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- [00:00]
A
The highest density of mitochondria in your entire body live in your oocytes, in your eggs. If you are not producing ATP correctly and you're not feeding your mitochondria, that's where infertility will come in.
- [00:11]
B
When you go through the IVF protocol, no one is saying, let's check your CRP first. Let's check X, Y and Z. Because many times, if you can get the inflammation down, if you can get the toxins out of your body, if you can get your nervous system feeling safe in your body again, you can probably conceive naturally and avoid the whole system. But it's a moneymaker.
- [00:27]
A
Even if you have really dark skin, a lot of time you're not absorbing vitamin D. Correct. And if your nervous system is dysregulated, which a lot of ours is, because of the way we work and we live and we're always on the go, then we can't absorb certain things correctly. And vitamin D is a master hormone. It does operate so many different functions in your body. And nobody at a fertility clinic is telling you these things.
- [00:48]
B
Iman, I'm so excited to have you on today. This has been such a long time coming. We've been talking about this for like two years and what are the chances that we're doing this in Saudi Arabia of all places?
- [00:57]
A
I'm excited to spend the next three, four days with you and a different part of the world.
- [01:02]
B
I know this is amazing. Thank you. So I want to dive right into it. I want people to hear a little bit about what you do in your background. First of all, you run a high end agency that brings luxury to wellness, which I love so much. I feel like for so long wellness has been really crunchy and like, and that's fine. But I love the luxury that's brought to wellness and I just love that you're doing that. Can you tell people more about the work that you do?
- [01:25]
A
Yeah. So basically I spent 20 plus years of my career building luxury lifestyle brands. Fashion, retail, design, hospitality. My first job ever out of college was for Vogue House in London. I worked for Conde Nast and that's all I ever knew was luxury brands. Rectory retail. And it was three and a half years ago. My mom died of turbo cancer. And her death impacted me, Courtney, in such a way that I came back and said, I love what I do. I love to build people, I love to build brands, but I want to give back. And how do I give back is amplify people's voices. Brands that are really making a Difference that are changing lives. So I just shifted my focus by building brands in luxury to building brands in health and wellness. So practitioners, sleep tech, health tech, supplements, personalities that I really believe in, truly, and supporting them and carrying them into the world.
- [02:17]
B
Yeah, that's amazing. I'm so sorry about your mom. I love that you talk about this, though, because I feel like not a lot of people are talking about this. In fact, there was literally just a study that came out, I believe it was last week, where they are showing proof that cancer is being connected to these vaccines. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and what happened with your mom?
- [02:34]
A
So my mother was in complete remission. She had ovarian cancer but had gone into complete remission. The pandemic comes around. This woman is already immune compromised. She's already like, quote unquote, high risk. But the woman's not leaving the house. Her GP in the uk, obviously, the UK is really focused on the nhs, decided to give her the vaccine, followed by a really aggressive jab of the booster. And within 90 days, Courtney, I kid you not, within 90 days, my mother's health did like a complete 180. She was inflamed with cancer fluid, she could not get out of bed, she could not walk. And within 90 days, she went into medical and died. And the worst part of all of this was she was living in London at the time. And my sister would be like, you can't come and see mom until you get vaccinated. I said, there's no way in hell I'm getting vaccinated. Knowing all the research, I'd gone down, the whole Joe Rogan, Robert Malone kind of like, you know, kind of trail. And I said, no, something is not adding up to me. The science is not sciencing to me. It's not adding up. So I remember having to lie to my family because they would not let me see my mom while she was dying and lie and go into the UK and basically say, listen, I got vaccinated, all that stuff. And to see what happened to her is really what traumatized me in such a way. I was like, the Western medical system is such a fraud. Everyone's life is for profit. They're injecting people with something that they have barely even researched in this mass of population, leave alone done it with people who have certain backgrounds or diseases or already existing conditions. And that is really what, like, fueled me to want to, like, get into this and bring truth to the forefront.
- [04:10]
B
Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that, girl. It's crazy because I still feel like so many people gaslight you when you talk about that, that I saw an article that was written about me a couple months ago and they literally said she believes that cancer is linked to the COVID vaccine and that it is. It literally is, but it is. And they were basically like trying, trying to make fun of me saying that, like I was critical or I was criticizing the COVID and I was like, yeah, if you actually do we want to follow the science, let's follow the science because it's there.
- [04:41]
A
And at the summit you will see obviously there's such incredible people here and there's some practitioner who are specialists in the field. And I remember I speaking to one of them yesterday and she said, she said the research and data is coming out but is being suppressed. There is not one global study that has been done to track the rate of vaccines that are given to young children accumulative what it does to their lives. So we keep on adding new vaccines to the vaccine schedule, but there's not one large scale study done to date to show the effects that these vaccines have on children, their development and linking back to things such as autism. And if we talk about it, they gaslight us. They're like, you're crazy. You're an anti vaxxer. I'm like, I'm not an anti vaxxer. I'm just telling you, please provide me the science and the research to tell me that this is not affecting child development and cellular health.
- [05:29]
B
Well, that's what people don't understand. We keep hearing it's parroted all the time. Safe and effective. Safe and effective. Safe and effective. Okay, well, show me the data. They don't have the data. They've never double blind placebo studies ever for vaccines. And this is what people don't understand. And when they do the studies, they monitor the kids for like five days afterwards. Which one is that? The. What is it called? Gardasil? Yes, Gardasil. They monitor the babies for five days afterwards. And then they said, okay, they're totally fine, no adverse reactions. Well, what about two years down the line? What about 10 years down the line?
