88: Weight Loss Resistance

Transcript of Episode 88:  Weight Loss Resistance

With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and special guest Dr. Leona Allen

Meredith:
– Cellular Healing TV, Episode 88 already. Hard to believe that we’re at Episode 88. I have Dr. Pompa here and a very special guest today. We have Dr. Leona Allen joining us. Really excited to have her on the show and to share her special story. How are you doing, Dr. Pompa, first of all today? How are you doing?

Dr. Pompa:
Fantastic! It’s getting cold here in Park City. It actually, for the first time, actually feels a little bit like winter, even though we don’t have snow. It’s been 70 degrees all through October. Today we woke up, and it’s 35, I think, so it feels like winter.

Meredith:
Yep. We’re getting there, almost November. Awesome. Before we jump in, I want to introduce Dr. Allen. I’m just going to read her bio so you guys can know a little bit about Dr. Allen, and then we’re going to jump into how she found us, and her story.

A little bit about Dr. Leona: She’s the founder of Freedom Wellness Center, a health and wellness company that has been dedicated to transforming the health of individuals and their families for over 10 years. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University and her Doctorate of Chiropractic degree from Lake University. As an expert and educator of new millennium diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmune disease, Dr. Leona delivers innovative solutions to conquering sickness and disease by designing programs that help people reclaim their health and their life. She lives with her husband and two children in Atlanta, Georgia. So excited to have you here, Dr. Allen, and how are you today?

Dr. Allen:
I am excited to be here, as well, and just sharing my story and being part of the mission. Thank you for having me.

Meredith:
Awesome. So grateful to have you here. I’m sure our viewers are kind of wondering, “Who is Dr. Allen? How did she get connected with Dr. Pompa?” If you can just go back a little bit in time and share how you got connected with us.

Dr. Allen:
I won’t go back too far, but I’ll say it started around 2011, after I had the birth of my second child. I’ll say that’s when my perfect storm began. I’ve always been fascinated with nutrition and -inaudible- for most of my life, but this is when things started to change for me, and I knew that I had to look for something else.

Here I am. I was a doctor. I was practicing for five years at this point. I was just exhausted, tired, frustrated, overweight, and not understanding why. I had the tools. I had the knowledge, but I just wasn’t getting well. Being a seminar junkie, a reader, I was doing the research, trying to figure it all out, but nothing was working. Something had to work. I did come across some emails from Health Centers of the Future and Dr. Pompa. At first, I was like, “Yeah, I know that stuff. I want something different.” I thought it was just like all the other nutritional stuff, but something said, “No. This is different. This is what you need. Keep looking at it. Just look at it.”

I opened it up, and I was just fascinated by the cellular healing aspect. Then I was invited to a seminar. It was in Las Vegas at the time, and I was still nursing, so I couldn’t go to Vegas. I just did the live stream, and I was glued to the laptop, and heard Dr. Pompa speak. Jordan Rubin was there, just some amazing speakers. That’s when the light bulb went off, and that’s when I knew that this is the company that I need to get associated with. This is what I need to learn. This is what I need to figure out. Once I figured it out for me, then my business got better. I was able to help others. I became more confident, and it just took off from there.

Dr. Pompa:
Leona, I have to say one of the things that I make mandatory when I coach a doctor, I said, “Look, we practice what we preach.” Meredith, we have her before and after pictures. Do you have that? Oh, we switched computers. You probably don’t have it on that computer, do you?

Meredith:
-inaudible- computer’s had a slight technical difficulty, but we will be adding that in after we do the live recording. It will be added in to the show.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay. Okay, great. Technically, I can say right now you’re seeing her before and after picture. Now Travis knows exactly where to add it in. Okay. How much weight between these two pictures, Dr. Leona? What was the dates here, too?

Dr. Allen:
In that picture, it was 2012, and I was 50 pounds heavier. My heaviest was 70, but in that pictures, I was 50 pounds heavier.

Dr. Pompa:
You lost 70 pounds, so that’s –

Dr. Allen:
-inaudible- pounds overall. In the picture is a 50-pound difference. In the first picture, I was at a health fair, and I was like, “Oh my goodness. Here I am at a health fair,” and inside, I just felt miserable. That was the eye-opener, when I was like, “This isn’t the way I want to represent myself.” The after picture was earlier this year.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah, you do. We all practice what we preach. Matter of fact, like I said, I make it mandatory when I coach a doctor, “Hey, look, you can preach this without doing it yourself.” I love what’s behind you. You can tell she’s one of my doctors that I coach. “If you don’t fix the cell, you won’t get well.” Matter of fact, what’s the other one? Show the other cell over there. Move your camera a little bit. All I see is, “How to fight back.” What’s the rest of it?

Dr. Allen:
There you go.

Dr. Pompa:
There it is. Yeah. “Learn how to fight back. Inflammation -inaudible-. “Not feeling well? Cellular inflammation.” Exactly. I love it!

Dr. Allen:
-inaudible- the other one. Yes.

