Podcast Drop Date: 10/9/2024
In this episode host, host Amber Warren, PA-C, sits down with Alex Conley, a cancer survivor and founder of Kono Nutrition, about his health journey and passion for quality nutrition. Alex shares how his early battle with leukemia informed his lifelong commitment to health, leading him to develop a career in the health industry and eventually create Kono Nutrition, which focuses on clean, whole-food based supplements. He also discusses the importance of sourcing high-quality ingredients and shares insights into his personal practices for maintaining health, including a focus on emotional and mental wellness.
Transcript:
Amber Warren, PA-C: Welcome to the Functional Medicine Foundations podcast, where we explore root cause medicine, engage in conversation with functional and integrative medicine experts, and build community with like minded health seekers. I'm your host, Amber Warren. Let's dig deeper.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Hi, everyone. Welcome back. I'm here with Alex Conley. Alex is a cancer survivor and the founder of Kono Nutrition. After his own battle with cancer, he recognized early in life that health is the most important aspect of life. In college, he obtained a degree in fitness, health and human performance. He is now passionate about educating on the difference between being fit and being healthy. Why ingredients matter most and how to achieve complete health in all three realms the physical, the mental and the spiritual. Welcome, Alex.
Alex Conley: Thank you for having me.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I almost think it's too simple of a bio, because I know that there's so much more than what I just said. There's a lot in your body and in your brain and in your heart. Just based on the five minutes we've been talking offline.
Alex Conley: Yeah, yeah. Perfect. Um, it's always weird hearing the bio. I'm sure hearing someone else talking about yourself, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. We try to simplify it as much as possible. But you're right. Life is much more complex than that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: We're gonna. We're gonna dig into all of that. So I don't even know your whole story. And so let's start with just sharing with with our community and our audience. Like how you got to start this, this wonderful, wonderful local company with wonderful ingredients and wonderful products. So share, share your story with us.
Alex Conley: Yeah. So it really goes back to when I was four years old, I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. And it was a really, really hard, long fought battle for me. And I wasn't officially cancer free until the age of 12. Okay. And I went through three and a half years of chemotherapy. And during that process, the worst thing that can happen, as you know, when you have leukemia, because you don't have enough white blood cells, is that you get sick. And what happened to me is I got the chickenpox and was in the hospital for about three and a half months. Wow. And my family almost didn't think, you know, I was going to make it through that. And so really, overnight health became the most important thing in the entire world to me as a little boy. Wow. And so growing up, I always just knew. And I had this, like, deep subconscious knowing that health is the most important thing in life because you never know how valuable it is until you don't have it. And fortunately, and I say fortunately, because I do think looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because I can look back and realize now never to take my health for granted. And now, coming full circle would I get to do is really help other people heal with their health.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And so you said it was an eye opening experience for you and it brought your health to the forefront. Was that your family's experience as well or were you unique in that. Were you isolated in that experience.
Alex Conley: I think a little bit unique. Okay. Um, just because, you know, we ate pretty good as a family. Like, I think that we still like, you know, we grew up on the classic Idaho diet of meat, potatoes and maybe a veggie or something.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Some Oreos and goldfish thrown in, of course.
Alex Conley: Exactly. Yeah. So I still very much had that. And it wasn't necessarily where like, you know, I knew exactly what to do to have my health, but I knew how important and valuable it was to me. And I had this second experience when I was in college, and I was studying health and exercise science, but much more in the world of fitness than in the world of health and root cause medicine. And so what happened is I ended up getting diagnosed with IBS and chronic fatigue, and I didn't really know how this could happen to me because, again, I was very much in the world of fitness. I was, you know, studying exercise physiology. I knew everything I thought I could know about the body and how to be healthy, but I was looking at it through such a narrow minded lens of the world of fitness. So counting calories, not really worried about nutrients. And I was up, you know, 4:30 in the morning working out every day. And I looked really good on the outside but was wrecked energetically on the inside. And that was really when the light bulb went off for me of, oh my goodness, there's a huge difference between being fit and what you look like on the outside and how you actually feel and being healthy on the inside. And during this process. And to pay my way through college, I worked at GNC, which was the classic supplement store.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Interesting.
Alex Conley: And so that was really where I dove into the world of supplements. And I love to tell this story and this joke because I had a bookshelf in my room of my apartment in college that was full of supplements and not full of books, like, I was obsessed, but I realized I was taking so many supplements that were in the fitness space that were full of artificial coloring and flavoring and all these things that were disrupting my gut and inflaming my IBS even worse.
Amber Warren, PA-C: How did you realize that? How did you come full circle? Like you already had this realization of how important health was. But yeah, it's almost like you had a second revelation,
Alex Conley: Like awakening, yes.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Okay, here we go.
