like Tasty Tuesdays and watch my recordings.

the literature, were written: 5000

So there's all you know different. It's just really obvious. And we go a lot into the the manifestation of disease, which I find absolutely fascinating, which is kind of where the chakras come in. So because they there's that correlation, of course, but it really is a beautiful and simple way to practice medicine. It's it just, it just makes, it's a lot of common sense, and particularly right now with all this new research and studies coming out about the gut microbiome and the connection between the gut and the brain. Well, guess what? You read the ancient Sanskrit test text from 5000 years ago. It's all written down there. So it's not really new science, it's old science. But the good news is we have the tech, you know, the technology to be able to really study it in depth. So I just find that really interesting that it's like, yeah, you know, we solved all our science and, you know, medical issues, health issues way back then, and now it's all coming to fruition again, which I find absolutely fascinating. So, yeah, it's a beautiful way to practice science. And it means Ayurveda, means the science of life. And fundamentally, it really just, what it's all about is simply being present. You know, with meditation, it's, I say, to beginners to meditation, and I'm sure you can relate to this. Absolutely. It's just simply being present in the moment, just putting all the thoughts out of your head.

And just breathing and and just being, which is fundamental part of Ayurveda. And I'm just, I'm such a big fan when I was studying. And I'm like, I know this. I know this. This makes perfect sense to me, which was kind of weird. But anyway, there it is.

You've been listening to Mind Power Meets Mystic, with me. Michelle Walters and my co host, Cinthia Varkevisser, we want to tell you about a special gig the two of us have going on. It's called Mind Power Meets Mystic,, the project, and it starts off on a zoom call with Cinthia. Cinthia tell everybody what they can expect. So for the first half of our session, you will be with me, and Michelle will be very quietly in the background preparing to do her work. What we will do is that we will talk about the one thing that you either want to amp up or that you want to release. And through the intuitive work, I help you get boil it down to its essence, and then give you an RX of three practical things to do to set you on your way. And then Michelle magically appears. What is it that you do that Michelle, I have been listening in but not participating in the first half of the call. I have an excellent idea of what Cinthia means when she says something, and I have an excellent idea of quickly getting to what my client is all about and his or her individual strengths, I turn all of this into a 20 to 30 minute hypnosis session on the second half of the call, which, when we're done, I strip off and send you as an mp three that you can listen to over and over again. You also will have Cinthia's three point recommendations, and the recording of the Zoom call, it is a fantastic one hour offering a great gift for yourself or for someone you don't know what to get such insights, and we've gotten such great reviews. So if you're interested, send me or Cinthia an email. You'll find our contact information in the show notes, and we'll tell you how to get started.

So I actually have a question about you choosing Ayurveda because you said it's it's complimentary, or it's got a lot of similar aspects as Chinese medicine. So

Ayurveda is new to me because I am more I know, Chinese medicine more basically through acupuncture. Because, yes, you live the two. And, you know, just talking about family remedies, you know, the old wives tales and things. Because, you know, from being Dutch Indonesian, we have some late to the some of the Chinese stories. So how is it that you, you know, chose Ayurveda over the other, you know, the other modalities, the other modalities Exactly. And I've been into traditional Chinese meta medicine for years and years and years. I had a wonderful, brilliant acupuncturist who was hardcore Chinese medicine as well. And I did all the herbs, and I did all the supplements and everything. So there's definitely a crossover there with some of the herbs and supplement that both of the cultures use,

and it so that was a big part of it. But for me, what really struck out was the food. It's like food is medicine. These herbs can be medicine, but they can also be poison if they're not used correctly, like in Ayurveda. What I really like is, you know, you have a herb or a food, and it can heal you if it's prepared in one way, but it can poison you if it's prepared in another way. I'll give rhubarb as an example, right? You can eat the stems, but you can't eat the leaves are poisonous, and they need to be cooked, right? And there's things like almonds. Almonds are very high in oxalates and oxalic acid, which you know, is like basically ingesting tiny, little, microscopic pieces of glass, like these crystals that can cause kidney stones. However, if you soak the almonds, that actually removes a good portion of the oxalates, and so then they're safe to eat. So it's just I found that whole thing with food, because I'm a foodie and I'm really interested in food, and in the end, that's what healed me. Was food. These these medicines that they gave me via infusion every eight weeks, yes, they helped get me into clinical remission, but you need to get to the root of the problem. And that's what I love about Ayurveda, as well. As similar to Chinese medicine, is you get to the root of the problem. And once you get to the root of problem and understand that, and understand how to balance it out, how to bring those things that are too high back down and balance them out, then you're on your way to healing so, and I love that. It's, it's a very, they're both very spiritual. They're very, both very spiritual

aspect to both of them and, and, you know, even though I'd had all this, you know, connection with traditional Chinese medicine, I It's hard for me to even say what, what it was. I couldn't.