Dr. Pompa:
There’s the 5 Rs, right? I love it, love it! Absolutely love it! You did practice what you preach. I think for your story, though, you have to go back even a little bit further. You came out of a family – I don’t want to say – there’s certain diseases that run in certain families. Obviously, I always say you don’t get sick because of your genetics, but there are things that turn on certain genes of susceptibility. Boy, I’ll tell you what, that was definitely evident in your family. Talk a little bit about that.

Dr. Allen:
For me, when I was 13, which is very young, I knew what diabetes can do to the body. My father was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at only 13 years old. Here I am, used to my strong father that used to chase me to just being torn apart by this disease. A lot of people in my family have that. I can safely say – I asked my father the other day, “How many in our family have diabetes?” He can safely say about 90%.

Dr. Pompa:
Wow.

Dr. Allen:
At the time, I didn’t realize the connection of diabetes and how it affected me today, but I did grow up with this fear of the disease. I grew up with a fear of gaining weight. I grew up with a fear of getting sick.

Dr. Pompa:
Stop right there. You grew up with that fear, yet that’s what you created -inaudible-.

Dr. Allen:
Right.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s where you were. You were 70 pounds overweight and, no doubt, already pre-diabetic. Go ahead. I just wanted to point that out, that oftentimes our mindset is the things we fear, we create. Go ahead.

Dr. Allen:
Exactly. Exactly, but you don’t know it at the time you’re creating it. It was like here I am, trying to do the right things. I did what a lot of people did. I remember all these weight-loss programs, calorie restriction, over-exercise. I did it all, vegetarian.

Dr. Pompa:
Did you do a low fat diet?

Dr. Allen:
I did that Slim Fast. I did it all, pills, you name it because I was not going to get diabetes, and I was not going to gain weight. One thing is, my dad liked Pepsi, and he drunk about six a day, or twelve a day, or something like that. I was so ignorant at the time, I drunk Dr. Pepper because it had Dr. in it. That’s how my knowledge was back then. I thought Dr. Pepper would have been better than Pepsi for my health.

Dr. Pompa:
I’ve got some good marketing ideas here, just by -inaudible-.

Dr. Allen:
I know, exactly. Fast forward, I did try to do things that I thought was right even before I became a healthcare practitioner, but really, that really just set me up. Even when I was a vegetarian for eight years, I did a lot of things that many of our clients think is good for us, soy products, low-fat products – I can’t even remember all the things we did back then – gluten-free, rice, beans, oatmeal, thinking I was doing the right things. Even though – go ahead.

Dr. Pompa:
Obviously, it didn’t work. Then you realized this is a cellular issue. Cellular detox became something that became near and dear to your heart. How did that transition look like? What did that look like?

Dr. Allen:
How it looked is even though the foods seemed healthy – I didn’t eat a lot of fast food, but I was still eating a lot of inflammatory foods. That was the big connection, what I thought was healthy and what wasn’t. When I started to study the cellular healing system and the detox system, I had to get rid of those things that were “healthy” for us. I had to get rid of the oatmeal. I had to get rid of the grains, and that’s really what made the biggest difference. When I made those changes, I had -inaudible- certain levels, but then there’s other changes I had to do to take my health food even -inaudible-.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Sorry about the dogs. This happens on Cell TV. It’s like they sit here next to my side, and God forbid they think that I’m in danger and they start barking. I think, along the way, too, you realized the importance of cellular detox. People hit these – hold on. Let me just close this door. Hold on. People hit these plateaus and really realize that a lot of even – like I said, diabetes. It’s estimated that 30% to 50% of diabetes is toxin-related, which I call TIR, toxin-induced insulin resistance. That became something that took you to the next level. Talk about what we did detox-wise and how that affected you.

Dr. Allen:
Okay. When I went to the cellular healing diet, that got me about 20 pounds off, then I had 30 pounds to go. That was when I had to get into the cellular detox. What I learned through studying with you was the heavy metals and the lead. I had actually inherited a lot of heavy metals from my mother, lead and mercury. When I started healing at that level, then the rest of the weight came off.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. That’s an important message because whether it’s diabetes, thyroid, whatever it is, weight-loss resistance, most of it does come down to you stop. You improve your diet, then it comes down to toxins today that are driving cellular inflammation – the sign behind you, right? How to fight back, you have to beat the cellular inflammation.

When we look at the number one causes – yes, today’s grains are driving glucose more than regular sugar. Getting rid of that, she lost 20 pounds. Then it became the next big thing. The fats play a big role here, right? We’re educated that saturated fats and cholesterol are the bad fats. No, they actually help us actually lose weight. You learned that. Then it comes down to toxins, really, the number one driver of cellular inflammation, weight-loss resistance. I should say it this way: hormone resistance, diabetes, thyroid, whatever it is. That’s the message that we carry, isn’t it?

Now you’re taking that message to the world. You are, there in Atlanta, Georgia, affecting lives. It’s a message that the world needs right now because many people have changed their diets. Many people have changed their ways and yet site the words, “Gosh, I’m doing all these things and yet – ” It’s like, “And yet, I still can’t lose. And yet, I still don’t feel. And yet, I still – ” because they just haven’t got to the toxins at the cellular issue. That’s our message. That’s what makes us different.