Alex Conley: Absolutely. And I think I didn't come to that realization for a long time. It was almost looking back after the fact. So it was after I graduated college. I ended up moving to Seattle and was actually working in the medical device sales up there. Yeah. And yeah, basically what happened is I ended up getting this case of food poisoning, and my gut just never really fully recovered and healed from it. And I couldn't figure out what was wrong. No doctor could figure out what was wrong. And I was like, there's got to be a root cause for this. And I kind of started digging into that, reading books, listening to podcasts, and taking a step back. When I worked at GNC, my boss there was very big into herbal medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, and I would sit there and kind of read books about herbalism when I was like in between customers. And so I knew a little bit about it, and I had been exposed to that world a little bit, and I kind of just really took a step back after I started having more extreme gut issues after this case of food poisoning, and just took a look at what possibly could I be putting into my body that is affecting my gut and making me feel a little bit sick? Because I went to a lot of different doctors and everyone was like, oh, it seems to be okay, or you just have IBS, which, as you know, isn't necessarily a diagnosis. It's more of a symptom in itself. And so I became more we don't know.
Amber Warren, PA-C: What's going on with you. So we're going to give you this umbrella term.
Alex Conley: Right, yeah. And I became just very frustrated in that and sought out answers myself. And that was really when I took a deep dive into my life and into root cause and functional medicine and just took kind of inventory of my life. And what I did is I quit taking all those supplements entirely because I found some research showing that they were harmful to the gut microbiome. And then but I still had this, like deep down feeling that supplements could be really valuable for people's health. I just wasn't taking the right ones for that. And, you know, I couldn't hardly find anything in the world of fitness that was up to my standards. Like, I knew there was even value in taking pre-workouts and protein powders and things like that, but none of them were doing it to the quality that I believed. And so that's when I kind of had a light bulb moment there, that maybe this would be a business for me down the road, but since that idea came up, it took me almost 4 to 5 years to actually even develop and launch the business after that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Wow. So I'm so curious. And I have to ask like, okay, so you've you've shared a little bit about root cause of the IBS and your microbiome issues. So why do you think you were diagnosed with leukemia when you were four years old? What do you think the root cause is there.
Alex Conley: Yeah, that is such a crazy, hard and good question. And I have done a lot of emotional work around that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Was there any cancer in your family?
Alex Conley: Yes. Um, not specifically like, specific to blood cancers, but grandfather had colon cancer. Um, grandmother had kidney cancer. Um, and then a couple aunts had breast cancer. But for me, what I think that it was, and maybe this sounds crazy is possibly I think that, you know, generational trauma can be passed down and form into into cancer. And the more that I learn about cancer now, the more I realize the connection with emotional health. Yeah. Um, and, you know, we were, you know, possibly exposed to different environmental toxins growing up and things like that. So that's always a possible cause. Um, but I do think the more that I learn about the emotional side of health that that directly ties to cancer, possibly more than anything else.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Well, that's profound. And I think we all know people in our lives that they do everything right. They do all the things they do functional medicine. They eat well, they exercise, they hydrate with good, clean water. But they still got diagnosed with cancer, or they still had the heart attack or they still came down with the terminal illness. Right. So I think you're spot on. Um, as far as trauma, nervous system, mental emotional, emotional spiritual health. Um, it's a lot to unwind. And that's, that's I mean, you could do like a three part podcast series on, on that aspect, but it is it is so true. You know, I've even been dealing with this little viral illness for like, the past two weeks and even today, just being exposed to, like a toxic chemical in a hairspray, which I'm not usually exposed to, like, kind of brought all my symptoms back. And I went to the chiropractor today, and we were just having that same conversation about how, like all the different hits on your system and how they really are just hits on your nervous system because we're bombarded with so many things, not just the chemicals, but the distractions and the screens and the news and the stressful conversations and the stressful scenarios and the mental game, the mental, the mental thoughts that we we tell ourselves and think about all day, every day. And, um, it's so significant.
Alex Conley: Yeah. And just to add on to that, like, I think that people even forget oftentimes where the word disease comes from, like to break it down just from a, you know, Latin root word standpoint, like dis-ease just means it's more of a feeling than anything, like a feeling of not being at ease. And we forget the power and feelings of uneasiness leading to disease in the body. Like, it's not just like you said, like the food that you eat, but it's the information that you consume and everything that we're inundated with in our entire life, leading to dis ease within the body. Yeah, it's so true.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And I think there I think that we need to see this paradigm shift where we start to pay more attention to this piece. I'm so stoked to be when I see, like, I don't know if you've read any anything like Tucker Carlson interviewed Calley and Casey Means and they're really pushing that whole part. And I know that not to get political, but there's some political parties that are jumping on board and saying, like, we have to start paying attention to the amount of immunizations we're giving children and the processed food we're eating and these chronic illnesses we're seeing in kids. So I'm so thankful because I do. And again, I always think it's just just my little world that's becoming more aware of this. Or really is it more broadcast to, to to more and more people. And I hope that's the case. But it is like she was saying Calley Means was saying like, of course we're seeing more childhood cancer. We're giving two year olds goldfish loaded with glyphosate. Like, why? Why is why are we not connecting the pieces here? And I think a lot of people are, but, um, it's so interesting. So tell us, I want to hear more about how you went about designing these products. What are things that you intentionally decided to not include in these products? And then I want to hear about the products, too.