- [06:01]
A
Or developmentally, are these kids slowing down? Are they having problems? Are they developing things like add? Are they getting hypersensitive to light? Are they getting hypersensitive to sound? There's no research. And so at the end of the day, a lot of like incredible pediatricians also have been pushing to say, hey, all we're asking for is for more research. And the problem with the industries is that they cannot be sued. So these pharmaceutical companies, these vaccine companies cannot be sued because they're not liable. And then they make their money by supplying the pediatrician's office with all the marketing materials it takes and all the marketing dollars. And the pediatrician is making their money through selling vacc. And so it's such a corrupt system. And I tell people, I'm like, your family, your choice, your body, your choice is what I believe. So I always want to tell parents that when you are interviewing a pediatrician, it is probably one of the most important things you're gonna do for your family, because that is your child's doctor. If you are at a doctor's office, that does not even entertain your curiosity and your questions. And they're gaslighting you and boycotting you because you're like, what if I wanna spread out the schedule? What if I wanna do it later? What if I'm not sure if they're not even willing to provide you the research to go educate yourself and make the choice that's best suited for your family. You better run out of the doctor's office.
- [07:22]
B
Oh, yeah. I tell people this all the time in my DMs. So pediatricians, I totally agree, is like the most important. But even if you just have a doctor and you go and you try to get blood work done or something, I get messages from people all the time and they say, I asked for this blood panel and my doctor said no. I said, find a new doctor, it's time for a new doctor. Your doctor is supposed to work in symbiosis with you. It's supposed to be a reciprocal relationship, not a relationship where someone just tells you and demands you to do things, especially when you're talking about what you do with your own body.
- [07:49]
A
So I feel very much the same when it comes to the fertility industry.
- [07:53]
B
Yes.
- [07:54]
A
So the IVF industry has grown to be this multi billion dollar industry. But a lot of these people, these women, when they walk into clinics, it's like a factory. A lot of them are private equity owned. They're pushing just numbers. They are not looking for so many things that are the root cause of what causes infertility. They're not checking a lot of markers, such as full thyroid, vitamin D. Vitamin D is a horm. If you're deficient in vitamin D, so many different things. Your adrenals don't even work properly, your thyroid doesn't work. And they're missing all these baseline tests of what really makes you healthy and fertile. They're not even checking inflammation in the body.
- [08:32]
B
I know.
- [08:33]
A
And we know if you are chronically inflamed, you will not conceive because your oocytes are so sensitive to insulin. See, if you have so much insulin circulating in your body and you're not metabolically flexible and you're sick, how are you meant to conceive? Because just that alone is sending this scientifically is one thing, but that signal that it sends to your body, it's not safe. This environment's not safe for me to have a child in.
- [08:58]
B
Yeah. This is the problem that I have with the IVF industry. I'm not criticizing the fact that people are going through ivf. I think it's a wonderful, amazing thing. I love that we have modern technology that allows people to have viable pregnancies.
- [09:11]
C
Right.
- [09:12]
B
But the issue that I have is that when you go through the IVF protocol, no one is once asking you any of this stuff. Like you said, no one is saying, well, let's check your CRP first. Let's check X, Y and Z. Because many times if you can get the inflammation down, if you can get the toxins out of your body, if you can get your nervous system feeling safe in your body again, you can probably conceive naturally and avoid the whole system. But it's a moneymaker.
- [09:35]
A
So most people don't even know this. The highest density of mitochondria in your entire body live in your oocytes, in your eggs. There's 100,000 mitochondria in your eggs. So the most dense place, right, if you are not producing ATP correctly and you're not feeding your mitochondria, that's where infertility will come in. How many of these fertility clinics? I can name you? Only a few doctors who I know are amazing. There's one called Amy Azaday, called the Egg Whisperer. There's Zaha Merhi. They were the only two doctors out of, let's say, 10 people I interviewed for my podcast that came. We are looking into things like NMN and NAD and improving mitochondrial health, reducing inflammation, bringing an organic whole food diet, supporting protein in women, and getting them to regulate their nervous systems. Before we go down this IVF path.
- [10:29]
B
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- [10:59]
C
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- [11:01]
B
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C
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B
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- [11:43]
C
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- [12:53]
B
It's amazing. I mean we should be doing that first and then if you still aren't able to, then okay, go the IVF route. But why are we not checking these things first? You mentioned nmn. Do you think that's better than nad?
- [13:05]
A
And why yes, so your body does not have NAD receptors. This is not me talking about this, making it up. Your body actually does not have NAD receptors. NMN and nr, which are the precursors to nad, which help your body naturally produce it and boost your own levels, is much more bioavailable to your body. However, if you are going through a fertility journey or fertility protocol or on something specific for your health for a short period of time, if you want to inject yourself with NAD just to aggressively boost ATP production to not like just you're flood dosing your body, but there's a lot of product that gets wasted and NAD shots are very expensive. Expensive. It's not cheap. So if you're looking to do it long term, you're looking to work on your baseline health, NMN and nr. The place to go, obviously look at company, look at dosage, look at what antioxidants it's mixed with. So those are the things to look at. However, if you're doing a short term protocol, like you're doing an IVF cycle or preparing for something specifically, if you want to do 90 days of NAD, go for it, or two months of NAD, but it's very expensive. And this is what annoys me about this space as well. So many of the things that, that people want to have access to like stem cells and PRP and exosomes, all these things that are great for longevity and even peptides are really expensive and so people do not know where to start. So I always say start with the baseline stuff, reduce inflammation in your body, fix your mitochondrial health, fix your gut health because your gut has so much to do with your overall body and performance and stuff and then take it from there. And that can start through sleep, proper hydration.