Listen, I think that if it just stopped there, great. You changed one life. Again, your story allowed you to – gave you the authority to make a difference in other people’s lives. I think looking back, you realize how much of this battle is mindset. Matter of fact, I think you probably hit a frustration point like we all do as practitioners. You’re excited. You’re sitting before people, and man, you’re just like, “This is what you got to do!” Then they come back, and they’re going, “Well, I didn’t do it.” That’s like, “Well, what do you mean?” They keep hitting these areas of their life that are allowing them to affect their own results. They’re not detoxing anymore. They’re not doing this anymore.

That obviously frustrated you because you wrote a book. You wrote a book about this very topic of how to get people from where they are to here. We know we have an answer that the world needs, but mindset really is the ultimate thing that keeps people from where, I believe, where God wants them. Let’s talk about the book. Meredith, put up the book. I want you to tell the story of how this book was inspired. There it is, yeah, The Journey to Healing: The Five Stages – this is kind of like our 5 Rs. I love that – to Achieve More Freedom in Your Health and in Your Life. Talk to me about it.

Dr. Allen:
Once I removed all the toxins, my mind got clearer, and I had that a-ha moment where I was like – my mind had to really change, my reasons why. When I sit down with someone, they’re struggling. They have to have a good reason why to do it because to get well, for all of us, we had to work really hard at it. To be able to make those changes, we have to be ready to do it. What makes us ready to do it is having a reason. For me, it was to be there for my children.

Like I said, I know what diabetes can do to the body, and being overweight was a side affect of everything else that was going on in my body. It was more about just losing weight. It became being healthy for my children. I had to find out what that was for my patients, and tap into that, and help them connect with that. Once they connect with that, they’re able to move forward with the other stages that are involved.

That’s why I really wrote the book because I wanted people to understand that it’s not just another supplement. It’s not a 10-day diet. It’s a lifestyle change, and it’s a journey, so you got to want to do it and then commit to doing it. When you do do it, just be able to understand that when you are discouraged or get stuck, that just means that we got to just take it to another level, address another issue because it’s usually not just one health issue. It’s a combination of many things that are going on at one time.

Dr. Pompa:
Finding their ‘why’ is the first step, right? You do a lot of lecturing, as do I. That’s the first thing we have to do. What is somebody’s ‘why?’ It’s amazing to me how hard sometimes it is to get to their real ‘why,’ and it’s amazing how disconnected they are to their ‘why.’ It’s amazing what happens when we keep reminding them of their real ‘why.’ If they can anchor back into that ‘why,’ I believe that will drive somebody, ultimately, to where they want to go. What do you think it is? Why is it that people can’t just hang onto that ‘why’ and allow it to motivate them? What happens?

Dr. Allen:
The question is, “What happens if they don’t connect to that ‘why?’” or “Why don’t they connect to the ‘why?’”

Dr. Pompa:
Either one. In other words, it’s like something that we have to do is show them – they know their ‘why, ‘ but they don’t connect to it, and something disconnects them to it.

Dr. Allen:
I think it has a lot to do with everything that we’re overwhelmed with. There’s so many directions that people can go into, but they don’t look into themselves. We’re too busy looking at our outside circumstances and not really getting deep into our ‘why.’ Another reason is because people are afraid to really confront their ‘why.’ I think that’s a big issue, as well, not taking the time to really face their ‘why.’ It’s better to just have your head in the sand, and just do everything, and not confronting what you need to do and the reasons for doing it.

Dr. Pompa:
I want you to go through the five stages. I think it’ll be helpful. How much of it, too, is just today, there’s so much information. People sometimes maybe just don’t know what to do. They get distracted with one thing, and then they look at their failures in the past, perhaps. They say, “This didn’t work. That didn’t work, so what do I do now? This person’s telling me this,” – or just simply a mindset that is created along the way, maybe an identity, a fear that they don’t want to change. All these things play in. I’m sure you’ll cover them as we go through it. Meredith, maybe you could lead us through the stages.

Meredith:
Right. I just wanted to add, too, I was thinking – I was wondering how long this process took for you with the weight-loss journey, with the cellular detox to get where you are today from where you started. I’m sure a lot of people are watching and thinking, “Well, that’s great, but – ” just reminding people, too, that’s it’s not an overnight process. Just kind of wondering how long it took you.

Dr. Allen:
I’m still working on it.

Dr. Pompa:
I love that answer.

Dr. Allen:
I’m still working on it.

Dr. Pompa:
I love that.

Meredith:
Yeah. How long was the weight loss, though, for you?

Dr. Allen:
It took two years for me to lose all that weight.

Meredith:
About the 70 pounds? Yeah. Yeah. Great. Just wondering that. All right. For your book, the five stages, stage one, you call frustration. Explain that.

Dr. Allen:
That was pretty much our ‘why,’ what we were getting into, having that reason to change. You’ve got to want to change for the right reasons, for those deep reasons. You’ve got to have – it’s that pain that pushes us. If you don’t have that pain, that frustration, that anger that fuels you, you’re just going to stay where you are. Before people can move forward, they’ve got to have that reason why and that pain that will pull them through it.