Alex Conley: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, the first product that we decided to launch with was our functional pre-workout. And we did that on purpose, because again, if you look at just the difference between being fit and healthy, like the fitness supplementation world is an absolute disaster full of harmful ingredients. And there's such a big difference between being fit and being healthy. And, you know, just because.
Amber Warren, PA-C: It's so unregulated.
Alex Conley: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: There's no regulation on these these the supplement industry.
Alex Conley: No. The entire supplement industry as a whole, not even just like the fitness supplements, like the entire supplement industry is not regulated by the FDA, which I think now, what we know about the FDA, It's possibly some good advantages of that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I'm not sure I want a lot of my life to be regulated by the Federal Drug Administration, but.
Alex Conley: Also it goes to show how much you have to trust the supplement company that you're buying your supplements from. And so that's really what we set out to do. And when we launched the pre-workout, we said, you know, how can we design this to the point where every single ingredient not only has a purpose to fuel your performance, but also your overall health. And so we did that even down to the flavoring of the products. We flavor all of our products with real whole foods. So we just use, you know, organic strawberry powder for the strawberry flavor. And that's why, like, you'll notice the little subtlety on the package, like the flavor of the product is actually called strawberries because we're not using a strawberry flavor, we're using. It's actually from real strawberries. Strawberries. And so we set out again, like every single ingredient had to have a dual role and a dual purpose. And we just went completely above and beyond. And that's why that product and launching the company took three and a half years to design that formula because we did so many different iterations, and it started with just me in my kitchen and giving it out to my roommates and friends. And then word kind of spread. And then before I knew it, I was hand-making them in my kitchen for people all over Seattle because I was living there at the time. And then it kind of spread. I was shipping them around the country to random people, and then I was like, okay, I got to go in on this, and I just put my entire life savings into working with a manufacturer and got this product developed. And since then we've grown into protein powders, hydration products, vitamin D and K2 blend and got more and more products on the way.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So cool. So let's talk about the concerns around natural flavors, because you still can go to a lot of healthy places. Maybe not GNC, but other healthy places to purchase product and you'll see natural flavor. Why should we be concerned about that on a label?
Alex Conley: This is my absolute favorite topic.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Oh, good.
Alex Conley: Actually.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Good.The biggest reason for me is something that I don't hear people talk about very often at all. But we have this process in our body called the post-ingestive feedback loop. And it's that everything we consume, your brain and your body are communicating to try and regulate homeostasis and balance within the body. And when you're consuming a flavor, flavors are indicative of nutrients in food. So when you consume a flavor that doesn't actually have any nutritional value, you're kind of throwing this post ingestive feedback loop for a whirl because it's really confusing your brain because again, flavors are indicative of nutrients. And this is why when you eat a homegrown garden tomato, it's the sweetest, juiciest, most flavorful thing you've ever had because it's so antioxidant rich. And that's why it's so red, because the lycopene in there and all these nutrients create the flavor and the colors of foods. And we've gotten so disconnected from that, especially in the supplement industry with artificial flavoring or natural flavoring. And really, the only difference between artificial flavoring and natural flavoring is that a natural flavoring just means that it has to come from nature, but then they can still add oftentimes 50 to 100 chemical ingredients on top of that to make this concoction of flavoring that really throws off this post ingestive feedback loop and causes people to get addicted to foods and have cravings. Because how we should have cravings in the body is based on like when we're like, craving a specific food and we're craving that flavor, it's because our body's probably missing a nutrient. But we can't trust this post ingestive feedback loop because we're so inundated with flavors.
Amber Warren, PA-C: It's the same reason pregnant women often crave like dirt. It's because they're naturally just so iron deficient in pregnancy, because our requirements go up so much in pregnancy. So I totally agree with you. Like, I think we've really have gotten so far away from just like really trusting our bodies and trusting our own internal cues that we rely, and that's, I think even in functional medicine, we get in trouble where we maybe don't treat the human in front of us. We treat a set of labs without really trusting that they really, and some people don't have good intuition. I'll be the first to say that. But a lot of my patients do have really good intuition about their own internal cues. So that you described that so well, I there's a professor of nutrition that I've heard speak a lot named Deanna Minich, and she talks about how it really is the life in food that gives us life. So having food that's grown in your garden, that's full of flavor and color and full of life, as opposed to a product that was manufactured in a lab, that is what gives us life. And the opposite is what takes away life.