- [14:38]
B
Yeah.
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A
And food.
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B
Yeah. So from your viewpoint, I know you're super into biohacking and you, you've been really, you've been down this journey recently where actually I want you to share that before anything else because you yourself were going into menopause, right?
- [14:52]
A
Yeah.
- [14:52]
B
Can you share more about that and how you've reversed your numbers?
- [14:56]
A
So there's a twofold thing that I look back and see. So when my mom died, emotionally that puts so much stress on my body. But because I was so focused on work, Courtney, my mom died. I buried her from London to Pakistan and flew back to the US within seven days. Seven days. I was in the middle of scaling my business. I did not have time to grieve. I thought I didn't have time to grieve. My body was like, you're Grieving, whether you like it or not. And the stress that put into me started pushing my body towards menopause. And I did not know I had a problem until I did all my fertility markers and checks and said, wait, My AMH and FSH is completely off the charts. And I'm so close into going into menopause and I was missing my cycle here and there, but I'm like, I'm young. What's going on here? When I started meeting and interviewing fertility doctors for the podcast, I literally went from the east coast to the west coast to get to know doctors, the different protocols, why they're doing certain things. The two doctors I mentioned were the ones that really educated me and told me, you know, Iman, you can slow down ovarian aging. There's things like rapamycin, there's PRP for the ovaries, there's stem cells and all. They're the ones who taught me chronic inflammation in the body. Like they told me, start doing hyperbaric chamber once or twice a week when you get time because that oxygenates your ovaries. Do anything that brings in more energy and ATP production to you. They taught me about eating whole foods. They taught me about acupuncture, traditional TCM acupuncture, and how that brings more blood flow to your ovaries. So I did stem cells, I did exosomes. I went on a dose of 2.5 milligrams of rapamycin a week and. And my levels started changing and I was able to pull my body out of menopause and I have a normal functioning cycle now. My body's in sync with my age. I have to pull up my exact numbers. I don't have them, but I'll give them to you for your show notes. Because I have all my tests. I took it every 90 days and I saw the numbers completely changing. So I was able to really bring my AMH down and raise my fsh. And the crazy part of it all was vitamin D deficiency. I had a vitamin D deficiency that went untreated for so long.
- [17:01]
B
And you live in Miami, so it's.
- [17:04]
A
Really crazy as well that even if you have really dark skin a lot of time, you're not absorbing vitamin D correctly. And if your nervous system is dysregulated, which a lot of ours is, because of the way we work and we live and we're always on the go, then we can't absorb certain things correctly. And vitamin D is a master hormone. It does operates so many different functions in your body. And nobody at a fertility clinic is telling you these things. It is these functional fertility doctors that are looking into all of this. So I did the stem cells and the exosomes and PRP for my ovaries. I started the rapamycin. I started really all a lot of things that were acting as antioxidants. So CoQ10, a lot of NMN. I started introducing inositol into my thing. I started doing TCM acupuncture once a week. And I saw a huge change. And by the way, I didn't just see change in my cycle. My skin laxity, the health of my skin improved. My sleep got deep again. I wasn't having hot flashes at night. I had an appetite. I came back. I wasn't having brain fog. Our hormones affect so many different functions in our body that for women, you get gaslit into saying, oh, but you're only 39, 40, 41. No, you're not going to perimenopause. Perimenopause starts at least 10 years before you feel full signs and symptoms of menopause. And because of the levels of toxins in our food, in our environment, the amount of plastic we're exposed to, the level of chronic stress, emf, bright lights, all the travel that we're doing, all of that is causing stress. So women are living out of design on who they are, and that is pushing us further and further and further and earlier into things like menopause.
- [18:40]
B
Yeah. Well, what I find so fascinating about what you're sharing is that if you just went to an allopathic conventional doctor, they would just raise their hands and they go, well, yep, sorry, this is just your life now. Like, you need to start preparing for menopause instead of actually telling you the things that you could do and you could apply because they're a really amazing thing. Everything that you just mentioned, which I guess would we consider or that biohacking.
- [19:01]
A
I would call biohacking longevity science.
- [19:04]
B
Yeah, longevity.
- [19:04]
A
I would actually look at it through healthspan.
- [19:06]
B
Yeah.
- [19:07]
A
And why am I looking at. Through a health span? I'm looking through a health span because it's about improving the quality of your health as we age. So, you know, Mark Hyman talks about this a lot. Right. We normally were told by traditional medicine that you will age and you will get disease and you're gonna die, and that's just part of life. And he's taught us that that's not necessarily true. You can choose how you age, and you can decide at the pace you age. Of course, Aging is inevitable. But when do. How do we get sick? How do we keep certain genes switched off? Just because your mom got cancer does not mean you have to develop the same cancer, even if you carry the genes, because it's about switching the genes off and keeping them off. So how clean is your body? How inflamed are you? How healthy and regulated is your nervous system? All of these things really do matter.
- [19:49]
B
Yeah. And toxins that you're exposed to, which is another thing I want to talk to you about, because I'm curious. So you and I did similar protocols with Dr. Gedrick. You did a much longer one than I did, which I need to go back and finish. But let's talk about that, because you and I are huge fans of PC.