Dr. Pompa:
When I interview somebody – I don’t take that many clients on to coach, but I still love it, and I still do take people on, and I interview them. That’s the first thing that I look for because it really tells me if they’re ready. I look at their pain. I look at their pain points, and it’s so sad. Literally, most people, humans, us, we, we have to be backed up against a wall, lose something dramatic before we’re able to step forward and say, “Enough is enough.” That’s what I look for. That first stage is something that I look for in people. I can tell when people are just kind of interested, perusing the information, and still not yet in a pain place to really have a big enough ‘why’ to actually do everything that I tell them to do. I look for that stage one. All right. What’s stage two?

Meredith:
All right. Stage two, faith.

Dr. Allen:
What I love about this phase is that hope. We’ve lost so much hope, and many people just thinking that this is where they are. Their current circumstances is their life, and that’s the way it has to be. What I enjoy doing when I confront someone that is in that pain is giving them hope and then helping them understand that they can get better, and they can get well. When they believe that they can get well and start envisioning a healthier life, more energy, more weight loss, and they believe that they can achieve it, that is what faith is, believing it, that it’ll happen before it actually happens.

Dr. Pompa:
I believe everything starts with our premise, our belief system. You can almost look at someone’s future when you look at what they believe. Typically, the things they say reflect, ultimately, what they believe. Some people don’t even realize the words they speak and how that’s going to determine their future. Really, everything starts with that premise, that belief system that we have. You said something there.

Again, when I speak to people on the phone, whether I’m going to take them on as a client or not, do they believe that they can ultimately get well? I think because of past failures, even childhood wounds, they start to identify with the person who’s hurt, who has failed, and they really don’t believe they can get well. I, as a practitioner, believe even with the best cellular help, detox, healing, you will not get well unless you believe you can get well. How do you help people with that mindset? I know people are watching this right now are going, “Gosh, am I that person?” First of all, how do you recognize you’re that person, then what do you do about it?

Dr. Allen:
The biggest thing is really seeing that other people have done it. We get stuck in, “Nobody understands. No one understands me.” I did that. Believe it or not, I thought I was the only one struggling, the only doctor struggling with her health. That’s where that frustration will put you. It’ll isolate you. The people that are listening, you’re not stuck there. There’s other people that feel the same way you do. There’s people that have been where you are, and they’ve gotten out of it, and the same can happen for them, as well.

Dr. Pompa:
Is that one of the reasons why you wrote the book? Obviously, just being frustrated as a practitioner, seeing people stuck, and saying, “Okay, look. This is what they need,” but that was one of the reasons, as well?

Dr. Allen:
Yeah. I wanted to be able to help these people. It was so frustrating to sit there. I’m struggling with my issues, and at the same time, trying to help somebody with somebody else’s issues. I had to go through it so that I can communicate because I went through these phases just like everybody else, but I had to go through it first so I can communicate it to the people that I’m helping.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and just realizing how much of it was mindset, just being stuck. Identifying, looking, seeing other people that have done it, you become that inspiration for people and giving them that new hope, that new faith that they need to say, “Okay, yeah. It can be me, too.” I think that one of the things, too, is I, as a practitioner over the years, helping people, people get stuck in an identity. There’s ways to identify that, meaning that that sick person becomes a person they’re almost afraid to leave.

Whether it’s a husband, or a wife, or family who dote over them because of their illness, it’s the attention that every human wants. It’s not as pathetic as it sounds. We all want love. We all want attention. When you’re sick, that gives you a certain amount of attention that you need. Therefore, then you’re fearful moving out of the identity because, “What if I don’t get love from my husband, or my wife, or my family, or my children because I’m not this?” I’m telling you, it sounds crazy, folks, but I’ve seen this.

There’s other scenarios; I just painted one. Anchoring to an identity of sickness, and yet one part of the brain wants out of it so badly. That’s the part that communicates to us, but there’s another part that says, “God forbid.” I’ve watched people sabotage results because they’re afraid of leaving a certain sick identity. Do you run into that? Is it part of this stage or others?

Dr. Allen:
That’s more part of the frustration stage because they got to tap into that part that’ll help them pull out of it. Some of our clients or potential clients are so stuck in that stage that they don’t realize that there is another possibility.

Dr. Pompa:
How do we get them to – fear is a deep thing that holds people back. Most people watching this probably don’t even realize that it’s them, meaning that they would say, “Of course I want to get well! Of course I’m not holding myself back!” Maybe another family member is going, “Oh, that could be her.” As a practitioner, I see those people, and it’s very difficult because you can’t voice that to them. They would never understand it. Is there another strategy that you’ve used to get people moved out of that identity or at least – the fear of staying there is greater than the fear of not staying there?

Dr. Allen:
One thing I have them do is just really visualize. I ask them, “Who’s counting on you? Who needs you? Who loves you right now? What would your life be like if you didn’t have these symptoms, if you weren’t taking certain medications, or you weren’t waiting for a certain surgery?” I try to get them out of that place that they’re in and just says, “What would your life be like if you didn’t have this? What would you be doing now that you can’t do – what would you be doing then that you can’t do now? Really, the big thing is the people that love you and are counting on you.” Once they see that, they’re wanting to think about other people and what they can do for them, and then begin to take better care of themselves.