Alex Conley: Yeah, no, 100%. And we're just so disconnected from our food supply. Which is why, again, I think that there is a lot of value in supplements, but it's almost like we've forgotten what a supplement is. And like a supplement literally means in addition to, you know, and we're reliant on supplements when we shouldn't be, but we should use it as a tool in addition to an already healthy lifestyle. But the reason why is, you know, we need it more than ever is because our soil is so depleted of nutrients and our food supply has gone so far beyond out of control that now you know, we're shipping a piece of spinach from New York to California to, you know, fulfill the supermarket needs in California. But maybe it was grown across the country or even in a different country. And by the time it reached that, you know, supermarket store, it was a living being when it was picked, this plant food and then now it's lost, you know, up to 70% of its nutrients by five days later, by the time that we even consume that food.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So how do you shop? Do you shop frozen so that it like, is frozen more, more quickly after it's picked, or do you shop like local?
Alex Conley: I try my hardest to shop local. Obviously farmers market seasonally, but I try my absolute hardest to shop local at the farmer's market. Frozen fruit? Yes, that's a great option. I make smoothies all the time with frozen fruit and wild blueberries. Like more nutrient rich. Um, so yeah, I try to either shop local. Frozen is a great option, but I'm not perfect and nobody else. You know, it's almost impossible to be perfect with the way that our food system and supply is set up. But that's what I do. I try and do my best.
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Amber Warren, PA-C: I want to hear a little bit more about your lifestyle. So when you were dealing with IBS and the food poisoning, that was just indicative of a gut that desperately needed healing. What? Ah, I assumed you dramatically changed your diet. I want to hear kind of the steps you went through to heal. Did you heal yourself or you did you have the assistance of a functional medicine provider at the time.
Alex Conley: I ended up working with a functional medicine practitioner. Ended up getting diagnosed with Sibo, of course.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yep.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yep. Of course. Right. And that's one of the common causes of Sibo that we far, often under look, is a food poisoning in the past that you never fully healed from. And so as soon as I heard that that could be like a possible cause of Sibo, I was like, I know I have this. And I went in and and made them test me for it and off the charts, hydrogen dominant Sibo. Um, so I really had to do a lot of work on that. I mean, years and years, as you probably know, you treat plenty of patients with it. Um, so yeah, I really went down that rabbit hole. I've tried, you know, low Fodmap. I've tried all sorts of different diets. Um, but I took the approach for a long time of just, like, continuously trying to kill it, which I think possibly kind of backfired. Right. And so I think that there's such a tricky approach to balance in that. And now I kind of try and do the opposite, where I just try and nourish as much as I possibly can, and my diet now often just looks like personalized to me based on food as medicine principles. And this is good timing, as I actually just released a book today that's called.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Congratulations!
Alex Conley: Thank you. Yeah, it's called Eat Your Medicine.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Oh my gosh.
Alex Conley: And I just put it out on Amazon so everyone can go get it on Amazon. It's called Eat Your Medicine. And I lay out kind of just the principles that I follow based on food as medicine and using a personalized approach based on what your body might need and which foods contain which compounds and nutrients to help heal certain ailments. And so I'm really big on that. But what I focus on now is really the sourcing of food. And it's the same thing that I do with the approach to Kono and our supplements is sourcing is the biggest, most important thing to me. And so, you know, I'm only eating grass fed, pasture raised meats local if I can, organic fruits and veggies. I really try and buy from regenerative agriculture sources as much as I can. Um, so yeah, that's really my my diet is mostly eat grains. Um, I'll eat an organic white jasmine rice every once in a while because it's easy to digest for me, and I think it's a good source of carbohydrates, especially based around workouts. Um, but that's probably mostly the only grain that I eat. Every once in a while, I'll do an organic oatmeal or something. Okay. Um, but yeah, that's that's pretty much it. And I and I do, I, you know, try and hit protein goals. I think that that's, that's really important. Very important. And especially when it comes to longevity. Um, I was going.
Amber Warren, PA-C: To say you're still young. Wait until you get into your 40s. Then you'll be like, yep. Proteins even more important now.
Alex Conley: Yes. Yeah. And I try and balance out my leucine to glycine ratio. Like I think that that's very important as well and not talked about enough, especially when it comes to protein consumption for longevity. Like so I try and get glycine rich foods like bone broth and collagen.