My finger on it, other than it just, it just made sense to me. It's like I understood it. In every class that I did, I'm like, Oh, I know this. I know this. I mean, some of the herbs and everything I found a little bit tricky. But at the level, at the level one, the wellness counselor certification that I received, it really is all about prevention. It's about prevention of disease. It's about and that's what I do, is if we can get someone with pre diabetes and stop them from getting full blown disease, that's always that's always better. And what we like to say in our Veda is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?

Which makes a lot of sense. So really about prevention, about getting to the root of the problem. And I think that's something that both of those cultures really highlight. Yes, well, and I was very delighted Ingrid was able to come to my class earlier this week on, SOS stop overeating sugar. And we were reflecting on, you know, just how much bad food, or not even food, is for sale at the grocery stores in the United States these days, you know? I mean, you've got your produce, right? You've got your meats, and you've got a few things that you know you're going to you might want to purchase, as opposed to make, like, I'm not a person who's going to make her own pasta as an example.

But there's so much in that store that is, is horrible for you, and some of it is, is over sugared, right? And that's kind of where my where my class is coming from, syrup and all those other Yeah, yeah. And, you know, until we can reshape and remodel the American grocery store, which I'm hopeful, will happen at some point, good luck with that. Yeah. Well, okay, I can be I'm an optimist. I can have a very long range, yes, some of them, but we have to learn how to to inhabit today, right? We have to learn, how are you going to get through the fact that there's so much junk at the store and put the right things in the basket? And I think for many people, learn how to cook. I think your show is just inspiring. Ingrid, the number of people who know how to cook is diminishing, which is another problem, right?

But it's just so important this work you're doing Ingrid, could you share a success story of we've heard a little bit about your success story, but what about a success story of one of your clients? So this is going way back to just before covid, and I'd been working with this woman who was really quite desperate to lower her triglycerides before her doctor threatened to put her on, you know, medication if she didn't lower her triglycerides, because those ones are the red flags if they get too high, you want to do something about that? And so I worked with her and and she went on the low carbohydrate, low sugar, you know, protocol, which is, just eat real food. Just eat food as close to how it comes out of the earth as possible. We really focused on that check. She ended up losing about 20 pounds, and her triglycerides were, were actually lowered and within a normal range again. Then along comes covid. And she got covid, and she was quite ill, however, because this was really in the early stages, before we really knew anything about covid, and before there are any, really, you know, any, any really valid treatments for it. And she contacted me afterwards, and she said, Yeah, I got covid, and I was really sick. However, her doctor said, Had she not lost the weight, had she not fixed herself metabolically,

she would have ended up in dire straits. And that just that made me feel good, because we know now that there's a huge metabolic, you know, aspect to covid, and that those people who were critically ill and who passed away all had massive metabolic, you know, abnormalities between the diabetes, between the coronary artery disease, obesity, you see these hugely obese people, and they're having to be put prone to try and take the pressure off their heart and lungs, and then you see them afterwards being interviewed in the hospital. I remember the early days, and there was this very obese woman, and she was drinking a can of Coke after almost dying from covid, and I just My heart went out for her. So I have a lot of stories like that. I have another young lady I was working with, and she ended up losing a lot of weight. I think she ended up losing about 30 pounds,

she went from looking really quite ill and very inflamed and very bloated to now she looks like she could be on the cover of a magazine. Her transformation has been unbelievable. I remember, yeah, when she started working with me, she said, But I have to have my bagel in the morning. And I said, Okay.