Dr. Pompa:
That visualization is important because oftentimes, when someone struggles to say, “Okay, great. I’m taking care of them,” but how are they with you, meaning, “What’s your relationship look like with your husband or your wife now?” If they struggle to see that like, “There I am, healthy,” but yet they’re struggling to see that part of it, that can be an indication that they’re afraid to move into that because they think that their wife or their husband may not love them the same or feel about them the same because now they’re well.

Yeah, visualization is the way out of that. They have to visualize themselves well and getting the love, and appreciation, and attention well differently than they are when they’re sick. Just like an athlete, if you can visualize it, it’ll change your subconscious, and it will allow you to move forward. That’s typically the way. I agree. It’s visualizing it, getting them to visualize themselves in that wellness with people loving them. Okay. Go ahead, Meredith. Take us to stage three.

Meredith:
I wanted to add in there, too, I love the visualization exercises you go through in the book. I did just want to add, I loved, in the book, when you discussed – as you guys were talking about identity – and just kind of struggling with the idea of being a doctor and being sick. I don’t know if you could just discuss that a little bit. I think that’s just a really important component of all of this.

Dr. Allen:
As a doctor, we want to help everybody, including ourselves. I’ll talk about me, personally. As a doctor, we think that – well, I thought that nothing can happen to me. I’m a doctor, and the fact that I have these health issues was just, “How can it be? I’m Dr. Leona Allen. I don’t get sick.” It was a humbling experience to get sick and figure out why.

Dr. Pompa:
Me, too.

Dr. Allen:
I’m glad. Thank you for this illness. I had other issues I didn’t mention, fatty liver, gall bladder disease. I was just like, “Me? I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat fast food.” I was still sick, so it was very humbling as a doctor and be able to empathize better, and just be able to relate better with patients now.

Meredith:
Huge. Being able to say that you’ve been through it when you’re working with someone makes it that much more powerful. Really awesome. The next one, stage three is firm commitment.

Dr. Allen:
This is one of the most – they’re all important stages, but this is -inaudible-.

Dr. Pompa:
I have to point something out. Each one she says, you laugh. I know why that is because you start to immediately identify with yourself in each one of these. It creates this laughter before each one because you immediately start thinking of your own battle. I love that. I see that in you. Go ahead. I’ll let you go.

Dr. Allen:
Yeah. The reason why I’m giggling – and when you look back – I look at how miserable my life was, and then I look back like, “Oh my gosh! It was pretty bad.” Firm commitment is where you take that faith and that frustration and turn it into reality by taking action. This was huge. We were coming from a – personal development is huge now. A lot of us were taught, “Visualize it, and it’ll come true. Paste it on a wall, and it’ll come true,” but what’s missing is consistent action.

That was huge for me. I’d visualize things, but – and a lot of people visualize things, and when they do and they don’t take action, they end up where they started and don’t move forward. They’re just dreamers, and I was a big dreamer. Really, firm commitment is where you take your faith and turn it into action.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I tell you, it is. How many people are in that dreamer state without – be willing to do the work that it takes? Once again, when I take it – I know you do the same thing. When you interview somebody to become a client or a patient, you’re asking them these questions. I always ask questions. “Are you willing to do whatever it takes? Look what we’re going to have you do. Not easy. Are you willing to do what it takes?” We literally have to get that commitment up front because oftentimes, it’s a reminder of, “Look, you said you were willing to do what it takes. Now you don’t want to do this.” Yeah, it is. It’s hard. Even certain personalities are – they have the good intention, but the action scares them.

Meredith:
Mm-hmm. I love this quotation you have in the book, too. “Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare” – a Japanese proverb. Very powerful there, too. Fits right in.

Dr. Pompa:
Leona, what’s one of your strategies for – if I’m watching this out there, going, “Yeah, that’s me. I probably am in that category of the dreamer.” What’s your strategy?

Dr. Allen:
The platform that I use are the good old 5 Rs, those 5 Rs. Let me go back before I get into that. We’re coming from people that are used to quick fixes. They want it quick. They want that one magic pill, lotion, potion that’ll make everything better, but this is where they have to understand that it is a process. It’s just not one thing. Incorporating the 5 Rs is really what addresses all of our issues. We might do one or two Rs at a time or just one at a time, but we’ve got to understand, “Remember, diet and exercise isn’t enough.” I did it, and it helped, but it wasn’t enough. There’s other things that we need to address, and that’s what the 5 Rs cover.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. It’s a roadmap, right? You fix the cell, you get well. It says it behind you. The 5Rs is right above that as that roadmap to what’s going on today in the epidemic of why people don’t feel well. They can’t figure it out. You said it right. I always say, “Without the perfect diet, you will not get well, but you’re not going to get well with the perfect diet.”

Dr. Allen:
Right.