Amber Warren, PA-C: That's awesome. That's awesome. Um, what do you do for fitness?
Alex Conley: I am spoiled and I built my garage into a home gym now. And so yeah, most of my fitness regimen is focusing on building muscle and also mobility. Because again, that's the two most important things for longevity is how flexible can you be and how strong can you be. So you lift heavy. So yep I do. Yep I lift fairly heavy. But I have quit ego lifting and I lift with the best form I possibly can now. Um, and so that's, I think, very undervalued and underappreciated. Um, and so I'm not really lifting super heavy. I really just try and focus on form. And one thing that I do is I include a lot of resistance band training, because there's been some really good research around, like the variable resistance that it provides, because if you pick up a dumbbell, it's going to be 20 pounds at the bottom of your rep range and 20 pounds at the top of your rep range no matter what, right? But adding a resistance band, you know it can be 10 pounds at the bottom, but 50 pounds at the top. So you're working in favor of your strength curve a lot more. And so I try and include resistance bands plus weight training probably 3 to 4 times a week. And then I add in some zone two cardio.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Good zone two for longevity and fat burning. That's awesome. Yeah. How about and probably the most important thing you do to support yourself. How do you support your nervous system, especially with your history of generational trauma, history of cancer, history of of illness?
Alex Conley: I would say this is the biggest thing I'm still working on. Okay. Um, but I definitely have developed a lot more of a spiritual practice in the last couple of years. Um, I had a really, really profound breathwork experience.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Cool.
Alex Conley: Um, where I did some somatic breathwork, and that was one of the best experiences I've ever had in my entire life, to the point where I was kind of seeing myself as a little boy, having leukemia again, and being sick. And what happened in this breathwork experience for me was that every time I was taking a breath in all of a sudden I could kind of like, you know, when you get sick, you have that kind of familiar taste in the back of your throat.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yes.
Alex Conley: That was happening. Like every breath I was taking in. And I was like, this is weird. It's familiar. I kind of know it. And I just kept leaning into it, going into it. And then I realized that it was like the chemo. I could taste like the chemo again from when I was a little boy. Oh. That's why. And then every time I would, like, take the breath out and exhale, my body was, I mean, I was full blown breaking out in a sweat, too.
Alex Conley: And I felt like my body was like, releasing. Yeah. And so I was I could feel and taste it, and it felt like, you know, more chemo was like leaving my body, almost like, purifying and getting rid of this, like, toxin exposure that I had for three and a half years. And so ever since I had that breathwork experience, that's been a really valuable practice to support breathwork as a tool for my nervous system. I heard this quote that, um, oh geez, I'm going to butcher it now, but I think it's the mind is the kite and the breath is the string.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Okay.
Alex Conley: And when it comes to our nervous system, like, I truly think that whenever we want to control our mind, how are we breathing? Are we breathing shallow? Are we taking deep, slow, long exhales and breaths? And so that's what I try and focus on throughout the day. Whenever I do feel a little bit overstimulated because it's tough, you know, running a business and the stress that comes with that and just having my hands full. And so that has been my number one tool for regulating my my nervous system is breathwork. Absolutely.
Amber Warren, PA-C: That's so awesome. So cool. Do you get outside a lot? Do you try and like, get out in nature a lot and I do.
Alex Conley: I train outside as much as I possibly can, obviously months like this year in September.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And it's just so gorgeous.
Alex Conley: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. I try and get outside as much as I possibly can. That's super important. And especially I grew up here in Idaho. Um, and so yeah, getting out in nature, out in the mountains, um, some of the best medicine that we have to offer. Absolutely.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Nature bathing for sure. Yeah. So I want to touch on your product. Hydrate. That's what it's called right.
Alex Conley: Hydrate. Yeah we call it Full Body Hydrate.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Full Body Hydrate okay. I knew I was like, I think it's a little bit longer than that. So full body hydrate that I feel like electrolytes are taking off right now. And in the past 6 to 12 months they've been a huge, huge growing seller for, I mean, I guess I can just speak for our clinic and in our industry. Um, and there's definitely a lot of not so clean products out there. So what makes your product so different and unique?
Alex Conley: Yeah
Amber Warren, PA-C: It's an electrolyte and mineral mix because that's actually one of my you've added minerals to it. And I think that's really important.