Well, would you be willing to consider having half a bagel? She says, Yeah, but I've got the whole package here. Like, what am I going to do with and I said, Well, what do you think you should do with it so I could put it in the freezer? Now, three years later, that bag of bagels is still in her freezer. She's left it there as a reminder. I think she maybe got through a few because after about two weeks, she's like, Yeah, you know what? I don't feel so good on those bagels anymore. And she just was able to put them, put them behind her, and she has maintained and she looks absolutely stunning, and she has energy. She was taking care of her elderly grandmother, and she had the energy to do that, and she volunteers in the community, and she is just go, go, go, go, go. But she didn't have that level of energy before, so it's fixing that. That the root of, what's it? Metabolic, you know, imbalances.

I love that story. Let's talk about it through the chakra system, shall we? Because that's, that's

so we're talking about the third chakra, which is the solar plexus, and it has to do with personal power. But it makes so much sense, because it's right there where the digestion system is, yes, and then we're talking about diabetes. And so I will make a confession, I am diabetic. I am right at the line. So if I were to talk to one doctor, they'd say I'm diabetic, and one would say I'm not. And so I sit in this lovely little space of, you know, I get to choose of where i right. So that's, that's the first thing. But when I think about diabetes and and, you know, I My family has it, and it historically, it's run through my family, and

what I remember is that, as people were, as my family members are diagnosed with diabetes, their joy level goes down. Their, you know, their their propensity for happiness is not as

common. You know what I mean, it's so there's a wearing down, and I know that that is tied into food, and it's also tied in the chakra system. So let's talk about, you know, what's really happening energetically with food and energy. And let's help these people, and me help my family and the greater community out. Is that all right? Oh, absolutely. Fire away. So let's go. Okay, yeah. So, I mean, you hear, you have, you have clients that are pre diabetic or diabetic, have you seen emotionally, the emotional shifts, you just talked about, the energetic shifts, but, you know, and then, because of the Ayurveda, you know how it's hitting the chakras. So it's a, this is like a wonderful we could talk about this for hours. So I'm just, I'm just popping something in there, yeah, just drop it, dropping something in there, and you get to take it wherever you want, right? Well, we all know now that there is a huge connection between the gut and the brain, and that, you know, the majority of our immune system is actually held in the gut, right? And with the gut brain connection. And when you get really severely diabetic, you know, we now know there's type three diabetes, which is getting into insulin resistance and inflammation in the brain, which causes, you know, the loss of memory, and the, you know, the Alzheimer's and the the dementia, those kind of issues, which is very depressing, and you know, when your gut microbiome is really out of whack, when you're destroying it with chemicals that are in our food, like glyphosate, if you're eating industrial farm grains, when you're overloaded on Sugar, and you've got so many of those bad bacteria. We're carrying around several pounds worth of bacteria inside and on our bodies, which is phenomenal. When you think about what's going on on the inside of our bodies. On a microscopic level, I kind of nerd out and geek out on that, but yeah, of course, when it affects our digestion, it's going to affect our mood, when we're carrying extra weight, when we have headaches and brain fog, when our joints hurt, when we just can't make a fist because we're so inflamed in our joints. When you know we're sluggish, we're sluggish because we're eating food that spikes our blood sugar, and then we come crashing down. So you go from one extreme to the other. And of course, you're going to, if you eat a high, high sugar, high carbohydrate meal, two hours later, you're going to need a nap, you know? And it's just, of course, it's going to be depressed, of course, you know, I was massively depressed when I hit 200 pounds. And I'm five three, right? I hit 200 pounds with metabolic dysfunction, and all the medications I was on, I was so depressed, I couldn't get out of bed, you know. And everything was here in my guts, my intestines were so ill. I mean, they they thought that they might have to send in the colorectal surgeon. It was that bad to remove that. And that would have just been horrific. Yeah, it was horrific. You know. I.

Couldn't eat, I couldn't drink. I was on a liquid diet for about three, four months, and then I could only eat very small amounts of food. It was, it was really dire. So I absolutely can relate to that third chakra. And also in terms of the the way I looked at myself and the way I felt about myself, I looked in the mirror and thought, you're a terrible person. I just don't like this person, don't love this person. So, you know, it's like that, that spiritual and emotional, you know, weight of you look in the mirror and you feel heavy. It's like you look in the mirror and you feel disgust and shame.