Dr. Pompa:
It’s like today, it really comes down to what’s happening at the cell. The 5Rs is that roadmap. It’s the beginning of true detox. That’s why we call it true cellular detox. It’s the beginning of changing those genes. There’s no doubt your genes were triggered. Your diabetes genes, your obesity genes, they were turned on, but we know that 5Rs is that roadmap, really, to turn off those genes.

I always have loved to say this as a reminder. I had high blood pressure in ninth grade. They weren’t going to let me on the wrestling team. My mother had high blood pressure, and they said, “Oh, yeah. It must run in your family. Your mother has high blood pressure. You’ll have to take medication. Basically, you’re going to be on it the rest of your life.” That was told to me in ninth grade. I don’t know. God created me for this message because I didn’t accept that even as a nine grader. I knew nothing about health, but I said, “That’s garbage.”

Even then, I thought to myself, “There must be a reason for it, and darn it, I’ll just – ” I just didn’t know what it was, but I still had that thought. Here’s the thing, Leona. When I changed my diet, I still had high blood pressure. It wasn’t until I got down the road of detox, cellular detox, that I got my blood – my blood pressure finally normalized. What happened? I got rid of the toxins. I turned off a gene eventually. I turned off that gene. Anyways, I love the topic. Well said. All right. Back to Meredith. We’re at four.

Meredith:
All right. Next, we have stage four, feeling discouraged.

Dr. Allen:
There’s my giggle.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You’ve been there how many times, right?

Dr. Allen:
Oh, my god. I still visit it from time to time. It’s a part of life. Again, everybody listen. To succeed, there’s going to be points where you’re going to say, “Oh my goodness. I’m stuck. This isn’t working.” The difference between someone that succeeds and someone that doesn’t is they keep going through it. They take these challenges as learning experiences. I was able to face those walls and conquer them. That’s what’s gotten me to where I am.

That’s a scary place when you get to that place, and you learn so much about yourself when you hit those walls. That’s where a lot of our patients tend to quit. They stop losing weight, or they stop feeling better for a short amount of time, and it doesn’t take long. It could be a couple weeks. They’re like, “This isn’t working. I’m going to find someone else.” As a practitioner, we know that we’re close to something, and then they give up. They need to understand that just because you don’t see what’s happening now doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. Remember, we’re dealing with the cells at a cellular level. Discouragement is such an important phase so people do not quit and keep going -inaudible-.

Dr. Pompa:
Everybody goes through these stages in their journey, whether they realize it or not, and maybe not even in the same order.

Dr. Allen:
Right.

Dr. Pompa:
I would say as it’s stated, most of us go through it in this order, but sometimes people get discouraged here and hit these different stages at different times, but we all go through them. It’s human. It’s human. The book, I think you did such a great job of giving people strategies within it. Of course, we’re not able to really articulate it. That’s why you have to get the book and read the book. Again, the strategies came out of not just your own battle, but also working with hundreds of people through it. It’s something that just is your gift. Watching people go through the battle and assisting them out of that, it’s so well written. How it plays out in a story, it’s so easy to read. It really is. I read it when it was just papers. I was captivated. I read it when it was Denise. It read it back when it was – anyways, we’ll get to that.

Dr. Allen:
-inaudible-.

Meredith:
Awesome. All right. After the discouragement that we’ve all gone through, stage five. You found freedom. Talk about that.

Dr. Allen:
Freedom, that’s the breakthrough. That’s when you have achieved something. The point I make in the book is – let me use an example again. Someone wants to lose 50 pounds, and they lose 10. They get discouraged. What I need my patients to understand is that 10 pounds is a breakthrough. That’s freedom. You got to celebrate those small changes that happen over time. You don’t have to really – as a doctor, I compared myself to other people, their health, their practice, or whatever it is, but you can’t compare yourself. You got to really appreciate your small changes, your small successes and use those small successes to create bigger successes. Is that coming out right?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Dr. Allen:
That’s really what I want freedom to be about, just really appreciating and celebrating those small changes over time. When I was losing weight, my heaviest was 225. My goal was to get into the 210s, celebrate, and then it was to get in the 200s, and then the 190s, etcetera, etcetera. That’s what kept me going instead of just getting discouraged and looking for that big jump in success.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. You have to definitely take those incremental steps and understand that the body plateaus at times. That’s normal. It’s like the stock market, the way it goes up. You’re not not progressing when you’re staying at a weight. Remember, it is a cellular problem, and it does take time. The body lets go of toxins incrementally. It’s like peeling back an onion. When you understand that, you understand that you’re not failing when you’ve stopped losing weight. Your body’s just going through the next level of healing and detox. Yeah. Well said, no doubt about it. Go ahead, Meredith. You had something that –

Meredith:
No, just saying, too, Dr. Pompa, so often you talk about how we accumulate toxins for 20, 30, 40 years of our lives. Just a reminder to people that it is such a process to detox, and to lose the weight, and to just remain positive, and celebrate those small victories, and chunk goals to get to where you need to be. That’s really the only way to do it to really get sustained results.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. One of the things – and Leona, I know you practice like I do. Our goal is to teach people the process. I don’t know. It’s amazing to me how many practitioners still lead people on, that, “Oh, yeah. We’re going to get you well in this six-month time.” I think because our goal is to remove what’s upstream, and because of that it’s not about six or eight months. It really is empowering the person to do and continue to do this process. How many people say, “Well, I’ve done a cleanse,” or they do a cleanse once a year? Come on.