Alex Conley: We did again just going back to sourcing, I think that what we do and how I formulate products is we mimic what happens in nature. And that's why we focus on regenerative agriculture. Because again, that's that's just a fancy term for saying nature as it exists, basically because nature knows best. And so we do that when we formulate products. And so the sourcing is very important. So it starts off with unrefined sea salt, which is a big difference from a lot of the leading brands out there is they're using just salt that's been stripped of all of its minerals. And so we get our sea salt from an ancient sea bed in Utah that has over 60 trace minerals in it. And then our magnesium is harvested, like from 600ft below the depths in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Ireland. And it contains over 72 trace minerals in that. And so we source it from seawater extracts. And so again it's like the sourcing is so important. So with those two you're getting this abundance of trace minerals that you really need to regulate your fluid balance in the body that a lot of other electrolyte companies don't use. And then the real kind of kicker and secret was we looked at traditional Chinese medicine and what they use. And just again, what happens in nature naturally. And so we use silica. And if you look at the value of cucumbers, why people have used cucumbers to put on their eyes for so long as cucumbers are very rich in silica. And what silica does is it pulls fluids into the tissues, like the fascia and the hair and the skin and the nails and will help you retain that water. And so that's why we use silica from organic bamboo is to really help draw those fluids in to hydrate the fascia. Specifically, I became very fascinated with learning about the fascia. And the fascia actually operates as a fluid transport system throughout the body.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And the fascia holds on to trauma.
Alex Conley: So much trauma. Yes. Um, and so yeah, we really threw that in to help hydrate the tissues, the hair, skin and nails and the fascia. And that's why we called the product full body hydrate is just you're getting all the the intracellular, extracellular components with the unrefined salt and the minerals.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. My other concerns that you hit on the the refined salt issue is we're now learning a lot of these table salts or whatever kind of salt is out there. Have microplastics in them.
Alex Conley: I know.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Microplastics is a whole nother topic and conversation we have to be really aware of.
Alex Conley: Yeah. And that's the other thing is we third party test all of our products and including glyphosate test. Okay, so I don't really know a lot of people that are doing that because it's very expensive and it's a big commitment to test your products for glyphosate. But again, like what you said earlier, like our children are being exposed to glyphosate in their food and no wonder it's causing disease. And I think it's one of the most important things to test for. And so we're not only testing for heavy metals, molds, yeasts, microbes, but we're taking the additional step and testing for glyphosate on all of our products. And so the nice part about having this ancient seabed is it's, you know, it's completely it's so deep in the Earth that it can't be exposed to harmful environmental toxins. Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. I know that your your Full Body Hydrate. We cannot keep on the shelves here. It is a very popular product. So we're so thankful for that. Um, and I feel so much better now. I can really speak to it. Um, as to why it's it's it's so much better. Um, I know you're going to have something to say about people, about your your whey, your grass fed whey protein powder and people that say, I can't do dairy. It's it's it's a really big issue. And I would love to hear how you respond to that. Yeah. To that question.
Alex Conley: Yes. I love this.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Question. Yeah, I had a feeling you would.
Alex Conley: Yeah, it's such a good question. And you know, the dairy I guess is a whole other subject. But just for our protein alone, um, whey protein kind of gets a bad rap for a couple reasons. And one of them is. Yeah, it causes a lot of bloating or uncomfortable, you know, digestion with people. And the main reason behind that is because whey concentrates are very high in lactose and or casein protein. And when you isolate the whey in a form that we isolate the whey is we go through a micro filtering process. And basically the micro filtering process removes the sugars, it removes the carbs and it removes the lactose. But it's not done with heat. And so it still preserves the enzymes and the nutrients, and it leaves the protein essentially undenatured. So it's very easy to digest. And it's great for people that have lactose sensitivities if people have a true dairy allergy, which is far more rare than, we still recommend staying away from it. Um, but yeah, the isolation process is so unique, and I really fell in love with that process and this type of protein, because the amino acid profile is far superior to a plant based protein powder. Yeah. Um, so it's much better for metabolism and muscle building. And it's very, very rich in leucine and it's still lactose free. And so I had the toughest time when I was going through all my gut issues. I could not do any form of dairy at all.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I bet.
Alex Conley: And I found this protein in the way that we make it. And I digested it far better than even the plant based sources, because I would still get a little bit of uncomfortable bloating with the plant protein powders.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, they're a lot harder to break down.
Alex Conley: Yeah. Yeah. And so this it's just very light and clean and fluffy. And we left, you know, we have a raw chocolate version that we use with organic cacao.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Okay. I was going to ask what it's flavored with. Yeah. That's probably you know I'll have patience all the time. That will show me. Now here's the protein powder I've been using and I'll start reading. And I'm like, okay, okay. That's pretty. That's pretty. Oh, sucrose. Oh, stevia. And a fair amount of stevia. And I'm sure that's not helpful for how we're trying to heal your gut right now. So yeah, I love that you're it's so clean. Yeah. None of the added sweeteners that disrupt the gut microbiome, for sure.