- [20:05]
A
Yes. Phosphatidylcholine.
- [20:06]
B
Exactly. Which I think is amazing for cleaning out the cells, getting you detoxified, and getting these toxins out of your body. Do you feel like that protocol. Let's talk about what you did. And then do you feel like that also helped bring your numbers down and normalize your body again?
- [20:19]
A
100%. So lipid replacement therapy. And so, you know, you and I are fans of, like, Body Bio. And so Jess Berman's grandfather essentially came up with this protocol years ago to treat chronic disease, especially in children. Children. And what they learned is that when you feed the cells. So phosphatidylcholine. Let's talk about what the phospholipids are. So you have your cell, and around it, you're supposed to have this gooey, gushy membrane that basically doesn't let the toxins in and keeps toxins out and keeps your cells functioning and healthy. Because of the way we're living our lives, chronic stress, fatigue, all the pollutants that are going into our systems, our cell membranes have been eroded. If your cells cannot protect themselves, then how are you going to be healthy? And disease enters the body. So the mixture of phospholipids, PC, essentially fortifies that cell membrane and makes it healthy again and helps your cells to detox naturally. Something they should be doing day in and day out.
- [21:14]
B
Yeah.
- [21:15]
A
And so that protocol kind of really resets your body and resets your health. However, I will tell you, because you and I haven't spoken about this in a while, it gave me severe stress and fatigue by the end of it. So those IVs were so aggressive for my body, and I think I was going through other stuff so much emotionally that my body started having a reaction. So I would see those Needles in my body be like, no, no, we don't want to do this. I literally was inflaming at the sight of the needle. And then I sat back and said to myself, the nervous system is so intelligent.
- [21:48]
B
It's powerful.
- [21:49]
A
It was powerful. And during my last cycle that I was doing these IVs, Jess actually called me from body by and said, iman, I don't think you need to do any more IVs. I think you need to go take a look at your nervous system. And she sent me to this incredible body worker called Kelly Kennedy. She's basically two hours away from in Jersey. Courtney. That woman made me feel so much safer and more regulated. In that three hour session that I had with her, I decided, I'm not gonna do any more IVs, and I'm gonna do it through oral, the oral protocol. And I just kind of stopped doing them because at the time, my body was just having a reaction to putting one needle in, then another. Because each protocol was about three and four hours.
- [22:30]
B
Oh, yeah, it was intense. I loved it. I would love to go back and do another round eventually.
- [22:35]
A
Absolutely.
- [22:36]
B
But I feel you after day three. I can't believe you did like a week, right?
- [22:39]
A
I did a week, and then I went back months later and did another week. However, it did help my fertility numbers because a lot of the less inflammation and toxins you have in your body, the cleaner your cells are, the better your hormones will function. The better your hormones will function, you will slow down your ovarian aging.
- [22:56]
B
Yep, exactly. And I think it also, what we were doing also helps clear out the gut too.
- [23:00]
C
Right?
- [23:00]
B
Correct.
- [23:00]
A
Reshuffs your gut microbiome. Exactly.
- [23:02]
B
Which is a huge part of this too.
- [23:05]
C
When your mitochondria work better, everything just works better. And if you're like me, you've realized that you can't out train out coffee or out willpower low energy anymore. There was a time when I could get away with bad sleep and still fine. That time has passed. And what I've learned is that feeling good actually starts way deeper than motivation. It starts at the cellular level. This is why I take Timeline's Mitopure gummies. Their gummies support cellular energy by helping renew mitochondrial function, which is basically your body's internal battery system. Think of it as plugging yourself in instead of just slapping on another cup of coffee and hoping for the best. This is one of the few daily habits I actually stick with because. Because it's two gummies. Not another pill, not another powder, not another. You need A blender for this situation. They're also sugar free and they legitimately taste really good. I keep them next to my coffee so I don't forget, which I would. Otherwise they're sugar free. Like I said, they're vegan, they're non GMO and they're backed by over 15 years of research in mitochondrial health. So it's science first, not hype first. Support your cells and how you age with Mito Pure Gummies from timeline. Visit timeline.comrealfoodology and save up to 39% off your mito pure gumm. That's timeline.comrealfoodology.
- [24:22]
B
So for women listening, let's say either they want to prepare for egg retrieval or maybe they're doing ivf, or maybe they just want to prepare their bodies for fertility. What would you say maybe are like the top five things that they should look into doing sleep.
- [24:35]
A
Number one, if you're not getting enough good quality sleep and you're not cycling your circadian rhythm, natural light is so important when it comes to your health. Health, your body, we're made of light, we're made of frequency. So not a getting, not enough sleep disrupts you because according to Chinese medicine, you see different organs regenerate at different times of night. So I think your liver is between 2 to 3am different parts. So you have to make sure you're giving yourself enough time to sleep. Not only are you giving yourself enough time to sleep, but you are cycling your circadian rhythm, which is clocking yourself waking up early, getting the morning sunlight into your eyes. So your body has the right cortisol response. It's producing melatonin. So you're sinking yourself completely. So I think sleep is number one. Number two is eating whole food, organic diet. What you put in your body, preparing your body for retrieval or for fertility will matter. The quality of food does matter. And I promise you, if you are inflamed, you are not going to conceive. And within 90 days of eating a whole food diet, you can drastically reduce inflammation in your body. Body.