When you really understand what you just said, Meredith, that the body bioaccumulates toxins over 30 years before we present symptoms. Literally, these toxins are deep-rooted into our bones, our nerve tissue. My gosh! Really? A cleanse? A 10-day juice fast or whatever people do? The colon cleanse? Really? You just cleaned out your colon. Yeah. Not a bad thing, but my gosh. It has nothing to do with the toxins that have bioaccumulated deep in your brain over 30 years. We have to empower people in this process of cellular detox and healing. That’s the value that we bring, isn’t it? Gosh, I mean, that’s what gave you your life back. Just even to lose the weight, it took you two years. You said this to Meredith, “I’m still going.” It’s like, “Yeah, you are.”

Four years I practiced cellular detox on and off cycles. Four years. I still do it to this day. Periodically, I do these detoxes. Meredith, you’ve been at it, right? Once you learn this process, those of you who are watching, you just need a coach. You need someone like Leona, myself, or the other doctors that understand cellular healing and cellular detox. You learn the process. Our goal is to continue to teach people this process. It is life changing, and it’s the only way out today. People aren’t getting well, you said it, by just changing their diet and exercising.

Our government makes people feel like we’re just lazy gluttons. It’s like, “And that’s why you don’t feel well, and that’s why you can’t lose weight.” It’s so further from the truth! People are exercising more than ever. People are understanding and eating better than ever, it’s so in vogue right now, yet people still aren’t getting well. It’s not about exercising more. It’s not about cutting your calories or lowering your fat. That’s for dang sure.

Leona, I don’t even know if I want to go here, but your mom – through writing this book, you had something very traumatic happen. I don’t know how comfortable you are taking about it, but your mom got very sick. This book did not – it sat on the shelf because of it. Tell us a little bit about that, what you’re comfortable talking about.

Dr. Allen:
Yeah, it is still very hard for me to talk about. I just lost my mother last year. I’m really still trying to come to terms with it. I was writing the book while I was going through my struggles, not being aware of my mother’s struggles. She was suffering in silence. She was trying to be that strong person and didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. That’s one thing I’m starting to see in some of my patients now is don’t be ashamed of your illness.

Dr. Pompa:
I was.

Dr. Allen:
-inaudible- a lot of women that –

Dr. Pompa:
I was ashamed.

Dr. Allen:
Right. We take on so much, and it hurts, again, as a doctor to not have the chance to help my mother because she didn’t tell me that she had cancer. One thing about her illness is she still looked good. One thing I want the listeners to understand is don’t go by how you look to judge your health. My mother had high amounts of lead in her body. I really believe that is a big factor that led to her breast cancer. I wish I had known this 10 years ago about how lead is just seeped into our bodies causing these illnesses.

That’s why I’m just thankful for this knowledge now because even though my mother’s gone, I’ve got a new purpose, and I’m still hurt, and I’m still dealing with that loss, but now I know that there’s other mothers out there that I can help. There’s other daughters out there that want their mothers in their lives. We got to take this seriously and help people, and just don’t go by, “Well, I do eat right and exercise.” We got to look at the cells, and really address the cells, and go deep into what’s going on because – I don’t know what else to say. It’s just very hard to talk about it. It was in my mother’s [0:47:04] to do better, but –

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. It’s a reflection of two episodes ago. I guess it was Episode 86. I told my wife’s story. Her mother died. She started with breast cancer, and then it went – ended up dying of uterine cancer. No doubt, her lead was the cause of the hormone dysregulation. My wife was heading down the same road, Leona. We are a generation – our parents grew up in the lead generation. We grew up in the lead and mercury generation. You put these two things together, and it is creating the catastrophe that we’re seeing. It’s remarkable. It’s remarkable the amount of hormone dysregulation being driven by an upstream cause.

My criticism to alternative practitioners today is that they’re no better than the other side with pushing medications. We’re doing the same thing, whether it’s bioidentical hormones or just more vitamins and minerals instead of understanding what you just said. Your mother didn’t – never reached out to you, number one, because she didn’t want to bother you. She was a very proud woman, so that’s one thing. Number two, you know, Leona, it’s very hard to impact our own family anyway, right? It is. Maybe you didn’t even have the complete knowledge base even going through that. Who knows? For some reason, it worked out the way it worked out.

I remember a phone call that I had with you, saying, “No.” I looked at your circumstances from the outside, and to me, it was the exact opposite. I’m thinking, “Oh, my gosh. Even more of a reason that you need to author this book. Even more of a reason you need to finish this book.” Yet, something in you was saying, “I’m not qualified to do this book now.” You had some type of guilt where you didn’t want to do the book. I remember that phone call, and I remember walking away from the phone call, going, “Oh my gosh!” I could see your internal battle. Tell us a little bit about that if you can. The book did get written, so what transpired?