Alex Conley: We just use organic monk fruit. A little bit of organic monk fruit. Um, yeah. That's great. Yeah. And then the other one we left completely unflavored, and it's actually my favorite one.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I think we have that's the one we're carrying right now. And I think that's mostly, you know, we do a lot of um, we do a lot of metabolic weight loss here. We just do. And trying to fix insulin resistance or pre-diabetes. And it's really hard. Some of these people, their insulin will even spike with a little bit of monk fruit. And so to have something that's completely interesting unsweetened is really important for a lot of these clients. Yeah. And they test it. They have cgms on. Right. So they know what causes their blood sugar to spike.
Alex Conley: Again. It's that post-ingestive feedback loop. I'm such a strong believer. Absolutely right. Like we have to have nutritional value with the foods we're consuming. We cannot outsmart our bodies and outsmart nature. And it's like, so frustrating to watch because I feel like what we do as humans is we consistently try to, like, outsmart how everything already exists perfectly in nature.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yep. So true. It's so true. You have a really cool dream that we were talking offline about, and I'd love for you to share with our audience.
Alex Conley: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: What your dream is to do here locally in the Treasure Valley. Or I should say right outside the Treasure Valley. This will.
Alex Conley: Be awesome, because this might force me to do it, but.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, I'm gonna keep you accountable.
Alex Conley: Yeah. Yeah. So we'll put it out there for. For the world to hear and the universe to hear. But, um, what I think is so valuable these days is healing with community. And so my dream and vision is to create a health and wellness retreat center, be able to host breathwork workshops and be able to host cooking workshops and how to cook, and from regenerative agriculture sources and farm to table and how to eat locally. And I feel like people are desperate for anything and everything on how to heal because we are constantly inundated. You know, the average person now is exposed to 80,000 toxic chemicals in a single day in America. I mean, we are full blown, inundated and like our health is under attack. And so I think just the value of getting out up into the mountains and up into nature and learning how to heal is going to be so valuable for people. Um, and so we that's kind of my my next big dream and focus is to, you know, have Kono host some health retreats up there.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Um, which is I agree, I take advantage because I think I really do feel there's a movement, even if it's just more local here in the Treasure Valley of people that are starting to demand. And I've had a lot of these conversations. Healthier food options, more local food options. Right. Um, bigger farmers markets, just more options for healing. And I think you could tie into that. And it can be a really, really big movement.
Alex Conley: Yeah, 100%. And what I would also love to do is just like let other people host retreats up there to just have the land and have it be valuable, because there are so many incredible people doing work here in the Treasure Valley around that. I agree. You guys being one of them. And so yeah, I think it would just be a beautiful experience for anyone and everyone to be able to host retreats and use the land and yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: okay. Make it happen.
Alex Conley: Yes, we're.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Working on it. We'll talk more.
Amber Warren, PA-C: That's so cool. Um, I think I'm going to be really interested to hear your answer to this question. Um, and I hope I don't throw you for one, because I can tell you're a very thoughtful guy, and you put a lot of you put a lot of wisdom into your words. What do you think is the most important thing you do for your own health journey?
Alex Conley: Mm. This is this has changed a lot throughout my health journey. And I actually speak about this a lot, where I feel like I go through the steps of how someone's health journey usually goes, and I feel like the first step in most people's health journey is they want to get fit. And so they look and they say, you know, how can I lose weight? Because I want to look better. And that's a little bit of a taste of the health journey. Yeah. And then they kind of go into the next steps where it might be like they find an influencer on social media and they kind of listen to everything that they say, and they take the supplements that they're taking.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Alex Conley: And they kind of dive into that. And then the next step might be, okay, I need to start counting my macros or my calories because again, like it's more weight loss and I'm focused on that. And so they might start tracking their food and thinking about how to use food as a tool, but they're just using it as kind of a tool on calories in, calories out, but not necessarily food as medicine for nutrition. And so that's the next step is then all of a sudden you become a label reader and you start to flip everything around and you realize that, holy crap, everything is poison. And I need to figure out how to do this. But the last step and where I see everyone that's really far on their health journey is that you realize that, like, you can heal yourself and that it was you all along the whole time. And that's where I'm putting my focus and attention on now, because I think that that is the most valuable piece to your physical health, is your mental and spiritual and emotional health. And I think that there's really only three things in life, and it's the mind, body and the soul, and that's health itself, and that's life itself. And so that's kind of the area that I'm focused on more than ever, is me as a spiritual being and being happy with that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. I like the way that you laid out that there's like, you have to come to these, you have to hit all five steps, right? Like it's a stepwise process to really realize how your body can heal. And unfortunately, we live in a world where there is a lot of people that want to take advantage of you and your wallet within those five steps, right? There's that next quick gimmick, and I'm noticing a lot of clients that come to me have been through some three month detox program, three month liver detox, three month weight loss program online, right. That some provider, they're spending 3 to 6 to $7000 on this multi-day protocol or program. That's not individualized for anybody. They haven't shared their story with anybody. They haven't. They're not doing anything for their spiritual, emotional, mental health during this process. And they're not getting better. And it's like, yeah, who, who, who could actually find true healing going through a bunch of supplement protocols or nutrition plans without working one on one with a human, or more importantly, without telling your story or coming up with your own. It's just not personalized medicine. Um, so it is interesting because we do live in a world where you can go find a practitioner or a healer or whoever at the click of a button. Um, and you just give them your credit card and you're on your way to what you think is a healing journey.