- [25:42]
C
Yeah.
- [25:42]
A
And number three is regulating your nervous system.
- [25:47]
B
I was gonna say how, how do people do that? This is actually a journey that I'm on right now because I'm trying to girl. I'm like, where do I sign up? I need to do all the things I've been looking into neurofeedback. In fact, I just did a really cool podcast with someone, a founder of a company that does neurofeedback and it's wild. You literally put A headset on. And they put you through these, like, protocols on the computer with this headset on. And I'm. I haven't even started the protocol yet. But there's avenues that I'm going down right now. Because I think a lot of us are realizing that our nervous systems are fried.
- [26:18]
A
Less is more. Yeah. Just before, when we took a break on the podcast, we were discussing us women are living so out of design of who we're meant to be. When I look at myself and I was thinking about this the other day on the. On the plane ride over Isaac, I am so strong. People meet me, are like, oh, she's so tough. She's so strong. But I'm strong out of a reaction to my environment.
- [26:40]
B
Yeah, it's interesting.
- [26:41]
A
I'm living out of design. Right? We are not meant to be on the go like this and be like, go, go, go. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna fly here. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna conquer this. That is masculine energy. We are so far away from feeling safe within our own bodies. If you don't feel safe within yourself, how are you gonna bring a life in and care for that life? And that does not mean you don't have to have a career or an amazing life and you just have to sit home and bake sourdough bread. That's not what I'm saying.
- [27:07]
B
Unless if you want to.
- [27:08]
A
Yeah, unless you want to. That's what makes you feel good. But people are like, oh, well, she works and she has a great. No, but it' and I think it's like the little habits and the shifts and the changes that we need to make. And then, yes, you can do neurofeedback. There are some incredible peptides that you can take. The Celanx and cemax, that's really good at, like, slowing you down, bringing in that calm and ease into your body. Obviously, having great sleep hygiene. Red light therapy is really, really great. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is really great. Box breathing, doing breath work is amazing. But it's not one thing that regulates your nervous system. It is the daily little habits that you cultivate. The dialogue you have with yourself that creates a security in your body.
- [27:49]
B
I love that. It's so true. I wanna talk a little bit more about what you were just saying. Cause it really resonates with me, and I think it resonates with a lot of women right now. Cause I think you and I both grew up during the hustle culture and boss bitch era. And both of Us, we've said this. Both of us have amazing careers, and we're so grateful for it. And I wouldn't do anything any other way. But I also feel like growing up in that era, I felt me. I'm just speaking for me personally, I felt a little duped by it, to be honest, 100%, because I've always wanted to be a mom. I knew I've always wanted to be a mom, and I thought that I had more time. I also was told, okay, you need to hustle, hustle, hustle. Create this job, create this career, do all this stuff, and we can do all that, and that's totally fine. And I'm not even here to shame the women that are doing that and thriving. But I hit a point where I. I was like, oh, I am so burnt out because I started learning about my cycle, my hormones, half of the month. We don't even. I don't even have the energy half the time. My brain doesn't even work for half the month just because of the way that our hormones work.
- [28:54]
A
I think we have been pushed so far from society. And I will go out and say this. I am the founder of two companies. I love what I do. I love working. However, we are living so far out of design. I believe in traditional gender roles. I will go as far as to say I believe in traditional gender roles. I think men and women have certain responsibilities. I think I believe that it's a man's place to protect and provide.
- [29:18]
B
Yeah.
- [29:19]
A
And I remember waking up this summer and saying, I have pushed myself so hard to prove myself. So hard in this world. But for who? At what cost? I'm burnt out. I'm exhausted. I'm depleted. My hormones are out of whack. I was at a point, Courtney, that I would literally fly to a podcast. And Ryan's here. She's my podcast producer. I would start crying, like, was I on sets? Because I was so depleted. And I was like, what am I doing all this for? And it's this thing of being like, I can take a step back and I can do a little bit less. And then it's this whole thing about this toxic feminism that we've created. Feminism, the first movement, I think, was really necessary. Give us the rights to vote, have a bank account, give us a place in society. In order for a relationship to survive and be successful, there has to be polarity. But us women have gone into these major alpha roles, and these men have gone into these more feminine roles, and that's where we're headbutting so the polarity doesn't feel natural to us. Unless you're fine to be like that. And there's some people that are. And that's absolutely fine. Yeah, that's great for you. I realized that wasn't going to work for me. Yeah. And I realized I would like to slow down. And that does not mean I'll be any less successful. That does not mean I'll make any less money. But the way I've started to view and treat my career and my relationships and my body is starting to change. Yeah.
- [30:33]
B
Yeah. I mean, I feel the exact same way. And I mirror everything you said. I really believe in traditional gender roles. I think that we were primally designed this way. And like you said, there will always be people that go against the grain, and that's totally fine. Everyone's bio, individual, unique. I love that. I celebrate that for you. There's no shame in that. But I do believe that many of us, we were just designed this way. And so we have these primal instincts. And as a result of. It's so beautiful when you're in that dance. Because women, we have amazing things that we bring to the table. Like, we have so many qualities that make us feminine that really help with that polarity. And the same with the men. And so it's this beautiful dance that we do. And I just hate that we've gotten to this place in society where it's like, feminism has now just become, like, hating men.
- [31:19]
A
Yeah.
- [31:19]
B
It's toxic. And I think, honestly, all it's doing is making us suffer.