Dr. Allen:
Yeah. Pretty much, I had the draft at that time, and that’s where Denise comes up. When I first wrote the book, I was doing simile, hiding behind another character. I didn’t want to put myself out there, so that’s what Denise was about. Then I kind of just stopped, just saying, “I’m not going to write this book.” Then something came within – just kind of raised up in me to say, “You need to write this book, and be yourself in this book.” I had to put myself out there because I figured how much I was like my mother, internalizing it, and keeping it to myself, and not sharing it. This was part of my healing to say, “Yes, I was hurting. I was feeling bad.” That was a hard thing for me, so I had to take Denise out and put me in there.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. That’s what I wanted you to say. That’s why I brought up Denise earlier because your mother passing, if that didn’t happen, we’d be reading about Denise in the book. Meanwhile, it was you.

Dr. Allen:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Pompa:
I remember reading it the first time. I didn’t know Denise was you. I just thought, “Oh, this is clever. She used someone, a story going through it, and gosh, that’s so well written,” just making up a story to – people learn in stories, not realizing it was you! It was an actual true story. Your mother passing really – that transition occurred.

I know this book is going to change lives because of just the battle that it was of getting written. Your mother passing is part of that blessing that’s left in this book. It would not have been written the way it’s written if it weren’t for that, right? God has a purpose in it all, Leona. There’s no doubt about it, and there’s not doubt you are a beacon of light, and hope, and faith, and all those things that people watching this and so many other shows will see and say, “Man, if she can do it, I can do it.”

I think that’s part of what that book is. You faced the bad genes. You faced every stigma, everything that can be put upon somebody, and here you are, a victor, no doubt. It’s not Whoopie Goldberg. I know that everyone thinks I’m interviewing Whoopie Goldberg today. It’s Dr. Leona Allen. How many people, Leona, say, “Gosh, you look like Whoopie Goldberg?”

Dr. Allen:
Just once. Now twice.

Dr. Pompa:
People stop you and go, “Is that her?” Actually, I’ve been – something transitioned along the way, too. I’m like, “She looks more like her.”

Dr. Allen:
I’m better looking.

Dr. Pompa:
No cut on Whoopie, man, but I’m going with that myself.

Dr. Allen:
Just kidding, Whoopie. Oh, yeah. Thanks for making me smile and bringing up my mom. Thanks for making me smile.

Dr. Pompa:
I felt like I had to pull you out of that state. I knew where to go.

Dr. Allen:
[0:52:43]

Dr. Pompa:
I got you in that state, and I – you were up here, and I brought you down here. I was like, “Oh-oh.”

Dr. Allen:
I know.

Meredith:
Brought you back up.

Dr. Pompa:
I did that for a reason. I really wanted people to know just that this book was written out of adversity and from pain to purpose. That’s one of my wife and I’s mantra because our pain led to our purpose and our desire to help people. That’s you, and that’s where this book came from. If I didn’t hit that hot spot, boy, I’ll tell you, people wouldn’t realize.

Dr. Allen:
Mm-hmm.

Meredith:
Amen. Dr. Leona – oh, go ahead.

Dr. Pompa:
No.

Meredith:
Yeah. I just wanted to say you’re such an inspiration, and these challenges just do allow us to grow so much. Just from what you’ve been through with pre-diabetes, and all the weight loss that you were able to achieve, and cellular inflammation that you were able to decrease, your story is so powerful. I was just wondering if you had some specific action steps that some of our viewers could implement starting today, too, just from your own personal experience and from the book, some strategies that people could just take away after watching the show today that they could do right now.

Dr. Allen:
First, I want the listeners to really understand that they are worth it. I think a lot of times, we don’t feel worthy enough to feel better, look better, and be better. The first step is to say, “I deserve to feel better,” and believe that you can feel better, and get the help that you need. You can’t do it alone.

Dr. Pompa:
No.

Dr. Allen:
That’s the biggest thing. Get help. There’s many of us that do this – not many of us, but there’s a – how many of us are there out there?

Dr. Pompa:
[0:54:30]

Dr. Allen:
There’s a handful of us that do this work. This is a very select group of people that we’re passionate about this work, and we love what we do. You got to get to the true, underlying cause of the problem and just stop just suppressing the symptoms because even with a diet or a supplement, it’s not enough. You got to go deeper [0:54:49] start with you.

Dr. Pompa:
Yep. How do they get the book? How do people order the book?

Dr. Allen:
There’s two ways. The book is available on Amazon.com, and it is also – I have a site AJourneytoHealingBook.com.

Meredith:
It is called A Journey to Healing.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Thanks, Leona. Thanks for being with us. I know that this show will be an inspiration to so many people. Share this show, folks. Share it with your friends, family, and loved ones who you know are in the struggle and in the battle because I think they’ll get the book. I know their life will be transformed. Thanks, Meredith, and thank you, Leona.

Dr. Allen:
Thank you for having me.

Meredith:
Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Dr. Leona. Thanks, Dr. Pompa. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, and we will catch you next week for Episode 89. Thanks, everyone, and have a great day.