Alex Conley: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And unfortunately, you get down the road and it's it's just not that.
Alex Conley: Yeah. It's so crazy. And it's like you brought up such a good point. It's like you can't heal in the same environment that made you sick. And if you're just buying something online and expecting that next supplement to like, cure you or heal you, or that next detox protocol, it's like, maybe you should give up what you needed detoxing in the first place. And it's like the ultimate quote of, isn't it Hippocrates, the father of medicine, where he was like, you must ask someone if they're willing to give up what makes them sick in the first place before they heal.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And a lot of them don't know what that is. And that's a journey in and of itself to figure out what it is that made them sick in the first place. And that's its own spiritual and mental emotional journey. Yeah. So I'm assuming I thought I was going to be done. But I have to ask this. I'm assuming you are very passionate about telling people not to buy supplements on Amazon.
Alex Conley: Yeah. It's tricky. I'm sure that, you know, that study, I believe, is like University of Missouri that found that like 50 to 60% of them were fraudulent supplements.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Relabeled expiration date. Who knows what's actually in there? Yeah.
Alex Conley: It is so crazy. And, you know, honestly, a really good place to buy supplements is, as far as I know, um, is Whole Foods because they demand that you have third party testing. But again, Amazon does too. And you could fraud the third.
Amber Warren, PA-C: But Amazon bought Whole Foods.
Alex Conley: They did. So that's why it's tricky. Yeah. Yeah that's very it is it is tricky. But and that's maybe I shouldn't even say that because Amazon also requires third party testing and people clearly just fraudulent third party testing because you can. Yeah. So yeah it is really scary. And that's why I think like we just try and be a source of education first. And I think that that leads to trust.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Absolutely.
Alex Conley: Um, and that's why we're so picky in our sourcing. And we talk people through the full experience of how we source our products and why we partner with family owned and operated regenerative agriculture farms. And, you know, we bring in this form of tea in our pre-workout that's called Guayusa tea. And it's farmed by indigenous people in Ecuador. And they garden it in this, um, ancient garden in the Amazon that's called chakra gardens. And it means to garden with intention. And it's another form of, um, you know, regenerative agriculture. And so, like, we go so far above and beyond our sourcing and we educate people about every step and where we're finding each ingredient at. And then we really bring it together and again, just create. It's more of a whole food product than it is a supplement. And we just kind of mimic what happens in nature.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Do you know who you remind me so much of, Zach Bush?
Alex Conley: Uh, he's like one of my biggest.
Amber Warren, PA-C: You're like a mini Zach Bush. That's so to speak. Like him. Your wisdom. You talk like him, he's I agree. He's someone that early on in my like how I got into functional medicine. I just, I just was really attracted to everything he was saying. And he's just the simple things like if we want our, our, the next generation to be healthy, the next generation children be healthy. Why do our schools look like a jail? Why are they fed rubber meat and fake food? Right? Like let's talk about anyways. It's so interesting. How can people find out more about you?
Alex Conley: Yeah. On Instagram.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And find you, I should.
Alex Conley: Say. Yeah, yeah. Um, Instagram is just @alexdconley, and the last name is C O N L E Y. The nutrition Instagram is just @kononutrition. It's K O N O. The book I released on Amazon, it's just called Eat Your Medicine.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I can't wait.
Alex Conley: Yeah, it's super cool. It's just like a quick and easy guide. I feel like it's the most simple way that I could describe how powerful food is for people.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Will you drop us off a copy copy so we can keep one in our lobby here? Yeah, absolutely. Get us one. Yeah, I would love to. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Thank you. Alex, I wish we had another hour to talk about. To talk about all that you have to say. Maybe we can do a part two to this. But what you're doing, what you're bringing to the community, to the nation, to the world is so important.
Alex Conley: Thank you so much.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Thank you for sharing your story. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, the blessing is ours.
Alex Conley: I appreciate it.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Thank you.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Thank you for listening to the Functional Medicine Foundations podcast. For more information on topics covered today. Specialties available at the FMI Center for Optimal Health and the highest quality of supplements and more, go to funmedfoundations.com.
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