- [31:23]
A
Absolutely.
- [31:24]
B
Truly, what it's.
- [31:25]
A
All women want is to feel safe and to have somebody to hold them. Not physically only, but the girth of our emotions. But if we have disempowered the men and we're shitting on them all day and we're telling them they're shit, then how are they supposed to hold space for us?
- [31:39]
B
Well, we also tell them that just being a man is toxic. So then they feel like they can't do what, primally? Exactly. They have instincts for it.
- [31:47]
A
And I just find it shocking. And a lot of things that the Western world and North America has labeled as, like, toxic masculinity. I was like, no, that's what they should. I don't think they should be controlling us and telling us what to do with our bodies and stuff.
- [32:00]
B
No.
- [32:00]
A
But they have roles and responsibilities. And I think it's so nice to be in a place that sometimes a man can make a decision. You're like, okay, go for it. I'D like to take a backseat. Why are we always forcing ourselves to be in the driving seat? Why do we always feel like we need to be in charge? Because we don't feel safe.
- [32:16]
B
Yeah. And I think a lot of us. I can only speak for myself, but I think it was a trauma response for me. And then also a result of me going into a workforce where it was mostly dominated by men. And I felt like I had to compete with them. And so then I kind of did it to myself, where I just was like, oh, I gotta be this tough person. I gotta show up, work, like, you know, do the best I can. And always. And I kind of. I compete with myself. Cause I have my own career, and I'm constantly competing with myself. And I've created that for myself.
- [32:47]
A
And it's. And if we go back to being like, why are we trying so hard to prove our. Ourselves? So I have one of my cousins, and I've been staying with her in the VI right now. And she's also one of my best friends. And I watch her in her marriage, and it's so beautiful. This girl doesn't try to be the coolest girl in the room. She's a beautiful girl. She's cool, she's chill, but she doesn't try. She literally. And I was saying this to another friend the other day, Isa, what I love about her, she just be's like, quite literally. She just is. That is her role. She has two beautiful twin boys. She's actually now my business partner. And she just exists. She doesn't try to be anything. She doesn't wake up in the morning with a mission. I'm gonna go to work. I'm gonna do X amount of meetings. I'm gonna have to raise X amount of money. I'm gonna close X amount of deals. I'm gonna do this, this, this for my kids. No, she just exists. And that is the beauty of her. She's beautiful externally. But I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, man, wow. She just is. That's her thing.
- [33:37]
B
I love that. I wish that I could be that way.
- [33:40]
A
I literally did not think about it till I. I'm living with her, right? And I'm like, she just is. This is the beauty of her and her pure, just existence of like. Like, huh. That's it. Well, I don't have to talk about it anything to anybody.
- [33:54]
B
If you think about it, I feel like that is the true. I think that's feminism, right? Or that's like, true feminine energy. That's True, like feminine energy, where you're just kind of going with the flow. You're letting things. I'm not saying, like you just let things happen to you, but it's like you women, we're designed to more go with the flow, you know, go with.
- [34:11]
A
The flow and feel supported. And I, and I look at myself right now where I am career wise. I'm probably at the kind of like my career really started expanding and taking off a few years ago. And I was like, wow. Like, I didn't even think I'd be here. I'm here. Like, you know, all of you guys are here in Saudi Arabia with me. It's amazing. And I'm really proud of what I built. And that doesn't mean I want to stop working. But the dynamic in this next evolution of my life is changing. And my priorities are slightly changing towards myself, towards my body, towards my mental health. I'm changing literally in the moment.
- [34:41]
B
I feel that I've. Over the last couple years, I actually had someone tell me that in order for me to get pregnant and bring my baby this world, that I had to quite literally create space for them. Because in my current career situation, I had to create space for them. And so I started the last couple years, I was like, okay, I need to start like making this more of a priority and I need to create space for this. I need to stop saying yes to everything. I need to stop traveling everywhere, all over the world. So for you, what does that look like?
- [35:09]
A
What are you doing slowing down? I'm also really evaluating a lot of things in my life. Let's say whether it's an employee or it's a client. If you are dysregulating my nervous system and you're causing me constant upset, then I don't think there's a place for you in my life. So bringing peace into my life, bringing in stability, creating calm, saying no to more things just because an opportunity presents itself is not necessarily something you should jump towards because you also have to think about how does that fit into what you're trying to create in terms of energetically in your life.
- [35:42]
B
Yeah.
- [35:43]
A
Less is more to times. And quite frankly, the biggest thing is I have nothing to prove to anybody anymore.
- [35:50]
B
Yeah, that's a great feeling.
- [35:52]
A
And that's liberating. Right. My career and where I end up, I will end up there. Not because I have something to prove to the external world, but because that is my destiny.
- [36:01]
B
Yeah.
- [36:02]
A
And I don't need to chase anything. I can just be and be in my Power. And that's quite frankly, enough.
- [36:08]
C
Yeah.
- [36:10]
B
And, you know, maybe. Maybe as women, I can at least speak for myself, that maybe we need to learn to not be so hard on ourselves. You know, we don't have to constantly be chasing the next thing. Maybe we can stop and take a breather and go, wow, it's okay. Like, look around and be like, look at this. That I already have done and what I've created. This is amazing.
- [36:29]
A
And that does not mean you do not have ambition. I have a lot of personal ambition when it comes to my career.
- [36:34]
B
Oh, yeah, me too.