But there is actually a physiological, you know, linked to that within the gut and the gut microbiome, because if you cannot get to the root of that, all of your other systems are going to be out of whack too, particularly with depression. I mean, depression is on is just so

it's on the rise in a frightening way. And our children are not okay. Our children are getting depression. I mean, my daughter had terrible depression. She's overcome it now, but she spent, you know, the the last of her teenage years dealing with terrible depression and anxiety, and she eats a lot of sugar. And I was like, she's an adult now. She's gonna do what she's gonna do, but I really see it every day. I see the mood shift in my clients once they start, you know, filling their plate with the organic, real food, and slowly starting to get rid of the, you know, the industrial farm grains and the highly processed, high carb, high chemical laden foods. I see that shift, and in some of my clients, I see it within even a couple of weeks, I just started working with a new woman just this week, and, you know, I had her intake two weeks ago. She's already down six pounds. Her mood is already better. She's feeling that empowerment already, because she feels like she's in control now, whereas before, she wasn't. And a lot of that and that power is from knowledge, and that's what I love to teach about food, the simplicity of food, but also understanding how to read a label, and understanding what's in your food, and understanding how this is going to affect you, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. So yes, I do see massive, massive improvements in in mindset and just ability to go out there and live life to its fullest, because I was not, I was dead inside, and it's just my guts were so messed up. It just affected everything. It was just a really horrific time in my life. But I'm also glad that I went through it, you know, Cinthia, that sounds weird, but, you know, at the time, I was thinking, Why me? Why me? Why me? And then now I realize, as people start to come to me more and more, can you help me? I'm like, Okay, there's a purpose to everything. I can take this. I can really pivot and I can, I can reframe those thoughts and go, Okay, now I can use what happened to me for good and for positivity in this world. So, so, yeah, I do see massive shifts, massive shifts, and I did it myself. So I feel if, if I can do it myself, then I must have a responsibility now to to help others with that, to teach others these these same these same tools and these same protocols and strategies. No, I I agree. I believe that that you know that you had to go through it. You really did have to go through it so that you have that compassionate side and and teach from a place that's incredibly wise. So so thank you for that, and thank you for all that information. I have one more question to ask, right? That is, what have you got coming up?

Well, I'm so glad you asked. Yes, I offer a free training once a month, and that is on coach Ingrid's top six health hacks, the really important places to start with, starting from ground zero, basic things I talk about, like sleep and nutrition and meditation, things like that. So we kind of go into a little bit of that. There's also another training that I offer once a month, which is, how much sugar are you eating? I think you could relate to that one, Michelle, how much sugar are you really eating? And it's a big lesson in how to read labels, because that's my thing. At every opportunity, I try to show people how to read a label, how to read ingredients, so you understand what you're reading. Go ahead and buy it and put it in your body, but at least you're making a mindful, conscious choice to do that, and that's none of my business. So I have that. I also just had a book that just got published, which is, I know I'm really excited. It's a compilation book from, I think there's seven or eight authors in the book, it's wise women wisdom, which is very exciting, and it talks about transformation, about how we've all been on a, you know, this journey, and mine specifically talks to turning 50. My chapter is titled, life is fab after 50. And that was kind of leading up to.

The end of my disease and how I recovered from that.

And turning this, turning the page on this new chapter, turning 50, having adult children, having put all that trauma and everything behind me, and just giving myself license to go, guess what? I can do whatever the hell I like now, because I can, because all those responsibilities of raising children and everything. And it's just it went from from just absolute trauma to now I'm just the happiest, healthiest that I've ever been, and I'm out there living, living the best life. So that book just came out, and

then I have a group program starting up in the fall to get us through the holidays and the new year. So that's a small group program where there's going to be trainings every week. It's kind of like a little mini mom. Little mini mastermind for nutrition and and lifestyle and health. Thank you so much. Ingrid, we just adore spending time with you, and it was so fun to have you today as our guest on mind power meets mystic. Do you like this show? If you want to hear from more great people, fun people, like Ingrid, learn more about the chakras, learn more about mystic, intuition things, learn more about mind power things, please. Give us a follow, give us a like, write us a review, and we would love to see you again on another week of mind power meets mystic. Signing off, thanks. Bye, bye.

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