- [36:34]
A
But it's the pace of things that I'm looking at to change, and it's the push that I'm looking to change and giving myself space, to be inspired in a way that comes from a place of softness rather than just this rigid place of constantly pushing myself.
- [36:50]
B
Yeah, I wonder, too, how much. And I would argue probably a lot of this probably comes from our culture, too. It's just go, go, go, accomplish, accomplish. You know, it's like our workforce is, like, on an assembly line, right? Where it's just, like, never stops, basically. Like, the work never stops. We got to be constantly hustling. And I'm seeing more and more people talk about this. And my hope is that as a society that maybe we can all take a breather and go in a different direction and slow down a little bit.
- [37:17]
A
And give ourselves room. See, you know, it's so funny, is like, I'm. I'm Pak Suni. So people think from the Eastern world. You know, women are soft. They're this. There's no room for emotions in my house. I grew up in a house, and my mom's like, how dare you cry? Suck it up. Go to. I grew up with a really strong mother, and where I'm so grateful that my strength came from her, but it also left very little room for emotions and space to be this. Just be. So it's this trauma response of growing up a certain way and being like, no, no, no. There's no room for error. There's no room to be kind of okay. You either have to be excellent, or there's no room for being mediocre, because that's not going to enough.
- [37:57]
B
Yeah. Wow. So it's probably why. I mean, it is why you are the way you are.
- [38:01]
A
Absolutely.
- [38:02]
B
Your mom built you that way. My dad was the same way with me.
- [38:05]
A
Like, you get a C in school, and you're terrible. And if you look at, you know, you look at Pakistanis, you look at the Chinese, you look at the Iranians, There are all these jokes and memes online about our parents who, like, are basically like, unless you're a doctor or a lawyer, like, or an accountant, you're shit. So, and I told my parents, I actually went and got in for law school first and then switched out when I was like, oh, I want do to do fashion. They're like, what do you mean you want to be in fashion? And they're like, you want to do marketing? What the hell are you. What. What do you do in life? Like, you know, they couldn't even process that because for them, it was these three paths, and that was it.
- [38:36]
B
That's so funny. Is that also in Pakistani culture or is that like, immigrants when you go to America culture?
- [38:43]
A
Pakistani culture, okay? Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, it's the same. Like, you become a doctor, a lawyer, or an accountant. That is like the three. And listen, they're highly educated societies, right? They're super, super smart. Yes. We obviously have. Have the upper class that's educated. Obviously, every country's a little bit different. India has a really booming middle class, which Pakistan does not have. But at the end of the day, that is what is expected. You go in, you go into these certain career paths, and you come out on the other side, and that is the expectations that they have from you.
- [39:10]
B
That's so fascinating. I'm curious about Pakistan and the health of the country. What does the food look like? Is the food system cleaner than we have in America?
- [39:19]
A
Listen, so we obviously used to have a lot of great agriculture. Pakistan's known for its agriculture. We actually support a lot of the world with their rice. But obviously, as things have become unstable politically in that country, you know, agricultural practices are changing. However, I was laughing earlier at another podcast I was recording, saying a lot of the things that are now fads and fashionable in the north, in North America, are things we grew up with. So we grew up with bone broth our entire life. We call it yakni. Bone broth was something we all made. It's normal to us. Turmeric, that's popped off. It's in literally every single Indian or Pakistani dish, right? Yeah, in everything. Organs now, you know, there are all these great brands that have organ meats. We grew up eating organs, so brain, heart, liver, they were all part of our ancestral diet. Ghee butter.
- [40:08]
B
Oh, yeah. Ghee is a big one over there, too.
- [40:10]
A
That's where we grew up. So I sometimes laugh that I'm like, everything that's now becoming a fad and becoming A health food is actually ancestral to South Asians especially and came from our culture. And there's so much about going back and eating ancestrally, which is anti inflammatory to begin with.
- [40:27]
B
Yeah, exactly. I know. I think it's so interesting. I've been thinking about this a lot recently because the trend now, you know, is like paleo or keto or, you know, carnivore. Carnivore. And a lot of it is just based on ancestral wisdom and foods that all of our ancestors have been eating since the dawn of.
- [40:46]
A
I think if we just all ate unprocessed food, organic food and whole food. Let's just start there. Stop being a carnivore. This or that. Just eat clean.
- [40:57]
B
Exactly. Just eat real food.
- [40:59]
A
Eat real food, get enough sleep, reduce inflammation in your body and start getting in the right amount of light.
- [41:07]
B
Yeah. Which brings me to what do you think the future of wellness looks like?
- [41:12]
A
Like in what aspect? From a marketing aspect, in technology aspect.
- [41:18]
B
I guess more in where do you think the new, like, trends are going to go? And I say trends kind of trepidatiously just because I'm like, I hate to say that health and wellness is trendy, but I do feel like, you know, I mean, we come in waves with.
- [41:31]
A
A. I feel the industry. Wellness is going to be part of everybody's life. Right now it's still like, okay, people are really just investing in biohacking with their money or their interest or if they're being affected by. By chronic disease themselves or a member of their family. Wellness is gonna be the baseline for everybody's life. I think after the pandemic, we started really, all of us started really looking at our health in a much more like, introspective way and being like, how can I live a better, healthier life? I think hospitality and how we travel and experience life is gonna start changing. There will be aspects of wellness incorporated into it. The only thing that worries me is that we know this is gonna be like a $4.3 trillion industry and the amount of people just trying to get into quick buck and get out. So I think there should be a lot more regulation around supplementation. I think there should be a lot more regulation about making claims. I think research should be accessible to more people. And I think we should be funding more of these healthspan longevity studies, studying different molecules, studying nutrition in a different way. Instead of funding pharma. Remove some of those pharma dollars and put it towards alternative health.
- [42:37]
B
Yeah.
- [42:38]
A
And fundamental. And like, there's this whole study done in Colombia with rapamycin. Right. It was a small trial study done, but essentially that study showed that they took these women, they gave them a dose of rapamycin, anywhere from 2.5 to 4.5 milligrams a week, and it slowed down ovarian aging by five years, which is about 20%. That's pretty big. Wow, right?
- [42:58]
B
Yeah.
- [42:58]
A
It was a very, very small study, however, but it's very promising. Imagine we started funding more studies like that at a bigger rate, and we could give people their health back and how they age. We would be able to reduce a lot of chronic disease.
- [43:13]
B
Yeah. When I was just thinking about how the traditional allopathic model, they just tell you, oh, there's nothing you can do to reverse your aging once your cells are at a certain place. Like, that's just where you're at, and your diet and your lifestyle doesn't affect your fertility at all.
- [43:28]
A
All of a sudden it does.
- [43:29]
B
And I'm like, of course it does. And we've just been gaslit into thinking like, oh, that's just the part of aging. But if we can start putting money behind this and funding it. I mean, this is. People joke about big wellness all the time, and they're criticizing it now. And I'm like, but I want to put more money behind things that actually improve people's lives. Why are we criticizing that if it's improving people's lives?
- [43:49]
A
So things like studying. There was an incredible study that came out of Israel that showed how beneficial hyperbaric chambers are. So it was this whole thing about doing a hyperbaric chamber protocol five days a week for two weeks at a certain, like, atmosphere hemisphere. And it was incredible for people, for your mitochondrial health, all of that. Imagine we put that money into researching it tied to fertility. I know, but they're not running those trials. Right. And they're really expensive to fund and run. So I think the future of wellness has to do with more accessibility, things that are more education, less just about profitability. I think the industry needs to be more regulated in a way, because I think. I hate that these supplement companies are coming out of dime a dozen making claims they're untrue, they're not science backed. I think we have to be harder on supplement manufacturers in that sense, and I think providing more research dollars to fund alternative research methods like alternative health, essentially. And I believe that functional medicine will become the norm today. What we see is really expensive and out of touch and out of reach is going to become how people want to live. So instead of going To a traditional doctor, they're going to go to a wider specialist instead of somebody who's hyper focus. And functional medicine will be the new gps.
- [45:02]
B
Yeah, I totally agree. Even my parents are starting to catch onto this. My mom has been in this world for a while, but my parents recently went to this center where they got rejuvenated and they did all this, I mean, essentially biohacking stuff. And my dad came back and was just ranting and raving about the care that he got. And just they were doing lab work and they were doing all this stuff. And I just looked at him and I said, dad, this is exactly what I've been telling you for the last 10 years. This is what I've been trying to get you to to do is the integrative medicine. Cause he was trying to say, oh, it's just, you know, this like, couple centers that are doing it. I'm like, no, this is what functional integrative medicine is and it's gonna start becoming the norm. And he was kinda like, I need to tell all my friends about this. And I was like, yeah, this is what we should be moving towards. Well, in the essence of time, I just wanna make sure we have enough time to let you plug everything. But I loved this conversation so much and I have so many more questions, so I'm gonna have to bring you back.
- [45:56]
A
I love you. Thank you.
- [45:57]
B
I love you. Please tell everybody where they can find you.
- [45:59]
A
They can find me on Instagram as Iman Hasan and they can find the show that I interviewed you for biohacket Online as well. And I'm really excited to release your interview. I've been dying to interview you for two years. Finally made it happen in Saudi Arabia. And that's all, folks.
- [46:16]
B
Thank you so much. This was such an amazing episode and I feel like this is gonna help so many women. So thank you.
- [46:20]
A
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and share with your community. I love and respect you so much. So this means a lot to me.
- [46:26]
B
Oh, love you too. Thanks. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com See you time next. Next time, the content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.
- [47:15]
D
Hi Podcast listeners, I'm Jesse Szewczyk.
- [47:17]
E
And I'm Shilpa Oskokovic.
- [47:19]
D
We are Test Kitchen Editors at Bon Appetit and Eric Epicurious and frequent co.
- [47:23]
E
Hosts on Bon Appetit's podcast Dinner sos.
- [47:26]
D
And we are here to tell you about a brand new series, Ba Bake Club.
- [47:31]
E
Think of it like a book club, but for baking.
- [47:34]
D
Starting this fall, we are publishing a recipe every month that's meant to expand your baking skills.
- [47:39]
E
But here's where the real fun starts. After you've had a chance to bake through the recipe, we'll get together here on the Dinner SOS feed to chat about what went well, help you out if anything didn't go exactly to plan, and obsess over the pictures you've sent us of your bakes.
- [47:54]
D
You can find the recipes@bon appetit.com BakeClub Bake along with us and then send us your questions, pictures and any thoughts to bakeclubon appetit.com and then join us.
- [48:06]
E
The first Tuesday of every month when we take over the Dinner SOS feed. Just search for Dinner SOS wherever you get your pies podcasts and you'll find us.
- [48:14]
D
Happy baking.